Cold

We had a cold, but not un-doable, visit to the desert over the weekend. Daytime temps were low fifties, nighttime mid thirties. About ten degrees cooler at night than LA. We managed with extra blankets and our little propane heater going all night. But if longer winter visits are going to happen, we’re definitely going to have to come up with a sustainable heating solution. I’m still on the hunt for some kind of solar heating panel. 

The good news is we got all the projects done - all windows are moved into the cabin, the security camera is moved so we can see the outhouse, and the three remaining hammock poles are placed, which means next time we go out (three weeks?) we can hang and use the hammocks. 

The star of the weekend was, of course, the outhouse. In person it’s a bit more claustrophobic than I’d hoped - it’s very short and small, no room for anything but a person in there. But the good news is it works - I brought out a can of wood ash from our fireplace (safer to use than lye to help cover up the poo). I used my female urinal to pee in there, but personally I prefer my vintage porcelain one; this one has ribbed tubing and all this nonsense that just becomes a pee-filled mess. So I think I’ll buy another vintage one for the outhouse that I can just use and immediately dump out. Since there were going to be wind gusts up to 35mph the day after we left, we nailed some boards to help hold the outhouse up as it’s not properly anchored yet. I am sooo hoping our contractor can do that and put in our remaining windows and insulate sometime before we go out in the next three weeks. I think having insulation will make a world of difference keeping us warm and/or cool in there. I suppose the next project that we can be engaged in ourselves is sorting out our water situation and getting our shower going. The toilet plus a shower with hot water will make a huge step forward in our lives out there.

Now that I’m back I’m slowly trying to put the pieces of my event together - I coaxed confirmations out of my new teachers and am now working on hiring all the audio people. I want to make sure I agree on a rate now so I’m not surprised later. Already the sound and floors are running $12,000 more than they would have in 2020. I keep reminding myself, though, that if I had stuck with my old companies I no doubt would have had to pay big price increases anyway, and this sound and floors are definitely superior to what I had been using. 

I would like to make a preliminary announcement for the event on Feb 1. I worry that delaying sign ups until May 1st means I’ll lose people who already made other plans; so at least if I have information available it will keep people in the loop.

Before need

I got news on Sunday that my little old lady friend, Jean, passed away just six weeks shy of her 99th birthday. She was the last of the original Lindy hoppers - being the youngest of the group and also the most long-lived, had its advantages. She’d been in declining health for the last couple of years and really had no quality of life - when I last visited a few weeks ago, it was the first time she was non-responsive. We all want long lives, but I’ve seen how with some of these folks in their late nineties it just gets to be torture; no faculties left, no mobility, struggling to eat or breathe. Personally, I’m happy for her. She was suffering terribly and was very much aware of what was happening to her. I cried a good cry for her as she’ll be very much missed - she loomed huge in the dance community - but I’m glad she’s at peace.

As she had no children, no real plans were made for her after death, so a friend and I jumped into action to see about getting her a spot at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery which she had expressed an interest in some years ago. We went there on Tuesday and reserved a spot, but we do have to crowdfund the $30,000 to pay for it and the extra fees involved in cremation, permits, transfers, etc. She’ll be in the Judy Garland Pavilion which is just so perfect. Every time I think about how perfect this is for her and how delighted she would be, I just squeal with joy. So the plan is to see how the fund goes and hopefully set something up for March 4 which would have been right after her birthday. I’m excited to give her a grand send off surrounded by friends and admirers. 

Since I had been considering a spot there for myself for some time, I spontaneously bought the small square next to hers, and my friend who’s spearheading the go fund me bought the large one to the left. I don’t often get sentimental about these things - after all, I’ll be dead - but the idea of missing out on getting the spot right next to Miss Jeannie filled me with a sense of urgency. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to pay for this - it has to be paid over 18 months - but I’ll find the money, even if it means borrowing from the erstwhile college fund I just set up and then slowly paying it back before they need it. Especially if my 25th anniversary event goes the way I think it will, it should be a snap to have it paid without borrowing at all. I feel very adult having done this. Most of my family has been dumped in Boston Harbor, but that isn’t right for me - my life has been here for a long time, and I feel at this point that there’s a chance people in 50 years who hear about our music or my event might be interested in looking me up. So now I’ll actually exist somewhere, even after I’m gone. There’s something comforting about that. And I also like that I’m securing a plan for myself so the boys don’t have to figure all this out. On the contract it said you’re either purchasing this “at need” or “before need”. I’m quite pleased to be “before need”. 

In other news, our outhouse is *nearly* complete - it’s fully operational, the guy just has to come back and anchor it. We can use it when we head out on Saturday. We’re doing a short trip since it’s going to be so cold. We need to get out there to train the security camera a little to the right so we can see the outhouse, maybe place the three final hammock poles, and bring the windows out of the shipping container that only we have keys to so in case our guy can spontaneously spend a day or two installing the five remaining windows, he’ll have access to them. Other than that we’re just going to freeze, since it’ll be 30s at night and low 50s in the day. Not looking forward to that. But very much looking forward to being out there after a two month break. 

Next up for me is plotting two separate birthday parties for the first time. Theo is still easy at nine - knows what he wants (rollerskate party) and has lots of friends to invite. That I can put in motion easily. Bobby is a little more complex at 11 - I’m thinking three or so friends for a day at an arcade and cake after, but I have to figure all that out. Tonight I’ll ask them for lists of people they want to invite and make sure what I envision for them is what they want. It’s going to be an expensive month. 

We have toilet

There’s been a lot of very upsetting stuff this week, but I’ll focus on the positive - we have toilet! Our contractor has built us this beauty and I heard him digging a hole through our security cameras yesterday. He needs to have it done by tomorrow so he can start another job Monday, so I’m sincerely hoping he can get it set out there before our visit next weekend.

I’ve done so much research about toilets in the last two years since I bought this place, it’s hard to believe it’s a reality now and decisions have to be made. I think this is going to be a learning curve - we’re going to try some things, and if they don’t work, pivot to other options. So what we try now may not stick. The current plan is this outhouse, which will drain into a container about five feet down. The idea is to keep as much urine out as possible, so we’re installing a urinal for the three penis-having people in the family that will drain into a jug that I’ll empty at the end of our visits, and I’ve bought myself another small flexible female urinal that I’ll use. I thought of getting a “urine diverter” but I’m afraid with the boys’ little bodies that they’d just end up pooping on it and making a mess. And the reality is most of us will just pee outside most of the time anyway. I’ve bought an ash can to collect wood ash to use as a composting element for the poo, and we also have cedar chips. The H is obsessively worried about the smell and bugs, but I’m not. I really think it’ll be just fine. And it’s going to be so nice to have a little room we can go to! I’m worried about people breaking into it because it’s not very strong of a building, but considering how few people we’ve seen even come on to the property since we installed the cameras last May, I feel like while there is a risk it’ll be vandalized or even outright stolen, the risk is somewhat minimal. I’m inordinately excited about this. 

The bad news is what happened with our electrical this week - a guy came out and flipped a switch and the heat and lights came back on, which made us feel foolish, but then the circuit tripped again the next day. He came back out to do more research into it and discovered that the very expensive rewire I did about six years ago was done all wrong, and dangerously so - too many wires crammed into a small conduit, so much so that they were melted and burnt, which means at any time this house could have gone up like a tinderbox. I was absolutely horrified, angry, and scared. How…what…how did this even happen?!? We couldn’t wait to call the other company to come and make the work right - as of now they haven’t returned our calls at all - so we had this guy do the work instead to the tune of $2500 two days later, which meant more days of freezing and two nights of sleeping in a house that could have caught fire as we slept. The worst was that first night after he told us what danger we were in, the fucking burglar alarm decided to alert us at 4AM with a loud siren that its battery was low, which I of course thought was a smoke alarm and that we were already fully on fire. Seriously?!? I’m still recovering from the adrenaline rush of that. So now we have to confront this other company - which, I might add, was highly vetted through Yelp and Angie’s list and personal recommendations and even have their own building in eagle rock, so they’re not some fly by night bullshit artists. I am beside myself. You put your trust in these fucking people, you know?? They could have killed us all!!

So other than that life-and-death experience, week one of dieting has gone well. I opted for a 800:1500 plan this week, and it’s been really manageable. So much so that although the diet pills arrived yesterday I may not ever take them. Or I’ll take them later when I start to lose my resolve, which always happens. I’m down 3 lbs (water weight, but still). Useful techniques include delaying the first meal of the day as long as possible - I try not to eat until at least 1 or 2 pm, which allows for more calories late when I really need them (I find it easy to not eat early in the day but almost impossible later). I also have taken the tactic of not using up all the calories I’m allowed - if it’s past dinner time and I’ve only eaten 1200 calories and I’m not hungry, I don’t then eat just for the sake of it even if I could have 300 more calories. I just stop. This allows for enough of a deficit that I can eat more on another day if I need to. It’s all about spreading the calories out by week. Again I don’t know how long I can go like this; I’m just taking it a day at a time. And so far it’s been ok. 

Kids have adjusted well to the return to school, even dealing with waking up to a freezing house every day. I mostly just stayed under the covers. This weekend I have a couple of high stress gigs - got through one last night, one more tonight - but other than that I plan to just read and watch Brazilian dating shows. It’s going to be so cold in the desert next weekend, I’m a little worried about our visit. We may just have to drive out Saturday & return Sunday. But at least we most likely will have a toilet when we do! Yay!

A tentative return

It’s a new year, and like many of us, I’m barely peeking around the corner to see what’s in store for us all. Nobody knows. I watched, with great entertainment, the fight for the House Speaker vote (what a shit show), and am currently watching with terror as covid rips through newly opened China (will dangerous new variants emerge?), and am just in general very apprehensive about everything.

Shockingly, nobody got sick this winter break. We did make it to Florida for a big family reunion - visited my sister and brother-in-law, cousin and his wife and three kids, and sister’s dad and step mom for New Year’s, which was chaotic but fun. There were cookouts and beach days and bike rides (scary for me as I haven’t ridden a bike in decades, but I survived), and overall a lovely bit of summer to break up California’s cold rainy winter. 

Weighing heavily on my mind, no pun intended, is the need to start dieting as soon as I got home, which was the same situation I was in in 2020 at almost exactly the same weight and same level of disgust for myself. I don’t like admitting these things, and I know people get triggered by diet talk, but I think it’s important to be truthful. It dominates my thoughts - I could focus on barely anything else - and the fear and dread I face at yet another year spent starving myself to lose ten pounds only to gain it all back again by the end of the year, is exhausting. And yet I must lose weight, as I’m 50 now and the health implications get more intense at being only 10 lbs overweight as I currently am, and “just doing nothing” as in, eating basically what I want with minimal exercise leads to a 2-4 lb weight gain per month, which explains how I put on 10 lbs since my event. And now none of my clothes fit and I feel bad about myself and my food cravings are out of control. I’m always hungry and I just want to eat all the time. It’s a miserable cycle and I don’t know how to get off of it. How do I just “stay thin” for the rest of my life? I guess you don’t, unless you really train yourself to eat a lot less, all of the time, with no exceptions. I definitely know a few thin women my age, and they all have one thing in common - they just don’t really care about food. They eat half their portions at restaurants, rarely eat deserts, skip meals and don’t even realize they “forgot” to eat. All of these things are incomprehensible to me. But these are the habits that keep you thin. My “clean your plate” lifestyle results in my situation - slow, steady weight gain. I loathe food waste, so I eat things rather than throwing them out. Basically I throw them out in my stomach. Which is ridiculous. Again, the fact that I don’t eat meat, cook most of my food from scratch (a luxury few people have time for), and rarely drink anything other than water or unsweetened tea, are the reasons I’m ten pounds overweight and not thirty. But I definitely have other destructive habits. Too much sugar. Snacking. Late night eating. Too big portions. Not enough vegetables. Too many carbs. And yet I know how to lose weight. Anyone who tells you weight loss is anything other than basic math is lying to you. If I eat the equivalent of 1300 calories a day I will lose 1 lb a week. If I eat 2000 or more calories a day I will gain 1 lb a week. That’s it. It’s not any more complicated than that. 

So, what do I do about this? I figure just my usual calorie restriction - I’m going to return to the 5:2 which worked so well for me in 2020, but mix it up a little; I figure if I do two fast days at 500-800 calories and then adjust the remaining day calories from there, it’s all the same. I’ll start tomorrow. In the meantime I’m going to try something I’ve never done in my life - diet pills. I heavily researched and found one with no stimulants that seems fairly mild; just something that makes you feel more full (supposedly). It was expensive AF and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to down six capsules a day - I may have to open them and take them with water, which apparently is fine with a supplement like this that’s not an actual medication - but I’m curious to see if it makes dieting more tolerable. If I can just get past the occasional waves of misery that being hungry causes, it could be easier to diet for longer. My theory is, if I can just rewire my brain to not obsessively think about food the way my friends who “forget to eat” do, I can finally have some lasting success. If I can take something that tricks me into thinking I’m full, or at least takes the edge off that intense rabid hunger, it would make it easier to change my actual eating habits so that I don’t always turn to food when I’m bored, happy, sad, lonely, want to celebrate something, etc etc. I’ve gotten myself into an endless feedback loop of food, and I need to break it, but I know it’s all mental. I need to rewire those pathways the way I rewired myself away from intense depression and anxiety some years ago. I need to not make food the center of my life. I still want to cook and enjoy healthy things, I just need to eat a lot less than I’ve gotten used to. So, we’ll see if these diet pills actually help me feel more full or not. They could be a total con, but even if they are, the placebo effect could be quite powerful. I’ll take copious notes.

Tomorrow is the final day of winter break and I’m looking forward to shaking it off like an itchy prom dress. I’m extremely grateful that none of us got sick and that CA’s “winter surge” has been minimal, although with the situation in China I wouldn’t be surprised if we get hit hard in a few weeks. Our desert contractor is back and says he can start work for us in a week or two, which is beyond exciting - an outhouse is first on the list, which would be amazing to finally have. After this long wait it’s hard to envision ever having progress out there, but it may be soon.

We returned from FL on Friday to discover half the electricity in the house was out - including our thermostat, so we’ve all been freezing ever since. The H thought he could fix it, so we waited around until last night to discover he couldn’t, and now nobody can come out until tomorrow, so we’ll have three miserable freezing nights here before we get help (assuming the guy who comes out Monday can fix it that day). Unfortunately it appears rats in the attic have chewed all our wires, so this could end up being a big deal. I don’t even want to think about it. I just want the heat back on. I dread getting these kids up for school on Tuesday in a freezing house. But that may be what we’re facing.