Tweaking the watchlist

I keep a running list of horror films I'm interested in. Some are already in circulation; others are coming out soonish. I recently realized that intriguing but ostensibly feel-bad titles like "A Dark Song" and "The Devil's Candy" (both on Netflix) might not be what I'm actually into these days.

I think I went through a phase with horror similar to my trajectory with indie and foreign films: At first, if a film was dark thematically, and maybe even hard to watch at times, it struck me as unquestionably deep. How could it not be? Human suffering, man -- that shit is deep. And since I was doing plenty of suffering, due to a lively combination of anxiety, depression, and disordered eating, I found a lot to relate to in movies like Catherine Breillat's devastating "Fat Girl" (2001), whose shocking ending is one of the few vivid memories I have of it.

These days, life is generally much sunnier for me, despite the chronic sleep deprivation that comes with being the parent of a toddler and working two part-time jobs. My wife is a big fan of genre film and TV, be it science fiction, fantasy, or relatively light horror ("Cabin in the Woods," yes, but probably not "We Are What We Are" or "We Are Still Here"). Much of what we watch together is "genre" in one way or another, though we also share a love of quirky and/or dark comedy ("You're the Worst," "Big Mouth," etc.).

In any case, I'm trying to modify my genre watchlist to reflect what I actually want to see. I just started watching "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," intrigued by a local filmmaker acquaintance's praise for it and my appreciation of Martin McDonagh's previous work (chiefly "Six Shooter" and "In Bruges"), and though it isn't genre, it's quirky dark comedy, and it's an award winner -- serious cinema, if you will.

I think something that's been missing in my life, along with time to write for this blog and Spokane Faith & Values, is ambitious, "prestige" film. Before my son's birth in June of 2016, I squeezed in a few last Oscar winners, knowing my days of watching what I wanted when I wanted were numbered. Most notably, I watched and loved "Spotlight," "The Big Short," and "Room."

I remember how wonderful it felt to watch these thoughtful, complex movies, which, despite the difficult themes they highlight, I experienced as life-giving and inspiring. Because that's what outstanding, memorable films have always done for me: They've helped me keep believing in the human race rather than cynically focusing on our worst qualities and retreating into misanthropy.

In my view, a species that can artfully and poignantly reflect on its own weaknesses is one that may still have hope of becoming better over time. Especially in the era of Trump, perhaps humanity's most prominent and least inspiring example, I think I need more high-minded, well-crafted film -- whether it's "genre" or not.

Blast from the past, part 2

Here's another post from the old MySpace blog. I wrote this one after returning to Seattle from New York in the fall of 2006:

So I saw the Pulitzer-winner [Doubt] at the Rep tonight, finally, after missing it on Broadway. Wow. Ran into an ex-Weeklyite (aren't they all, now?) who said this production's Sister Aloysius (the show's villain or heroine, depending on your point of view) was better than Broadway's. Broadway's was Eileen Atkins, but still, I kind of believe it, because this one ruled. Just when you wanted to close the book on her and hate her... you couldn't, because she did something funny and likable, so you were stuck kind of liking her again, despite yourself. The Stranger (consumed by the Segal resignation scandal!) said the production didn't make the priest's guilt uncertain enough, and I agree, but it was still a hell of a good show. It's nice to feel some sense of personal connection to the show; its message that doubt is a vital part of living but still hurts like hell seems very apt these days, as I begin to feel less resistance to ideas I might have laughed off years ago, or even one year ago.

As with music, some ideas get turned away when they come before their time. In college I took a road trip, fall of junior year, and my trip-mate played some Tom Waits. I didn't understand why anyone would want to listen to such a scratched-up old voice for even a minute. Then, later in the year, I asked for Waits' Mule Variations as a Christmas present, according to the principle that you ask for what you wouldn't buy yourself, because it's too "risky" to try something new on your own dime. Soon after, I was playing it in my room when my roommate came in and essentially said: Who would want to listen to a scratched-up old voice like that for even a minute? And you know what? I did.

You don't get it till you get it. And reading Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television is making me think I'm getting something I didn't get before. Then again, as Doubt also communicates, nothing is gained by dogmatism. So I'd better tread carefully and think through what's occurred to me (probably a better idea than jumping headfirst into a socialist guerrilla organization or whatever). Basically one big problem is how to sit someone down and tell him or her that your fears and uneasiness are irrational, you know they are, but you're uncertain of how to best fight that irrationality. Shanley's program notes for Doubt are exquisite -- I enjoyed them about as much as the play. Here's an excerpt:

It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he's on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you've gone the wrong way and you're lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.

Blast from the past

I recently unearthed a post from 2006, when I had a MySpace blog. A few years ago, I foolishly erased that blog when I deleted my MySpace account, so I was pleased to find this time-capsule slice of New York life:

What have I been doing?

Yesterday I revisited my Manhattan-shrink-in-a-highrise (yes, Virginia, New York IS just like a Woody Allen movie) for the second of three "consultation" sessions wherein she decides how to place me. I wish she could just place me with her, but I suspect I can't afford her -- she's a real, live psychiatrist -- and anyway, she's suggesting analysis, not meds. Apparently the mysterious power of the analysis couch isn't that it makes you more comfortable, and thus more likely to spill your long-hidden secrets -- instead, it simply keeps you from looking at your analyst, which apparently helps you Journey Within and pluck out the really juicy Freudian fuck-ups that led you to the sorry place you are today. So that's good to know. I'm learning so much here!

Post-shrink I had a nice big salad at a kosher pizzeria with my nearly-always-visiting friend Bob; then we went to some kind of university art space to look at a design exhibit. It was on the streamlining trend that began in the '30s and clearly consumed almost everything it touched (until you've seen a streamlined iron, you haven't really lived). I astutely observed that the teardrop shape that seemed to characterize a great many of the pieces in the exhibit is also the way airplane wings look from the side, when you do a cross-section diagram thingy.

Bob and I talked about the poignant nature of retro-futuristic design, which expressed such optimism about the 21st century but whose moment, aesthetically, sort of never arrived after all (hel-LO, Space Needle!). Although a remarkable number of streamlined items -- lounge chairs, room lamps, counter/bar islands in a kitchen -- actually continue to exist in contemporary homes. So maybe the moral of the story is that the idealism of the streamlining age, like all idealism, failed to make it to the present day unscathed, but that doesn't mean it didn't exert a profound effect on the design world.

Also last night I stood outside the famous Ziegfeld Theater in the cold and wet to harass people coming out of the world premiere of "United 93," the Paul Greengrass film that recreates, in real time, the doomed 9/11 flight that crashed in a PA field after its passengers staged a revolt against the hijackers. My first NY freelance piece, about whether New Yorkers are ready for the movie (which opens wide on Friday), required me to join the radio, TV, and press people in the gated-off media pit across the street from the theater, from which frazzled-looking moviegoers -- including quite a few family members of 9/11 victims -- emerged following the 7:30 p.m. screening. An AP guy who admitted he'd rather be at home in bed -- yeah, join the club, fella -- shouted at random emerging audience members: "What'd ya think of the movie?" I met a nice lady from BBC Radio who played me back a bit of her interview with Greengrass. I think when you're interviewing the director, your need to do man-on-the-street reporting is greatly reduced. (Accordingly, she left pretty soon after the theater exodus began.)

I'd never been in a media pit before, and lordy, is it like the ones you see in the movies. Inevitably some Armani-wearing dude is fame-hungry and steps right up into the hot glare of the TV lights (yes, the lights the TV people used actually emitted heat and glared -- this is not a figure of speech) and talks and talks and talks. There were three big talkers. While one held court, I stuck my recorder-holding hand through the cloud of correspondents and paparazzi and asked my key question ("Do you think New Yorkers are ready for this movie?"). All the other media people listened for the answer, too. It was weird and magical -- and slightly parasitic, but oh well. 'Tis the nature of the media beast, I guess. My story, all 600 words of it, runs this Friday in Downtown Express.

The bluest skies

Top 5 things I'm going to miss about Seattle:

1. The Ravenna Kibbutz: I've been going to potlucks at the Kibbutz for more than three years, and it's been a time of great personal growth. I've met more wonderful people there, and eaten more amazing food, than I could ever have expected. Plus, for the first time since college, I found a community I loved, where I felt like I belonged. That's a big deal.
2. My friends: From Reed and Judith, whom I met soon after moving to Seattle in January of 2002, to Ria, whom I just met recently, I've made lovely and lasting friendships here. Seattle is known for being hard to break into socially, but serendipity introduced me to people like Angela, still one of my best friends, and Patty, whom I met in 2005 at a coffee shop, re-met last year on Facebook, and keep close to my heart even though she lives far away.
3. Saaz: My feline housemate, pictured above, has convinced me that I'm as much a cat person as a dog person, and that at some point, maybe even in Spokane, I should adopt a cat of my own.
4. Smartness: People here are smart. Some are tech-savvy, some are socially adept (yes, even in Asperger's-prone Seattle), and some spent a lot of time on their Ph.D.s, work at Microsoft Research, and have intellects the size of newly discovered diamond planets. When a friend moved from Seattle to L.A. years ago, she called me and said: "Neal, where are all the smart people?" Say what you will about Seattle -- we have smarties in spades.
5. The weather: Not the gray skies and spitting rain, but the moderate temperatures. Not too hot in the summer, almost never muggy, not too cold in the winter. Few places in America can boast such meteorological restraint. And yes, we don't get the dramatic thunderstorms of the Midwest and East Coast, but the abiding mellowness almost makes up for that. Spokane reminds me of my native Michigan, with its freezing winters and hot summers. That's good practice for a future outside the Pacific Northwest, but there's no question that as soon as I'm outside Seattle's marine climate, I'll miss the heck out of it.

Propaganda on wheels? The "war crimes" bus ads

I haven't blogged in more than three months. I've been using Facebook to convey most of my opinions on local and global happenings, and since the fall was packed with GRE prep, classes, and another contract gig for the Times, I seriously de-prioritized blogging. Still, I missed it. I missed writing in brief or at length about things that mattered to me. I missed getting the occasional response from a reader in New Zealand or Vermont or Patagonia. And since the cinematic year is drawing to a close, and I always make sure to write about my top 10 films of the year, I'll make sure 2010 is no exception. (Expect that post in early January; I still have to catch up on Winter's Bone, The Ghost Writer, and other critical darlings.)

In the meantime, I'll say that the growing Facebook campaign to remove a series of bus ads that accuse Israel of war crimes is getting my goat. It reminds me of the controversy surrounding the Seattle Rep's 2007 production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, a one-woman show that presented the Israel-Palestine conflict from the perspective of a young woman who spent a lot more time with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, and who died after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer.

The Jewish community's argument against the show was that it offered a one-sided view of the Mideast conflict, and that the Rep's discussion panel included only liberal Jews. While it can certainly be argued that the play isn't an even-handed overview of Palestinian and Israeli concerns, the next step for outraged local Jews should have been to make statements, in whatever media they deemed appropriate, that reflected the pro-peace aspects of Israeli society and government. To an extent, they did just that. Aren't such actions protest enough?

Looking back, I think Rep artistic director David Esbjornson erred in claiming that the ADL's and Federation's program ads were an attempt to "discredit" the show. I also think Jewish leaders shouldn't have assumed that they would be afforded program space rather than having to purchase ads to air their views. As I've indicated on Facebook, in response to a group that intends to "stop" the bus ads, I think the Jewish community does itself a disservice when it pushes for censorship -- the outright removal of views it doesn't like -- rather than figuring out how best to answer the offending messages.

A little pro-Israel advertising might go a long way towards making people think; throwing around the word "libel" makes us look reactionary and defensive. And protected speech is protected speech. The bus ads qualify, and if that makes some local Jews uncomfortable, well, that's the price of free speech. The people who so despise those bus ads should come up with a little free speech of their own and, if need be, cover a few city buses with it. Couldn't hurt.

Prodigal

It's been a tough month for me. At the end of July, I made a pretty regrettable mistake, and the consequences were both predictable and appropriate, but also sad: I had to steer clear of my old stomping grounds, the Ravenna Kibbutz, for a while. Starting in September, I can go back to attending Shabbat dinners, movie nights, and the like, and I have to say, I'm looking forward to it. Spending even 45 minutes there reminds me why I fell in love with the Kibbutz in the first place: the people. My goal in the future is to treat those people as well as possible. Certain individuals might need space from me, and that's okay; I'd rather change my behavior to increase others' comfort than stop attending entirely.

After two years of weekly Shabbat dinners, doing something else on a Friday night punches a hole in my heart. I think it's safe to say that I've learned from this unfortunate episode, and that my knowledge of both myself and others has increased. And while none of this stuff may end up in the essays I write for my grad-school applications, I hope it'll help make the rest of my early thirties less dramatic and more focused on self-improvement and professional accomplishment. And so it goes.

The song that's stuck in my head this weekend, plus gelato

YouTube isn't letting me embed the music video for "Black Sheep," from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which I saw yesterday afternoon. Ah, well. The movie was loads of fun, and Brie Larson, as the title character's ex-girlfriend, delivers a stronger version of the song than Metric, the Canadian pop band that wrote it. Pity her rendition isn't on the soundtrack, which I hope to get at some point. I've already requested the Scott Pilgrim comic book from the library.

In other breaking news, I went to D'Ambrosio today and was blown away. Best gelato I've had since I visited Italy in 2000. Best flavor I've tasted so far? Fig-caramel. God, it's heavenly. About food and movies I'm still extremely capable of geeking out, which is nice to know. Why let yourself become jaded when you can remain an excited little kid inside a grown-up body?

Running

I'm starting to get the love/hate relationship thing. I began a Couch to 5k running class nearly two weeks ago, and our first in-class run was a shock to my system. The last memory I have of running for running's sake involves middle school, a mile-and-a-half trip around the track, a severe case of cotton mouth, and as close to a near-death experience as an eighth grader can have. I associate running with embarrassment at being the fat kid, or with envy of others to whom it seems to come so easily.

Now I know something about the gray area between the extremes: I, too, can run, and while it isn't easy, it isn't the hardest thing in the world. Tonight I alternated three minutes of running with a minute of walking -- I did five sets of that, for a total of twenty minutes in motion, plus the time to walk back from where I ended up. It made me feel good. It's not rocket science -- it's exactly like they say: Exercise makes you feel good. All the mental gymnastics someone like me has to do in order to actually get himself moving, that stuff's another story. That just makes me feel tired.

Another thing they say is true: Lace up your shoes and go outside, and you're 90% of the way there. 95%, even. Before my run tonight, I attended an open house at Antioch University's graduate psych program. I'm taking prereqs for a Bastyr University M.S., but I'm not done shopping around; the idea was for the prereqs to help me figure out whether I really want to do the three-year nutrition/psych grad program they offer. Antioch doesn't seem much cheaper than Bastyr, but I like their couples and family therapy track within the M.A.

Going to the event tonight helped me to realize that taking on eating disorders, especially in teenagers, will almost certainly require training in family therapy, since it's familial patterns as much as what's happening in the teen's mind that keep the disordered behavior going. I know full well that even well-intentioned parents who have nothing but love for their child can be confused about what to do, how to respond, in the face of a strange, wasting affliction like anorexia. They may be even less aware of the signs of compulsive overeating, or they may feel unable to confront them.

The prereqs for Antioch are simpler than those for the Bastyr program: three psych classes and 100 hours of "helping" work, either professional or volunteer. I've thought about volunteering at a crisis clinic in the past, and this would give me a good reason to do it. Also, I've already taken abnormal psych for the Bastyr program, and I might be able to do the other two classes online, making it easy to work while preparing for the master's at Antioch.

I ran into an old friend-of-a-friend at the open house, and she advised me against the MSW at UW, saying it doesn't provide enough clinical training. I was going to look into that program, partly because it's a good deal cheaper than either Bastyr or Antioch, and because another friend who's a therapist-in-training suggested I do so. In any case, the open house was exciting; even hearing about the Psy.D. program, which I'm unlikely to pursue, got my mind working.

Taking one day at a time has been a little harder than usual for me lately, as I try to incorporate exercise into my life, keep up with classes, do well in job interviews, and stay involved with Kibbutz matters while also keeping up my non-Kibbutz social life. Even without a day job, it's quite a balancing act, and I guess I needed to offload a few of my thoughts tonight. I hope to keep taking solo runs, even if I don't follow the instructor's "homework" schedule. Not giving up, in everything I try, is more important than doing things a particular way. That's one lesson running has taught me already. I bet it applies to my education and career planning, too.

Abnormal psychology

I've written here about my struggles with depression and disordered eating, but not so much about my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They've died down a bit since I went on Lexapro more than a year ago, but I still find myself battling irrational cause-effect relationships in my mind. It's not "If I lend this camera to my friend for the night, he'll break it," but instead: "If I lend this camera to my friend for the night, I'll be unable to stop worrying about whether he'll break it and thus my work will suffer." It's a step removed from actually not trusting the friend.

It's not (usually) that I'm an ungenerous person, it's that I let my neurosis hijack my behavior and prevent me from being as giving as I want to be. (And yes, I'm the one letting this happen. I'm getting better at fighting what I call "pre-worry" or "meta-worry" -- worrying compulsively that I'll worry -- but I still have a ways to go.) Sometimes it's hard for me to separate my mind's obsessive-compulsive "reasoning" from valid logic or meaningful emotion. It's the same problem I've long had with ambient noise, a big pet peeve of mine.

Sometimes I have reason to complain about noise (i.e., a "normal" person would), while at other times I'm unusually sensitive to unwanted sounds (a "normal" person wouldn't be upset, but I am). Figuring out the boundary between reasonable and unreasonable discomfort remains tricky for me, though again, I'm improving. Using earplugs, which I began doing when I moved to the Kibbutz in August of 2008, has been a minor revelation. How did I survive without them all those years? How much tension could they have relieved when I was in high school and college?

I don't have a lot more to say about this at the moment, except that I've gotten better at making decisions, and not whipping myself into a total neurotic lather in the process, since starting therapy in late 2005. I'm grateful to have somewhere to go each week -- or every couple weeks, now that I'm in a money crunch -- where I can decompress, talk through my issues du jour, and realize how much stress I carry around. I still prescribe exercise and meditation for my problems, but I'm having a devil of a time getting myself to fill the prescription.

2009 in haiku

This afternoon, KUOW challenged listeners to summarize their experience of 2009 in haiku form. Here's mine:

A student again;
in life, too, I still require
much education.

Oberlin, day by day

The admissions office at Oberlin College, my alma mater, has put together one of its most impressive recruitment tools to date: an online "poster" made of gorgeous photos taken on or around the campus by an OC student. Click around and you get an aptly scattershot sense of what the college is like. Makes me want to hop in my car and road-trip it back. I'll be flying back at the end of May for my second cluster reunion, so probably best to skip the cross-country drive. With enough other Obies in the car, though, I bet it'd be a ton of fun.

Happy second birthday, Red Blue Green!

I started this blog on October 17, 2007, so it's just over two years old. Though I foolishly cancelled my MySpace account without realizing that my MySpace blog, which I started in 2005, would disappear with it, I'll always think fondly of that blog, which documented my five months in New York in 2006 and helped me develop a consistent blogging voice and style.

Without further ado, I'll continue an anniversary tradition: embedding a video wherein Thom Yorke performs the beautiful song that gave Red Blue Green its name. Enjoy!



I'll also take a modified version of the survey I used to kick off the MySpace blog nearly four years ago:

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name:	Neal Elliott Schindler
Birthday:	February 9, 1979
Birthplace:	Detroit, Michigan
Current Location:	Seattle, Washington
Eye Color:	Brown
Hair Color:	Brown
Height:	5'9"
Right Handed or Left Handed:	Right
Your Heritage:	German/Jewish
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Brown Eccos, as always
Your Weakness:	Pasta/noodles; Lost; petting animals even though I'm allergic
Your Fears:	Not realizing my creative potential; remaining overweight for the rest of my life
Your Perfect Pizza:	Every vegetable imaginable needs to be on there
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	Handling the big new challenges that seem to be coming my way
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	FYI
Thoughts First Waking Up:	It's cold in my room!
Your Best Physical Feature:	Eyes, I'm told
Your Bedtime:	Midnight, these days
Your Most Missed Memory:	College in general, Spain specifically
Pepsi or Coke:	Neither
McDonalds or Burger King:	Hell no
Single or Group Dates:	Group
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	Neither
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Vanilla
Cappuccino or Coffee:	Mint tea
Do you Smoke:	No
Do you Swear:	Yes, too much
Do you Sing:	Rarely
Do you Shower Daily:	Yes!
Have you Been in Love:	Absolutely
Do you want to go to College:	I'm in college: community college
Do you want to get Married:	For sure
Do you believe in yourself:	More than I used to
Do you get Motion Sickness:	Occasionally, when I read on the bus
Do you think you are Attractive:	Sometimes
Are you a Health Freak:	Not yet
Do you get along with your Parents:	The remaining one, yes
Do you like Thunderstorms:	I miss them
Do you play an Instrument:	Not really
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	Once or twice
In the past month have you Smoked:	No
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	No
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	Yes
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	Yep
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	No
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	I have, and it was wonderful
In the past month have you been on Stage:	I walked on the stage at Kirkland Performance Center
In the past month have you been Dumped:	No
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	Sadly, no
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	No!
Ever been Drunk:	Of course!
Ever been Beaten up:	Yep
Ever Shoplifted:	Not that I can recall
How do you want to Die:	Peacefully, painlessly
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	A writer; a filmmaker; a counselor for people with eating disorders
What country would you most like to Visit:	Thailand
Number of CDs I own:	I have more than 10,000 iTunes
Number of Piercings:	None
Number of Tattoos:	None
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	A few, for sure; I can think of four right now

Pugoween 2009

Made the annual pilgrimage with Kelly, who had never been. Recorded a short video, as usual:



My allergic reaction seemed worse than in past years. Still fighting through it. Pug owners as a group are very sweet but also quite kooky. Don't want to end up a crazy pet person, though I do love pugs and certain cats and can get pretty excited about them.

My life may be about to change dramatically, though I won't get into it now. More information as it's confirmed.

First day of school

It wasn't the best, but it certainly wasn't the worst. It rained, and fall made itself known through the chill and the blustery wind. I got a $44 parking ticket for hanging out too long in a two-hour zone, and I dropped the first class I attended. But the one I replaced it with, an online chemistry class, looks promising so far: The professor seemed extremely competent, and I'm intrigued by the course's Web-only format. (As my mother continues learning how to teach introductory German using Internet tools, I've challenged myself to figure out online coursework as a student. We'll have lots to talk about between now and Christmas.)

My other class, nutrition, meets for the first time tomorrow night. I got my student I.D. today (hello, $1 off at local movie theaters!) and swapped my abnormal psych book for the considerably more expensive chem text. I'm sad to be holding off on psych, since it really interests me, but it's smart to get started on the chem series (139, the class I'm in, will prepare me for 161, which is the series' first actual course) and to keep my 9-5 free on weekdays (I now have one evening and one online class; psych was noon to 2:20 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays).

It felt weird to be at North Seattle Community College, amongst the many 18- to 22-year-olds, but I'll get used to it. I'm a bit jittery about having assignments already, and quizzes in my near future, but I'm also excited to be taking a chem course that assumes virtually no knowledge of the subject. My 10th grade chem teacher wasn't very good, and that was the last time I took chem. Whether or not I end up pursuing a graduate degree at Bastyr -- which, as it happens, a number of my chem classmates are doing -- it'll be nice to study science again.

There's no reason that someone who focused on the humanities during his undergrad years can't take chemistry and anatomy as a 30-year-old. A liberal arts education is a great chance to become a more well-rounded person, intellectually and otherwise, but that effort has to continue after graduation, and I'm glad to be getting back to it now.

On overeating

Today I said the words: "My name is Neal, and I'm an overeater." I wasn't at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, though I hope to attend one soon. I was at my therapist's office, and I was telling him that my recent and past behavior suggest that the "overeater" label might be useful for me to work with. Another option: "food addict," the term preferred by British journalist William Leith, who wrote The Hungry Years, a memoir about his own bout with food addiction that also serves as an investigation of the Atkins hypothesis that carbs, more than fat, are the enemy.

I understand the argument that labels, especially those doled out by some large, authoritative body, can do more harm than good. I get that diagnosing someone as an ADD sufferer or a depressive can make that person feel "broken," and perhaps unfixable. But diagnoses and labels have their positive sides, too. I didn't necessarily go around saying "My name is Neal, and I'm depressed" before starting on Lexapro last year, but I was depressed, and I had been, off and on, for a long while. My mother saw it, my friends understood it, and I knew it on some level, too. When I confessed that I wasn't looking for work last fall because I simply didn't want to (because, in turn, I didn't believe that any effort of mine would be rewarded with anything of value), it was tantamount to an acknowledgment of depression.

When you stop trying because you don't think anything you do will turn out well, because you believe your situation can't be improved, well, you're depressed. Similarly, someone who eats 1260 calories' worth of pasta in one sitting (plus some untold number of calories from the pesto that's mixed with the noodles) is an overeater. I don't overeat at every meal, and I haven't always overeaten in the past. Indeed, as a teenager I was anorexic, and I've had periods of self-starvation since then. (It's the only way I know how to lose the weight I inevitably put on during overeating periods like the one I'm in now.)

What I hope to do this time around is find a healthier, more constructive way to lose weight. I weigh around 222 pounds, which is roughly 30 more than I weighed two years ago, and more than double what I weighed when I was anorexic. While I try to attend waterobics class every week and am now also on a kickball team, I'll need more exercise, and more vigorous exercise, if I want to stay fit in the long term. Also, I'll need to treat my eating the way I've dealt with money management: I'll need immediate and longer-term plans and goals, ideally with a dedicated advisor to help mold and adjust my program as needed. Moorea Malatt, my financial advisor, has done a fabulous job of helping me budget and plan for the near and far future. Now I need someone -- myself, my therapist, or another paid advisor if need be -- to assist me in making my eating habits sensible and sustainable.

I'm willing to try a support group, which is why OA, which is free, appeals to me. Being around other people who struggle with something similar to what plagues you can remind you that you're not alone, and that other people can understand you. In the past, I've avoided OA because I was afraid I'd be surrounded by severely overweight people, whose appearance would be a reminder of what I fear most -- losing control of my eating so definitively that I end up morbidly obese. But it's hard to say what the other members of an OA meeting will look like. Most will probably have at least the "few extra pounds" so often described on dating-site profiles, and some will be heavier than that. Maybe a few will be profoundly large. But being around people of various sizes who fight a common enemy could not only be inspiring for me, it could also teach me to be more tolerant, and less scared, of people who seem to embody my worst nightmare about myself and my possible destiny.

In 1999, I wrote a nonfiction piece called "A Diary of Hunger" for a creative writing class. I remember feeling exhilarated to finally be getting the story of my eating disorder down on paper. The sentences flowed freely, and the piece ended up being one of the best things I wrote at college. I had an urgent need to tell my story, and that's part of what made it effective. The subject tapped into an emotionally significant and vulnerable area for me, and I was able to talk about my history with unprecedented honesty. It's been 10 years since I wrote that piece, and it might be useful to write another -- a document of the last decade's (mis)adventures in eating. I've made some progress, to be sure, and have gained some degree of perspective and wisdom along the way. In Park Slope in 2006, I was actually able to cook balanced meals and eat them slowly and mindfully -- a tremendous achievement for someone whose eating has veered between cruel self-deprivation and unfettered excess.

I still remember the night, also in 2006, that I went to meditation class, then proceeded to eat far too many cookies during the snack time that followed. Rather than moving directly to self-loathing, I tried to observe myself without judgment. I walked back to my apartment, took my blanket up to the roof, lay on my back, and looked at the stars. This felt like the first time I'd ever overeaten without mentally collapsing into paroxysms of shame. What had happened had happened, and I'd survived without descending into self-hatred -- the very feeling that sustains the vicious cycle of overeating.

We overeat, I suspect, because we're upset about something, and we're increasingly upset at ourselves the more we overeat. A perfect feedback loop, yet one that I'm determined to break. My name is Neal, I'm an overeater, and I want it to stop. Soon.

Class guilt

Today, for the first time in my life, I visited a food bank. I showed a recent piece of mail to prove my current address, presented my driver's license to prove that I'm me, and filled out a brief form. Then I got a laminated card that told me how many cans of fruit, dairy products, grain products, proteins (beans, in my case), and cans of vegetables I could claim. (Fresh veggies were apparently just up for grabs.) While I was shopping, a volunteer started shouting at a tall, skinny woman whom he accused of stealing. She and her boyfriend were running some kind of scam wherein one of them exited out the back door rather than the front one. They were trying to make off with more than their share, the volunteer alleged. The woman was ejected from the food bank and told not to come back. Outside, people in line shook their heads, and another volunteer expressed amazement. Stealing from a food bank!

From my perspective, it's just a sign of the times, like the nervous-looking crowd today at WorkSource, the state-run employment support agency that provides workshops and other resources free of charge to the un- and underemployed. I took a three-hour class today on writing effective résumés and cover letters, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks to the humor and enthusiasm of the teacher. I plan to go back later this month for the workshop on interviewing. I didn't feel particularly guilty taking advantage of WorkSource's free class, since I am unemployed, and my unemployment isn't voluntary. Being at the food bank, on the other hand, made me a little uneasy. Was I taking food from the mouths of people who needed it more? The form I filled out included the question: Are you homeless?

I'm the furthest thing from homeless, and I think my risk of becoming homeless in the immediate future in extremely low. My mother owns a house outside Detroit; worse-case scenario, I'd move back there. I'm also not poor in terms of my upbringing, or my family's current standing. We have money; I have an inheritance fund that I still receive monthly installments of $1,000 from. I just don't have any work-based income right now. Maybe visiting the food bank every week as a way to supplement purchases from Rising Sun, the cheap grocery stand eight blocks from our house, and the occasional PCC or Whole Foods splurge (though I'm trying to avoid those now), isn't causing some truly impoverished local family to go hungry.

Still, texting a friend outside the food bank, I felt like a tourist. Hell, I felt like one when I reached the checkout and the guy bagging my food asked: "No meat?" I didn't want to confess to being a vegetarian; it seemed privileged and precious and not in the spirit of taking as much food as you're allowed, because hey, maybe that's the only food you can afford this week. I didn't feel like figuring out which produce was worth taking home. I didn't want to take an unlabeled can of corn. Some kind of bourgeois instinct kicked in: Unlabeled stuff is sketchy. Don't do it!

As a friend pointed out, I had a day that exposed me to the lives of the poor and unemployed. I may be the latter, but I'm not really the former, and while I'll definitely revisit WorkSource, I'm not sure about the food bank. I'll have to give that some thought.

221.8 pounds

That's how much I currently weigh, as of this afternoon, per the doctor's scale. According to the Body Mass Index, I'm obese. Then again, the BMI is a questionable tool, as a helpful Flickr set illustrates. Particularly effective are the images that juxtapose a confident, beautiful person with the "obese" label:

Cassie is "obese"
5'4", 175 lbs., BMI 30

On going back to school

I told someone recently that I'm trying to decide between the Master of Science in Nutrition and Clinical Health Psychology program at Bastyr University and the Film and Video Communications program at Seattle Central Community College. She responded: "Wow, you sure have a wide range of interests!" I said: "If someone gave you a course catalogue and told you price wasn't an object, you could take anything you want, you'd have a hard time deciding." The truth is, we all have a wide range of interests; the tricky part is figuring out which ones to pursue academically, which professionally, and which avocationally.

I worry that studying film theory, for example, might negatively impact my love of film. I studied creative writing and Spanish in college, and by the time I had my B.A., I was ready to take a break from both. I never really came back to either area, even though I was obsessed with Spanish in high school and wrote poetry and fiction fairly regularly back then, too. I'm also not sure academic analysis is the way I want to look at film; I enjoyed being a film critic for the Weekly largely because I got to choose the level of diction and analysis for each movie, and because popular criticism seems more accessible (and, frankly, enjoyable) than academic articles and books. For me, the idea of becoming a film studies professor isn't beyond the pale, but it doesn't feel like one of my best options, either.

Seattle Central's filmmaking program includes some theory, but its emphasis is on production. I attended an info session last week that laid out the two-year curriculum and included talks by two of the program's main professors. One is a documentarian whose film Sweet Crude played at SIFF this year; the other didn't mention his body of work, but I liked his no-nonsense personality and his sense of humor. Both teachers stressed how challenging the program is, and that it's a great deal, financially speaking: $7,800 or so for six quarters of quality instruction. Renting equipment and studio space for a single day, one of the professors pointed out, might easily cost $1,300, the price of one quarter in the program. We watched a short film made by members of a previous year's class; the acting was surprisingly good, the writing was decent, and the cinematography and editing were impressive.

We also talked about the logistics of finding work after graduation. Both teachers admitted that graduates have to work hard to find jobs, and many of them are freelance gigs. But they balanced this sentiment with the notion that there's always some work, somewhere, for a highly skilled production person. I was dazzled by the info session, as I imagine many of the other people in the room were; the session was packed with the most diverse group of people I've been around in a long time. The program takes a team-oriented approach, placing students in small groups to work on production projects. Finding ways to work well with virtual strangers, we were told, is a common challenge in the industry, and the program tries to recreate that challenge from the start.

If I want to enter this program, fall of 2010 is my first chance. Students can only enter it in the fall, and no spaces remain for this year. (There's quite a waiting list in case anyone drops out; I decided not to bother including my name on it.) It's a full-time program, which means holding down a full-time job in addition isn't an option. (One of the professors said that even working 20 hours a week while in the program is a tough row to hoe.)

The Bastyr program is a horse of a very different color. Fall of 2010 won't work because of all the prerequisites I need to take before applying; 2011 is more like it. I'll need nutrition, chemistry, psychology, anatomy, and biochemistry, all but the last of which I can take at either Seattle Central or North Seattle Community College. (Biochem isn't offered at the community colleges, so I'd probably have to attend a proper university for it.) I just paid for two classes for fall quarter: nutrition and a general prep class for chemistry. The former will give me a small taste of what I'd be getting myself into if I decided to pursue the MSNCHP; the latter will enable me to take the required chemistry series, if I end up so desiring.

My decision to go back to school was the pretty direct result of a realization achieved in therapy: I keep waiting for something external to tell me which direction to go professionally, but it's impossible to know what will suit me and what won't without trying something. I can't try everything, varied interests or not, but I can try something. And two community college classes are a whole lot cheaper than a year of grad school. Might as well try a subject that interests me on for size.

Some people who don't know me well, or haven't known me long, are surprised by my interest in nutrition counseling. The fact is, I've knowingly struggled with eating and body image issues for 15 years. Even after my bout with anorexia nominally ended, I veered back and forth between overeating and self-starvation. Only in 2006, in Brooklyn, was I able to achieve a level of mindfulness (thanks to daily meditation) that allowed me to understand what healthy eating habits might look like for me. And only now, a year after joining the food-intensive Kibbutz community, am I able to recognize that I'm heavier than I want to be without completely melting down about it. (I credit meditation, life wisdom, and Lexapro for that.)

In the proverbial perfect world, I'd study nutrition, counseling, and filmmaking and would win an Oscar for a groundbreaking documentary on disordered eating. For the moment, I'm excited to be a month away from starting classes. Studying algebra and pre-calculus to take the community college math placement test was more fun than grueling, thanks to the lessons that 12th grade calculus class apparently branded on my brain. I think relearning chemistry as an adult, from a competent teacher (my 10th grade chem teacher wasn't), might be a great experience. And I expect to really like nutrition class. My sense of how the body uses food, and what foods help or hurt us in which ways, is shaky at best. While mindfulness is definitely a part of the healthy-eating equation, information is also key, and no matter what I choose to do in the coming years, I won't regret having taken either class.

An explanation

I jest, of course. But not about being unemployed again. If anybody knows of anything remunerative that I might enjoy doing, or not hate doing, please don't be shy about bringing it to my attention. (Unless you want it for yourself, that is.)

Evening at Bastyr

I'm going, along with Kelly. Should be informative.