Light and Momentary

Yet another book recommendation

I just finished Happiness Falls, and I need some friends to discuss it with me. There's a non-speaking teen at the center of the story, which is narrated by his young adult sister. She has her own neurodivergent stuff going on. The story is driven by the disappearance of their father.

It is right up a couple of my alleys, so perhaps it's not surprising that I found it memorable and thought-provoking. Read it and tell me what you think, please.

In which science does indeed make me stronger

This is week 9 of the 10-week Strong for Science program, and today I was bench-pressing: 3 sets, 3 reps each, at 105 pounds. It felt perfect. I was definitely ready to be done by that ninth rep, but I was never in doubt that I was going to finish the set.

My previous PR was a single rep of 100 pounds. Joe was spotting me that day and he had me try one rep at 105, but I just couldn't do it. You'll notice that was two years ago now -- I just don't like to push myself on bench without a spotter, and you don't get better if you don't push yourself. Probably I wouldn't drop the barbell on my face if I failed a rep? But probably doesn't seem quite good enough, and I don't feel comfortable asking a random gym bro for a spot.

Anyway: I am feeling pretty pleased about the progress I've made this semester. The PI of the study is hoping to continue it next semester. I'd be thrilled.

Respite

I knew going in that this would be a busy semester, because prepping a grad class from scratch is a huge amount of work. It has gone really well, and it has been exhausting. I posted about it earlier in the semester and that experience has been pretty consistent across the semester: I do tons of prep, I lead mostly successful classes with happy engaged students, I collapse in a wobbly heap afterward.

But I don't have to prep a lecture for Monday, because I have a guest speaker coming in. (Guest! Speaker! I don't even care right now if she turns out to be a mediocre speaker, because I am not going to do the speaking!) I don't have to prep a lecture for Wednesday, because the students are presenting. I don't have to prep a lecture for the following Monday or the following Wednesday, because of Thanksgiving. And then I'll only have four classes left.

I am going to bask for a little while in that sense of relief, and then scramble to catch up on the grading I've been neglecting because lecture prep has been so time-consuming. I think I can I think I can.

Can't take me anywhere

Sandy has settled in nicely, and we are so fond of her. She is mellow and snuggly, and I am glad every day that we adopted her.

We live in a neighborhood with outdoor cats who sometimes stroll through our back yard or take a nap on our steps. Sandy sees it as her sacred duty to chase them off when they transgress like that, but she has learned that they will run away lickety-split if they hear her coming.

So she has a plan: when we get halfway down the driveway, she changes her gait. She angles her body away from her tags and practically tiptoes, so the jingle at her collar won't give her away.

In the past couple of weeks I have observed that Sandy is very skeptical of fallen leaves. If she encounters a drift of dried leaves, she will jump over it or go around it. "They are not lava; you can go right through them," I have told her, but she doesn't appear to have much of a referent for lava and she just keeps hopping over them.

We always have a line of windblown leaves on the driveway side of our house, and Sandy avoids them to the best of her ability. I was crunch-crunching through them this morning as we returned from our walk. Suddenly Sandy stopped short, mid-sidle, and gave me a look I can only describe as reproachful.

"Jamie," she said with her eloquent eyes, "I am doing my very best to ambush The Enemy. But how am I supposed to ambush The Enemy when you are making all that ruckus in the leaves?"

She returned to her stalking and I did my best to walk more quietly. No feline trespassers today, but I am sure Sandy's vigilance will pay off soon.

Also reading

I bought a copy of Happiness Falls when I read the NYT review earlier this fall, but it has just been sitting on my Kindle. I started it last night and I am enjoying it so far. I like the narrator's distinctive voice, and I'm intrigued by the portrayal of the disabled sibling. I'm only a half-dozen chapters in, but I'm looking forward to reading more.

Last week I finished Tom Lake, another book set in the summer of 2020. I went right down to the wire, scrambling to finish it before the library retrieved the Kindle version from my phone. The 2020 sections of the book take place on a Michigan cherry farm, and I enjoyed the sense of place. This one also features a female narrator with a distinctive voice, talking about memory and loss and the strange paths that lead us to the places where we wind up.

Not my usual genre

I don't read a lot of thrillers but I finished a good one today, called Just Another Missing Person. (Oh, hey, I think the Kindle edition is on sale!) It raises a bunch of interesting questions about moral ambiguity: who's a good guy and who's not, what happens when loyalty takes a person too far into dangerous territory. She set up the big twist in the middle skillfully, and then -- bam! -- nailed it with another big twist at the end. I didn't see either one coming but they both made sense. It's tough for an author to nail both the setup and the surprise, but I thought they both worked well.

The reason I don't read many thrillers is that I have kind of a delicate flower brain and disturbing imagery tends to stick, but I didn't find it overwhelming.

P.S. Don't read this spoiler-y question if you think you might enjoy the book. But if you have read it, I have one niggling quibble: why would the storage space show up in the location data? Seems unlikely to be a frequent destination.

Audience

Let's discuss: I think that concert etiquette has shifted dramatically since I was a kid, and I don't like it at all.

I've resigned myself to the fact that my expectations are out of step with many people's expectations at high school concerts. Attendees are asked to silence their phones and refrain from going in and out during songs, but they just don't do it. The doors bang open and closed all the way through; people answer voice calls mid-performance. At the last concert I attended, I sat in the third row and I was still surrounded by people talking all through the performance -- not just between the songs, but during them.

It felt outrageously rude to me, because at that distance a conversation is audible to the performers, who are trying to concentrate on something difficult. They need to listen to the other members of their ensemble so the performance goes smoothly. Who would choose to make that harder for a bunch of nervous kids?

A few weeks ago we went to a symphony performance on campus and I was relieved that it was much better there. I wondered if it might be the older crowd, or the ticket prices, or maybe a different culture among classical music enthusiasts who are there specifically to hear the the music and not with a vague idea of showing support for an extended family member.

But tonight we went back to the symphony, and sat in the back with a busload of senior citizens who were visiting from another town. To my chagrin, they were like the high school parents who won't stop talking during the music. There was so much conversation during the performance that I kept wishing I had a squirt gun. It doesn't seem like rocket science: if you talk in a place with good acoustics, your voice will carry. If you talk in a place where people are listening carefully, they will wind up listening to you.

I was thinking about the word "audience," which comes from the Latin word audiens, or "listening." When my kids were little I fretted so much about teaching them to be quiet when they were part of an audience.* I guess that's an old-fashioned approach these days? At the risk of sounding like a cantankerous old lady, I have to say I prefer the old-fashioned approach.

*I remain entirely sympathetic to parents or grandparents offering quick explanations to kids who are learning how to behave in concerts and movies, and I understand they may need to exit in a hurry even if the timing isn't optimal. My side-eye is reserved for the grownups who don't seem to have figured out sitting still and being quiet.

In which we summon the Gains Fairy

If you want to get stronger, you might benefit from eating more protein. People argue about the exact amount you need, but the recommendation has been pretty well studied and the findings seem to be fairly consistent: protein intake makes a difference in a person's response to resistance training. I aim for about 120 grams per day. 

To make this feasible, I supplement with whey protein powder. Yes, the person who used to grow her own lentil sprouts has turned into a person with a subscribe-and-save order set up for 5-pound tubs of artificially sweetened protein powder (affiliate link). I keep thinking I'll investigate a less processed option, but no dice so far.

Usually I include a scoop of whey in my breakfast, which might be a smoothie with Greek yogurt and frozen bananas, or maybe some steel-cut oats with walnuts or chia seeds or a spoonful of flax meal. I am the queen of unfinished cups of coffee, and in recent weeks I have been pouring my leftover tepid coffee into my shaker cup and mixing it up with whey and creatine and ice. These combinations get me 30-40 grams of protein at breakfast, depending on the details. 

I aim for 40g at lunch, which is usually a sandwich or a salad. If I'm making the lunch, I will pile on more protein-rich toppings or fillings than I used to: cubed leftover meat, garbanzos, hard-boiled egg, walnuts, feta, etc. I used to think a can of tuna yielded enough tuna salad for two sandwiches, but these days I stuff it into one (not very often, though, because mercury, PCBs, etc.). 

Our dinners usually include some meat, which makes it easier to get to 30-40 grams of protein. Tonight, for instance, was leftover night, and I chose leftover ham and beans (a Gladly family standby for more than 20 years now) in part because of its protein content. 

Somewhere in there I will probably eat a snack, which could be yogurt or cheese cubes if my meals have included less protein, or apple slices with nut butter if I'm already pretty close to the target number. Or if I want something sweet after dinner, I might have a little yogurt with some frozen fruit and protein powder and maybe a little drizzle of peanut butter.

I feel intermittent uneasiness about relying so heavily on animal products, but this is where I am right now. Casey Johnston has some helpful posts on protein, including this one on protein targets and this one on protein choices.

This post was prompted by a comment from NGS, who is also doing NaBloPoMo. If you miss blogs and blogging, check out the NaBloPoMo links!

Eight weeks in

I haven't been blogging much this fall because my new grad class is sucking up about 325% of the creative energy I have on offer, so it was only a few posts ago that I was telling you about getting strong for science. We're in week 8 now, and it's been fantastic. For the most part, it's been exactly the right degree of hard, and I've seen a bunch of encouraging progress.

One of the forms my progress has taken is this: I rarely get sore. I work out until I am about to fall over, but then I eat my protein and get enough rest and I'm pretty much good to go. Rarely, however, is different from never.

Usually during our workouts I'm the last participant finished. (I have been telling myself that it's because I'm dedicated and persevering and my trainer Steven wants to keep pushing me closer to my ceiling, but I suppose it's possible that I'm just slow.) There were a few weeks in a row that Steven had originally planned for us to use the adductor machine and we wound up doing extra sets of squats or Romanian deadlifts or leg press instead. He kept scratching that last exercise from the plan because we were bumping up against our time limit.

Yesterday he had me work my adductors closer to the beginning of the workout. "Haven't done this in a while," I commented. Three sets, 12 reps each, 95 pounds: it felt heavier than the last time we'd used that machine, but no big deal. Today, though, those muscles are aflame. "Huh," I keep thinking as I move through the day, "what do you know? A person needs adductors for that too!" 

Did you cross your legs today? Thank your adductors! Did you sit cross-legged without grimacing? This also requires happy adductors. Even when I am just walking around I can feel them grumbling at me.

Let's hope I am doing a little less limping tomorrow.

Party like it's 2004

It's November 1! It's the start of NaBloPoMo: thirty days, thirty posts. I was pleased to learn last year that there is a little NaBloPoMo community, if you too want to party like it's 2004.