Meatless Femme

 In less than a month, I have gone from a carnivore to a vegan. Before my kidney stone, I consumed a diet of cereal, ice cream and meat. Now, I can't stomach the taste of meat and I get sick to my stomach when I consume sugar. I'm stunned it happened so quickly. I made the choice voluntarily, if reluctantly. Kidney stones and high blood pressure pressed me into healthier eating. Add to that the sad fact that I had been "trying" to lose weight since 2017 and have remained steadfastly at the same depressing weight for nearly 9 years. I even took "Before" pictures on several occasions, thinking that looking at my derelict frame hidden behind sagging clothes would boost me into compliance. But the brain wants what it wants, and a sugar addiction is an addiction like any other. It takes longer to assassinate you, but its aim is as true as any cancer or stroke. Sugar is the culprit to many preventable diseases. As a lifelong healthy person, I didn't care for this new frenemy.

Even tonight, when the black bean and sweet potato soup I made turned out to be tasteless, I threw in garbanzo beans and a heaping helping of Indian spices. It's still not delicious but at least its palatable. I'll get lots of whole grains from the stew, especially if I pair it with the wild rice I bought. Not once did I think about adding meat or salt, or even throwing it out. I'm pretty famous for throwing things out. I have denuded the pantry of sugar, salt, fat, grains or anything I deem "not food anymore". My poor family hunts forever in vain for their favorite snacks.

I'm losing weight now. Finally. I have hiked my exercise up to an hour every day. It's a hard slog, but I do it for Future Me. I added hills today and so my legs are shaky. I may have to take it easy tomorrow, but I know already that I will go. It's hot now, even in the morning, and the humidity hangs on me as I hump my way over hills and across parkways. I go early, avoiding the dogs and the walking pairs who insist on taking up the whole sidewalk and part of the road as well. I bring my water bottle, since I fear I won't manage to drink my full 3 quarts if I let up for an hour. As it is, I am racing to finish my water before 6:30pm so I don't spend the night on the stairs, shuffling toward the bathroom. But I am now off that frozen post-hospital weight. I gain weight whenever I don't exercise and so out the door I go, whether I like it or not. Most days I do not. 

I am enjoying the process of finding dishes, cooking them and trying them. I have developed a love of salad, organic vegetables and fresh herbs. I've swapped my homemade pizza fixings from pepperoni and bacon bits to basil, tomatoes and banana peppers from the garden. It is so much more delicious than meat and it doesn't make me comatose the way animal protein does. 

My blood pressure has come down about 20 points from the first day post-hospital. I think I've lost all the points I'm going to in the short-term and now I have to wait and see what the long-term will produce. That's another reason for the vegan diet and the daily exercise: hypertension. High blood pressure is a precursor to many preventable diseases. It is a preventable disease in itself. The smoking, the meat, the salt and the sedentary behavior--not to mention the volcanic family stressors of yesteryear, all contributed. I did this all. To myself. And now I'm undoing it. I want to wish that I have enough runway to reverse it, but of course I won't know that. If I die without reversing it, I ran out of runway. If I live longer and die of something else, I made it. Or else, something different got to me first. 

I've lost all the benefit of my Mommy Makeover in 2013. The weight I gained destroyed me up top and possibly also in my midsection. I won't correct it again. It's miserable to think how much cash I spent on a body that no longer exists. I think I only had that body for a year before the Great Stressors began and I ballooned up 4 sizes in 4 months. It's amazing in a gruesome way to consider how fast it happened. It won't come off that fast and I harbor no delusions that I will be cured by autumn. It's just a lifestyle change. It's not a magic wand. 

I'm happy with myself, proud of my ability to embrace the hard things and take them in to my practices. In a way, I am even more in awe of my body's ability to keep me alive despite the horrific things I've done to my insides. It's a testament to good country genes. My body has served me so well and it deserves my loving attention. It always did, only now I know it and I know how to do it. 

Forward we go. 

 I'm hyper-aware of time passing when I want something. Time passes slowly, and each day I look for The Reckoning and it isn't here, I am disappointed. I am setting myself up with these expectations  I am creating my own drama. Yuck.

Now, I'm waiting for the surgery to blast the kidney stone out of me. I don't know anything about the stone except its size. I want to know what its made of and how to prevent it from happening again. I want to know how to structure my diet. Right now, for all I know, I'm exacerbating the situation and stones are forming in both of my kidneys. Unnecessary worry. That's redundant. 

I'm also waiting for my weight to come down. I've been eating clean and mostly vegan since I've come home. I estimate that I've reduced my calorie intake by at least 600 calories a day, which should yield me 1.2 pounds of loss each week. Until yesterday, I was stuck at the weight I was when I came home from the hospital. That's less than what I weighed when I went in to the hospital, but I expected more to happen in 2 weeks. I expected to lose at least 5 pounds by now. Maybe more.

Both of these things kick up my blood pressure. Having high blood pressure irritates and frightens me until I'm steaming and, I expect, edging my blood pressure even higher. I am now making myself sick. And I'm feeling sorry for myself about it. How boring.

Let's work to remember how I regulated my vagus nerve before. I want to be back where things didn't bother me. I was calm, I was in charge of my emotions and I was happy. Now I'm angry and sad and scared and disappointed. Deep breathing, yoga, meditation--which, to me, are all the same. Exercise helps, I guess. Eating well helps, I suppose. But I don't see any results. Nothing. .No stress reduction, no weight loss, no normal blood pressure. And ranting about what all is irritating me isn't helping one bit 

Let it go? Forget it? Remember that I can only control my response to others. Remember that, and then practice it. No one matters but Kaden and me. People are slow and stupid and there is nothing I can do to change that. 

Work on it. This is important and it matters to me. My peace and my happiness matter to me. I matter to me. Other people don't matter to me. Stupid driving isn't important. Safe driving by me is important. I can't fix my surgery appointment without switching providers and even then, I'm not certain it would make the surgery earlier--or safer. I hate it, but that's the truth of it. I could change; I am choosing not to. I could drive peacefully, but I am choosing not to. Random people in cars care about themselves. They don't care about aggravating me. Only I do. 

Here Comes the Crone

I'm back! I'm in my 60s now, and nearly as heavy as when I began my journey back in 2006. In the 15 years since my departure from this site, I've done Keto and Whole30, both with such success that I had a tummy tuck in 2013. Unfortunately, it only worked as long as I cooked for hours every week.

Eventually, the commute and the angst of my job halted it, and with it, my shape. By 2017, I was nearly at my top weight, at 230.8. I started walking in desperation, and it helped. Over the next two months, I dropped 15 pounds and felt terrific. I hadn't changed my diet yet, but I was encouraged by the progress. But then my family life blew up, settling down only last year. In the interim, my weight ballooned. I went from 160 pounds in May to 230 pounds in August. 

This year, I vowed to get healthy again, and I started walking. I was walking the dogs up to an hour a day and feeling good. 

 And then I got a kidney stone. 

Whatever terrible things you've heard about kidney stones are true. It was more painful than labor, it went on for days without relief and I was so crazed with pain and the shaking that came from it that I rode in the ambulance wearing only a sheet and a blanket. I'm not into Greek medicine: I just couldn't bear anything touching me. 

A trip to the ER turned into a 1.1 cm kidney stone too large to pass. I got stented, watered, and, in a twist of horror, a case of high blood pressure. I hate medical offices. I am so rarely sick that I can count on my fingers the number of times it has happened: one flu in high school, 2 cases of strep throat in my 40s, another flu in my 50s, COVID in 2020 and now this. 

I spent 4 days laying in a hospital bed, except for every 15 minutes when I was up to go to the bathroom. In addition to blood pressure medication, I got a water pill. Goody. I've been home for about 2 weeks now. I was so weak coming home that I only managed to walk 4 minutes outside before I came back home and collapsed. There's nothing like looking at your route and thinking, "gee, maybe I'll make it to the end of my driveway today--score!". I'm up to 40 minutes now. It's hard, and I can feel the stent pressing on my back when I go too far, but I do feel better. I still have the stink of the hospital and all the loss of control that comes with being a bed in a hospital wing. It's hard and I don't like it, but I'm doing it. I managed to convince myself that it doesn't matter how I feel about it; it only matters that I do it. 

The hospital is no place for control freaks or for people like me, who enjoy talking to others. Doctors to talk to, they talk at. Nurses are better, but essentially the same. Tired of getting interrupted and talking to myself, I stopped interacting with my care team altogether. Medical professionals sound like they're making conversation, but they're not. They're just filling in their instructions with words that sound like conversation. Phrases such as "how are you doing today?" and "have you been burping and passing gas?" need only one or two words. Anything else and they just blank out on you until you stop talking, and then they resume their lecture. "Your blood pressure is dangerously high." No comment. "It'll have to come down before we can let you go home." I want to protest and tell them that I've never had high blood pressure except in a White Coat setting, but remember, they aren't listening. And getting angry over their attitude just sent my blood pressure higher, so I stopped. 

In addition to the walking, I turn to my old favorite stand-by, the diet. I needed to lose weight and I needed to get my blood pressure under control. I happened upon a nutrition book by a doctor titled "How Not to Die". The author lists the 15 deadliest human diseases and discusses how they come about and how to correct and even reverse the illness. I read the chapters on Hypertension, Kidney Disease and Heart Disease (my family has a long history of instant death by heart attack or stroke). In looking through these preventable diseases, I decided to go whole foods, organic wherever possible, and largely plant-based. I removed all the excess sodium from my diet, most meats, fishes and sugar and replaced it with leafy greens. Leafy greens, a food I hadn't had in quite some time. It meant cooking again, but I looked at it as Cook or Die, so here we are in the kitchen again. 

Big changes. Big opportunities. Big stress. The salt removal was awful. I didn't realize how salty my diet had become. Paleo and Whole30, with their meat- and fat-heavy diets, lured me into a salt mine where I rolled around in white-crystal ecstacy until I made a kidney stone. Determined not to repeat this horror of the hospital, I found a few recipes. At first, it was miserable. Everything tasted like water or cardboard and, while I wasn't really hungry, I didn't enjoy anything I made. I decided that if I had to eat bland in order to live, I would do it. But then, as the book claimed, my taste buds began to change. By the second week, I was shoveling salad like it was my Destiny. We ran out of food one night, and I found a frozen tilapia filet to bake. It was so salty and nasty that I threw it out after 2 bites. Then I had stomch cramps all evening. I'm willing to believe that the stomach issue was brain-induced but, all the same, I hated it. Now, in the 3rd week, I'm actually buying dried garbanzo beans and red lentils just to have in the house. What? The only thing I've ever kept in my house that I didn't consume in one sitting is we*d. But here I am, preparing for next week already. Last weekend, I went to the grocery store for the first time in several years. The delivery service from the store has sent questionable produce in the last several weeks, and they invariably forget at least one thing, so I sucked up my hatred of grocery stores and went in. It was beautiful. I had a list of produce that I needed--a long list. I wandered up and down the aisles, looking for the organics, checking each piece for color (the brigher/darker the better for nutrition), and setting them in my basket. 

When I was done, I had only dried lentils, coconut milk and tofu that wasn't from the produce aisle. And my grocery bill was about $100 less that it was in my Meat Era. So far, so good. Then I made a vegetable soup that I'm drooling over. I bought 3 different types of lettuce (no iceberg!) for the salad and I made a tumeric-based tofu scramble for breakfast. I am famous for eating the same foods over and over again, but the nutrition book encouraged readers to eat a variety of food: greens, fruits, vegetables and grains. I'm celiac, so no grains for me, but I was in for the rest of it. I took my time, choosing fruits I hadn't eaten in the first 2 weeks, and I substituted lentils for chicken in a recipe. When I unpacked at home, a lot of the food was on my counter, smiling at me. The rest was lighting up my refrigerator like a rainbow. I haven't lost any weight since I came home from the hospital. I went from 2,200 calories of junk per day to 1,600 calories of clean organics, but no pounds are gone. It's irritating, and in my current state of irritation, sometimes it brings me to tears. I did test for low thyroid function but come on! Even at my age, weight loss is possible. I'm walking 30 minutes every day and I'm drinking 3 quarts of water. I stopped drinking all but water years ago, but I've never ingested an Atmospheric River like I do now.

Pretty soon, I'll have to carry toilet paper in my purse, because I have to go so often. I actually schedule my errands and activities around my bathroom breaks. Woo hoo! But no pounds off. And so I go into Week 4, prepared with new recipes, including a pineapple-coconut carrot salad I'm making for my Mah Jongg group. My garden, finally, is producing in my 4th year, and so I have basil, cilantro, rosemary, chives and oregano to put with my tomatoes, banana peppers, potatoes and butternut squash. I can hardly wait for winter to come so I can make root vegetable soup. Imagine; I'm thinking of vegetable soup with longing. The good news is, I don't miss meat. I'm astonished at this, and I really don't believe it, but I just don't like it any more. I hope to keep it that way. I have a follow-up appointment with my GP in 3 months to check my sugars (pre-diabetic, sigh), thyroid, blood pressure and weight. I really want to get out of the healthcare system, so I'm putting all my effort into living clean. My hope is that my clean living will eventually catch up to my body and the weight will come off naturally. Wish me luck, and send me your vegan recipes. 

 A the B(ig, but not forgotten)

Over the (Muffin) Top

Well, then.

I'm not Catholic, but writing here feels a bit like sliding into a confessional. Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been 16 months since my last post...

A few things have happened since last I wrote. Those who know the personal stuff are already updated, and I won't test the patience of those who don't, so suffice to say that I have had a year of rampant, selective, amnesia.

First, I forgot how to keep my weight off. Then I forgot how to lose it the weight I'd gained. Then I forgot that going to restaurants and eating gluten free tiramisu actually exacerbates the problem. Finally, I forgot that running cures all my woes.

Spring has yet to make anything other than a fleeting dash in and out of Chicago, but on the days that it's reached above freezing I have taken my 165 pound frame out and pounded the Prairie Path. Over the last 2 or 3 weeks I've managed to climb back up to a respectable 6 miles per run, though at an embarrassing Senior's pace of 12:56 minutes/mile, largely since I'm still doing intervals. I run 2.5 minutes and then walk 1.5. I tell myself it's because I'm just getting back into it, which I am, but in reality it burns my brain to think I can't run for 3 minutes when 18 months ago I ran 13 miles with barely a stop for water.

But....plenty of time for Scarlet Letter re-enactments later on. It's time to jostle the cottage cheese from my thighs and send the octopus back into retirement.

I started tracking my food intake and the shame of writing "Baby Ruth" skinnied my intake down in a big hurry. I've also helped myself along by overdosing on Reese's eggs, so I can't even look at them now without shuddering. All Hail the Overconsuming PMS beast! I will probably have to hypnotize myself to forget about Cadbury mini-eggs, but since Easter is over, I figure if I can stay out of Target, Walgreen's, Wal-Mart and CVS until the Clearance sales are over, I'll be free.

And it's working. The up side of gaining weight is that you get a new "first week". I've lost 5.4 pounds since Sunday and with the 17 points I burned over lunch (6.7 miles, 89 minutes), I will doubtless have a decent weigh-in tomorrow morning. I may be up over goal for the first time since hitting my goal, but I am back in the groove, and this might be the best $13 I've ever spent on a Weight Watcher's meeting.

Somewhere along this I have to figure out what happened. Was it the 'I can track in my head?' Was it the cold weather that drove me to the treadmill and then out of the FOX-news blaring YMCA? Was it my new relationship with a lover so much fun that I *liked* to go out and I didn't bother to adjust my weekday eating to compensate for the GF Uno's pepperoni pizza I was eating twice a month? Yes, yes, yes and probably many other things.

I think what I've discovered is that this journey is never over. My relationship with food and overeating is like any other, and requires maintenance.. I must be aware always that I am caring for myself and my diet, and never take for granted that things are OK and don't need my attention. I must check in regularly, and consider that I may need to spice things up once in a while, because even if it looks like it's going all right, anything will turn stale if not paid attention to.

So there it is. I must maintain. It only took 5 years and a flop off the wagon to figure it out. But maybe that's OK; sometimes it is the very act of failing when we learn exactly how to succeed.

Hope to see more of me here and less of me everywhere else.

A the R(eborn)

Homespun Wisdom

Yesterday I finished my first usable bed-sized quilt. It’s a queen-sized log cabin variation that I made for DS, and as soon as I can figure out how to post a picture, I will put it here.

I’ve made bed quilts before, but they were so shabbily constructed that their useful life was confined to stuffing them back into the trash can liner I’d used as a “gift bag”. Quilting is a long, painful process for me, and one that I’m not fully prepared to say that I enjoy. The Working With My Hands part is satisfying, if still disappointing because I have no eye for color, no ability to sew on point and no patience to quilt feathered circles or detailed flowers into the blocks. But I persevere, hoping that someday I’ll be able to do something that I enjoy with at least a modicum of talent.

The thing I like best about quilting is the sewing, called ‘piecing’ in quilt lingo. In piecing, I can watch my efforts over a time continuum that does not resemble moving through a black hole, unlike all the other parts of the quilting process. Fabric selection, washing, cutting, assembly, layering, quilting, binding, and, for me, a truckload of bellowed cursing, are the reams of pain and torture that I endure in order to do the one thing about quilting that I like.

I do all these things because I understand it’s a process, but frankly I’ve always considered it a little bit of false advertising to call ‘quilting’ just ‘quilting’ and not ‘back-breaking thankless work with a tiny bit of creation inserted in the middle’. It’s rather akin to a peanut butter cookie that’s smashed in between foods that give me the dry heaves. I want the cookie, but I have to think really, really hard about making the effort to go get it.

It’s a difficult, stress-laden hobby, and most times, I cannot explain why I haven’t thrown it all in and returned to sewing. Sewing is easy. when I decided to learn sewing, I took a class, bought a machine, and in a few weeks I was churning out dresses, shirts and even a few draperies. Even now, years removed from regular sewing, I can build a shirt in 5 hours. It took me over a month to make this quilt, and I muttered obscenities to myself at every turn of the needle.

Sometimes I think it’s my attempt to teach myself patience or to learn precision work. I’m a high-level thinker and I work in technology, so there’s nothing about my professional life that I can ‘touch’ as an accomplishment. Quilting gives me that, though it also serves as a reminder that Mistakes are Visible, and since I always give my projects away as presents, this escalates them to Mistakes are Visible to Others. Still, despite my poor quality, my poorer attitude and the pinched nerves in my low back that inevitably happen as a project winds down, I continue.

And here’s why: this morning, when I showed the quilt to DS and he just stood on the bed smiling at it and holding me, I knew that it had been worth it.

A the N(eedled)

Free At Last

Last Friday night, I completed the final exam of my last class in my MBA program. Though it will be some weeks before I receive my diploma, I am officially finished with school.

Twenty seven months of constant stress around homework, reading assignments, quizzes, exams and online discussions have left their mark. I am staunchly avoiding my home office these days, reluctant even to sit down for fear of rejuvenating the anxiety of deadlines and self-paced learning. I'm glad I did it, and now I am very glad it's done.

As I am an insane individual, I spent parts of last week looking through other online programs, seeing if I could pick up a 'quick' MS in Technology or a PhD in something of interest to me (Business Administration most definitely is not). After turning in that last exam, though, I decided that I really did need a break. I may enroll in non-degree courses at the local community college, after a suitable hiatus. I've long wanted to learn French, so that in the event I needed to apply for permanent residency in Canada, I would score more points for having some command of their other official languages.

I've also had a long-held interest in automotive technology, based in part on the fact that I have zero knowledge and so am forced to trust whatever coverall-uniformed crew member has been sent out to 'discuss' my car problems with me. As both our cars are elderly, I think it's smart to get more savvy about what I'm driving and how it operates. These courses are also available at the community college. In fact, there are more auto classes than French classes, so I stand a better chance of becoming a skilled tradesman in the North Country than I do a bilingual white collar working stiff. No matter; I am interested in these things, but my brain needs a rest.I can decide whether to continue my education once I've recovered, and if I will study something of interest vs. something practical.

In racing, you're supposed to take one day's rest from running for every mile you ran. I'm trying to figure out if there's some corresponding formula for how long to lay off capital "E" education after I've finished a degree. One week for every month? One month for every class? One lifetime for every MBA? We'll see. I made it all the way to 10am on Saturday before the allure of Having Nothing To Do wore thin. As of this moment, I have 27 items on my Must Do Immediately list.

I did resume running in the spring and actually ran the Chicago Half Marathon last month. It was long, it was hard and I lost a toenail but I really felt good doing it. I'm running a 10k with a fellow Weight Watcher this weekend, and it's very pleasing to me that 6.2 miles is a no-big-deal, standard workout for me now. It's getting colder now, and so far I've managed to adjust to Runner as Popsicle. We'll see how things change once it snows.

One thing that may propel me through the winter is a twitching need to run faster. I can run 10 miles with no issue, and obviously can run up to 13.1 without stopping or falling over. But my 11:23 minute/mile pace needs work. Even at my age, I should be able to cross the finish line a little zippier than I do. So this winter is a devotion to speed work, intervals and conditioning. I'm not going to worry about running without stopping or keeping my speed down so I can put all the miles in. I'm going to run when I feel like it, as fast as I feel like, and then I'm going to walk to rest until I can run again.

I may never do the Chicago Half again--it's a total drag getting up at 4am for a 7:30 race and eating (gluten free!) pancakes on the fly in the dark on the way to the South Side. However, there is a half marathon in the suburbs that is of interest and there's races in other cities that are now worth investigating.

I also have to slim down my eating. I'm up 6 pounds from my pre-celiac diagnosis, and while I'd like to blame the corn vs. wheat thing, I think I'm just eating more. I let my calories creep up while I was running and now that I'm not in full tilt race mode, I can't sustain it, so I've gained. I am giving myself until Thanksgiving to get back to the mid-150s, and I'm running faster now, which should help. Wish me luck.

I hope to be here more often now that I have my life back and catch you up on what's happening. I didn't really realize how much of my life got sucked up into school, and now that it's over, I feel like I have 2 years of catching up to do with the house and with my personal life. Maybe it all worked out that way: it was time for school and now it's time for life. I am totally OK with that: the men in my life are super-cool, and as it turns out, they are a hoot to be with.

More to follow, assuming I can drag myself downstairs to type.

A the E(mancipated)

My Trading Post

I'm in my second-to-last MBA class this term, and while it is butt-kicking dull, it is also insanely time-sucking, and so, as usual, I have no time to write what I wish.

One of the things I am always required to do with these online classes is participate in the 'student louge' or online forum for talking about This Week's Topic. One can only imagine the cliffhangers generated from a bunch of overworked 40somethings trying to drum up creative things to say about the Price Elasticity of Demand or the Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management in a Lean Manufacturing Environment. One can almost hear the paint drying on the growing grass...

Despite my utter frustration with the third-grade level writing and the propensity for my fellow students to agree with one another rather than risk a debate on anything, I continue to write as I always do--long and with attempted wit. As a result, I am largely ignored. I do not understand this, except to surmise that it is simply too much trouble to read my blatherings and/or respond.

So to "get back" at my peers and to thrash out at least a little whimper of a post, I'm copying one of my Week 1 posts out here. We were asked to write out the "3 compelling reasons why we chose one product over another, and conversely, what we would sell if we were a supplier. Finally, why does it all work?" Stay with me; remember, if it's worth writing, it's worth making fun of. And there's no better target of fun-poking than myself.

More celiac writing to follow. Much, much, much to tell, but MBA comes first--at least until mid-October, when my last assignment is turned in.

A the I(n my Penultimate Class)

I am a Consumer Reports girl all the way down the line.

Price is a concern, but is secondary to quality and reliability. I take a very long time to decide on all but the most trivial of purchases, and I admit that even those "impulse" purchases are relative re: timing (it took me 3 months to choose a travel mug).

As a result of what I politely term my 'scientific mind' on purchases, I go for the sturdy, long-lasting, Global Warming-durable items. I'll choose stainless steel over plastic, cotton over polyester, and, in the higher-priced markets, Toyota over Hyundai. Both have lovely body styles, but even though Toyota is way more expensive and far less flexible on price, their cars never die.

My Eureka vacuum trumped the Hoover in microbial pickup and durability of attachments. The 45% silk cardigan I plucked from an obscenely expensive boutique has been with me since college, and the leather backpack I bought as a Starting My MBA Gift in 1995 (no typo, it's been 14 years in the making), just yielded its first tiny (repairable) tear.

The third category of Reasons to Purchase behind Durability and Price is propensity for timelessness re: fashion. Because it takes me so long to decide and because the things I buy last forever, I can't risk too much that's trendy, lest I look like a throwback, or some crazy Chicago lady who lives out of her shopping cart (irony intended). :)

On the seller side, I would not be so presumptuous to assume that everyone is as spastic as me regarding a Zillion year half-life, so I'd do a bell curve of items: 70% in the pretty good/no complaints/will last at least a season stock and then fill up the rest of my inventory with fringe on both sides: half in the fragile-yet-trendy and the other half in the Will Outlive Your Twinkies category.

Why do I think it all works? Because there are always buyers available to purchase items of quality (again, a relative term).