I’m insanely frustrated with myself right now.

I feel compelled to create things – write blog entries, take photographs, paint watercolors, design a new theme for this blog, work on my short stories/novella – but I don’t ever seem to actually get around to doing any of it. I just feel so stalled right now.

I even signed up for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog tips and tricks, which are emailed to me daily. And, being the curious and impatient person that I am, I found the blog of someone who had already done them, read through the tasks and promptly decided that I didn’t want to do any of them, save the first two I’d already done. I don’t want to be an out of the box, obnoxious blogger that’s always pushing something. No offense to anyone who is doing it intended, but I feel that in my particular case I’d end up being obnoxious.

I want people to read this because they want to, not because I talk about it incessantly. My blog is not my life. At all.

And maybe that’s the problem, really. I can’t blame unhappiness for not blogging right now. I’m exceptionally happy, practically elated. I love my life right now (other than this small frustrating part of it). But along with this new life came new responsibilities at work, a new 30 minute commute and, well, a new city.

This city is so gorgeous, too. I feel like, every day, I’m surrounded by beauty. Practically bombarded by it. But do I ever have a camera? Of course not.

Anyway, back to the whole blogging thing. I signed up for that service, and I liked the first two tasks. The first was to create an “elevator pitch” for my blog – basically a brief description of what people can find on the blog, in a way that makes them want to come read it. So, with Sarah‘s help, I did it:

Lianhua (Mandarin for ‘lotus flower’) follows my quest to live life without wanting, anger or gluten… which is not always easy, even in a health- and philosophy-conscious place like San Francisco. Every day, I try to live by three principles: “do not harm the world,” “do not harm yourself” and “enjoy life as it is.” Lianhua is where I share my ups and downs, triumphs and frustrations, little bits of wisdom and the occasional chinchilla photo…

And in writing it, I decided on those three principles as guidelines for my daily life. They fit all of the things that are important to me – being eco-friendly, eating good food (organic, all natural, unprocessed as much as possible), following my gluten-free diet, being a better Buddhist, enjoying this wonderful city and my wonderful job and my wonderful friends and my beyond-wonderful boyfriend – and which, of course, are going to show up in this blog quite often.

I’m going to be canceling the whole 31 Days blog thing. It’s just not me. I should have known it from the beginning. The only thing that’s going to make this blog what I want it to be is actual blogging. Maybe not daily, but at least regularly. That’s the problem I have to solve.

Forgive me, I’m rambling and all over the place right now.

I’m setting a goal, right now, 11:55pm (geez I have to go to bed), that I will make my blog a better blog through hard work, determination and actually f***ing blogging. I’m going to take photographs. I’m going to paint watercolors. I’m going to write stories and novels. I’m going to redesign this blog. And then I’m going to share all of that with the world. That is my goal.

And this is directed more at myself than my readers: Expect big things soon.

Granted, I was fourteen at the start of this decade, so some changes – leaving high school for college, for example – are expected, but I think that, in general, some of my changes have been even more jarring than normal.

• 2000: Started making my own “websites” for fun, and first was introduced to the vaaast world of the Internet (as of the year 2000, that is). Ended middle school (spring) and entered high school (fall). My older brother graduated from high school and went off to college.
• 2001: 9/11 happened during my ISTEP/GQE testing. A drive-by shooting in our Indianapolis neighborhood prompted my parents to start looking for a new house (I think this was in 2001, it may have been 2000?). In the fall, we moved to Greenfield, IN, which seemed a world away from what I was used to in the “big city.” I met and started dating my first long-term boyfriend, Greg, who was a year ahead of me in school (at this time a junior to my sophomore).
• 2002: Actually transferred to Greenfield schools, a huge culture-shock for me. Dropped from the top 10 in my class (Indy) to approximately #30 (Greenfield), due to a clerical/translation error on my transcript, and lost my place in the National Honor Society because of it. Stopped playing viola after a bad music class (and because of lack of an orchestra at my new school) and shifted my future career focus to journalism, as part of my high school’s newspaper staff. Decided that I was going to follow Greg to Franklin College in Indiana and study journalism there.
• 2003: During his preparation and orientation for college, Greg met a girl and decided to end our relationship (he eventually ended up marrying her). I “rebounded” fairly quickly and started dating my second “serious” boyfriend, Eric. Decided that I definitely was NOT going to go to Franklin College and began looking at other colleges around the state. On a whim, sent my SAT results to Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
• 2004: Got a letter from Sarah Lawrence inviting me to apply (didn’t realize it was a form letter), so I did. Was accepted to Sarah Lawrence, Butler University, Ball State University, Indiana University and Indiana State University (and maybe a couple I can’t remember), and decided on Sarah Lawrence. Began to have anxiety and depression issues, which started to affect my last semester of high school and resulted in several broken friendships and the end of my relationship with Eric (two days before graduation). Got my lotus tattoo.



• 2004 cont’d: Moved to New York. Started a work-study job, at first monitoring computer labs but eventually creating websites for faculty at the college. Dated a few guys, and eventually met Sean, who bought me a ticket to Los Angeles over winter break.
• 2005: After spending four days in LA, fell in love with the city and decided to start dating Sean. Moved in with him over the summer and got two kittens, Toby and Oscar. Went to China – my first trip out of the country – and decided to learn Chinese at some point. Began Italian classes. Decided to become a translator and writer.



• 2006: Began having health issues – high blood pressure, unexplained pains in my knees, seborrheic dermatitis on my scalp – as well as mental health issues. Spent the summer in LA, working at a garden center.
• 2007: Got Frankie and Sammie, my two little chinchillas (at separate times). Ended my last semester at Sarah Lawrence, and began taking classes at SUNY Purchase – mostly to learn Chinese. At the end of my first semester there, Sean’s mom and stepdad asked if we could move to LA to care for Sean’s sister, and we decided to go ahead with it.
• 2008: My paternal grandmother passed away. Sean drove across the country to LA with Frankie and Sammie, while I had already been there for a month. Within a few days, we were seeing a couples therapist and, within a few weeks, he ended our relationship, but his mother asked me to continue helping to care for Sean’s sister. I went to Vancouver twice with Sean’s sister to take her to visit her mom. Sean took the chinchillas to a lady in Vancouver. Sammie killed Frankie. Sean decided to give the cats away. I have no idea what happened to them. I walked in SLC’s commencement ceremonies despite not being quite done with my classes. Stressful situations caused me to drop my last classes a week or two later. I got a job at Yellowpages.com. Derek and I moved from Hollywood to Glendale.
• 2009: My maternal great-grandmother passed away. My niece, Rory, was born. I started seeing a therapist for my anxiety and depression, and started taking Lexapro and then Prozac. I became less and less happy with my job, and acted out by being in the office as little as possible and working form home as much as I could.
• 2010 (so far): Got my second tattoo (Chinese proverb). Applied to, was offered and accepted a job in San Francisco for a small startup company. Derek and I moved to San Francisco. I found out a few weeks later that I am gluten intolerant/possibly celiac.

It really is crazy how much can change in 10 years. I mean, in 2000 if you’d asked me where I would be in 2010 I never would have dreamed of saying San Francisco, and I never would have thought I’d be designing for the web and living with a wonderful man like Derek. And I certainly wouldn’t have even considered the fact that I’d have a food intolerance to deal with, or that I’d be sitting in a studio apartment discussing the true nature of Whole Foods’ “free range” meats and eggs with Derek on a Sunday afternoon…

Change, though, is as natural (and necessary) to life as breathing. The entire world – even the entire universe – has been built by change, it’s the only constant thing in our lives. Sure, it’s overwhelming sometimes, but change shapes us into who we are and will make us who we are in the future. Scientifically, humans are made up of 70% water, but I think our lives are made up of 100% change. (cheeseball :B)

It can be practically anxiety-attack inducing, knowing that change is coming and trying to prepare yourself for it. The only reason I got any sleep at all our first night in San Francisco was because I was physically exhausted – my mind was racing until the moment my body gave out on it – but now that I can look back and see how much things have changed for the better, I’m so thankful for the mutability and transforming nature of life.

Don’t fear change. Allow it to give you those exhilarating and sometimes anxious feelings, and don’t be hesitant to grab life by the reins and change it yourself, of course. Don’t be afraid.

The past week and a half has been going pretty well, all things considered. I’m doing a lot better on my gluten-free diet and seem to be feeling a lot better in general because of it. We’ve cooked at home a few times, which led to the discovery that quinoa pasta is really tasty, and I’m learning what to look for at restaurants too.

Some of our delicious food:

Gluten-free Spaghetti (Quinoa pasta)

Gluten-free Spaghetti (quinoa pasta) alla Checca (fresh tomatoes, arugula & garlic)

The hardest part right now is dealing with hunger at work. My coworkers all know about my gluten sensitivity and they’re very supportive in trying to stock up on “Jess-friendly” snacks, but we’re kind of in the in-between phase where we know we need stuff but aren’t sure how to get it – mostly because places that do business delivery (costco, Safeway, etc) don’t really do a lot of obviously gluten-free food. And since I’m so new a figuring it out myself, I wasn’t sure what to tell them to order.

Luckily today I found a list of gluten-free snacks (I’ll try to remember to post it later the one I found was in PDF format, but here it is online: Gluten-Free Snack & Candy List) and shared it with the girls who place the food orders, so we’ve got that on the right track now!

I’m also finding lots of solidarity on Twitter (i have a gluten free list I’m compiling – will share later go follow it!), including a lot of retailers, experts and mentors. I’ve found cereal, cookies, bread, pies, cakes, cupcakes… You name it! It’s amazing finding so much of a community united around something like this. It makes me feel much less alone since I know there are hundreds of people dealing with the same thing, especially the uncertainty of testing and diagnosis, the difficulty of finding truly safe food, the discomfort of being “glutened” accidentally…

They also give me hope that the frustration I feel right now will someday transform into acceptance. And that is a wonderful feeling.

We went to the Fillmore St. Jazz Festival for a little while yesterday, and I brought my camera with me to try to catch some of the action.

I’m way too shy to ask people if I can take their photos, though, so I just kind of resorted to taking photos of random people for the most part and hoping that they’d come out pretty well. It’s a silly anxiety I have, and I’d even prepared for it by having some photography business/moo cards with me to hand to people, but I just get nervous and then don’t end up with the shots that I want to take. Oh well. I still got a few good ones, and it helped me get a little boost of confidence for next time…

On the gluten-free front, things are coming along a bit nicer now… Not that it’s gotten much easier, but I was able to peruse Whole Foods for some gluten-free staples for our pantry, and we found a gluten-free pizza place (Extreme Pizza in Marina/Cow Hollow, for you SFers), so there were some small wins today.

Oh, and I made a pretty delicious GF version of chili mac using gluten-free fusilli (made of soy, potato and rice rather than wheat) and Amy’s chili with vegetables (Amy’s is wonderful for people with gluten sensitivity or celiac!), with some delicious cheddar grated on top. I was very happy with the pasta, but we may try a different variety of chili next time – the veggies in the chili made it a little sweeter than we expected and we both decided it’d probably be better with a little meat in it, haha.

But it was really pretty, for chili mac! :)

It hides in tortillas, cakes, cookies and even noodles, waiting for me to slip and om-nom-nom my heart away.

Until recently, it was my friend. We went way back. It was in my genes to devour it. It was my comfort food, it was a staple of my diet, it was in practically every meal.

Then, something changed. My stomach started hurting, cramping. I could feel things rumbling around inside me. It was uncomfortable. I realized that when I ate certain foods – Thai, Indian, salads… – I was fine. But other foods made things awful; things I’d always eaten – pastas, sandwiches, baked goods.

There could only be one perpetrator.

GLUTEN! *shakes fist*

Doctor appointment and blood test later, I can rest assured that I do not have celiac disease, but my doctor suspects (and I’m relatively sure) that I have a sensitivity to gluten, a protein combination found in wheat and its related products. So, as a result, she has explained to me that I should go on a gluten elimination diet.

Not going to lie: it’s fairly difficult and very frustrating for me at the moment. I can’t just grab whatever I want for lunch – there’s a very specific thought process that has to take place before I can take my first bite of anything. Where does this come from? What is it made of? Could it possibly have something in it that is going to make me miserable?

Lunch is probably the worst meal for me. My new job (which is going absolutely wonderfully, I must add!) offers catered lunches three days a week, and generally quite a few of the menus feature a sandwich of some sort. Couple that with my social anxiety and inability to ask for the things that I want, and you get me eating a BLT and orzo pasta salad and then feeling miserable for the next two days. I finally got the courage up to ask for my patty melt “without the bread” today, which prompted a very confused response from the caterer until I explained further; after that, he told me he can start bringing gluten-free bread for my sandwiches, to which I replied, “you are my hero.”

And on the days when lunch isn’t catered, things are still pretty difficult. There are lots of little cafes and restaurants around my office, but the vast majority of them specialize in sandwiches of some shape or form – baguettes, panini, deli sandwiches on delicious rye bread… etc, etc, etc. So they’re all a bust. And the Mexican restaurant has two options: tacos or nachos. They’re good, but I can only eat so many corn chips in one week.

I finally discovered that I can eat dosa, so the nearby Indian restaurant is in the lineup, and Thai food is always a good choice (lots of rice noodles)…. but when everyone in the company is heading out for sandwiches, I feel kind of left out. It’s not a great feeling.

So, there’s that. Plenty of anxiety and awkwardness produced by this sensitivity – plus the wondering if this is actually what has been causing my digestive issues, since usually things like this are extremely hard to pinpoint.

But on top of those feelings are just feelings of disappointment. I love bread, I always have. It’s practically in my blood, my mom loves it more than I do, even, and when I lived in LA I ate at Panera Bread at least twice a week.

So when I realize things like that I can’t just go out and buy a loaf of rye bread, it’s pretty frustrating.

Luckily, though, I live in an amazing city; San Francisco has proven itself a great fit for me once again. At the Ferry Building (same place we went to for the farmer’s market that prompted my lavender purchase) I noticed a little cart called for a bakery called Mariposa, which makes gluten-free baked goods — and they are heavenly.

While shopping for ingredients for BLTs (we had a hankerin’, not gonna lie), I wandered over to check out what Mariposa had to offer and was ecstatic to find their gluten free “rye” rounds. Toasted up, they made a pretty good BLT (although the bread is moister than I’m used to, I will admit; the texture is a bit different).

Even more, they had my favorite kind of cookies in the whole entire world, Russian tea cakes:

(The powdered sugar got a little mussed on the us ride home, so it’s not the prettiest… but DAMN they are GOOD.)

And I’ve managed to find some other gluten-free goodness to keep around the apartment as well – white corn tortilla chips (with fresh salsa), a couple loaves of frozen gluten-free bread, lots of little snacks, cookies…

One of my favorite snacks from even before I knew about this sensitivity has come back into my day-to-day in a very big way…

These Crispy Rice bars are ah-may-zing. Go. Buy them. Gobble them up. Nom nom nom!

And slowly, our kitchen is starting to be stocked with alternatives to pretty much everything… even oatmeal, which seems pretty harmless but usually suffers from cross-contamination (the oatmeal is processed in the same plant as wheat-based meals and cereals, so you end up with traces of gluten sticking to the oats and just making things difficult). I managed to find a brand that keeps their oats faaaaar away from wheat.

And the flavor was a win for me as well; I’ll eat pretty much anything with banana in it. :B

So, slowly but surely, I’m getting used to this diet – to what I can and can’t have, to what I need to watch out for, to saying “no” to offers of food that I know I shouldn’t eat. It’s not going to be easy, but who ever said life was going to be, anyway?

Here’s to exploring a new life as a gluten-free foodie. :)

“The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.”
- D.H. Lawrence

Lavender is one of the things that makes me love living in California, specifically in Northern California. There are whole lavender farms out in the countryside!

I imagine living in San Francisco is the closest I can get to living in Paris outside of France.

You’ll have to forgive my lack of “real life” updates for a little bit longer. (Trust me, everything is wonderful right now.)

Hopefully, the photos will make up for it.

Fun fact, all of these seashells were collected by me (or maybe my mom, we get them all mixed up) in Sanibel, FL. They now sit in a little mango wood bowl on our coffee table.

“If you’re alive, you can’t be bored in San Francisco.
If you’re not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life.”
-William Saroyan

Our First Morning in San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco at around 1am on April 25th, quickly lugged Sammie chinchilla, our suitcases and our air mattress up to our second-floor apartment and crashed. After being awake for nearly 20 hours, and only sleeping about 3 the night before, it was probably one of the best sleeps I’d ever had.

And then we woke to beautiful blue skies, clear and magnificent. It felt like we’d just started a brand new life.

My Window Seat - a Safe Haven with Books

Our apartment, although considerably smaller than our old one, is becoming home – and a quite comfy one at that. Our furniture is finding its place, the decorations and little pieces that make a house a home are appearing in their spots.

We’re settling in, not just in our home but in our city.

Bay Bridge Disappearing

It really is beautiful here. Every day I see something that takes my breath away – and I’m slowly teaching myself to document these things – right now, with my iPhone, but soon, hopefully, with my DSLR again. A bridge disappearing into a thick fog, clouds rising into the sky like steam, ornamented houses as old as the city itself (at least this incarnation of it) perched with towering skyscrapers barely as old as I am in the distance.

The Painted Ladies, across from Alamo Square Park, with the downtown skyline in the distance

Derek, Painted Ladies, Skyline

Sailboats, lining up like flying geese

I feel happy; I feel like I’ve been reawakened. I feel like reading, writing, painting, drawing, photographing again. I feel energy and love and inspiration every day.

I’m sure you’ll see much more of me now, both here and on my tumblr (which I use for quick little posts, usually little pieces of brilliance in my day).

Jess & Derek at Ft. Mason, looking out over part of the Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge

“San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth.”
-William Saroyan

And I’m happy. So happy.

More soon. The days aren’t long enough for everything I try to cram into them!

(image from PostSecret, week of 05/02/10)