Kitsch and Loafing in East Memphis. Also an ode to engineering.

Saturday morning, the beau and I headed westward to Memphis, with the intention of checking out the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (the same one I passed a million times when Lindsey still lived at the Mayflower). There were no solid plans for the rest of the day, no pressing task at home to tend to. So, we loafed. The Cathedral was really something. Very pretty, very big. I didn't take any pictures, because I figured it would feel kinda tacky taking pictures inside a church, especially when people are sitting there praying. We took our time, said our prayers, met a nice priest. There was some sort of function going on for the Latino parishioners in another part of the building, and the sanctuary intermittently rumbled with the bass and voices associated with a vigorous bilingual worship service. Cool. No reason a church can't feel like it's backed up to a nightclub from time to time. Which leads us to....


.... Disco Jesus.

He's watching you. And He wants to put on His, His, His, His, His boogie shoes.

That picture isn't from the Cathedral. No, that would be from Crystal Shrine Grotto, which is where we went next. It's this gaudy, sparkly, hand-dug cave using sculpture and paintings to depict scenes from the bible. I love that we went here. It's pure Memphis kitsch, with its odd blend of muddled Christianity, humor, cheap materials, and a little magic.

We dined at India Palace (hataz keep drinkin that Hatarade!) and decided to go downtown. He had never seen the Peabody ducks being herded, so we tried to make it to the Peabody in time for that. We missed it by about five minutes, so we wandered around the lobby and gift shops, wondering why anyone would be okay with paying an extra hundred dollars for a pair of shoes just because they're in a fancy hotel lobby. (And this is the Peabody. Not The Plaza. I don't think the level of fanciness in this case really justifies excess for the sake of excess. BUT...) I then fell victim to overpriced charm myself, and bought a new coffee mug. Justification: I recently broke my favorite mug in the whole world. It was from Duke's Griddle'n Grill in Ventura, and its abscence in my life is keenly felt every day as I sip from a lesser cup. My new cup falls just a little short of its predecessor's glory, but it's better than most. We went up to the roof and took some pictures and indulged in some brief canoodling, because you just can't not canoodle a little when you're up there in the late afternoon sun and the weather is almost perfect, with just a little chill to it. Plus, there were ducks. Ducks who live in a clean little enclosure and hang out inside a little replica of the hotel.

From up high, Memphis doesn't look quite so broke and crimey. We stayed up there until we got ran out by a flock of red-shirted tourists. Adventurously (and probably stupidly), we ducked through alleys and found shortcuts to nowhere, since we weren't trying to get anywhere. Where we ended up was ambling along the riverbank, with the sun setting and the din from Beale growing. We found a nice bench to park ourselves on, and sat there for a long time. I took pictures of the fading orangey pink glow beyond the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and listened to him think aloud about the process of diverting the Wolf River and how it might be done differently now. Engineer rambling is the best rambling.

There's a reason I'm drawn to dudes of this profession, ya'll. They're artistic without knowing it, or without considering the way they think to be artistic. But what else do you call a way of thinking in which you constantly look at something and see not just what's physically there to see, but how it got there and what can be done with it? This is second nature to artsy types, and completely foreign to the millions of other people, who see things just as they are and accept them at face value without giving them a second thought. That building just is, that bridge just is, this road just is. Most people only become aware of structures and their congruence with the topography when there's work being done, and even then, only as a matter of personal inconvenience. I mean, have you ever really thought about how you would build a major bridge if someone told you that you had to do it? They don't just grow out of the ground like giant steel potatoes. They have to be designed and planned, and done so with enough confidence in accuracy and reliance on math and the laws of physics to be reasonably sure that this thing that sounds ludicrous will actually work. Once you get past the incredible part of designing it, you get to the equally incredible part of physically building the thing. This extends to everything in our lives that's factory made, every mode of transportation without hooves, every tall building that doesn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The items that are so common and standard for us now and which are produced in factories using workers who are either unskilled or low-skilled...even the mechanisms of production for those things are constantly being tweaked, and those tweaks mean that some engineer is scratching his head somewhere and drawing diagrams and mumbling formulas, to make this work on paper first and be confident enough to risk hundreds of thousands of dollars of comapany money in implementing it. Consider it the next time you notice "Now With 30% More!" on a shampoo bottle.

Whoa. Got lost there for a minute. Anyway, the point is, Memphis is a cool town and it's made that much cooler with good company.

This photo is not from this past weekend, but a couple weekends before, when we heard there would be live wrestling wrasslin' in Selmer. How could anyone possibly pass that up??

The rubber chicken is apparently a big thing. You hold it up in the air and honk it when one of the wrestlers does something cowardly. Tamara suggested that this practice be extended to every sport/discipline, and I tend to agree. Or if you could just honk it when someone near you becomes unbearably lame. Honk, honk, honk.

'After all that we've been through, I know we're cool.'

Tied up some loose ends Friday night. Talked to Michael face to face for the first time in nearly two years. It was...really good. I'm glad I saw him. Our talk answered some questions that needed answering, and not just about him. After hanging out with him, I realized how much I've grown in the last couple years. We don't share so many of the same opinions and values anymore...I don't think I could date him again. But I can be his friend, because he's still really sharp and wicked funny. Our meeting was beneficial because, one, we mended fences. Two, I realized I care more for Brett than I thought. I told him that when I told him about the night before. This has turned out to be a surprisingly productive weekend, and we've made a lot of progress. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the way I spent my Friday, but a lot of good came out of it, for both of us. I didn't feel up to making the pizza, so we gorged ourselves on sushi at Geisha (seriously, the Garland roll...mane) and went to see a play at Corinth Theatre-Arts. We didn't realize until we were paying that the play is acted by kids. It was kinda too late to back out, plus that sounded like it had potential for hilarity, so we went on in. This was a good choice. We plowed our way through a bag of Swedish Fish and giggled our way through the play. The kids were awesome, and yes, hilarious. It made me wish I could be there more for my neices and nepwhews (technically second cousins, but whatever). I haven't seen Lyndon and Avery in awhile, and I miss Anthony, Mackenzie, and Morgan.

Now, he's over at my house. After Mass, I made a simple breakfast (scrambled eggs with herbed goat cheese, bacon, and orange juice). We're on my couch, and my feet are in his lap. He's sort of absentmidedly rubbing them, while fixated on the Red Wings game on tv. Every now and then, I stop typing and look up over the top of this laptop, and he looks over at me, and there's a shared smile before I go back to clicking and clacking. That smile's better than anything I wondered might still exist for me in Collierville.

Happy, happy girl.

'There is no sickness, toil or danger, in that fairlyland to which I go.'*

About every 52 minutes or so (approximately), I think of something I want to sit down and write about. Bishops vs. mandated contraception coverage, Alcorn County's ineffective partnership with Eat Healthy Mississippi, Whitney vs crack, bangs vs. no bangs. But then I have to do homework, or fold four pieces of laundry, or feed my sadly neglected cat, or shove some odd but nutritious combination of food down my gullet and call it a meal, because it's time to head out the door again already.

But tonight.

Since I happen to have all my homework completed for the next week, my laundry is over halfway finished, and my cat is well-fed....

..... it's time to go shop in Collierville.

Just typing that makes me feel all warm and glowy. The prospect of intentionally doing something I don't have to do fills me with giddiness. I may meet up with Megan for a post-shopping snack. I may fly solo. The point is, I'm not doing a damn thing tonight that would ordinarily fall under "priority." Tomorrow morning, I'll be at the gym for BodyPump at 8:00, and I will then conquer chorse and tackle making a heart-shaped, wheat-free, dairy-free pizza for my and Brett's Valentine's.

But tonight, I ride west alone.

If you need me, I'll be at the Avenue.

*Guess who's playing at the New Daisy next month. Yeah. I know.

Pep talk.

*this evening, approximately 6:10, in the church parking lot*

Brett: What now? You wanna hang?

Me: Yeah. But I've got a lot of homework.

Brett: That's cool.

Me: ....I think I'm going to drop a course.

Brett: What??

Me: Dude, I've got some kind of class five nights a week. I'm almost having to schedule brushing my teeth.

Brett: We mostly just hung out and wasted time this weekend.

Me: I know! I could have been studying. But I need some play time, too. I need that down time.

Brett: You could manage your time better and still have down time.

Me: Wait a second. Are you...are you disappointed in me?

Brett: Yeah.

Me: *stunned fury*

Brett: Relax. I just think you're a little overwhelmed and you don't need to be. You've totally got this. You're smart enough. You're organized. We just need to make a little better use of our hang time together.

Me: So if you're sitting there watching tv and I've got my nose up my laptop and I'm barely giving you any attention, you won't be offended?

Brett: Hell, no.

Me: Really?

Brett: Really. There's no reason you can't be productive at the same time you're with me. Has it been a problem when I've brought work over to your place and knocked it out while you're doing your stuff?

Me: ...No.

Brett: Ok, then.

Me: Ok.

Brett: Just think about it.

Me: I don't need to. I'm keeping the class.

*epic, can't-breathe hug wherein my toes left the ground for a minute*

Not dropping any classes.
And not missing out on any sweetness, either.

We're better than this.

Last night, I watched Food, Inc. You might recall the name. It came out a while back and made a stir. For some reason I can't remember, I didn't watch it.

I'm glad I finally did.

I've been eating clean for a couple years now, and I've made a lot of progress. My motivation has been mostly about improving health and healing the effects of a factory diet, not just for myself but for the people around me. It's not just a hobby. It's a lifestyle, and for me, it's segued into an education in nutrition and hopefully a career as a dietitian specializing in the treatment of eating disorders. So food's kind of my thing...but I've become more focused in the nutritional values of food than the food's sources. I still buy organic when possible, but I don't sweat buying regular meat. That's not how I started out. I used to go out of my way to find the highest quality animal products that I could: species-appropriate diets and humane slaughter practices were priorities. Watching this movie last night was a wakeup call, and I realized how much I've compromised my standards.

Well, that won't do.

I seriously almost started crying about this. I've continued to research the health merits of grassfed beef, but as a product. That was the flaw in my thinking. I kinda forgot that beef=cow. Egg=chicken. Pork=pig. This isn't just about health, not by a long shot. It's about stewardship. I don't remember when I started lowering the bar, but it's been raised back up even higher than ever.

I have no qualms whatsoever eating animal products. None. I personally believe they're an important part of a natural diet, and I'll be happy to back that up. But there is nothing natural about the way animals are raised for food in this country. We like to think of happy, healthy cows when we do think of the origins of our dinner. But if that steak came from the grocery store, the reality is that it didn't come from a farm cow. It came from a diseased cow that not only never ate grass, but rarely if ever even stood on grass. Throughout its life it stood and slept in a foot-deep slurry comprised of dirt and its own excrement. It was fed corn because corn is cheap and will quickly fatten any animal that eats a lot of it (see the 66% of American adults who are overweight, or the 34% who are obese, for a shining example of this). The problem with feeding corn to cows? COWS DON'T EAT CORN. They are supposed to graze on grass, clover, alfalfa. Cow stomachs are specifically designed to digest cellulose. Corn makes them very sick. It alters the pH and the flora of their digestive system. The result is a strain of e. coli that didn't exist until concentrated animal feeding operations did. To keep this sick, manure-covered animal alive long enough to fatten it, it's pumped full of antibiotics. Then it's slaughtered in a way that often only stuns the cow (so it's still alive when the skinning starts), dismantled, and the meat is then treated with -I'm not kidding here- ammonia in hopes of killing the e. coli that is present not only in the manure that was on the cow, but in the stomach contents that end up on the equipment. Hopefully, the toxic chemicals are enough to kill the bacteria that wind up on your plate, because, no matter what, there's shit in your meat.

Disgusted? Good. You should be horrified. E. coli outbreaks and antibiotic resistance are direct bite-you-in-the-ass results of deplorable stewardship. We're even feeding corn to fish.

The good news is that you have a say as to what goes in your mouth. You don't have to eat that meat. You don't have to eat produce that's been sprayed with Monsanto pesticides (the same swell guys who gave us Agent Orange). Understand that complaining will accomplish nothing. Your money will. Your wallet is the loudest voice you have. You don't have to support these practices. You do have options. Enough people choosing another way will force the industry to adapt and hold itself to standards set by consumers. Don't let corporations tell you what you will buy and eat.

Think about it.

Woe to the shepherds who only take care of themselves! Should not the shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you did not take care of the flock! You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. -Ezekiel 34:2-4.

Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm -- which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of American farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems. -Wendell Berry

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. -Bob Dylan

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. -St. Francis of Assisi

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. -Mahatma Gandhi

There's always another point of view, a better way to do the things we do.

I'm just a human. There's so much I haven't figured out and won't ever figure out. I don't get what exactly comprises happiness, or what it is, just that it's completely real and really cool without being quantifiable.

For this girl, it comes in these forms:

• being, finally, back in school


• not apologizing for having no desire to be an accountant


• doing well at work and learning to enjoy being a necessary cog in this odd, funny, sometimes frustrating machine


• watching and feeling my body become healthier all the time


• really great sales at Maurices


• having Christmas with a man who will not only kiss me while I wear a Grinch turtleneck and reindeer antlers, but will do so while wearing antlers himself


• spending New Year's with said man: we went to the movies (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), he got me a laptop for school, and we rang in the new year cuddled up at his house and watching Coming to America


• giving up caffeine (mostly) and nicotine (totally)


• relatedly, sleeping like a sedated ground sloth


• the gorgeous neon orange yolk of a fresh farm egg

So, a third of the way through January, and no post-Christmas blues. I'm not sure when I would have time to be or stay blue, anyway. Everything is so fast-paced these days. I have class three nights a week, plus one night devoted to an online course (and homework), and the one night I don't have school, I have RCIA. This schedule requires me to workout in the morning, and I'm actually not bitching about that at all. I loooooove waking early, putting up my hair, and going for a run before the sun's up. It puts a better sense of structure on the whole day. Saturdays are for laundry and homework. Saturday night is my free night. And Sunday, my hip is usually attached to Brett's hip. He's working nights for a big installation throughout January, and Sundays are the only day we can really hang. Mass, brunch, and then being boo'd up on the couch, giggling and chuckling and braying, and occasionally watching whatever's on the screen...usually football or Tosh.0, because we're 11 year old boys. Or anything by David Fincher, because he's kinda the man. Discussions regarding spring break have begun. There will be a vacation. Oh, yes. There will be a vacation.

In Transit.

Sorry for the total lack of posting lately. Actually, I'm in the process of moving all this over to Wordpress and getting a side blog going. I've been talking about a food blog for months, and it's finally coming. It'll be entirely dedicated to applying clean eating to special diets and particular health concerns; allergies/sensitivities, diabetes, hypertension, hypo/hyperactive thyroid, anemia, etc. I'm not a doctor, so the information is not intended to "cure," per se. Just to give people struggling with these issues the best chance at treatment, as far as food can cover. I'll be posting specific menus designed for different needs, as well as recipes and narration of kitchen adventures.

Like making cheese without milk. WHICH REALLY HAPPENED.