You know, the longer I go without posting, the worse I feel every time I see the little Firefox bookmark for this site. I am not here to resolve to write more often, because I am not at all convinced that I will. But the urge suddenly struck, and some things require more than 140 characters, and so I post.

As you might have guessed, I have settled into my new life in the SF Bay Area. I live in Oakland, and I have one quarter of my Masters degree under my belt. (To clarify, my school runs on a quarter system, so what I actually mean is that we just finished the Fall 2008 quarter. Which actually accounts for I think 1/12 of my program, not 1/4. Sigh.) 

The last 4 months of 2008 were an intense whirlwind of change, growth, exploration, head-shaving, reading, and paper-writing, among other things. I went back to (shockingly snow-covered) BC for Christmas, and spent ten days enjoying the company of family and close friends, new and old. 

And now it's 2009, the year in which I will turn 30... and I've got a few thoughts about it.

This year, I have a few aspirations/intentions/affirmations:

A few weeks ago, a mysterious package arrived in the mail for me. It contained a tiara... and a gift certificate of sorts. The enclosed letter introduced me to a new site called DreamBank, and invited me to visit, choose a dream to support, and donate a free $20 at my discretion. I got to be a “fairy godmother.”

What is Dreambank? You could call it a form of crowd-sourced lending... or rather, crowdsourced giving. Anyone can sign up and post a dream, and then anyone can read that dream, and decide to contribute to it. A sweet idea, really. Kind of like Kiva. Only without any expectation that you’ll repay what you’re given. And you don’t have to be a third world entrepreneur to post your dream.

So... I went to the site, and I chose to give my $20 to a woman who is trying to pay back her student loans.

A stranger’s student loan might not seem like sexiest cause to contribute to... but it seemed like the right one for me. Because as it turns out (can you feel the segue coming?) I’m about to begin graduate school myself.

It’s a little-known fact that I used to play badminton. That’s badMINton, by the way, which is *not* the way that 99% of Americans who utter this word say it. Ask me for a personal pronunciation lesson, if necessary. Thanks.

Anyhow, me and badminton were great friends. When I was in high school, my family had a membership at the Royal Glenora Club in Edmonton. While I see they have a truly embarrassing website now, they had a great junior badminton program back in the day (and I’m sure they still do). For three years, I lived and breathed badminton. We trained most days of the week, and went to all the provincial (and sometimes national) tournaments. My social life was very wrapped up in the club team, and badminton was good for me. It gave me focus, it gave me something to strive for, and it got me in really, really good shape. If you still harbor ideas about it being a “back yard game”, please read this blog post by Anna Rice. She's Canada’s top women singles player (who beat me at least once or twice in tournaments when we were teenagers) and her description should lay your misconceptions to rest. It’s an intense game, and more physically demanding at the elite level than you can probably imagine.

Proof: watch this video. They almost make it look easy, but a rally like that is *gruelling*. 

Until about four months ago, I didn’t even know what gluten was. I mean, I knew it was something in wheat, and I knew that health food stores seemed to stock things that were free from it. But it wasn’t until I got a call from my mother one day, announcing that my sister had finally found out what had been making her vaguely sick for years, and very sick for weeks, that I got a crash course in the ins and outs of gluten. My sister had been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and I didn’t know it at the time, but my diet was about to change dramatically.

Celiac disease is best defined as a serious, genetic, gluten intolerance. Gluten, as it turns out, is not just in wheat, but also in barley, spelt and kamut, and is hidden in a LOT of processed foods under a hundred funny names (another good reason to avoid them). People with Celiac disease can’t digest gluten at all, and their bodies actually begin to destroy their small intestines in response to it. Over time, this leads to malabsorption of nutrients, as it’s the small intestine that’s responsible for taking the food that your stomach has broken down, and transporting the nutrients out into the bloodstream. “Classic” symptoms of celiac disease are diarrhea, weight loss, and bloating. However, the list of possible symptoms is enormous, and not all digestive related. Many people find that their fibromyalgia, their migraines, or their ADHD symptoms disappear once they remove gluten from their diet. To complicate things even further, a huge number of celiacs actually experience NO symptoms at all – even while their small intestines are being destroyed. It’s a complex disease.

Worst of all, most MDs in North America are totally clueless about it. The average Celiac waits 8-11 years for their diagnosis, often suffering badly in the meantime, often being prescribed drugs for other conditions (which frequently resolve as soon as the gluten problem is figured out).

I would really like to suggest that you read this book. In fact, I want you to read it so much that I'm not even going to bother to take the time to figure out how to do an affiliate link for it, because that would mean I probably wouldn't actually get around to writing about it.

It is full of nutrition wisdom that makes so much intuitive sense, it's striking. What's most remarkable, though, is that it strikes at the heart of pretty much everything you've heard about nutrition and food for the past 15 years – like the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease, and low-fat dairy products are better for you. (And yes, it's well researched.) 

If you've ever wondered why your supposedly healthy diet doesn't leave you feeling all that vibrant, or if you've ever lamented that the foods you think you're "supposed" to eat aren't actually all that satisfying, you might find your answers here. And really, it's nothing shocking. The basic idea is that we should eat like our anscestors did – because food is best for us in its least-processed form. Surprise surprise. 

Be prepared to be challenged, if you're really attached to your ideas about diet. But also be prepared for the delightful experience of really enjoying tasty, nourishing food, that doesn't require a pep talk to cook or eat.

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do decide to read it!

Wondering what to do in Vancouver next week?

I have a don't-miss suggestion – my friend Thomas Arthur's performance at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre!

A tour de force solo performance pointing to a unity of nature, nurture, mathematics, art, science and mythology. In a masterful weaving of sound and motion, lyrical juggler Thomas Arthur explores the nature of order. With a supporting cast of orbiting spheres, hoops, spirals, geometric solids, roots, sticks, stones and cones – and even a parabolic space-time tunnel! – Thomas spins a hypnotic flowing dance of visual music, poetic narration and projected imagery.

Thomas is one of my favorite people in the world, and if you're around, I urge you to support his work and come to the show, April 24-26, 2008. It'll be worth it.

Rannie Turingan, a great photographer in Toronto, made this video earlier this year. It's 20 couples on 20 couches and it's very sweet!

20 x 2 : What's The Difference? from photojunkie on Vimeo.

There's a few faces I know from Toronto in there (hi T&M!), so that makes it extra-fun for me, but I think you'll like it anyway. Unless you're highly homophobic... you might not like it then. But maybe you should watch it anyway. :P