Lilith Saintcrow

I did my first 20-minute run yesterday. It was exhilarating. I was doing the walk-run thing–1 minute walking, 11 minutes running–and I realized I wasn’t even winded at the end of the first 11 minutes. So I thought, I bet I could go for 20. I just bet I could.

Those are indeed famous last words. But I did it, and apparently the body is okay with that because other than a little bit of workout soreness last night while I was stretching, I feel fine. Today is the midweek rest day, so I just shovelgloved a little, and it’s amazing–I feel okay.

I feel rather like I’ve won a bet with myself, in a good way. Accomplished something, even.

I have not run for 20 minutes in my life, EVER. I was always told I wasn’t physical, and having people mock me during team sports was horrid. So it’s quite a pleasant shock to find out that I am, indeed, capable of *real* physical effort.

I also hated team sports in school because it was just another popularity contest, and those irritate me. Plus, for Chrissake, gym class gives bullies golden opportunities for f!cking with people. And that irritates me too, it always has. A fair fight between equally matched forces? Mmmkay, I don’t condone the violence but I’m willing to let them fight it out. But a bully picking on someone else half their size or disabled in some way?

I see red. Actual red.

It’s been pouring down rain for a while now, and I love it. This kind of weather seems to make the words come easier. So, it’s off to get out wordcount. If I am good and get my NaNo count in, I will reward myself with working on the short story about the gargoyle and the WalMart checker…

Long, mostly-sleepless night. Since I’ve started the exercise regimen, I haven’t had too many of those, even with all the Other Stuff going on.

I finished reading DeBartolo’s God-Shaped Hole, Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, and am about to start reading erotica. (For RESEARCH. Jeez.) I will probably mini-review those and Chelsea Cain’s newest tomorrow, but today I am so tired.

I got up late and didn’t have the house to myself for an hour. I have quickly grown to depend on that time, because it’s the only space during the day when I don’t have kids poking at me just to see what I’m doing. I barely managed to get in my treadmill time, and no shovelgloving at all, waah. But tomorrow I don’t have any treadmill time, I can still get up early (if I sleep tonight) and do my shovelgloving, thereby making sure I have four days of exercise and one of rest this week for BOTH forms of exercise.

This is what’s taking up all my bandwidth today: little questions of scheduling. Tiny annoying things about Everyday Life. I think I probably shouldn’t have been reading a book on the subject of absent/dead/found mothers and abusive fathers while I was already tired and upset; it probably had something to do with it.

Plus, the book is heating up. Four or five scenes away from the end, and I’m reaching that jittery stage where there’s nothing going on behind my eyes but the bloody book.

Argh. I’m going to go wash the sweat off and start obsessing over lunch. Then I’m going to turn off the wireless and sink into the book. If I can distract myself with the words it will make the day go faster and I will get to bedtime sooner.

Slight aside: has anyone else reached a point after over a month of steady working out where they up their intensity (I’ve been upping the intensity of the workouts every two weeks, FWIW) and suddenly had a sweat-drenched detox experience near the end of a particularly hard session? Anyone? Bueller?

It’s a funny thing. I saw over and over in massage school and in my practice, how the body holds memories. The remodeling of the body with exercise is naturally going to work with that sort of thing. I am detoxing, I think, not only on a physical level but also on an emotional level. One cannot separate the two. And the facing of some childhood demons while the body is getting stronger and more flexible…well, it’s not a comfortable process, but at least I have some idea of what’s happening and I’m not completely at sea with it.

The heavy bits of me–the fat–wasn’t just my feelings about food. It was also a protective cushion between me and the world. Getting strong enough to take on the world without that cushion is a scarymaking process.

Argh again. Eff it. I’m just going to write today. Screw everything else. At least on the page, I know where I stand.

Until the Muse jags another left turn on me, that is…

Over and out.

First of all, a new chapter of Selene is up! We are getting into the last two weeks of the serial, and this is the point in the book where things start pulling together and really kickin’ ass.

Today, I am going to feel like a superhero. For no particular reason other than there’s Talk Like A Pirate Day and I Survived A Dysfunctional Family Day (thank you, Making Light). Today, after a hard morning workout, I’m feeling like I’m doing pretty good. So today, I’m setting out to be a superhero. Which will mean a lot of hands on hips, a lot of shaking the hair, a lot of, “This would defeat an ordinary mortal…BUT I’M A SUPERHERO! HAHA! TAKE THAT!”

You get your joy where you find it, methinks. And once I explain to the kids I’m sure we’ll all have a grand time with it.

And now, link salad. But not just any link salad. SUPERHERO link salad.

* Five minutes of shovelgloving this morning. Damn. This IS a workout. I’ve been looking for something with weights I can do to tone the upper body, and this fits the bill. I’m starting out slow, slow slow, just like with the running. If I start slow I’ll stick with it longer and begin to see the effects, giving myself a reason to keep up with it.

Plus, every girl (and every superhero) needs to know how to chop wood, shovel, and swing around a sledgehammer. I can see this workout coming in mucho handy if there is a zombie apocalypse. And really–isn’t that what a workout is for?

Kudos to MissShepsu, who has been shovelgloving for seven weeks now and has a pair o’ guns to prove it. We shall survive the zombie apocalypse together.

* This made me scared and angry all at once. Try as I might I can’t find a flaw in Teresa’s logic, and the links to definitions of malignant narcissism were so helpful to me for other, personal reasons. ZOMG.

* And to round out the politics, Republicans are bad for the frickin’ economy, stoopid. They are not the party of smaller guvmint and privacy. They are the government of taking from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. People get seduced into thinking otherwise by the PR the rich can pay for. And there is the not-inconsiderable group who want to ally themselves with the powerful, so toe the party line and sit up in expectation of a treat tossed their way. *sigh*

* Speaking of rich (and rich corporations) getting richer by squeezing the middle/lower classes, how about this–$700 billion and no oversight to the very corporations who created the problem in the first place. Way to legislate responsibility. The far right is getting their panties in a wad over this, finally and for the wrong reasons, but hey, I’ll take it–but it can’t hurt to call your Congresscritter and voice your own concern, so they know you’re watching.

THIS BAILOUT WILL AFFECT YOU, fellow Americans. No matter how arcane it seems, no matter how you think this is just a Wall Street mess that an ordinary person can’t do a thing about. What the federal government does now–and whether or not the lobbyists get a billions-rich payout–will affect millions in their day to day lives. I can’t urge you strongly enough to go digging and find out about this mess and the means being proposed to fix it.

* And whew, this turned into a heavy post. I’m just going to note that I blurped a few thousand words on a trunk novel yesterday, and that seemed to clear my “throat” for working on FC again. And the edits for SA are largely done and turned in, thank God. Now the next thing I have to worry about is copyedits and proof pages.

See, you don’t just write a book once. You end up writing it four or five times before it’s even close to published. *headdesk*

But that’s okay. That would defeat an ordinary mortal…

BUT TODAY, I AM A SUPERHERO.

Thank you, Readers. The outpouring of support after yesterday’s post continues to be phenomenal. I hadn’t thought that my “lifting of a digital finger” (thanks to all that suggested that! I laughed until I almost cried) would be so…well, that it would garner such a response. It was profoundly liberating.

I’m proud to report that I continued on a good trend the rest of the day, trying to think before each snack, am I really hungry or is something else going on here? A couple of times I decided I wasn’t hungry, just stressed to the max. I had a big glass of water, and did some deep breathing. A couple of times I decided I really was hungry, and did all the things one is supposed to do–pay attention to eating, chew thoroughly, and drink plenty of water.

Can you tell I’ve got food issues? For me, food is bound up in security, performance, pain management, and misery. I suppose any woman in the good ol’ US, viewing what the ad companies serve on their chipped cultured platters (thank you, Emer Martin), has a problem with body image. It’s hard not to, with the wash of “skinny is better” and the “eat! eat! Super-Size!” messages playing tug of war inside our bodies, cultural spaces, and minds.

For me, it was the “Clean your plate, there are starving kids in ______, we worked hard to get you this food!” married to a “Why are you so pudgy? You should take more gym classes. You’d be such a pretty girl if you lost some weight!”

Yeah. Crazymaking. Part of my Labor Day resolve was to stop those voices inside my head. If I require that my characters face their demons, the least I can do is try to peep at mine. (What a pity they’re not tall, dark, and cinnamon-scented. Hm.) Besides, who do I want running my life? Voices from a long time ago, or me right here and now?

I want to run my own life, dammit. So much of life is out of one’s control; I want the pieces I CAN control, and what I put in my mouth is a pretty significant piece. I feel good about this, and the trick is to continue the trend. A small success in this arena doesn’t mean one can relax–it just means next time it will be fractionally easier to do what one should.

I often wonder about the self-help section in bookstores. Seems to me it’s like the diet industry–if there was one magic thing that worked, the entire billion-dollar industry would tank overnight. There is no substitute for hard work, I guess.

On the other hand, someone came into the bookstore the other day looking for a book about survival after a particularly foul and widespread type of abuse that their therapist had recommended. They could barely stammer out the name of the book, clearly embarrassed and stressed. (Thank whatever synchronicity blesses the desperate, we had it.) I’m hoping that the fact that the world didn’t end and the employee helping them didn’t even blink helped.

We forget, so often, that we are often part of a group of sufferers. What I mean is, part of the system of abuse–whether it be child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, or what-have-you–is the isolation of the victim. If a victim thinks s/he is alone, shame is a powerful reason to keep silent.

Once the victim finds out they’re not the only person in the world–that there are people who have suffered the same thing, who understand, who don’t judge because they’ve Been There–sometimes the burden gets a lot easier to carry, because the shame goes down. Just finding out that one isn’t alone is a tremendous relief. Abusers count on fear and shame to keep victims silent and isolated. Breaking the isolation can help break the silence–draw the poison from the wound, so to speak.

When an abuser tries to re-engage, or tries to “hush something up”, the victim can easily fall back into the well of killing silence. If the abuser succeeds in isolating, for the first time or while trying to re-engage, the victim very quickly loses all sorts of perspective. A community can help restore perspective. It can be something as simple as a friend saying, “Dude. Look. This is f!cked up, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

When I think of “humanity”, that’s partly what I think of–the commonality, people sharing knowledge and helping each other. A community can be a repression, but it can also be a support. (Like the Sports Bra of Doom. Srsly, I promise a post on that in the near future. It’s bound to be hilarious.)

So. Thank you, all of you who commented or sent me supportive emails. I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was a huge earthshattering deal (notice how quickly I move to minimize my own discomfort? Sheesh.) but I am endlessly grateful for your support and perspective. You guys have made it easier for me to Do The Right Thing next time, and that’s one of the greatest gifts human beings can give each other.

So. For next time:

There’s nothing quite like waking up out of a sound sleep at 7AM with your six-year-old announcing, “Mum, I’m gonna puke.”

He’s not sick and it’s not nervous stomach. I think it’s a touch of food poisoning–worrisome with a kid under 12. Apparently his dad took him to noodles last night after kendo, and the stuff he’s throwing up is noodle-y and fish-y. *sigh* We’ve talked about fish and the kid before. I guess we need to talk again.

Poor little Sir Pewksalot. He’s a little bit glassy-eyed. I guess re-tasting fish in the morning will do that to one. The UnSullen One got up and made me coffee. “When you wake up to puke,” he said, “you need something nice to counteract it. I’m going back to bed.”

What a nice kid. He’ll make someone a fine wife someday. *grin*

I am making chicken noodle soup today. Before you ask–the chicken yesterday was a SOOPER WIN. I added a little broth to the crock pot at the beginning, then halved some russet potatoes and put them in skin-down after a while. The potatoes were mashed later on, I steamed some peas, and pure deliciousness resulted. After dinner the skin and bones went back into the crock pot for stock, and I’ve got two whole crock-pots full of stock out of the deal. Soupmaking shall proceed apace, once I skim the stock that’s in the fridge. Chicken noodle is probably just the thing to soothe a troubled tummy.

I feel compelled to note that the chicken was free-range, cruelty-free, and fed organic. It was still very cost-effective to feed a family of five for a couple days (I have plenty left over for soup and sandwiches, even). I do try to buy organic when I can afford it, and the only reason I’ve gotten into cooking roasts is because that’s where the price break for cruelty-free meat becomes reasonable.

I feel like raising my fists and saluting the four winds while announcing “I AM THE CHICKEN MASTER!” But that would be hubris, for I know there are many, many ways of screwing up the chicken-cooking. One good dish does not a Chicken Master make. And since I had the discussion trying to define “hubris” with the Princess last night, I am determined to be humble about any Cluck Luck I have had. (The discussion was to prepare her for Prince Caspian. She’s going with me to the movies tonight, the little angel.)

All right. I’m kind of at an impasse with Weasel Boy, so I’m going to throw more vampires in. When in doubt, as Elizabeth Bear noted, send in the man with a gun. (She also says more roller derby, less girlfriend, but as this is a romance novel, I can’t have less girlfriend. I guess I’m just going to have to rework the girlfriend I’ve got.) I guess I’ll just throw more vampires at Weasel Boy and his Lady Fair and see what happens.

After, of course, I drain the crock pot and put the soup together. Wish me further Cluck Luck.