glitches

Is blogging dead? I'm not entirely certain. I know I don't have a lot of time for it any more- it's hard being gainfully employed and mom to two and just generally nutso. I really am never sure which way is up. When I started this blog, I had neither a job nor a child, let alone two. I have some friends who continue to blog through all the excitement of adulthood, but... I'm having trouble being one of those people.

But I just renewed my account at typepad. Who knows how many posts I'll fit in this year. I'll do my best.

And to update: I'm still vegan (although most of you are friends with me on facebook or twitter (@emmalola) and so you know that. I work at a university. the lentil is 6, the peanut is 3, and both are wonderful. I travel a ton for work now, so any free time I have is spent with my boys or trying to get caught up, not blogging. Sometimes I still have ideas about things that would be great blog posts, but I just haven't had the time or energy to keep it up. Maybe this year will be better?

vegan breakthrough

I'm still vegan!  I have had a few slips- some truly authentic pueblo-made tamales couldn't pass the vegan resolve, as with the delicious indian food in Berkeley.  But I consciously made the decision to eat those foods and I don't regret it.  I eat what I want, and I don't really miss the meat.  At all.  I'm sometimes put out by the lack of options in restaurants, but that's not the end of the world.  It just means I'm not eating big fancy desserts and cheesy-meaty action-packed meals.  It means I've done things like order nachos with extra beans, no cheese for lunch, which turned out to be delicious.

But today I had a real breakthrough.  In the past I've known to have some crazy cravings.  Things like chocolate, cheese, jerky.  I haven't had serious cravings for cheese since the first month, and I indulge the chocolate cravings by eating a little dark chocolate every day.  I don't even want jerky any more.  But you won't believe what I was craving today. Today all I wanted was.... 

beans.  Beans!  Who craves beans?  Me.  the happy vegan.  Beans!  And guess what?  I had tons of beans in the cupboard.  I didn't need to feel resentful for not being able to eat it, I didn't feel like I was missing something, I just went to the cupboard and opened up a jar of fancy greek beans and ate them!  And they were GOOD!  

My name is whylime, and I crave beans.

Victory Song

I have a song on my IPod that makes me tear up almost every time I hear it.  Whenever I’m feeling like I need a reality check or I need a pick-up I play it because it reminds me of what I’m doing, why I’m here, and what I can hope for some day.

In 2008 I was pretty emotionally invested in the Obama campaign.  I even volunteered for the campaign on voting day and ended up standing on a street corner with a big sign urging people to vote for him.  I went door to door canvassing to try to help people get to the polls.  I wanted Obama to win because he had a platform which I supported, but more importantly I wanted him to win because he was a bi-racial man.  I know that might sound small or naïve, but that’s where I am.  Before Richardson dropped out I wanted him to win because he is from New Mexico and he’s Latino.  That’s just how I roll.

The day after the election, Oprah had Will.i.am on her show, where he debuted his new song about the election.  The song is so raw, yet it captures the day so well.  The day after Obama was voted president.

I went to sleep last night, tired from the fight.  I’ve been fighting for tomorrow all my life.  Yeah, I woke up this morning, feeling brand new, ‘cause the dreams that I’ve been dreaming have finally come true.  It’s a new day.

I can identify with this.  I understand fighting for tomorrow, going to bed weary and waking up weary but ready to fight again.  I spend a lot of time in my career scheming my plan to continue the fight.  I fantasize about the day when I can wake up to a dream realized.

It’s been a long time coming.  Up the mountain kept running.  Songs of freedom kept humming.  Channeling Harriet Tubman, Kennedy, Lincoln, and King.  We gotta invest that dream.  It feels like we’re swimming upstream.  It feels like we’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place, we’ve been through the heartaches and lived through the darkest days….

There is such dark history in this country.  America’s past is filled with horrifying memories of darkness interspersed with brilliant flames of inspiration, goodness, and visions of a just humanity.  Whenever I hear this part of the song I’m filled with yearning for that inspiration, and I’m filled with deep and unsettling jealousy for Black Americans, because they have this history rich with powerful and influential leaders, and this history rich with resistance and small victories.

If you and I made it this far, well then, Hey! We can make it all the way.  And they said “No we can’t” and we said “Yes we can.”  Remember, it’s you and me, together.  It’s a new day.

We’ve come so far together.  In the early years of the United States, Black slaves sought refuge with American Indian tribes in the southeast and northeast.   The civil rights movement was important for all Americans, not just Black Americans.  Latinos mobilized during this time and formed important labor groups which helped change the way migrant workers were treated.  American Indians mobilized and tried to reclaim land lost to broken treaties.  In more recent history Japanese Americans were finally recognized for their struggles during the second world war, some Native peoples received justice in the form of recognition that our lives were destroyed through U.S. policies.  Sometimes the deepest and most profound gesture is that of offering an apology, and we get that occasionally, through dribs and drabs of federal policy.  But it's never enough.

It’s been a long time waiting.  Waiting for this moment.  Been a long time praying.  Praying for this moment.  We hope for this moment, and now that we own it, for life I will hold it, and I’ll never let it go.

Oh, how I want this.  I want the federal government to stand up and say “We deliberately and with much forethought did every thing we possibly could to eliminate Native peoples from this country.  And we’re deeply, terribly sorry.  We fucked up in a big way.  We created such a huge mess, it’s going to take an enormous amount of work to try to even start to fix this, and we’re dedicated to fixing the problems we created. “  I want the federal government to say, “Although we can’t bring back your grandparents and great grandparents, we want to fix things now so that your problems will not continue.  We accept our role in creating the devastating health problems, the overwhelming poverty, and the choking suicide in your adolescents, the diabetes, and unacceptable death rates in your communities.   That’s our fault, and we’re now going to do what we can to fix it.  We’re going to funnel money and resources into this problem we created so that it will never happen again.”

It’s for fathers, our brothers, our friend who fought for freedom.  Our sisters, our mothers, who did for us to be in this moment.  Stop and cherish this moment.  Stop and cherish this time.  It’s time for unity, for us and we, that’s you and me, together.

I cherish the fact that we as Americans have done something we thought impossible.  We brought together hope and history and made something good.  I do cherish this.

‘Cause we weren’t fighting for nothing.  And the soldiers weren’t fighting for nothing.  No, Martin wasn’t dreaming for nothing.  And Lincoln didn’t change it for nothing.  And children weren’t crying for nothing.

It’s a new day. 

The thing is, when I hear this song I feel like our people are fighting for nothing.  We’re fighting and dreaming and crying and things aren’t getting any better.  

I spend my days reading and writing about this incredible disparity in survival between American Indians and non-Hispanic whites.  In New Mexico more than half (55%) of Natives die from cancer, where less than a third of non-Hispanic whites will die from the disease.  Same cancers, but the differences (among others) are that Natives don’t get the health care they need to get the early diagnoses and the prompt treatment, and that Natives still see cancer as inevitably fatal, where non-Hispanic whites see it as possibly fatal but still worth going to the doctor about.  We have serious issues, and I’m fighting an uphill battle.  There are lots of us footsoldiers in this war against healthcare disparities, but for all our efforts it sure doesn’t feel like we’re getting anywhere.

I can’t wait for our new day to come.  I can’t wait to feel like our grandfathers and grandmothers endured their struggle so we could see a new day.  I can’t wait to feel anything but overwhelming despair over the problems in our people today.  We’re strong and we’ve made it this far, but will we ever be able to talk about our history as a terrible past and not part of our present?  I can’t wait until we can sing of our resistance in the form of our own victory song.

Wha? Huh?

So I know I sort of dropped off the face of the blogosphere once my month trial was up, but there wasn't a whole lot to write about.  In summary: I've continued with the vegan experience, I've been traveling with the family twice and succeeded in maintaining with only a few slips.  The most surprising vegan treat was the vegan chili I got in Florida at a tiny roadside restaurant in the everglades where they served a lot of alligator.  Not as in they would serve alligators at the bar, but that they ground up alligator and presented it in the form of gator burgers for curious tourists like us.  In fact, sweets enjoyed a gator burger, although he told me it was really just like chicken.  I didn't feel like I was missing much.

Today I observed that for the first time since this started, I've been seriously craving non-vegan food.  Not like a big steak or anything (although my friend's buffalo burger at the local brewery looked really tasty the other night), but more those things which aren't as obviously vegan unfriendly.  Like breakfast burritos.  Tofu scramble is tasty and all (and I have some in the fridge that I need to finish), but for the past few mornings I've really wanted a big potato and egg and cheese and green chile burrito.  With maybe a little bacon, just to spice things up a little.  It's hard to walk away from a breakfast burrito, and when they're good, they're amazing.  I'm not sure that eating a breakfast burrito would actually help with the craving, and I'm not sure what it is about the breakfast burrito that I want, but I know I want one. 

Actually, the whole egg thing is sort of getting me down.  I guess because we have a local source where we could get happy eggs, there's this part of me that believes that a fried egg wouldn't be the end of the world.  A tasty fried egg with some toast- oh, that sounds good.  there's no vegan analog out there to replicate the rich and deliciousness of a fried egg.  Or a soft-boiled egg.  I've been so obsessed with this, the other day I happened to see these awesome egg cups on etsy and I ended up buying two of them.  They were just too amazingly awesome to pass up.  I think I told myself I would use them for paper clips in my office.  I just like the design of egg cups, but there is a part of me which would like to have a good soft boiled egg. 

I've been reading the China Study, trying to remind myself about the evils of a non-plant-based diet.  I'm definitely getting that cow milk is bad on so many levels.  But eggs- other than the whole pre-living thing issue with eggs, I'm just not getting it.  What am I missing?  Why am I being so dense?

And why are vegans so snotty?  I've been lurking on a vegan forum but I can't bring myself to post because there seems to be so many conversational landmines regarding veganism. Can't talk about how it makes the body healthy because hey, there are fat vegans out there too.  And apparently the skinny ones want to you marvel over the fact that they can do three hours of yoga a day, not that they only eat kale and millet.  Can't talk about weight loss because that's just so imposing western ideals on our natural selves.  And I definitely can't raise the whole egg thing because then clearly I'm missing the point and need to be taken out and edumacated for awhile.  gar.

So today's post is all about being disenchanted.  But sticking with it because it still feels right, even if it drives sweets up the freaking wall already.

Oh- and I haven't lost any weight since starting.  because vegan junk food is just as tasty as non vegan junk food.

Checking in

So it's been over two months and I'm still on the vegan train.  Right now we're in Berkeley, visiting friends and family and for the first time I'm seriously contemplating knowingly straying from the vegan path.  I have mixed feelings about this.  Tonight we're planning on getting some delicious Indian food from a restaurant I used to visit when we lived here.  The food at this place is so good, I seriously daydream about it when I'm not here.  Not to be missed, so amazing, so delicious.  I have elevated this food to another level.  You'd think I would do that about Chez Panisse or one of the other fancy-pants restaurants which seem to be every other block in this town, but no.  The restaurant I would give up all my values for is a little indian restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  At least, it was in the middle of nowhere a million years ago when we lived here.  Now, I'm not sure what it is like over there.  All I know is we're going to pick up dinner there tonight and I'm sorely tempted to bag the vegan for a night so I can bask in the glory of the most amazing samosas, the aloo tikki chaat, the yummy yummy food. 

I would do it, but there are two things holding me back.  1) What does it mean to be vegan if I bag it every time I'm tempted by a delicious meal?  2) Sweets is already giving me a hard time, I don't want him to think that I'm a fair-weather vegan. 

The sweets thing is a whole other post, so all I want to say about it here is that he's not taking to this change with much enthusiasm.  In fact, he's fairly derisive about the whole thing.  This, coming from a person who was vegetarian most of his life.

But is it okay to bag it for a once-in-a-lifetime meal?  I've already said that I would not force the vegan issue when we go to tribal events in oklahoma, so obviously I'm flexible.  How strict do I have to be in order to say I'm vegan?  Is it stupid to fret this much over what will amount to a small amount of dairy (yogurt and ghee, mostly)?  Especially since I find myself eating hidden dairy all the time in breads and other wheat-based products?  Oh, blarg.

slips and starts

So i have to confess two non-vegan meals.  Actually, I got pretty sloppy while on vacation and ended up eating non-vegan chips for two days straight (they were really good and rhyme with tostitos lime flavor).  And we went out to a restaurant where there were basically no vegan options so I ordered pasta puttanesca and picked out the anchovies.  And then there was the non-vegan baguette that was good.  And last night I had Asian-inspired dumplings but stupidly didn't think of looking at the ingredients list on the egg-roll wrappers until we were out of filling to learn that there was egg in the wrappers.  The whole constant vigilance thing with a vegan diet is kind of hard to maintain, especially while on vacation. 

But now I'm back home and I'm promising to go back to whole vegan, vigilant vegan, and empowered to order off-menu items vegan.  The thing was, none of the non-vegan things even came close to scratching any sort of regular-food craving itch.  If I wanted cheese, milk on my tortilla chips wouldn't really do it.  If I wanted eggs, won ton wrappers are not the first place I'd look.  And as for anchovies?  I might as well just have carried around a salt lick.

Waffles

So on Monday of this week I suffered the worst, most horrible, incredibly painful migraine I've ever experienced.  While I had something of a prodrome all afternoon, I think my brain was holding out on me.  About five minutes after I got home from work I crawled into bed and couldn't do much more than vomit for the rest of the evening.  I tried to get up to help with dinner and bedtime but I wasn't really good for much and ended up sicker for having gotten up.  It was really bad- like my head was splitting in half, with horrible nausea, and this overwhelming ringing in my ears which wouldn't go away.  I've had bad migraines before, but nothing like that where I was so nauseous I couldn't move.  The aftereffects lasted the rest of the week- nausea, a migraine-like pain every morning upon rising, and just general neurofunkiness.  It basically took me out for most of the week.

I've had a long history of migraines, so it's not so much a surprise that I'm having migraines.  Right now I get a pretty predictable week of headaches the week after my period.  I don't take any medications for them other than a cup of coffee when I'm feeling one coming on.  I'm still trying to figure that one out- I don't want to drink coffee for too many days consecutively because I don't want to become dependent on the caffeine, thus causing more headaches.  The headache I had on Monday was the tail-end of the week of migraines, which is why i didn't really pay close attention to the prodrome during work.  I didn't want to drink more caffeine that day after 4 or 5 days of coffee, and I thought if I could just get home I'd be okay.  Not so much.  I didn't have a headache yesterday, so hopefully things are mellowing out again, although I did wake up with a headache this morning.  But the morning headaches seem to go away pretty quickly.

One thing that I keep wondering about is the cause of this headache.  Was it anticipatory stress, since I had a pretty brutal schedule this week?  Or was it a food trigger?  I've been able to isolate certain foods which are definite triggers for me, including caffeine, sour flavoring (flavors sprite and other lemon-lime treats), and others.  I used to think that MSG was a trigger, but that remains to be seen.  I've yet to identify a clear relationship between MSG and migraines.  I'm starting to think that maybe those foods I thought were triggers aren't after all, because the classic triggers don't really affect me (stinky cheeses, wines, etc.  well, I get migraines from alcohol, but I haven't noticed much of a difference between wine and liquor).

So if food and eating habits were a major component of migraines, then does that mean there's a relationship between the worst migraine of my life and my new fancy vegan diet?  Unfortunately, this is something for which more data is needed.  Does that mean I have to endure more terrible no good migraines before I can conclusively deduce that no animal products = migraine city?  Or do I need to tweak my diet to include some mysterious ingredient I'm not currently getting (B12?).  I hate the idea of inviting more migraines in, but I'm also sort of disappointed that I'm even contemplating this whole thing.

I had hoped that this was the magical cure to all my life's problems.  At first I thought my skin was better and I was losing weight like mad.  In the past two weeks, my skin has broken out horribly, I'm suffering from head woes, and my weight is just not melting off like I had hoped.  

And with the less than spectacular start of month two, I've been finding myself wondering if this isn't the right direction for me.  I need to watch Food, Inc, or something equally critical of modern agribusiness to remind me of the other reasons for taking on this lifestyle.  I'm still sticking to it, but I am getting mighty bored of the bean burrito only vegan option at all of New Mexico's delicious restaurants. 

Recovering, contemplating

I haven't been writing much lately not because I'm done blogging, but because I'm so damn busy and so completely in cogitating mode that I'm not ready to post. I'm hoping to update on this soon, so please stay tuned. All I can say right now is that I suffered the worst migraine of my life on monday, from which I'm still recovering, and I'm just processing the whole experience. Stay tuned.

Blog posted here.

Indians and Chiefs

Today I had the unfortunate experience of having to correct a colleague in the middle of a faculty meeting when he announced that he was just one of the Indians and not a chief.  He was fairly defensive.  I asked him to keep the racial descriptions to himself, or something like that.  I don't remember exactly what I said, to be truthful, because it happened so quickly.  That's always the way it happens- someone says something unattractive and I just react before I even have a chance to think it over.  I suppose it's better that way- if I stopped to think, I would probably self censor myself.  It's embarrassing to correct people from using offensive language- sometimes I wonder if it's more embarrassing to me or to them.  I feel my face get all flushed and I get worked up and incredulous that someone would say something like that.  It's just ignorant, that kind of language.  You wouldn't talk about being one chink in a nation of billions, or being one of the slaves and not one of the masters, or any other similar racial slur.  But for some reason, those native figures of speech persist in our culture, despite all logical reasons why they wouldn't be appropriate.

I think in almost every job I've ever had, I've been put in a position where I felt I needed to ask people to stop using these terms.  Lowest man on the totem pole, let's have a pow-wow, you've heard them.  The weird thing about these figures of speech is that people get really defensive when I ask them to stop.  They don't understand that the lowest figure on the totem pole is actually the one deserving of the most respect.  That a powwow is not the same thing as meeting to go over the agenda for the McMillan conference.  And that native culture is not about hierarchy where the population (the Indians) work for or follow the leaders (chiefs).  Usually when I make this sort of correction, the offending person then gets defensive and asks me (with not a little snottitude) what sort of language would I prefer they use?  Like there aren't a million ways to say these things- lowest rung on the ladder, worker bees, have a meeting, let's be creative here.  

I don't really understand why it's okay to say these things?  and why am I the one who ends up doing the correcting.  I don't like to do it, it's really uncomfortable for me.  It sets me up as someone who is in charge of correcting people's language, and that's just not appropriate.

Lessons learned

We went to a superbowl party yesterday at my grandma's house.  The woman is 97 years old and she is more into football than any of us.  It was kind of weird, her level of commitment.  Anyway, my brother did the food schlepping and he was kind enough to order me a vegan pizza.  I think I've commented about vegan pizza before- it's a lot like bruschetta, and not really worth the cost.  I will have to take back that comment.  Good vegan pizza is actually really tasty, and almost adequately scratches that pizza itch.  You can't really replace the cheesy gooey salty fatty that a slice of pepperoni pizza gives you, but a good vegan pizza fills a different, equally tasty niche.  I did discover today that the biggest problem with a cheese-less pizza is that you really have to handle it differently.  without the cheese to hold everything together, your leftover pizza lunch toppings will slide off your pizza crust, leaving you with a plastic container full of toppings and a totally naked crust.

I also made some chocolate macaroons yesterday that totally knocked my socks off.  Same for sweets- in fact he told me that I could make him that recipe for his birthday.  I found the recipe on The Post Punk Kitchen- another fantastic resource for my fellow vegans in training.  mmmmm.  tasty.

Now that the challenge is over, I'm sort of wishing I had that same structure to the content of my blog.  I liked writing about just the vegan thing, but now that I'm here, I'm worried that it's going to get kind of old kind of fast.  So I'll still be writing because I like the whole writing part, but don't always expect to read about my stomach.  I might surprise you sometime with a crazy story about mass transit.  or about my kids.  Kind of like when I used to post regularly, actually.