By now, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter and you're reading this now, congratulations, you're probably one of the few now willing to pay any attention to anything I post. (Hi Mom!) I've been posting quite a bit of stuff that you might consider "political," "controversial," and maybe even "wrong." I posted that I think the NRA are murderers, and I stand by that. I've signed some petitions to try to influence policy regarding gun laws and asked you to do so, too. I am aware that this can get annoying. When you're scrolling through Facebook you don't want to take the time to click off the page and, heaven forbid, type something like your email address and name onto a petition. Or maybe you don't want to put your name on something you haven't researched well yourself. Maybe you even intend to do that research...later. (If this is your concern, it might help a tiny bit to know that I try to stick to very reputable sources: the New York Times, mostly, and the petitions are from Everytown.org and Moms Demand Action, very reputable organizations, but I understand if you can't just take my word for it) I've certainly felt that way about what others have posted. So why post all this stuff if I think it's largely ineffectual? For one, I feel I need an outlet for my anger. I, selfishly, want to feel like I'm doing something, even if I know it's next to nothing. For another, I'm tired of clucking my tongue and moaning. I'm past that. I think I've finally reached boiling point. After Columbine I was shocked. After Virginia Tech I was sad. After Aurora, Colorado I was scared. After Sandy Hook I was deep in grief. After Isla Vista I am so. very. angry.
The number of gun deaths in America is....I don't even have an adjective for it. Staggering? Heartbreaking? Unacceptable? There are no words to express the crisis my country is experiencing. I don't feel equipped to make arguments about the second amendment or gun violence statistics. I started a post about that but abandoned it. I'm no expert on constitutional law, or history, or statistics. If you're interested it's easy to find such arguments in reputable sources such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and nih.gov. But chances are, if you're reading this, you already know and understand these arguments. The question is when will we act? It is ridiculous that, in this country, founded on the noble principles of democracy and freedom, citizens should be dying in such vast numbers at the hands of other citizens. Any why? Because gun owners think guns are cool? OK, if you get your jollies from shooting stuff, fine, good for you. Do it in a gun club. Go deer hunting, or boar hunting, or whatever it is that floats your boat. But when your rights to own something cool infringes on the right of others to live we have a problem. The fact is that most people want common-sense gun laws. But the NRA is so powerful and so rich that their voice is heard above the voices of voting citizens. Think about that. An organization with lots of money has more influence than voters and people are dying because of it. Doesn't that strike you as wrong?
What's that? The NRA is made up of voting citizens and represents you and your rights? You think the NRA cares about your freedom? Freedom at what cost? The lives of innocents, of children? That's not the kind of freedom I want. You think the NRA cares about your safety? Then why does it block studies, just studies, to better understand the influence of guns on public health and safety? If they think the numbers are in their favor, that guns do in fact prevent more violence than they cause, why would they block such studies? They know guns kill people. They know guns are a risk to you and your family. They also know that gun sales line their pockets, and that's what they care about. That's what the NRA is all about. It's all about the Benjamins, baby. There's a word for this, for profiting from others' grief. Evil.
Now I said I wouldn't get into the arguments about gun ownership, etc, so sorry, I couldn't help myself. Did I mention I was angry? Are you angry? Are you angry enough to act? To exercise your rights as a citizen of this nation and stand up against evil? Or is that cat video on youtube a better use of your time? Maybe you'll sign a petition, after you read about Kim Kardashian. I'm guilty of it too. After all, I can't spend all my time thinking about this. I'd go crazy. Maybe I'm already there. But there are things we can do. There are things we MUST do. This must not happen again. Not one more.
It's been a week, so I thought I'd let you all know how my sugar free life is going. I'm sorry to report that I haven't experienced any drastic changes in my life. I'm not bursting with energy. Fruit doesn't taste any sweeter than usual (no, I didn't give up fruit, although some sugar free die hards say one must to have a truly sugar-free experience). And I've cheated a bit. I had ketchup twice. I've been putting honey in my tea and stevia in my coffee. I made "sugar-free" cookies with a healthy dose of honey. Mea culpa. It's only been a week, so cut me some slack. I have to say, though, that this has been very, very hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. My negative side effects from sugar withdrawal include:
1. Persistent headache
2. General crabbiness
3. Intense sugar cravings
4. Sugar-themed dreams
5. Boredom from loss of baking activities.
6. Aimless wandering through kitchen, opening cupboards, and sighing.
I have really questioned my sanity with this experiment. Questions I have asked myself include but are not limited to:
1. I wonder why the heck I'm doing this?
2. Food is one of the pleasures of life. Why should I deny myself one of life's simplest pleasures?
3.Who are these people who say sugar is so bad, anyway?
4. Why, God, why?
5. How long should I do this?
6. Why is sugar freaking EVERYWHERE!? You literally cannot look anywhere without seeing a candy bar ad, a shop window full of cookies, even a homeless guy with a doughnut someone gave him.
7. I'm really off the deep-end now, eyeing the homeless dude jealously
8. How am I going to live without x? (x = frappuccinos, ice cream, chocolate, jam, iced coffee with vanilla syrup, french toast, chocolate, pie on the fourth of July, homemade chocolate chip cookies in the winter, Wok of Flame's sweet and sour chicken, chocolate, s'mores when camping, ketchup on hot dogs, burgers, chicken, and eggs {yes, I like ketchup on my scrambled eggs, so deep is my addiction}, everything at Trader Joe's, and chocolate)
9. Oh, sweet Jesus why?
10. Did the Starbucks logo lady just wink at me?
You may say "You don't have to live without all of those things, just moderate yourself. Have pie on the fourth of July, it's a special occasion!"
But that's exactly the problem. I've said many times "Geez, I really need to cut back on the cookies," but when they're in front of me I just don't care. If they're there, I'll eat them. And as for "special occasions," they happen way more often than you think. Catie's at a friend's birthday party? Sure, I'll have a piece of cake, it's a special occasion. Date night? We pretty much have to have dessert, it's a date night law. Memorial day barbecue? I owe it to the fallen veterans to have this ice cream cone. See how it all adds up? I'm afraid I have to go all or nothing. Maybe after I've been without sugar long enough I'll be able to moderate myself. Or maybe I'll go sugar-crazy after prolonged sugar deprivation. One or the other.
This past weekend I went to my first concert in years. I'm not much of a concert goer---they tend to be expensive, and I don't have much interest in seeing a band or artist unless I'm, well, obsessed with them and know every word to every song. But when Pentatonix announced a European tour that included Dublin I jumped. And maybe hyperventilated a little. If you're not familiar with Pentatonix watch this. I highly recommend you sit down first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lExW80sXsHs
You see, they're an a capella group that won a singing competition on the TV. Sound unlike something I would like? Yeah, I know, I'm so high-brow. I could sing (ahem) Pentatonix's (or PTX as we Pentaholics call them) praises, but you probably have other things to do today than read my blog. I sat down today not to write about much I love PTX, tempting though it is, but to write about the concert and fan experience.
As the concert date approached I was surprised at the need to suppress rising tide of fan hysteria. I thought I had grown out of the artist worship that had plagued me in my teens. Like Austen's Marianne Dashwood I could never "love anything by halves." If I ever liked something I loved it, I obsessed over it, I couldn't get enough of it. And the fact that Austen wrote this of her young protagonist leads me to believe that this is not a unique experience. Take a moment to think back to your adolescence. What was it that got you up in the morning? What adorned your angst-ridden doodle journal? For me it was
<3 Mrs. Brian Rosenworcel <3
Mrs. Thundergod
GUSTER
Guster was (and, I suppose, still is) a band of three Jewish guys from Massachusetts. One played the bongos. The other two sang in heart-breaking harmony. They were a bit like a three-person, slightly more Rock-y Simon and Garfunkel. Every song reduced me to tears. Their lyrics spoke to me. It was more than just hero-worship. I did think they were brilliant artists, of course, but more than that, I felt they really knew me. They understood what I was going through as a diminutive late-bloomer with transition issues. Guster, and only Guster, really got me.
In the interest of equal representation, Either Way, from Guster's 1998 album, Lost and Gone Forever, performed recently. I have to admit, this song still hits me right in the feels.
By the time my seventeenth birthday rolled around I had been to around the concert block. I had been dragged privileged to attend innumerable classical concerts, as well as musicals, operas, and the odd acoustic finger-snapper at Freight and Salvage. But I had never been to a real rock concert (don't scoff, to me Guster was rock) at a standing-room only venue. My friend Kyla and I scored tickets (she, more excited about the opening act, Great Big Sea, which also occasionally made it to my mix-tapes) and my mother escorted us to the Fillmore. We waited in line until our feet ached and then, once inside, literally right up against the stage, we waited some more. I nodded my head through Great Big Sea's set and then nearly passed out when Guster took the stage. It was a transcendent experience. I sang along until my voice was gone. I danced, I screamed. It was a bit of Beatle-mania, only I felt I was the only one who felt that way. After all, Guster spoke to me alone. How could anyone but the four of us (me, Adam, Ryan, and the Thundergod) really understand?
When the concert was over I insisted we shiver in the San Francisco fog until the band appeared. We waited. We shivered. We waited some more. Eventually Kyla and my mother said it was time to go home. I huffed. Then I sulked. Then I cried. Then I went ape-shit crazy. Oh my God, I thought, Guster doesn't even know I'm alive. To them I was just another bobbing head in the audience. They had no idea that their music was meant for me, that I was the only one who truly understood them and they were the only people who really understood me. I started questioning the meaning of my life in the way only an almost-seventeen-year-old does. Without Guster I am Nobody. Oh, the humanity!
I did eventually get over the disappointment (probably by lunch time the next day) and moved on. I still loved Guster, but I also loved Leonardo DiCaprio, Gene Kelly, and this super-cute sophomore in the Fall play. Subsequent concerts (including two more Guster concerts) didn't have quite the same effect on me. I guess I grew up a little. But something happened to me on the way to the Pentatonix concert. I love this band, but I'm hardly obsessed with them. I admire their musicality, their talent, their mission of acquainting young people with complex, expertly arranged and performed a capella music. (Just as a quick aside, because I can't resist, PTX succeeds with this mission. I have never before seen teenagers screaming and generally losing it over an original cello piece. Kevin Olusola is The Man). It's nothing like what I felt for Guster, thank goodness. But before the concert I felt the old anxiety/excitement rising up in me like a beautiful and dangerous serpent. It's fun to feel that excited. Unless, of course, you're me, in which case it feels more like a panic attack. Again, the concert was a transcendent experience. I sang until my voice was gone. I danced, I screamed. And my husband, bless his heart, danced and screamed with me. And then, after the concert, this happened:
Avi, the most amazing bass in the history of ever.
Kevin, the man, beatboxer, cellist, singer, Yale graduate. There's nothing this guy can't do.
Mitch, queen contralto. As awesome for his talent as he is for his authenticity.
I met the band. They signed my t-shirt. We took pictures. And I wish so much I could tell my sixteen-year-old self that, as cool as it was, they were just human. Very talented and slightly bewildered humans. They were extremely nice, and more than a little tolerant of overzealous selfie-takers. But I realized that there was no way for a connection to be forged between us. It was such a weird environment. They were obliging fans with a need to be recognized and made to feel special. I'm sure there were more than a few post-millennial teenage Johannas in the audience (in fact, I'm pretty sure I stood next to one) who felt the overwhelming and exclusive kinship I felt for Guster. I really hope they got what they needed.
And because I can't leave well enough alone and I feel a weird obligation to tackle big issues I know nothing about, reflecting on this experience helps me understand zealotry in other forms. What if as a sixteen-year-old I had been drawn to a religious text or leader, to a cult, or a gang? We all feel this way as young people, yet it's as easy to dismiss Guster-lovers as it is to condemn and vilify gang members and religious zealots. Not that I have any answers, but I always find it helpful to see other humans through a lens of shared experience.
Edited: I just can't leave this post alone. Nick Hornby addressed this kind of stuff hilariously and insightfully in the novel Juliet, Naked. Check it out.
I was recently reading up on alcoholism, you know, as you do, and I discovered something pretty disturbing. The National Institute on Alcohol Use and Alcoholism lists the following symptoms of alcohol addiction:
Craving—A strong need, or urge, to drink.
Loss of control—Not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun.
Dependence—Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and negative emotional states such as anxiety, after stopping drinking.
Tolerance—The need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to feel the same effect.
I realized that if I substituted the words "eat sugar" for drinking in each of these symptoms, it describes my relationship with sweets pretty well. Now, I don't mean to minimize alcoholism. On the contrary. Alcohol addiction is a very serious disease that has affected my family deeply. It may seem silly to compare something like sugar to alcohol. After all, I can drive just fine after eating cake, right? And no sane jury these days would let someone off a murder charge on the Twinkie defense. But more and more evidence is coming to light on the dangerous (yes dangerous!) nature of sugar. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic disorders, and cancer have all been linked to sugar consumption. And there is research that now shows that sugar addiction is real.
"But, Johanna," you may be thinking, "surely you don't eat that much sugar. You're nowhere near obese. These are not things you need to worry about."
The scary thing is that I do eat a huge amount of sugar, and sometimes I don't even realize it. There's the sugar I put in my tea, in my oatmeal, and in my cookies and cakes (I like to bake.) But then there's the sugar in my bread, on my burger, and on my pasta. We try to stay away from processed foods, but we do buy ketchup, bread, sauces, and cereals at the store. It's all chock full of sugar, and it's this hidden sugar that's particularly insidious because it changes how our bodies and brains react to sugar. The more sugar I eat, the more sugar I want. "Tolerance," anyone?
About a year ago I announced on Facebook that I was officially done with soda. How's that going? Well, it could be better. I crave soda, especially with certain meals. (Can someone please explain to me why caesar salad tastes so much better when accompanied by Coke?) I have about a soda a week, which when you compare that to how much most Americans (and Irish, too, I think) drink, is pretty darn good. But it's the craving part that scares me. And it isn't just soda. When I wake up in the morning I think about my nice cup of coffee, you know, the one with at least 2 teaspoons of sugar in it. At about 11 o'clock I want, no, I crave a nice cup of tea, you know, the one with 2 teaspoons of sugar in it, and sometimes a pastry, too. I'll often have juice or tea with lunch, and from then on I'm thinking about my relaxing time on the couch after the girls have gone to bed with, you guessed it, a nice cup of tea and cookies. It frightened me when I realized how much of my day is driven by when and how I'll get my next sugar fix. And when I don't get my time on the couch with tea and cookies, or even if I don't have that to look forward to, I feel depressed and anxious. I have trouble taking pleasure in the rest of my day. In short, I go through withdrawal.
You hear that addicts have to "hit bottom" before they seek help. I may not have hit bottom in the sense that my life is now falling apart, but when I realized how my sugar addiction is affecting my family, I decided it was past time for a change.
You may have seen on Facebook that I baked a cake yesterday. I captioned the picture I posted, rather defensively, "Happy 'what, so I decided to bake a cake, you got a problem with dat?' Day." The real reason I baked a cake, though, was because I felt I had to. There were no cookies in the house. I couldn't face the rest of my day without the promise of sweets. So instead of doing my usual afternoon activities with my kids, I baked a cake. And, of course, this did not escape my kids' notice. So when the steaming, gooey monstrosity came out of the oven they decided dinner was over. Goodbye lovely Mexican soup. Hello bananas foster upside down cake. And because I was going to indulge, I couldn't very well deny my children a slice as well. And, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have the energy to say no. So on a Wednesday night, for no reason other than that I needed a sugar fix, we all sat down and ate cake. That's when I realized that this is not OK. This is not what I want for my kids.
Hi, my name is Johanna, and I am a sugar addict. I need help. So I'm going cold turkey. No refined white sugar. No store-bought bread. No corn flakes. And no cookies or cake. It'll be hard. Extremely hard. But I have to do it. If you're with me, let me know. I need a sponsor.
Trying to cross off one from my to-do list today (sort of):
What is my personal, moral responsibility to the planet? At what point does all the head-wagging and tongue-clucking become hypocritical? Am I morally obligated to drastically change my lifestyle, drop in the ecological bucket though it may be? How much comfort am I allowed? And how much comfort today steals comfort from my children and my children's children tomorrow?
We've built up this world and this society in such a way as to make life about pleasure and not survival. And I embrace that. I am a comfort-seeker. I like to be warm, well fed, and entertained. And when I think about what is right for my children and what I owe them, I generally think in terms of the right instructional activities, the most healthful and acceptable meals, the best books to read to them, and the right amount of cultural exposure. It is too difficult to imagine that this could all be in vain, that the best way to ensure their future happiness (or a future at all) would be to jettison the piano lessons and take up farming and wood work. So I don't imagine it. I selfishly pursue the modern "normal" life, full of Disney movies and beach vacations. Not that those things are bad in themselves. It's just a devotion to capitalism and a fossil-fuel dependency that drives these things in a very unavoidable way.
Some of my friends are, in fact, jumping into an environmentally-sound lifestyle. I applaud them, but I know I could never be them. Which amounts to the best excuse I've been able to come up with: as a single family there's only so much we can do. Any drastic lifestyle change is more hand-washing than anything else. But then again, perhaps there's a certain amount of evangelism that comes with such a move. My friends' move has certainly had that effect on me. Which brings me back to the original question: what is my personal responsibility? Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I need answers, people.
As many of you know, my family and I will be spending six weeks this summer back in our home-state in the US. I am really looking forward to this time with friends and family, of course, but I find myself daydreaming about something else entirely. I've recently been spending a lot of time in the American library in my mind.
There are plenty of things that I miss about the US; easy to flush toilets, good burritos, Target. But I think what I miss the most, besides friends and family, are the libraries. Go to just about any town in my home-state with a population over 1,000 and you will find a public library. Now I can't attest to the quality of each and every library either in my home-state or in Dublin, but my impression is that most US libraries have Dublin libraries pretty well beat in terms of number of books, size of facility, programs, and use. I don't mean to hate on Dublin libraries, but my local library consistently disappoints me.
When I think about the Davis library I salivate. Want an book by Roald Dahl? Sure, which one? We have his entire opus. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban checked out? No problem. Request it from another library for free. Does the library have A Midsummer Night's Dream*? Are you kidding? Of course. 3 copies. Let's browse the audio books today, set aside at least an hour to do so. On a Sunday. Have Earth Day projects planned? Go ahead and check out the 7 books on Earth Day, both fiction and non-fiction. They're easy to find. The biggest problem you'll encounter at the Davis library is carrying home all the books you can check out. You're allowed 50 at a time. My local library in Dublin allows 12.
12.
Library lovers, you get me. I am a library lover. Libraries rock. When I was in 5th grade I was allowed to walk from school to the library (5 whole blocks!) by myself and spend several glorious hours there. In 8th grade I wrote a poem that was a loving portrait of my local childhood library for a school project (Although, I admit, this project was a collection of poems of questionable merit, one of which was titled "Ode to a Stapler" and which included the lines "You can staple your teachers/and muddle their features," which probably would earn a suspension if handed in today.)
I don't think Americans know how lucky they are when it comes to free access to books and media. My mother says that anyone who has access to a good library is not poor. So USA here we come. I'll see you at the library.
*Cute Aside Alert: Catie came home from school yesterday and asked me earnestly "Mom, have you heard of William Shakespeare?"
“It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they’re all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart.” ― Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being*
I have more blog drafts than I have published blogs. I struggle with content because I am painfully aware of how ignorant I am. There are a bazillion things that I would like to write about. I have a lot of questions and half-formed opinions on a variety of topics from education to ethics and everything trivial and profound in between. I'm not interested in blogging about my terrific vacation. No one cares. I don't want to sell anything (this blog brought to you by think-for-yourself-o-matic!). I don't think I'm particularly smart or funny, and I certainly don't have anything novel to say.
So why blog at all? I won't lie; I love watching the page-views ticker go round and round. I love comments. But it isn't about notoriety. I think it's about two things; authenticity and community. I want to have a place where I can reveal my authentic self in relative safety. It's a place where I can carefully construct a (hopefully) moderately entertaining and truthful account of myself, my thoughts, and what I believe. This is something I can't do with a friend over coffee, because, I admit, coffee does for my mouth what it does for others' bowels. I need the filter written word provides. And there's something to be said for being able to disseminate these thoughts en masse. If I tell my friends in person that I'm not going to apologize for my messy house it sounds reproachful. But on my blog it sounds witty (she said, polishing her knuckles).
The community bit may sound a tad hokey, but I truly value others' input. If I'm blogging about a topic it means I'm probably struggling with it and want to know what others think. Which brings me to a question (and please forgive the meta-blogging): what do you, fair readers, think of the quote above?
*I loved this book, by the way, and highly recommend it.
