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20 books & 20 lbs (week 43): It’s all ups and downs, isn’t it?

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You win some, you lose some…that’s how the saying goes. I think, in that context, it’s supposed to refer to the idea that you can’t win all of your battles. Of course, with weight loss, winning is losing and vice versa, and so while I was happy to report that I’d lost a pound last week, I get to report that I gained it back this week. What the…?

Weight loss is so genuinely frustrating. If you don’t have the time, energy, or sheer mass of willpower to devote all of your time and energy to it, you just can’t seem to make the progress you want. I’m not as bad off as I was nine months ago, but I still feel like only drastic action will get me the other 10lbs down…and drastic is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Drastic is where “things that I can’t do repeatedly and forever” comes in. Drastic is “you can’t have, even when you want to” and that’s also a problem.

Now, sure, I’ve had to take drastic action before: for example, I don’t drink (highly) caffeinated drinks anymore. About 10 years ago, I stopped drinking caffeinated sodas and switched to decaf coffee & tea because my gastrointerologist suggested that might help me with my (ever-increasing) stomach troubles. Turns out he was right: dehydration is a trigger, and caffeine is definitely a trigger. And yes, there is some amount of caffeine in decaf coffee, but it doesn’t set me off, so I still drink THAT.

That was a big switch for me, and it’s also a lot of why I primarily drink water if I’m not having coffee or tea; at least that I know I can get without caffeine hidden in it (I’m looking at YOU, Orange Sodas and Root Beers!).

But that was taken for a specific symptom abatement: please make me stop being so violently ill that I’m incapacitated for several days every week. And it worked. Frankly, it’s also in the category of “drastic but totally manageable” since it didn’t require me to change how I spent my time, just what I picked to drink. It didn’t necessitate spending at least an hour in caffeine-detox every day, the way committing myself to a serious workout plan might.

So, the struggle continues. And yes, I know some of it is a matter of willpower. I could have not had that second margarita last night. COULD HAVE. But since I have about 1 alcoholic drink per month, these days, I figure that having two in one night probably holds me well enough until we get to Christmas.

Book #16: “Let the Sky Fall” by Shannon Messenger

It’s a funny thing, when you go to a movie theater and walk out with a book. That’s happened to me only a couple of times, where the movie theater had promo copies of books (recently released, is my guess, not advances) and they put them out for patrons to take on their way into whichever show they happen to be seeing. The first time that happened, we were going to see “The Three Musketeers” and I picked up some GOD-AWFUL HARRY POTTER KNOCKOFF that I just couldn’t even bother with after about 30 pages of me saying, “THIS IS A GOD-AWFUL HARRY POTTER KNOCKOFF” and exiling it to a shelf in the library to go into some nebulous “giveaway” pile that doesn’t yet exist.

So this was a bit different.

We were headed in to see “RED 2” and there was a book. On the counter. Just waiting to be picked up.

Putting aside my PTSD from having gotten such an awful book last time, I picked up “Let The Sky Fall”, a Young Adult fiction piece that seemed supernatural and potentially quite girly. The good news is that it IS supernatural but it ISN’T girly. In fact, Messenger – alternating chapters from the points of view of the two main characters – works very hard to make it NOT girly.

The book centers on Vane Weston, a teenager who managed to survive an EF-5 tornado that killed his parents and knocked out all of his childhood memories. He’s haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl that he later discovers is Audra, a “windwalker” – a sylph who can control wind, a girl who has been with him since just before that fateful day that robbed him of his parents. She explains to him that there’s a battle among the windwalkers and that she’s his guardian, sworn to protect him even if it means sacrificing her own life, and that there is another band of windwalkers that want to control him because he holds the secret to commanding the fourth wind – the westerly winds.

Of course, Vane being the average teen boy, thinks this is all fairly insane…but he manages to listen to her long enough to understand the truth in her message, and he devotes himself to learning what he can so that he can save both of them. He also tries to unlock the mystery of his past, which is tied up in secrets Audra holds clamped down as tightly as the regulation guardian braid she uses to corral her hair.

By alternating her storytelling between Audra and Vane, you get a much better sense of each character’s motivation and sensation. Naturally, there’s some measure of girliness involved – anything relating to how Audra and Vane feel about each other triggers my inner 14-year-old’s hormones – but not enough that you feel that it takes over the book. Within the first 100 pages (my threshold for pain), the book had me hooked. By the time I made it over the crest towards the end of the 400 page tome, I was staying up late to finish it. And any girliness about Vane/Audra is counteracted by both of them being tough as nails; Audra is no fading flower and her inner (and outer) strength make it clear this girl has some serious power.

Messenger ended the book by setting up for the next (“Let the Storm Break”, due out in March), and I’m curious to see what she puts into it. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for it, since this seems very much to be a series worth picking up, not just for me but also for my kids when they get old enough to handle YA. Her writing style and focus draws characters more in the vein of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson than Bella Swan, without necessarily alienating the young female set, so I think Messenger does a very good job of walking a very fine line. I’m glad I read “Let the Sky Fall”, and now I’m looking forward to March to see where she takes Vane and Audra next…

20 books & 20 lbs (week 42): Winning and losing, continued

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Just when I expected to deal with the consequences of an “eat all the things” week (or two), I end up losing weight two weeks in a row. I’m teetering on the edge…just a half-pound north of finally passing the 10lb weight loss mark. My pants have been looser, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s nice feeling plenty of wiggle room, but it’s also driving me to wear belts – which I loathe.

I also found it extremely strange that the pants I tried on at Kohls (and then bought!) ended up being wicked loose when I took them off the hanger and wore them to work. I’m starting to think that my “one size down” purchase was based on a vanity size. It seems unthinkable that I would’ve dropped a whole two sizes already.

In other words, a goal not yet met is already meeting with some measure of success in the pants/waistline area, where I’m finding the need to tighten my belt…literally!

I’ll keep at it for the remainder of the year and see what happens. Since I’ve been doing very little (or, shall we say, nothing?) lately in the way of real exercise, that’s probably the best place to start. Of course, it’s also one of the hardest, since it requires sacrificing time with the family or with my head on my pillow. Sigh. Work to do, work to do.

Book 15: “The Ginseng Hunter” by Jeff Talarigo

I can’t quite recall how I stumbled across this book. It might’ve been one of the free books left out at the end of summer camp, where boxes upon boxes of remainders and discards were tantalizingly close to the parking space, tempting me just to toss an entire box into my car’s trunk.

This book is a view into a world I can’t even imagine seeing otherwise, the simultaneously simple and complex life of a Chinese ginseng “hunter” who lives on the border between China and North Korea. The unnamed protagonist and his North Korean paramour, an escapee who’s trapped in a life of prostitution, alternate telling the stories of their existence.

His life is about the delicate responsibility of finding and harvesting the precious ginseng roots that provide him his primary source of income, while living in an uneasy alliance with the soldiers who man the border. Her life is one of incredible misfortune – the intense deprivation of life in North Korea, combined with the horrific frustration at her inability to protect her young daughter from the harshness of their reality.

The two stories blend together so seamlessly that you catch your breath at times, realizing that it’s very likely that what he sees is intersecting with the story she is telling…and ultimately there’s no joy in the gray, pragmatic, exploitative world Talarigo describes. There’s clearly beauty, such as in the perfection of a ginseng root carefully extracted so as to garner maximum sale value. But the majority of Talarigo’s tale is about the sadness of the inescapability of it all. No one seems to enjoy their life, and what we might consider the simple pleasures are as exquisite as the greatest extravagance in the West.

“The Ginseng Hunter” is a beautifully drawn tale of sadness and things that never could have been, and I’m terrifically glad it was short. Like the bitterness or bite of a root, sometimes having only the briefest taste is the best possible way to enjoy it.

20 books & 20 lbs (week 40): Disappointment in the homestretch?

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My weight loss has stalled out a bit, so that’s a bit annoying. I’m trying not to get too upset, but my appetite has been completely up and down lately. It also doesn’t help that some salty foods have made me feel like I’m retaining Lake Erie; sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which foods contain the salt that causes the problem…so it’s still something I’m working on.

At this point, without further extra effort, I’m on track to have met about half of my weight goal and about 80% of my reading goal. In other words, I need to step it up. BIG TIME. And I really need to stop reading books that are slogs. What on earth is wrong with me picking these chewy novels?! Then again, if all I did was pick up Dr. Seuss books, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

I’m still mentally motivated to continue towards my goals, but I have a general unwillingness to make radical changes to my life that would provide the drastic impacts. Part of that is my stubbornness about needing to have whatever changes I make be things that I can (and want) to continue. I just have to figure out how to get past this without feeling like changes are somehow reducing my quality of life to a point that I find disagreeable. In other words: there’s still plenty of work to do. And speaking of work…

 

Book 14: “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair

I’ve been meaning to read “The Jungle” for YEARS. As a Political Science student (undergrad), I’d heard of this legendary book that described horrifying working conditions at the turn of the 20th century. Sinclair was a journalist at the time, and apparently he’d done some time working undercover in the meat-packing factories of Chicago for an expose he penned for a Socialist newspaper.

The story focuses on the life and great trials of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant to came to the USA with his intended bride and her family, in search of opportunity. What they found instead was nigh unto institutionalized slavery, where horrifying working conditions for living and working were a hamster wheel that was completely impossible to escape. Poor immigrants, especially those with limited English skills, were brought into the factories – if they were lucky – and given jobs that worked them relentlessly, from sunrise until well past sunset, with the constant threat of injury and “losing one’s place”.

Rudkus and his family crowd into a house they are barely able to afford and destined to lose, even with all members of the family above the age of infancy trying to find some way to make nickels or more – often at the mercy of the brutal and inhumane packers. Tragedy heaps upon tragedy, leading Rudkus to run away from Packingtown, but even life as a hobo gives only a brief respite. As he bounces between Chicago proper and the meat-packing district, it seems that Rudkus experiences such impossible-to-survive conditions that you want to reach back into the early 1900’s and give the man a warm coat and a hot meal.

Extremely late in his story, Sinclair finds some redemption for his Job – through the auspices of Socialism. Unfortunately, this is where the book finally and utterly falls off the rails. It took me a while to get into “The Jungle”, as it was a bit of a slog for the first 100-150 pages, trying to figure out who Rudkus was and whether I could make it through his experiences in Packingtown without throwing up. (Seriously, this book gets you to wonder if it’s worth it eating ANYTHING you didn’t grow/raise yourself – ugh.) When Rudkus discovers Socialism and finds his soul freed from the oppression heaped upon it by the exploitative capitalist system, you get the sense that life will finally turn his way. Unfortunately, this is where Sinclair decides to put in a pages-long screed against capitalism that sets up Socialism as the only form of civilized humanity.

Now, as someone who’s studied Socialism and Communism (not to mention free-market Capitalism), I’m not going to say that Socialism is a complete train wreck. It certainly has its advantages, as well as its disadvantages. What bothers me is that the book doesn’t give any satisfactory sense of how Rudkus’ story continues or concludes; once it devolves into the political tract, Rudkus becomes merely the ears through which you hear the Socialist sermon. You never know whether he finds any kind of stability in his new life, and that suggests that the entire book is nothing more than a very large wrapper for a political testimony. I found that incredibly disappointing, not just because I was rooting for Rudkus to catch a break but also because Sinclair effectively discards ALL of his characters at the very end, perhaps proving that his view of Socialism is more about the idea itself than the people who support it.

To the extent that it’s a reminder of how far we have come in terms of working conditions (for many, but clearly not all), “The Jungle” is an incredible view into a truly horrifying world. It’s even worse when you think about how the conditions Sinclair described were based on his real observations of the meat-packing plants and how people lived in Chicago at that time. It’s depressing to think that version of the United States ever existed. It also makes you curious, knowing about migrant labor and poverty (not necessarily tied to such labor) still being issues today…how do we solve these problems without coming together? Frankly, these issues are less about the political umbrellas of Socialism or Capitalism and far more about the moral inclination of human beings to treat all other people as though the right to food and shelter are rights and not privileges.