Saturday, June 12, 2010

In which my decision to home school is justified all fucking over again

Go read this right now

Huhmmmmmmm. That all sounds so familiar. Let's see, same school district that we used to be in. Same neighborhood. Same AP program. Different schools. Oppression is a system, not the result of individual bias. (Unless of course it's the same fucking teacher, in which case I will give the Mudede family every bit of my story to help them nail the district and the teacher.)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Since hunger seems to be a big topic on this blog lately

This was too awesome to simply throw into my shared items. Go read it, right now.

I am of the firm belief that you cannot have real democracy when you have any portion of the population that lives in fear. Fear of violence. Fear of hunger. Fear of imprisonment. You cannot be free and be fearful. They are incongruous. They are like toothpaste and orange juice.

It is possible to create a world where a person is worth more than what they can pay for. We have to start from the basic premise that food is a human right. Housing is a human right. Education and medical care are human rights. Without access to these things, no matter what our government or even our laws tells us, we are not free. We are not democratic when the scales of justice have the thumbs of the rich holding them down. And if nothing else, you all should see by how foggy brained I've been, how being hungry makes rational democratic choices impossible.

in case you were worried- RQ cooks lemon rice

I've been eating everyday. Ruthie mentioned in an email that it might work better if I concentrated on feeling less burdensome than on the eating thing. And she's right. I've eaten for like 5 days now because I cooked every one of the meals. If I do the work of cooking, I feel less bad about eating. I feel useful.

Tonight I made lemon rice with garlic shrimp. We'd had a shrimp ring in the freezer for ages and for less than 5 bucks we got the stuff to make everything. I also threw together a pineapple upside down cake (from a box, in a rectangular pan! It was weird. Pineapple upside cake doesn't come in a box and it gets cooked in a cast iron skillet! But it was still good). The shrimp was supposed to be my uncle's treat for their wedding anniversary, but he shared. And who knows how much longer we'll be able to eat shrimp.

Who knew the whole Lizzie is a kick ass cook thing was an anti-ED tactic?

So lemon rice. It's cheap. It's easy. It's actually Ruthie's recipe.

Make a bunch of plain rice, white or brown, doesn't matter.

In a large skillet saute a diced onion or two and a mess of chopped garlic in either olive oil or butter till onions are a wee bit brown. DON'T BURN THE GARLIC!!!!
Chop a bunch of either parsley (flat or curly) or cilantro or baby spinach. Add onions and chopped greens to warm rice. Drizzle with olive oil. Add lemon juice (and zest of you've got it) to taste. Add salt and pepper. Toss, taste, add lemon or salt as needed.

For such a seriously simple side dish, this makes everyone go YUMMO.

(The shrimp was just sauted in a shit ton of brown butter and garlic with a wee bit of salt and tossed with dried cilantro at the end. it took 5 minutes.)

Sunday, June 06, 2010

A body doesn't know the difference between a diet and starvation

This could be triggering for people with eating disorders.

5 years ago I gave up dieting forever. I went through yet another round of exercise bulimia and was walking about 8 miles a day in addition to pilates and a couple of different aerobic dance things every day. I was in constant pain from leg cramps. When I wasn't walking, I was thinking about walking.I was obsessed. I was a bit manic, though with a normal diet and daily activities I am never manic. I was eating very little. I was sleeping very little. I plateaued out after losing 30 pounds and then gained back 50 when I resumed eating about 2000 calories a day. I slowly realized how stupid the whole pursuit of perfection was.

In the last 2 months, I've lost 30 pounds. Not on purpose. It's poverty, and like billions of mothers around the world, when money got tight (okay, nearly non-existent. We are living on the generosity of family and blog friends and they have all been mucho kind) I skipped meals. At first i went from 2 meals a day to one, then somedays instead of a meal it was a snack. Some crackers. A bowl of salad. Then somedays it was nothing but ice tea and the sugar to sweeten it. I didn't want to lose weight. I just wanted to be less of a burden. I wanted to make sure there was food for everyone else.

But a funny thing happens when you starve yourself, and I am getting a very strange view of the whole dieting industrial complex from this side of it. First, not having enough calories fucks up your brain. I know that seems really, like DUH! But I was cranky about things that never make me cranky. I snapped at people. I started holding weird little grudges over imperceptible slights. The rational part of my brain was screaming "stop it!" But I didn't have the mental resources to calm the fuck down. I hid in my room a lot instead. It was better than unleashing the bitter bitch on people who have been nothing but kind to me and the kid.

I also (some of you might have noticed)lost the ability to coherently string words together. I can't go back and read most of what I wrote recently.

But wait folks, that's not all.

It's amazing how fast disordered thinking can sink back in when you aren't feeding yourself. I don't want to be thinner, or any of the euphemisms we use to convince ourselves it's not starvation but a lifestyle change. I'd feel super sanctimonious when I could go more than a day without eating, like I was pure and virtuous and good. My flatter, empty stomach was awesome. My pokier hip bones were rad. Sure I was weak and couldn't think straight and nauseous most of the time, but look how far I was willing to go!!!!!

Anyways, I've had 2 days of eating now. My brain seems to be working a bit better. I'm way less bitchy. I might be capable of writing a sentence or two. There is a little (large) voice in my head that is chastising me for being such a greedy eating pig. But I'll shut her up eventually. She's full of shit anyways.