I have been performing a scientific experiment–not in the interest of science but because I have no willpower. As some of you know, I started the HCG injections last week. I lost almost 10 lbs in the first 4 days! Then Beltane hit. Since it is my first Beltane I wanted to celebrate it, and since I knew of no local semi-naked, fire-orgies I decided to have my own little celebration.

I bought a big bottle of Moscato wine since I thought its summery fruitiness would be a perfect wine to recognize the coming of summer. I intended to only drink a glass and have no food in hopes of keeping the calories down. (Some of you are probably already seeing the problem with this line of reasoning).

The first thing that went wrong was my husband’s refusal to share the wine with me, thereby forcing me to drink the entire bottle by myself. As I reached the bottom of my second glass, my inhibitions went bye-bye. My thought process: “Wow, I feel grrrreat! All I lack is food. Fuck this stupid diet! I’ve lost almost 10 lbs. I think there’s some leftover tuna salad in the kitchen. It will go perfectly with some Melba toast.”

The next day I was up a pound and a half.

I wish I could say I immediately got back on the diet, but I continued to cheat for two more days until I had regained 6 lbs.

My scientific findings: HCG seems to cause a weight retention in the abdomen if the diet is not strictly adhered to. I wasn’t cheating horribly. My calories came in around 1200 on the days I cheated. But my pants were getting really tight around my stomach, which they hadn’t been before I started the diet. I also think the pounds came on a lot faster than normal.

Yesterday I stuck to the diet and only was down a pound and a half today. When I started the diet last week, I lost 4 lbs in the first day.

My theory is that I have slowed the progress of the HCG by not sticking to the diet and it will take me longer to reach my original loss.

My advice: Don’t cheat!

It has been a few months since my last posted entry regarding my experience with the HCG drops. I kept trying to get back on the wagon, but couldn’t maintain the diet. I started a Gardening class on Saturdays in which everyone would bring scrumptious snacks. I couldn’t resist them because they were usually all that kept me awake for the 8 hours of class.

I attribute my lack of ambition to a few things. I had read that the homeopathic drops didn’t contain active HCG, which stunted my faith in the  product. Then I realized that I had killed whatever trace amounts of HCG my drops contained by not refrigerating them. I picked up another vial of HCG, a different brand than I had acquired before, and kept it refrigerated. I still couldn’t bring myself to stick to the diet, however.

Since I had gone off the diet more than four months ago, I had regained about 10 of the pounds I had lost. I was desperate to get back on the diet wagon before summer because I refused to spend another summer fat and miserable. I decided to see my doctor about getting a Rx of HCG injections. She did  a complete blood workup on me and gave me the prescription.

According to my lab results, my bad cholesterol was up but so was my good. The main thing I was concerned about was my blood glucose level since the last time I had a lab done I was borderline diabetic. My glucose numbers were well within normal range!

The pharmacist refused to fill my Rx until he had sent me some information on HCG and I had read it. One of the documents was 28 pages long so I put it off till later and read another, shorter, document that discussed the results of a double-blind study of HCG. I found the information encouraging and was surprised to learn that it was used in male athletes to boost testosterone.

A 30 day supply of HCG injection (one injection a day with a tiny insulin needle) was $150.

The information I should have read in the longer document was the importance of eating to excess on the first two days of the injection. I did that the two days before I started the injections, but once I began the injection I started the diet of 500 calories. I lost 4 lbs in the first and second day. So I have dropped from 244 to 236 in two days.

Today I am feeling very light-headed and foggy and I attribute it to the fact that I didn’t begin the way I was supposed to. The article said:

“It is a fundamental mistake to put a patient on 500 Calories as soon as the injections are started, as it seems to
take about three injections before abnormally deposited fat begins to circulate and thus become available.”

There is also a possibility that other issues are contributing to my dizziness. I had an IUD placed 5 weeks ago and have had my period ever since. My lab does not say I am anemic, however. I am going in for an acupuncture treatment tomorrow and will communicate my issues to the acupuncturist.

I believe I will try to eat more protein today to see if that alleviates the dizziness.

Cipher in the Snow

It started with tragedy on a biting cold February morning.  I was driving behind the Milford Corners bus as I did most snowy mornings on my way to school.  It veered and stopped short at the hotel, which it had no business doing, and I was annoyed as I had to come to an unexpected stop.

A boy lurched out of the bus, reeled, stumbled, and collapsed on the snow bank at the curb.  The bus driver and I reached him at the same moment.  His thin, hollow face was white even against the snow.

“He’s dead,” the driver whispered. It didn’t register for a minute.  I glanced quickly at the scared young faces staring down at us from the school bus.

“A doctor!  Quick!  I’ll phone from the hotel. .  .  . ”

“No use, I tell you he’s dead. ” The driver looked down at the boy’s still form.  “He never even said he felt bad,” he muttered.  “Just tapped me on the shoulder and said, real quiet, ‘I’m sorry.  I have to get off at the hotel.’ That’s all.  Polite and apologizing like. ”

At school, the giggling, shuffling morning noise quieted as the news went down the halls.  I passed a huddle of girls.

“Who was it? Who dropped dead on the way to school?” I heard one of them half-whisper.

“Don’t know his name; some kid from Milford Corners,” was the reply.

It was like that in the faculty room and the principal’s office.

“I’d appreciate your going out to tell the parents, ” the principal told me.  “They haven’t a phone

and,  anyway,  somebody from school should go there in person.  I’ll cover your classes. ”

“Why me?” I asked.  “Wouldn’t it be better if you did it?”

“I didn’t know the boy,” the principal admitted levelly. “And,  in last year’s sophomore personalities column,  I note that you were listed as his favorite teacher.”

I drove through the snow and cold down the bad canyon road to the Evans place and thought about the boy, Cliff Evans.

His favorite teacher! I thought.  He hasn’t spoken two words to me in two years! I could see him in my mind’s eye all right,  sitting back there in the last seat in my afternoon literature class.  He came in the room by himself and left by himself.

“Cliff Evans, ” I muttered to myself,  “a boy who never talked. ” I thought a minute.  “A boy who never smiled.  I never saw him smile once.”

The big ranch kitchen was clean and warm.  I blurted out my news somehow.

Mrs.  Evans reached blindly toward a chair.  “He never said anything about bein’ ailing.”

His stepfather snorted.  “He ain’t said nothin’ about anything since I moved in here. ”

Mrs.  Evans pushed a pan to the back of the stove and began to untie her apron.

“Now hold on, ” her husband snapped.  “I got to have breakfast before I go to town.  Nothin’ we can do now anyway. If Cliff hadn’t been so dumb,  he’d have told us he didn’t feel good. ”

After school I sat in the office and stared blankly at the records spread out before me.  I was to close the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets mocked the effort. Cliff Evans, white, never legally adopted by stepfather,  five young half-brothers and sisters.  These meager strands of information and the list of D grades were all the records had to offer.

Cliff Evans had silently come in the school door in the mornings and gone out the school door in the evenings,  and that was all.  He had never belonged to a club.  He had never played on a team.  He had never held an office.  As far as I could tell he had never done one happy,  noisy kid thing.  He had never been anybody at all.

How do you go about making a boy into a zero? The grade-school records showed me.  The first and second grade teachers’ annotations read “sweet, shy child, ” “timid but eager. ” Then the third grade note had opened the attack.  Some teacher had written in a good, firm hand,  “Cliff won’t talk. Uncooperative.  Slow learner. ” The other academic sheep had followed with “dull”; “slow-witted”;  “low I. Q.” They became correct.  The boy’s I.Q.  score in the ninth grade was listed as 83.  But his I. Q. in the third grade had been 106.  The score didn’t go under 100 until the seventh grade.  Even shy, timid, sweet children have resilience.  It takes time to break them.

I stomped to the typewriter and wrote a savage report pointing out what education had done to Cliff Evans.  Slapped a copy on the principal’s desk and another in the sad, dog-eared file.  I banged the typewriter and slammed the file and crashed the door shut, but I didn’t feel much better.  A little boy kept walking after me,  a little boy with a peaked,  pale face;  a skinny body in faded jeans;  and big eyes that had looked and searched for a long time and then had become veiled.

I could guess how many times he’d been chosen last to play sides in a game, how many whispered child conversations had excluded him, how many times he hadn’t been asked. I could see and hear the faces and voices that said over and over, “You’re a nothing, Cliff Evans.” A child is a believing creature. Cliff undoubtedly believed them.

Suddenly it seemed clear to me:  When finally there was nothing left at all for Cliff Evans, he collapsed on a snow bank and went away. The doctor might list “heart failure” as the cause of death, but that wouldn’t change my mind.

We couldn’t find ten students in the school who had known Cliff well enough to attend the funeral as his friends.  So the student body officers and a committee from the junior class went as a group to the church, being politely sad.  I attended the services with them, and sat through it with a lump of cold lead in my chest and a big resolve growing through me.

I’ve never forgotten Cliff Evans nor that resolve. He has been my challenge year after year, class after class. I look for veiled eyes or bodies scrouged into a seat in an alien world.

“Look, kids,” I say silently, “I may not do anything else for you this year, but not one of you is going to come out of here a nobody. I’ll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and the school board, but I won’t have one of you coming out of here thinking himself a zero.”

Most of the time—not always, but most of the time—I’ve succeeded.

Jean Mizer

Source: Adler, Ronald B. and Russell F. Proctor, II. “Looking Out, Looking In.” Wadsworth Publishing, 2011.

I really resonated with this story because I remember being a good student until 3rd grade when the kids on my new bus began to call me names and the teacher yelled at me for refusing to speak up. Like a wraith, I went from year to year missing more school than I attended, hoping if I stayed invisible I wouldn’t have to hear people tell me how ugly I was. Happily, I had a great support system at home. But Cliff Evans didn’t.

Let us always be aware of the silent ones and be extra careful to build them up instead of tearing them down.

Grand Forks, North Dakota has been put on the viral map thanks to a review of the Olive Garden. Columnist Marilyn Hagerty writes a food column for the Grand Forks Herald called The Eatbeat. On March 7 she wrote about her observations on the new Olive Garden that had just opened up in her city of roughly 100,000 people. This short, seemingly positive, review has gone viral with almost 300,000 hits, thanks, no doubt, to The Olive Garden name.

An Olive Garden recently opened up near me and I was amazed at the anticipation people felt for this overrated restaurant. For months after it opened, the lines could be seen snaking around the building. So I really shouldn’t have been surprised that just the name could elicit such a response, but I am. This restaurant has been overrated for far too long. Ms. Hagerty concludes her column with the words: “Olive Garden has gained a following since 1982 with its ample portions and relaxed ambience. It’s known for its classic lasagna, fettuccine Alfredo and chicken Parmigiana.” (Grand Forks Herald) It’s ironic that the most humdrum choices on their menu are what they are known for. I have tried every one and they are all tasteless. The other irony hidden between the lines of her column is a total absence of comment regarding her estimation of the taste of the food. She describes the busy atmosphere, the ample portions, and crisp uniforms, but nowhere does she mention she thought the food was actually good. Comforting, yes; warm, yes; Tasty, no.

I have been forced to eat at the Olive Garden numerous times by rabid supporters who have obviously never tasted real Italian food. Every time, I have not only been disappointed by the lack of flavor in the food, but I usually leave feeling like poor white trash. Every Olive Garden I have ever set foot in gives me the feeling that the staff is pompous and condescending. I thought it was just me and my social neuroses, but when I tried the local Olive Garden after the hubbub had died down; my stepson noticed the same thing. From the moment we walked into the restaurant I felt uncomfortable. All the other diners were sitting in booths along the walls, yet the hostess wanted to seat us at a table in the center of the room. I asked for an empty booth two feet away from the table and she and the waiter acted like I had just asked for free range beef. Once we had won the battle of the table, we sat quietly at our table afraid to speak. Finally, my sixteen year old stepson says, “Is it just me, or do you get the feeling they don’t think we belong here?”

Suffice it to say, it will be a long time before I go back to an Olive Garden. Thanks to Marilyn Hagerty’s article, however, Olive Garden is getting a lot of free publicity. No doubt she will receive a gift card for a free meal or two, where she can try the raspberry lemonade, eat some more bland food, and enjoy a healthy portion of inferiority complex.

Sources:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/231419/

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/231419/

I have recently become aware of a social phenomenon that has been seen in literature, on-screen, and in my life–the walking, talking conscience. I am referring to the person who always sees the need to act as others consciences and oftentimes squeal if they feel some ‘rule’ has been broken.

I first became aware of this irksome creature while watching House. He is usually surrounded by people feeling the need to act as his moral compass–usually, they are female. About the same time, I was reading Anne Rice’s fourth book in her Vampire Chronicles. Lestat is begging Lewis to make him a vampire once again and Lewis refuses to do so on the basis of some moral obligation to himself. I started trying to pick out the other do-gooders of literature and screen: Hermione of Harry Potter, Rosalie of Twilight, Mary Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, and Jiminy Cricket of Pinocchio. These are usually not characters we love a great deal of the time. Oftentimes, they can be downright irritating. Remember when Hermione kept nagging Harry about the textbook of the Half Blood Prince? It doesn’t matter that she was right, she was standing in the way of a sweet situation…morality has a tendency to do that.

I realized this inner voice of decency was ubiquitous in literal realms and no doubt necessary to create the conflict any good plot thrives on. Then I woke up today and found someone had taken issue with something I had posted on Facebook the day before. I had linked to something that said the kids from Jersey Shore are harsh reminders as to why contraception should be legal. Near as I can tell, anybody with an intellect above that of a turnip agrees that Jersey Shore is what’s wrong with the world right now. I got a response about how they’re people too and deserve to live as much as anyone. What?! This is a middle-aged woman who has likely never seen the show. She has no idea how bad it is. Why do I? Because I watch Beavis and Butthead who are always poking fun at these obnoxiously vapid, plastic-people. (My husband wrote an interesting article for Yahoo! on this subject).

This is not the first time she has vomited her morality all over me and my wall. I noticed somebody had ‘Liked’ her comment and it was the other person who is always over-moralizing. I realized, then and there, that it is not just literature and screen who have saintly censors, but life does too. Growing up a Christian, I always marveled at the people who would run to the spiritual leaders for every slight offense performed by another. I always thought it was a need these people had to make themselves look more pious. But now I realize there are actually people out there who are profoundly affected by perceived injustices or unfair criticisms. I have seen these people get positively irate when others don’t take the same offense as they. It seems such a life would be exhausting and I wonder at their mental health.

My first thought was to block the ethical offenders so I didn’t have to put up with their constant moralizing. Then I wondered if my life didn’t need the occasional shot of virtue to remind me when I am overstepping the line. I named this blog Forsaking Restraint because I was trying to step into a place of freedom, peppered with a tad of vice. I’ve come a long way baby, and now I might just need to be reminded why civilization exists.

I have been thrust from obscurity into the glaring light of public censorship. Maybe this is a good time to point out that I wasn’t being as obscure as I hoped I was. I have a tendency to think most people don’t pay attention, or care, and this has proven to be grossly negligent on my part. This blog was originated as a means to express my frustration at having my father live with me, provide me  a platform for my unethical opinions, and get practice writing. As I experienced religious revolution I found more and more of my posts centered on the overall stupidity in Christianity. As many friends from my recent faith were aware of this blog I decided to open up a new blog all about faith. I wrote it under a pseudonym and tried to keep it from the prying eyes of those who knew me. Here is the address of that blog: www.lunaticfaith.wordpress.com.

A couple of months ago, I was talking to an old friend who still subscribes to the tenets of my old belief. She asked if it was true that I was calling myself an apostate and Wiccan. She said everyone was asking her and rumors were rampant. This proved my earlier point–I had underestimated how many people actually were paying attention. So I admitted it to her. Last week I received a visit from an elder–only one–asking me if it is true I was posting things on Facebook regarding Wicca. Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that I thought I had insured my privacy settings were set too high for any probing eyes. Once again, I was wrong. So I decided to come out of the proverbial broom closet and admit my witchy-ways. He begged me not to be so reckless and warned me of ruining my relationship with Jehovah. This surprised me. It seemed common sense that if I was becoming a witch it should be obvious that the opinion of Jehovah, or any other Christian god for that matter, doesn’t matter to me. So he asked if a couple more elders could come for a visit and share some scriptures with me. I have read the bible so many times I know it inside and out–I told him I didn’t think there was anything he could tell me that I didn’t already know and hadn’t already discounted.

Then he saw the pentacle around my neck and almost gave himself a hernia trying to get out my front door, which has a tendency to stick in winter weather. I actually laughed at him. Once he was safely on the outside of my house where no goulies or demons could get him, he turned and asked if I was in fact denying any assistance from the congregation. I said I was. Then he asked if I was determined to continue my wayward course. I said I was.

For those of you who don’t know, this means I am disfellowshipped. A public announcement is made at the next meeting and all obedient Jehovah’s Witnesses will not only stop associating with me, they will pretend I don’t exist. It’s like what happened to Ayla in Clan of the Cave  Bear when she was banished from the clan. In their minds, I am as good as dead. Initially, I was upset because I had committed the unforgivable sin. Everyone I had ever known and cared about would be grieved by my rebellious choice. By the next day, I felt incredible gratitude! I would not have taken this step on my own and it needed to be taken. I was limiting myself far too much out of fear of this exact thing. Now I have nothing to fear and I can choose to do what I want. I feel the same basic fear as I did in El Salvador when I had everything stolen from me and had nothing left to lose.

A year ago, when I left the JW’s, I felt like the world lay before me and my options were unlimited. In recent months, I have experienced a feeling of floating. I’m not sure what the next step is and it is frustrating. The day after the elder came for a visit, a door opened and now I know where my path lies. I have used the word ‘gratitude’ more in the last 10 days than I have in my entire life, and it was brought on by the very thing I was taught to fear above all else–alienation from Jehovah and his earthly organization. I had hoped the elders would call to tell me when the announcement was going to occur just so I could thank them for setting me free, but that hasn’t happened. I guess it’s possible it could happen this week, but I kind of think it was made last week.

I think my greatest regret in all this is that none of the people who I used to care for will understand why I did it. They won’t know how miserable and neurotic I was under the tyranny of the Watchtower Society. They won’t understand my study of Wicca is to regain my power as a woman after a lifetime of humiliation by men in leadership positions. They will be unaware of just how happy and empowered I feel and how they could experience the same thing if they just chose to.

I wrote a poem in recognition of this. It’s a Shakespearean sonnet and it isn’t great but it expresses my feelings:

Free At Last—a sonnet

Praying for apocalypse day and night

Calling the birds to feast upon the slain

This world and its character gone from sight

“The meek shall inherit the earth,” is their refrain.

These do not grasp the darkness of their dream

“We are God’s happy people,” they insist.

Tired, tortured eyes betray souls that scream

Rot and ruin corrupt their very midst.

“Do not question, do not doubt. Believe all!

Hide who you are out of fear of God’s wrath.”

God is not the judge—they heed their own call

Knocking all sinners who stray from the path.

Their threats are empty, their vengeance is scant

Away bondage! “Free at last,” I incant.

I am going to start the slow rebuilding today–one new item a day–and I am hoping the last two pounds will drop off on their own. I will be starting the diet over again after the first of the year, but will get on the scale every day to make sure I am not regaining. I would recommend this diet to anyone who likes fast results. One thing I did have to keep aware of was salt intake. My obsession with banana peppers kept the weight from coming off on a couple of occasions. Once I avoided eating them, though, the pounds started coming off again. Happy Holidays everyone!!

Recently my husband discovered a contributor network on Yahoo! in which aspiring writers can contribute articles and get them published through the Yahoo! network. There’s even a potential for making money. The more you publish, the more you make–providing they like your work. He has already gotten his first two sports articles published and is very excited to be the first paid writer in the house. He even changed his employment status on Facebook to reflect his new “writer” status. He has made a nickel so far. When someone is an aspiring writer, publishing credits are important. Being part of the Yahoo! network can be educational in that it teaches a writer what the general public is interested in. It also forces aspiring writers to practice their skill–and for a writer there’s nothing better than practice.

So why am I telling you this, dear reader? Because I thought, “If he can do it, I can do it.” So I went through their list of preferred themes and picked one–and got rejected. The theme was, “Traveling for the first time in a foreign country.” The title I used was the one you see above this article. I am pasting the article in here so you can give me some helpful advice as to why I may have been rejected. I think it has something to do with the overall negativity of the experience. Yahoo! might be looking for happy stories. They set a limit of 500 words so I really had to be succinct. Maybe I was too succinct to tell the story as it should be told. What do you think?

Vacation: Down the Barrel of a Gun

I wish I believed in omens. If I did then I would have fled the airport after our plane was grounded. We were buckled into our seats and about to leave Portland International when the plane rocked sideways. The captain came on to inform us someone had just run into the side of our plane and poked a hole in it. We unbuckled our seat-belts, got our belongings out of the overhead compartment, and returned to the airport.

Nine hours later we were finally en-route to Houston, with El Salvador as our final destination. We would be flying through hurricane Mitch which caused so much devastation in Latin America in 1998. After some bouncing around, though, the plane landed safely in San Salvador.

I was traveling with native Salvadorians and we were bearing gifts from our church—money orders and boxes of clothes and Bibles. As we passed through customs our bags were searched. I neglected to notice that no one else’s bags were searched.

We stepped out of the airport into a climate that was so humid moisture could be wrung from midair. My friend’s family picked us up in a pickup. We loaded the luggage into the bed and the guys climbed in back while the four of us women got into the cramped cab. As we drove from the airport to our first destination I marveled at the plethora of signs and billboards. I was just learning Spanish so I tried to interpret the messages that whizzed by.

After we had traveled about thirty miles another pickup cut in front of us and started to slow, forcing us to slow. I noticed the passenger door of the blue pickup open and a man leaned out and pointed a gun at me. I had never stared into the barrel of a gun, but I didn’t doubt for a minute he would pull the trigger.  Next thing I knew we were stopped and the men in the other truck were leaping out of their vehicle and demanding we exit ours. One of them fired his gun in the air as cars continued to whizz by on the freeway. We piled out of the car and gathered near the back of the truck with our hands over our heads. The men with guns jumped into the vehicle we had just vacated and drove off with it–our luggage, our passports, our plane tickets were all gone.

We flagged down a passing motorist who took us to a police station. The police piled into a truck and roared away after the carjackers. We never regained our stuff. It took us three weeks to get replacement passports and plane tickets. I finally demanded a passport from U.S. customs by convincing them that a six-foot redhead could not possibly be a native Salvadorian. The day I set foot in the Houston airport I nearly kissed the ground. I’ve never been so grateful to be a U.S. citizen!

One of the gals from the spa who lost 35 lbs on this diet gave me a yummy idea today: slice up an apple and sprinkle with a little water and cinnamon. Place in microwave for 2 minutes and, voila!–a mock apple pie. It’s a perfect idea for me since I seem to be going through some sort of cinnamon craze lately. I have always considered cinnamon overrated and would usually use cardamom in place of it. But recently I can’t get enough of it. I am hoping this is due to its spiritual aspects rather than the diabetic benefits. The last time  I went to the doctor I was borderline diabetic and she wanted me to come back for another test but I couldn’t afford the lab cost. I’m hoping my body isn’t craving something it needs because I have become full-on diabetic. Hopefully this diet will help.

So I am now one week down with two to go. The hunger pangs are almost non-existent. I talked to a doctor yesterday who comes to me for massage and she said a lot of her patients have tried HCG with success. She didn’t have anything negative to say about it–except that she couldn’t possibly eat only 500 calories a day. She did say the HCG hormone is typically excreted in the first trimester of pregnancy and its appetite suppressing ability was to prevent pregnant women from eating anything harmful to the developing fetus. Since it is a pregnancy hormone, it would explain why I am not starting my period. The instructions on the box said women should start the drops on the day after their period stops. I didn’t do that because I wasn’t really aware it was a pregnancy hormone. For now, I am enjoying a much-needed break from my monthly curse:)

More updates will be forthcoming as progress continues.