The Tar Heels & Georgetown

For once, I am going to blog about sports! For the most part, Friday and Saturday's games struck me as pretty similar with roughly a ten-point lead following one team to a less-than-shocking win. The upset was yesterday, when UNC lost their 10-point lead to Georgetown in the last 5-10 minutes of the game. During overtime they completely unraveled. Georgetown was such a cohesive team in those last minutes, that I couldn't deny that they deserved to win. Every time they were at the basket, they found the shot. UNC couldn't do squat. I never saw so many missed shots. And they were going nowhere when they were at their end of the court. Georgetown was all over defense and offense. UNC turned into little girls.

So, I rooted for UNC, but Georgetown totally impressed me in the end. I have no clue what caused such a fall-apart for The Tar Heels. I sure would be cryin' if I were them!

Spring Break

I'm a teacher, so I still get Spring Break!

But first, thanks to all of you who commented on my last blog. It was a plethora of comments when compared to the usual.

I spent Wed-Sun in Chicago at my sister's place with my nephew Kyler, my sister, brother-in-law, Mom & Dad and the extended family (in that order). My parents and relatives were only there on Sunday for Kyler's baptism. My sister was stressing most of the week about the baptism and thankfully it all went off without a hitch. Kyler managed to fart at the exact moment the priest was anointing his head with oil. My sister almost went into a fit of giggles right there, but she's Mommy now, so she pulled it together. We had plenty of time for laughing fits earlier in the week anyway. :)

So most of my trip was about Kyler, and me being Mommy's helper. The name "Mommy" is really starting to stick in my brain, and I find myself referring to my sister as Mommy instead of her actual name. This was funny, because when the relatives were all over there were a few comments like, "Don't let your mother see that!" Of course, Kyler's too little to get in trouble, but "your mother" and "mommy" are loaded words. They indicate power and it's my sister who's got it now! That's pretty cool. She also showed me how to trick Kyler into opening his mouth when he gets bored with eating and I said, "Hey! You're really good at that!" and she said, "That's because I'm THE MOM!"

And she is a great mom and I am really proud of her and really in love with my nephew.

I also turned into a total baby talker and now know more about baby penises than I ever anticipated! You guys have no idea how much time your mom spent dealing with your penises. (OK, this clearly applies to women too, maybe even more so for all I know!)

So Kyler was 6.5 months when I was there. He started rolling from his back to his belly and then worked his legs hard in what I can only assume will become a crawl in a few weeks. Previously, he could roll from stomach to back, but not in reverse. Also, he has not liked being on his stomach before. It was fascinating to watch him work his muscles. He is trying to move himself forward, but often scooting backwards. I did see some forward progress here and there. Eventually, he'll get frustrated and his face will get all red and the noises of anguish will start.

Overall, he is incredibly strong, especially in his legs. He has favored the standing position from the beginning and does his part to hold himself up. He also loves to bounce and jump and you'll get tired before he will. He's been sitting up for awhile, but he needs pillows around him because he tends to fall over... He loves to be in a standing position and he can brace his feet against you and pull himself up while grasping your fingers tightly. (Of course, he's using a lot of borrowed muscle, but you can really feel that he's doing most of the work himself.) Once he pulls himself into the Titanic "I'm king of the world!" position, he smiles the biggest, proudest smile you can imagine. (He has a heart-melting smile that he flashes regularly. One of the best times is when he has just woken up and he first sees you looking into his crib and he makes eye contact and smiles and you just can't wait to hold him again.)

He can also laugh, which happens when he gets lifted high, is "flying" or "dropped." His daddy is the best at doing the tricks and Kyler is beside himself with joy when Daddy plays with him. His paternal grandfather is also really cute with him. His funny faces had me cracking up as much as Kyler.

He is also very cute when he gets shy or tired and buries his head in your shoulder or rubs his eyes. He is even cute when he is screaming, though you best wear ear plugs because that kids has some serious lung power. His eyelashes really pop when they are wet with tears. I got better about not feeling absolutely horrible when he cried and just taking it as par for the course.

I haven't even mentioned how soft he is and how sweet he smells and how it's impossible to stop kissing him. I cried when I left him and if I think about him too much I cry again. I wish I could see him every day for the rest of his life. He is utterly amazing.

Characters & Food Choices

Guess who is seriously considering purchasing some raw pork and a can of Coke? I have been mulling over the video Tsjaz referenced for about 30 minutes now. It really is gross if there are worms in pork, but we cook the pork, so the worms are cooked (and therefore dead) when we eat them. This still seems gross, but that doesn't make it BAD. It seems that the implications is MIGHT have are what disturb me most. Are there worms like that in my own flesh? What happens when I eat sushi? What does sushi-grade mean? What kind of worms are those? I actually some some knowledge about earthworms, tapeworms and ringworms as I've had a lifelong passing interest in worms. But I still don't know enough to answer these questions, so some research might be in order. I haven't decided yet.

But let's move on to the comment he used to link to the pork & Coke video, which was "Go Vegan." I have been thinking about blogging about this for awhile. Now that I'm, say, 80-90% vegan and have 100% vegan days moreso than not I would definitely call myself "vegan aware." And I'm starting to see that vegans are a real minority. (I knew this before I ever met Dirk, but then I got so used to the idea that I have been surprised to discover that veganism is still really weird in society. Just because I caught on to the idea doesn't mean everyone else was with me over the last year.) For instance, my roommate has decided to go vegan for a month and she did all this prep work for it. One comment she made was that she was going off her diet, because she figured she could either "be on a diet or be vegan." This summed up the heart of the matter pretty quickly - being vegan seems like being deprived. I remember when I met Dirk that I was really disappointed to think about all the good things we couldn't share. (This of course started with my V-day cookies.) However, she also commented that she felt like she could eat all the vegan cookies she wanted to because (another misnomer that's easy to have) if the cookies are vegan, they must be healthy! So I think these comments both speak to some mixed up ideas about health, abstention, and the pleasures of eating.

Moving on, I went to study at Harkness the other day, which is a cafeteria at the Harvard Law School. It was Sunday and an Asian guy sat down near me with this giant omelet. I could really smell it, and even though I like eggs, I don't like omelets at all. It was as big as a burrito and really yellow and my thoughts went like this:

"What if I was dating that guy? And I had to sit next to him and watch him eat that GIANT burrito-esque omelet? That might really gross me out!"

This got me thinking about Dirk and how he has repeatedly answered the question, "Are you SURE you don't care if I'm not vegan???" by saying "Yes, I'm sure. It's fine. You can eat whatever you want." And so on our first few dates I purposely ate things like giant hamburgers just to test him. I was really not so hip to dating a vegan at all. I just happened to really like Dirk. Maybe it was the way he smiled at me when I ate the hamburgers. :) Every so often, I still ask this question and we sometimes get into talks about what our kids would eat and what will we do when they go to Grandma's house and she wants to feed them ice cream and turkey and whatnot. Plus there's the fact that our kids would be those "weird kids" who don't eat anything. (Of course, that could easily describe any kid.)

But on Sunday, it occurred to me that *I* am likely to be the type of vegan who gets really judgmental ("e" or no "e"?) about what my S.O. and kids are eating. So maybe it's good I'm not 100% on board so far.

One other comment, I have been ordering more vegan/vegetarian entrees at restaurants lately (when I'm BY MYSELF and no vegan police (not calling Dirk this) are watching) and this is another sign that things are changing for me. I recently order gnocchi with mushrooms, and of course it came with cheese on it, which was fine, I ate it, but there's such an inherent assumption built into that meal presentation. Even though I picked the only vegetarian option on the menu, the chef never thought twice about putting cheese on it.

By the way, I wish to credit the books _Eat to Live_ and _The China Study_ for convincing me that being vegan is probably really smart. _Eat to Live_ points out that cheese is particularly bad for you.

I'm also noticing a change in my feelings about "comfort foods." Some of my favorite comfort foods (like Starbucks lattes with 2% milk) have fallen by the wayside because they just don't taste good to me anymore. Sushi is still on my list but losing it's luster. There are other things I like too, but nothing quite has that "kick" I sometimes hope for and think I used to get. This makes me suspect that the quiz that said I was/am an emotional eater was right! And now I'm not getting much satisfaction (emotionally) from food. I still like food and I like all the stuff I make and it makes me feel satisfied physically. This is likely a very good thing, but I am sad to lose that special connection with certain foods. I liked knowing that if I was feeling particularly downtrodden by life, I could go to Starbucks and find comfort in hot, frothy milk. And if it was a really tough day, I could get a cookie too and hopefully it would be soft and squishy. So, overall I think this is a very good development, but just because you lose something that wasn't so great, doesn't mean it wasn't a loss.

I really need to go to work now, but I guess when I don't blog for weeks at a time, then I get diarrhea of the keyboard.

One last subject - Tsjaz's blog "How was your day?" was one of my favorites because I could empathize with it. Either that blog, or one near it referenced taking action that would "really be out of character for [Tsjaz]" and clearly, that was true. I was talking to my roommate recently about the characters we play in life and I mentioned this analogy written by a student somewhere and sent out in one of those amusing spamesque emails:

"Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life were a movie, he would be buried somewhere in the credits as 'Second Tall Man.'"

We don't get to choose the characters we play in relationship to other people. In Tsjaz's life, I am cast as "brother's girlfriend." When Dirk and I were in New Orleans, I reminded myself of this fact several times as it made me see the situation where I played "current girlfriend" and Holly played "ex-girlfriend" and Dirk played "man in the middle" as more situational than personal. The role we play is slightly different than "stepping out of character," but that phrase still reminds me that there's a person underneath the character. It is easy for me to forget that.

To piggyback on that, I recently had dinner with a talker. Every time I have dinner with this talker I quickly feel like a lonely man's prisoner. I imagine that nobody listens to him and now he has me captive and I am too polite not to put a stop to this play. So he talks away gleefully and I nod and feign interest (and sometimes actually am interested) and wonder why he never asks much about me and when will this change and should I say something and why don't I say something? And why doesn't he notice my plight? Is it not written all over my face? Does he not sense desperation and boredom laced with guilt? Or..... maybe he just think I'm quiet.

And maybe that's why I think quiet people are all desperately wishing we would all shut up! And maybe that's why I get nervous around quiet people and think I am doing something wrong. Because oftentimes (though not always) when I am quiet, I am waiting for someone to invite me in.