Resolved

Ooooh, let's talk about our New Year's resolutions. A lot of folks figured out that we don't actually keep these so they don't participate or maybe they call it something else, but it can't hurt to take a peek at ourselves and what we might improve and have just a little hope that maybe this year we'll tweak things enough to think we've done something differently. Usually I think we all pick exercise more and eat better so let's just not count that one. What else?

This year I'm thinking of committing to two things: First, if you have included in your Facebook Basic Information section that you speak several languages, I intend to have you read and translate a short paragraph for me in each of those languages. There cannot possibly as many multi-lingual people as claim to be and I intend to investigate. Let's not start our friendship out with falsehoods.

Second, I'm thinking that this year I will commit to trusting my gut more. My favorite quote has been rolling around in my head for the last few weeks. It's this: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them." And let's add, because we never learn, "THE FIRST TIME" to the end of it.

Good Lord, how many exasperating situations in my life could I have avoided if I had only listened to my instincts about people? Have you ever read Gavin DeBecker's book The Gift of Fear?
You should. One of the interesting points he makes is that humans are the ONLY animals that will actually talk themselves out of trusting their instincts. He mentions how we will actually get in the elevator with the guy that gives us the creeps- A SOUNDPROOF STEEL BOX! - because we don't trust our very protective instincts.

I'm not really focusing on physical danger, though. I'm thinking more about listening to our guts in our relationships, both new and old. Imagine the situations we could avoid if we listened to the first, second or third red flag? How many lopsided or even toxic relationships would I avoid if I only LISTENED? AND IT'S FREE. And mostly dead-on right too so this should be easy, right?

I swore when I had my daughter that above all I wouldn't undermine her gut instincts. What better way to prepare her path in the world? If she has a read on a situation, I'm not going to be the person to tell her she shouldn't feel a certain way. I was proud when she told me from under the table at Chuck E. Cheese at age 5 that there was just something about a man in a mouse suit she didn't feel good about. I just handed her a drink under there because, really, I'm not sure any of us should feel good about a man in a mouse suit. She's got more confidence to articulate her gut than I do, but we ALL have a gut reaction.

So, there you go. This year, I'm working on valuing my instincts and outing Facebook fraud. 2011 is so dead to me.

Told you so

Sinead O'Connor: Crack Cocaine Ended 16-Day Marriage
http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=692568

Really, I'm fine.

Well nothing says Happy Holidays like a staph infection. On your face.

Yep.

I'm an expert at self-deception, but even I couldn't convince myself that the knot growing on my jaw was getting better on the day before Christmas eve. Being the optimist that I am I had given it a few days to heal on it's own thinking maybe it was just one of those cystic kind of zits. By the time I got serious about it, this knot was the size of a quarter, warm to the touch and growing by the hour. My jaw line looked completely different and I was beginning to imagine having all kinds of horrible procedures to correct it.

The days surrounding Christmas are just about the best time to try to make a doctor's appointment. The tone of my dermatologist's receptionist reminded me of this. I decided I'd just swing by the urgent care sort of place near the house. I've been there before and was pleased with the service. The tornadic weather the previous evening had put them a little behind in terms of computer work, but it wasn't yet crowded and everyone was pleasant. I noticed the sign on the receptionist's glass window that said, "Please notify us if you are allergic to cats. We have Persian kitties." Now to me, that means maybe someone has some kittens they are trying to place and they are stashed in the break room somewhere. What it most certainly did NOT mean to me was that two full grown, long haired cats were meandering the halls of this medical facility. But they were. So I had a decision to make, it would seem. Assuming the professionals here had read all the articles on the therapeutic and healing nature of animals, it might be reasonable for me to just stay in my seat and get this mass looked at before my face rotted off, but on the off chance that the folks here were just maybe not as committed to hygiene as I am, perhaps I'd be better off slinking out and trying another place.

Being already invested time wise in the process and now being plainly curious meant that I was gonna stay. No one else seemed unnerved by the water bowl and toys and cat hair that tell me these animals are regulars here. About the time I decided to just roll with it a little Yorkie bounced by me. I swear to God. So now we are up to 2 cats and 1 dog with a cute little topknot IN THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE.

The nurse called me back and asks first if I'm allergic to cats. "Only if I touch them or breathe really close to them," I say because I know if she leaves me alone in the room with Cleo that cat is gonna hop on my lap and the sneezing will begin. It takes her a few minutes to shoo the cat with her foot out of the exam room. I just wait. When the doctor arrives, she throws open the door and says, "Are you here for our weight loss plan?" Deflated, and now feeling infinitely worse, I kinda mew, "No?" Talk about back pedaling. I imagine jumping off the paper lined table and walking out, but I feel bad enough to just stay and get this done and the back pedaling did involve telling me I was pretty.

Takes her about 6 seconds to declare this monster a probable Staph infection and to give me a shot in the hip. She promised to numb it, but I think she didn't like me much. She didn't promise that I'd live, but she did say she wouldn't CUT IT OPEN until tomorrow if it didn't look better. I stumble out of her office with tons of antibiotics and I've followed every instruction to a T. In fact, I'm almost perfectly healed. Now I've related this story to a few people and they all say going back for tomorrow's follow up might not be wise (is it sanitary?), but I absolutely intend to go back and get a couple of pictures because I'm afraid no one will believe me. I should say, despite the menagerie of furry friends, they still handled my problem professionally and in the most timely manner. Maybe tomorrow when I go I will discover something more exotic like a camel or a peacock. I'll keep you posted.

Not going back.

Recently, a very wise friend told me she'd heard on a podcast that the people who drive you the craziest are the people from whom you have the most to learn. I did the same mental leap that you are probably making right now when I responded with, "Yeah, I learn that I don't want to be around them or in any way similar to them." She says that's cheating though and that you have to look deeper than that. I'm thinking that would probably mean spending MORE time, rather than my instinctive and previously effective plan of LESS time with someone who pushes my buttons.

Probably the holidays are as good a time as any to put this into practice. I wasn't really thinking about it when I entered the Game Stop establishment this weekend. If you are not a middle school boy or a hard core pasty-faced gamer sort you probably spend about as much time in Game Stop as I do. I'd say "ill prepared" would describe me for this experience. You would think 3 registers in the store the size of a shoebox would cover it, but during the holidays apparently this is a gross miscalculation of resources. The 50 weary people in line looked like they had the sense to bring a snack and that they'd already eaten it hours ago. I hop through the door expecting to purchase one $20 gift card for a birthday party beginning in 30 minutes. I'm a smart girl and it didn't take me long to discover that it was every man for himself here. Still optimistic and full of holiday cheer, I grab the card and stake out my spot in line.

And there she was.

I've said many times before that I have an immediate, sometimes physical, response to people that I dislike. The woman who got in line behind me embodied all the things I can't even put my finger on that make me crazy about people. To say she was invading my space in the Game Stop check out line was an understatement. If I can FEEL YOUR BREATH on me in the check out line we are too damn close. I tried to focus on the two 28 year olds discussing the new release of whatever game you learn to blow people up in, but she wanted to spend this time getting to know one another. To remain on the friendly side, I would have said that I liked her muumuu, but it was ill-fitting and a little sweaty smelling so I only smiled and nodded and focused on breathing through my mouth while she told me about how her mother in law accuses her of spoiling her husband (he's only 57) by continuing to purchase these games for him. She'd spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars supporting his gaming CAREER (I am not kidding you) while he sits on the sofa and eats Taco Bell. He doesn't even let the dogs out, by God. I can tell she hates him, and I do too now, but here she is ready to sink a few more dollars into this lousy existence. The cashier ignored my pleading eyes as my new BFF droned on and on about her misery. Dear God, I thought, there is no 11 year old birthday boy who could possibly understand the SACRIFICE I am making for his present.

During our time together, I did consider that maybe, maybe, maybe there was something positive I could glean from our encounter, but I have to say I think that podcast speaker had never been in this sort of situation. By the time I clawed my way to the counter, Tyffany (yes, 2 y's), who by all appearances is a 13 year old cashier, eyeballed me as if she'd had just about enough too, of people just like ME, but she didn't say it. Instead she just happily wrote in the amount on my gift card with a little smiley face and told me how much she liked smiley faces. Twice. Now Tyffany is someone from whom I might learn a thing or two.

For the love of God, please someone find me the video on this.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/police-arrest-man-accused-light-saber-assault-toys-162829995.html

Ewwww

It's creepy enough that the implication is you might DO these crafts WITH your kitty friends. Weirder still is that the medium is CAT HAIR itself. Just ewww.

Tis the season...

of envy and want. Isn’t it? My sister and I were laughing yesterday about how we never know we need anything until we go to the mall. Now shopping is an exercise I freely participate in regularly. I discovered at some point though, that to be in a position of frequent WANTING made me feel really uncomfortable. Especially when that want was focused as ENVY, which if you ask me is the worst feeling ever because once you put your foot in it, it becomes difficult to ever, ever stop and the tricky thing about envy is that it allows you to think your problem is about someone else when putting yourself through butt plumping injections could never give you J-Lo’s life anyway.

Sisters do envy very well. It’s some kind of inherent horror that you have to experience if you have a sister. As kids, my sister was always the more fearless, the cheerleader, the popular sort and I was the bookish, incredibly uncomfortable in her skin, band geek sort. I know you are saying to yourself, “WHAT? But she’s so COOOOL.” You could probably find evidence of this on the world wide web if you wanted, but even 25 years later I would pay you not to post it. My big sister and I weren’t really in opposition, just good at different things, but more than anything I wanted to be like her – easy to catch on to the rhythms of people, savvy socially, beautiful. She could feather her hair just so and I challenge anyone to beat her knowledge of Purple Rain. Hell, she BROUGHT pink and green monograms to the planet. Even worse, she was smart. I was rewarded and acknowledged for my own geeky talents in my corner of the planet, but I would have traded a lot for the easy way she moved in the world. Envy isn’t wise. It makes a person believe it’s the clothes or the friends or the trappings that could earn you that happiness, but surely we can figure out that’s not what you’re really after when you envy. So in typical young person fashion I just thought of things maybe that weren’t so perfect about my sister and focused on those. A lot. I helped envy build a real ugly ditch for me and kept myself from experiencing the affection my sister would have gladly given me. She was proud of who I was, but I wasn’t.

It took a long time for me to set it aside and actually GET that developing my own life and talents should be my focus and that it could allow me to be a better recipient of her many gifts (she is still incredible – a smart, creative, lovely, talented mom). There’s only one other person on the planet that can verify some of the ridiculous events I experienced with my parents (sweet Lord, that’s a GOLD MINE so stay tuned) and that shared history is a treasure to me. We are now both women who would gladly give one another any sweater, any car, any friendship that we could offer, but that could only happen when I could see the ugly damage envy brings. We have plans to be the crazy sisters who live together when we are old. She will entertain the neighborhood children with her cheerleading acrobatics while I play the oboe. You’ll have to stop by sometime for the show.

I guess this post isn’t about the mall anymore. Remember that album by Sinead O’Connor called “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”? Two points: First, I hope that phrase sticks in your head like it does mine sometimes and protects us from the ugliness of want and envy this holiday. Second, I think Sinead does want something real bad because she just got married in Vegas to husband number 4 and she still shaves her head. I saw this on the internet last week. We can discuss that later.

This ought to help.

 

People and places.

Target has always been a good enough reason for me to drive to Cartersville, but since my sis moved there a few years ago I have discovered a few more. Here are my two favorite (and we are not even going to mention AGAN'S BAKERY):

Heather Chaney co-owns and operates a lovely home decor store called A Room Within down under the bridge near Appalachian Grill. Heather's a rare gem of a decorator who will actually talk you OUT of spending all of your money and show you a better way to create the interior you want. Also, she lets me hem and haw and then come back to the thing she knew I'd like and never says, "I told you so." Recently, she's started a side business called Burlapse (really, she can do anything) with things like these which I think are perfect Christmas gifts:

http://www.burlapse.com/ . She's also on Etsy.

RIGHT NEXT DOOR is my other favorite reason to go to Cartersville. Periwinkle is a boutique for people who don't want to wear the exact same thing as everyone else to the Christmas party. Great dresses and accessories. And let me tell you that Patty (owner) holds a place of distinction in my heart because she was this blog's first unsolicited reader! We know a few things about Patty. First, she knows how to make a friend (her email held a compliment!). She has excellent taste in clothes. Also, we know she is very kind because on more than one occasion my sister and I have gone in there and giggled and snorted at these greeting cards she carries and not once has she told us to straighten up and buy something already. You'll love her.

Definitely stop in both places next time you head to C'ville.

I deserved it.

Even if you pressed me on it I'd say I'm glad we live in a world where we have to be discreet about our prejudices. I'm not interested in being in the path of anyone's political, racial or sexist venom. I come across as a very tolerant person, but I do usually have a snarky comment or two rattling around in my head. It became a joke amongst my closest college friends that I secretly harbored a great dislike for folks who were overweight. For whatever reason, I developed and probably even nurtured a secret dislike of obese people. It was a completely irrational dislike in which I imagined every problem an overweight person might have stemmed exclusively from their lack of ability to manage their physique. In short, I was mean.

And in the same vein as when you tell your daughter never ever to date a guy with a motorcycle and then have to watch her zero in on Fonzie the first chance she gets, my subconcious began a campaign to trick me into gaining 5 pounds a year. Subtle enough that you don't notice at first. You can blame the baby weight for a decade, but at some point, I had to acknowledge I was becoming one of THEM. Imagine my surprise when 5 pounds became 20. 20 extra pounds on a 5 foot 2 inch frame is not good at all. The universe had conspired against me to make me become the very thing I despised and the truth of it was that I completely earned the loathing I had to now point in my own direction. That's the point where I realized that when you feel bad about yourself, there doesn't seem to be much difference between 20 pounds and 60. It's all overwhelming.

Of course, it's the self loathing that keeps a person from improving so I sat on my overweight arse longer that I should have mostly pondering whether I was really fat. I just couldn't bear the truth of it. You know, saying things like, "It's not so bad" or, "At least I'm not as fat as that gal," or "These jeans make me look 10 pounds thinner." I wore a lot of black too, because all the magazines say how slenderizing black is. Every woman at the pool has a black bathing suit and we all looked just as fat as if we'd worn whatever color was our favorite because fat is just fat. I didn't wear stripes for years either, but now that feels like wasted time because it's not like I was fooling anyone. I was the kind of fat you can justify and that's dangerous. It's not so overweight that people have something to say about it, but I was the kind of fat that's soft and keeps you from looking good for your age. It's a sneaky thing that makes you a frumpy mom that you never thought you'd be.

I'm not a serial dieter, but I did try a few fads. Fortunately I don't have enough discipline to really make myself sick with baby food commitments or juice diets, but I was pretty loyal to the Dieter's Tea which will damn KILL you it turns out if you overcommit. If you're drinking that, read the label one more time. Always, always consider the long term elasticity of your sphincter in making dieting decisions.

I found out the hard way that there's no pill, no cure, no quick fix to losing weight and being healthy. Turns out, the only way to lose weight that stays off is to quit eating garbage and move around a lot more than you are right now and you have to decide that you will not stop after one year or two years or ever. You know it's true. I decided that I was pretty sure I knew what would happen if I didn't start taking care of myself. It'd be +5 more every year. On the other hand, if I did start taking responsibility for my health I might actually see some benefit so I went at it from a gambler's viewpoint.

Fortunately, my dear friend Shelley was trying her hand at being a trainer at the same time that I was trying my hand at not being any fatter. The timing was perfect. Sometimes I think a person who could make me do these things called BURPEES (Youtube it if you have to) and pushups in all kinds of different configurations must have some secret hatred for me, but I have developed a sort of Stockholm Syndrome relationship with her. The best part is when we do these exercises in the park so everyone can watch. Did I mention I'm not very coordinated? Willing, but not very coordinated. And I've made sure there's no video so don't bother.

The good news is, I can tell you I'm not ashamed of my body anymore. Most days I can look in the mirror and not pick myself apart with criticism and it's the effort (not the weight loss) that stops that crazy voice of self loathing in my head. I think the universe and I have an understanding now about the judgments I made so harshly and I've made all kinds of promises to avoid the motorcycle prophecy so keep your fingers crossed.

Dude, sorry about your Camaro

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/douglas-southard-slams-dwi-checkpoint_n_1129584.html?ref=weird-news&ir=Weird%20News

May I offer you some advice?

It's possible that in my attempts to appear comfortable on the planet I may have avoided asking for help every once in a while. Or ever. I've been accused of orchestrating relationships so that I don't have to be in a position of ever needing advice.

Perhaps that explains my curiosity with advice columns. Dear Abby, Dear Prudence, Dear Cary, you name it - I'm invested. The trick is to read the letter, then formulate my own response and check it against the columnist's to see how similar we are. Usually, I don't give the same advice. Mostly I think it's because folks aren't really writing for the reasons they might offer.

Here's a recent (like a few months ago and it's still bugging me) example. I can't remember the wording, but the writer was seeking advice on how to tell his office mate that his daily breakfast of FISH AND OATMEAL (I am not kidding) left a nauseating smell in the office.

Let's just sit on that for a minute.

FISH AND OATMEAL for BREAKFAST. EVERY DAY.

Now I can assure you that Prudence gave the most kind and thoughtful suggestions, but the following is my response:

"First, whichever editor let this through is fired tomorrow. You know who you are. Second, I'm hopeful that the person who can tolerate this breakfast also can't hear the gagging of all of your office mates each morning and must have some kind of olfactory and auditory disorder. If he's choosing to ignore the collective vomitous reaction that must accompany this production each morning, we need to BACK THIS THING UP and have you explain to us why you haven't marched yourself into the break room before now and pronounced this ritual completely unacceptable. I demand that you do this TOMORROW. Preferably, obtain video of yourself making this pronouncement with your arms wide open, also, because this seems like it's been a long time coming. I (and your office mates need this too) am going to need to see you fling the door of the microwave open and pitch this horrific concoction out the nearest window. Throw in the fire extinguisher even for dramatic effect. Now go, and know that tomorrow your destiny is fulfilled. Also know that the sort of person who finds this cuisine palatable is also the sort of person who will report your action to the Human Resources Department."

I will wait patiently for the newspaper to ask me to begin writing my column for them.

Two little birds...

I have a new favorite Etsy artist. She sent me these little chirpers to keep me happy this winter. Check out her store. http://www.etsy.com/shop/enrouge?ref=seller_info

To be filed under "No Shit, Sherlock"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/04/9-year-old-driver-shawn-w_n_1127926.html