Complaints Choir

Best thing that could have walked into my life today.  I cannot force you to open the link below from Brainpickings, but I can tell you that I've giggled all morning watching these choirs collectively air their grievances in various cities around the world.  Apparently folks in Chicago are sex obsessed and in Helsinki the L-train smells like pee. There's nothing better than turning your whining and isolation into something fun and creative.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/10/13/complaints-choir/

I wanna be like the big girls

Good news! It's bathing suit season almost.  I KNOW.  If you're like me, you're dying for the glorious feeling of sunshine on your skin, but not so much for the horrifying feeling of having to put on a bathing suit to feel it.  Does every single woman I know have the humiliating annual dressing room bathing suit experience that usually ends in a tangle of straps and cussing and tears and those panty liner things?  Ugh.  And when do you suppose that department stores will discover that their cellulite highlighting light fixtures actually deter sales?? My whole deflating experience is usually miserable in part because I always spot the sign reminding folks to KEEP THEIR UNDERWEAR ON while trying on suits and I begin to wonder if everyone abides by that rule.  It's all downhill after that.  Can you believe they even have SPANX bathing suits? Just when you thought you could at least BREATHE in and out in the summer heat. God help us girls.

The last few  years I've been monitoring the ladies at the swimming pool.  Of course, we are all in black because the magazines said we'd look 10 pounds thinner, and sitting rod straight so no flab peeks out, but beyond that, the most interesting discovery has been the large numbers of what you and I would consider grossly overweight YOUNG women in very small suits who apparently do not possess the same level of self consciousness that you and I do.  Really, they are all tatted up and seemingly comfortable in their skin and just happy. They are having a blast with their stomachs all hanging over and everything.  They have boyfriends. I envy their self esteem. I think they actually believed their mothers.

Anyway, I ran across this article MSN Article: Are you Attractive? and discovered that I might be terribly wrong in thinking everyone else has great confidence in their level of attractiveness.  Read it if you want, but here's the bottom line: This survey is not terribly hardcore in terms of SCIENCE, but it is important that these folks discovered that out of 1,000 women they surveyed between the ages of 18 and 65, "Only 2% of them are saying 'I'm beautiful' and only 1 in 10 are saying, 'I feel attractive.'"

What?  If I'm walking around noticing all the beautiful people, and all of these other people are moving around like they believe they are beautiful, how come almost all of them report that they think they are unattractive?? Boy are we getting something wrong here.

First, I think we've confused a few things.  I think the pursuit of beauty and of looking beautiful is not a bad thing. I believe a beautiful body is a strong, healthy body so that's why I do this every day:

That's Shelley there on the right.  So, I'm saying a strong body is a lovely or beautiful thing, but where we've gone wrong is that we confuse beauty with WORTHINESS.  We are so confused that I know way more people than I should who are lovely physically and who invest tons of money to become that way, but who contribute very little to the lives of those around them and who will have very short obituaries. We all kind of fluff them up too, like celebrities, because we believe they must be worth this attention they demand.

You may think this is the part where I tell you that I think you are beautiful and it's inner beauty that makes you worth something.  This is not that part.  Frankly, I don't know if you are beautiful on the inside or outside or not at all (except for you, Mama - you are lovely).  Maybe your heart is black as night? Maybe your ears are funny?  What I do know is that those things are not what make you WORTH my time or attention.  And what you are worth and what you believe you are worth is not up to me.

If you think, as a group, that we've not wholeheartedly bought into beauty equaling worth, how come we love those movies where the ugly duckling girl gets a makeover and then all of her dreams come true because it was just her physical ugliness that kept her from being loved by all the boys?  How come Pinterest had an EATING DISORDER section? How come EVERY SINGLE WOMAN I KNOW WANTS TO LOSE THOSE LAST 10 POUNDS BEFORE SHE CAN BE WORTH BEING HAPPY?? You can tell your daughter that it's what's on the inside that counts, but if she hears you say every single damn day that you need more wrinkle cream, less cellulite, fewer numbers on the scale, she's got the exact message you're sending her and she knows even her own mother doesn't believe that her insides are enough for this world.  If mom believed that, she'd quit being so hard on her own self.

I'll admit, when a workout gets hard, I sometimes squeak, "I wanna be PRETTYYYYYY" and try to keep going just for that.  Nothing wrong with that.  I really believed that everyone else just had a much higher self esteem than I do, but apparently ALL OF US ladies are just ridiculously hard on ourselves and forget to look for worth and invest in it beyond the visual.  Only 1 in 10 of your incredible friends can utter the words, "I feel attractive."   I have really misread things.

The article did go on to say that half of all women claimed that receiving compliments made them feel more confident. And you know how few of those we give out, don't you?  This article makes me think maybe the big girls at the pool don't feel as good as they want me to think they do, OR perhaps they have surrounded themselves with people who compliment them.  No way to know without doing my own interview and since I'm pretty sure starting a conversation with, "I've been wondering if you young overweight ladies are as confident as you want me to think" will cause me to get my ass handed to me, I think we'll just have to leave it to speculation.

So, here's my plan:  I'm gonna rock a whole freaking RAINBOW of bathing suit colors this summer. Black be damned.  When we meet at the pool, I'm going to sincerely compliment the hell out of you.  We will have one of those conversations in our lounge chairs where we reveal something REAL and WORTHY about ourselves and we will then turn our attention to the big girls at the pool and know that we are finally having just as much fun as they are.

Adding to the list of things to freak out over...

Well, it appears that just about anything can happen.

Date Night

Imagine my excitement when we realized our one night out this week was also prom night for hundreds of high schoolers here.  Eeeek!  Thank God we'd made a reservation.  I am dazzled by the beauty of youth, but not so much by the rest of the things about it.  I'm sure Kenny got tired of me saying, "Oh honey, aren't they pretty??"

One group of girls walked by and I was stunned at the length (or lack thereof) of this young lady's dress. I'm not kidding, the wearer was gorgeous, but I have bathing suits longer than this dress.  OH MY GOSH KENNY DID YOU SEE HOW SHORT HER DRESS WAS, (I am a shout-whisperer).  His reply, "I didn't look directly. Kinda like looking into the sun." Chew. Chew. Chew. He later commented that if she dropped something she'd just have to kick it to the bathroom to pick it up later.  One of her girlfriends who walked with her, because girls must travel en masse to the restroom, was in an equally revealing dress, only hers was so low-cut that she had to clench her arms to her side like a robot to keep her breasts from falling out as she walked. I can imagine the logistics for eating, picking anything up, DANCING, were going to get interesting. Apparently, I'm now old enough to wonder what her mother was thinking letting this child go out like that.

Of course, there wasn't one girl in the place who wasn't stunning, really, even though some of them were more poised than others.   I was surprised, however,  by how awkward their counterparts appeared. Young and not yet introduced to any kind of hair product apparently, the boys were itchy and uncomfortable and skinny and pretty miserable, I think.  It appeared that every goddess had seen something worthy in these very not yet princes and had just done the best they could.

My favorite couple included this drop dead gorgeous blonde - tall, poised, dressed in blue - and her Screech sort of date who's probably going to end up everyone's boss someday, but not YET.  Their conversation didn't seem too difficult, but I loved him because he seemed completely confident that his tux made him a new man despite his hair's unwillingness to shape itself into any sort of behavior.  As they stood to leave, this sweet boy grabs the umbrella he's stashed under his chair (thank God his mom told him they might need it) and realizes he's lost his cuff link somewhere under the table.  While she moves without realizing he's not behind her towards the door, he's doing a frantic search for it, because, you know this thing is a rental and who knows how much they charge for the missing cuff link. HE'S CRAWLING ON THE FLOOR NOW so that he can get a better look through his bespectacled eyes and the hostess is flittering around looking for what we overhear him  call his "cuff linker" (swear to God) and I love him. I love that he's gangly and awkward and nervous and that he likes this girl enough to bring his umbrella because her hair is so pretty and he wouldn't want her to have a concern about that. I love that you can tell it was only some kind of miraculous event that caused her to say yes to sharing this one huge event with him.

I love that he chose to abandon his panicked search for the God knows how expensive cuff linker and finally just dashed to the door so he could open it for her because being a gentleman on this night with this girl mattered more than the consequence of turning it back in tomorrow sans cuff linker.  They did some kind of awkward, No You First kind of move and then off they went - this princess and this boy who absolutely knows he's the luckiest guy in the world.

Let's Dance!

So it's prom season and I can't tell you how my heart jumped when Janie called to tell me our sweet Megan had been invited!  If you don't know her, here's an earlier blog about our friendship:  strangerlori.I know how to pick a friend.

Anyway, it appears to me that if you have someone worth putting on a fancy dress for, someone worth doing a little nail painting and hair straightening for, someone who has earned your nicest smile and who delights in making you laugh and dance, you're doing pretty well.  Heard they were the last ones to leave the dance floor.

Don't make eye contact

I've got questions about this picture.  First, is this one of those people you try really hard not to make eye with because their combination of self-assurance and vomitous trivial monologue is overwhelming? Or is this a genius networking opportunity? Post grad who misses hanging out in the ivory tower and hopes to relive the days where he was smarter than everyone again and again? Or just bored?  Does he start charging after the first 30 minutes?

I bet he's lonesome. Still I'm not making eye contact.

Ah Mr. McFeely

I snort laughed my way through this fantastic video. Happy weekend!

What Anger Management Issue?

A wing of bat, an eye of newt...

So recently I was getting my nails done and I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while. We did the usual You look great - No, YOU look great thing and I told her my plan was to drop a few pounds before summer since I don't keep a very tight workout schedule then and maybe I wouldn't worry so much about gaining a few pounds if I started UNDER where I'm happiest.  This sounds logical, but probably won't happen. She says, "Yes, if I could only get my hands on those Raspberry Ketones Dr. Oz was talking about on TV.  He says it just melts the fat off of you, but you can't find them anywhere."

Let's clear up two things:  First, Dr. Oz appears to me to be one of the unhealthiest men on TV. Have you noticed this? Is he GRAY? I think his skin is actually GRAY.  I can't keep up with all the instructions he gives. Here's what his regimen sounds like to me:  Run around the block two times forward and then half around backwards once.  Eat a peanut every 6 steps. When you get back to the house make sure you take exactly 1.68 teaspoons of olive oil with grapefruit juice and vinegar and then jump up and down 43 times BUT DON'T do this if you happened to eat eggs the day before and then take these 14 supplements right before you eat with seven 8 oz glasses of water.  Repeat every 45 minutes and you will look 20 years younger in 3 weeks and you will not have any fat on you.  And then magically all your dreams will come true...

BUT, anytime someone says MELTS THE FAT RIGHT OFF OF YOU I am hooked.  That's the second thing.  Since the Dieter's Tea Incident of 2008 (which will remain in the vault), I believe 100% that there is no healthy weightloss plan that needs to involve excessive amounts of caffeine, stimulants (of the metabolism or of the colon, thank you) and I am suspicious of any Dr. that advises it.  They will make you twitchy, irritable and probably so miserable that you won't even be able to celebrate if you do manage to lose 2 pounds of water weight.  I filed the Raspberry Ketone away in the back of my mind.

Probably two weeks later I went to a local chain of health supplement stores to pick up Kenny's vitamins and on my way there I ran into my friend Jill who always looks fabulous and never believes that when I tell her.  I had just heard of another miracle supplement which is supposed to lower my cholesterol (I don't even know if it's high) and also make me beautiful so I figured I'd ask while I was there if they'd heard of any studies behind it. I love the research (all the fat mice loved this stuff!), but I don't like to invest because you should know that I've never been able to remember to take any supplement daily, much less two or three times daily so it's really just money down the toilet.

The doughy young man behind the counter was kind enough to ask if we needed anything so I asked him about whether he'd heard of the supplement and he immediately said, "Did Dr. Oz recommend it? Because we can't keep anything in stock when he recommends it." That made me think that this poor guy spends ALL DAY answering weight loss supplement questions posed by middle aged, desperate women who watch tv when they could be exercising or painting or at least laughing at themselves with their other middle aged, desperate friends, all of which would be time better spent.  "Also, we are out of the Raspberry Ketones (My mind went DING!!!), but we have them online and this Safflower oil we have here is good for belly fat."

And so begins another one of those slow motion moments:

I hear the words "belly fat" and that's when I make eye contact. I look down at my stomach and back to dough boy and the Clint Eastwood sort of challenge in my eyes must have indicated the insult he just made to the thousands of situps I've done this year. He looks at my stomach and then flicks a frantic look for help to my friend Jill.  She nervously giggles and slinks towards the door. I imagine this is where the whistle thing in Western movies goes.  "Not that you need it," he squeaks.  I counter, "I don't think weight loss supplements are good, mostly because of the caffeine stimulants." "Me either," he replies, but his eye is twitchy and neither of us acknowledge the Diet Mountain Dew and 5 hour energy drink he's got behind the counter. He's nodding now because he believes he's off the hook and grateful for my good graces.  I let it sink in my mind that this young man has tried every single one of those weight loss supplements.

We move on to a discussion about calcium.  If you know me, you know I don't eat dairy if I can help it (but I do love me some pizza!!) because if you are the least bit intolerant of it (and probably if you are not even) you will have acne breakouts and congestion and all kind of stomach problems.  As payback for the belly question, I asked him if he eats dairy knowing full well that he does. The acne is a dead giveaway.  He swears he doesn't, but we already know he's a liar. I go in for the kill and by the end of my soulful tirade entitled "The Devil in Dairy" his eyes have glazed over and he whimpers, "You know, you should really try our other location. I bet they have everything you are looking for over there." Checkmate. These people have nothing I want - no magic potions, no hocus pocus, no fat melters, no thank you.

I did happen upon some of the elusive Raspberry Ketones at Purple Mountain the other day.  Instinctively, I bought a bottle of them and tucked them away because apparently they are valuable and I think maybe I can make some money off the resale to one of those desperate women at home watching Dr. Oz.

Ahh Family

Olivia found this for us. She knows me so well.

I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear.

These are sold out for now, but I bet by Christmas you could get one or two.

So dad, how do you like the new ipad?

Had everyone else seen this video except me? Thanks to my friends Gaby and Marco for the link!

http://www.wimp.com/dadipad/

Fortunately, this humor is universal so you won't need to get out your German dictionary.

Speaking of Spontaneous Combustion

I've heard that there are two kinds of people. There are people who live in fear and then there are people who live in curiosity, or pursuit of pleasure as I've heard it.  I'm not sure that's a fair way to divide up the world, really, because you can do that with anything. For instance, you can say the world is made up of two kinds of people - those who like ham and those who don't, or those who like the Three Stooges and those who don't (which would basically be the same thing as saying Men and Women I guess). For now, though, let's just focus on those who live in fear and those who don't.

As a child I had two big fears. One was of kudzu.  That insidious vine covers everything and my younger self was fearful that if I couldn't move fast enough while playing outside, some of it might trap me like it did those tall suffocated lumps of God knows what that you can see along the side of the road. I'd overheard enough adult conversation to know that stuff was unstoppable and probably the beginnings of a Japanese takeover. It turns living things into creepy, giant, ghosty looking things that reminded  me of my sister's wall hanging in her bedroom that said, "From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggity beasties, Dear Lord, deliver us." If there's anything that resembles a long-leggity beasty, it's a pine tree and power pole covered in kudzu. The roadside of 411 at dusk can still give me the shivers.

I think I was 8 when I first learned about the phenomenon called Spontaneous Human Combustion as an actual cause of DEATH! And there you were thinking my obit from last week where I said I went out in a blaze of glory was something new! I don't recall what television episode mentioned it - probably some That's Incredible! sort of show.  I remember thinking, "What sort of things must a person have been doing that could cause them to unexpectedly EXPLODE on the sofa or walking down the sidewalk???  And, more importantly, am I doing any of those things?" Panicked, I imagined that probably calm children who read lots and who didn't jump up and down much and certainly never ate POP ROCKS with soda were protected from spontaneous combustion but there was just so little information in the Encyclopedia Britannica that I figured it was possible for damn near anyone to ignite if they weren't careful (and maybe even if they were careful!).  You never know!!  The photos always showed some errant foot or handbag left behind in a charred mess.  It was horrible imagery and, even worse, the mystery always remained unexplained which lent credibility to my suspicion that it could happen to ME if things got too exciting.  Practicing piano seemed like a good way to avoid anything too sparky happening.

Childhood anxieties are one thing, but it turns out as you get older you find lots of other things to be afraid of in the world and they are real things and common too and before you know it, you (or I) are organizing your life around the avoidance of things rather than the enjoyment of them. Our family made a list at dinner and we are afraid collectively of the following: the IRS, snakes, balding, wardrobe malfunctions including, but not limited to showing up to an event without pants, drainage grates, getting fat, spiders, and various forms of impalement.  Those are nothing compared to what most of us mom's worry over though.  Without realizing it, I somehow managed to create a day where I was censoring almost everything I said and did in fear of offending someone, of being judged by anyone, of being rejected, of overlooking responsibilities, of failing somehow as a mother. In short, I wasn't having much fun at all and my day belonged to everyone else.  Therapist asked on our first visit what I enjoyed doing and I found there was very little to report.  

But sometimes, if you are open to it, something allows you take steps towards rebuilding your day into something likable.  A few months ago Olivia got a bug about doing some painting and we were on a school break and ended up making a corner of the new kitchen our craft area. Imagine poor Kenny's nerves! Acrylics on the countertops! We negotiated with brown paper for the sake of his blood pressure.

I've recently learned that I'm not the only person who harbors a long held fear of picking up a paint brush.  Now you all know, of course, that this is actually only an extension of the fear of trying something new and I refrained from a lot of the activity at first, but really what fun is that?? And you know I'm not kidding when I say it's not good to let your children smell your fear.  So, instead of worrying about perfection, and in the name of being a good example, I focused on the conversation that comes up when our hands are busy and just messed around with her.  I bought a little bird painting around that time and wondered if we could do one like that? And I discovered I can. AND I can do other little birds and bigger birds and birds who are alone and birds with their mamas, more birds, fewer birds, birds of different colors, birds that aren't really found in nature even, birds on wires, birds on branches, birds, birds, birds. Nothing to be afraid of there! No explosions, no suffocations, not even a palpitation of nerves, only the joy that comes with creating something.

They are not great paintings, by an artist's standards, probably, and a lot of them are destined for life in a closet, but I love them because they are evidence that I'm not afraid of trying something new. My paintings don't even have to be good. They are the product of exactly no training, something like 4 minutes of reading in the craft store (no purchase necessary!) and absolutely, most importantly, NO FEAR.  I love these birds because I tried something and the world didn't explode or tilt on it's axis and swallow me up with embarrassment.  I love them because they make me believe I can try something else that's new.  Maybe tomorrow I'll give painting something besides birds a try and then who knows? Maybe I'll tackle Pop Rocks.

For more info on Spontaneous Human Combustion, try this link  http://www.crystalinks.com/shc.html: but I warn you, it's gross.

Let's go for a drive

Stumbled across these great folks who apparently have a lot more fun in the minivan than most folks do.  I am now imagining that everyone is driving around harmonizing, only in my imagination everyone has their SEATBELT on, Nicki.  They have the minivan sessions on Youtube and on their website www.nickibluhm.com

You like what I like

Because I think you like what I like, I want to show you a new favorite person I like and here's his picture:

There are a lot of things I like about this fella named Cliff. First, he's from Australia and all girls like a man with an accent. He was raised on a sheep ranch so we know he's not afraid of a little hard work.  What I really like about Cliff is that when he was 61 (I don't like him LIKE THAT) he entered what I like to call a foot race.  He showed up to the registration for a 543 mile foot race... WAIT - let's do some explaining here. It turns out that there ARE really people (and it's been verified that they are not robots) called elite runners who think it's a good idea to run ridiculously long distances in ridiculously short amount of time and we could talk all day about how a person gets into that, but that's not the point.  See, there are a lot of things I don't like about running, but I do know a lot of folks who love it and I understand why, really, I do, but the worst part of running to me has always been that I get so lonesome (I don't want to run WITH you either, so let's just move past you trying to get me addicted to your running) out there putting one foot forward after another. What you need to focus on here is our 61 year old farmer friend named Cliff who showed up in overalls and workboots to run the 543 mile foot race with the full understanding of what it was he was agreeing to undertake.  All smiles and nods he quickly takes the last position in the race with a laughable running shuffle.  As you can imagine, all the jokes and disbelief that most underdogs face applied to Cliff in the beginning of this race.  I was hooked on the story immediately for this reason.

Most runners in that race run about 18 hours and then sleep for 6 and then run for another 18 and sleep for 6 and just keep doing that until they stumble across the finish line 543 miles away. And not many of them actually get there.  This was in 1983 and at that time the record was over 6 days.  So the runners wake up on day 2 and old Cliffie is a little closer to the pack because GUESS WHAT?  HE DIDN'T SLEEP.   When you live and work on a 2000 acre sheep ranch sometimes you have to herd the sheep yourself for a few days at a time and that means you don't get to sleep.  So he just keeps running and running and not sleeping and (can you see what's coming?) GUESS WHO DAMN WINS THE RACE?

Yep. The 61 year old Cliff Young in overalls and boots who never entered a race before beats the record by 2 days. Turns out he didn't know there was a $10,000 prize so he gave it to the five guys behind him. I guess he thought they looked like they could use a pick me up after all that running and losing.

Now I love an underdog story as much as you do and we can talk about that and we can also talk about perseverance and the value of determination if you want. I like to be reminded of both of those things, but what I really found myself focused on after I first heard of him was how lonesome he must have been running through those nights.  I tried to imagine the depth of loneliness and determination he must have felt.  I wondered if he felt a sort of cosmic abandonment during that time.  I thought for a few days about Cliff and considered what it must have felt like to be that exhausted and all alone out there with full knowledge that no one at the race even believed he'd finish. I imagine he must have thought a lot about God and about his life and the people he loved or the people he'd not thought much of lately (because you've got a LOT of time to think when you are running for 5 days straight) and maybe about the regrets he had and the things he'd like to learn. I bet he missed someone too and I bet he was lonesome putting one tired boot in front of the other for so long.

I'm not sure why I spent so much time thinking of that word "lonesome" and about Cliff's foot race.  I did some more research because I was so intrigued. I discovered an article where someone did ask Mr. Young how he did it. He didn't mention any of the things I thought he would.  He didn't talk about pondering God and his regrets and the exhaustion of spirit that accompanies that kind of undertaking.  He just said he pretended that he was herding sheep. So while the underdog story is still a good one and perseverance is still something to investigate,  I guess my new lesson to myself is that sometimes we think people would do or think what we would do or think, but it turns out they don't. Cliff Young died in 2003 at age 83 and he never mentioned that he was lonesome.