Projects and Such for 2009

[rsadelle]

Dewey Decimal Project
As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to continue my Dewey Decimal Project. If you've read any good nonfiction, feel free to tell me about it. I may or may not ever read it, but I'd certainly be interested in hearing about it! I'll also continue to post about the nonfiction I'm reading. It helps keep me on task, and I hope it's interesting to you, too.

Food
Starting tomorrow, I'm no longer eating dairy or wheat, and I'm avoiding refined sugar, at least for the month of January. (Starting tomorrow because I'm having birthday cake and ice cream today.) I'm sick of being on acne meds (and I refuse to do either Accutane for a third time or hormones), so I'm going to see if not eating dairy helps. My joints are also really crackly, which my doctor said isn't a problem if they don't hurt, but which is kind of annoying. My mom told me she knew someone who told her his joints got better when he stopped eating wheat, so we'll see if it does anything for me. And as long as I'm not eating either of those two things, I might as well stop eating refined sugar too.

Exercise
This holiday season, I got very lazy about exercise. A couple of days ago, I finally said to myself, "You feel bad because you're not doing yoga. Do your yoga and you'll feel better!" So I started doing yoga every day again, and after even just two days of it, I felt so much better. Actually, daily yoga, aerobic exercise, and some sort of strength training are pretty easy to do - I love doing yoga every day, I go walking first thing in the morning (um, usually; I slept in an extra hour today instead), and I catch up on TV shows while doing weights two or three days a week and do a few crunches and/or lunges the other days of the week. It's doing some dance every day that's tough. Without a set something to do or someone to follow, I get bored within thirty seconds of shimmying around the house. I usually wimp out and do a very small amount of shimmying, practice a few wrist circles, or stand in first position while I do the dishes or brush my teeth. I'm not sure what to do about this one.

Writing
I suppose I should have some writing projects explicitly mentioned! This year, I have a short story I want to submit to an anthology, a novel I want to write the third draft of and try to get published by an ebook publisher, and a novel I want to finish and try to get published by a mainstream sci fi/fantasy publisher. And that's just at the very least. I'd also really like to write the next book or two in the series the mainstream book is the beginning of and the lesbian romance novel I mentioned before (I even have names for all of the main characters). I'm sure I'll also have other writing projects jump out at me over the year.

Comments

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Odd thing that it's this I'm writing about, but one thing dairy does help you with is your skin, hair, nails and bones. I noticed a drastic change when I discovered at the end of high school I was lactose intolerant and stopped eating/drinking all dairy for a couple of years (until I discovered lactaid [though even then, I ingested it sparingly, until I discovered Digestive Advantage]). I never had problems with things like breaking nails, or chipping nails, and I loved my hair. Since, my hair has gotten scraggly and less "silky", my nails are more brittle, and I started noticing bone clicking. It was crazy how quickly things went to pot when I stopped drinking like three glasses of milk a day (which was usually a slow day for me before I turned 18).

To make up for it, if you're not doing so already, I recommend taking glucosamine. I've been taking it for a couple of years now, and have noticed significant improvements‐well, at least with the bones. Not the hair and nails. It's better than nothing, though.

One bad thing I know whole wheat does is it's one of the things that leads to canker sores, which I get and hate (I have two right now. Two! It's been months since I've had one! I blame Christmas...). The other things: citrus fruits, tomatoes, chocolate, salt, chewing gum, and toothpastes with SLS (sodium laurel sulphate). Something that's apparently helpful: dairy (especially yogurt).

As always, good luck with everything, and...good non-fiction... Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the sequel Lila? It's good reading. As is The Thirteenth Tribe. That's just the writing style, though. I promise nothing about what you'll think of the content. (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=The%20Thirteenth%20Tribe)

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

*groan* Are you kidding?! Well. Since I can't edit comments, this is how the last paragraph should have read:

As always, good luck with everything, and...good non-fiction... Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the sequel Lila? It's good reading. As is The Thirteenth Tribe (http://dedalvs.free.fr/read/search_kalusa.php?word=The%20Thirteenth%20Tribe). That's just the writing style, though. I promise nothing about what you'll think of the content.

[rsadelle]

Wait. What happened to the edit comments feature? It used to be here.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it, myself. Perhaps it was there and I never needed it until it was gone, or it was there before I started my LJ account. All one has the ability to do, though, with one's own comments on others' journals, is delete and track. If it's small, I sometimes do delete the comment and re-add it, but if I've written a bit, it's just such a hassle...

[rsadelle]

It was a new feature quite a while ago, and it was here as recently as the last week or so. Huh.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Is it a Beta Feature? Because you have to sign up for those, and I haven't. Perhaps it's just a paid feature...?

[rsadelle]

Huh. Apparently it's a paid feature, but I'm not seeing the edit link even on comments that meet all three criteria for editing. Weird.

[rsadelle]

Huh. I do take calcium+vitamin D twice a day, but I'll watch for changes in skin/hair and think about glucosamine. The other thing I totally forgot to mention that I'm hoping the no dairy helps with is my allergies. Dairy is theoretically mucous producing, and my allergist said I'm "very mucousy." (In the realm of TMI, I didn't realize quite how stuffed up I am ALL THE TIME until I started using a neti pot and found that I can breathe so much better now.)

I haven't had a canker sore for years and years and years, so that's not one of my concerns. I honestly don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat tomatoes. A recent skin allergen test found that I'm mildly allergic to balsam of Peru, and in doing some research. When I was reading about it online, one of the ways to deal with it in people who are more seriously allergic is to do an elimination diet of all the things that are potential cross-reactors (things you may also be allergic to), which, I think, included tomatoes. (Also, cinnamon and vanilla.) Citrus peel is another cross-reaction thing, which means I've switched from my citrus shampoo to just washing with baking soda, and that I'm very careful about washing my hands after peeling citrus.

Every time I hear about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I think about the scene in Drive Me Crazy where Melissa Joan Hart throws it out of the hot air balloon, but I'll put it on my Dewey Decimal Project wish list, and The Thirteenth Tribe too.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Drives Me Crazy, and never really expected to, but you mentioned a hot air balloon, and things being thrown out of it. This intrigues me. Is it any good?

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is very interesting if you've ever been in an academic setting (e.g., grad. school), and/or ever been an English, Philosophy or Rhetoric major. It's an autobiographical account, yes, and I'm sure people have used it as a self-help book, but I found his investigation into the history of...well, intellectual investigation more interesting than anything else. Plus, it's a neat way of presenting an argument: a blend of fiction, narrative non-fiction, argumentation and commentary. It's certainly a breath of fresh air when you're having to read a whole bunch of papers written by linguists who don't know what writing is, and yet only that is supposed to "count" as valid argumentation.

[rsadelle]

Drive Me Crazy is a teen movie. It's quite possible Erin has it or has seen it. The main character's father takes her up on a hot air balloon and tells her he's read this amazing book and he wants her to come on a trip he's planned for, of course, the precise date of the giant school function she's been planning, so she throws the book out of the balloon.

if you've ever been in an academic setting (e.g., grad. school), and/or ever been an English, Philosophy or Rhetoric major

I haven't been any of those things. I wonder if I'd still find it interesting.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

How about literary criticism?

[rsadelle]

I've never been literary criticism.

I may, however, have the academic background to understand that.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I disagree (http://rsadelle.livejournal.com/134320.html)!

And it's not understanding (if there's a "there" one needs to be at, we're all there), it's finding amusing/interesting. It's a maybe. You know, if you read a computer screen well, you can give it a try rather easily, because someone (with Persig's permission, apparently) has put the entirety of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance online. You can just read some of it and see if it's something you're interested (though I should note that I didn't like it for the first 100 or so pages). Oh, here's the link (http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/).

Oh, I remember: He also writes about technical writing. I never had any interest in or appreciation for technical writing, but this at least got me to be semi-interested in it.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

(Note: The disagreement is with the first part, not the second. Just realized that might be confusing. If I could only edit my comment...)

[rsadelle]

So neurosis counts as literary criticism. I see.

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

You can't spell "neurosis" without U-R-E-N. And what secret message is that? "You are Ian." Just like Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, which is a series of books, and books are subject to literary criticism!

Check and mate.

Your move.

[rsadelle]

I concede defeat!