Three more exams!!

Almost done... almost done... I can't stand it anymore but I'm almost done... I have to remind myself that this is all worth it, that this suffering and madness will culminate in something beautiful and worthwhile: doing what I love, every single day.

Coyote Magic of Spring

It happens every spring. As the sap moves through the trees, and the smell of earth becomes pervasive- deep and rich, intoxicating like incense... I feel my blood thinning with the heat and running through my veins, alive... awake... aware.
I feel I have been asleep since October, I feel I have been moving through molasses, feet in blocks of cement. Only now with the warmth of these days I am bright and alert, and here.
This is the time of Coyote magic. It is no mistake that April Fools is in the spring. Coyote is here, tickling my feet and my fancy, telling me to wake up and play. I feel fantastic and fine, young and free... and it is indeed time to play.
I am straining at the edges of this semester, waiting to shed more clothes and responsibilities and get down to the sweaty business of summer fun and flirting. There are people out there waiting to be known, flirted with, played with and discovered; this may sound at first sexual, but I merely wait for the joy of discovery as usual.
How often I have gotten in trouble, with this Coyote magic dancing on my lips! Riding in my dimple, in my teasing phrases, my sly glances to all people alike. If I like you, if I fancy you, if I think you are fun and fine and a good friend, I flirt... to me flirting is like exercise, something to be done regularly because it does a body good.
And so I honor Coyote, Coyote who has come to me in dreams, who dances in my soul every day, who pulses in my veins especially in spring, who brings to my lips these teases that all might laugh... and perhaps feel a little passion in their blood, because to live is to love is to feel is to find yourself longing for the pleasure of life in the fullest.
Coyote... coyote... come and play, I am ready... ready for the summer, you old flirt, ready to set your mischief alight into the summer air.

Oh, the single life for me...

It's a little like trying on a shiny new dress. Or haircut. With all I've learned and how much I've grown in the past few years, because of the relationship I was in or despite it, it will be fun and interesting to try out the shiny new world as a single girl with all the knowledge and outlook I have now.
See, I haven't been truly single and free in a long time. The last time I was single, I wasn't sure I should be. I missed him. I wanted to reconcile. I wasn't ready. I felt adrift, lost, lonely...
Now- well, now is different. A new season, a new year, a new haircut, a new if hard outlook.
I have changed a lot, as you will do when forced down the gaping maw that is vet school; having gone down there in a relationship as thick as fine blackstrap molasses, it will be something different to navigate it as a woman singulare.
Don't I deserve to see the world through eyes unfettered by the trappings of a relationship? My whole post-pubescent life has been one of strings of relationships, with hardly a pause for breath in between. Never a pause, not since I was sniffed out by the boys when I was 12! I would take a month or two and think, there, I've been single. Next?

Now though, as a woman grown, I wonder what I am like when I am left to my own devices. I don't want to date. I want to be sugar free, man free and care free for a time. I think it will be good for me! Imagine! Not a man in sight, and the air is clear.

The tricky bit is of course that I still live with the man I was dating. Tis a friendly agreement, and one of necessity; but come fall, I will be cut loose, and diving into the most sticky semester yet... and there will be no time to entangle myself, and I will be glad! Vet school is no place for a relationship. I will try that and see what becomes of me.

No more sugar

Once again I am sugar free. I was this way for a number of years, but vet school stress had me sailing off the wagon like a parched fool in the desert drawn to an oasis. All the free cookies and candy... the sweet siren song of sugar, from all sides... the lure of free cheap energy... the sweet wonder of chocolate goodies, holidays laced with sweet powder, legal crack, kiddie crack...

It's so bad for me, so so bad. Years ago I was hooked and was jumping buggered nuts from the hypoglycemia it caused. I was a complete psycho to my boyfriends, to every situation in life until I was terrified I was certifiably mad or something.
WTF is wrong with me? I'd ask. I just didn't know.
Years later I read Protein Power, which was somewhat on the right track.
I still hit the kiddie crack on a regular basis, but backed it up with protein, thinking I was curing the problem. The crashes still came but they were gentler almost, slower and more predictable; but I still had inexplicable crying jags, bad judgement and bad feelings.

The bad feelings were the worst by far. When you have an emotion and you can't identify where it comes from, you want to label it just so you know you aren't completely bonkers. So often my boyfriends would take the blame (bastards!) Only they didn't know, as I didn't, that sugar is a completely evil poison that knocks out clear thinking and reason. The Twinkie Defense? Maybe there is more to that than we reckoned.

So years after the Protein Power, someone gave me a copy of Sugar Blues. This book saved my sanity. I had already recognized I had hypoglycemia, but hadn't a clue how to handle it. Oh well I thought, I will just have to recognize my crashes and deal with it for the rest of my life. Hey everyone, if I get 'hangry' (hungry + angry) just feed me some cheese, ok? Crappy!!! BUT, I read this book and realized it was a bunch of bunk. The gigantic corporate conglomerate that is our food industry was poisoning me and you on a daily basis, without even our permission. See if I'm wrong! Go for a stroll in the supermarket, and look at the normal things you eat. Ketchup? sugar. Mayo? sugar. Cereal, yogurt, table salt, dried fruit, juice, soups, tomato sauce, you name it and it has sugar.

I did it though. However at the time, I was living in a place that had a lot of access to 'alternative' food stores. There were lots and lots of 'sugar alternatives' that you could experiment. This was fun and handy, but what I ended up doing was trading white crack for the more natural kind, and lots of it. It wasn't any better even if it had a lower glycemic response curve and more fiber! It's still sugar, and I was still hooked.

That was before I fell off the wagon these last 2 years. I got sick last month with all sorts of ailments; UTIs, several in a row (a big clue!), flu which I never ever get, muscle aches, short attention span, crankiness... and on and on... but I wasn't ready yet! Not yet, I thought, as I devoured Christmas, then Valentines, then Easter candy, bag after bag. Please let me stop, I thought, as I just ate this crap because I felt that my life in school was so unhappy that chocolate was the only thing that would take the edge off.

Classic addict behaviour. Classic.
Then, all the sickness happened. This is two weeks ago! I went for a hike on a particularly nice day after feeling crappy for some time. I was sick, depressed, exhausted and unhappy.
In the woods I focused myself and wrote in my journal. I started to feel better, reminding myself who I am and all that I strove for the first time I kicked it. That I used to be a person that wanted a simpler life, something more (I hate this word) wholesome. Meaning, less refined, less processed, less stressed and rushed. Getting back to sugar free, yoga, meditation and art as ways to let off steam.

So it has been about a week and a half. I feel a lot better. My focus is clear, my body feels better, my skin looks better and I look less bloaty somehow. It takes a while to get past the cravings and that sneaky voice in your head that says (only a little... sssss... just a tassssste...) but once you clear it you're good. It was so easy for years to sail past the brightly colored seductive isle in Walgreens, filled with chocolatey holiday cheer! It will be once again, and I am nearly free.

This time I will not go heavy on 'alternative sugars' which still jack up the blood sugar. I will instead use more Stevia (goddamn government and Sugar industry keeping it from being a legit sweetener!!! more on that later). I am concious of eating whole grains, lots of veggies, less dairy and more whole foods in general.
I hope someday our society wakes up and realizes that they are being poisoned. It is in everything. It can't go on! It makes people so sick, and our society has to pay and pay for the resultant diseases... diabetes, obesity (why is everyone so surprised we have this problem? And that people can't control it? I'm not surprised) and so on. Even dementia, social issues, ADD! ADHD is sugar addiction out of control, I should know!
Can that shit, live healthy and long... fight the man! No more sugar!

Donating my hair!

Today is the New Moon, an auspicious time for cutting away the old, the veils, and bringing in the new. I have been growing it out quite long for some time now, and I finally feel ready. I am donating to Locks of Love... those pics of cancer kids, really just kills me!
I threw a party this weekend, and when my lovely magical friends found out what I was doing they surrounded me and blessed the hair... any child who gets this hair gets all the fun magic and juju I have put into it over the years. This hair has been to countless fire circles, dancing, through the woods, to far places... My hope is that some of that is given to the child, to give her hope and confidence and healing. Aaaahhhh!!!
So today is the day. I go in half an hour... oooh, the butterflies. My long blonde hair is an essential part of my identity, something I am used to. Sweeping across my back as I dress in the morning, being part of my image and my fun... it will take some getting used to.
But hey! It's a renewable resource...

Just call me cop charmer...

Been a while since I blogged. Since then I have definitely been pulled over several more times, and not once have I gotten a ticket... I don't want to ruin my luck, but seriously! I am a little proud. It all comes down to politeness, a little dimpling never hurts, and usually I have been speeding to get to the hospital... so telling them I am going to help a possibly dying horse never hurts...
I am shameless, I know it. When I have more time I will post here my adventures. Meanwhile a grueling exam awaits me tomorrow morn, and who am I to deny it?

school is eating my brain cells, one at a time

I swear, as if I wasn't brainially challenged enough before vet school, it's rough having to prove over and over what a ditz I am. Honestly. I've always felt since I was accepted, 'wow, I fooled them, huh? They have no idea what they've just invited in'. And now look. I am completely unable to do even basic math; I get lost in parking lots; I can't remember what day it is most of the time, especially if it's not on my schedule.
Ha! Sounds like old-fart's disease! And I'm not even that old!
I've a story to tell and a test tomorrow... so the story must wait, I'm afraid.