[evangelists & spiked milkshakes]

Today a dear friend from middle school was in Baltimore! She's lived out on the West Coast for years and just moved to DC a week ago.

We met up down by the aquarium. While I was waiting for her to get there, I was approached by a couple of nervous looking high school girls. They wanted to ask me a few questions so I obliged. Turns out they wanted to talk about Jesus. We chatted for a few minutes (they seemed perplexed by my belief in purgatory) and after a while they gave me a book and went on their merry way. I knew that I was in for an interesting day from that moment forward.

We kicked off our reunion with lunch at La Tasca. We split a few tapas dishes and a half pitcher of sangria blanca.

That shrimp was my jam: sautéed in olive oil with garlic and hot peppers. So amazingly delicious. Crazy that I ate shrimp less than a week after coming down with food poisoning from some bad shrimp, but hey. This was delicious shrimp. After hours on the patio, we finally left. 

I took her up to my neck of the woods--Mount Vernon. We wandered around Mount Vernon Place United Methodist and tried to go to the Peabody Library. Unfortunately we were rather rudely informed that we needed an appointment to get into the library on a Saturday. After playing with the feathered ones back at my place, we swung into Red Emma's for a cup of coffee (or in my case, an iced chai tea latte). Red Emma's is the awesomely quirky little bookstore and coffe shop that sells almost exclusively communist, socialist, and anarchist literature.

From there it was back down towards the water for a tour of Federal Hill. We wandered around Cross Street Market, and popped in a boutique that doubles as a tattoo studio. Don't worry Mom--I didn't get one.

Next it was off to dinner at The Abbey. We split an incredible hulk milkshake, which consists of pistachio ice cream, gran marnier and brownie chunks. So amazing! My friend had a veggie burger that looked delicious and I had a burger made from wild boar meat. I only had about half my burger but it was amazing. 

Finally we made our way back down to the Harbor for a little shopping and just ambling. The sunset was beautiful:

It was an amazingly wonderful day, if I do say so myself.

[damascus]

For those of you not familiar with Christianity, Paul (author of many New Testament texts) wasn't always Paul. He was once Saul, fervent persecutor of Christians. Then on the road to Damascus Saul saw a blinding light. That light knocked him down on the ground. On the ground, Saul heard the voice of Christ, was struck blind and spent three days in Damascus blind, not eating and not drinking. A faithful follower comes to Saul, lays hands on him, baptizes him and restores his sight. From that moment forward Saul is Paul, one of the greatest apostles in the Christian faith.

I keep hearing these stories about Paul-like conversions. There may not be a blinding light, voices coming from the sky or temporary physical impairment. But there is something these stories all have in common: a bright line between "before Jesus" and "after Jesus." All of the sudden this earth-shattering, world-changing moment happens and the story teller believes in God. These aren't unique to people who grew up sans religion. Even those born and raised in Christianity speak of these conversion moments as the moment God actually captured their heart. And they're just that: they're a moment. I don't mean anything negative by that. I just mean to say that there's a specific point in time where these people can pinpoint the transition.

I don't have one of those moments.

I don't.

I was born and raised a Catholic. I was active and involved in my faith. Somewhere in college doubts and anger brewed within me. I adopted a familiar line of reasoning: how can there be a God if I do everything right yet continue to be miserable?? God wasn't living up to my expectations of a magical genie in a bottle and I was disappointed. So I turned my back on the whole thing and became an atheist.

I can't say there was a moment when I turned away from atheism and back to Christianity. It was kind of just this gradual thing. There was intellectual curiosity that eventually turned into a relationship. To be honest the intellectual curiosity never went away. It was there even during my time as an atheist.

My road to Damascus didn't feature a bright light. It was a far more subtle journey. It was entirely in quiet whispers.

For years I felt inadequate. I was somehow less of a Christian because I didn't have that Paul-like encounter.  I can't tell a story about when I got saved. After my bout of atheism I did confess Christ as my savior again. But it wasn't a grand moment on a mountaintop or in a church service. It was a quiet sort of thing. I honestly didn't really feel any different afterwards. A little relieved, but that was it. It just felt like the most natural thing to do. I tried to fit my story into the mold. I tried to find a "conversion moment." But I was looking for something that just didn't exist.

But you know what?

That's okay.

I don't need to a Paul-like moment. God speaks in quiet whispers. Of course we all know that but it's usually something that happens after you get saved. It's this unspoken idea that we all hold that He has to shout first or He'll never get our attention.

But that's just not true.

Neither version is correct. He didn't whisper to me because I'm more refined than someone he shouted to. I want to emphasize that. Just because this is how He spoke to me, doesn't mean that it's better than how He spoke to you. The point I'm driving at in all of this is simply that I spent years standing on a cliff, staring into great hurricanes, lightening storms and earthquakes, trying to find God.

I can't divide my life into a before and after, at least not on this matter.

And I'm finally okay with that.

[the mentalist]

As I age I've collected a list of things that my mom told me were true but that I didn't believe until I got older. I think the official list should have a shorter name, but that's for another day. And by another day I mean probably on the Circulator on the way home later today.

This morning brought home yet another item on that list. I've talked about losing weight for years, probably since my freshman year of college. Throughout every attempt Mom has told me that I won't lose weight until I really want to.

I always thought I wanted to. But every time the same thing happened: I hit a certain number ("the barrier") and then immediately began climbing back up, often ending up higher than I was in the first place.

This morning I smashed through the barrier. Monday is my weigh-in day for Weight Watchers. As I was getting ready for work I began to ponder why I had suddenly broken the barrier. The answer was simple: I wanted to.

My biggest weight loss tool this time around hasn't been Weight Watchers or a new workout routine. It's been something that at first seems totally at odds with weight loss: meditation. Sitting still for twenty minutes a day doesn't seem like it would help you lose weight. I always felt like I had to be moving, doing, going. But sitting still has caused me to shed more weight than any amount of doing ever has.

Meditation long conjured up images of acid baked hippies sitting around listening to a didgeridoo and achieving an "altered" state. Alternatively, meditation long conjured up serene Buddhist monks on a mountain top, swathed in orange and gently humming "Om" for hours at a time all the while looking utterly serene.

I am neither of those things. I am an urban dwelling woman who doesn't do drugs, loves high heels & shopping, and leads a fast-paced ambitious life. I want to travel the world, deftly negotiating contracts and trade agreements.

But then I went through a bout of insomnia and a friend recommended I try meditating. I shelved the idea at first; what sort of pre-law student meditates?? The insomnia got worse and I got desperate. In my desperation I tried meditation. I had already tried listening to classic music, sniffing lavender oil and a whole number of other tips and tricks kindly offered by friends. To my surprise, the meditation worked. I fell asleep instantly and slept the entire night through.

It wasn't until this summer that I discovered meditation's other benefits. Most meditation podcasts set aside a minute or two in which you are supposed to set your intention for the meditation. Do you want to solve a problem that's been vexing you? Do you want to deal with a complex emotion? Do you want to relax and unwind? There is no right or wrong intention. My intention for the past several weeks has been the same, regardless of the type of meditation I'm doing: to touch the face of God. Even if I only get a tiny glimpse of Him, I want to encounter Him in some way every time I meditate. I let Him take the reins from there and show me what He wants to show me. Sometimes He doesn't show me anything and that's okay.

About a week or so ago He showed me something weight loss related. I thought I had wanted to lose weight in the past. I had been wrong. You see, weight loss had been my savior and my god in many ways. When I finally lost weight I would be happy, start dating, take more pictures, etc. I had to lose weight. My entire life depended on it. I wasn't an atheist or even an agnostic at the time. I was Christian. I went to mass weekly, prayed nightly and all the while believed myself to have only one true God. I was wrong. With so much pressure put on my weight, I was setting myself up for failure from day one.

Not only that but there was some deep subconscious part of me that didn't want to lose weight. Losing weight meant finally being noticed by other people. Instead of taking a risk that someone might notice me, I chose to blend in as much as possible. I wasn't thin enough to be considered "pretty" by worldly standards but I wasn't large enough to attract attention either. Every time I tried to lose weight my subconscious dragged me right back to where I had been.

I unpacked my feelings on this area further over the next several days. By the time I had reached the bottom of them, I found I was able to let them go. I wanted to be seen. There are risks that come with being seen and I was okay with those too. As the old saying goes, a ship may be safe in the harbor but that's not what ships are built for.

When I finally cut those mental lines holding me in that harbor my body responded in amazing ways. I started craving healthier foods. I started losing weight. I started looking forward to being physically active. It turns out Mom was right: you have to want to lose weight before you'll ever actually lose weight.

You see, our subconscious mind has a lot of power over us. I highly recommend meditating. There are some great podcasts available for free on iTunes. My current favorite is the Meditation Podcast by Jesse and Jeane Sterne. Play around with them and find one that works best for you.

[day 3]

Despite my recent bout with Ginger, I do love being a child of the technological age.

Lately I've gotten in the habit of stashing things like a squirrel stashes nuts for winter. If I was a squirrel I wouldn't survive the winter. I have this tendency to instantly forget where I squirreled each item away. As a result there's not much in the way of order in my drawers and cabinets. For example, I left a pair of headphones at my parent's house accidentally. The first thing I did when I got home with Ginger was to look for my spare headphones. I remembered picking them up and stashing them somewhere several weeks earlier. But where were they? I vaguely remembered something about a purse so I checked every bag I've carried in the past 3 weeks. No luck. I checked drawers, cabinets and other odd places. After giving up the search, I was shuffling some things around in my closet. Out fell my headphones from a purse that I haven't carried in at least six months. I still have no idea how they got in there.

Back in the day, Weight Watchers was done on paper. There were little notebooks for tracking your food, little notebooks for tracking your weight and books for looking up points. Weight Watchers of yesterday was not for me. I would have squirreled each booklet away in a different location, been unable to find all 3 at any given time and eventually given up the whole endeavor.

Thankfully Weight Watchers of today can be done online. I can log onto the website, use the app on my phone or track on paper the old-fashioned way. I use a combination of website and phone app to track. So far it's proving wildly successful. That being said, today is only day three so I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

One of my favorite things so far is exactly what they emphasize on the commercials: freedom. Yesterday I hit the Victoria's Secret Semi-annual Sale with a friend after work. After trying on close to 20 bras each we wanted a snack. We popped into Godiva and each got a truffle. And you know what? That truffle didn't induce guilt or cause me to blow my whole day. I had enough points to cover it, especially once I factored in my walk home from work (around 30 minutes).

There's also the advanced planning element, which I love. Tomorrow I'm meeting my friends for happy hour. I can hop online in advance and explore my options. If I really want a burger tomorrow, I can figure out how to have my burger without breaking the bank so to speak. Since I've known about happy hour since Monday I've been saving activity and weekly points for the occasion. It really is an ingenious system that allows you to lose weight but not feel deprived or left out. The Cinch! plan was great but weekly happy hours with friends had me feeling left out in the cold and ultimately unhappy.

I also love the point system as opposed to counting calories. Before I tried to use Lose It!, a free iPhone app that allows you to track your food intake, exercise and weight. You can also set goals for yourself, reminders and use other helpful features. My problem was mostly a mental one: it bothered me that fruit cost me calories. My smoothie breakfast on Weight Watchers is 3 points (all the points come from soy milk). But on Lose It! the banana, blueberries and spinach also cost me calories. I know these foods have calories but there's something so discouraging about keeping track of them. It felt detrimental somehow. I like that on Weight Watchers I feel rewarded for making these types of choices. Since fruits and vegetables are 0 points I feel like I'm cheating the system by eating a ton of food and not incurring any points. That's how I was able to get my truffle yesterday: breakfast, snacks and lunch were predominantly fruits and veggies so I hadn't used many points despite the fact that I had eaten a ton during the day. I feel naughty in a good way, like I've gotten away with something.

I'll talk more in the future about the mental aspects of weight loss but I think this is going to be it for now.

[lost]

A ways back I blogged about Ginger. Ginger is my iPhone. Ginger ran away yesterday.

The story goes a little something like this:

I went home for the weekend to visit family and help out with a bridal shower for a dear friend. Sadly I had a 7:35 AM flight on Sunday morning. Due to the location of my parents' house we had to leave by 5 AM. I don't do mornings. I don't function without sufficient sleep. Combine those two things and you have a recipe for a rather groggy day. Seriously though: it's like my brain gets stuck in first gear and can't quite shift any higher no matter how hard I try.

So I groggily board my icebox of a flight back to Baltimore, drag my sorry tired butt to the light rail station, and stare off into the distance for 30 minutes. I rejoin reality when someone tells me that the light rail doesn't start running until 11 on Sundays. Realizing that it's currently close to 10 I decide against waiting for the train and opt for a cab ride home. I shuffle like a cast member from the Walking Dead over to the taxi stand, flop into the cab and tell him where I want to go.

On the ride back to my place I made 2 observations that later proved to be crucial:

1. This cab was a mess. I mean absolutely cluttered with stuff. Looking around I thought if you ever left anything in here the driver would probably never know.

2. I was riding in cab #141. Never in my life have I noted a cab number before. I think I was just trying to keep from falling asleep and the number was at my eye level so I focused on it as if my very existence depended on memorizing that number.

I got home, fed the feathered ones and stared off into space a little more. I went to load up my purse to head to the grocery store and discovered Ginger was no where to be found. I was too tired to care about anything other than my ability to wake up for work in the morning; Ginger doubles as my alarm clock. I made the decision to head to Rite Aid for an alarm clock to ensure that I did in fact wake up for work this morning. I emailed the cab company and my parents, then wandered aimlessly around Baltimore for a while. Sure my end goal was the grocery store but I took the most circuitous route known to mankind to get there. My route could actually rival a Family Circus cartoon. The problem was that my sleep deprived brain could not make a decision about which grocery store to go to.  Apparently I wandered for a long time because my left shoulder is rather badly sunburned.

The rest of the day is somewhat hazy. Honestly being sleep-deprived for me is a lot like being drunk. Except without the giggling, happy to be alive part of being drunk. The main similarity is my complete & utter inability to think logically or remember a single darn thing. One event stands out: on the way to the grocery store a gentleman shouted profanities at me because apparently he really hates white women. What also stands out is the fact that I shrugged and walked away without thinking about the man much more. I didn't even find the situation humorous or upsetting. I just thought, eh, it's Baltimore and kept right on walking. I can't tell if I've gotten so jaded that this sort of thing no longer bothers me or if I was just too tired to care. I do also remember bending down in the grocery store to retrieve a bag of chocolate chips only to find a homeless man standing perfectly motionless on the other side of my cart staring at me when I stood up. We stared at each other for a moment and then I hastily retreated. It was an all-around weird day.

Today my new alarm clock went off and I was sad to discover the lack of a snooze button. I guess beggars can't be choosers; I had selected the clock because it was the cheapest one Rite Aid offered. It was also the most attractive, which isn't saying much because the thing honestly looks like it's trying to disguise the fact that it's a giant cheap plastic alarm clock, which somehow only makes it look more cheap.

Life without Ginger was actually quite nice this morning and I had composed a nice post about the joys of being disconnected from technology and the woes of living in our hyper-connected technological age. But then I got an email from the taxi company that they did in fact have Ginger and I could come out and pick her up from the main office anytime between 9 am and 6 pm. Naturally I instantly booked a Zipcar for the instant I get off work.

So what did I learn? First, that I cannot be trusted when operating on less than 4 hours of sleep. Second, that not having technology is a good thing. Until you have the option to have technology. It's like getting your teeth cleaned: it's not so bad but only because it's a necessity.

But wait there's more! I promise there's a health component to all of this. Earlier today I thought I would have to go to the AT&T store to replace Ginger. I estimated that this would include shelling out $100 for a new phone (probs not a new iPhone. Unless we have an upgrade available of course). I badly want to join Weight Watchers but it's expensive. I also badly want to go to the Victoria's Secret semi-annual sale. This is also expensive. When you combine those two activities you get the cost of replacing Ginger. Being of limited means, I was facing the possibility of nixing Victoria's Secret & Weight Watchers, at least for now. Now that I'm getting Ginger back and don't have to buy a replacement, I can officially do both! If you'll scuse me for a second I'm going to go sign up for WW online. I win. At life.

If you're wondering if this was a long-winded way of announcing to the world that I'm doing Weight Watchers, the answer is yes, yes it was. If you want the short form here it is: I lost my phone but I'm getting it back so I'm using the money I would have spent buying a new phone to sign up for Weight Watchers.

Goodness I have a tendency to ramble.

[just enough]

Something struck me last week. Right in the middle of a workout, this thought just walloped me upside the head.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was doing an hour long workout DVD. After about 45 minutes, the instructor made a comment about how we probably hated him right about now and that he was totally okay with that.

I don't hate you, I thought. I hate that voice in my head telling me that 80% is good enough.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've spent the majority of my adult life shrugging my shoulders and saying, "eh, that's good enough." Remember the movie Babe? Remember the part where the farmer looks at Babe and says "that'll do pig, that'll do"? I say that to myself regularly. I give only 80% effort and quit about 80% of the way through.

I noticed it first in my exercise. For years I was perfectly content to quit doing whatever exercise I was doing 5 seconds too soon. The underlying logic was simple: 55 seconds out of 60 was better than 0.

To an extent that logic is perfectly sound. But if I could justify 55 I could justify 50, 45, or 40. Eventually I could justify just not doing it at all. After all I walked home from work today. Isn't that enough?

No. It's not.

This attitude extended past my workouts and permeated every aspect of my life. I never read the last few pages of books. I never gave work memos a final proof read before sending them off. I never finished all the laundry.

Of course, there were times when these nevers were perfectly appropriate. Sometimes I ran out of quarters while the bank was closed; my laundry would have to wait until I could get more quarters. Sometimes there just wasn't enough time to give that work memo a final proofread because my boss decided he wanted it earlier than he'd initially told me.

There were extra cookies eaten with the knowledge that I'd had a healthy lunch and that I'd run later after work (hadn't I earned that cookie?). Soon there were unhealthy meals eaten with the knowledge that I'd make up for it at the next meal by eating super healthy and working out. Shortly after that there weren't meal plans and my shopping cart was filled with whatever caught my fancy that day. And shortly after that I was several pounds heavier than I had been a few weeks before.

At the end of the day I have still lost weight. I could look at the fact that I've lost weight and say "I'm doing good enough."

But deep in my heart I know that's not true. I'm not doing good enough. I'm cheating. I'm cheating myself. I'm cheating my blog readers. I'm cheating my family (current & future). I'm cheating my friends. I'm cheating my career.

All this cheating has been sitting like a pile of rocks in the pit of my stomach. Each cheat just adds another pebble to the pile. They're tiny, minuscule little pebbles but boy do they add up.

So I made a decision: no more adding pebbles to the pile. From this day forward, good enough is not, well, good enough. I think Jennifer Nettles said it best in Sugarland's Settlin' so I'll let her take it from here:

"I ain't settlin' for just gettin' by

I've had enough so so for the rest of my life

Tired of shooting too low so raise the bar high

Cause just enough ain't enough this time

I ain't settlin' for anything less than everything."

Like Ms. Nettles I'm raising the bar for myself. Good enough won't work anymore. I'll be blogging here. I'll be focusing on this weight loss. No more hiding behind excuses of doing good enough (if anyone fell for that excuse it was me).

It's time to get what I deserve out of life, including a healthy body and mind.