Well lo and behold ...

... hallelujah, and bless my soul. It appears that without even really trying – I haven't even gotten any exercise to speak of in almost a month – I've dropped about eleven pounds in the last few weeks. This morning I put on some jeans I hadn't worn in awhile and they felt kind of loose. And they'd just come out of the dryer! So I raced into the bathroom, threw off everything I was wearing (including ponytail elastics and earrings), took a quick pee (every ounce helps, right?) and jumped on the scale. Shocking!

I had already more or less decided that even after the extreme sugar challenge ends, I'm not going to go back to eating sugar. I just can't. And incredibly, I don't feel like I need to. As I had suspected, once I'd gone through the initial throes of withdrawal I wasn't missing it much. There have been a few hitches – as when Mr. A ordered a chocolate mousse and I, to reward myself for being good, virtuously ordered a decaf espresso only to completely unconsciously pour my usual half teaspoonful of sugar into it without even noticing that I was doing it – which is the whole point of this kind of exercise in self-deprivation – that it throws your unconscious habits into the spotlight where you can start noticing them – but overall, despite a few lapses, living without added sugar has been a lot easier than I ever would have thought. Even fresh fruit juice, which does not have sugar added ... I'm doing fine without it.

And wow, eleven pounds?! Could it really be that simple?

A couple of weeks ago as part of a pre-spring cleaning spree I got rid of several giant garbage bags full of clothes. The bag that hurt the most to say goodbye to contained (among other things) two of my most favorite pairs of old army-issue cargo pants that I had loved and worn to death for upwards of 15 years, to the point where they were both too worn out to patch anymore, not to mention too small. I agonized all morning in my office over whether I should run home and try to snatch them out of the garbage bin before the truck came by ... but forced myself to let them go. Now I'm kind of regretting that. If I tried them on today, maybe they would've fit!

I did keep one item of sentimental clothing, however: a similar pair of cargo pants that I'd cut off for shorts when I was in college. They were loose and baggy and comfortable and I could carry the whole big paperback copy of [insert Penguin classic du jour] in one pocket and my sketch journal in the other, plus pens. I got them in 1986 and have kept them ever since, vowing that someday, I would be able to wear them again. Two weeks ago I could barely squeeze them on – I was actually pretty shocked I could get into them at all – but there's no way I could even begin to zip them up.

If this sugar thing keeps happening for me, maybe in a few weeks I'll try them on again.

Listening to: Takako Minekawa – Milk Rock (Cornelius remix)

More practice

More found art. To me it looks like a blurry watercolor landscape. In a way, that's exactly what it is. What it really is, is a piece of aluminum flashing that washed down the creek the last time it flooded and got stranded in this spot just under the bridge, where it basked in the sun (still under water) and grew a beautiful soft-colored skin of brown and green algae. I like the way the sun catches on the metal at the top and reflects the sky, so that the whole piece sort of radiates light. Maybe the photo doesn't quite capture that part.

The day after I took the picture it started to rain again and the whole thing washed away.

Work has been fast & furious every day for the last week or so. It's mostly fun stuff – much more interesting to create something new than to just drop content into an existing format – and it's occupying my mind so much that at night I'm having a hard time making it quiet down and let me sleep. I just lie there thinking and thinking and thinking, and when I close my eyes all I see is art – photos to be photoshopped, blocks of text to be formatted, colors to be mixed and applied. When I finally do fall asleep, my mind goes immediately back to work. It's exhausting and also kind of exhilirating.

Today a photo came through of this 21-year-old beautiful kid who died this week in some kind of medical mishap. And just now one of the photographers left to check out a multi-car pile-up with 15 squad cars responding. Normally these days I avoid the news as much as possible, but since I work at, you know, a NEWSpaper, a lot gets through to me anyway. I do feel extraordinarily stressed out by these two particular pieces of news today, though, for some reason.

Actually I've been feeling a lot more sensitive than usual for about two or three weeks now. Welling up with tears at the sight of blossoms opening on our little pear tree, getting all googley-eyed with luv for Tater and snuggling & petting on him until even he gets embarrassed and wants some space, going into such extreme raptures over a decaf cappuccino that I actually had to close my eyes and was unable to speak – it was so good I can hardly even bring myself to write about it even now.

In the not so distant past this kind of hypersensitivity has usually meant I was about to start descending into a clinical depression again. Right now I'm mostly experiencing the overwhelm as intensely pleasureful, not paralyzing (not in a bad way, anyway) – but all the same, I'm keeping an eye on things. I cut out the caffeine again, for one thing, even though there's hardly any in the tea I've been drinking ... because why take the chance? And I'm embarrassed to admit that I need to get back on the bike, which I stopped riding three weeks ago because I was worried, since Mr. A was traveling, that if I got run over by a truck on my way home there would be nobody to notice when I didn't arrive (except the dogs wanting their dinner), and I might therefore end up lying in a ditch in the howling rain all night long, cold and dead and alone.

Hmm. Interesting how I stopped riding three weeks ago, and that's about the same amount of time I've been noticing my emotions sliding toward the extreme end of the spectrum. So maybe it's true about the endorphins, then! Everyone seems to like to emphasize their mood elevating capabilities, but for me, the biggest benefit might be their mood stabilizing effects. But do endorphins actually have mood stabilizing effects? Maybe it's something else. Maybe the complete and utter lack of sugar!

I want to write more about this soon. Not endorphins or chemicals, exactly, but the mystery of mental illness ... thinking about my cousin who I just found out suffers (in a very real way, SUFFERS) with bipolar disorder, and an alcoholic uncle it kind of broke my heart to see last month. Thinking about it all just strengthens my resolve to take good care of myself and Mr. A and everyone I love. I want to stay alive. To keep myself open. To keep making an effort.

Snow dog

Before we get too far into spring I guess I ought to post this photo of the snow dog my niece and I made when Mr. A and I visited Utah last month (click the photo for a closeup).

Was it really just last month? It seems like such a long time ago.

Anyway – there wasn't much snow on the ground when we got there, though it had been storming just a week or so before. The snow that was left was sloppy and kind of grainy, not the easiest material to work with, so instead of the fort or the giant snowmonster I had been hoping to make, we instead created a small community of miniature snowpersons, all between about five and eleven inches tall (three of whom are visible in this photo). Then my niece started to get bored with that and asked, "What else can we make?"

"How about a snow dog?" I said, thinking of Tater. I was missing him already.

She enthusiastically latched onto the idea before I had really thought it through. How the heck do you make a dog out of snow? My first thought was to make a dog lying down, but that seemed too easy, too boring. I wanted something more dynamic, something with some life. Then I realized that this melty, sticky snow would be perfect for making hard cylinders and put her to work constructing the basic shapes from which I then assembled the dog you see here, standing. Then each of us made one ear, and then she chose three little pebbles to use for the eyes and nose. I think it turned out great! My first snow dog ever.

I was lucky to get a picture of it, though. Apparently four-year-olds like to smash things made out of snow, even things they love. Interesting! And just as well, really, because how long can a snow dog last anyway, on a day like that? It was sunny and warm (for February) the whole time we were there. Other trip highlights included sledding with my parents, brother & family – Mr. A's first time ever on a sled! – and a dinner at my aunt's house, where I got to see a bunch of relatives I don't get to hang out with nearly often enough.

And now it's spring. I still have extra blankets on the bed, but within a month or so it may well be too hot to sleep at night so I'm enjoying every drop of rain I can get right now.

The sugar challenge is going well – though I will admit to having accidentally ingested sugar on more than one occasion since I started, mostly in the form of secret sugars hidden in foods like ketchup, sushi, and even my favorite canned peas. I'd love to know whose idea it was to add sugar to so many things it doesn't belong in. Probably the same person who added caffeine to all the drinks that never used to have it, not that I've ever been in the habit of drinking soda, anyway (it makes my teeth feel like they're disintegrating). So I'm basically down to eating mostly things I cook for myself, and drinking nothing but water and my occasional infused thing – tea, or various steeped herbs. I also have a small Meyer lemon tree that's covered with fruit right now, so those are making their way into lots of things, as well.

Just for future reference, any time I start writing about what I'm eating or not eating, it's a good sign I have nothing of interest to say and am grasping desperately at straws. I love good food but am much happier eating it than writing about it.

That said, I am off to dinner.

Listening to: The Eagles – Take It Easy

Meet my new teapot

In anticipation of my new space, and in memory of my tragically mauled mala, and in blatant disregard of my self-imposed vow of pseudo-poverty and anti-consumerism, I've splurged on something fun for myself, something I really don't need, but which I plan to enjoy very much: this gorgeous turquoisey-colored cast iron teapot from Japan. Yay! I've been allowing myself one cup of real tea every couple of days lately – this one is a current favorite – and I've had a crush on this particular teapot for several years, but never felt justified in spending that much money on something so small, especially since I already have at least four or five other teapots of various sizes, all of which I like probably just as much as I thought I would like this one.

But, well, I ran into it again on the web the other day and fell in love all over again.

Other teas I have been enjoying lately include this one and this one, and this one (a gift from someone at work who noticed I liked tea). Also, as the occasion warrants, this one. Go ahead and click them!

Anyway, my current plan is to build the studio on a plan taken from the pump house at my last house – if you ever had the occasion to visit me there you might remember the cute little building that sheltered the well, pump housing, water heater, and washing machine – and paint it clean and white inside and install nothing but my small cast iron woodstove (crossing fingers the neighbors won't report me) and some shelves and cushions, and sit in there and drink my tea and enjoy a quiet space with no television or microwave contaminating me with electric rays, or dogs or humans or telephones or anything. Once I get tired of doing that maybe I'll also do some painting in there or something. If I ever learn how to paint.

I had been envisioning this small clean white peaceful space, and when I saw the turquoise teapot I thought, "That would be perfect, to have one thing in there that is not white." At least until I get tired of white and decide to paint it. Chartreusey green and red, is what I'm thinking. With sunflower yellow-gold French doors.

So. Mr. A got home from his Southern California gig late last night, and at 4 am on Sunday I'm driving him to the airport for another one in Arizona. This one is supposed to last only one week, but these things are often unpredictable – a lot depends on what they find when they get there.

I was a little worried last night while I was waiting for him, that in two weeks I had gotten altogether too comfortable living alone again. Not that I didn't miss him, because I did. Especially at first. I've lived alone for years at a time, several times, and never felt scared except for a few days right after my house got robbed – but the first few nights he was gone this time, I felt uneasy in the house alone and had trouble getting to sleep. Soon I was over that, though, and it felt good to really relax into the quiet of a mostly inhabitant-free house ...

But we hung out together last night and this morning and had lunch together today, and he's coming to pick me up in just a few minutes, and all afternoon I've been looking forward to that – to talking with him about everything he's been thinking about, and everything I've been thinking about, while we were apart.

It's good to feel excited to see someone you love. Sometimes time away is the best way to stay close.

Listening to: The Monkees – I'm a Believer

Long and tedious, and no picture.

Tonight I got home from work and discovered that Jeepies had stolen a new mala off the table, chewed through the string, eaten eight of the beautiful hand-carved rose beads, and scattered the rest of them all over the hall.

Sometimes I think it's good that I have enough self-awareness to at least try to look at these situations as an opportunity to practice compassion, patience, non-attachment, and all those other virtues I supposedly value. Tonight, I just wanted to scream and rant and beat him savagely. Savagely, I tell you! I still kind of do. I'd been looking for just the perfect beads for this particular mala for years – more than six years, actually. Last weekend I finally found them. I wasn't even through finishing the piece yet. And they weren't cheap, either. They were so un-cheap, in fact, that I seriously considered not getting them at all. But in the end they were so exactly what I had been envisioning that I decided to go ahead and spend the money.

Why, oh why does he have to do things like this? Why? Why? Why is it so hard to let it go when he does?

Is it because the beads are made out of bone, and dogs love bones? Could it really be as simple as that? But it's not like there's big chunks of meat still attached to them! And they're smaller than peas. It's hard to believe that he would even recognize them as bones. More likely, he was just bored.

I hate how angry I feel right now. It's interesting, though, to notice how I actually do feel. What I would like to do is yell and perpetrate some kind of physical violence against something. Kick the wall or something. But I'm not doing it. Why not? I'm the only person here. I can do whatever I want!

Partly it's because I don't want to scare Tater. But mainly it's because (and this is what I think is interesting) I know that it won't mean anything to Jeepies. I don't think he's capable of connecting his actions earlier today to my yelling tonight. Yelling would not communicate anything useful.

So does this mean I think the only acceptable reason to act out of anger is to communicate? Do I think that? What about plain old self-expression for its own sake? What would happen if I just let it fly once in awhile, without first pondering whether it's going to be useful or not?

[later] He's in his bed next to the fireplace now and the way he's looking at me, I can tell he's wondering if I'm still mad at him. I'm not. But sometimes I just feel like I don't like him very much. I feel insulted by the fact that he only cares about me because I feed him his dinner. It's so obvious! He's pushy and stubborn and makes these horrible clopping sounds when he licks his stomach. He hogs the bed and grumbles irritably at me when I try to make him move over. And the other day he growled and snapped at my foot when I tried to stick in between his paws and an empty jar of caramel sauce he'd gotten ahold of (because by now I know better than to reach for it with my hand).

On the other hand, he's lived here longer than anyone else in the house and at his age I suppose he's entitled to a little respect, even if he doesn't respect me back. Like, at all. In my better moments I'm actually grateful it's just an elderly grumpy dog we're kowtowing to, and not an elderly grumpy human relative. At least when a dog gets on your last nerve you can put him out and close the dog door for awhile. Not that I would ever be so cruel.

Anyway. Now that the heat of passion has cooled what bothers me most about the whole thing is the thought of those beautiful beads lying there inside his stomach right now, this very minute – mere inches away yet utterly out of reach – and the knowledge that tomorrow they will be lying somewhere in the yard hidden inside a big pile of dog poop. Don't worry though – I've forbidden myself to even consider going out to search for them. I'm just going to let it go. Just let it go.

In other news, things at work have been starting to look up a bit. For some reason I've been chosen to sort of spearhead a redesign of the entertainment section, and to create designs for a couple more new projects that are the precious brainchildren of my boss's boss. My comps were unveiled to the rest of the company this morning to wild applause and several people came up to me at my desk throughout the day to congratulate me and rave over my work.

I'm actually pretty happy with it, myself. For some reason though it still always shocks me when other people like it, too. The fact that I've never had any formal design training makes me wonder when someone's going to rip the mouse out of my hand and denounce me as a fraud. Then again, I've been doing print work since the early 80s (since the early 70s, if you count school projects) and web stuff for ten years, so maybe it's okay to stop worrying that I'm not a "real" designer.

Funny about that. I work as a graphic designer, but I don't think of myself as one. I still consider myself primarily a writer, even though right now I'm not selling anything and don't really want to. The writing I do here is just for me; it's easy, lazy, undisciplined, unedited, unsellable. The other day I was clearing out a box of marketing collateral and web content I wrote six or seven years ago and could hardly believe I had actually written it. One series, in particular, a nationally distributed column I ghostwrote for a year or so ... I probably should've taken it more seriously, tried to document somehow that I actually wrote it.

But why? I don't want to live by freelancing. I'm not up to that kind of stress these days. It's not a coincidence that my anxiety attacks stopped and I was finally able to wean myself from anti-anxiety meds around the same time I decided to just let it all go and concentrate on keeping things simple, simple, simple.

I am starting to get curious, though, about whether it might be possible to live very simply and make better money. When I started down this path I believed that the kind of life I wanted was incompatible with any kind of work that pays well. My experience had always been that the highest-paying jobs were also the most stressful, and I was willing – really, by my illness I was compelled – to sacrifice the money for the peace of mind I hoped would come once I shucked off everyone else's expectations and started living only for what was truly necessary ... or something like that.

But having less money is also stressful at times (though I've still never gone without anything I really wanted), and now that I'm feeling much more well and emotionally supported and secure, I'm also starting to feel just a little more adventurous as well. What could I do if I decided to really invest in my own work? What would I like to do?

Hmm. I have The Unbearable Lightness of Being going in the background, and I just glanced up at the screen and saw a tiny baby pink piglet wearing a black necktie, standing on a red oriental carpet. I will take this surreal sight as a sign it's time to dream some dreams of my own. Good night.

Weather

All week it's been sunny in the morning, moving into clouds and rain in the afternoon and evening. On Wednesday as I left the house I looked back and the whole mountain above us was draped in those lovely drifty necklaces of fog, with black and purple clouds behind it in the west, and the sky opening up just a bit at the eastern horizon, so that beautiful beams of sunlight were shooting straight across the valley and lighting up the colors on the hillside. All variations on green, of course, and also yellow and purple and white now, because the wildflowers are starting to open.

I've tried to photograph this type of scene before and the photos never do it justice. Instead, here's one I took earlier this year when it was storming, looking back toward the same view. Yeah, it's kind of dark, but you know – the flash doesn't help much when you're in the middle of a rainstorm in the great outdoors. How do those nature photographers get such great images of weather? Maybe I need a different kind of camera.

At that goat party last weekend someone had a tiny new little Canon Elph. It's the same camera I have, except mine is the first Elph they ever made. When it was new it seemed like the smallest, most elegant design ever – now, it feels like I'm walking around with somebody's big old worn out shoe in my hand. It still works fine, but it's kind of embarrassing to pull it out.

Oh well. I guess I'm just not as attached to gadgets as I have been in the past. Instead, right now I'm starting to plan and obsess about my studio. The one that isn't built yet. In a way, the studio is in the same category as the bike was for two years between the time my last perfect bike was stolen, and the day I bought my current perfect bike. I had not yet found the one I knew I would be happy with, so I preferred to have nothing at all – to dream about the perfect bike, rather than to actually have a bike I was less than perfectly happy with.

Thinking about the studio, it feels the same. How do I want to build it? Like a little tea house to meditate and write in? Like a big open room I can dance and jump in, and make enormous paintings? Like a greenhouse, with big windows on one side? This last one I don't want to think too much about, because if I build it like a greenhouse there's a good chance Mr. A will gradually encroach upon it in order to use it as an actual greenhouse, and I'll lose my space. The big open room idea is problematic too, because if I build something that requires permits then we will have to have an inspector come over, which I've been told could trigger a reassessment of the property and an increase in property taxes.

And will I build it myself, or hire someone to do it? I've been looking at plans on the web, and even at kits that come with all the walls and windows and doors, requiring only a day to assemble on site. For example, how about this one? It looks so sturdy and comfortable, like it really belongs there. And it has five sides, which I'd have to think about ... but I like the openness of it. Then again – a kit? Wouldn't it be better if I designed it and built it myself, with my own two little hands? I could take the whole spring and summer to do it, if I wanted to – though I doubt it would take that long. And wouldn't it be a great feeling to know that I had done everything myself? Assuming it turns out well. And why shouldn't it?

Anyway. That's what I'm thinking about today. By the time Mr. A gets home next week I'm supposed to have a plan for what I want to do with the yard, including choosing the site for this new building or shed or whatever I'm going to call it. I'm excited to get down to it.

Name that nut

The other day I was cleaning out my drawer in the bathroom, which led naturally to playing with makeup, which then led to cleaning out my little metal Krishna lunchbox full of old crusty beauty supplies. In the lunchbox I found two strange nuts. I remembered picking them up off the ground at a friend's cabin out in the Mayacamas about five years ago, intending to take them home and identify them. Somehow they ended up in the beauty box, where I've been visiting them on the rare occasions when I actually open the box, though I never did get around to figuring out what kind of nuts they were.

So when I found them again during my beauty supply purge, I decided to crack the nut (an expression I find myself using often lately, for some reason) once and for all, and then get rid of them. The problem was, the nut was not just trapped inside its shell; it was still encased in its leathery outer skin, also known as the hull, and this material was so hard and dry after five years in storage that I could not peel it off. I tried stepping on the nut, but it wouldn't break. Then I tried pounding it a few times with the bottom of a heavy drinking glass. No go.

The obvious next step, since all this was taking place in the bathroom, was to try to cut the hull off with cuticle scissors. Even as I rummaged through the debris on the counter to find them, a little voice was whispering in my ear, "Not such a good idea!" Undaunted, I located the scissors, held the nut firmly between my left thumb and forefinger, and began trying to force the blade between the tightly compressed lips of the hull.

What else did I think was going to happen? The scissors slid across the hard surface of the nut hull and sank deep into the flesh of my index finger. Blood flew everywhere as I hurled both nut and scissors to the floor and ran into the kitchen for the meat cleaver, with which I finally smashed the cursed nut to smithereens.

Okay, so there were only a few drops of blood. But I did smash the nut with a cleaver, only to find out that there was nothing left inside but dust. Then I threw the pieces in the garbage, cleaned and bandaged my finger, and forgot about it.

Until this morning, when I accidentally bumped the wound against a sharp piece of metal. Suddenly it kind of hurt again, and when I examined it under my desklamp I noticed a greenish blackish streak extending about an inch up my finger, originating at the cut. This immediately brought to mind the story of my sister who got blood poisoning a few years ago and had to walk around her house trailing an IV on a little stand, just like the patients on General Hospital.

I spent twenty minutes feverishly searching for information on the Internet, looking at hideous pictures of gangrenous fingers and amputations and wondering if I should douse it with hydrogen peroxide and hope for the best, call the doctor at my lunch break, or go directly to the emergency room ...

Then suddenly I remembered that I had been marking up galleys this morning with a green highlighter. Was it possible that the greenish streak was not some awful infection, but merely a faint leftover bit of ink?

It was. It was possible, and it was ink. I felt like I'd just won the lottery! Nice to be grateful for small things.

(P.S. The nut was a pecan.)

Listening to: Lewis Taylor – When Will I Ever Learn (on KPFA)

Heart music

This afternoon I was goofing around with the GarageBand software on my computer at work, and when I opened the loop editor and clicked a random piano loop I had a sudden, very sweet stab of adrenalin that shot all the way through me. The piano sounded so beautiful I felt like I was on fire! And I felt something else: a desperate longing to play music again.

Listening to someone else play a piano is nothing like playing it yourself.

I took piano lessons for probably about eight years as a child. For the first year I walked to my lessons at an elderly neighbor lady's house, where I would climb up onto her big brown padded piano bench and sit with my feet barely reaching the pedals, playing scales and repeating songs like "The Lion Hunt" over and over and over until we were both happy with my performance.

After that I started studying at the university with a friend of our family who was the director of the music department there. My favorite memories of those lessons are of wandering around the empty, musty-smelling music building. Listening to unseen students playing various uncoordinated instruments in locked practice rooms. Spying on abandoned saxophones and cellos waiting patiently in empty offices. Breathing in the smells of old wooden furniture and dampness and stale cigarette smoke. Sitting hunched down in deep cushiony chairs in someone's studio or in the giant empty auditorium, writing in my notebook. Pulling myself along by the smooth wooden handrail as I climbed the stairs from the basement to the third floor. Standing on my toes to look out the tall arched windows at a snowy parking lot at twilight, or at new leaves in spring, or at the lights of cars curving around the corner from the institute building, watching to see if it was my mom or dad coming for me. I remember the sound of hard-soled shoes echoing down a long, white tiled hallway in the dark.

I remember falling in love with certain pieces of classical music around this time, too. Chopin, Mozart, Beethovan. Easy pieces kids could learn. I remember listening to my father play Moonlight Sonata from memory.

I remember the wonderful feeling in my hands when they really knew the instrument, and music would just come pouring out of them. It was so easy, so natural.

When I was a kid I had lots of experiences that were very physically satisfying in that way. I remember running fast, jumping, swimming, playing music, doing gymnastics, playing games – the feeling that comes when your body knows what to do and takes over doing it, and your mind empties itself and you forget you even exist, for awhile. These days I am so used to ignoring myself when I want to move and play like that, that I hardly ever even notice it anymore. I've forced myself for almost 20 years to sit still in a chair for eight or more hours every day.

Riding the bike has been a little taste of what I've been missing. Maybe that's what's opening me up to the idea of doing more now, finally – playing the piano again, or finding a place to swim more often. It's exhausting to live so wrapped up in my own mind so much of the time.

Goat party

Mr. A left this morning for a two-week gig in Southern California. It's the longest we've been apart since we met. He didn't find out about the job until just a few days before he had to leave, so I haven't had much time to think about it or freak out.

This afternoon I went to a party at a friend's place in the mountains, in a little hollow on the other side of the valley. It's not really all that far from town but it feels like a million miles away, up a narrow, winding road passing through steep, close hills and overhung with enormous eucalyptus, bay laurels and oaks. The little seasonal creek is bubbling along, moss and ferns are springing up everywhere, and blossoming fruit trees and little tufts of white narcissus growing up through the leaf litter on the forest floor make everything smell fresh and good.

There was a heavy drenching rain all day, which made everything even sweeter. The party was in an enormous stone and timber barn which she'd cleared of trucks and tractors so that long wooden tables could be set up with food, drinks, and the piece de resistance – a sheep she'd slaughtered and cooked up for the occasion. The south side of the barn is open to the view of a heavily wooded hillside (shrouded today with clouds and rain) and at each side of the opening there were wood fires burning in a couple of old barbecues. Inside the barn was cozy and comfortable and full of friends – mostly winemakers, farmers and carpenters, when I took a look around. That interested me; most of my friends until now have been more what I think of as intellectuals, artists, academics and high tech people. Although of course there's plenty of overlap in all those categories. My favorite black and brown farm dog was also there, snuffling around in his fluffy fur coat and charming the babies by licking barbecue sauce off their faces.

A young friend who's just finishing high school this year took me up to the shed to show me some twin goats who were less than an hour old. They stood on wobbly little legs, calling piteously to their mother and trying to nurse. Their umbilical stumps were still shining; their placenta, lying in the straw on the floor of the barn, was still wet. I held one of their baby cousins, a little brown boy born yesterday afternoon, who snuggled up in my arms like a cat and fell asleep, sighing deeply. His fur was still soft, his hooves were still smooth, and the little nubs of his horns were just barely big enough to feel on the top of his head.

I sort of fell in love with the little guy, and it's got me thinking again about trying my hand at goat herding. I had been thinking that if we do get goats this year it would be better to get two girls, since males stink and tend to be aggressive. But maybe that's not a problem if you neuter them? In any case, I'm not interested in breeding them, or milking them, or starting a goat cheese factory or any of that – I just want to see how they do at keeping the grass and star thistles down in the back field. So maybe their gender doesn't matter.

My only real experience with livestock so far has been with chickens, and I have a feeling they're a lot less labor-intensive than goats. I never had to give them worm shots or trim their hooves, for one thing. Having misunderstood the concept of "free range" chickens, I never even really built them a proper coop to live in – just a little nesting house, which they never deigned to use, preferring to roost (and poop, copiously) on my front porch at night and lay their eggs in the bushes under my bedroom window.

Goats need more formal living arrangements, though, I think. A securely fenced area and a little shelter to live in, at the very least, plus some kind of miniature mountain or pile of rocks to climb, plus toys – a soccer ball, or one of those things they hang in trees for horses to play with. Also, vet visits, wormings, attention to hooves and horns, and eventually ... someone to help me figure out how to slaughter them. Augh! Could I really do all that? Would I really be willing to kill and eat that little gorgeous darling animal I held like a baby this afternoon?

All I can say is that his auntie sure was delicious. Also, because I knew her personally, I felt more ... thoughtful, as I was eating. It was impossible to ignore where the meal had come from, and as a result I felt especially grateful for it.

To eat an animal you've loved and taken care of and paid attention to seems somehow less barbaric than eating one you've never met or cared about.

Anyway – it was a beautiful party, very lush and exotic in its rusticity. This is the kind of afternoon that makes me feel like I belong here.

Extreme Lent Challenge™ 2006: Sugar

In honor of Lent, here's a little fake movie I made to psych myself up as I attempt to do a thing I've been thinking about doing for years – give up sugar.

Partly inspired by the shocking photos my parents have taken of me during my last two visits, and partly by my own admission that I'm never going to be 20 years old again, and thin, and able to eat anything I want at any time of the day or night, and also partly by my miserable blood chemistry, or whatever it is that's making me feel exhausted all the time in spite of rest and exercise and a generally pretty healthy diet – inspired by all these things, I've decided to see if losing some weight will help me feel better about myself.

I know that isn't what Lent is supposed to be about. Aside from developing self-discipline and a resistance to temptations of the flesh, there's also the theory that by abstaining from whatever it is for 40 days and 40 nights (plus Sundays, which apparently don't count toward the 40-day total even though you must also abstain on Sundays), we deliberately enter into a state of constant yearning and craving that can – if we keep our minds in the right place – give us a direct and visceral experience of the deep desire for communion with the divine ... or something like that.

My first experiment with Lent was three years ago. In keeping with my lofty goal of spiritual enlightenment, I chose what I thought was a suitably challenging subject. I gave up chocolate.

I was expecting to feel this enormous, cavernous, unbearable longing, which I would then oh-so-virtuously transform into the spiritual longing that would then go on to transform my life. That was what I hoped I would feel.

Surprise! It hasn't happened. I haven't even missed it. I've stood in front of a bakery case full of chocolate croissants, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate mousse, chocolate bread pudding, chocolate everything, and felt nothing. I tested myself by picking up a box of my favorite dark chocolate bonbons and carrying them all around the store with me before placing them, not even reluctantly, back on the shelf. Today someone from my office brought in these cute little gold-foil-wrapped Lindt bunnies and mine is still sitting on top of my monitor, waiting for Easter.

I was actually a little disappointed in my results with the chocolate experiment. I had had a pretty sick and obsessive relationship with it up until I started, which was why I'd thought it was going to be so hard. But after the first couple of days I was fine, and on Easter, when I finally did bite off the head of one of those bunnies, it wasn't as nearly satisfying as I had thought it would be. In a way, that meant I'd been successful – the spell of chocolate had been broken. I still love it, but it's never regained the hold it once had on me. At the same time, it's also kind of sad. I miss the intense pleasure it used to give me.

This is just the kind of change I would like to see in my relationship with sugar, though, so I'm entering this year's experiment with high hopes. So far, a mere 36 hours into it, the hardest thing has not been struggling with my cravings but simply remembering not to indulge them. It's a habit: I see something yummy, I put it in my mouth. Or, I'm hungry, and I eat whatever comes to hand first. So many of my behaviors around food are characterized by impulse and an utter lack of planning ... Retraining myself to notice sugar and avoid it (though I doubt I'll ever give it up completely) will be a good thing.

In conjunction with the Lent challenge, Mr. A is joining me in an attempt to get our carb consumption under control. So in addition to white sugar, I'm also avoiding anything else that's been processed into oblivion (white flour, white rice, etc.) as well as limiting other kinds of sugars (especially fresh juice, which is probably going to be the hardest thing of all because I love it more than anything else, and still believe it's good for me).

Last year I totally bailed on my dream of getting skinny enough to wear look good in leather pants by my 40th birthday. This year, if I can come up with a picture I like for my parents' hallway display of family photos, I'm ready to call it good. The leather pants can wait til I turn 50. It's only eight and a half years away!