Patia Stephens :: Missoula, Montana

Taking baby steps to better health

I'm feeling very proud of myself -- I renewed my gym membership today.

I'd let it lapse last semester, when my credits dropped below full-time and I was no longer required to pay the student recreation fee. I was too busy (I told myself) and had hardly gone at all over the previous year or two. But now I have no excuses -- I'm done with school, the gym is MUCH less crowded during the summer, and as a staff member, it's only 21 bucks a month.

Three years of grad school, work, stress eating, junk food, fatigue and little exercise have left me in the worst shape of my life. I refuse to loathe myself for it -- I do not buy into the societal bullshit that says I'm worthless because I'm fat. Nor do I believe fat is automatically unhealthy or unattractive. I long ago retired my sick little fantasies of becoming model-thin, and frankly, I don't care if I ever see size 10 again.

However, I don't feel good in my body right now. A few years and not all that many pounds ago, I at least felt strong and reasonably capable, if not exactly fit. But now even mild exertion leaves me breathless, sweating and sore. Not to mention the fact that approaching the big Four-Oh makes me increasingly aware that cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure are within the realm of possibility.

I'll admit it: I desperately want to lose some weight.

Please -- don't leave me comments containing well-intentioned diet advice. Believe me, I've heard it ALL before. I'm not stupid. And nothing pisses me off faster than listening to people who have never had a weight problem -- or who think 20 pounds is a problem -- pontificate on how easy it is to lose weight if only you blah blah blah ....

This is an issue I've been trying to deal with for pretty much my entire life. I keep thinking that one day I'll figure it out. Actually, I think I have figured parts of it out. I've learned, for example -- after visits to two different dietitians who told me the same thing -- that I don't eat enough in the daytime. Truly, I am often revolted by the thought of breakfast, and when I'm busy in the middle of the day, I actually resent my body's need for fuel. I used to frequently go all day without eating a thing. (And then wonder why I binged at night!) Now I work hard at eating regularly, and consequently rarely binge anymore. I still make bad choices, though. Pasta, nachos, fried foods ....

I've done well on a few of my New Year's resolutions (I graduated, blogged less, kept flowers in the house and quit drinking Diet Coke!), not so well on others. I'm still trying to get off simple carbs -- sugar, white flour, potatoes -- having been convinced by numerous books that these set off addictive processes in the body.

One of these books, "The Truth About Beauty" by Kat James, has become almost a bible for me. Kat says (and I believe her) that, "It's impossible to predict the day your demon will let go, but it will if you continue to shed the layers of issues that feed it." Also: "By correcting your mood, food, and hormonal issues, you'll find your body will want to move."

Goddess, I hope so.

In the meantime, I will celebrate every small victory -- and walking in the door of that gym today was one of them.

Bumperstickers du jour

These four stickers I saw today pretty much sum up Missoula:

Happiness is a belt-fed weapon

~ On a medium-sized Ford truck

Dancing with me is dancing with death

~ On a vintage Geo Metro (I eventually figured
out some characters were missing -- it must've
originally said "Dancing with meth ....)

Environmentalists do it for future generations

~ On a mountain bike parked at the Good Food Store

Goddess Bless Us

~ On the helmet of a motorcyclist

Dixon roses

I just noticed I have uploaded exactly 1,000 photos to Flickr.

Site stats are creepy

I don't look at my site statistics very often, maybe once every couple of months. They freak me out. They leave me with more questions than answers. Like:

If my site gets an average of 799 page requests a day, why do only one or two of y'all leave a comment?
Who ARE you people?
Why do you all want to know about me?
Why are two of my top 10 referring sites filled with Asian characters and completely unreadable to me?
Littersweep Ultra? Is this how I'm going to be remembered?
Big she? Huh?
Montana barbies? Why? Why?
Foot worship? Oh, dear.

Search Query Report

1. patia stephens 251
2. patia 165
3. littersweep ultra 164
4. litter sweep ultra 161
5. big she 161
6. missoula graffiti 105
7. montana barbie 89
8. littersweep 82
9. 3col_leftnav.css 59
10. littersweep review 56
11. montana 46
12. random questions 45
13. melancholy genius and insanity in the western world 44
14. foot worship 39
15. montana barbies 30

Afternoon delight

It was a crazy amazing day. I went for a drive -- north to Dixon and Camas Prairie, then over to Plains, Paradise, St. Regis and Superior. Spring, spring everywhere. Everything so green. Got caught in two deluges -- raging first-rate downpours. Wisps of clouds hung low in river valleys against snow-tipped mountain backdrops, punctuated by blasts of sudden sunshine around the next bend.

Found gorgeous Joseph's Coat roses against a wonderfully defunct building in Dixon. Saw brilliant purple patches of something -- anyone know what? -- flowering between Perma and Camas Prairie. (Sorry, no pictures; I never quite found the perfect pullout.) Saw numerous frisking calves and a herd of black and white-banded cattle -- odd, they looked like pigs -- and the gray-spattered Appaloosa of my dreams.

Had a patty melt at the busy Circle diner in Plains. Much excitement and squealing children there, as apparently there was a rodeo about to start. Pulled up at the Grainry Gallery -- a multi-vendor antique and crafts shop in an old grain elevator -- just as the proprietor was leaving. She insisted on reopening for me, and what do you know, I found the perfect new purse, made by a local artist.

Remembered what Montana is like outside Missoula -- by turns beautiful and desolate and coarse and growing. Cluttered trailers rusting into the earth, cozy timber homes nestled among trees, old farmhouses surrounded by fields. Boxy manufactured homes perched on hillsides, McMansions plopped down on riverbanks. Even a teepee or two back in the woods.

Wondered what my home will look like, where it will be. Planned and plotted and dreamed. Worried about all the what-ifs. Felt guilty for my desires, my need to consume and occupy. Forced my attention back to the positive, time and time again. Made mental notes -- something like this, nothing like that. Hoped for a place at peace with its surroundings, a home with a bit of magic and love to it.

Tried, finally, to let it all go, to trust that the right place will be there, waiting for me, at precisely the right time.

Dream home sweet home

Something wonderful happened this week. I can't talk about it just yet, but soon. If all goes as planned, I will begin house-hunting by the end of summer. I've already started packing.

~

Questions:

If you own a home, what's your best piece of home-buying advice?
If you don't own a home, what one feature must your dream home have?

Not in the mood to post ...

Enjoy these photos instead. Bigger versions in my "I Love Old Trucks" set.

Slogan du jour

If you lived in your body, you'd be home by now.

Seen in the comments of a blog I can't remember (sorry!).

Another one ...

Because I still can't quite get over the fact that I really did it!

Mmm, dinner

Morel sausage. Fresh morel mushrooms. Real baby carrots. Bok choy. Green onions. Garlic chives. Whole-wheat penne rigate. Romano cheese. Olive oil.

All but the noodles, cheese and olive oil came from the farmer's market this morning. The guy who sold me the sausage swore, "No noses, hoses, toeses or roses."

I love summer in Missoula.

Live news conference: Grow Montana

I'm live blogging at a news conference at The University of Montana. Gov. Brian Schweitzer is here to sign a bill that will make it easier for Montana institutions to buy Montana food.

Fascinating fact: In 1950, 70 percent of the food Montanans ate was raised in Montana. Today it's barely 10 percent.

This bill, SB 328, plans to change that.

Update: I posted the above from my Palm Treo 650, mostly just to see if I could. I had previously used it to upload photos to Flickr and to blog text, but never blogged a photo. It worked, hooray!

The food products shown are less than half of what was on display. There were also beautiful hams, wines, beer and more. UM's Farm to College Program is really cool, and it's great to see enthusiasm for local foods catching on elsewhere.

After the news conference, UM Dining Services served up burgers with a yummy Flathead cherry barbecue sauce, along with several desserts. Among them was the most amazing Dixon melon sorbet. Luscious.

Breathe

Thank goodness it wasn't a real disaster

Yesterday I participated in a multi-agency disaster drill on campus. I was one of about eight victims made up with moulage to simulate injuries from a mock terrorist blast. Pretty hideous-looking, huh?

Frankly, it's a good thing they had this drill. Things did not go very smoothly. In fact, if this had been the real deal, I think I would have died a few times over.

The EMTs failed to find me on the scene. (I was just around the corner from the "blast site," pretending to be dazed and confused with blown eardrums, etc.) Nor did they find two of my "walking wounded" coworkers wandering the building.

The guys in charge finally told me to exit the building and walk past the paramedics feigning coughing. They didn't notice.

I drove myself to the hospital, where I was told to hang out in the waiting room with other "victims" for around 20 minutes. They weren't ready for us.

Then we were told to go wait in the ambulance bay while they struggled to set up the decontamination tent. Another 40 minutes or so. Meanwhile, two ambulances waited with "victims" transported from the scene.

When I was finally triaged, the woman assessing my "injuries" told the guy with the clipboard to mark me down as a yellow. He did, but put a green wristband on me.

The best part was, we got a free lunch in the hospital cafeteria. The lemon meringue pie was excellent.

My faith was somewhat restored this morning when I attended the debriefing meeting. Several dozen representatives of the participating agencies -- police, fire, hospitals, 911 dispatch, health department -- were on hand and clearly aware that improvement was needed. They gave reports, offered up both criticism and self-criticism, and discussed ways to improve.

Let's hope we never get put to the test.

To boldly go ...

Leonard Nimoy, of Star Trek fame, has been taking pictures for a while now of big, beautiful, nude women -- without apology, without shame -- for what he calls the "Full Body Project."

The New York Times today ran an article about Nimoy's project, whose photographs are featured in a gallery exhibit and an upcoming book.

A few quotes from the article, "Girth and Nudity, a Pictorial Mission":

They are fleshy and proud, celebrating their girth, reveling in it. It is, Mr. Nimoy says, a direct response to the pressure women face to conform to a Size 2.

"And the cruelest part of it is that these women are being told, 'You don't look right.'"

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

I can't wait to see this movie! I've been using Dr. Bronner's since forever. (Growing up in Santa Cruz, it's kind of obligatory.) There's three flavors in my shower right now -- lavender (my fave), tea tree and peppermint.

Ahhhhhhhh ...

It feels so good to be done with school. Well, I still have a few technicalities to take care of -- turn in a hard copy of my thesis and a few forms; await final grades and my diploma -- but for the most part I'm done.

FYI, speaking of grades -- I could have worn an honor cord -- my GPA thus far is 3.89, but I was advised that master's students don't usually wear them. However, I did see some. (Not that grades really matter in the grand scheme.)

Commencement was fun. It was exciting to go through all the pomp and circumstance, and imagine myself, in my cap and gown and hood, as part of a tradition -- the Academy -- going back to classical Greece.

The MFA is considered a terminal degree. We artists and writers don't go on to get doctorates. Having come to view education as a luxury, I find myself a little sad that my formal education is over. But I don't intend to ever stop learning.

My friend Korla took me to lunch yesterday after the ceremony, and I told her that if I had it all to do over, I'd become a forensic psychologist. I think I'd be a good one, because I like thinking about what makes people tick. Or maybe I've just watched too many episodes of "Profiler" and "Law and Order."

I came home afterward and thought I ought to have a celebratory drink -- I still have bottles in the cupboard from my BA festivities seven years ago! -- but instead read and talked on the phone and went to bed early.

Gloomy skies today thwarted my plans to lie under a tree and read, so I read a few chapters before conking out again. Is there anything lovelier than a five-hour Sunday afternoon nap?

Of course, I'll be up all night now.

My inbox has 52 email messages awaiting my response or other action. Ugh. It's not that I'm that popular or anything, it's just that I haven't answered email properly since early April.

Well. I've been a little busy.

Also, my satellite Internet modem has barely functioned for the last week or two. I borrowed a ladder from my landlords and finally got all the chokecherry branches trimmed today, but then heavy cloud cover thwarted the satellite dish until this evening.

So, technically, I could answer email now. But I think I'll go watch a movie instead.

I've earned it!

Commencement '07

Sista Big Bones

Via Big Fat Deal.

In the mood for some cute?

Flickr put this Kittens Slideshow together to demonstrate their new slideshow features.

Prepare to be "awwwwwed."

5 Reasons I'm Not Emailing/Blogging Much Right Now

Two words: thesis revision.
My satellite Internet service has been spotty at best lately, due to exploding leafage. (Anyone have a ladder or a chainsaw I could borrow?)
Busy cleaning up cat puke and dead playthings brought in through the pet door.
Spending every spare moment trying to figure out how to wear my master's hood.
Angst and depression about what to do with the rest of my life now that I have two degrees and massive student loan debt.

5 Things I Do Not Understand Nor Care To Understand

Paris Hilton
American Idol
Dancing with the Stars
Pointy-toed high heels
Trendy handbags

I'm going!

A little bit of heaven

The truth hurts ... but dishonesty hurts worse

In the deserts
of the heart
let the healing
fountains start.

~W.H. Auden

I gave a reading Wednesday night in defense of my master's thesis in creative writing. Thirty people or so filled a beautiful old room in Jeannette Rankin Hall, and my mentor and committee chair Judy Blunt gave a wonderful, if somewhat embarrassing introduction, and then I read for about 20 minutes from the first chapter of what I hope will someday be a book.

There. I said it.

I'm writing a book, a memoir, about unraveling and healing the legacy of family dysfunction. Chapter 1 starts with my arrival in October 1983 at a therapeutic boarding school in Montana and ends a month and a half later with my father's suicide.

The first chapter concludes:

My father and I were a lot alike. Both sensitive, only children, we learned early to bottle up our feelings, to mask our pain with rock-like seriousness or wayward humor. But when he died, I had to face the fact that what killed him could get me, too. The model I'd based my entire psyche on for 15 years had self-destructed. One and a half months into my therapeutic boarding school adventure at Spring Creek, I was in the perfect place to learn the lesson.

The reading went great -- apparently I channeled my terror into energy, because everyone said I didn't seem nervous at all -- and the party afterwards at Judy's house was wonderful. I was so honored by the support and encouragement of my friends, classmates, colleagues and professors. (I "came out" as a former bad girl, and the world didn't end!)

In the Q&A that followed my reading, I spoke about honesty -- how vital it is, and how difficult. There is a saying in therapy circles that whatever you push down tends to come out sideways. And so, my stomach's been upset for two weeks, I've developed mild nervous tics in my eyes, my insomnia has gone from bad to worse. It hasn't gotten better since the reading. I've spent the past four days indulging my addictions of choice -- mindless eating, sleeping and web-surfing -- as I struggled with how, or whether, to tell my truth to the larger world. To my family. To you.

I finally realized tonight that honesty was the only way. Because the real issue isn't whether others will disapprove of me, it's whether I will disapprove of me. Do I believe in myself and my story? Will I approve of myself even when others don't? I am by no means perfect; I am still very much a work in progress. Can I accept that?

Can I love myself as I am even as I struggle to grow and change, as I burst forth like a chrysalis in spring, like pale blossoms against a blue, blue sky?

But they didn't even ask about my goat leggings

How evil are you?

Via Big Mike.

Rainbow over Mount Jumbo

Playing catch-up

Spent most of today napping after a very hectic, stressful, but wonderful couple of days. Lots of catching up to do on blogging, answering email and phone calls, so please bear with me until I get things sorted out.

Librarians are novel lovers

I am way too busy and so tired ... this will be short.

Check out "Montana Book Babes" -- the 2008 calendar of the Montana Library Association. Apparently it features 12 librarians baring all, a la the Calendar Girls, to raise money for state libraries.

Hey, I'll buy one. A while back, I had a little crush on a librarian. Alas, my interest was not reciprocated, but still ... I wonder if he's in it?

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