Deja vu all over again

I'm in Portland. Having a really nice time so far, but not feeling any real affinity with the place that would make me move here. Admittedly, I haven't been to Voodoo Doughnut yet, but what I am feeling is the sense I had when I was on my walkabout/vision quest: It's a nice place to visit but I have to move on. The twist this time is that I want to land somewhere. Well, I don't need to make any decisions right now. I'm just going to enjoy being out of LA and getting some perspective on that.

I'm also officially and thoroughly off Paleo, at least for the weekend. I started slowly yesterday, with some sips and crackers at a wine sale, and then I progressed steadily through some mac and cheese, cheese-covered bruschetta, fried calamari, and a mini chocolate sundae. No real ill effects. My stomach was more vocal than normal, but I'm feeling okay. Gonna train in a bit, so we'll see how I feel performance-wise. Later today I'll see some college friends and tomorrow I'll see some high school friends and try to walk around and take in as much of the city as possible.

For now, pass the sugar! I'm off the wagon--with a vengeance!.

Heavy lifting

Over the weekend I deadlifted 290lbs. That's a personal record for me; my old PR was 285. I tried 295 first, and that was just not going anywhere. And 290 was a true PR--it took everything I had, and then when I put the bar back down I had to stay bent over for a couple seconds while I waited for the blood to rush back to my head.

I'm getting excited for my trip to Portland. Eben has graciously agreed to host me, which should be fun; he lives over the New Breed there, and it's across the street from a dive bar called something like the Copper Penny. The plan is to train some, check out a few of the CrossFit gyms in the area, see some friends who live there, eat my weight in Voodoo Doughnuts, and otherwise get a feel for the place to see if I might like to live there. I also need to figure out a Halloween costume.

I'm nervous about the trip, too, because of the what ifs: What if this amounts to nothing, what if I'm unable to imagine myself living there, and what if after this trip I'm still right where I started: unhappy in SoCal but not sure what to do about it? Well, I'm trying not to worry about that before there's a need, but I like to plan ahead, I guess. It's a blessing and a curse. At the very least, I just have to trust that whether or not I end up moving to Portland, it's my necessary next step, and taking it will lead me to my NEXT necessary next step. I have to go to Portland. That's all I know right now. That's all I get to know, I guess.

Meantime, I'm still training and CrossFitting a bunch, in preparation for the No-Gi Worlds. Not much else to report until my next spate of trips starts: Chicago to see my friend Natasha's Second City production (and train at Carlson Jr's), Toronto to help with MECCA team training and maybe do a seminar, and then downstate IL for Thanksgiving. So I'll be back to being busy/distracted, which will be a good thing but also maybe too much of an escape. I'll have to make a point of figuring out how to create a life for myself that I don't want to spend all my time going out of town from. While I'm going out of town a lot.

Meh

Lying low. Continuing to train and CrossFit--oh, and make a living periodically. Looking forward to my trip to Portland next weekend to see friends and go here: http://www.voodoodoughnut.com. There are two locations, open 24 hours, and you can apparently get married there. I'll be done with a month of Paleo dieting by then, so it will be time to ruin my stomach with refined sugar. I'm still probably the only person who has gone on Paleo who has not lost weight and has maybe even gained a pound or two. It's okay, though.

Yesterday was momentous: I had to go to the doctor to get a bunch of wax removed from my ear canal--there was so much that I couldn't hear out of the ear. My friend Brian had told me that the same thing happened to him; when you do jiu jitsu and your ears get rubbed a lot, apparently they react by producing tons of wax. Yet another glamorous aspect of the grappling lifestyle. The doctor took it well and didn't ask any pesky questions.

No-gi worlds is on November 8, two weeks from tomorrow. I'm planning to compete. I'd better register. I keep forgetting. I don't think that's Freudian, though.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of it. I haven't written in a while, obviously. Haven't tried to find an agent. Don't feel like it. So I'm not. Meh.

Fran kicked my ass, but then we were friends

Momentous last weekend: I worked a table (Gazzy Parman was my ref) for the Grapplers' Quest at the Pyramid in Long Beach. Stressful, but fun. When you're sitting at the table, it doesn't really look like you're doing much, but during a match, you have to watch the ref the whole time to make sure you catch every call. You keep score and you keep time, and you organize the competitors so that they are ready to go when it's their turn. You fill out the brackets. So I was a little distracted when people tried to talk to me. But I heard that our mat was very efficient, so that's kind of cool.

And then on Sunday, I went to Paradiso CrossFit (http://www.paradisocrossfit.com) and did the Fran. For those of you who don't know, the Fran is an iconic CrossFit workout that causes even the bravest of people to quail in fear. It is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBgKB4Gnsw

21-15-9 reps of thrusters (95lbs for men, 65lbs for women) and pullups. As you can see from this video, those people finished in faster than 4 minutes. The fastest Fran time is under 2 minutes. My time, doing the workout as prescribed for women, was 6:52, and I writhed on the floor in pain and discomfort for about 10 min afterward, getting up only about twice, and then just to my hands and knees, to crawl outside and hack up a lung and spit it out. It is a KILLER workout, both physically and mentally/psychologically.

I had had a mental block against Fran for over a year. We had done a Fran challenge at CFLA, and I actually got a SLOWER time (by maybe 3 seconds) over the 8 weeks from the baseline to the "training" time. And I hadn't done Fran since. So I was freaking out about it. Had all kinds of excuses about why I couldn't do it. And then my friend Zeb, who was teaching the class, started the backwards countdown, and off we went. And my 6:52 was almost a minute faster than my times from that challenge.

Maybe it's the Paleo (day 17, by the way, though I cheated today, with a hoagie from Jersey Mike's. No cheese, but a pretty big roll. And yet, no adverse effects--so far. I keep hearing that going off the Paleo just kills your insides. I must have a cast iron stomach.) Whatever it is, my Fran problems are solved, for now.

Paleolicious

I've been on the Paleo diet for 9 days now. That means no dairy, no grains/refined sugar or flour, and for me, no diet Coke. I do get to eat meat, nuts/seeds, and fruits/veggies. People who swear by this diet say it makes you feel fantastic, drop body fat, and improve your athletic performance.

So far, I have gained about 2 pounds. I am pooped, sleeping upwards of 9 hours a night if I can. I have a rumbly stomach most of the time, and my poop is orange. (TMI? Yeah, probably. But it's true.) I'm going to stick with it; my friend Sean says it can take two weeks for your gut to "heal" from the effects of grains and dairy, and after that you start to enjoy the benefits. But my other friends said they started to feel better immediately. So I must be a slow learner. But being off the diet Coke and the refined sugar and flour is reason enough to keep going. I know those things are terrible for me, and I'm glad to say I've been able to withstand the temptation for over a week now. That's huge for me.

Today was a fun day: I went with Johnny, Vince, and Paul to the Paramount Studios lot for a health, safety, and wellness expo. We brought a bunch of New Breed banners and flyers. Shawn and Sean were there from Hollywood BJJ too, and it was fun to see them. Plus, I saw the Hollywood sign for the first time in the 3+ years I've been living here. It was actually pretty impressive, and since I'm a cynical New Jerseyite, that's saying something.

Tomorrow will be a long day of tournament attending/working--it's the Grapplers' Quest in Long Beach. It should be fun.

I'm slowly snapping out of my funk. I still want to escape from LA (like Snake Plissken?), but for now I'll bide my time the way I said I was going to: by doing only what I absolutely must. And eating my weight in almond butter and Omega-3 enriched eggs (both Paleo).

What a difference a fortnight makes

I know, nobody in this country uses the term "fortnight." But "What a difference two weeks makes" sounds cumbersome. Anyway, I was just skimming some old posts and found the one from September 15, in which I vow never to give up looking for happiness.

Yeah, whatever. I'm not going to beat myself up over that one, because I am a grown-ass woman and I don't have to do what I don't want to.

Nothing is the new something

Turns out I'm still really unhappy. I had just been staying a step ahead of the unhappiness curve by traveling so much--I guess I didn't have time to feel it because I was operating on little sleep and even less alone time. I still have flashes of happiness, like when I train or CrossFit or spend time with people I like. For example, I had a GREAT evening on Wednesday, when Cristian and I went to train at Rodrigo Teixeira's in West Covina. It was fantastic to take a field trip, as it had been a while; I love training with everyone at New Breed, and when I train elsewhere, I get to compare styles and techniques. And Cristian and I were able to compare notes and start to think about ways to improve our games and add stuff to the class he teaches so the other students can benefit too.

Teixeira is terrific; he made short work of me but somehow managed to make me feel good about my grappling at the same time. He said we are welcome back any time, and he might be sorry he said so, because I'll definitely go back, and I know Cristian wants to too.

So there are some good moments. But when I'm by myself, alone with my thoughts and my identity and my situation, I feel yucky, and I do the things I usually do when I'm abjectly unhappy. I cry at sappy commercials and songs. I sleep an inordinate amount. I eat a lot (and since I'm on the Paleo diet for the month of October, that translates into almond butter by the spoonful.) I observe that my mind is racing and I can't seem to stop it, and I get depressed about the bad in people rather than focusing on the good. I feel put upon and insignificant and like I'm a dime a dozen. I feel like nobody else ever feels this way and already has their shit all figured out, and that at age 39 I'm no better off than I was when I left Chicago, and in fact I'm worse off because now I'm older and have no assets, prospects, or, even furniture. I can't think of what would make me feel better, even if I could get it. And worst of all, I feel very far removed from gratitude. I have a lot to be grateful for, and when I feel this way, I don't appreciate any of it.

Plus, I think I have butt arm. (This is when you overuse your arm muscles eccentrically--lengthening them--and they swell and your arm looks like a butt when you bend it.) We did power cleans, knees-to-elbows, and double-unders at the CrossFit class this morning, and they all put lots of stress on my forearms. So now my left arm is swollen. If it's not butt arm, it's still freaky looking. Maybe I have arm mumps.

But anyway, I'm frankly tired of working at feeling better. At looking on the bright side. (It rings false because I don't feel it right now.) At faking it till I make it. (I'm making it nowhere.) At being happy and complete in myself and the things I have right now (100% horseshit). I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I have done a SHITload to bring happiness to myself in recent years, since I started my vision quest. I've pretty much spent the past 3+ years challenging myself to pursue a happier life by facing my fears, articulating what I want for myself, and learning from my mistakes. But I'm experiencing a crisis of faith, if you want to call it that, or just total fed-up-ness that it's still eluding me, and I can't think of anything else to do, or how to do things differently.

So I'm done.

No, I'm not done THAT way. And I'm not going to stop writing/bitching (or making it impossible for Anonymous(es) to pollute my blog with their complete fuckwittedness). But I'm not going to do anything anymore that I don't want to do, other than the things I absolutely have to, like support myself financially, eat, sleep, and breathe. And bathe. Those are imperatives. But I don't really have to do anything else, because I'm a grown-ass woman with relatively few responsibilities. The things I have been working hard to do don't seem to result in anything I want anyway, so I have decided to take the path of least resistance and do much more nothing.

I was talking to Anahi today and she said that there's some kind of Buddhist koan about doing by not doing; in other words, the best way to get things done is to do nothing. Maybe it means to refrain from resisting. But when I Googled it, the first hit I got was "Zen and the Art of Doing Dishes: Finding Joy in Everyday Chores." And that just enraged me. So I'll take Anahi's word for it--and I do vaguely remember reading about it somewhere--but I can't remember it exactly.

What that means is, if you are a douchebag training partner, I'm not going put aside my own discomfort and force myself to roll with you. If you say stupid shit to me, I'm not going to assume you meant well and take it. I'm not going to smile because you tell me to. I'm not going to put your needs before mine. If we both had the same entree, I'm still not going to split the check evenly when I had water and you had 3 beers. I'm not going to accept your Mafia Wars request. I'm not going to listen to your monologue, unable to get a word in edgewise, especially when it's clear that you have no interest in anything I have to say.

In short, I have decided to get a jump on manifesting all the qualities of the eccentric, crotchety old paycheck-to-paycheck-living bag lady I'm apparently on my way to becoming. I can't imagine going back to my corporate life. But this one needs a kick in the pants too. And nothing I do is helping with that. So from now on, I'm phoning it in. I'm done trying to orchestrate any sort of future. (Yes, I'm going to go to Portland and I'm going to change CrossFit gyms, and I did do those other things I mentioned that I had hoped would set me on a good course. But those are all about what I want in the moment, not about the future.)

I'll let you know how it goes. Unless I don't.