Forty Two Beers On The Wall

Speaking of nature...I am always heartened by rampant bee activity.  It's been storming and cold here, which as you know- I love!  It means that all my garden activity is conducted in a brief and frantic manner- rushing out to plant the strawberries between storms.  I have planted about 50 strawberry plants and 12 shallots and those pea and fava sprouts are really reaching in spite of the damp chill.  The sunniest sight is bees with grains of pollen dusted all over their fuzz.  They are currently feasting primarily on fruit blossoms and dandelions.  Just one more service the dandelions, hated by most gardeners, are performing for humankind.  Early pollen is important to everything.

Today is tax day for us.  I'm scared.  For many reasons.


So, in spite of all the many savvy traveling friends and acquaintances of mine I am shocked that not a single one of you had any cheap hotel suggestions for Manhattan.  You all must travel in much nicer style than I do.  I came within a hair's breadth of refunding my plane ticket because I don't honestly see how I am going to save enough money for this trip.  My boss talked me into having more patience.  I had to listen to her because a) she's my boss*   b) she has already helped me get my plane ticket by buying two market bags from my Etsy shop and c) she's super nice. 

I am going to have to save $1000 in four months.  Please tell me how people in our circumstances are going to be capable of setting that much aside?  On the plus side, if I manage to do it, I believe this whole trip (minus alcohol) will be deductible as a business expense (I work as a contractor). 

So here's what I'm going to do- I'm going to sew like a maniac and get tons of great stuff in my Etsy store and then I'm going to beg each and every one of you to check there first when you need to buy presents for people.  I have never been particularly skilled at self promotion but I'm going to give it my best shot because I'm pretty sure that this is my ONLY shot.


I am now going to reveal something to you that will be so shocking you will totally freak out.  I'm going to go public with it because I'm rather proud of some progress I've made which, without a full disclosure I'm not sure you'll appreciate properly.

I ask you, first, to understand that if you have seen me drunk in the past 20 years then you witnessed a very rare event.

Last August we cut down on our drinking.   We went from drinking every night to drinking 3-4 nights a week.

(I'm taking a deep breath and you should too.)

We used to drink 42 beers a week each.

(Don't make shocked noises loudly please, I might hear you.)

FORTY TWO.

(And not get drunk, which is due to our habit of padding our stomachs properly and building up a solid tolerance.)

We cut our weekly drinking down to between 18 and 24 beers each. 

To give this perspective:  healthy drinking is no more than two drinks a night.  That's a total of 14 drinks a week. 

18 isn't too far from a reasonable amount.  24 is a stretch.

We used to drink 42 beers EACH a week and not get drunk.

That's six a night each.

All those times I said I could drink giant Russian men under the table?  You see now how I was not kidding?

For the past 7 months we've mostly stuck to the cut back and I'm proud of us.

But we have begun making a new push. 

Last weekend we only drank 3 beers each on Friday, on Saturday, and Sunday.  A 9 beer weekend hasn't happened in over 4 years.

I haven't been that moderate since before I broke my hip.

Then I freaked out on Monday about the taxes and got myself a six pack and drank them all.  I was very full of beer.  I would have been happier if I'd either not had beer at all or had only three.

Philip didn't break.  He weathered the stress drinking only ginger honey syrup (home made) with mineral water.  For that I'm incredibly proud of him.

I know what word you all are thinking and you need to expunge it from your heads immediately.

And don't let me hear you think it again.

We've been stress drinking for 4 years. 

We have never been moderate people in general but I was never ashamed of or worried about the amount we drank in the previous 13 years of our marriage.  We like to live large and I'm not going to apologize for that.

The thing is, in the past four years, every time we've made a push to curb the drinking (during the week, for example) if I messed up one night I would give up for the rest of the week.  It marks brand new strength that I messed up on Monday but instead of giving up my efforts for the rest of the week to drink less, last night I didn't drink anything but some weak decaf English Breakfast tea (decaf black tea doesn't seem to come with much flavor) when I got home from Kung Fu.  Didn't blink an eye.  The ability to make a mistake, to fall back a step, but then pick right back up and move forward?  This is how I used to be.  This is the place I've been working to get back to for the last 7 months.

Yep, I'm still fat as hell.  You see why the big confusion over how come I'm not losing weight and how I actually seemed to gain some in the past 7 months?  No matter.  I am really not focusing on that right now because it takes a lot of energy to reclaim lost personal strength. 

It's not our goal to become tee-totalers.  I don't trust people who never drink strong beverages (unless they don't do so because of medication or allergies).  I know that's queer.  Many of you know that few things can freak me out more than adult milk drinkers.  Adults who drink milk because they find it "refreshing"...GREAT SELF-CHOKING AND ANNOYING THROATY NOISES OF DISGUST....HOLDING ESOPHAGUS TO PROTECT FROM THE HORROR OF PHLEGMY WHITE BEVERAGE...WRITHING ON THE GROUND TRYING TO GET THOUGHT OF MILK COATED MOUTH OUT OF HEAD- OH GOD!!!!!!!!

I know.  That's very mature of me.  What can I say?  I spend a lot of time with a nine year old boy.

We never want to have to stop enjoying alcohol which is the main reason we have been making efforts to pull back from the edge of this problem.***  I want to always be able to drink as much as I like when hanging out with people in social situations.  In order to be able to be a social lush, I must be much more spartan in my everyday life.

Oh crap.  I was going to fill this post with things like words I saved up in my head that I hate and little scraps of celebrity joking and share a few of Max's choice quotes this week to amuse you.  It was going to be a really light post for once.

The reason I'm sharing this here, publicly, is because those two things I accomplished this week mark a poignant personal victory.  It marks a fresh level of self discipline that I have reclaimed in myself.  Self discipline that I have been hunting for and begging the universe to restore to me- because I used to be a very strong person.  Taking a step back no longer automatically means I'll give up for the span of a week.  There is this feeling in my gut now that I have more power, that while this is a very long road and nothing about it is fast or easy, I am no longer a complete slave to my fear, my loneliness, or to feelings of hopelessness. 

It is difficult to do or concentrate on anything else while working on this one thing.  In Kung Fu my Sifu is asking us to grow, to improve, to seek mastery, to rise above mediocrity, and I am striving to do all that.  My body is so broken and large that trying to get any new physical routine down is like moving a mountain and I don't think my Sifu, who has been active and fit and spartan his entire life, knows that just to move and perform in his class, under his care, is an enormous stretch for me.  I'm proud just to show up and it shames me how often I've been sick this winter and it annoys me that I can't do Kung Fu while I'm on the rag (I simply can't be up close and personal with people in a sweaty environment while bleeding)**

My point is that I am trying to change so many things and it has been embarrassing to me that it is taking so long and that everything else pales under the weight of changing the biggest thing in my life that threatens my health, my self esteem, and my progress. 

I keep telling you all that I'm giving up on myself.  On life.  On projects.  On believing in myself.

The progress I've made in reducing my drinking and changing how I look at it, how I approach it, and reshaping its role in my life is proof that this is untrue.  If I had given up on myself I would still be drinking a six pack every single night and I would not keep going to Kung Fu at every moment I am able to.  I would not have increased my physical stamina to the point where a six mile bicycle ride doesn't exhaust me.

I can't shake the feeling that people will see me as dirtied or devalued because of this phase in my life.  That no matter what else I do people will apply that dirty word to me and it will stick.  I dare you to use that word to describe me! 

I will never use it on myself.

I see the past four years as the darkest letting go of my entire life. 

The unfortunate part is that I was letting go of all the wrong things: self discipline, self respect, hope, and health.

I do have fears that no matter how much exercise I get or how well I eat or how little alcohol I consume I am going to remain obese.  It doesn't seem biologically possible and yet I drank about 400 fewer beers than normal in the past 7 months and in that time I actually gained some weight.  How has my body held onto every single pound when I reduced my caloric intake by 56,000 in that period of time and increased my exercise by about 100%?

Aren't numbers great? 

There are other factors and I'm not bothering to give you all the food and exercise details.  I'm too tired.  I'm 40 now and I think I've messed with my metabolism pretty seriously right before reaching my middle age.  I don't doubt that that has some relevancy here.

Maybe I'm just going to be fat for the rest of my life. 

I'm going to have to find a way to stop wanting to vomit with anxiety when I catch a glimpse of myself in store windows, which I try not to do.  I am going to have to find a way to accept myself how I am because 56,000 fewer calories in 7 months hasn't changed a thing. 

I'm not giving up.  I'm not throwing in the towel.  Today I can honestly say that I have made tremendous progress.  Today I am proud of myself.  I wanted to share that here, (where I share almost everything), and the only way to do that was to give you the numbers I have carefully not given anyone out of self protection.  I am trusting you to treat my vulnerability and my honesty with respect.  Many of you have said before how brave I am to be so honest all the time, to talk about things no one else will talk about, to leave myself open to strangers here and I have not felt it took so much bravery as it did a foolhardy bravado. 

I admit that I have not wanted to share my 42 beers on the wall with anyone. 

So if any of you feel I have not been giving proper attention to other aspects of my life, forgive me.  I have been busy just trying to take a few more beers down off the wall and to show up for Kung Fu.  Two activities that are 100% connected.  Kung Fu has been helping me find my way back to myself.  Yes, I hurt myself in class about once a month.  Definitely I miss more classes than most people do.  I know I move slowly and fumble through so much of it- but when I'm there I find myself more hopeful, more focused inward while at the same time becoming more aware outwardly, and the more I reach with my kicks and put power into punches the more I want to become my own spirit.

The most important thing I got from Kung Fu recently was the lesson from my Sifu that when in a fight you have to give yourself directives, decide on one thing you will accomplish- know what you will aim to hurt in the fight and your subconscious, which stores a lot of knowledge that our conscious mind can't always access, will figure out how to accomplish that aim.

Keep it simple.

He says he always goes for his opponent's eyes.

I am applying this to all aspects of my life.

Simple directives to myself:

I will follow my Sifu's lead and go for the eyes.

Gouge the eyes.
Write books.
Take another beer off the wall.
Grow more food.
Kick straighter.
Run.
Breath deeper.
Gouge the anger.
Touch dirt.

But really?  Just go for the eyes.









*Not one of my supervisory people admits to being my boss and yet, when you work for people, it is not difficult to discover who you answer to.  There is a great hierarchy of bosses at my work and I am at the very bottom of the pile so while the "boss" I speak of isn't technically THE BOSS, if I piss off any of the higher-uppers (as I like to refer to them in the upper atmosphere) this is the person through which they express their chagrin.  Make sense? 

**Women never talk about this and I certainly don't like to mention this to any men besides Philip.  Bad-ass professional sportswomen surely keep kicking no matter what's going on with their reproductive system.  I, on the other hand, fold up like damp paper and wait it out.

***There's also the fact that we can't afford to drink so much.