Go-Go Gadget Pen

I’m becoming slightly fanatic about food these days. I realized this as I was switching my minestrone soup from a plastic bowl into a glass bowl so I can use the glass in the microwave. It makes sense to me, but it still might be a little crazy.

Wait, there’s more.

I have decided to completely avoid trans fatty acids (hydrogenated oils), and high fructose corn syrup, and other over-processed foods. I don’t care what the agro-businesses have to say about how it’s natural, it tastes like shit!And just because something starts out as natural (although according to king corn, you can’t actually eat the corn that they use to make high-fructose corn syrup) doesn’t mean it can’t be poisonous. arsenic: natural, mercury: natural.

For a long time I have been avoiding purchasing these types of items, but I’ve taken it a step further. I am avoiding all foods that I can’t read their label or buy as a whole food and make myself. This means when my co-worker has a birthday, I will not eat the cake unless it’s homemade (not Betty Crocker), or from a bakery that I know does not use these ingredients. You do have to be careful because a lot of bakeries use high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. They’ll buy premixed cake powders. They don’t taste nearly as good.

This started a while ago when I became more interested in being healthy. I exercise just about every day and we cook at home most nights. Then I watched King Corn and it really hit me how horrible these chemicals are for the environment and my own health. The acres of corn are ruining our natural resources and stripping the ground of nutrients forever. One of the problems is that people want cheap food, but should food really be cheap? The more we use this cheap method, the worse off we will be.  The same person who bargain shops their food, turns around and buys several meals out a week. Why not cook better stuff at home, and eat out only on special occasions?

Who has the time to cook at home, we say. But, who doesn’t have the time? Think about it as a time investment. 5 hours a week now buys you many, many hours that wold be spent being sick later. What are we cutting out of our lives when we cook more? A few TV programs? Will they matter in 5 years?

Other problems are that we don’t want to spend money on food and we want what we want, when we want it. Maybe we should skip the new cell phone, the new outfit, the hair cut, and spend our money on food. Agro-business is making money because we are all bargain hunting food. And they are making money because no one is noticing quality anymore. They tell us that the shiny red apple tastes good. But, they’re actually mealy and gross. We want a strawberry in December, so they make it so. But why do we want that damn pale tasteless strawberry? Is it really necessary? What do you do with it anyway that makes it so important?

I’m mulling over my resolutions. They work for me, so it’s worth it for me to think of some, but the key is not taking on too many, and to formulate them in a way that I’m adding something to my life and not taking something away (chocolate..ahem). So I’m listening to the Heartless Bastards and drinking some homemade apple wine that my neighbor gave us and it brings me to my first one. I want to be feel more compassionate towards my neighbors whom I don’t have a lot in common with. Maybe I don’t care so much about the mullet guy who had a McCain/Palin sign on his lawn. He’s an ass anyway and doesn’t even say “hi” to me when I ride my bike past him on my way home from work. I’m talking about the hypothetical neighbors too. The people in my life who are in my life by no choice of my own and I need to deal with them even though I don’t understand them. It would make my life a lot easier if I just find some damn common ground. Okay, so I’ll try.

My next resolution is not so easy. I want to write more. It’s like saying to dream more or be happy. It’s something that happens. I guess I could give myself more deadlines and blog more. But, I want to start my next book. It gets me excited to think about it. I don’t want to start it because I haven’t tried to publish the first one. But maybe the first one was just to whet my pen. It needed to be written. I finished it 5 years ago and I really just realized why I needed to write it. Today I realized it because I became reacquainted with one of the main characters. But now that the cobwebs from that book have cleared my head, maybe I can write the next one. And the one that Mike and i want to write. Our egos clashed when we wrote our last article. I swore I’d never date –let alone marry– a writer, and now he is writing. I don’t remember exactly why I was under the impression that two writers together was a terrible idea. Maybe we just need to drink more. Which would be my next resolution, but that and #2 are inversely related. My next one is a typical one.

Because last year we were so good about hiking every weekend, I want a new fitness one. This time I will not only continue with hiking every damn weekend, but also include 1 day of yoga, and 2 days of weight training. It’s lame, I know, but I can’t have one about drinking more or being a terrible person. Although it probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have one about being more of a bitch.

The snow has derailed Portland. In a good way and a bad way. People are funny when their routine is shaken up.  The snow has made some friendlier and some crankier here in Portland. It’s similar to how some people like to travel because they thrive on their routine being shaken up and others need routine, requiring a certain type of vacation, one with a strict itinerary.

This is a place where snow happens year round at the mountain (at least on the glacier), but never happens in the City of Portland. When it does happen in Portland, everyone is caught off guard and unprepared. I grew up having to shovel snow every winter, but I still don’t own a snow shovel now that I live in Portland. It rarely snows and any sane person would rather their taxes go to schools than several snow plows to dig us out of being snowed in once every 5 years. So instead we venture out and use public transportation in its limited capacity. The Tri Met bus driver I met this morning was quite happy to be getting around with chains on his bus. He was laid back enough to roll with the disrupted city. He was being extra careful because his bus driver buddy was stuck for 15 hours waiting to get road assistance when he got stuck because his chains broke off.

When routine is disrupted people do out of the ordinary things. People are starting conversations on the train with strangers. They are paying attention to others and asking if they need help. They are stopping to lend a hand. Maybe it’s because suddenly we are not in any hurry and we are forced to be slow and careful with our movements from our feet to the wheels of our car. We have time to look around.

A walk from one snow route bus stop to another on 82nd avenue revealed the cranky bastard out in the snow who is just frustrated and not going to keep his mouth shut about it. I ran into two of them this morning. They are “sick of the snow” and wishing the snow would let them “at least get into the door of work” (a sex shop on 82nd). The cranky people are shoveling their driveway and swearing it’s “the last time.”

Why are some still enchanted with the snow and others just miserable? Is it something deeper? Are some people more positive and able to see the positive in a messy situation? Or maybe some of us like to wallow and bitch, while others just want to enjoy the strange, the ordinary, and the world in its entirety.