Decisions, Decisions

There is a book on my desk with a picture of a Magic-8 Ball framed in bright neon green which insists on grabbing my eye, titled "Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work." My boss gave it to me today when, fighting back a fresh round of hot tears after finally getting a hold of myself, I told him I wished I had a Magic-8 Ball, that "I just want to make the right decision." The decision is whether or not I should I leave my current job for a new opportunity.

The Background:
I wasn't really looking for another job. But as one of my coworkers left my company, she said she was going to work for a large business I highly respect. I mentioned, off-handedly, that she should let me know if she heard of any opportunities within the company. She did. I applied. To my surprise, They made an offer. I had two reasons for pursuing the new opportunity: first, it is less DoD-centric than my current employer, who develops sensor systems for military and law-enforcement operations. While most of my friends and family are watching Mr. Trump's first hundred days with horror, I'm particularly repulsed because I can see how the work of my company very well might support some  unsavory missions and projects under his administration. This was brutally hammered home one night as I took a break from working on a proposal centered around providing prototype equipment for dangerous special operations, only to read an article about such an operation which resulted in the death of a U.S. soldier and several civilians. I don't want to spend the next four (or eight) years knowing that I'm feeding Mr. Trump's war machine. My other reason for leaving my job is that it is extremely high-stress. It cuts into my time to support the kids and take care of the house, and more importantly, cuts into my emotional bandwidth for stress at home. It's difficult to endure a day that involves heated tempers, tight deadlines, and microscopic scrutiny of my work product, only to arrive home and rush to get dinner on the table and deal with the general tornado that is four kids in a house. it's hard to be positive and energetic with the kids when my day felt like marathon and often isn't over if I have more work to do after they go to bed.

When I received the offer from the new company, you would think I would be thrilled. They offer everything I need: a clean conscience, less stress, more time with the kids, and they even offered to continue paying me the same salary I receive now. But I'm still struggling, and here's why:


Money:
Technically, as of me writing this, I will receive a slightly higher salary from the new office that I am making now. However, when I gave my boss my two weeks notice, he asked me to wait one day and hinted that he will be making me a counter offer tomorrow. Money is not tight for us at the moment. We have enough to feed the kids good healthy food, keep them warm, give them clothes, and maintain a roof over their heads. Even after paying the mortgage every month, I usually have money left over that I put into savings to cover any dramatic repairs to the house, while Kris buys groceries and pays the utility bills. This coming Friday, all that might change if a judge decides that Kris needs double or triple his child support. If that happens, I may need to cover more costs for the family, which will mean less savings to handle disasters like a broken HVAC system (coming to a theater near you Summer 2017). Money isn't everything. It certainly isn't as important as being available for the kids when they need us. But I want the peace of mind to know we can care for their financial needs. We haven't even started saving for college yet, and the oldest will be applying to schools in only six years, with the other three following fast behind.

Loyalty:
In five years, I've worked for five companies (seven, if you want to get technical.) I'm a job-hopper, the corporate equivalent of a cheater or an easy lay. With every interview I go to, I explain that I have good reasons for leaving each of my previous employers. In most cases, I wasn't happy with the corporation's ethics or I butted heads with an executive. At my current position, I have some issues with a few coworkers, but ultimately, I have a high level of respect for both the president and the vice president, both of whom I work with directly (the VP being my supervisor). Despite occasional elevated voices, brutal meetings, and morale-gutting assignments, I see them as a sort of family. I care about their health and well-being as much, if not more than, I care about the company. And I suspect that, while I'm one of more than 200 employees they oversee, they care about me as well. Which is probably why, when I went to announce my two weeks notice today, I barely got the sentence out of my mouth before I broke down crying. Apparently I want to leave my company, but I don't want to LEAVE my company. What will happen at the new company? If my current employer wasn't "the one" will I stick with the new company for five or ten years, or will I work there for 9-18 months and get frustrated and move on again, just like I always do?

Passion:
Right now, I'm doing exactly what I want to do, which is handling every aspect of the proposal process. Unfortunately, I'm doing several other things in addition, and I'm getting way too much of a good thing. In the new company, my lightened work load will mean that I'm only touching a few parts of the proposal process, and hardly ever writing, which is my real passion. When I gave my two weeks today, the VP said that he loves how I am "student" of our company. I've worked for the last 18 months trying to understand the highly complex work we do and the impact it has on our customers. It's something I enjoy and I take a lot of pride in. It's something both the president and VP recognize as one of my strengths. At my new company, it might not matter any more. But maybe at the new company, some of my other strengths will come out. Maybe I'll be recognized for being proactive or for being a team player.

Decisions...
As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I'm fighting to justify staying at my current company. But I just don't know if it's the right thing to do. It's killing me, in a way, it's slowly destroying my mental and physical health and I can't seem to maintain any sort of boundary to protect myself and ensure that I'm giving the kids the love and care and attention that they need. And even if I can establish those boundaries, none of that is going to ease my conscience about the work we do. I can argue that our systems are used to protect our soldiers. I can argue that they are in the hands of responsible professionals who will use them for good. I can argue that. And yet every time I see an article about another botched operation or questionable law enforcement policy, I will have to live with the fear that I somehow indirectly supported it.

I'm privileged to be struggling with this decision today, and I can't stop crying.
 

A Tentative Path Forward

As I fumbled my way around the kitchen yesterday morning, grabbing my things for work (I forgot my phone), I accidentally met the eyes of the oldest of my boyfriend's kids, his ten-year-old daughter. For that brief moment, everything I felt the need to tell her, but could not, came boiling up to the surface. All the panic and fear and sadness and rage and confusion. I physically choked and turned away. I couldn't say anything. "You look tired," she said, probably because my face was swollen from all the crying I had done before I finally went to bed at about 1:30 the night before. "I was up late," I told her. The rest of what I need to say will have to wait until tonight, when we sit down with them to talk about what this election might mean.

While I think most people are handling the results of the election a little better than I have, the general sentiment seems to be similar: devastation, heart-ache, fear, confusion, anger, courage and comfort. I scrolled down facebook yesterday and read one post after another, all with these similar themes. It was almost like a mantra, a drum beat:

I'm scared
I'm sad
I'm furious
We'll protect the vulnerable. Don't give up hope.

I'm scared
I'm sad
I'm furious
We love our country. Don't give up hope.

I'm scared
I'm sad
I'm furious
We'll find a path forward. Don't give up hope.

Part of me wants to focus on those first three lines, and that first line in particular. God, I am so scared. Maybe, for my own therapy, I'll write down my fears. Maybe if I give those monsters in my head some existence as words on a page, they'll be easier for me to manage. But that's not an exercise that will help anyone else. What may help, though, is focusing on that fourth line, the sentiment of those brave, kind souls who are looking at this horrible situation and already working to solve it. They're warriors, and they've given me tremendous comfort as I try to process this. They're right.

We'll find a path forward. Don't give up hope.

One of the things I'm struggling most with is a sense powerlessness. Whenever we've complained about problems plaguing our nation or our world, the response was always "get out and vote." While I agree that every vote counts, I think we've fallen into this sense of complacency: all we have to do is vote, and those we elect will solve the problems of the world themselves. We've lost that sense of empowerment that, in our every day lives, we too can make a difference. Already, the rhetoric has begun that he can't be THAT bad, that he probably just said those awful things to get elected, that actually, he might make a decent President. But this is a man whose campaign promises include targeting gays, Hispanics, Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants. He is held in check only by a group who have spoken against him in the past but may easily be swayed to support him when they see the power of his followers. We can't rely on this man to become a good leader. We HAVE to rely on our own power to change our communities.  Peace begins at home, and now more than ever, we need to foster it.

We'll find a path forward. Don't give up hope.

I want to help this belief the best I can, even if I'm doubting myself. So I've written down a few ideas I'm going to try out that, in some small way, might make things better. It's an attempt at self-empowerment, and it might amount to nothing if we start seeing a worst case scenario, but right now, I'm trying to maintain some faith in America, and I also have to have faith in myself.  

 Hilariously, I started this before reading a very similar Huffington Post article (Volunteer was #1 for both of us), so if you don't feel like reading this, read that instead!

1. Volunteer

I want to have a positive impact on my community. I want to protect it. I want to heal it. The best way to do that, I guess, is to actually get involved in it. So I went to idealist.org, a website that lists volunteer opportunities as well as jobs for, well, idealists. There weren't THAT many volunteer opportunities listed in my area, but I did see that Girls on the Run is looking for volunteers for their annual 5k next week. In the midst of this terrible situation, the opportunity to support an organization dedicated to helping girls improve their health and self-esteem felt like a miracle. I signed up immediately. After this, I'm hoping to continue looking for opportunities and maybe eventually find something I can support on a regular basis.

2. Buy Local, Buy Ethical

Let's face it, we are not going to see an increase in minimum wage any time soon. And with the tax changes Trump has proposed, it's highly likely that even more of our dollars will end up in the pockets of billionaire executives when we buy from large businesses. So I'm going to make a concerted effort to buy anything I can from small businesses and ethical businesses. Before I turn to Amazon, I'm going to pound the pavement of old town Manassas and maybe Occoquan to find Christmas gifts. Before I head to Home Depot for home supplies, I'm going to see if I can find them at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  For things where you almost need to go with a big business, like groceries, I'm going to try to stick with businesses like Costco and Whole Foods which are known for their good business practices and fair wages.

Yesterday I needed a cheeseburger and fries. I don't know why, but the concept of stuffing my face with greasy comfort food from my childhood just seemed like the only way to keep going. I could have gone to a lot different places, but I decided to try this little hole-in-wall family-owned restaurant down the road from my office. It was good and it was cheap, and the lady who rang me up was really sweet. I don't know how big a difference it makes to buy from a privately owned business rather than a chain, but it made me feel good. 

3. Be Nice to Yourself

Completely ignore the cheeseburger thing. I've been trying to focus on my health more lately, and now more than ever I think it's important to continue that. I'm afraid of how this presidency will affect my mental health. "Grab a woman by the pussy" was not actually a campaign promise, it was something Trump said years ago, and it was part of a pattern of misogynistic rhetoric which we have no reason to believe will suddenly stop now. I know that if I allow it to, his commentary on women's bodies will hurt me. His mockery of mental health issues will hurt even more. And when those vicious thoughts become more socially accepted, and repeated at work and on the radio and on the web, it's going to be so hard for me to keep my thoughts positive and healthy. But I have to, not just for me, but for the three girls living in my house who might start to hear comments about how a woman's menstruation cycle is a weakness. I'm going to continue to prioritize my health by exercising and eating well (allowing for comfort cheeseburgers) as well as generally being kind to myself and reminding myself that I'm a good, strong person and I really am as good as a man.

4. Be Nice to Others, Including Trump Supporters

Maybe the hardest one for me. I'm so angry right now. I want to grab my Trump-voting coworkers by the collars of their shirts, push them against the wall, and scream, "DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY FAMILY? DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY FRIENDS?" But of course they don't, and they probably never will. As anti-LGBT legislature is rolled out and racial tensions rise in the first months of Trump's presidency, as a generation of young girls sees their worth valued by their appearance, no one is going to say, "Man guys, I'm really sorry. That was a bad idea." As much as I wish screaming will change that, it won't. It will only make things worse. So instead, I'm going to try my best to be nicer to my coworkers, to strangers at the store, even to that guy in an '87 Ford with a Trump sticker and aggressive driving tendencies. I can't let myself fall into an Us vs. Them mentality. If I dismiss half this nation as a bunch of racist monsters, I will never be able to foster peace and healing in my community. I have to believe that most of the people who voted for Trump are good people, capable of helping to restore this country alongside those of us who opposed him (they are). 

I'm also going to try to be nicer and more friendly in general. I tend to walk with my head down and avoid conversation. I'm going to do my best to make eye contact and smile at strangers, ask people how their day is going, dish out compliments, stop for passers by in the parking lot, etc. I think if we all do this, we can defy Trump's culture of bullying and foster a sense that we are a United nation, ready to protect and support all our members, whatever their race, religion, gender, orientation, or ability.

The fact is, no matter what I do, I won't make as big of impact on this world as Trump will. But I can do my best to fight his hate and care for the people around me. It's time to foster love and peace. It's time for forgiveness, for friendship, for action.

We'll find a path forward. Don't give up hope.

These "Intelligent People Are Messy" Memes Make Me Feel Stupid

My recently departed grandmother has sent a message from her grave letting me know that my intelligence is, at best, mediocre.

Until I moved into my new house, I didn't really think all that much about my relationship with cleaning. When I lived in a 400 square foot apartment, cleaning was a necessity ( a few items out of place and my floor was covered), but it wasn't really a big deal. I could pick the place up and have everything tucked away in an hour or so. I could scrub and disinfect it in less than a day. An entire house is different. The bathrooms alone are an exhausting afternoon's worth of work (and they still don't look good). Vacuuming three levels of floors is best split over two days. The kitchen and dining room are a constant battle of Clorox wipes, crumbs, ants, emptying and reloading a dishwasher, sweeping, asking why there is a plastic unicorn sitting in a pile of cereal under the chair, etc. As my boyfriend and I struggle to stay on top of it all (sometimes failing: the main bathroom is in need of some bleach and the cobwebs on the stairs are atrocious), I'm realizing how important cleaning is for my mental health.

In my old apartment, it wasn't the residue of old sauces built up on the stove or my clothes forming a second carpet on the floor or a terrifying collection of hair gathering in the bathtub that told me it was time to clean; it was my anxiety. Whenever I reached a point where I was having trouble breathing and unsure if I could walk out the door to go to work, I would take a deep breath and start cleaning. Sometimes it was a quick job of clearing up clutter; sometimes it was a purge of scalding water and asphyxiating chemicals. Sometimes I was singing to music as I worked. Sometimes I was trying not to cry. Whatever the process, the results were the same: when the room was clean, my anxiety was better. Even if everything that was wrong before I started cleaning was still wrong after, having a vacuumed floor without a trace of plastic food wrappers made it all feel manageable. It's the same now. Whenever I see a cleared floor space or a scrubbed counter surface, I feel more in control of my situation. I'm better able to handle what's happening in my world. Clutter and messes trigger my anxiety. Cleaning helps me manage it.

Recently, I've been noticing a lot more memes regarding how intelligent people are statically more messy and therefore messiness is a sign of intelligence. I realize that most of the people sharing them are innocently passing this along as a joke, usually with a facebook status of "I must be a genius, lol" or something along those lines. Others, I suppose, are justifying their perfectly reasonable choice to focus on other things in their life besides cleaning. No one is purposefully sending a message that my need to keep things in order is an indication that I'm less intelligent than they are. But for me, that's the message all the same. I'm trying to set a good example for the children I'm living with, and I'm trying to keep myself mentally and physically healthy, and I see these memes and wonder how much intelligence and creativity I'm wasting when I choose to scrub a toilet rather than start a new creative project or read a book. It's something I've been struggling with a lot for the past few weeks. Am I a bad role model for coping with my anxiety by putting things away? Am I less intelligent and less creative than my friends who aren't inhibited by a mental illness-induced fear of clutter? Last night as we were saying good night to my boyfriend's oldest, I saw paperweight on her desk with the engraving, "A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of Genius." Apparently she grabbed it last weekend from a collection of items being given away from my deceased grandmother's estate. Grandma has let me know her thoughts on the matter; she thinks my decision to keep things clean is a sign that I'm an idiot.

Damn.

For right now, I'm going to ignore Grandma's ghost and keep cleaning. Tonight, if I can get home quickly, and get dinner on the table in a reasonable time, I'm hoping to finally vacuum the cobwebs off the stairs. It's annoying and it's not as fun as starting a new project, but when I'm finished I'll look at those stairs and think about how I really do have a handle on my life. Maybe that feeling of empowerment and happiness isn't as good as feeling smart, but it's good enough for me.

Recognizing the Foolishness of My Resentment of My Weight

Last Thursday night, I found myself dragging two filthy garbage cans down to the curb in complete darkness, a chore which fell between cleaning the dishes and putting the kids to bed. As the plastic wheels of the two cans rattled against the gravel, I thought to myself, "My god, my life is beautiful." I was filled with a sense of contentment.

This is not normal for me, or at least it hasn't been normal for the last several months. Well, years, maybe. As recently as a few weeks ago, I was blogging about my struggle with my depression. I have learned, through years of therapy, to compartmentalize a deep-set sense of self-loathing and utter despair that pervades my thinking. I am able to find moments where I have a sense of a joy, and I can go to work, smile, socialize, keep my space and myself clean, laugh, have fun. But in the moments when my world is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts, I hate myself. I recite all my failures; I think of everything I'll never be able to do; I hate my behavior, my appearance, and my world. It's been, admittedly, a little worse lately. Between getting home from work and cooking dinner for the kids, I've had more than one night where I've momentarily collapsed on the floor crying, hating everything about myself. I'll give myself five minutes of self-loathing, and then climb back to my feet to turn the oven on and cut up vegetables. Again, this isn't new. Before I began this adventure in home-ownership with a family of five, I would get home from the gym at night, microwave my dinner, and lay on the couch thinking of how god-awful my world was.I've had times where I couldn't stop crying. I've had times where I've been hospitalized.

So believe me when I say that having a moment where I actually relished in how happy I am feels a little weird. And it wasn't an isolated incident. for the past couple weeks, more and more often I've found myself filled with a sense of joy, contentment, satisfaction, and even, most alien of all, self-love. I still have times when I struggle with a sense of depression and anxiety, but lately it's felt more like something I can work around, an exception rather than the rule. I'm really not sure what's caused this shift in my mood, but if I ever figure it out I will certainly share.

For now, I'm just going to talk about something that I have never wanted to talk about before: my perception of my weight. Whenever I hate myself, I hate how much I weigh. It's not only a part of my mantra, it's the very focus of my self-loathing. when I'm berating myself, I am a fat, lazy, ugly, worthless, shitty, fucking failure. There are moments in my life where I will say, "Well, you did well at work, but you're still fat." or "Yeah you've been good to kids, and that's great, because you're nothing but a fat ugly waste and taking care of those kids is the only good thing you have going for you." There are never moments when I think to myself, "You look attractive, but you still suck." The night before our housewarming party a few months ago, I told my boyfriend, almost in tears, that I wished we could just cancel the whole thing because I had gained 5 pounds over the summer, and I didn't want anyone to see me because they'd think I was a failure. After that party, I put myself on a diet where, for three weeks, I ate less than 1,200 Calories per day. I literally did not lose an ounce of weight the entire time, but my depression sky-rocketed. Sadly, in my broken depressed brain, there is only one thing that gives me value, and that is my appearance. All of my other achievements mean nothing to my depression. The only thing that matters is my body, which I perceive as being unattractive due to the fact that I am overweight. If I had to break it down, here is how my depression ranks priorities:

Obviously this is inaccurate. The saddest thing is that I know this is inaccurate. If I had a friend tell me that her brain was telling her she sucked because she was overweight, I would probably flood her with sincere compliments about her appearance and tell her that her brain was wrong. I know that my brain is wrong, too. But it torments me. It bangs on the door when I try to make it go away. It screams for me to let it in.

A few weeks ago, after my disaster of a diet, I finally made a very radical decision, one that has been very difficult and very painful. I decided to be my own friend, and tell myself that my brain is wrong, and that the graph above is total myth. At the end of the day, my weight is not important at all. Literally not at all. My physical health is important, which is why I strive to eat a healthy diet every day (with the occasional cheat) while performing a mix of cardiovascular and strength-based activities throughout the week, but my actual weight is such a small aspect of my health that it's dangerous for me to even consider it. Last spring I took a health class which explored every possible way to determine whether someone's weight was in the normal, overweight, or obese zones, and then in conclusion it noted that overweight individuals statistically live longer than those in the normal range. So, depression brain, let me tell you, my weight barely matters at all. It does not even reflect on my longevity. This is what matters:

At the beginning of the month, I decided that I am not going near my scale. I am not going to measure my waist. I am not going to place any value on my weight. I am going to be a good friend to myself and know that I am so much more than that. I'm healthy, mentally and physically. I'm taking care of the wonderful family that lives with me, and I'm taking care of myself. That's what counts. My life is beautiful.

Syria Is Giving Me an Existential Crisis

Ok, at some point I'm going to call this what it is and make a new blog, just not today.

To put it out there, in all honesty, I have not been doing that well lately. I was hoping that as things at my job calmed down and I returned to a regular 40-hour work week, I could focus more on my mental and physical health - eating better, working out more, socializing with friends and family. I was quite sure that without the stress of work, my life would be better. Unfortunately, it seems that in actuality, without the stress work, I have nothing to distract myself from my, maybe not "crippling," but certainly "problematic" hatred for my entire existence and desire to curl up into a weeping ball of dejected sadness on the floor and never go outside or speak to anyone ever again. I could blame this thing (which I believe some people call Clinical Depression) on a number of things, such as (in order of likelihood)

1. A chemical imbalance in my brain which has been repeatedly diagnosed as requiring therapeutic and medical treatment
2. A struggle with the loss of two family members within 15 days of each other and failure to take the adequate time to cope with those losses
3. Changes in temperature, reduced exposure sunlight, excessive allergens, etc
4. Uncertainty in the midst of a major of election which may or may not have a direct impact on my life and which will certainly have an impact on the nation and the world
5. Fucking Syria.

If you're not following what's happening in Syria, don't worry, AJ Willingham of CNN has everything you need to feel guilty as shit about that. If you're not a fan of following links, the short version is that a lot of innocent people are dying, and they've been dying for 5 years now, and the situation is truly deplorable.

For whatever reason, I have always loved Syria. Ten years ago, I had it on my bucket list to visit one day; it just seemed like a cool place. I remember when the Syrian conflict started. Every day at work, I would finish my morning routine, get all my deliverables out, and then google "Syria" and binge read the articles that popped up. I was filled with hope as I read about the protests. I was horrified when the death toll began to rise, but eagerly read the reports of world leaders coming together, agreeing that the situation must end. I signed petitions. I donated money. I sat there at my desk, my eyes glued to the monitor, just waiting for the moment when the world would stand up and affirm that never has there been a more clear-cut case of need for international intervention. We had made mistakes in the past, but this is where we would do things right, and the brave men and women of Syria would wake up to a new dawn of freedom and justice, and the world would be a better place. And then I would get to go play tourist in Damascus. I read as one international group after another decided they could not intervene. I read as the acts of war became more heinous, as the death toll rose higher and higher. I looked at the bloodied corpses of the children.

And at some point I finally gave up. One morning, I finished my work and I opened up Google, and I just couldn't bring myself to read any more articles. I think the death toll was somewhere around 4,000 at the time. It seemed so high. I just couldn't face it any more. I let Syria fade from my life, and focused on other things. Over the years I would come back to it, briefly  re-energizing my obsession, but at the end of the day, the story is always the same: innocent people are dying; no one is able to save them. Assad has an ugly, weak-chin face that makes me want to hurt and publicly humiliate him. 

With this new election season and Russian's decision to assist Assad in bombing his own people back to the stone age, it looks like Syria is once again taking up some news space, so last week I started googling "Syria" to see what comes up these days. It's been a great time to catch up on the latest Syria gossip. On top of murder of almost hundred innocent children in one night and the destruction of aid convoys, the other big news this week was that U.S. cancelled peace talks with Russia, I believe essentially because Secretary of State John Kerry realized that the "talks" would consist of him speaking of the need for cooperation while his Russian counterpart Sergey V. Lavrov flew a little replica airplane over his paperwork making little sound effects such as the buzz of the engine, the whistling of a armament dropping through the air, and of course the "Begh-WERGGGHHHH" of the explosive impact on the home of another innocent Syrian family.

The cancellation of the peace talks has led to... "not-peace talks" (my phrase) as Kerry told a group of Syrians he lost the argument for use force against Assad, and Russia, taking a page from Donald Trump's book of political engagement, posted a tweet that more-than-hinted but less-than-overtly-stated they will bomb US planes should we elect to use force as Kerry recommended. Meanwhile the U.N. has declared Aleppo to be under siege and has issued multiple statements condemning the bombings, accusing Russia of killing aid workers, and calling Assad names. It isn't fair to say no one is actually doing anything. The UN and several other organizations are attempting to get food, water, and medical care into the city of Aleppo while getting the critically wounded out; they're just having a lot of trouble because of the continued bombings and obliterated infrastructure. International leaders are attempting to utilize diplomacy to find some sort of resolution to the conflict; they're just having a lot of trouble getting Syria and Russia to stop murdering people long enough to talk. Military, state, and intelligence officials within the U.S. are attempting to convince Obama that small scale war is a good idea, they're just having trouble predicting the future in order to guarantee that military action against Assad will not result in World War III. Oh, and Assad is trying to boost tourism in Aleppo with a rip-off of the Game of Thrones music.

And when you consider all these things - the State Department, the UN, the US president, the anti-aircraft weaponry, the blood-thirsty dictator who watches HBO, the superpower with one finger on the nuclear codes and the other on a twitter account, it's very easy to forget that each of the 470,000 people who have a died was, in fact, a person. That right now, at this very moment, there is a woman in Syria lying on the floor, sobbing over the loss of her child. She doesn't know how she's going to move on. She doesn't know what kind of god would do this, would give her such beautiful treasure and then rip it away from her. She remembers holding him in her arms  for the first time, she remembers the smell of his hair, she remembers hugging him good-bye before he left for school. It's easy to fall under the illusion that the people of Syria are so shell-shocked that they cannot mourn; it's easy to ignore the fact that the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the Hell that is Aleppo, the millions trapped in Syria, once had lives very similar to our own; it's easy to pretend that Syria was always war-torn, and that the people somehow are not suffering nearly as much as you or I would in the same circumstances. We delude ourselves into the thinking that while we might be devastated by the loss of our homes, our jobs, our safety, or our children, over there, that sort of thing happens all the time. They must be used to it by now.

But as we conclude another week of international leaders wringing their hands over a difficult moral conundrum, and one superpower begging another to fucking quit it already, I'm left feeling empty and depressed. Because all I can do is read about it in the news. There's nothing I can do for the millions suffering in Syria.

Here's the Thing About #BlackLivesMatter that I Think You Missed

First of all, I fully acknowledge that the following has nothing to do with fitness or health or nerd culture and does not belong anywhere near this blog. But until I bother to make a new blog specifically for political commentary (not gonna happen), this is my soapbox. There's a little "X" icon somewhere at the top of your screen if you're done now.

Today, as I scrolled through facebook (my only real connection to other human beings or world events), I saw the following:

I'm going to operate under the assumption, given the context, that in this circumstance BLM does not reference Bureau of Land Management. I'd love to tell you the story of how I gently or forcefully educated the strange who posted this comment on the meaning of #BlackLivesMatter and implications of the movement, but being a privileged white person, I just rolled my eyes and scrolled on (not my proudest moment*.) Unfortunately, I didn't get too far before discovering yet another story about police shooting an unarmed black person, this time in El Cajon, CA. Like every story we've read or heard (or watched), it has its idiosyncrasies for those looking for the "whole picture." Like every story, it boiled down to an innocent person shot to death. Yesterday I told myself that the next time I heard about one of these shootings, I would say something. I didn't think it would happen in less than 24 hours.

When the tragedy in Ferguson took place, and the fatalities of innocent blacks which were reported thereafter, I was able to say to myself that the man (or woman) who pulled that trigger was not actually a police officer. Police officers are sworn to protect and serve (it turns out not every police force has adopted this language, so that is ignorance on my part). Someone who willfully kills an innocent person obviously isn't protecting and serving us. Therefore that man is not a police officer, he is an impostor, a bully who happened to lie his way into a uniform, a threat to our safety, a murderer.

But as the fatalities continue to be reported on a more and more frequent basis, I'm beginning to fear that I am wrong. I think these men and women (do I call them police officers or not?) are firing their weapons with the belief that they are protecting and serving civilians in accordance with their oath. They are eliminating a threat and thereby ensuring the safety of those they serve. The question becomes, "Who are they serving?" Read the article linked above. The victim's sister called 911 because he was not acting like himself, and she feared for his safety. When he was shot, she was heard crying, "I just called for help, and you came and killed him." Can the officer who pulled the trigger honestly say that he served and protected the victim and his sister? What about the officer who shot a man in Tulsa, OK, as he walked away from her? What about the officer who shot a man in Charlotte, NC, (who may or may not have had a weapon) as the victim backed away? Was it protecting and serving the family, the bystanders, or the community to pull the trigger?

It takes courage to put on a police uniform. Officers are killed during routine traffic stops and when serving warrants. A few months ago, I called the police to report a domestic disturbance in a neighboring apartment and was surprised when three officers in body armor arrived at my door. It seemed like overkill to me. Only a few weeks later, not ten miles from my apartment, an officer was shot to death responding to a similar domestic disturbance call. In retrospect, the body armor made sense. I strongly believe that Blue lives matter. I would like this nation to reach a point where police officers do not have to fear for their lives when they respond to calls, where police deaths are unheard of, or close thereto.

I would especially like to reach a point where police officers do not have to fear every civilian they encounter. Because right now, I'm beginning to wonder how safe I am from those who are sworn to protect and serve me. After all, they were sworn to protect the innocent civilians they killed in El Cajon, Tulsa, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Ferguson (etc. etc.) If I say the wrong thing at a traffic stop, will I be the next victim? Do I need to fear for my life if I commit the slightest infringement of the law? If the answer is yes, then we are living in a Police State. If the answer is no, that is because the only difference between me and the weekly victims of this problematic system is skin color. That, Stranger on Facebook, is the meaning of #BlackLivesMatter. It is not a belief that blacks are somehow better than whites. It is a plea, from whites and people of color alike,  that blacks receive the same treatment, the same protection, the same service from police that whites do. We are all citizens of the United States. We pay the same taxes. We follow the same laws. We deserve the same right not to be shot by the police.


*I'm going to reply to that comment on facebook with a link to this post.

It Turns Out My Grandmother was a Total Badass

I feel like you don't really know a person until they die. Before then, the only view you have of them is your own. Maybe you hear stories of them from one or two others, but it's not until they're gone that we make an effort to collect all the memories from all the people who saw all the various aspects of their life and create a complete picture of who this person actually was. It's not fair.

There are things I want to say to Grandma now, having learned so much more about her after her passing. Things that I will never have a chance to tell her. Things like, "Holy Shit, Grandma, you were total fox. Like, Bond Girl levels of smoking hot. Jesus." But she's gone, and so I'm left writing a blog post with a vague sense of disappointment in myself for having spent the entirety of my life related to this amazing person without ever having asked her how she managed to be such a badass.

So much of my childhood can be summed up in the gleeful screeches of the grandchildren, the smell of chlorine, and the woman who never chose to drown us.

As a child, I knew her as the woman who would hold me in the pool and sing, "Ba-dumpty-dump, ba-duptity-dump" while slowly spinning in circles. She had a freezer full of Popsicles. She would let me wear her jewelry to church. As I got older I learned more about her, but never enough. I learned, for example, that she helped out with YWCA, and that one day, in an attempt to explain that the programs needed more initiative, she mixed up two metaphors, announcing to the board of directors that they needed to grab the bull by the balls and run with it. (It's one of my favorite phrases to this day, and I almost said it at work a couple weeks ago.) I did not learn, until her passing, that my grandmother was the YWCA Athletic Director at the time, or that, in addition to offering what can only be described as extremely poor bovine management advice to a room full of men and women who had the collective sense of humor of a sack of human bones, she also initiated volleyball and basketball leagues, swimming for all ages, and Lynchburg's first gymnastics program. I knew that my grandmother broke her wrist at some point in her forties practicing a back flip from her bed. I did not know that somewhere around that time, she spent a week at circus school, possibly learning how to do back flips in a less disastrous manner. I knew that my grandmother was physically active. I did not know she ran a mile and half every day, even after having five children.

As I've learned more about who my grandmother was, I feel this mix of despair and hope. Despair because, by the time I started following in her footsteps - teaching silks, running a ten-miler, incurring various self-inflicted injuries - her health and her memory were failing her, and I never got a chance to sit down and listen to the wealth of advice and hilarious stories she probably had to offer.

On the other hand, when I hear about everything she accomplished, I think, my God, there might actually be hope for me yet. Lately I've felt like I've reached the end of the race and I'm not that happy with my time. I've felt like my prime is over, and everything I've left unaccomplished or abandoned is dead and gone. But my grandmother obviously did not reach 30 years of age and decide she was done. She kept pushing, as an athlete and a community activist. She probably endured hundreds of set-backs, from men telling her she was too sexy to be an athletic director (I haven't heard such a story, but by God I know there is one) to bones inconveniently breaking on her when she needed to work on her back flip.

I'm not sure I'll ever be the woman she was, but learning about her life tells me that I have the ability to make more of my own. It's not easy, but nothing in life ever is. I just need to grab the bull by the balls and run with it.

I'm....Back?

With the busiest time of year at my work finally coming to close, and other random events settling (or in certain cases, still wreaking havoc, but wreaking havoc in such a way that they are not time consuming) I found my fingers itching today to write a blog post. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready to start writing again. It's a big commitment and involves exposing certain sections of my soul to the anonymous public, both concepts I have come to fear. But I logged in to my blog account, and lo and behold, my last post (never published) was drafted on 9/4/2013, which means it has been almost three years on the dot since I quite suddenly dropped this project in the midst of turmoil in my life. Add to this lovely bit of serendipity the fact that I'm on the edge of beginning a few health projects (each with varying chances of success and associated levels of excitement), and I feel like maybe it is time to brush the dust off this blog and go at it once more- at least until Christmas destroys me and I give up again.

So here we are, blogging. A lot has happened in the past three years. I started teaching silks. I stopped teaching silks. I ended a long term relationship. I switched jobs. I switched homes. I lost weight. I gained weight. I ran a 10-miler. Recently, I bought a house, and I moved into that house with my boyfriend and his four kids, who live with us 50% of the time. My life, to put it way too mildly, has changed a lot. The last few months have been particularly rough for my health and wellness. Buying a house brought with it a ton of new responsibilities for which I wasn't 100% ready, and everything from cleaning to fixing faucets to digging a patio has devoured my spare time in a manner evocative of the rip-tear-munching of the Stranger Things monster. On top of that, things at work got hot for a while, and I spent more than a month clocking 10-12 hour days, so I found myself going for weeks without any time to do much of any physical activity at all besides maybe an hour-long class here or a few minutes working out on my own there. And of course, while living with kids can be really fun, it also means that I need to make 50% of my dinner meals "kid-friendly" which has resulted in more carbs and fats. and pizza. Jesus Christ, the pizza.  

Anyway, I'm now a substantial 145 lbs, and while I haven't lost ALL my strength, my push-ups are pretty disappointing, and I can't do many of the things I used to do in the silk. I spend most of my time feeling slow, tired, and fat and nowhere near the young healthy person I used to be. But in good news, I've signed up for a weight training class which I'm really excited about it (we meet tonight to do our first "weight-trainy stuff" [that's a technical term]). I've also got an elliptical trainer sitting in my basement now, and have rediscovered the immense joy I find in reading a book (Ready Player One) while moving on the elliptical. Add to that the fact that I've signed up for a soccer team and I'm hoping to continue ballet (holy shit I suck), and I actually have some legitimate reasons to believe that this fall will see some positive changes in my health. Who knows, maybe in the near future I might actually submit another blog post rather than letting this poor thing atrophy once again. (All right, let's not go too crazy with the optimism, kid.)

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, Internet, I need to pack up and head to class. Best of luck with your own adventures until we meet again!

Go Ninja! GO! GO! - The Grand Opening of UE Baltimore

Goddamn, folks, I apologize for the obligatory title of this post, but I literally had no choice.

(Just kidding I had lots of choices.)

Anyway, so Saturday morning I woke up at an ungodly hour. Ordinarily of course I prefer to sleep in on the weekends, but the fact was that it was big day, so I crawled out of bed, pulled on my clothes in bleary-eyed exhaustion, and readied myself for what would no doubt be a momentous occasion. I checked my phone as we climbed into the car and prepared for our long journey: 11:38 am. I should have been dead asleep for at least another two hours, but alas, when duty calls there are those of us courageous enough to answer, no matter how early the hour.

On March of 2012 I attended the opening of Urban Evolution's Manassas location, and it was, I do not exaggerate, a life changing experience. I knew that yesterday, at the opening Urban Evolution's Baltimore gym, I would get to see more lives changed and imaginations unlocked as the local population got to check out parkour for the first time. I was not disappointed. The facility was huge and impressively full (although it really supported the large numbers well) as dozens upon dozens of people learned to roll, vault, and hang for the first time.

Not Pictured: THE OTHER 3/4's OF THE GYM!

Despite the large numbers and organized chaos, I got do a lot of work while hanging out with my BF and a couple of other UE friends we don't get to see very often. As soon as we got settled in, my boyfriend was ushered over to the challenge of his fitness career: a 750 pound tire. Guys, if you've never flipped a tire before, please, please go out there, find a tire, and flip it. It's an incredible experience. If it's a 750 pound tire, however, you might want to just leave it be. Sebastian tried, and could not get it off the ground. Then he tried with me helping, and we got it about an inch into the air and couldn't make it any further. It was tragedy on an unfathomable level. That son of bitch was heavy. 

But then first one duo got it, and then another. I couldn't stand it. So I demanded that we give it another try. With Sebastian beside me, I sank my butt down all the way to the floor, got my hands underneath it, and used everything my quads had in them to lift while my back and shoulders braced the weight. Every inch was agony, but slowly we got it into the air. But lifting is only half the battle in a tire flip. Once you have it up, you have to shift your position and get fully beneath the thing and push it over. Sebastian got underneath the rubber without too much trouble, but it was agony for me, so he had to brace it while I made the shift. Once I had my position right I used everything my shoulders had and shoved the son of bitch over. It slammed with a resonance that silenced the population of the gym. And in that silence, I let out a cry known only to those who have faced the impossible odds of battle and seen triumph when they expected only death. My only regret is that I do not have videographic evidence of this event.

I do, however, have some videos of my bar work! Recently I discovered, to my utter surprise, that I can actually do a chin-up. So I got Sebastian to get a video of me working on my still extremely weak but getting better lifts. 

A friend named Charles also helped me with my circle-ups. It's important to me that I learn to do a circle-up and do it well in order to perform better at trapeze, but it requires much more control than I currently have, so Charles showed me how to do reverse circle-up in order to teach my muscles that particular control.  So now guess what I get to work on three days a week...

Yes, it says, "Trespassers will be eaten by Zombies."

But of course the best part of the UE Baltimore Grand Opening wasn't me; it was everyone else. I got so caught up people-watching I didn't even get pictures or videos of all the incredible things happening around me. I saw hand-stands and laches, amazing vault work, bar free flow, dance, martial arts, gymnastics and amazing parkour as total strangers exchanged the best of their abilities and taught each other new ways of moving. At one point I did get a video of my friend Charles doing a handstand. If you listen, you can me scream when I realized just what was actually planned...

Trust is a very important part of parkour.

I came home exhausted and sore, and today my shoulders and upper back are still complaining from all the work they did. But I had a great time, and I'm so glad I went. 

Congratulations, Baltimore, you just got yourself one hell of a gym. 

Level-ups, Serenity, Separated Ribs, and the Beautiful Game

I had a Moment on Saturday morning.

We had just arrived at the field to warm up for our first game of the two day soccer tournament, and I was tired, distracted, and above all, anxious and shivering with pre-game jitters. I put on my cleats, exchanged hugs and greetings with people I hadn't seen in a year, and then I began my very first run across the warm-up field: a slow, clean, even jog. As I reached the end line, I turned to run back the way I'd come and saw my own foot prints, two dotted lines incising a perfect dew-covered field.
And I realized that every year it starts this way: a clean unbroken slate of a weekend in which anything can happen, and those first footsteps, that first run across the grass, is the beginning of the dictation of wins, losses, triumphs, and amazing plays that make the tournament what it is. At that moment, I could see the entire weekend in front of me, and I was ready to play.

Brothers (and Other Family Members) In Arms
This soccer tournament we go to has several divisions of competitive men's and women's teams (including an over 50 men's division, and let me tell you, those guys are goddamn terrifying). We, however, play in the co-ed open recreational division which is, by far, the lowest of the low. Our team includes my Mom and Dad, both over 60, my aunt, two of my cousins, and my brother, and an assortment of old friends and friends of friends and friends who have become more like family and almost everyone is over 30 and some are over 40. If we can't destroy our opponents with goals, goddamn it we can definitely destroy them in terms of average player age and percentage of players related by blood, marriage, or long term friendship.

And that's why it's ok for someone to throw a ball at us while we're posing for a picture.

But age means nothing to these people, and family means everything. We came out onto the field with set jaws and steely eyes, and we played with everything we had in us, running harder than we thought we could, making impossible passes, and even just barely saving a ball as it slid over the goal-line. (That last one was my aunt, if you're wondering. She made an impossible save and then cackled like the pirate she truly is. She is in the photo above holding the yellow jersey. Just in case you need a visual reference for a straight badass.)

War Wounds
Anyway, so for me personally it was kind of a tough tournament. Still one of my favorite weekends of the year. But tough. This is mostly on account of a hit I took in the first half of our first game. A guy on the other team and I were both running head-on for the same ball. He outweighed me by, I dunno, let's say 50lbs. That's a low estimate, but we'll go with it. Now, this is very important: I got to the ball first. Nothing else in this story really matters as much as that. I ran hard, and I totally beat him to the ball, and I kicked it out of bounds, and I saved my team from certain doom, and I was a total fucking hero. BUT THEN there was still the fact that we were running directly at each other. And I had stopped. And he had not. One of my teammates, who was standing nearby, told me he heard me gasp as I realized I was about to get hit. People on the sidelines on the other side of the field told me they heard me AFTER I got hit, and I got ALL the  wind knocked out of my lungs. I flew backwards in the air after the impact and somehow landed on my right side with my elbow beneath me. And there I stayed. Around me I could hear people saying, "Is she ok? Is she all right? Kate?" And also "YELLOW CARD! GIVE HIM A YELLOW!" I meanwhile lay on the ground wondering, "Why can't I get up? Why am I making these sounds?" Because I was, in fact, groaning loudly in pain. For a moment I thought I had broken all my ribs, but when I rolled over (or someone rolled me over) I realized I had just had the wind knocked out of me.
It took a few minutes for me to get up, but I did, and several medical professionals confirmed that I did not, in fact, have a punctured lung. Hooray! I was in some pain, but not too much, and I could run. The one problem was that I could not take in a full breath of air, so every time I tried to fill my lungs my chest hurt as if there was a rock crushing it down. It turns out that one rib is separated, which isn't too serious, but it made running more difficult for the rest of the day. That didn't stop me from playing in our second game though. And playing most of the game the next day.

You've Earned a New Skill!
If you're anything like me, when you play Skyrim (and I assume you play Skyrim) you will, on occasion, hit the back button in the middle of battle (possibly with a sliver of health left and an enemy sword swinging right for your soft, squishy head) and suddenly level up your character, gaining a new skill right there, right then, right when all hope seems to be lost and you have nothing else to give.
I did that. In the game on Sunday. I mean, there weren't any swords or anything (sadly), but someone on the other team had the ball and was running as fast as he could towards the goal, and he was much faster than me, and it was my fault that he had beat me, and if he scored I would never forgive myself. Desperate to reach him, I opened my chest and tightened my core muscles and suddenly put on a burst of speed I literally had no idea I had within me. Never, in my life, had I ever run this way before. It was a new skill, a new way of moving that allowed me to go faster and see more of the field and use less oxygen so that I could recover more quickly. I fucking leveled up and gained a new skill on my soccer tree in the middle of a goddamned game. And I caught that dude. And he didn't score. And for the rest of the game, every time he came down the line, I used the same skill and I ran him down like a dog.

When I started this blog, I decided to call it Skill Seeker for two reasons: 1. Level-up Live was already taken. (THANKS DOUCHE BAG!) 2. I really believe that you can measure skills and development and acquisition of skills in real life the same way you do in a video game. When you practice something over and over and over again you will get better. Usually you're just a little better over time, but every so often you get this "Aha moment," this realization that if you just change things a little bit you can do something you were never able to do before. And you level up.

The tournament was, as always, an amazing event. I got a cool injury, I got to see people I never get see, I got to play soccer with my family, I got to clear my head, and I learned to do something I've never been able to do before. It will be a year before I go back, sadly, I can't wait to do it all again.


(maybe without the broken rib)

THE END!!!

Kate Gets a Little Belligerent at a Soccer Game, Isn't Drunk

Let's face it, Internet. This world can throw a lot of bullshit at us. It's tough to keep up with all the divorce and war and sexual harassment cases you just don't feel like bringing before a court, and at times, things can get a little overwhelming. You cope however you can. Sometimes you grab drinks with your friends and bitch about the day, sometimes you turn off the news and call your family to see how they're doing, sometimes you lock the door to the bathroom and settle into the tub with a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and sometimes you tell a total stranger something along the lines of, "Fuck you, and the horse you rode on, you goddamn cocksucker."

If you're me, it's not really "along those lines" as much as very specifically those lines, and the total stranger is someone you just played soccer with. And the thing you're coping with is the fact that life just sent you one fucking asshole too many and the last one in line truly ought to be grateful that you can't throw a punch because if you could, swear to Christ, bitch, you'da just thrown down on his ass and taught him exactly how fucking funny he is. But again that's if you're me. Because that, folks, was my Sunday evening.

Things started out well. I'm playing in a soccer tournament in a few weeks, and I've been trying to improve my game in this rec league I play in with my brother. This is important fact No. 1. A "rec league" generally means a co-ed league of players who are legitimately just out to get some exercise and maybe make friends or network with coworkers or justify that trip to Coldstone. There are some really great players in rec league, but mostly it's those of us who played back in high school or college and want to continue playing without enduring the pressure and strenuous demands of a competitive league. A lot of players show up for a game with their team and then stick around to play for somebody else, because team rankings don't mean shit, and almost everybody is out to have fun.

So yesterday I tra-la-la'ed onto the field, a little worse than usual because my left quad was sore. Not really a big deal. Unfortunately, as I ran I was favoring my left leg which quickly earned me a pulled glut on my right side. I was now no longer precisely having fun, but my team needed to have a certain number of girls on the field at all times, and we were already short, so I stayed in. But during the second half I switched to goal because, hey man, if you can't run, just stand in the box and wave your arms. That's when the humiliation began. 

Now mind you, I don't like getting scored on, because who does? (Answer: no one) But it's not the end of the world when a ball goes in. Usually a score is done with class and dignity and respect. But the team we were playing did not embrace these things. To begin with, they were "sandbagging" aka joining a league way below their level of play so that they could beat up on rec teams with half their ability and feel really great about themselves. And they were hyper-aggressive and competitive. In the first half, not only did they routinely race down the field with more speed than our fastest player, but one of them also almost started a fight with my brother when he kicked the ball away as my brother was setting up a free kick. (translation: the ball was not in play at the time. My brother was just putting into the right position and someone decided, "fuck it, time to be a complete cock.")

In the second half I got stuck in one of those situations goalies absolutely hate. A guy broke away from all the defenders and barreled straight at me with the ball. I came out and slid to try to stop him, but the ball slipped through my hands and he jumped over me. Well, good for him. That's a success story for any offensive player, and one of those things goalies just have to deal with. But then, as I struggled back to my feet, I turned to see that he had not scored. Instead, he was slowly dragging the ball onto the goal line. He then got down on his hands and knees and pushed the ball into the goal with his nose, while I watched, jaw hanging open, so shocked that I had no idea what to do. 

I will take to my grave my regret that I did not kick that smarmy mother fucker right in his goddamn fucking waste of an air passage. He thought it was funny. I was so humiliated I almost couldn't finish the game. Oh, and then I got scored on some more.

So after we finished what was almost certainly the worst game of my life, I exchanged some "good games," and "nice work" with other team, and walked past the asshole on my way to get my stuff. (He had subsequently earned himself a yellow card for being fuckhead.) As he stared up at me, I had the distinct and unequivocal pleasure of uttering a phrase that so many people deserve to hear but never do, "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, you goddamn cocksucker." Honestly, I regret the "cocksucker" comment. Sexual practices don't really make good insults unless you're saying something like "date rapist" or "pedophile" or, I don't know, "Way older dude that only hits on 16-19 year olds." (Personally I think "date rapist" really needs some more mileage, and I'm going to try to use it more often.) 

Anyway, the moral of the story, kids, is that sometimes you don't realize that the joke that makes you feel good might actually be totally soul-crushing to somebody else. And if you do it to the wrong person, god knows they might be going through a rough divorce or a med adjustment and decide it's time to test drive a what its like to have a restraining order a la kicking you in your goddamn face. 

And on the other hand, guys, I know we all try every day to be good, decent human beings who forgive and move on in the face of injustice. We should keep that up. But personally I will understand if once in a while you just have to cuss some bitch out. It doesn't make the world a better place, but, you know, we're none of us perfect.

Oh, and if you're curious as to what happened next, he said, "you can't be like that!" And I said "Oh, I can!" And then he jumped up and tried to run over to me but his team mate pulled him away. What would have happened if he wasn't dissuaded from further confrontation? I'd like to believe it would have been one of the most epic football brawls in the history of all football brawls. But probably I would have just called him a "cocksucker" again, and then I'd feel bad about myself. 

Why Hawkgirl is the Coolest: a Terrifying Glimpse into Kate's Mind

Good afternoon and Happy Friday, Internet!

It's been a long while since I updated this blog. I would explain that it's because I've been terribly busy, but that would be a straight up lie. I would also say that I'm sorry, but that would also be a lie. Like, not as bad of a lie: I'm a little sorry. But I'm not that sorry. Because if I was really sorry I would have blogged earlier. And I haven't. Sooooo take that as you will.

Anyway, I've been feeling kind of separated from my nerdom lately, and it's been painful. I haven't been able to LARP in months and in fact, this weekend, will be missing a LARP once again. On top of that I've stopped playing video games because I realized that as hilarious as it is coming up with new swear words that marginally transgress outside the English language (I believe I screamed, "fuck a faigg gog cock" the other night), that extra dose of homicidal rage is not something I need in my life right now. I also haven't been interested in costuming lately, and worst of all, today I cancelled my reservation for Dragon*Con because I officially can't afford it. Essentially, life is getting in the way of my adult childhood and it fucking sucks.

BUT THAT HASN'T STOPPED ME FROM WATCHING THE SHIT OUT OF SOME JUSTICE LEAGUE RECENTLY!

I never really liked Justice League. I'm a Marvel girl. I read Marvel, I watch Marvel, and I've been in love with the X-Men since I was like 6 years old.  Wait let me do the math on that...it first came out in 1992, and I was....Yup, since I was 6 years old.
Anyway, the Justice League just never appealed to me. I didn't know any the characters, they all seemed like a bunch of goody two-shoes, and Superman just seemed like an arrogant self-righteous prick (still does, sort of). But recently my BF insisted that I check out an episode of the Justice League Unlimited on Netflix. It was about The Question, one of his all time favorite comic book characters. So I watched it. And then I watched the next episode, and the next. And I quickly discovered that Warner Brothers had done something brilliant with this early aughts T.V. show (and its predecessor Justice League). They had brought together iconic heroes and given them a new, eye-catching animated style. They choreographed good fight scenes, wrote compelling stories, and included some cute self-deprecating jokes. And every fucking episode includes at least one hilarious sex joke that goes straight over the heads of the intended audience. It's AWESOME.

But the most important thing about JLU is that it introduced me to Hawkgirl. Now, Hawkgirl is not my favorite comic book character ever. That spot is and always has been reserved for Rogue, who sits upon a throne of my childhood and adult emotions about strength, gender, friendship, and badassitude and looks down upon my ever action, letting me know that life is what it is and everything will be all right not because it will get better, but because I have the power to make it better. This post could easily be about her, but some mother fucker named Brett White has beaten me to the punch with basically the best article ever written about Why Rogue is Awesome and I just can't top him.

Anyway, so let's talk about Hawkgirl for a minute and how I want to be her.

Girl, look at dat body. Source 

Exhibit 1. Powers.

Hawkgirl has two powers: wings and a motherfucking mace. THOSE ARE THE TWO COOLEST FUCKING POWERS EVER. Like, Jesus Christ, are you seriously gonna sit here and tell me, "Well actually I'd rather have laser eyes." Fuck you, you goddamn Superman/Cyclops fan, you have no imagination and you probably like the smell of a dirty crotch. Wings and a mace are hands down the best powers ever. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to have wings. Not just to fly, but specifically to have wings and fly. It's just cooler that way. And as far as combat goes, what better way to fight is there than to straight smash your enemies in the fucking face with a spiked metal ball? Hawkgirl might also have a power of healing or toughness or something because she gets thrown into buildings and cars and shit on the reg, but that's never been made clear to me, so I'm going to guess she survives all that because she's a badass and eats rocks for breakfast. Whatever the reason, I'm ok with getting thrown into a building in exchange for superpowers, so it's cool.

Exhibit 2. Appearance

Source

Hawkgirl has green eyes and red hair. I have green eyes. I sometimes have red hair. Clearly I'm already halfway there.

Exhibit 3. Attitude

Most episodes, Hawkgirl has two abilities: beating fuckers with a mace and insulting the hell out of anyone she doesn't like (often times unintentionally). Sometimes she has two abilities: beating fuckers with a mace and getting the absolute shit kicked out her when she gets thrown into a building. Sometimes she has two abilities: beating fuckers with a mace and absolutely beating the fuck out of anything, metal or flesh, that makes the sad mistake of getting in her fucking way. With a mace. Point is, at not time is she not a straight metal badass, and that's what I aspire to be, every goddamn day of my life that I'm not going to my 9-5 job and worrying about calories and checking my bank account and stuff.

Exhibit 4. Tragic History

Every superhero has a tragedy. It's an entrance-level requirement. Hawkgirl's tragedy is that her people decided to destroy Humanity and at first she took their side, but then she was like, "oh wait, no," and took humanity's side and basically caused her people to lose this gigantic galactic war and most of them died and they won't talk to her anymore and also most of the Justice League are like, "Fuck you, Hawkgirl, even if you do have wings." So she's very lonely and confused and she's not sure what to do, and all she really can do is beat fuckers with her mace which she does, and does well, but still. It's tough.

While most people do not hate me, and I do not hit things with a mace, on a regular basis I will attempt to do the right thing and then realize it's making people upset and then try to do something else to make things better only to make other people upset and basically end up in a conundrum where I just want to hide or, in the alternative, beat fuckers with a mace. Hawkgirl is actually an alien, but her tragedy is very Human and relateble, and I totally get it.

In Conclusion

Hawkgirl is like my comic book character animal spirit guide. If I were a superhero I would be just like her. If I can't be a superhero, I still really wish I could meet and we could be best friends and have a bromance where we drink lots of beers together and then get into a bar fight on Christmas Eve. 

If I were to meet Hawkgirl, here is how I think the conversation would go.

Kate: Hawkgirl, you're so awesome! Will you please, please hang out with me?

Hawkgirl: ...Who the fuck are you?

Hopefully she would not hit me with her mace.

THE END!!!

The Cold Hard Truth* about Depression and Fitness

So true story: in the late summer of 2010 when I started going to the YMCA, I was not trying to lose weight: I had in fact, given up on the concept of "losing weight" or "looking good" or "getting into shape." Mostly I decided to hit the gym because I was suffering from strangling anxiety that kept me awake at night and irritated in the day; I was frustrated, restless, depressed, and generally...well anxious. Moving on the elliptical a few times a week gave me a chance to work out that anxiety. It didn't solve all the problems in my life that were causing me to feel so anxious (see also: nightmare job where there wasn't much I could do about my boss touching me), but something about the light cardio and weight lifting gave me a way to channel my restlessness. For that half hour or so that I spent at the gym all my problems were physical and could be overcome with sweat, grit, and determination. I think going to the gym helped me to get my life back on track. That respite, however brief, from the  ceaseless churnings and writhings of my unsettled mind allowed me to refocus, to value my health and my happiness, and eventually, to make decisions about what to do with my life.

Now let's fast forward almost 3 years to the present day. Today I feel awful. Fore the past few months I've been on a powerful combination of Lexapro and Trileptal. Lexapro, as you probably know, is a common antidepressant. Trileptal is an anti-seizure medication which is functioning for me as a mood stabilizer. It was added on top of my Lexapro dosage because the antidepressant alone was not allowing me to cope with my suicidal ideations, anxiety, and self-loathing. The drugs have helped, and I've finally reached the point where I feel happy and optimistic almost every day and actually might be a little over-exuberant about life. So recently I decided, with assistance from both my psychiatrist and therapist, to go off my Lexapro and possibly the Trileptal as well. Right now I'm beginning week 3 of taking a lowered Lexapro dosage (Trileptal dosage is the same). Next week I'll go off it all together.

Today, the withdrawal is seriously. fucking. destroying me. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. There is nothing I would rather do right now than curl up in bed with my kitty cat and hide from the world.

Covert Operations Agent Marnie specializes in combating Chores and Everything I Did Wrong Yesterday.

But instead I'm at the office, Dealing With It while I write a blog instead of doing my work.

When people list symptoms of Depression or Anxiety, often times doctors, friends, and the Internet all line up to gang bang our problems into submission with some helpful advice about eating right and exercising. These good-natured souls are completely right and also totally fucking wrong. I am absolutely 100% behind the sentiment that fitness and nutrition will help with Depression, but really, most of these people have no idea what in the living fuck they're talking about because it takes a hell of lot more than salads and an elliptical to keep the sewies (my pet term for "suicidal tendencies." I made it up just now) at bay.

Why Fitness Helps
I generally refer to the period of my life before I discovered going to the gym as "back when I was fat." At 155 pounds and 5 foot even, size 14, I wasn't precisely "fat" (though I've been called fat). My body was, for the most part, an average American body, and some people probably even found me attractive. But my mindset was fat. In my head I was a short ugly fat person who could never be beautiful or popular or respected. If I had a boyfriend it would be someone who would love me despite my fatness. I could be the funny girl or the tough girl, but never the pretty girl who stars in the movie and wins and gets the guy. I spent the vast majority of my time sitting in front of my TV playing video games and eating junk food.

Adding some gym-time to my routine was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It certainly increased my health. Along with my weight, my blood pressure has dramatically improved, and I've had way less headaches, colds, and other common ailments. Both cardio and weight training also serve as a great way to reduce stress and work out my anger and frustration in a positive, useful manner. This is difficult to articulate, but the achievements I've made, particularly in silks but also in weight lifting and endurance and other things, have helped me to value myself more. I feel good about myself and proud of my accomplishments. When I look back, I feel more like myself now that I work out than I did in my entire life before.

Why Fitness Doesn't Always Help
None of this stopped me from developing hard, solid plans to kill myself when I decided I was bad person for making mistakes and disappointing my family and it wasn't worthwhile to live anymore. I was in the Emergency Room three times over the course of the last year and admitted into a Psych ward for several days. All this when I was regularly eating salads, hanging upside down in the air, jumping over vaults, and sweating on an elliptical.
The worst part is that not only did my healthy living fail to prevent my negativity, it actually started fueling it. I was at the gym almost every single day because if I didn't go I berated myself for being a bad person. I refused to eat food I enjoyed, and when I did eat unhealthy food, instead of saying, "Well, you've earned it for working so hard," I would think, "You fucking fat stupid fuck, you'll never amount to fucking anything because you can't even stay away from a goddamn fucking cheeseburger. Go fuck yourself." My fitness achievements meant nothing and my failures were hard evidence that I would never be good enough. I thought I was fat.

I still kind of think I'm fat.

Punchline: There is No Quick-Fix
When I got out of the hospital I had to work on something that's always been hard for me: forgiving myself. It's something that I dare say is harder in fitness than it is with most things in life. In fitness, you are constantly facing challenges, and the vast majority of these challenges will not be overcome the first time you attempt them. They may not be overcome the first fifty times you attempt them. It becomes very easy to focus on all the things you still can't do rather than all things you can do now that you couldn't do when you began. that you would never be able to do if you hadn't decided to get off the couch and try this. It's agonizing. It's fucking Depressing.

Fitness. Health. Nutrition. Taking care of your body is essential not just for those of us with Depression/Anxiety, but for everyone. Whether it's just a daily walk with the dog or soccer 3 times a week, working out is an important part of maintaining your happiness.
But Jesus Christ don't ever make the mistake of believing that it's everything. There is no quick-fix to curing your Depression or finding your happiness or loving your life, so if someone tells you all you need to do is eat right and exercise tell them as politely as possible to seriously go fucking fuck themselves in a burning building. It's a day-by-day battle, and it takes everything you've got. It takes friends giving you stupid advice; it takes at least a couple of vegetables every once in a goddamn while; it takes sunlight; it takes laughing; it takes moving your body in some way that challenges you. Sometimes, I think it takes ice cream and a good hard cry.

I'm blessed with an incredibly good life. I have a wonderful boyfriend, a loving family, an apartment and a job, an adorable little kitty cat who makes hilarious mew-noises and flops on her back so I will pet her tummy, and I have a strong, healthy body that I work hard to maintain.
But I still gotta work at this Depression thing. It's tough and it's frustrating and it's not going away simply because I can hang by one knee from a trapeze. But today, despite the Lexapro withdrawal, I have a feeling everything's gonna be ok.

Coming up Next Week! Kate Goes to the Beach and Brags About It! 
Stay Tuned!!

*This Truth is not actually based on any facts and is simply my opinion.

Zombie Survival and a Video

So first and most certainly foremost, I heard my first ad for World War Z on the radio on Tuesday, and I was like,

Source

I don't want to see a single preview for it because I just want to show up at the theater with no idea what to expect and hope to have my mind blown. So here's a fun fact about me and zombies. I'm obsessed with zombies. I HATE zombies. Zombies, in my opinion, are the straight up worst case scenario because they are horrible and disgusting and sometimes their intestines are hanging out and they don't kill you, they EAT you. EAT YOU While you're still fucking alive. Now Dr. Alan Grant has taught us that we will meet a similar fate at the jagged maw of a raptor. BUT DO YOU BECOME A RAPTOR WHILE IT'S EATING YOU?! DO YOUR FRIENDS BECOME RAPTORS? If you cut off a Raptor's arm does it keep coming at you while black viscous fluid oozes from the hole in its festering body?!

The answer, my friends and Dr. Grant, is Fuck No. Raptors are seriously badass and if they were here today I hope someone would train them to be ridden, but Zombies are a thing of sheer horror and nightmare on an unfathomable level and they are the reason I lost weight. Kid you not.

There's a longer story behind all this that I really ought to write, but basically I started going to the local YMCA in the late summer of 2010. At first I tried to read Sookie Stackhouse novels while working on the elliptical, but I just didn't have the eneger to last for than about 10 or 15 minutes. But one day I realized Sookie Stackhouse is a goddamn vapid idiotic bitch, so I dropped the book and picked up World War Z instead. My world changed. Suddenly I couldn't get off the elliptical trainer because I needed to keep reading. I lifted weights and did crunches and tried to work on my boxing moves (mostly me punching a bag until my knuckles bled/I injured my wrists) because I knew that there was going to be a Zombie apocalypse and I needed to be fit and ready. I wish I was joking when I say that I started making plans for how to board up the farm and preserve supplies for an outbreak, all the while hitting the gym and eating salads so that when the inevitable happened, I wouldn't be one of the first to be eaten. 

Almost three years later I haven't completed my survival plans yet (though I have ventured into prepper territory a few times), but I've managed to keep my weight off pretty well. Thank you Max Brooks. You dedication to Zombie Awareness has made me a stronger person.

In other news, my good friend Kristin showed me this really awesome trapeze manual over the weekend. I decided to use it to practice moves I have no business working on without a spotter. True Story: I attempted a Backward Roll from Sitting and slipped, which resulted in a trapeze bar to my throat. I will not be attempting that any time soon without a professional watching me. But I also worked on moves I'm more comfortable with and capable of performing. They all need a lot of work, so I took videos of myself to see what needs improvement and also to keep track of where I am now, so that as I improve I can look back on how far I've come. My knees, ankles, and hands did not appreciate this trapeze-focused workout and have begged me never to do it again. Too bad! I'm probably gonna work on it again on Monday. 

Anyway, here's a video I made of my work! (the parts where I looked cool, anyway). I start with the trapeze stuff then review some moves on silks (again you're only see the parts where I looked nice, not all the times my knees wobbled and I looked stupid) and finally a little bit of the conditioning I worked on at the end. Hope you enjoy!!!