How to Mount a Broken Heart

Its been two years and some change since my brother was killed in Afghanistan, brave soldier, hero. My dad asked the military for another copy of the medals Jason was awarded on the day he died for myself and my sister. When they arrived in the mail my heart warmed to see them. After a little while, I couldn't look at them anymore. They made me sad. The medals have sat in my spare room for months. This weekend I finally decided to mount them, a purple heart and bronze star. I didn't realize what a strange experience it would be -mounting the medals of your dead brother; a mix between a leisurely craft project and a continous series of coarse kicks in the chest, head and heart.

Step 1. Gather necessary mounting supplies.



The whole time I had this dull throbbing sensation just behind the rib cage to the left, like my actual organ the heart was being squeezed. It lasted through out the entire project with waves of overwhelming grief and pride.

Step 2. Cut black paper into 4" by 6" dimension. Place double sided wall mounting stickies on the paper in the middle.



I kept thinking about the irony. These medals are for my brother. And yet I am mounting them. He would be so goddamn proud to mount those things himself. Would he have done it this way?

Step 3. Smoosh the medal onto the stickies. Hold.



Or would he have just popped open the cases and left them on his dresser to collect dust-throwing dirty laundry on top of them. Running in and out the room from one adventure to another hardly ever giving them a second thought

Step 4. Push the medal's pin into the back of the shadow box frame.



I felt cheated and proud all at once. I felt angry at the military for putting him in the line of fire and at the same time proud that they awarded him these. His bravery earned him these and cost him his life.

Step 5. Make sure you get the award and the pin even.



And yet, I have this feeling that he is/would be so proud to have them on display. I am so proud to have them on display. How many people have purple hearts hanging in their living rooms?

Step 6. Place it in the shadow box.



So, Jas, congratulations on your awards and your courage. I never doubted you had it in you. I'll mount them for you since you can't do it yourself. I miss you every day.

Gender, Bathrooms, and Drunk Jerks

Do you remember that book from almost twenty years ago titled: There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom? It was one of the first books I ever finished cover to cover and I was 2nd grade. I remember feeling proud. Ever since I was little we were taught that boys go into the boy's room and girls go into the girl's room.

The other night I was in a crowded club and a group of friends were outside waiting for me. I wanted to hurry. I really hate making people wait. I rushed up to the bathrooms and there was one toilet marked men and one toilet marked women. The women's room was occupied and the men's room was open. A man stood outside the women's room. He looked over at me and said "I am NOT going in the men's room, but you can feel free to. I'll watch the door." So I did. To give the young effeminate man credit, the men's room was pretty gross. As I was in there I thought to myself how confusing gender can be. The line to the women's toilet was occupied by someone who was a man but preferred a cleaner restroom. Cleanliness is often attributed to a more feminine quality but it is not fair to attribute necessarily to women. Huh, wouldn't it be a great world, if all toilets instead read: Feminine/Masculine rather than Man/Woman?

After the mini-epiphany I washed my hands and heard some commotion out in the hall. Four men had come up to the line of the men's bathroom and had gotten news there was a woman in there. I could here them from inside, "What the hell is a woman doing in the men's bathroom? Man, that is fucked up!"

As I walked out of the bathroom, I came upon an onslaught of cuss words and middle fingers. "What the fuck are you doing in the men's bathroom?" "Get the fuck out of there!" "That is not your bathroom!" "Why don't you use your own bathroom!" "You're disgusting!" Four large men yelled down at me as I stood frozen in the doorway. I was speechless. Disgusted, embarrassed, confused, uncomfortable. They were clearly drunk. "Just get the hell out of the way." they said as I moved quickly past them.

This has stuck with me. It's been one week since this happened and I still can't come to peace with it. I just let it go. I walked away. I walked outside and told the friends I was with, who ironically were a group of four men as well. They shrugged it off and we walked away. What were they gonna do, go start a fight? And what could I have done? Called the police? Police! Police! Four men gave me the middle finger!

I wish I could tie this up with a nice reflective paragraph on the implications involved but instead I'll give it a Brechtian finale by leaving it unsettled and with a few questions for you all. What would have been the best response here? Just ignoring them? Does that give them the power? Should I not go in the boy's bathroom at all?

Shame, Love and Helplessness

Last night I participated in something extra ordinary. Theater, military civilian relations and dialogue are three of my greatest interests and passions. I have never seen the three worlds collide. Until last night. I went to this event called Theater of War. Here's the website in case you want to know more. For the past two years, Theater of War, run by Bryan Doerries, have been touring the Western world putting on staged readings of Greek theater. Once the reading is over, they invite those affected by war (mainly veterans) to come on stage and share their reaction to the show. Act III, they invite the audience to respond with their reactions to the show. The entire event lasted three hours, which I think was too long. However I experienced a wide range of emotion last night and was quite intrigued.

One line in the staged reading Ajax by Sophocles, Tecmessa, Ajax's wife, is describing her grief as she watches her husband go through an ancient version of PTSD. She says, "twice the pain, twice the sorrow" and in that line she is referring to herself as a dependent and the pain she experiences is twice as much as her husbands. While in some ways this is not always true, there was a much larger point here that I appreciated being brought up. "Dependents", those of us affected by war through our loved ones, often experience twice the pain and sorrow as they do. It is very sorrowful and painful to go through a difficult time, but it is even more sorrowful sometimes to witness your loved one go through pain.

Anyway, the event was well organized, well executed. The actors were top notch. And the military crowd was very well spoken.

The one thing that I missed was inclusion of the civilian community. I appreciate the discussion around dependents, however even we are a small minority in the US. When it comes to military civilian dialogue, I often wonder where the civilian community comes in. Is the civilian role only to listen and validate? There was one man who voiced his concern over the reasons for going to war and while the moderator thanked him and validated him as a "concerned civilian" that was the end of the conversation. Was there no time to address these more complex issues? In the end the experience started to feel like a military propaganda production rather than one of the real hard conversations that need to happen. What if a large part of the grief experience by veterans is because they are not able to have those hard conversations about a lack of agency that they experience, that we as civilians experience. The feeling of helplessness and lack of agency is what I feel is the strong common unitor in this pain America is experiencing.

We constantly compartmentalize politics and military and often to our own detriment. As an outsider, I feel like the whole military system is set up in a way to completely abdicate authority and responsibility. Is my only role to be a cheerleader for the veterans? Is there not a bigger issue that we all face together?

Oh To Make the Children Laugh

Gearing up. Weeks away from Separated at Birth's premiere. The process so far has been both excruciating and amazing. I was digging around online today and found this great quote from one of the father of clowning, Coco: “I tried to think of all the things I could do to make the children laugh” (Poliakoff 1941: 56)

Good advice as I continue on this journey of creating my clown for the show. I'd like to do some more in depth character development in the traditional Stanislavsky sense, but I'd also like to just think this through -all the things I can do to make the children laugh...my clown, yet to be named, commonly referred to as Intern/Young Professional lives somewhere in reality and the wild world of fantasy where the only objective in the world is to make children laugh.

What fun.

By the way, here's a link to the website for the dog and pony theater company that is putting on the show. Don't miss your connection!

Bottled Water

Gawd. It is so hard not to drink bottled water. Let's really try not to.

Two Years Ago. In Memory.

Nothing that comes out seems quite sufficient to express the pain.
To honor the memory. I like this picture because it's the most recent new picture of Jason. New pictures are like a breath of fresh air.
New stories are like a brief respite.
And there are so many layers of stories here.
Jason, the artist.
Jason, the fuck up.
Jason, the defender of freedom.
Jason, the confused young boy.
Jason, the killer.
Jason, the soldier.
Jason, the hero.

And the more stories, the more pictures, the more clear it becomes that he is not here with us.
The stories and pictures are like drugs --temporary relief to deal with the pain that my brother is gone.

And so two years with out you Jason and life moves on. As peaceful and gentle as it always has, no matter how much I fight it. The sun rises, the birds sing, the rains come and go. And I keep realizing, every day, in a new way, that you are not coming back.

I've been reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart over the past few months and realizing that this pain, this loss is not something to run from but something to embrace.

A little quote for those of you who may find comfort here.

When Things Fall Apart
"We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head …

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life.”

- Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart, pp. 71-72

Electron Boy --A Seattle Hero

When I started this blog about a year ago, I did it to highlight all the superheros in the world. The story this article tells is amazing. And what's more --it happened in my city. Seattle. It's about a little boy with cancer who got his wish to come true. He was a superhero for a day. So here is to Electron Boy. Thank you for saving Seattle.
Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day

Clowning for Peace. What's with the clown get up?

Well, this weekend was host to a myriad of protests: anti war (which I was at), then immigration and then the tea bagging nuttos freaking out about the health care bill. Which passed! Dan and I sat up late watching CSPAN as they counted the votes. Exciting!

Anyway, the protest I was at was the March to Stop the Wars. I dressed as a clown again. Just so much fun. This time my friend Alison came along. She wasn't so much into the politics but thought it would be a fun time. She really reminded me just how joyful clowning can be and just how essential the joy of clowning is to my 'mission.'

Lots of people ask, "Why the clown get up?" What's this political clowning all about? People tend to take politics very seriously --especially war. War is not a funny subject. One woman was doing a little political theater of her own at the protest and was dressed as a Muslim woman with a bloody baby in her arms. That's the kind of political theater most people expect. Big skeleton heads and such. Wringing the neck of Dick Cheney puppets. We saw all of these things at the protest.

Well, the clowning makes more sense for me because I dont see these events as protests against war but rather demonstrations for peace.

My brother died in July 2008 as a soldier in Afghanistan.

I think in the years before his death, he was exploring creative alternatives to war through film and photography. And I want to do the same in my life. For me, the creative fascination is not with film or video but with clowning. I want to honor this part of his story by exploring ways in which I feel passionate about creativity and art.

I feel strongly that peace will only come through alternative avenues of conflict resolution and the process of finding these alternative to violence requires an immense amount of creativity. When I want to resolve a conflict, my first reaction is often violent. I want to blame, I want to scream. I want to fight. And that is fine. However, it's just interesting that is the same method (to a lesser degree) that creates war. So clowning is not clowning against war but rather clowning for peace. Clowning is a reminder to laugh and forgive. To not take life so terribly serious. To be honest about our emotions and live in the present moment. Mark Twain said it best when he said, "The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that's laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardness's yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place"

(More great clowning quotes here)


So many of my pro peace friends don't show up at protests/demonstrations anymore because they think they are useless. And in many ways that's true. Many people say, "I would go if they were like the protests in the 60's when there was so much more at stake. Protests today have become so mainstream. Nothing comes of it."

But my personal opinion is that every time I show up at a protest, not only am I physically exercising my creative approach to peacebuilding, I am recharging by surrounding myself with a community who cares deeply about their voices being a part of change. Just showing up to march peacefully is a creative alternative to war. Just showing up. I go to interact with other people in my city who feel strongly about their cause and who believe in the power of community organization. I go to feel inspired by the people that are actively physically present. I go to celebrate this community. No matter how angry and confused these people may be. I go to celebrate them.

And what better way to celebrate this community than to clown for them? This time, I created peace skirts that had hundreds of little "peace fortunes" taken from Louise Diamond's Peace Book. Anyone that approached us for a picture or to say we looked great, we offered them a peace fortune. "Listen, really listen" "Create Peace Corners" "See Yourself as the Other" and on and on.


We also focused on finding the cutest boys in the protest and offering them peace fortunes. Cause I mean really, how often do you get to shamelessly hit on beautiful men and have them laugh in such embarrassment and delight. It was freaking awesome.

For me, it does little good to be angry at these protests. If anger motivates people to advocate for peace, then that is wonderful. However, what if we used these demonstrations as ways to talk about everything we've achieved and talk about strategic ways to continue to organize rather than spout anti Obama rhetoric and swear at an empty Haliburton office?

So, anyway, that's why I clown for peace.

Cauliflower Au Gratin

I think I'm scarring my boyfriend.
He has started saying, "Oh I am craving some stress foods." Or "Let's go out and get some stress foods!"
And he means like eggs and potatoes. =)

Potatoes are not always the best to cook with, high stress foods and all.
So I made Au Gratin this weekend with Cauliflower.
And it is good!

I found the recipe on Eating Well.com
Skillet Cauliflower Gratin
And you can do it vegan, quite easy too.
I used soymilk instead of regular.
But did not skimp of the cheddar.
Oh hell no.

I poured it over buckwheat since it was very creamy and rich. It serves as a sauce for a grain quite nicely.

Quinoa is Quooolll!

Well this self healing is quite the process. The entire office smells of coffee and I'm twitching. I want coffee! Haven't had coffee in a while.....

Coffee is an expanding food. It makes me expand so much that I feel like I grow wings. I guess its the caffeine. Reminds me of the Red Bull commercials. Clever marketing. Since caffeine literally does expand you. You feel like you're gonna fly..
Huh...

Foods help us expand and contract. The world runs on a cycle of growth and death. Open and close. In and out. So, it is no surprise that food will do the same. Some foods such as alcohol, coffee, sugar, fruits, and even tomato and potato are incredibly expanding. They are the foods you want to eat on a hot summer day to expand out into the sunshine.

Then on the other end of the 180 degree scale you've got contracting foods. The foods you want to eat on a cold winter day. Beef, eggs, oil. Salt. Miso, even. But like any scale, some foods expand and contract your chi/energy more than others. A big burger is going to be more contracting than a plate of eggs. And a plate of eggs will be more contracting than a bowl of miso soup.

So. You can guess the same will apply to the expanding side. Alcohol will expand you into a million tiny pieces. Coffee does a nice job of it too. So does sugar.
So our life is about balance. The balance of the happiness with the pain. The confusion with the clarity and the expanding with the contracting. So, when we eat a big burger we crave a nice shake or coke to balance us out.

If I eat a huge plate of chicken with all sorts of salt and pasta and then wake up the next morning with an uncontrollable urge for coffee or sugar, no wonder. My body is craving balance.

The problem with eating at these extremes (contracting meat and expanding sugar) is that it creates of lot of work for our body. Our body is working to balance back and forth back and forth. Imagine one of those metronomes on high. Tick tock tick tock. Rapidly flying back and forth. Its crazy hard to keep up. But if we continue to eat lots of red meat and oils, then its only natural our body will crave the sugar and alcohol. It needs to feel balance. Pretty interesting stuff, huh?

The Self Healing Cookbook is introducing new recipes that allow us to live and eat away from the edges of the scale. It's an education on the old phrase: "We are what we eat" We start to tick tock, to balance out on a more simple rhythym. You have some contracting whole grains and tofu and balance it with some expanding fruits.

So, I've been feeling great. And its definitely an adjustment as well. But rather than saying, "I'm not going to have coffee because I think it's bad for me" I say, "I'm not going to have coffee because I dont want to move too far to the edge of the scale. I dont need to expand out that far. I feel just great right here."
After a while, the chi that is generated by living in the middle begins to grow and grow. It feels great....

And in this snack saturated consumer market, its not easy. And it doesn't mean I'm not still eating sugar, meat, alcohol, oil, and dairy. I am.
But they do not make up my life. They are treats. I am living in the middle scale area and every time I choose to eat a high stress food, I do it intentionally and understanding what it is.

Anyway, the point of this post was to share a Quinoa Salad recipe my dear friend Lisa and I came up with the other night. It's good!!

Quinoa is Qool


Cup of Quinoa
Handful of chopped cashews
Handful of chopped raisans
Two green onions
Lemon Juice
Salt and Peppah.
So, for every one cup of Quinoa, you need 2.25 cups of water. Let the water boil, toast the quinoa in a seperate pan. Just roll the quinoa around on med high heat for about five to seven minutes till it gets toasted. Yummy.
Once the water boils throw the quinoa in there. Cook on low, covered for twenty.
Chop up nuts and fruit and green onion. Toss it all together.
Add salt and pepper and lemon.

The thing that turned this salad from tasty treat to heavenly was a recipe we got from the Self Healing Cookbook. It's a Tahini Dressing.
Let's see if I can remember the recipe..

3 Tblspn Tahini
1 Tblspn Olive Oil
2 Tblspn White Miso
1.5 Tblspns of Lemon Juice
1/2 cup of water
Handful of chopped basil (parsley or cilantro would work too)
Salt and pepper.

Drizzle that dressing on the Quinoa salad. omg. yum.
Top it with sprouts. Why not?

Snowy snow snowballs and ironic irony

Wooooheee. 14" at American University. SNOW. Hoooo! Haven't been to work since Thursday. Not going tomorrow either. This is craziness.
Looks like its gonna calm down a bit but its still quite windy. I've been at home. Cooking lots of good food.
Self Healing Cookbook is going strong.
Made a nice aduki bean, vegan sausage, mustard greens soup. Ate it for two days. Dan liked it too. Also made a real tasty dressing for a salad. Here's the recipe:

Yummy Creamy Vegan Dressing

4 oz of tofu
1 clove of garlic
(steam 'em for about three minutes and no more, then throw 'em in the blender)
Also put in a tblspn of sesame oil, tblspn of lemon juice, 1/3 cup of water, tblspn of light miso and four or five sprigs of parsely.
Dash o salt and pepper. Make sure you've got the sea salt stuff. It's better for you.
And whip it. Blend it. Grind it.
For just a minute.
Yummmy, creamy. Healthy dressing.
Keeping that chi in balance.

Happy snow storming.
Oh and I've just got to post our famous video.
A few friends of mine and I made this video when we were snowed in this weekend. We're working on another now. My dear girl Alison Hanold edited it and its kindof had a mini following on some DC blogs like Kojo Nnamdi, Washington City Paper and Prince of Petworth. That's no small thing. There's been like 1,500 views! Ha!
It's like raiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn on yer weddin day.

Detox

Phew.
Wow.
So, this book is really having an effect on me.
I mean, this idea --that greasy sugary food is not the answer to fixing my moods but rather the source of my mood swings, really has some leverage.
And I'm talking from a little experience now.
Now, granted, I'll be the first "work" follower to tell you its not about what you eat but what you believe about your story.
However, can't it be both?
Cause I'm finding it is.
This weekend I didn't drink any caffeine. That was tough. I had a pretty noticeable headache on Saturday but nothing compared to my typical headaches from no caffeine.
I cooked this butternut squash sauce that was real good.
Here's the recipe:
3 T Sesame seeds, roasted over medium heat until they smell toasty
Throw 'em in the blender with a T of miso paste and a cup of butternut squash. Also a dash of cinnamon. (and a smidge of water, not too much)
The result was a very tasty sauce that I put on brown rice with some collard greens. Not the most amazing flavorful meal but a nice calm tasty filling meal.

The key here is that whenever I feel hungry or craving something, I can fulfill that craving. If I want something sweet, I can. If I want something filling, I can.
It's just a matter of staying in the middle ground of food and not flying from one side of the yin yang meter.
It's really quite a simple lesson but so fascinating.
It is important however, to have occasional treats.
I think I would whither up and die if I always ate in the middle of the yin yang.
Or atleast until I become a better self healing cook.
There is a local Japanese Market on the same block as our new condo.
SWEET!
Dan and I went shopping there last night. We got a handful of cool stuff like, smoked dried squid (soup tonight!)
and Umeboshi Plums.
Those look like pretty tasty little things.

Holier than your hamburger

So, one of the things that stops me up from making the decision to eat more healthy, is the "holier than thou" complex that I perceive in a lot of my vegan, vegetarian friends. I dont want none of that.

I'm afraid of the person I'll become if I make that choice. I was watching my boyfriend polish off his possibly fifth or sixth diet coke of the day and had this, "holier than thou" moment and I caught myself. Wait a second. Why am I doing this? Is it some sort of power trip?

It's important that I make sure that's not the reason.

I read Chapter 2 in the Self Healing Cookbook last night and while I enjoyed it, it felt very "holier than thou" disguised in a "go ahead! eat whatever you want" attitude. For instance, all the recipes in the book are dairy free. That's cool. Except she talks about how dairy is okay in small doses. Small doses? What does that mean?!

However, just because she lays out vague guidelines doesn't make her self righteous. In fact, the opposite could easily be argued. The more I think about this, the more I think I'm probably projecting this one. I don't think self righteousness is a prerequisite to eating healthy. But it is something I'd like to notice and not embrace.

As with anything in life, whether it's doing homework, working out, biking to work, or even drinking beer, pre marital sex, watching TV. Any action taken, I experience some type of internal struggle to calibrate myself with society. The outcome can often result in judgement. So be it. As long as I can embrace it for what it is.
So onward.

The second issue at hand is the abstinence vs. occasional treats vs. occasional slip ups. If I really make a commitment to eat more healthy and conscious and base my diet on the recipes in this book and listen to my body more, I have to make this decision.

Do I choose:

A) ABSTINENCE. Go full force. Vow complete abstinence from all the foods the "holy book" says no to.

B) OCCASIONAL TREATS. Everytime I eat a food that falls into the "expanding" or "contracting" stress categories (more on that later), I think of it as a treat. Like a dog gets a bone. Ugh.

C) OCCASIONAL SLIP UP. Aim for abstinence but allow myself to mess up every once in a while. This is the classic vegan line, "Ya, I'm vegan but I occasionaly slip up." (please god, never let eating cheese be considered a slip up in my life, let accidentally forgetting to water the plant, or killing my goldfish by feeding it pot cookies or breaking a window from throwing my friend in it out of jest, but never never eating cheese)

So to decide:

Option C feels full of stress and the whole point of the book is to regulate moods with foods. To stop swinging from extremes of fat to sugar to fat to sugar.
The theory is that these expanding and contracting foods send us on a pendulum of mood and physical extremes.
Eating more within a "middle path" allows us to live a more balanced life.

Option B seems more realistic but its finding the right amount of treats to give myself. That's going to be tough....I'll try it for now. I don't know if I'm going to be able to treat these things as treats. They will become slip ups fast. And I foresee myself spiraling into guilt.

Option A. Hmmm, couldn't do it with sex, don't think its gonna happen with food either.

Happy Friday!
Jesus is eating a hamburger ha!
Now, who's holy?!?

Wakame

So I cooked a self healing dinner last night. Fresh miso soup with unpasteurized miso, carrots, seaweed (!), kale and onions. Chard with olive oil and sesame seeds and millet.
Millet.
Tastes like grits without the scrapple.
=)
Oh and baked, dill, sea salt, olive oil basted sweet potatoes.
The whole thing took me a little under an hour.
In my new kitchen I might add.
Which is twice as small as my old one.
Sigh.
But it's mine.
The seaweed was of the wakame version.

It was so hard at first so I had to soak it in water (per Self Healing Cookbook's recommendation.) It softened rigth up and I was able to cut it.
Anyway the meal was good!
And it felt so good to eat it.
As soon as we finished eating I ran to the bathroom....
I'll spare you the details but I think it was a truly cleansing experience.
We were both stuffed. Dan was impressed.
And I've got leftovers.
Oh and the carpet is being installed in our condo today!
That's huge!!!

By the way, searching for a picture of Wakame online I found this recipe. I want to try it tomorrow:

Simple Wakame Salad

1 clove garlic, grated
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
1/2 avocado
Bragg's to taste
3 cups greens (sunflower, buckwheat, spinach, lettuce, etc)
1 cup soaked wakame seaweek
optional: tomatoes, walnuts, pecans, almonds or pine nuts

Grate the ginger and garlic. In a small bow, mash the avocado, ginger, garlic and Bragg's together. Break greens and wakame up into bite size pieces. Toss all ingredients together thoroughly.

Thank you Living Foods for the recipe
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/wakamesalad.html

Chipotle!

My co worker came in with Chipotle.
It smells so effing good.
The cream.
The chicken.
The....oh man...
Dying......
Chipotle is self healing, isn't it?

A Self Healing Adventure

So, its been months since I've been blogging.
Took a trip to the west coast, moved out of one apartment and into a new condo.
Dan keeps calling me homeowner. "How's it going, homeowner?" That's me. A big homeowner.
One of the nasty side effects of this whole prestigious homeowner process has been living between two houses for months. We've finally got our kitchen nearly all moved in and I'm ready to start cooking for myself again!
I found a book, "The Self Healing Cookbook" on a display of bread the other night at WholeFoods and just whimsically bought it. I'm down to the last few hundred dollars in my bank account, but nevertheless I bought it.
Read the first chapter last night and I'm excited to get started. Dan has agreed to put up with dinner in a self healing style as long as when he gets to work he can order bacon egg sandwiches and diet coke all day long. I agreed.
So in the spirit of Julie and Julia and all you vegans out there, off I go.
A self healing journey.
No coffee this morning.
Black tea and soy milk in replacement of creamer.
Had a few coffee cravings this morning but got my caffeine fix so it wasn't so bad. Just the smell. Of fresh roasted folger. KSsshhhh...
The best part of waking up is....
Ahem.
For lunch I had black bean soup. It was spicy. And good.
I had to eat an hour early though cause I was hungry. I think coffee usually suppresses my appetite.
I've stocked my fridge with greens, grains, miso paste and seaweed. (These are foundational elements to the healing)
Let it begin.