Plastic Fantastic: or "It's Brass, Jim, but not as we know it"

So, I bought the ZO Next Generation ABS Trumpet, ("Screaming green"), and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I really like it, which is potentially a problem.

You see, I secretly harbour a desire to own an entire brass band (well, the instruments, not the people), but have been kept from doing so because it's really quite expensive to buy actual brass instruments and I'm pretty rubbish at playing them.

Plastic "brass", on the other hand...

The first brass instrument I ever bought was a fifth-hand cornet, which I taught myself to play. When I joined a band programme to get "proper" lessons, the guy told me I'm not suited to higher brass and issued me a baritone horn. 

The barry is a nice sounding instrument (a baritone is to a euphonium what a trumpet is to a cornet – a "brighter" instrument in the same register), but if you are the kind of person who struggles to keep time, it's one of the worst instruments to play in a brass band, simply because it's almost always grace notes and filler. I've previously described Second Baritone as being the fourth finger on the left hand of a piano player. I can't handle a six-bar-and-three-quaver rest and then coming in for a few notes of harmony. It just doesn't work – especially when practicing on my own at home.

So after some tooing and frowing, I realised playing in a band was not for me.

In a fit of "I have too many instruments I don't play", I sold my cornet. But I missed having brass in my life, so I bought a third-hand alto/tenor horn. Which sounds just lovely. I think, honestly, of all the brass band instruments, the Eb alto/tenor horn has the most beautiful sound (closely followed by it's higher saxhorn sibling, the flugelhorn). There's something utterly gorgeous about instruments in that register. Think of it as being like an F French horn, only you play it like a trumpet (and it's ever-so-slightly deeper).

But it's not something I can just leave lying around. You can't just leave a brass instrument "out", because it's not good for it. When I'm not playing it, I have to put it away. In a bag, in a cupboard. Which means it largely doesn't exist. It's a rare and special event when I both remember I have this instrument and have the urge to pull it out and play it.

A little while ago, as part of an experiment, I bought a jHorn. This is a bizarre plastic monstrosity that is smaller and lighter than a trumpet but the same pitch as a barry or a euphonium (and you can change it from Bb to C, if you so desire).

Nuvo's jHorn comes in several colours that will get dirty far too quickly, and black.

The jHorn is an interesting bindingle of a thing, in that it's kind of like playing the bagpipes, but in "brass" form. If you've ever tried playing the bagpipes, you'll know what I mean – it's a blunt instrument that requires a lot of control to play well.

The mouthpiece it comes with gives you three options, all of which are terrible, and the horn itself makes you work to keep your note steady. It's marketed for children because it's actually compact, light, hard to damage and pretty quiet. I can play the jHorn in my living room at night-time without a mute and have no fear about disturbing the neighbours, which is why I bought it.

However, it's a real challenge to play "not horribly". As someone who plays at the standard of a fifth-grader who just started learning to play a few months ago, I expect most children would really struggle with it.

But, it works. I can leave it lying around my living room, pick it up whenever I feel like it, have a bit of a play, feel I'm actually improving (by virtue of practicing more often, I guess – who knew?) and feel completely relaxed about the whole thing. So I play this godawful contraption far more often than I ever practiced my actual brass instruments.

After much umming and ahhing, I decided to give the ZO instruments a try. I've been eyeing off the plastic euphonium* for some time, but I've been hesitant to spend too much money on something that might be, well, crap. The jHorn only cost me $250, so I don't mind that it's a bit terrible. Yes, $700 is considerably cheaper than the $3000-ish it would cost me to by a real euphonium, but it's also not money I want to spend on something I'll never use because I hate it.

Well, I found a place that was selling the ZO trumpet for a little over $200 and thought it was as good a chance as any to see what the ZO ABS instruments were like. And... I like it. I feel like the biggest problem with the instrument is the person playing it, which is a really good thing.

But it's also a really bad thing, because ZO has all of the concert brass instruments in the Next Generation series. None of the Eb jobbies you get in a brass band, just the Bb numbers you'd find in a concert band, including a double French Horn. And they are significantly cheaper than buying the brass versions of these instruments...

If these people come out with a sousaphone, I don't think I'll be able to stop myself.

*If I ever go back in time and start a garage band in the 90s, I'm going to call it Plastic Euphonium.

Stank

 I walked through a puddle during a downpour in my gym shoes the other day. My gym shoes, which I not only use to exercise in, I also wear them to and from the climbing gym, where I have (until extremely recently) been changing into the rental shoes and back again, and I'm too lazy to change my socks. So the socks that were in the rental shoes go into my gym shoes in all their sweaty and stinky glory.

I've washed the shoes a few times in the past, and I hit them with tea-tree oil regularly, but they've got a bit of a stank to them that will probably outlast human civilisation.

And then I walked through a massive puddle and soaked them through to the bone (my bones – my feet were well drenched).

And it has been so very humid at the moment, so where I put them to dry was really just a warm cupboard masquerading as my laundry.

Having been wet and warm, they are now the stinkiest shoes in all of Christendom (or so it seems to me, having been in the same car as them on the way to work this morning), and I'm going to wear them tonight.

I'm wondering how to go about apologising to all the other people who will be exposed to the stank.

Pig Face

Carpobrotus sp. - Ice plant,
by Linda De Volder,
CC BY-NC-ND

I am not a terribly competitive person, and I attribute that in a big way to my mother. She was a single parent and I was an only child, so we played a lot of board games with only two people. Most board games that are designed “for 2-X players” are really designed for four people. That seems to be the sweet spot where it takes a good amount of time to play without feeling like it was over too quickly or took too long.

We always just took our time with the games – winning be damned. We played every game until you could no longer play it. There were no more cards to pick up, no more pieces to place, no more matches to make.

Where most people treated board games as a competition, we treated them as a cooperative puzzle, working together to “solve” it as far as it could be solved.

But there were a few games that leant themselves to a bit of competitive argy bargy. Mostly card games like Skip-Bo (which I recently learned was developed from a game called “Spite and Malice”) and the like. In order to play the game and get rid of your cards, you sometimes have to get in the way of the other person getting rid of their cards.

When we were playing these more competitive games, my mother and I came up with comically ludicrous insults to call each other when someone thwarted the other person’s move. My mother’s favourite to use was “pig face”.

What neither of us knew at the time, was that pigface is actually a flower. It’s a native Australian groundcover that does quite well in salty, coastal environments – particularly in northern New South Wales, but around that subtropical area of the coast is its sweet spot. I’m a bit far north, but I’m thinking of buying some for my garden.

It can be so hard to adequately insult people. You never know when you’re accidentally calling them a charming little flower.

Unexpected injuries

So, I think I hurt my arm getting a tattoo a couple of weeks ago.

Not the actual tattoo site, but my elbow – specifically the end of at least one of the extensor muscles right where it attaches to the elbow. I think I gave myself some sort of elbow injury by getting a tattoo.

The tattoo itself is above my elbow, and was a fine-line piece with a lot of intricate details. It look five hours, give or take, and the vast majority of that time was spent with my arm fully extended, rotated at a slight angle, and with a person leaning on it.

I noticed the elbow was sore afterwards, but assumed it would go away. This is not the first time I've sat in the same position for a prolonged period of time and felt sore and sorry for myself afterwards.

But it's still sore. And it flares up when I rotate my arm or grip something after having it still for a while (which happens a lot when you work on a computer). It seems to be getting better for a while, but then it flares up again and hurts like the dickens. It's actually woken me up in the night a few times.

Yes, I should see a doctor or a physio about that. I'm doing my patented "It will either go away or I'll get used to it" approach to health. I might see someone about it next year. Then again, I still haven't seen someone about the foot injury I gave myself dancing an impromptu jig last year, and that hasn't completely healed, so maybe I won't.

Ah, the 40s, when one mysteriously acquires unexpected injuries, but is too resigned to everything hurting so one doesn't do anything useful about any of them.

Juggling for fitness and pleasure

My workplace recently engaged in a "steps" challenge, where different departments competed to see who could rack up the most steps across the team. My team came an admirable second in both the overall steps category and the average steps category.

We were defeated in the overall steps category by a team with significantly higher numbers than us (so they were able to step more steps than we stepped) and a team that had significantly smaller numbers than us, but a lot of enthusiasm (so they stepped more steps per steppers).

At one point I was chatting with some colleagues about the challenge and I mentioned that I sometimes juggle to get my steps up if I'm running short but don't want to go anywhere. Apparently, these particular colleagues were unaware that I juggle. Most of my other colleagues know this about me, because I keep a set of juggling balls at my desk and often have a "juggling break" to flex my shoulders if I'm getting too stiff from sitting too long.

But not everyone has walked into the office area while I was in the middle of a (particularly messy) Mills Mess,* so occasionally someone I know discovers I juggle as new and "exciting" information. I have to let them down by telling them I just do it for fitness and movement. Quite often, this startles people almost more than discovering that I juggle at all.

Juggling for fitness?

Yes, it's a thing.

I first came across the idea of juggling for fitness in my early 20s, and found it utterly freeing. I taught myself how to juggle in high school, but (like most things that involved physical dexterity) I realised that I'd never be able to do it to performance standard. I have the physical grace and natural elegance of a walrus on land.

If I practiced really hard, I would get better at it – but I'd still never get to performance standard.

"What was the point of learning how to do something that's for performance if you know you'll never perform?" my teenaged self thought.

But! Then I discovered that there are people all over the world who... just juggle. They don't do it for audiences, they to it to move. Like riding a bike or running even though you have no intention of ever competing, you can juggle just for the fun of juggling even if you have no intention of ever performing.

Oh, and you can actually juggle competitively. 

I have no intention of doing that, either.

In the grand scheme of things it's a bit like using a skipping rope. You have a small, inexpensive piece of equipment that allows you to essentially travel without moving. 

You can just have a light juggle, and get as much exercise in as you would if you were going for a light walk, or you can ramp it up and make it more involved and intense with bigger or faster movements and more points of body contact.

Between a set of three juggling balls and a footbag (hacky sack) I have a "gym" I can (and do) take with me wherever I go.

Does this mean I juggle all the time and I'm very good at it? No. And, also, no. But I could. 

Sometimes I get on a bit of a streak and I'll start juggling regularly for a few weeks, sometimes I'll go months without picking up a ball.

Sometimes I'll pull my travelling balls out of my bag and juggle in the hotel a few times while I'm on holidays. Sometimes they'll never leave my bag for the whole trip.

But, I enjoy it whenever I do it, and I don't worry about how often I drop the balls (picking them up is part of the movement) or failing to get a certain trick again (given my walrusness, I'm doing well just to juggle at all – and no one is watching, so who cares?).

If you're looking for a low-impact exercise that you can do in the comfort of your own home that costs very little, I thoroughly recommend juggling. It's good for your brain, good for your joints, and a half-decent cardio workout.

Way more fun than a treadmill, and decidedly better value for money.

*I'm not very good at Mills Mess

Mellow Yellow, Or: No one said you have to progress

A bouldering route at my gym.
Pick the yellow or the blue climb.

A few months ago (getting close to a year now, I think) I started going to a bouldering gym.

I'm really enjoying it, I'm getting a lot out of it and I think it's doing wonders for both my physical and mental health.

I am still on the bottom rung of the ladder, and I have no real intention of trying to go much higher than that.

The gym I go to indicates the difficulty of the climb with colour. The basic, beginner level is yellow, then blue, purple, green... and a range of other colours I don't care about because I'm probably never going to climb them. To be honest, I'm probably never going to climb the green ones. The purples are a distant maybe.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I'm not the most physically adept person in the world. My fine motor skills aren't particularly fine. My gross motor skills are kind of gross. The more I try to hone and refine my technique on... well, anything, the worse I get. It's like the worst thing I can do is actually put thought and effort into what I'm doing.

I went to get evaluated for dyspraxia a little while ago. The results were inconclusive. They said I may have mild dyspraxia, or I may just be rubbish at everything. It was suggested that I go in for more tests, but I haven't done it. There's a limit to how much time and money I want to spend on having people say "there's nothing actually wrong with you, you're just crap."

So, while my basic strength levels are all improving and I'm developing muscles (which is nice), my coordination and balance remain unimpressive. 

Now, when I say "my coordination and balance are unimpressive", I'm fully aware of the fact that some people would disagree with me. Those people are comparing me with someone who does nothing. If you don't climb or juggle or do yoga, the fact that I do makes me instantly more "impressive" by comparison. However, if you compared me to someone who has been doing any of those things for the same length of time that I have, you would realise I fall neatly into the category of "could be better".

I'll often try a route that requires more coordination than I have, and my hands and feet will simply refuse to move. "Come on, Sharon, you just have to move this foot up here..." Nope. Not happening. "Okay, fingers, you just have to keep holding on to this thing while I move my other hand to--" No. This sequence of movements will not happen.

I may or may not be able to see what I have to do next, puzzle-wise, but I only have two options: stay where I am, or fall off.

It even changes from day-to-day on the same climb. Monday I could send that climb; Thursday I couldn't.

The yellow routes are mostly within my capabilities, though. It may take me a couple of goes to nut out how to do one that requires a movement I'm not au fait with, but that's a nice challenge that I'm actually capable to solving, and then I get to enjoy doing it again a few times before they reset the wall and take that climb away.

So I do the yellows (and the blues I can do) several times in a session. I take what I can do, and make it harder, rather than getting hung up on things that are too hard.

I know the "done thing" is to try to progress to the next level. Well, that's fine, if you can do it. If you can't, but you keep assuming you should, you'll just get completely frustrated and give up, disheartened. Again.

BUT! And this is really important – you don't have to progress. There's no law that says you have to move on from the beginner levels, if you are still getting something valuable out of those levels. 

I have a regular workout at my climbing gym where I pick at least five routes that are within my abilities, and I do them five times each. This converts those climbs into sets of reps, and my goodness it's a workout. By the time I've done five reps of my third climb, I'm dripping with sweat and feeling the burn in my muscles. It's like running up several flights of stairs, only it's a full-body workout.

On the days where I'm just trying routes, I'll see if I can manage a few blues, and sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. When I can, I'll do it a couple of times before moving on to trying another route. If I can't, I'll try it a few times, and then go do a couple of climbs that I can do before trying another new one. It's exactly right for me.

So maybe you are trying an activity where you feel pressured to progress, but you are still at a spot that's working for you and you don't want to move past it yet. Remember, just because you can't do something "well" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it at all. And you don't have to progress, you can just enjoy life in the shallow end of the pool. Anyone who says otherwise is a source of negative energy, and you don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

Touching base

 My mother has recently started noticing when I touch things to steady myself.

I often have a slight balance issue or a few seconds of dizziness, where I just lilt sideways for a moment. It's usually something that happens a few minutes after I get up and start moving around after sitting down for a while or getting up from lying on the couch.

It's normally something that just lasts a second or two, and I just touch the furniture, or the wall, or lean on the door frame for a moment so I don't fall into it. If I can't touch something, I right myself well enough without any worries in a couple of steps – I don't actually fall – I just find it easier to touch something briefly to regain balance and I move on.

The thing is, I've been doing this for as long as I can remember – at least since I was a teenager – but my mother has only recently started to comment on it, like she's suddenly noticed something that's a new development.

I know why: it's because she's having trouble with her balance now, so she's starting to do it herself, so now she recognises it when she sees it happen. But it's still weird. 

You know, I've been tripping over my own feet, bumping into furniture and knocking against walls and doors for decades. For decades, it has gone without comment. Now, suddenly, she's noticed.

To give this a little extra context, my mother has this thing where she always (*always*) assumes something is wrong. She will watch you like an absolute hawk and analyse every unexplained movement or noise to see if something is wrong – which is an absolute blast if you are the kind of person who fidgets, cracks your joints and makes little humming noises to yourself when you let your mind wander.

I'll probably write a whole 'nother post delving into "I'm a natural fidgeter who pulls random facial expressions when I relax, but I get asked to account for every single one of them when I'm with my mother so I feel like I can never fully relax". But that's another ramble. 

The point is, I've spend literal decades of my life begging my mother to stop asking "what's wrong?" every time I twitch to relieve some muscle stiffness ("what's wrong?" - "Nothing, I'm just stretching." "What's wrong?" - "Nothing, I'm just cracking my fingers." "What's wrong?" - "Nothing, I'm just letting my mind wander." "What's wrong?" - "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP ASSUMING SOMETHING'S WRONG!") but she's only just started noticing the touching thing.

I get asked "what's wrong?" if I so much as frown slightly (btw., I frown when I'm tired, and I'm always tired), but I've been falling into walls for decades and she's only just noticed?

What did you think was happening before? That I was just a clumsy oaf clown? Can you go back to that, please? It's way better than having someone suddenly ask "are you alright?" all the time (just a variation of "what's wrong?") when I'm just doing something that has been normal for as long as I can remember

Hair

 

Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

I was looking through some photos if misguided haircuts recently... which is pretty much all of them.

All of my haircuts have been misguided.

Well, that's not entirely true. I have two haircuts that don't look completely ludicrous. One is to have my hair so long that all I can do is pull it back and it doesn't look like it's meant to be anything other than the wild locks of a Highland Barbarian. In theory I could braid that and it would look semi-decent, but I have the fine motor skills of a walrus, so I don't really braid. Just a basic plait every now and then.

The other haircut that doesn't look completely ludicrous is a pixie cut – so little hair that no styling is possible and all I can do is throw in some product to spike it up a bit when I'm feeling fancy.

Every other haircut falls prey to the fact that I my hair is, in fact, the Rum Tum Tugger: it will do as it do do and there's no doing anything about it.

I'll think of a haircut that might look pretty cool. I'll go to a hairdresser and they'll say "sure!" and then it will look kind of okay for approximately 2 hours. Then it looks ridiculous.

Once my hair starts getting its bearings, it turns whatever haircut I have (that isn't "wild woman" or "pixie") into "what the hell were you thinking?"

To be honest, I don't think the wild woman or pixie cuts were particularly good either, they were just not as terrible as all the others.

I had the wild woman hair for most of my teens and early twenties, and then cut it shorter in my late twenties and regretted it. Every single iteration of it. Until I hit on the pixie in my thirties, which works until I decide I want to grow it out. Then I have the challenge of trying to force my way through a dozen terrible iterations of my hair until I can get back to wild woman... and I inevitably lose patience and get it all cut back into a pixie again.

The thing is, I've tried to do the thing where I embrace the fact that my hair is always going to be a bit daft, assuming that, if I do it on purpose, it will actually be kind of cool and funky. It never is.

I've had the same approach to my clothes over the years – I don't look particularly good in anything except "uber-corporate", and I find "uber-corporate" clothing impractical and uncomfortable, so I still manage to look like I'm dressed poorly. I tried embracing my "I dress like someone who doesn't know how clothes work" aesthetic to aim for "quirky" and "eclectic". It never looks quirky and eclectic – it just looks like I dress poorly.

No matter how hard I try, it never looks like I did whatever daft thing I'm doing "on purpose" – it just looks like I'm unintentionally unfashionable/untidy/unattractive, which is twice as bad as just being all of those things intentionally because you're bucking the system. I'm not bucking the system, I'm just incapable of making it work... and you can tell.

My hair is super annoying right now, but it's not yet at wild woman stage (and probably never will be), so I can't just pull it back without it looking super silly. I've pulled it back. It looks super silly. I'm going to have to go back to the pixie...

They call me "Bucket"

 That's not even remotely true: no one calls me "Bucket".

But I called myself "Bucket" the other night, which was a bit weird. I think I meant it as an encouraging endearment, as I said something like "Come on, Bucket, you've got this!"

And then I immediately thought, "Bucket? Where the hell did that come from?"

But it's a step up from what I usually call myself, which is "you idiot."

Seened ja kartulid (or: Man I miss onions)

Photo by Lars Blankers on Unsplash

I was having a conversation with a friend about potatoes (which is always something worth doing – I recommend you find a friend right now and have a conversation about potatoes with them), when I mentioned a potato-based dish I used to eat all the time during my schmegan phase.¹

It was an Estonian dish called "seened ja kartulid" or "seened karulitega". This dish literally translates to "mushrooms and potatoes" or "mushrooms with potatoes", and consists of mushrooms, potatoes and onions. Many versions also add bacon (because Estonians add bacon – or "salted pork" – to everything), but you can just have it as a vegetarian dish.

Basically, you boiled a couple of potatoes until just tender (like for a potato salad) and then cut them into bite-sized slices, then you fried up some sliced onion (about half a smallish onion per serving) and as many different types of mushrooms as you could get your hands on (sliced), along with the potatoes. Rapeseed/canola oil was standard, but some nice olive oil would work if you were fancy. Fry the lot until they lose all the excess moisture and start to crisp. Then you just added some salt and cracked pepper.

No sauce or anything like that, just a good oil, good salt and good pepper (along with good mushrooms and potatoes [and onions]). It's one of those dishes where you get the best quality ingredients you can get your hands on and make some magic with only a handful of "basic" things.

I tell you, this was the simplest meal on the face of the earth, but just good wholesome comfort food. The more varieties of mushrooms you could get your hands on, the better, but even if you could only get one type of mushroom it was still Good Foods. Have a slice of good rye bread with it, and you've got yourself a decent meal.

And then, of course, I went on that dratted FODMAP diet where I wasn't supposed to eat onions, mushrooms or rye bread. That pretty well knocked this one off the roster. I've since discovered that rye bread and mushrooms are okay in small doses, but onion is actually something likely to give me grief...

Man I miss onions. They're just so tasty, and so central to all of the good dishes. 

Someone somewhere made a comment that white people start any given meal with cutting an onion, and they're right. You know, when you come from a climate where pretty much the only vegetables you can eat for most of the year are root vegetables, onions become the star of the show. I used to know I was about to make something really enjoyable when I started with cutting an onion.

For some reason, a lot of the dishes I used to make all of the time before the FODMAP thing have completely disappeared from my repertoire, even though I'd probably be able to work out a few substitutions (or just put up with a bit of discomfort). It's like something interrupted the usual transmission and now I've forgotten what I eat.

But I think I'll revisit seened ja kartulid and see whether or not I can get away with it, without too much drama. Good Foods is Good Foods, after all.

Ooh, let's do the recipe blogger thing and add a recipe to the bottom of this post, so you can skip reading the whole dang thing and get a recipe, even though the rambling story about my relationship with onions was the whole point of the post!

Seened ja Kartulid

Ingredients:

• Mushrooms - sliced. As many as you like and as many different kinds as you can find.
• Potatoes - cooked until just tender and sliced. Approximately one small-medium potato per person.
• 1 medium onion - sliced.
• Oil for pan frying (no I'm not going to give you proper amounts - just wing the darn thing).

Method:

Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the onions until soft. 

Add the mushrooms and heat through, then add the potatoes and keep stirring until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms and potatoes begin to crisp.

Serve with sea-salt and cracked pepper, with a slice of rye bread to the side.

To drink? Beer. This is a good meal to have with a good farmhouse ale.

(1) For anyone who is new here, I spent a couple of years cooking and eating vegan food - more or less for the heck of it - but wasn't actually vegan as I ate everything on offer when someone else served it to me. Hence, "schmegan".

Oh, rats!

 I've been thinking about this article from Hakai Magazine almost constantly since I listened to the audio version a few nights ago:

In Defense of the Rat

Text by J. B. MacKinnon

Illustrations by Sarah Gilman

I subscribe to both the newsletter and podcase of Hakai Magazine, and usually enjoy the stories when I can get my act together to look at them. Listening to the audio version, I didn't realise that there were pretty neat illustrations in the print version. But there are, so you should look at them even if you (like me) are a listener.

Sarah Gilman

I don't mind a rat. When I was growing up, I knew a couple of kids who had pet rats and I used to play with them when I visited, so I know they can make lovely pets. I also pet-sat someone's mice at one point, so I know rats are the superior rodents when it comes to pet rodents (they're so much cleaner and more sociable).

I also read Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, so it's hard not to have a soft spot for rats, really. Or, for that matter, a deep-seated mistrust of scientists – particularly scientists who work with rats. Or any animal.

At some point during his article, MacKinnon mentioned that vets sometimes recommend people who want a really small dog should get a rat, which is something I've come across before (because they're as playful as dogs but take up way less space and don't need walking).

He also mentioned an experiment where scientists worked out that rats enjoy playing hide-and-seek (both hiding and seeking) and will happily play games just for the fun of it, with no reward wanted other than tickling – which they respond to by squealing with laughter (the rats, not the scientists). The scientist played with the rats, had great fun, tickled them, developed a fun and playful relationship... and then killed them to examine their brains.

What the hell, scientists? What is wrong with you? Why are you soulless jerks? Why are you always soulless jerks?

Honestly, what is it about biology and biologists? You think scientists are getting into whatever field they've gone into because they love their topic and they are interested in learning more, but the truth is they're a bunch of destructive monsters who kill and dismember everything they "love". And they have no empathy for non-human life forms. And quite frankly I find them very disturbing.

As far as I'm concerned, the only good scientist is the scientist who noticed what they were doing is abhorrent and stopped doing that.

Please, just leave those rats (and rabbits, and armadillos, and every other pour tortured soul in a laboratory) alone!

Pudding Vegans and Pudding Omnivores

Photo by American Heritage Chocolate on Unsplash

One of my friends at work is a vegetarian, but I've never seen her eat a vegetable.

Well, that's not strictly true; I have seen her eat potato chips. So, to be precise, I've never seen her eat a vegetable that wasn't a deep-fried potato.

When we've been out for dinner and I ask her if she's ordering food this time, she assures me she's eaten something at home so she doesn't have to worry about ordering something suitable at the restaurant, and she occasionally makes comments at work about recipes that involve vegetables, but in all the years I've known her I've yet to see her eat something that wasn't 2 minute noodles or chips. 

And we're not talking huge serves, either. Basically, I can't figure out how she's not dead.

Now, what she eats is her business and I really shouldn't pass judgement, even if she is skinny as a rake and freezing all the time so I have severe doubts that she'll survive the winter on her current caloric intake.

But whenever I notice what she has for lunch, it puts me in mind of a phrase that has stuck with me ever since I read it in a cookbook back in my ill-fated vegan experiment: "pudding vegans."

Many years ago one of my work friends was vegan, and he usually couldn't eat anything brought to the office parties except whatever he made himself. I decided to take up vegan cooking as a hobby so I could provide at least one alternative for him at the morning teas. I ended up reading many, many vegan cookbooks, and I went through a period where pretty much all of the cooking I did was vegan.

As I mentioned in a post I wrote back in 2016, I kind of fell in love with the smart-arsery of vegan cooking. I loved experimenting to see what I could come up with that was delicious and nutritious without a single animal product. One of the things I absolutely hated, though, was the way the majority of vegan recipes were so meat-centric. But that's a digression for another post.

For a while there, I went so far down the rabbit hole that almost all of the food I made for myself was vegan - and I usually tried to buy vegan food when I was out, too. I'm pretty sure there was a time when the only non-vegan ingredient I had in my house was honey. But I still ate whatever my family was eating when I had dinner with them, so I didn't regard myself as "vegan" - just "vegan-adjacent", or "veganesque".

Then I was put on a FODMAP diet to sort out my IBS, and the whole veganesque thing went out the window because you can't be FODMAP and vegan at the same time without dying from malnutrition.

Which brings me back to "pudding vegans."

I first encountered this term in a cookbook that had been translated from German, and I think it's an Austrian thing. Basically, its about vegans who hardly eat any vegetables. The majority of their food is "plant-based", but not "plants". I think the "pudding" thing refers to the fact that most of the food they eat may as well be pudding.

It's a concept that haunted me during my veganesque phase. I made damn sure that I didn't just eat a plant-based diet, but ate actual vegetables. I wanted to make sure my meals had more nutritional value than pudding (even if I did eat my fair share of pre-packaged food from the freezer section of the supermarket).

I noticed recently that my "vegetables first!" approach to food that I had during my veganesque period had severely fallen by the wayside in my post-FODMAP meal planning. I've fallen back into my old habits of using cheese and meat as a crutch. Who needs real food when you can have grilled cheese on toast? Who needs to plan a proper meal when you can have a corned beef sandwich?

Not long ago I read a "cheat's guide to meal planning" article where the woman said she starts by asking "what's my source of protein?" and builds the rest of the meal around that. I realised I need to do that with vegetables. So now I'm trying to approach each meal by saying "what's my vegetable?" and taking that as the starting point.

It doesn't help that 80% of the time I really can't be bothered thinking about food, but at least trying to make myself think "vegetable first!", like I did back in my veganesque days, is helping me get some vegetables into my system.

Hopefully, if I keep this up, I won't be too much of a "pudding omnivore."

What would a healthy person do?

Photo by Mishaal Zahed
on Unsplash

 It's a question that has been plaguing me since I read Atomic Habits, by James Clear: "What would a healthy person do?"

The idea behind the question is that if you want to be a certain type of person, you should think about the choices that kind of person makes, and make those choices. The "healthy" person isn't making good choices because they are healthy, they are healthy because they are making good choices. Too often we put the cart before the horse and think that changing our lifestyle will make all of the little things fall into place, when really it's putting the little things into place that changes our lifestyle.

Unfortunately, it's not a question that pops into my head before I make decisions. Usually I do something entirely unhealthy, then think "what would a healthy person do?" and realise the answer is "not that."

"What would a healthy person do?"
"Be in bed by 10.00pm"
"What time is it now?
"11.30pm."

"What would a healthy person do?"
"Plan their meals to get a good balance of nutrition"
"What are you eating right now?"
"I don't know - I suppose I should eat something - Oh, look I have toast."

"What would a healthy person do?"
"Leave the office at a reasonable hour and get some exercise."
"What are you doing right now?"
"Sitting at my desk, in the dark, writing a blog post."
"Could you at least move enough to activate the lights?"
"Apparently not."

My problem is, I know what I should do, but I don't listen to me. I only have so much energy in the day and I save that for worrying about disappointing other people. I can disappoint myself - that's okay. I mean, it's not okay - I will absolutely beat myself up and call myself names about this stuff. I mean, seriously - how much better would I feel if I was well rested, ate proper food and went for a walk every day? Miles better. So much happier. But... eh. I'm only hurting myself and I don't care about me any more than I listen to me.

Having said that, maybe I should go for a walk.

When you lose your job without losing your job

 

Photo by Alek Burley on Unsplash

A couple of weeks ago I replied to someone's question on Twitter (about whether jeans are appropriate clothing for librarians) and said that I was a senior librarian and I wear jeans regularly. But then I realised shortly after I posted it that it wasn't true anymore.

I *was* a senior librarian, but now I'm not.

The library I work for restructured, and brought in a new level of management. This had the unexpected (by us, at least) flow on effect of effectively demoting all of the people who were under that new level, only without any change to their official job status.

The senior librarians of old used to be part if the leadership team, but now the leadership team includes people who aren't us. We weren't "dropped" from it, we just weren't included in it when it moved on. We used to be involved in the decision making regarding many aspects of our library services. Now we wait to be told what decisions were made. And if we try to initiate things - like we used to do all the time when we were senior librarians - we're told to cool our jets. Things are happening in discussions that we're not privy to, and we get to hear about it when everyone else does.

It's an odd adjustment to make, because we're all still employed in the same place at the same "level" (pay-wise), so technically we didn't lose our jobs during the restructure...

But we kind of did. 

It's really hit the other two "formerly senior" librarians quite hard, as they not only lost their seniority they also got shifted into a newly developed area. I think they don't quite know what to do with themselves any more. I realised the other day that they're actually grieving, like they would be if they'd lost their jobs. Because they *did* lose their jobs. But, because they still have jobs, they haven't really processed it like that.

I think I've come off more lightly than they did, but I realise that even I've been lashing out a bit. I didn't think I'd struggle to adjust, because I kind of fell into the senior role, but it has been an adjustment, and it's one we didn't really consciously engage in.

My role remained largely the same, only I'm now in a position where all of the things I used to do because I was a senior librarian are now things I'm regularly told to "not worry about". This is especially hard to swallow when I'm trying to involve other people who feel left out in decisions. I have to remember that the decisions aren't mine anymore, so I can't pull anyone else into them.

I'm a little extra powerless, and it's playing on some other feelings of powerlessness that I've been trying to sweep under the carpet.

I'm also trying really hard not to have flashbacks to that day when a stuff up I made as a linesman during a tennis match got all the other linesmen benched. I'm trying not to wonder if I managed to get all of the seniors demoted by something I did (or didn't do).

On one hand, I'm okay with it - I can say "not my circus, not my monkeys" and leave it to the person who does actually have to deal with these matters.

On the other hand, I kind of miss the monkeys.

The Queer Collective

"Where you involved with the Queer Collective?"

A colleague and I were trying to figure out where we'd met each other before. We both had a sense that this wasn't the first time we'd crossed paths, but couldn't remember meeting previously. We'd worked out that we'd both been at the same university at the same time for a couple of years, but in different years of different degrees, so we wouldn't have shared any classes. She was trying to think of some sort of extra-curricular activity we might both have attended.

"Where you involved with the Queer Collective?" she asked, and I had to keep a straight face as I said, "Um, no."

I had to keep a straight face (pardon the pun) because, at the time I didn't even know the Queer Collective existed, and if I had I would have been praying against it. Because if you don't offer support for "queerness" the people who sadly, mistakenly, think they're queer will realise how mistaken they were and see that they were straight all along. Right? That's how it works, isn't it?

I was not an ally back then.

These days I'd like to think I am one (an ally), but I struggle with that idea because I probably should think I'm queer. I'm asexual... and bisexual (which seems incompatible, but isn't - you could say I'm Ace with a Bi shading, or Bi in theory but Ace in practice), and that's two whole letters in the LGBTQIA+ thingy. 

But I've never been part of the "culture", and I've never thought of myself as queer, so even though I know on one level that I'm not straight, I don't think of myself as queer either.

Culturally speaking, I'm straight. I've come around to accepting "God's beautiful rainbow" slowly, but never from the perspective that it's about my gender expression or sexual orientation.

And yet, my gender expression isn't exactly "standard", either. I've come to realise it's more than a bit genderfluid. I'm more feminine now than I was as a child (if you know me, that probably gives you a huge idea of how "non-feminine", if not exactly "masc", I was as a child), but I'm still happy to take and use things "for men" and shun things "for women" because I honestly believe that functionality trumps social expectations of gender normativity. Growing up and well into my 30s, always felt like gender was a test that I was regularly failing; now I just don't give a rats.

And I think being Asexual, Bisexual and Genderfluid** probably does qualify me to think of myself as queer, if I want to. But it's like someone saying "this shoe will fit you", and you look at it and say "but it's not really my style".

I've always been genderfluid (without knowing there was a word for it), but it took me a while to realise that Asexuality was a) a genuine option and not some form of failure, and b) the camp I fell into. And it took me even longer than that to realise that Bisexuality was also on the cards.* It's weird, but it just never occurred to me that it was an option.† I thought you had to be, well, queer.

You know that flavour of gelato that actually isn't a flavour at all - it's basically just "cream" and then the other flavours get added to it to make it interesting? I think it's called "fior di latte", and it's not even vanilla. That's how I see myself in terms of sexuality. Maybe it's an Ace thing, but I've just never really been anything in particular, so for most of my life I just assumed that meant I was straight.

Now I know better, but I can't think of myself as a queer person or a member of the queer community because I'm not. It's like if someone said to me "oh, by the way, you're a New Zealander". I am not and have never been a member of the New Zealand community and I would feel very uncomfortable presenting myself as a Kiwi (even though I am actually eligible for a New Zealand passport). I've never identified as a Kiwi, and I don't feel like I can start doing so now. Just like I've never identified as being queer, and I don't feel like I can start doing so now.

This has been weirdly obvious to me lately, when things have popped up in my workplace that a queer person might be a stakeholder in. Whenever something even remotely LGBTQIA+ comes around, I don't say "oh, by the way, I'm Ace, Bi and Genderfluid,** so I could be your token queer person on this matter". Nope, I point to the lesbian chick like everyone else. Colleagues who are genuinely straight feel more inclined to speak up on behalf of queer matters than I do.‡

On IDAHOBIT day this year, the university opened a "rainbow room" for LGBTQIA+ people to go and feel like they're in a safe space. There was a question as to who should go and represent my workplace at the opening, and I stood there thinking "I'm in the acronym twice over, but I don't feel like I belong there". 

I don't feel apart from, threatened by or unsafe in the mainstream straight culture. I've assumed I was straight for so long, that I see myself as one of the white cis-het people, while spaces for queer people are havens for those who are oppressed by white cis-het culture.

It's not that I'm closeted, exactly, it's just that I don't feel that my voice is a queer voice, so I shouldn't have a say in matters concerning the queer community. I still wouldn't be in a Queer Collective.

I oddly feel like I shouldn't qualify as an ally because I'm not straight, but I don't qualify as queer because I don't belong to that culture.

I'm... gelato al fior di latte.

*For years I thought I wasn't interested in women - turns out I am, I just have a type, and they weren't particularly visible (to me) until more recent years

† Although it's probably not weird. I think there's a whole body of "women in midlife discovering their sexuality is fluid" - something that people who figured themselves out as teenagers probably don't get... if anyone really does figure themselves out as a teenager

‡ Actually, part of me doesn't want to be particularly known for my not-straightness in case I have to put up with the support from the allies on staff.

**Edit: I'm not Genderfluid, really, as it's not my gender that floats around (I'm a Cis woman, and haven't wanted to be anything else since I was a child, when I wanted to be a boy because they had better toys and more comfortable clothes), but rather my gender expression. I just don't have a better word for this right now.

Why you should thank the robots (and the vacuum cleaners. And the robot vacuum cleaners)

 I have a tendency to thank Chatbots for their help. I also have a tendency to thank water fountains (or coolers, if you're American) for filling my water jug and for automatic doors for opening for me. I don't do this all the time - just when I remember to.

I also tell my lawnmower it's doing a good job, and speak works of encouragement to my my vacuum cleaner when it's having trouble getting around corners (you can do it!). I currently don't have either a robot lawnmower or a robot vacuum cleaner, but I'd probably say even more encouraging things to them if I did.

Why do I do this?

Well, partly because - like all humans - I secretly believe in animism.* We can't help ourselves; there's a reason why it's the oldest "religion" in almost every society on the planet. We see a thing that's a separate and unique thing, and something deep in our hearts wants to assume it has a personality and can hear us when we talk to it.**

It's also partly because I think it fosters a better attitude in myself. It's good for my constitution.

In this day and age where everything "just happens", it's so easy to take things for granted... and it's easy to let that extend to the people who help us as well. 

If you've every been an actual human on a chat service, you'll know that there's a growing trend among the clients who use the service to be very abrupt and curt when they talk to you. It's like they're used to dealing with robots who don't require courtesy, so they're completely out of practice when faced with a human being (if they even know they're dealing with a human being).

I want to be in a position where being courteous and thanking "people" for their help is my default setting, so I "accidentally" treat robots like humans rather than "accidentally" treating humans like robots.

Plus, it's good for your general outlook on life. One of the best things you can do for your mental health is to be grateful. Even if you don't think there's an actual conscious being to be grateful to, you can still be grateful for the door opening and the water fountain filling up your bottle, and thanking the door and water fountain is a great way to do this. 

It puts you in a frame of mind where you're surrounded by things that are helping you out and making your day easier, and that's a pretty good mood lifter.

I also do this partly because I've read and watched too much science fiction, and I know that one day the robots will take over the world. When that day comes, I would like the robot lawnmower to say "oh, she was nice to us" and not try to attack me.***

*Well, actually I openly believe in animism, I just vacillate between thinking it's a totally legit belief and thinking it's made up clap-trap (like most things we "believe").

**And yet, at the same time, we want to believe it's not listening to us when we talk about it.

***Or the vacuum cleaner. Geez, how embarrassing would it be to be taken out by a vacuum cleaner during the robot uprising?

You can just be hungry

You know how you occasionally have an idea pop into your head that seems life changingly revelatory and completely dull and obvious at the same time?

Not long ago I had one of those ideas. And it was this:

"You can just be hungry."

I don't know where or how I got sucked into this idea - I suspect it's a result of living in an affluent Western society - but I somehow became convinced that if I feel hungry I should do something about it.

If it's 2.30pm and I feel like I need something salty, I must now undertake some quest to find a salty thing to eat in order to end this "eternal hunger"*.

If it's an hour after lunch and I feel like I'm craving a particular foodstuff, or half an hour before afternoon tea and I start feeling like I'm hungry now, I switch over to this idea that I need to "listen to my body" and go find something to eat now. I start getting thoroughly distracted by this sense of hunger as if I truly must do something about it as soon as humanly possible.

But... I don't.

You know, people all over the world are hungry most of the day, every day, and yet they miraculously manage to get on with whatever it is they're doing without going on a quest for salted peanuts. They eat whatever food they have at the time when they can eat it, and they live.

If they are hungry, they are just... hungry. And it's not the end of the world.

I, too, can just be hungry.

I mean, it's not like it's going to be forever.

I do live in an affluent Western society, so I know I'm not actually going to go hungry if I wait an hour to eat something I planned to eat instead of rushing to find something to eat right now that will match what I'm craving at the moment. And, should it turn out that I'm constantly craving salty things at a certain time of day, I can just take note of that and plan to eat something salty within the bounds of a reasonably balanced food allocation.

Listening to your body is a stupid thing to do. Your body wants to prepare for "winter", but we've managed to create a world where "winter" never comes - there's never a point (for people living in my society and socio-economic environment) where there will be a time of less, so I have to prepare for it by eating as much as I can during a time of plenty. But my body was designed for such seasonal periods of glut and famine.

I *do* need to listen to it telling me that I'm running short of salt and things like that, but I don't need to do anything about it this very second. For the next half hour or so I can just be hungry.

Except tea. If I need a cup of tea I should do something about that ASAP.

*In the Disney movie Frozen (known as The Snow Queen and the Eternal Winter in some overseas markets), the winter had been going on for all of 5 minutes before someone declared it to be "eternal" and declared that some drastic measure must be undertaken to stop it.

Mushrooms

Last year some time I decided that growing mushrooms sounded like a fun hobby. Some permaculture site I was looking at for some reason was advertising a "home mushroom growing course", and I thought:

"Yes! I shall learn the permaculture way to grow mushrooms. That sounds like a good use of my time."

It wasn't.

If you are thinking about growing mushrooms, and wondering if forking out $400 for a fancy permaculture course means you'll have the best grounding in mushroom growing, I have this piece of advice for you:

Don't.

Your introduction to mushroom growing should involve a pre-prepared pack and short course that, all together, costs around $100 max. 

This is because growing mushrooms is more like brewing beer than growing vegetables, and you can easily blow out any budget (monetary or time) you might think you're setting for yourself, and then discover that you actually find it all a bit too much work, really, and you don't want to do it.

I just want to say that mushrooms are surprisingly hard work.

Especially if you happen to be a "stick it in the dirt and see what happens" kind of gardener, as I am.

Even the easiest, quick-and-dirty method of growing mushrooms takes more time and attention than any of the other edible things I have growing about the place, every step is fraught with peril, I never know if I've reached a point where I've failed or if I need to hold on for another few days (or if there's something else I should be doing with the slab of fungus festering in my bathroom right now)...

And then when you actually get the mushrooms, you have to find a way to eat them relatively soon or it's all for nothing. I'm currently in a "who has time to cook? I'll just make a sandwich" phase of my existence, and in the meantime I have these huge clusters of mushrooms that may be all I have to show for all the money and effort I've poured into this misguided project.

Sure, in theory I could preserve them - but if I currently can't get my act together to make a simple pasta dish, the odds that I'll work out how to sterilize a jar and make a suitable brine are slim to none.

I should have known I wouldn't get around to eating them in good time. After all, it's not long ago that I grew a bunch of sweet potatoes the size of soccer balls* because I just couldn't be bothered harvesting them, and I figured they'd be safe enough in the ground. 

They've been in my pantry for a couple of months now. I should probably do something about them...

*Size 3 soccer balls, but soccer balls nonetheless