A blog about a city girl who wishes she had a back yard with chickens, alpacas, and bees. These are just my attempts to live my life and be as healthy, happy, and sustainable as I can.
true love is riding my salsa casserole down quiet side
streets late at night in a light rain. i ride these roads so often that my body
naturally banks the turns and sways to avoid the potholes i am so familiar with
that they are almost friends. these streets are still in a city filled with
noise and chaos. it’s a fine line and a delicate balance to the alternative,
the next block in either direction into an entirely different world.
my salsa cradles my body and is my worrier, my protector.
her steal takes the impact of the roads imperfections and i feel the
smoothness. her tires on the asphalt are a comfort to my ears. i have never
known a bike like this. i fly. i sway. i am in rhythm. i am in love.
spring rain dabs my face and wind runs his fingers through
my hair. little beads of sweat form on the small of my back under my rain coat
and i endearingly welcome them; anticipating how amazing i will feel sweat
drenched moving and stretching in the fallowing days yoga class.
scents of springtime flowers and wood burning fill my
nostrils and i yearn with every part of my being to be near a camp fire on the
oregon cost. sleeping in a tent under the starry sky.
quickly i am back to the awareness of the present and
enjoying my ride too much. it is freedom with clarity. this kind of
independence and self sufficiency comes with great self respect and love.
the quiet side streets unavoidably spit me out into
congestion. couples out for the evening, gangs of drunk men looking to chase
tail, taxies, noise, girls made up and in heels, frat looking boys, evening
runners, other cyclists… my senses are overloaded in part to the cardamom and
cinnamon spiced coffee i sipped on while having deep conversation with a true
friend. he is caring, gentle, honest, and blunt. he is a true friend.
i fly and the people on the street with their own agendas
cannot touch me so i do not judge them. before i blink my eyes again i am
around the corner of my home and my final destination for the evening. there is
slight disappointment there. the evening ride is over.
soon i am entering my space high over the city with a view
and sit and day dream on. this place has been transforming into a sanctuary and
a comfort. there, a man i adore waits for me and smiles at me, bear foot as i
enter. true love is adoration without forcefulness. my heart is happy as i lean
my salsa gently agents the wall.
the day before my birthday i volunteered at uptown café for
the first time .
this is a kosher anti-hunger program supported by jewish united fund.
this is the sort of thing i talk about doing but never actually do (usually
around thanksgiving) but this time i had resolve and fallow through. this
particular volunteer opportunity coordinated by birthright next.
they are a wonderful organization i have been trying to get
more involved with and failing miserably. i recently got excepted to go to an
weekend retreat with them, eco shabbat, and can no longer attend to due new job
training that weekend. it would have been wonderful to spend a weekend meeting
peers who are like minded and driven for sustainability. however i digress.
uptown is not set up like a food kitchen. i feel that it
shows more respect to the people that come there then that. it is restaurant
style and the clients sit at tables, there are menus, and the volunteers bring
the food. after all are served the volunteers sit and eat with the clients. the
people that come to the café are not only in need of a hot meal but positive
social interaction. some are low income, some are physically or mentally
disabled, some have phd’s, some are immigrants.
personally for me it was an extremely humbling experience.
chicago can be a cold and isolating city. we are extremely untrusting of
strangers, do not make eye contact, and always have head phones in. to be
completely honest some of the people i served i would have secured my purse if
they sat down next to me on the ‘l’. that’s just a closed minded way of
thinking but however we are somewhat conditioned that way.
it was a pleasure to sit and talk to the people at my table.
Unfortunately, i can’t go into to much detail due to the confidentially
agreement i singed. but the café and the people really made me think about the
way i interact with strangers on the street. the people at my table were good
honest people that have had a few issues and some bad luck in life. i defiantly
will volunteer there again in the near future. it will help me progress to
being a more patient, less judgmental person. a better person. isn’t that what
we are all striving for anyways?
the first thing that needed immediate attention to make my
home inhabitable again (read my bolg post a tail of two kitties) was my floor.
k, will, and i made quick work of ripping out the old fake hard wood laminate
and saved about four hundred dollars on having contractors come do it. there is a
down side, the contractors would have come and taken the flooring with them. i
soon found how hard it was to throw away any kind of construction marital in
the city of chicago. i could not simply throw it out in my condo building
without facing huge fines nor could i just take it and drop it off legally at a
city dump. i also soon found that it cost ridicules amounts of money to have it
picked up and disposed of.
luckily i have a wonderful and clever grandfather. he
suggested that we cut up all the long planks in smaller pieces and he would
drive them over to my parents house in the suburbs where it would be slowly
over time thrown away.
we spent three days cutting up all the planks of wood so
they were small enough to be carried away. this is where the saw dust started
and sweep as i may i could not get it under control.
finding and picking a new floor was quite an extensive
process for me. these are things was looking for in a floor:
sustainable material
very low or no toxic chemicals used
fair labor
would not scuff or dent easily
avoid formaldehyde at all cost ( yes most flooring the
boards are glues together using glue containing formaldehyde. scary.)
so many products available to us on the U.S market just
scare the living daylights out of me. its not only the way that the earth is
pillaged of her resources but they way people growing wood and processing it
are treated the urkes me. people don’t give much though when purchasing things
like wall to wall carpet which trap allergens and dust mites. nor do we think
of the coating on flooring gassing of and the toxic glues we are using. we are
breathing in fiber glass from the foam in our wall insulation and our flooring
underpayment. did you know that most tampons have fiber glass? give this a
thought lady’s, once again most tampons have fiber glass in them. we as human
beings should not be exposed to such things. that should be a given right. or
we should be more educated consumers and understand exactly what is in the
products we are buying. companies don’t make it easy however, do they?
i was extremely disappointed by anything i saw at home depot
and other home improvement big box stores. big surprise there. they had one
bamboo floor which they called sustainable. just to clarify: sustainable is a
very subjective word. yes it is true that bamboo is one of the fastest growing
pants and grows at two inches an hour. where as it would take most oak trees
something like 120 years to reach maturity and be used as building
martial.
for example when i found bamboo yarn for knitting i was
really excited for it was cheap and really soft. i quickly learned that
possessing bamboo into yarn is an extremely toxic process and i find it
completely unsustainable. same goes sadly for most bamboo bedding and
clothing. in fact the wonderful health green goods has this warring on their site:
Linens: Organic cotton sheets, duvet covers, shams & bed
skirts plus organic cotton towels.
We don’t carry bamboo because most manufacturers still use a lot of
chemicals when processing and dying bamboo (even certified organic bamboo
because it is only the plant that is certified organic, not the processing –
buyer beware!).
no one at home
depot knew much about this one bamboo flooring, home legend, they had and all my questions were left
unsatisfied. they did not know where and how it was grown and who and grown it.
also i was quite easily able dent it with much easy. in addition I found tones
of reviews of it online with people saying it damaged very easily.
in my continued search for flooring i came across a product
called marmoleum. i completely feel in love with the concept of it. when i this
image of the ingredients of marmoleum on tree hugger
i was sure that this might be the correct flooring for me.
the main ingredient
in linseed oil and its and extremely simple and non toxic prosses to make.
however when i saw marmoleum in person i could not imagine it being in the bulk
of my living space. if i was doing my bathroom or kitchen i would have hands down
used it, but not in my main living space. i was very saddened by this decision.
i started looking at cork flooring. some friends had just
put sustainable cork in their bed room and it looked stunning and felt great to
look walk on. unfortunately i found the cork to soft and it showed marks to
easy. i think it’s perfect for a bed room but not in a studio. im constantly
moving my bikes in and out and could have seen the floor getting damaged quite
easily.
eventually on suggestions from friends i found my way to the
green depot .
i know cheesy name but a wonderful store. there i met jenny who was delightful
and so helpful in my process for finding my perfect flooring. seriously if you
are ever going to do any green building go talk to her.
im going to have to leave it at this for now and talk to you
about my perfect flooring and my many adventures at the green depot the next
time i blog dear dear reader!
i have been an extreme procrastinator when it has come to
writing this particular blog entry. to me, all the thing i want to touch upon
and explain have seemed like a daunting task. so in order to begin i find that
the best thing to do is break this into two or more entries and just to start from the beginning.
for my sweet 16th birthday i gifted myself a
kitten. behemoth (hippopotamus is russian) i called the little black fuzz ball after the character in my
(and my mothers) favorite book the master and margarita .
he was my littly buddy and came everywhere with me including party’s.
at six months old my poor kitten drank some antifreeze and
his kidneys proceeded to fail. i am to this day unsure if he came across it on
his own of was force feed due to the fact that he is a black cat. There was a
lot in his system. my mom found him laying on the door mat in a pool of blood
and unable to move. we immediately took him to the animal hospital and over
night his condition worsened and he started to slip away form us. early in the
morning we got a hold of our regular vet and he immediately came and took
behemoth under his care. it was a miracle but somehow dr. shaperio
brought him back from the bricks of death.
almost losing him was one of the hardest things i have ever
had to go through in my life. i was overjoyed beyond words that he has made it
though and was staying with me. however the experience was extremely
traumatizing for him and he was altered. he became skittish and somewhat ornery
with a little bit of aggression and very protective of his back side. He would
claw and his hiss if you happened to pet him anywhere near his tail. He also
become somewhat afraid of his litter box. maybe if reminded him too much of how
sick he had been and he just developed a negative association with it.
while living with my parents this was not much of a problem.
for we had just cut a little kitty door for him and he could go out and in as
he pleased. it became more of a problem in my various apartments but was under
control. he lived with my parents for a while i was living in italy and once
again he regained his joy and command of the outdoors. it must have been quite a shock to him
when i moved him to my new home, a studio condo in a high rise in the middle of
the city with absolutely no
accesses to the outdoors for him.
at this time i was a full time student at columbia college chicago and working
various jobs. needless to say i was not home much and my kitty lacked attention
and companionship. he had been close with my parents late golden retriever
sunny. she passed away two years ago now and i missed her terribly.
i was dating a guy at the time that was out of town on
business trip all the time. his roommate and her boyfriend wanted to get a cat
and since we has out of town they asked me to come along. we went to kinda of
strange place called touched by an animal. i wont get to much into it but it was run by a crazy cat lady who was a nun
and wrote high school science books. this is where i meet toreno.
he was found wondering the streets not far from touched by
an animal. his family had been evicted from their apartment and he was
abandoned there. when the land lord came he found him alone in the empty
apartment and opened the door and shooed him out. the lady at touched by an
animal got wind of this and caught him wondering the streets. it was she that
named him for he was white as snow and the olympic games were taking place in
toreno italy. I found all this fitting and having just moved back from florence
myself the name stuck.
the above image was create by my dear talented friend will endelmann
i was not intending to get another cat but toreno was so
sweet and affectionate he had to come home with me.
both my boys were with me for two years until my health
slowly started to decline. my docter informed me that i had developed sever
allergies and was starting to do permanent damage to my nasal passages. i
could not spend much time within my home until i became puffy and congested. my
small studio was not large enough to contain the three of us comfortably. new
homes needed to be found for my boys. once again one of the hardest thing i
ever had to do.
toreno went to a co-worker of my moms. she has two sons and
they all welcomed toreno warmly as a member of their family. he likes loads of
attention and much doted on in his new family. they also have a groomer come
and pamper him every two weeks or so and have ample outdoor space for him to
roam. i have an open invitation to visit and am given photos of him every so
offen.
behemoth had liter box issues and aggression issues and was
much harder to place. chicago no kill shelters are so over crowded that they
only have room for strays, nor did i think his temperament could handle the
stress of shelter life. i posted many honest craigs list adds hoping to find
someone out in the suburbs with space for him to be outdoors. no such people
were found via craigs list.
my deer kind wonderful friends in the giving tree live out in yorkvill. they have some
wonderful neighbors including tom and toby. tom and toby are both vets and have
a little farm about ten min form their home. on this farm they have horses,
goats, pigs, chickens, donkeys and other wonderful animals i am currently
forgetting to mention. these kind hearted people agreed to take in my kitty and
give him a home on the farm. i could not have thought of a better outcome for
him. i am free to vist him when i am out in yorkvill and have found him
adapting to his new life.
i miss them both more then my heart can handle but i am
fully convinced that the outcome of their new living situations are better then
anything i could have hoped for. in addition i have began to regain my health
and am not as chronically ill. hopefull come of the damage that has been done
will revert.
so this is the back story of the renovations
that i have been working on in my condo. i temperately lived with k for about 4
months and owe a lot of gratitude to his roommate joe r. it as taken a lot of
time, hard work, research and planning to turn my condo back into a wonderful
home for me. i will be talking about all this in the blog entries to come. all
these remodeling are bitter sweet to me. my home is coming along just as i had
wised. however part of me feels trapped now. a lot of money has gone into it and
therefore i will not be leaving any time soon. i still daydream about k and i
having a small home in the pacific northwest where i can have a garden and a
bee hive. however i am yet young and don’t need to rush into such stability.
seasonal change is glorious and is best appreciated on it’s
own terms. each season brings it’s own joys and heartbreaks and each is unique.
over the past few weeks us Chicagoans have seen mother nature stretch out her
arms, yawn, and start to shake off her winter blanket.
yet with the resent weather here (65 on friday then a snow
storm the fallowing day) i feel that she is as unsure about the approaching
warmth as me. as far back as i can remember i have been a summer baby. oh to
run in long flowing skirts and tank tops, barefoot feeling the grass! this is
the first year in my almost twenty five years of living that i will morn the
conclusion of the winter months.
these are things i will miss:
having to take a bath everyday because it’s the best way to
warm up after running around in snow
heavy blankets
comfy sweaters
fun scarves
hats and hand knitted gloves
the twilight blue shadow on white snow
vegan hot coco
soup
boots (however will not miss wet socks and cold feet)
twinkling holiday lights
i am not ready to put away my sweaters and hang up my
scarves! i have heard many of my chicago peers complaining about what a
horrible winter we have had; what short memories they have! the last few years
k and i were forced to wear long johns all winter long. not true for this past
one. in fact there were only two times i recall thinking “man it’s freaking
cold right now!” even those were on self imposed, long unneeded walks from work
to whole foods. we had a nice tame winter with minimal slush.
due to the weather change that last souper sunday was held
this week. it was a wonderful way to get people out of their houses in the cold
months and share some good food with some good people. thanks to everyone that
made it a point to come out and make those nights so memorial for me. i enjoyed those sunday nights and am
sad to see them go, but am happy to be relived of the pressures of hostess
duties.
my thoughts turn now to the magic of spring and creation.
what surprises will she hold for us all? about two years ago k gave me a
wonderful blooming lily plant as a gift. lilies are my favorite flowers along
with daisies and daffodils. my heart broke when the buds fell and the plant
dried up and disappeared. we left the pot alone for the next winter. just letting
it sit with few waterings and the occasional positive thoughts towards it. at
the start of spring last year little green shoots popped up and stretched for
the sun. i had a new little lily plant all of my own.
well this year appear to be no different and my lilies have
started to raise form the dirt like a phoenix! springtime embodies the essence
of life and i thank her.
i believe that it is only stephen chalmers that can make such eloquent images of serial killer
dumpsites
that i would love to picnic there. i would wonder lackadaisical through these
lush landscapes as if in a dreamy movie. stephen is not lacking a sense of
humor or irony.
stephen
is an artist extraordinaire with an impeccable eye and fascinating mind. his
dumpsites is a clever blend of his training and experience as an emt, a B.S in
psychology, a B.A. in fine art photography, toped with M.F.A in cinema and
photography.
personally,
as an law and order junkie i adore this project. however, stephen helps us see
the reality and humanity of the situation by titling the prints with the names
and ages of the victims.
Stephen Chalmers, Kenneth Whitacre (40), Charles Fleming
(67), Melford Sample (uk), Donald Smith (uk), John Haluka (uk), Warren Kelley
(uk), Sigurd Beierman (uk), William Emery Kamp (uk), Clarence Hocking (uk),
James Howard (uk), Jonah Smallwood (uk), Elbert T. Riley (uk), Paul Allen (60),
Edward Martin Cupp (uk), Albert Hayes (uk), Raymond Muchache (uk), John Jackson
(uk), Lloyd Wallace Wenzel (uk), Mark Beverly Shields (uk), Sam Bonafide (aka
Joe Carriveau) and Joseph Maczak (uk), plus four John Does
2010 is looking to be a promising year for my friend. He
will have the honor to add a solo exhibition at Light Work to his already extensive resume. the show will be up from march 22nd –may 29th with
the gallery reception being held april 1st. i whole-heartedly
congratulate stephen on this great accomplishment.
you can also see more of stephen’s work in the public
collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography here in
Chicago, the Getty in l.a, the Polaroide Collection in
ma, the University of Louisville in ky as well as the Lighworks collections.
it was beyond wonderful to have so many friends come &
show their support. also my mother and father came. this meant so much to the
both of us. the were so cute and brought k flowers & a great bottle of wine. it
meant the world to me.
i am a happy proud girl.
i can't seem to help myself & need to put in this image of our vegan tiramisu cake.
shopping locally to support local farmers and small
businesses is a priority for me. you could imagine how happy i was when the
dill pickle food co-op opened
right around the corner from k’s house. it’s a community-owned grocery store
and, to me, it feels like portland, or. i do believe this is the first co-op of
its kind in chicago. please correct me if i am wrong. it’s such a cute little
store and carries a quaint selection of organic and locale goodies. to my
further delight, their produce is seasonal which I guess goes with the
territory for carrying local and organic.
for the month of march, one color is jumping off the shelves
at me. purple. purple broccoli, purple beets, and purple potatoes are in season
this month along with loots of hardy root veggies such as radishes, leeks
cabbage (also purple), and eggplant (once again purple) and mushrooms. yum.
having the dill pickle just around the corner reminds me of
living in italy. little local and fresh grocery shops are on every block. it is
wonderful to swing into the shop on your way home from work and pick your
evening meal by what is fresh.
i will certainly enjoy the month of march.
let’s all just hope i don’t turn purple.
k’s new and wonderful job is in evenston and i must admit it tickles me pink. ok so actually it brings out the high-schooler in me. evenston was the town my friends and i would go hang out in for lack of more productive things to do. it was far enough away from home (20min drive) to be exciting and yet not going all the way into the city. in fact, evenston is a pretty cute little town with lots of interesting restaurants and coffee shops and was a wonderful place to hang out in as a youngtser.
i hopped a train north to evenston after work one day last week and met k as he was getting off work. then i took him out to dinner at blind faith café. this was the first vegetarian restaurant i ever went too as a young fifteen year-old, newly vegetarian me. i have vivid recollections of reading the definitions at the bottom of their menu of tofu , seitan , and tempeh. i knew very little about these foods at this time.
needless to say, it has been years since i set a toe in blind faith. from what i remembered, the food was good but a bit on the hearty side and a little bland. how they have changed! they seem to have matured as i have and possess a bit more sophistication in their menu and flavor combos. our dinner consisted of split pea soup, roasted beat and caramelized pear salad ( both good but not mind blowing), kung Pao with baby bok coy (amazing), and peanut butter chocolate vegan cake ( double amazing!). i must apologize for the less then par quality of some of the images. k was a little embarrassed of me photographing all the food and asked that i not use a flash. i really needed a flash though and i won’t let him stop me next time!
going to blind faith got me thinking about when i became vegetarian. i was fifteen and my friend dianna carlson had a pamphlet from what must have been peta , and at that moment we decided to become vegetarians. it was such a trivial and nonchalant decision at the time and my mom was sure it was a phase that would last all of a month. It has been ten years and my decision has affected the course of the rest of my life. i am who i am and where i am today because of that little decision.
my moral, ethical, and political views and the way i live my life and the people i choose to surround myself with is all from this decision. it goes far beyond the fact that i do not eat meat or dairy products and do not wear fur or leather, affecting my entire view of the world. it affects how i treat people and everything else around me.
recently i e-mailed dianna (now living in arizona) to see if she remembered this. i was a little sad that she had no recollection of us becoming vegetarians together and is not one now. it goes to show how life’s moments can affect people so differently. things from our pasts that stick with us are funny and strange. i love dianna dearly and still consider her a dear friend and glad she was there when i made such an important change in my life.
i do not intend to make this blog an entire vegan rant, but there are a few issues i would like to touch upon. i invite further discussion from anyone that would like to have one with me.
i believe in sustainable farming practices and supporting local businesses even at a higher monetary cost. today’s american society is so far removed from the production of our food that we eat unknown items created in labs. a great movie to watch is food inc. i support the slow food movement. i like my food natural and chemical free. i also like all my body, bath, and household items this way.
i believe our current industrial farming practices are making people and the planet sick.
i am not a good american consumer. other then food, i buy very little. when needing to purchase things, do lots of research. objects need to meet certain standers for me in order to buy them… mainly vegan, organic, and fair labor; or i go to a thrift store.
i took some of my mom’s friends to karyn’s cooked one time. it was an interesting experience and opened up a lot of good dialogue. one of the ladies said to me “ so if I start thinking about the food i eat, then i have to start thinking about what’s in the air and my water too. it’s enough to drive oneself crazy!” i responded to her by saying that you start by making little changes and things start to come natural as new positive habits form.
please understand that i am not saying everyone has to live the same ways i choose to. i would just like all of us to question our habits and life styles every once in a while, think outside of ourselves and wonder if there is a more, social, environmentally, and ethically responsible alternative.
over the years my mother has been supportive of my vegitarianism and now veganisum. she has always kept soy milk in the fridge for when i come over and has been more than game to try any new vegan restaurant i suggest for lunch. she even indulges me by getting toufurky for thanksgiving. i always appreciate her support and have try not to take it for granted. however, i do not feel she understands why i eat the things i eat, or don’t, and live the way i live. they are hard things to understand. sometimes my mother feels i take things too far and stray too far from the norm. i say that i have not done so enough!
chicago is more known for slush then for light, white,
fluffy snow. i lived in syracuse, ny when i was little and remember a winter
wonderland full of sledding and snowmen. chicago snow is much too wet for a
proper snowball let alone a snowman. however, last tue evening it came down,
and was glorious, and broke a 125 year record . it came down and settled in a layer 12.5” deep.
at first, like most chicagoins, i was a bit less than
thrilled. somehow all the project runway episodes as of late got the better of
me and i made a less than sensible choice in footwear for the day. my feet
stayed dry on the walk from k’s house, all through the bus and L ride. however,
when the red line spit me out at north and clybourn the streets and side walk
were nothing but slush and puddles; huge puddles, the kind you don’t even have
a prayer of jumping over. needless to say, when i arrived at work my
non-waterproof, albeit cute boots were soaked as were my socks and tights
underneath.
the heaviest snowfall started around the time i was getting
ready to leave work. i was dreading going outside. i needed to make the 15 min
walk to my place to see if a package from mountain rose herbs
had come and then immediately got on a bus to meet k and will at the music box to see the imaginarium of doctor parnassus.
i should just add that this could be my new favorite movie of all time and
really recommend all of you run out at once and see it. no seriously. back to
the point, i was not looking forward to having wet feet the entire rest of the
evening and was quite cranky at the thought.
the way i take home is a series of side streets running
parallel to north ave and half way through the walk is a large courtyard and a
church. by the time i reached that place i was already pleasantly surprised at
the fact that i was indeed walking on light fluffy snow and not slush. my thin
soled boots made quiet and gentle imprints in the snow that were quickly coved
by a new coat leaving no trace that i had ever been that way.
standing in the courtyard the stillness hit me. normally
busy and bussing streets of joggers and people walking their dogs and toddlers
were empty. it was dusk and the tungsten lights had come on from the façade of
the church and everything was still. thom yorke’s harrowdon hill came through on my ear buds. to be quite honest, i stood there in the middle of
that courtyard motionless until the song finished and then i played it again. i
experienced a stillness that is a rare pleasure for a city dweller.
what froze me dead in me tracks was the light on the
snow. i know that photographers
are always talking about the light but it is so true. i would have made that
image just for the light but i was lacking a camera, which is, honestly, plain
stupid. i don’t remember feeling such an urge to create an image in a long,
long time and i was caught without the tools. a mistake that shall not be
repeated and a good lesson.
there are no word for the image that laid before my eyes
that evening. it brought me back to my first color photography class. i was
hardcore into b&w and wanted nothing to do with color. boy, did color blow
my mind. i learned to see light and color in ways that I feel most people
don’t. c printing was some of the most enjoyable times of my life.
thinking about this now reminds me of a conversation i had
with my father around the time I was starting to learn color. i had been explaining
to him that colors were more vibrant and saturated under and overcast sky as
opposed to direct sun. that would be the reason i would get up at five am to go
shoot. this seemed counter intuitive to my dad and he stated that he didn’t
know if he agreed with me.
at that moment it was noon and harsh light. i told my father
to look at the grass and remember what it looked like. at about five that
evening i told my father to look at the grass again. i saw his eyes light up
like a child. my father saw a glimpse of what i see and feel a lot of people
don’t notice about light. i was happy to open my dad’s eyes to something new
and share that experience with him. in addition, i think i was eighteen or
nineteen at the time, it was the first time i was able to prove my point in an
argument like that with my father. it was the first time that i had more
knowledge and understanding about what i was talking about then he did. i
remember being very proud of myself on that day. not a selfish pride and not in
an “i beat my dad” kind of way but had gained knowledge and experience within
my field and could be looked to as a credible source.
in other news:
the other day i started feeling the beginnings of a cold
starting to nip at my heels. immediately i craved miso soup. i know if that
sounds strange but do have an explanation, i swear. my mother is a nurse and by
nature an extremely nurturing person. i had a pretty weak immune system up
until i became a vegan and spent most of my childhood sick. however, my mom
would always let me have sushi when i was sick (once again before i was a
vegan) and to this day, i crave miso soup whenever ill.
