I am on a search for truth about food, healing, and the holistic approach to life.
I blog about my curiosities and my whole self, which tends to be anything that's not cool to bring up at parties: gardening, periods, mental illness, poverty, injury, sex therapy, codependence, healthy eating, poop, avocado tree hoarding, feelings in general, and honesty. I haven’t actually blogged about periods yet, but I do always bring it up at parties.
Tweaked Mediterranean Quinoa Salad: Quinoa (1 cup), red pepper (1), Persian cucumbers (2), olive oil (3 tbsp), juice of a lemon, fresh parsley (two handfuls), dried oregano, cumin, freshly ground coriander & black pepper, sea salt, and tons of paprika thanks to Alyson Roux who showed me too much is just enough. Thank you, Alyson, for the original recipe! My tweaks to it were:
Instead of arugula- baby kale (6 handfuls) , instead of scallions- purple onion (1/2 cup), instead of kalamata olives- tapenade (1/2 cup). And I added fresh garlic cloves (2), raw sauerkraut juice (1/2 cup), & two slices of chopped rice bread that I didn’t want to waste. I didn’t have flax oil, but I added chia seeds (2 tbsp) & chopped walnuts (1/4 cup) for omega-3 fatty acids. Yay! #yum
Also, all of these measurements are guesstimates. Go crazy! You can’t get it wrong. If you make it, I’d love to hear how you tweak it!
Original recipe by charming & grounded health coach @alyroux. Check out her site for more recipes and delicious knowledge! www.alysonroux.com
Esther speaks of opposites that have battled each other in my mind. She says them with an obviousness that makes me wonder why I could have ever seen them as opposing ideas. They are opposite, but a pair. There is no harmony without both.
Thank you, Esther, for your help today. Happy Valentines Day.
From the Ted Talk site:
In long-term relationships, we often expect our beloved to be both best friend and erotic partner. But as Esther Perel argues, good and committed sex draws on two conflicting needs: our need for security and our need for surprise. So how do you sustain desire? With wit and eloquence, Perel lets us in on the mystery of erotic intelligence.
Hotdog Salad on a Crate? After an hour and 45 minutes of physical therapy? Yes Please, and Thank You. #grateful#crateful
It’s organic, all beef, grass-fed, kosher hotdogs chopped and sautéed with a bunch of onion, topping a salad with sauerkraut, mustard, red & green peppers, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar & olive oil, basil, fresh ground pepper, dried parsley and if I had dill, I would have dumped dill all over it. So it’s a hot hotdog on a fresh salad. To me, it’s similar to a Chicago-style hotdog without the bun, and about the same size too.
I found my breaking point today. Which breaking point? The one where I, from the depths of my soul, want to physically attack/maim/permanently scar another person in the Whole Foods parking lot.
I’m in physical therapy still and my foot hurts more while we’re strengthening the muscles, so I can walk less right now. I’m rationing walk time between showering, making my meals, walking to the car to take my mom to her doctor appointments, walking to the car to go to my doctor appointments, and whatever else. If you see me out, it’s because I “saved up” for days to look normal. I can’t take jobs because I usually end up going to meet clients and now I’m asking them to come to me because of my foot and they’ve said no. So I’m applying for General Relief, which requires walking down and up a giant hill and standing in lots of lines. Today I went to hand in the items I’ve gathered through walking to the physician, the bank, and Into the Woods. Not really the last part, but that’s what I feel like. The line wrapped around the building and I can’t physically stand there long enough to get help from the government. And I’ve called eight times over the past week and can’t reach anyone to make an appointment. I’ll figure it out, but today I am mad. Also we’ve been taking care of my Mama at our house since mid-November because she was going through a dangerous medicine change and because she was manic, and then depressed, and is now slowly doing better. Shane had no job for almost 3 months because he got laid off from his day job and his studio job kept getting postponed. Which is normal, but makes getting a filler day job hard when you would have to tell your boss you can only work there for 3 weeks. Also, I learned I’m codependent and have been going to meetings, which is helpful to have some hope that I can change the pattern of my life, but is truly hard and confusing work every minute. This week Shane’s studio job started a few days a week, I had two doctor appointments and the General Relief non-appointment, and mom had two doctor appointments in a different city and we were sharing one car. Driving everyone around that much hurts my old back injury. On a different note, our friend passed away last week. That is too serious and sad to include in the middle of all this. So I’ll continue talking about trivial things. Shane also got a cold, Mom got pink eye, and I got really mad at that lady in the parking lot.
After I was almost completely backed out of my spot, she showed up out of nowhere and nudged the nose of her car in my car’s butt. She blocked me in, in turn, blocking herself from going anywhere. There was no one behind her so she could have just backed up, but didn’t. I finished backing out by inching back and forth a couple times and then pulled out. Then she honked. Then the world turned black and I rolled down my window and, with the force of Grey Skull, yelled FUCK YOU. My throat doesn’t hurt. The wind tunnel that I became was fluid and strong. And then I wanted to get out and smash her collagen face. But there was a security guard so I couldn’t. Also, I think it would hurt my chances of not going to jail during my lifetime.
I came home and cried a lot. I hate that I feel bad about sticking up for myself, I hate that there are people that are so oblivious to others, and I hate that I felt so violent. So anyway, I’m losing it. Please send prayers. I’m patient, and I know I have to keep doing what I’m doing and get better little by little. But I don’t like it. And my tolerance glass is overflowing and spilling all over the place. Thanks for letting me bitch here. If you’ve read this far, please know that you listening is a replacement for that lady’s face being bashed in. Although, she may have liked another excuse to get more plastic surgery… Oops, I’m still angry. After all these words I’ve written! At least I’m less angry. Truly. I feel better. I needed to let that out. Thanks guys.
For those of you who hate long-winded, non-positive albeit truthful social media rants, please write one about how much you hate this one. That will cause someone else to write one and soon your nightmare will be reality. In all honesty, this is the shortest version I can write. This is as close to a Tweet as I can get. It’s too long and it barely says all that’s really happening. I need a more open and longer-voweled word to be more accurate about what this is. This is my Twaaat. If my Twaaat offends you, why are you still reading at this point? Watch this video instead:
I find solace in the ocean. The past few years, I’ve become very grateful to learn that there is healing there. I’ve lost two friends in those years and went on the nights of their passing, with Shane, to sit by the sea and weep. My tears feel small there. Maybe it’s because my salt-water droplets are so small compared to it. Maybe because it’s so open and non-judgmental. Maybe it’s because right when you see the sun set over the water and you think that day’s sun won’t ever be the same, the stars faintly start to glimmer… Friday, Shane called with sad news… “ Jason Chin passed away.”
In 2003, we had just moved from Pittsburgh to Chicago and were so excited to be in a city that was new and sparkling to us. We’d saved up and packed up and traveled with our college sketch group to our new apartment that we shared as a pack of wild animals. We had made it to the comedy capital of the world. And we had no idea what we were doing.
One day, Shane Portman and I decided to visit Improv Olympic. We had moved to Chicago to focus on sketch, but we knew we were surrounded by the best of the best improv and when we accidentally passed the theatre, we wanted to go in. It was daylight; we were surprised the door opened. It smelled musty and was dark. The little entrance way was like a big walk-in closet and led to some stairs on the left, a velvet, draping curtain on the right. Old, loved photos of performers we recognized took up every inch of wall space. But there was no one there. We thought we should leave, but we felt we should stay. And we felt like being sneaky. We peeked through the curtain to what seemed like a basement with a ramp to a stage. But the stairs were calling our name. Back to the little entranceway, one foot on a stair, one look at a new photo, another stair, another photo, creeping and giggling all the way up. We thought we were doing something no one had ever done and that no one would ever know. The door at the top of the stairs opened. It led to a bigger theatre, it was all dark, we tip toed through the wide space toward the other end where there was a door filled with light. Eyes skimming the dark, hearts racing, mouths whispering, so excited to be in such a cool place, we made it to the door, first face, then head, then neck, deciding which way to turn, and then all of my fight-or-flight chemicals tumbled over my body. We were caught- by Jason R. Chin.
In the tiny moments between my brain recognizing “There is a human here after all, he sees us and is inhaling to speak” and the moments when he actually spoke, I thought we were going to jail. Maybe not jail, but maybe jail, I just remember freaking out. But, instead, Jason’s wide smile warmed everything. We learned that when Jason catches you, he welcomes you. He not only was fine with us wandering the theatre, he offered to show us around even further. He showed us the classrooms, the office, and in the honest way he did these simple things, he showed us his spirit. His open heart was the first clue that we had found a home.
Years later, I remember we helped him move. I don’t remember packing any boxes, although we must have? All I remember is that we left with treasured things that Jason gave us. Something tall and skinny- a lamp that I thought was very fancy, props and costumes that mean so much to people devoting their lives to sketch comedy, and an Apple airport. I remember we didn’t have nice enough computers to use it, but I clutched it like the Holy Grail and felt the pride of a new father when I saw its shiny Wally-like dome. Silly things now, but things that are good feelings when I remember them. Shane and I couldn’t remember if other people helped us help Jason move and my first thought was “We could ask Jason, he’ll remember.”
But what I remember most about him was that he was there. He was beaming. His support was constant. His encouragement palpable without speaking. He made me laugh. He made me beam. He seemed to have high expectations and no judgment at the same time. He was stability for a thousand children who had only experienced pockets of it growing up. And his hugs squeezed you into portals to all of these things.
Friday, I wept when I found out, but only for a while. I was taking care of my Mama and she took care of me back by holding me while I cried. But I couldn’t really let go until I got home at night. As soon as I saw Shane, the wave of tears was done waiting. “Can we go to iO?” I needed to be there. To hold the walls, my friends, his friends. We didn’t know about the toast until after it had happened and thought we should go anyway. As we were leaving the house, I remembered, “The ocean, maybe we need to go to the ocean. Maybe afterwards…”
We barely walked through the door and face after face, that welcoming that he was to us, everyone was there with open arms. For each other, for him.
Thank you guys for being my ocean. My tears seem small next to the vast sea of love pouring out for our friend. Thank you Jason, for being you and being here for all of us. You still are. Here with this wide ocean of family you helped make. I haven’t seen you in six years, but I can feel your hugs.
Roses are red, violets aren’t blue, and if they are, that’s dumb, they should be violet.
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” -Maya Angelou
This could also be called Temporary Pessimism: A Doorway to Reality & Growth or Complaining.
I was feeling very discouraged on Friday, June 6, 2014. I was confused about how to crawl out of the financial hole I’d created from being injured for many years and how to do that while simultaneously pursuing my acting career and still continuing to heal.
I needed to write a bio for the program of a small staged reading show we were doing at an old 1860’s opera house in Delaware. I wrote out a shiny-sounding paragraph of things I’d accomplished. I read it.
I hadn’t lied. They were all true things. But the words painted a picture so different than what my life has actually been. And wildly different than what I was currently feeling and going through.
thewholeruth.com 