Three Months to Three Years

Last night I met a couple of friends at a tapas bar in Los Feliz for drinks and superfluous food. Superfluous because all three of us had eaten dinner already and were full, but we had to order something to justify our sitting at a table while other would-be diners waited to be seated. Nothing like putting the contents of "Six-Piece Cheese Plate" and "Flourless Chocolate Cake" on top of a belly full of Italian food...yeesh. Anyway, at one point in the evening Friend 1 mentioned someone she knew who is "dying of cancer," specifically mouth cancer, and has a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live. This startled me right out of my food coma because, presumably, the woman is around my age: late twenties, early thirties.

At the time Friend 1 mentioned this woman, I felt alarmed and very sad. Then the conversation turned to other things and I lightened up again. On the long drive back home, however, I was caught in a traffic jam on Vermont and found myself pondering the stark bleakness of people dying young. I wondered what I would do if I were terminally, gravely ill and given a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live---a range of time which, incidentally, strikes me as grotesquely cutesy and tidy, and weirdly meaningless. People sometimes talk hypothetically on long car trips and during late-night conversations about what they'd do if they knew they had only a limited time left to live, and it's kind of a game and an amusing way to pass the time. "I'd have sex with as many people as possible," someone might say, or "I'd travel to China" or what have you. But in the isolation of my dark car last night, when I tried to imagine what I'd do, I became panicky and a bit hysterical. I also despaired at the huge number of mundane details that would require my attention were I to prepare for my own death. Never mind bungee-jumping off The Great Wall---what would become of my 401(k), and to what extent would I clean out my closet, my end table, and my overstuffed Box of Important Papers? I wouldn't want to leave a mess behind. But would I have the physical and emotional energy to do these chores? I can barely face them right now.

I decided I would quit my job---I wouldn't want to waste a single second of my dwindling remaining days trapped in a gray cubicle doing unimportant work. But then, without benefits, would I get on S's health insurance so I could continue receiving whatever treatment I was prescribed? Would that be financially burdensome? Would the subtraction of my income force S and I to move to a smaller apartment? Would the stress of moving further ruin my poor health? Would I even stay in Los Angeles? One thing I knew was that I'd want to be with my family as much as possible. Part of me immediately concluded I'd move back to NY to live with my parents in the home I grew up in. But then, would S be stuck in LA without me? He'd miss me, and I'd miss him. Maybe I'd stay out here but fly home often. Would I eventually become too sick and frail to travel? In that case, would my family fly out to spend time with me? I wondered, too, about getting pregnant. Would that still be feasible? Would it be irresponsible to knowingly conceive a child under the circumstances? But I think S would want a child---our child---anyway, if it were possible.

I think I'd have to sit down and make a list of Things to Do, People to See, and Places to Go in my remaining days. I'd have to brainstorm, then I'd have to narrow down and prioritize and consider what was practical and possible. Would I wish for trips to exotic places? I've wanted to go to Australia since I was eight. Or would I simply want to return to favorite, comfortable spots that define who I am...like my grandma's front porch, or childhood vacation spots like Cape Cod? I'd definitely want to spend lots of time with good friends, old friends, and my parents, brother, aunt, uncles, and grandmothers. And then, of course, there's S's family, too. I'd want to be with them as well.

I feel as though I wouldn't be interested in being online a whole lot...sitting in front of a computer making my way around the Internet is a nice way to pass the time but also confining and sometimes depressing. I think I'd feel differently about movies, though. I might rewatch old favorites and keep seeing whatever interested me in the theater. No bars, no clubs---well, maybe somewhere with dancing.

And that's about as far as I got, thinking it all through in the car last night. The whole exercise of imagining this situation was upsetting, certainly. But mostly it was inconceivable. I mean, try as I might, I of course could not truly put myself in the place, mentally, of someone who is dying. It's impossible, and futile, and foolish, really, to try to imagine you're living in a way that you're not. But I tend to always try: What would being in a major car crash feel like? What if S died? What will it be like when Mom and Dad are in their eighties? And then I concentrate on trying to summon these things in my imagination such that I can "rehearse" living through them. I read somewhere that this is actually a thing certain people do as sort of a defense mechanism---we don't like the feeling of being unprepared, so we try to imagine, in detail, what some event would be like, so that if or when it ever happens, we can say, "Come on now, Self. We've mentally prepared for this! We can handle it."

Strange.

If You're Happy and You Know It...Shake Your Head in Puzzlement

Today I am inexplicably happy. I don't get it at all. For starters, last night I did nothing but sit on the couch and neglect the myriad household chores that needed attention. I worked on a few word puzzles and watched a couple hours of television. That's it. That kind of evening usually depresses me. Secondly, I ate so poorly today——consuming hundreds and hundreds of calories, and several plates full of miniature cookies——that I now feel bloated and sluggish, not to mention a bit guilty and ashamed. Again, this type of behavior normally plunges me into a deep, dark funk. But today? I just seem to be buoyed by feelings of contentment and mild joy, and nothing will bring me down. Weird!

I can only guess this la-dee-da-dee-da feeling is related to one or more of the following:

1. Ndugu is on yet another round of meds which seem to be working, for now. This means that the stress of waking up in the morning to foul-smelling poo stains hidden in hard-to-reach places has, for now, been eliminated.
2. My workload in the office this week has been juuuuuust right, with a dash of——gasp!——variety thrown in for added satisfaction.
3. I have, after a month-long hiatus, restarted my little Pilates and yoga home workouts.
4. Our tax refund has spruced up the appearance of our checking account a bit.
5. S and I finally bought a new couch (to arrive in a few weeks).
6. It's finally getting sunny and warm-ish outside, and the winds that have been blowing us around the past couple of weeks seem to have died down, finally.
7. Hormones?

So, while none of these things is particularly momentous or thrilling, perhaps the
combination of them is enough to perk me up and make me cheery.

Who knows?

I Still Like Lots of Things About This Country, Even Though Our President Is Crap

So, first off, I apologize for not yet responding to Brother M's comment about my Terry Schiavo post. In the frenzy of preparing for my trip to Ireland, my poor little Waxing Prosaic blog was neglected. And now that so much has happened between my last post and now, I've got other things I'd like to write about. For now, though, I'd just like to say that I hope Terry Sciavo's family is able to find some peace now that the political circus that had made her their headlining act has left town (for the time being, anyway). And, my personal lesson learned: Put down in writing what my wishes are for my own medical treatment should I ever suffer brain trauma that severe.

OK then! Let's transition awkwardly from personal tragedy exploited for political gain to M's return to the good old U.S. of A. two Tuesdays ago! S and I had a marvelous time in Ireland and thoroughly enjoyed all the food, sight-seeing, exploring, and time spent with my parents. I returned home so filled up on puréed vegetable soup, brown bread, Cadbury chocolate, and salmon that I'm near to bursting, and my newly ill-fitting pants are the proof. Sigh. I'm just so resentful of the positive correlation between overeating and gaining weight.

As for the sight-seeing, the highlights for S and I were the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast, Giant's Causeway on the northeastern coast, Donegal Town, and the town of Westport. We also found the day we spent in Derry (site of The Troubles and Bloody Sunday) in Northern Ireland educational and quite worth the visit. Exploring Westport, Donegal Town, and Galway with S was lots of fun, especially considering our good luck with the weather. Sunshine! Blue sky! Mild temperatures!

Spending time in Ireland and learning about its history (rocky) and status quo (economically booming) was refreshing and stimulating, but coming back home to the States was nice, too. Some bits of my American life that I missed while on the Emerald Isle included public-toilet-seat protectors, robust plumbing, racial diversity (my mom on Day 7 of our trip: "I think I've only seen, like, three black people total since we've arrived here!"), Starbucks...and unfashionable people. Like most Europeans, I suppose, the Irish are so stylishly dressed, it intimidates me. No one, anywhere, looks frumpy. It made me self-concious to be trekking around in what I thought were cool Adidas trail-running shoes when everyone around me had on sleek, narrow, minimalist urban casual shoes that weren't quite trainers but weren't quite something you'd wear to work. (One of my first orders of business upon returning home was to pick up a couple of pairs of sleek, narrow, minimalist urban casual shoes myself: I've now got a cute pair of Pumas in ecru suede and a pair of Adidas made of Asian-style embroidered satin. Hooray!) In Ireland, everyone's jeans were darker, crisper, and better tailored, and I saw no one---I mean, no one---in anything oversized.

Getting back to the U.S. was bittersweet, because while our vacation was over (boooo!), the California sunshine was strong and brilliant, and everything in Los Angeles was in bloom. I've been marvelling at the green trees and richly colored flowers ever since. I even bought some potted tulips for our front stoop. I'm trying hard not to kill them.

About three days after returning from Ireland, I hiked with some coworkers in a poppy preserve in the Antelope Valley (two hours north of L.A.). The scenery was so breath-takingly beautiful, it almost seemed fake, like a Hollywood creation. Rolling hills were covered in wildflowers: Goldfield, clover, and California poppies. Snow-capped mountains served as a backdrop. It rivalled even the most gorgeous scenery I saw in Ireland, and it made me proud that, while this country is definitely going through a rough patch on political, governmental, and socioeconomic levels, it's still got plenty of stunning natural beauty to admire.

That Guy and That Cat Walk Into a Bar...

So, today coworker-friend J sent me a very funny excerpt from the Frolic and Detour blog, written by Miss Alli, a recapper on one of my favorite Web sites, Television Without Pity. In her blog post, Miss Alli and her friend and fellow recapper, Sars, discuss the hundred or so permutations of That Guy. For example, there's That Guy Who Wears His Hat Backwards and Goes "Woooo!" There's Gore-Tex Vegetarian With Bicycle Guy. There's I'm Sensitive But Only So I Can Get Laid Guy, Defensive About Not Finishing College Guy, and Self-Conciously Offbeat Guy. Here in Los Angeles, we are all too familiar with Screams "Make It Happen!" Into His Cell Phone In Quiet Restaurants Guy, Talks Only About His Latest Acting Gig And Nothing Else Guy, and Wears Trucker Caps and Aviators Because Ashton Kutcher Wears Them Guy.

It all got me thinking: there's also That Cat. You know, That Cat Who Finds You Excruciatingly Boring, for instance. Or maybe That Cat Who Always Rubs Against Your Legs For So Long It Becomes Creepy. And of course, Kills All The Birds In The Neighborhood And Leaves Their Carcasses Lying About Cat. Here, for your reading pleasure (I hope), are various other That Cats, as categorized by J and me this afternoon:

Put Down the Claw Trimmer Before Someone Gets Hurt Cat
I Am in Love With This Magical Bathtub Cat
Do Not Mock My Hunger, Woman, Just Give Me the Goddamn Food Cat
Maybe If I Look Very Calm, No One Will Notice Me Walking on the Stove Cat
Only Fascinated by the Computer Keyboard When You Actually Want to Type on It Cat
It's 4:41 AM, Why Aren't You Awake and Playing With Me? Cat
Don't F-cking Wake Me Up From a Nap Ever Again Cat
Hooray! I Love Your Lap! Cat
Oops! I Accidentally Leaked A Bit of Poo Onto Your Comforter, But It's Cool 'Cause I'm So Cute, Right? Cat (that's our Ndugu!)
I Suppose You May Approach Me Now, But I Might Change My Mind And Bite You Cat (that's our Toonces!)
I Am So Over Playing With The Feather Wand Cat
Sweet Jesus, Is That A Cardboard Box Over There? I Must Jump Into It Immediately! Cat

Readers (all three or four of you), your additional contributions to this list are welcome!
In the meantime, I'll be working on my That Coworker list...

Dear Brother M,

Thank you for posting a comment. It's always nice to know someone out there is reading Waxing Prosaic!
I am currently crafting a response and will post it by the end of this week.

Love,
M

Outrage: a rant

Does anyone else feel downright appalled by the Republican members of Congress who are trying to subpeona Terry Schiavo and bring her to Washington for a bogus hearing to "review health care policies and practices relevant to the care of nonambulatory persons such as Mrs. Schiavo"? I'm just stupefied that federal legislators would flagrantly make this desperate, transparent effort to intervene in a situation over which they have NO JURISDICTION. They are not the interpreters of the law in this country! This is clearly a judicial matter! And on top of this total, unabashed overstepping of bounds, these same individuals are making these totally wild, maniacal proclamations about keeping this woman---who they don't even know, of course---alive and protecting her from the "barbaric" act (Tom DeLay's word) of removing her feeding tube, "no matter what her husband says" (also Tom DeLay). I mean, could this jackass listen to himself? "No matter what her husband says"?! DeLay is essentially dismissing the legal fact of the Schiavos' marriage and Mr. Schiavo's inherent say in this situation.
What's happening here is that a family's tragic personal experience is being transformed into a theatrical political circus by these members of Congress and by the dramatic protesters outside Terry Schiavo's nursing facility. These people who have a zealous, maniacal reverence for "life" are showing blatant disrespect for the sensitivity of the Schiavos' situation and turning her into their unwitting emblem.
It's interesting and upsetting that these people (both the members of Congress and the protestors) seem to have chosen Ms. Schiavo as the poster child for their extreme beliefs about the supposed sanctity of "life." Why, then, don't they display the same outrage over the young men and women killed in Iraq every day? The ones who aren't even engaged in combat? All those lives wasted? What of the tragic human deaths that occur in this country every year at the hands of criminals armed with illegally obtained handguns? What about the loss of all of THAT life? Why choose the very sad, personal, private tragedy of this woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years to get hysterical over?
The protesters are robbing Terry Schiavo of her dignity, and the Republican members of Congress are pandering to the protesters. It's sickening. I'm just so appalled. I don't know what this country is about anymore.

Workin' It On Out

Two posts in one week! This is highly unusual, isn't it? There are three explanations for this. The first is that I've had a very light workload here in my cubicle this week (for practically the first time since the new year), and the second is that I'm reading Anne Lamott's wonderful and inspiring book on writing, Bird by Bird. I'm only a couple of chapters into it, and already I'm feeling motivated and rejuvenated. The third reason for the increased blogging frequency is that I've also been reading the Bad Mother blog, written by Ayelet Waldman (Michael Chabon's wife and a novelist herself). She stopped writing in February but all her old posts are still available online. I really enjoy her blogging style. She comes across as honest, genuine, funny, and thoughtful, which is how I'd like like my blogging to be.

So anyway, I'm writing today about my newfound love of the home workout, something to which I never, ever thought I'd take. I've always been a definite exercise-class person and have participated in such classes as yoga, Spinning, step aerobics, Latin dance, ballroom dance, Pilates, and something I'll call "faux bo" (fake boxing), because I can't remember the exact name. I enjoy working out within a group of like-minded exercisers under the tutelage of a living, breathing human being (as long as he or she is competent). There's something about the "we're all in this together" mentality that I find motivating. Most of the time, though, the class schedules don't quite jibe with my own, so I end up schlepping to the gym to work out independently on various pieces of equipment, which is just OK. I've been doing it for years, but lately I just can't tolerate it.

Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but the entire gym experience is wearing on me, big time. Driving there, circling around for parking, keeping my membership card together with my water bottle and keys, waiting around to use sweat-soaked machines that don't always work, and witnessing way too much unsightly bare flesh in the locker room are among the lowlights. Also, my current gym features a red and black color scheme I find cold and depressing. Honestly, there's very little about the experience I'm not sick of.

So, when coworker-friend J first told me about a Karen Voigt yoga and Pilates DVD she'd recently received from her mom and started using, I asked her if maybe I could borrow it and give it a go. J had raved about how good the yoga had been making her feel, and I was familiar with Karen Voight's kick-ass, highly ripped self. She's been an exercise guru and icon for decades.

When I borrowed the DVD and gave it a whirl one weekend, there was the predictable awkwardness of trying to establish a suitable exercise space in my shoebox-sized living room combined with the constant repositioning of my yoga mat so that the television screen was always visible. Add to that a couple of curious felines nipping at my heels and fingertips whenever those body parts got within their range. Despite all of this, though, I enjoyed myself. Karen Voigt is not overly perky (hear that, Denise Austin?), her workout was doable but challenging, and I liked the yoga-Pilates combo. The music was quite cheesey and synthesized, but it seemed a small price to pay for the opportunity to stay out of the gym. And after my workout was over, I just rolled up my mat, dragged the coffee table back to the center of the room, and headed into the bathroom for a shower. The whole shebang was over and done with in one hour. Nice!

I returned the Karen Voigt DVD to J, ordered my own on Amazon, and wondered if Netflix had any fitness DVDs available that I could try. Sure enough, they do! I'm excited, because it means I can try out and experiement with various home workouts without having to actually purchase them, which means the potential for my becoming too bored with home workouts to continue is significantly reduced.

A couple of weeks ago I received "10-Minute Solutions: Pilates" from Netflix and ended up LOVING it so much that I bought it on Amazon, too. The disc cotains five 10-minute Pilates workout that you can do individually or all together for one fifty-minute session. You can also create your own workout by building a session from the 10-minute programs. I have to tell you, this whole "ten minutes" concept is genius. On a day when I'm tired, grumpy, or pressed for time, I need only pop the disc in for 10 minutes and still get the benefits of exercise. It's much less daunting than, say, a DVD that contains one 90-minute workout. Typically I do two workouts together, preceded by some walking in place and jumping jacks as a warmup, with some light stretching at the end. The whole bit is done in 30 minutes. On the weekends, when there's more time, I might do three of the workouts in a row, followed by a walk around the neighborhood.

I reeeeally like Pilates. I first took a Pilates class about two years ago at my gym and loved it right away. I went to maybe six or seven classes before reluctantly quitting because the class was at 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday---a most inconvenient time. Like yoga, mat Pilates helps you build strength without a bunch of boring weight-lifting and waiting around for equipment. There's a focus on trying to maintain a bit of grace as you perform the movements, which I appreciate. It's challenging and requires concentration, and it's so exciting to feel yourself start to improve. I also respect Pilates's history as a form of physical rehabilitation and medical treatment for soldiers wounded in war, and as a form of strengthening and muscle-lengthening poplular in the professional dance community.

So, I'm excited about working out at home and have been enjoying it immensely so far. It will be interesting to see whether I will choose to forego the gym for good or still get the urge to head over there on occasion. I do, after all, like the treadmill and the elliptical trainer. But now that the days are getting longer and the weather is gradually, tentatively getting warmer, I can't imagine wanting to relegate myself to the dank, cavernous gym anytime soon. Hooray for the home workout!

Damn you, cursed Val-Pak!

I like the idea of coupons. (Or "kewpons," as my Grandma W. calls them.) I'm drawn to the concept of cutting a few cents here and there from the overall grocery bill until BAM!—all those ten-cents-off and fifteen-cents-off have added up and added up and your total bill is ten bucks cheaper. Voila! And you can waltz happily out of Ralph's or Vons or Price Chopper or what have you, warm with the glow of triumphant penny-pinching.

However, there's a catch. Coupon cutters must be meticulously organized and sufficiently self-disciplined, two qualities of which I am utterly devoid. Let's begin with the organization part. After clipping the coupons, it's a bad idea to, for example, shove them into a remote kitchen drawer that's already choked with old mail, dead batteries, wrinkled take-out menus, and three-year-old birthday cards. Because if you do that, you'll forget all about them until your hand accidently grabs one the next time you're rummaging around that drawer for a battery. (Although, don't bother, because, like I said, only dead batteries are stored there.) By that time, the coupons will have expired, and you'll be left blinking at the expiration date trying to calculate what age you were when the coupon was still valid. (Twenty-six? Nineteen?) I can write all of this with authority because I am that unorganized person stuffing coupons into already overstuffed drawers. What you're supposed to do, I've gleaned from Grandma G. and a few everything-in-its-place–type friends over the years, is keep the coupons in a coupon organizer, which is like a narrow little accordian file folder. It's small enough to take up temporary, if not permanent, residence in a handbag, so that it may be quickly and easily retrieved the next time you're shopping. The contents of the organizer can be filed by expiration date, product type, whatever, so long as they're categorized somehow. Sadly, this type of coupon storage is, to me, admirable yet improbable. I just tend not to place a high priority on filing, or categorizing, or weeding out old documents to make room for the new. (You should see the wad of old Baja Fresh receipts in my purse. Shameful!) The coupon organizer ain't happenin' chez moi.

...and neither is the self-discipline required to cut out and save only the coupons that discount products you actually buy. Obviously, you're not saving money if you're using coupons to buy extra products you don't normally use. Duh. A simple enough concept to grasp, one would think. Not for me, though. I rip open the Val-Pak Coupons envelope (always the familar pale blue with the purple stripe), and (after frantically rummaging through to see if I've won "one of 500 hundred-dollar checks placed randomly in the envelopes") the next thing I know, I'm hoarding coupons for things like Mystic Tan, maid service, and brake jobs. I tend not to see the coupons as opportunities to save on things I need, but as reasons to give something new a try. Or, illogically, as chances to save a few bucks on something I might, someday, sometime, somewhere find myself wanting or needing, like said brake job. Of course, the coupon for the maid service, for instance, will expire long before I'm wealthy enough to afford a maid. So you see, I'm doing exactly what the merchants giving out the coupons WANT me to do! I'm viewing the coupons as opportunities to spend money rather than to save it. They've got me right where they want me, those clever local merchants! I'm their helpless little bitch! Unless, of course, I overcome the lure of the coupon next time the pale blue envelope arrives in the mail, if such a thing is possible. I'll show them! (Maybe.)

We shall see.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

Actually, raindrops on roses are NOT one of my favorite things, because when I think about raindrops on roses, the mental picture that forms is one of cheap fake flowers with faux plastic dewdrops on the petals. Have you seen those? You can find them at your local drugstore in the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day. They're the saddest thing I've ever seen.

I do like whiskers on kittens, though.

Anyway, I hope this isn't lame, but I thought I'd whip up a list of my (current) favorite things. That's very self-indulgent, isn't it? Well, this entire blog is by its very nature self-indulgent, so why fight it?

Food:
-The curry at Chan Darette
-Seedless grapes
-Baby carrots (They're like crack, these things! If I could smoke them, I would.)
-Apple sauce
-The carnitas street tacos at Rubio's
-Orange juice
-Jasmine green tea
-Pumpkin butter, something I found at Trader Joe's

Movies:
-Shaun of the Dead
-Ray

Books:
-The Okinawa Program
-Taking Charge of Your Fertility (just, you know, for future reference)

Television:
-Project Runway (which has inspired me to ask for a sewing lesson from my friend)
-Supernanny (oh, the horror!)
-Oprah
-Unscripted
-Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Ty Pennington = cheesy like a radio deejay, yet so very pleasant to look at, and talented to boot)
-The brand spankin' new season of The Amazing Race, featuring a JMU alum (go Dukes!)

URLs:
-Rotten Tomatoes
-Margaret Cho's blog, which I just recently discovered
-Slate
-Television Without Pity, of course
-Wikipedia
-Good ol' Craig's List

Music:
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-Maroon 5
-The Black-Eyed Peas

Hobbies:
-Blogging, natch
-Journaling
-Knitting
-Cooking (nothing crazy, but I did make miso soup recently, and a baked chicken-and-root-vegetables thing with Tandoori marinade last weekend)

People:
-S
-Our vet
-Barbara Boxer
-Jamie Foxx

NEWSFLASH! NEWSFLASH! This just in! My wee little 26-year-old brother and his lovely wife T are preggers! It's all very exciting and mind-boggling...
My niece/nephew is due in November.

Was I a long-lived Okinawan in my former life?

I ask this question because I am currently going through a personal mini-revolution of sorts, the cause of which is a book I am reading called The Okinawa Program. Listen, I don't mean to get all evangelical on anyone, but I feel passionately enthusiastic about this book. I'm five chapters into it, and already I'm a changed woman. I know I often speak (and write) in hyperboles, but I do mean it when I say this book has had a powerful effect on how I think about health, lifestyle, food, weight, and age. I want to recommend it to everyone I know who is interested in health, nutrition, Eastern thought, and science. It's that good.

Here's the deal: Earth's longest-lived human beings live on an island off of Japan called Okinawa. I believe it served as a U.S. base of operations in World War Two. (I'd better check that, though. I'd hate to be dead wrong about a key time in U.S. history. A-hem.) Anyway, this land was once the Kingdom of Ryuku, but now it is a territory of Japan that-I believe-is subject to Japan's rule. And while Japan boasts better life-span statistics than the United States, Okinawa's lifespan numbers are the best (i.e., highest) in the world. A significant percentage of Okinawans live to be 100 or older, and they maintain good quality of life into their nineties and beyond. So we've got a lot to learn from these people, obviously. They must be doing something, if not everything, right.

A group of science-medicine-academic types began formally studing elderly Okinawans more than 25 years ago, and their findings, plus recommendations for we Westerners who want a little of what the Okinawans have, are documented in this well-organized, fact-packed, readable book.

I am so impressed. For starters, I, like probably most Americans, tend to get my health and nutrition info in bits and pieces here and there from a variety of credible and not-so-credible sources: fitness magazines, national and local media, diet books, etc. It can be exhausting and frustrating trying to keep on top of it all and weed out the fact from the hype. One simple yet brilliant thing the authors of this book have done is to basically compile the latest and most-proven health and lifestyle information in one place and footnote it so that you can know exactly which studies produced which facts. Hooray! They've weaved all of this information in where appropriate; that is, where it relates to the Okinawan lifestyle and contributes to Okinawans' superior health and longevity. For instance, there's a wonderfully detailed (and admittedly frightening) section on trans fat, a nutrient that has just recently been examined by researchers and categorized as really, really bad. In explaining what trans fats are, how they affect one's health, and where they appear in popular American foods, the writers make the point that Okinawans don't eat trans fat, ever. Because it's a manufactured fat produced by food companies to keep food "fresh" (read: "preserved") without refrigeration for long periods of time, it's used mainly in convenience foods, the likes of which the older Okinawan generation has never even seen, much less ingested. (By the way, I am horrified to learn that trans fats show up in places I'd never expected, including powdered cocoa mixes-Damn you, Swiss Miss!-and microwave popcorn.)

Another appealing characteristic of the writing is its straightforwardness and total lack of author-promoting spin. (Anyone who's read the late Robert Atkins's The New Diet Revolution and hated it knows what I'm talking about. Ugh.) The authors of The Okinawa Program are clearly so excited about the findings of their research that they feel compelled to share it with the Western world, and they are careful to do it in a way that is direct, honest, and respectful. Where so many "hot" diet books insult their readership by taking a defiant tone and failing to provide scientific or medical evidence to back their claims, this book shows nothing but respect and concern for its readers by providing as much science-based, well-documented information as possible. I appreciate that immensely. And the result of all of this directness and honesty is powerful, influential writing. When the authors tell you your high saturated-fat intake and social isolation are slowly killing you, you know they're not playing around. They've footnoted that statement three times over, and they haven't minced words. Powerful stuff.

So, on to how The Okinawa Program is changing my life. Well, for starters, it's really reshaped my thinking about my health in general. Instead of seeing it as little individual compartments that I label "good," "bad," or "mediocre" (nutrition: bad, physical fitness: mediocre, emotional fitness: good, etc.), I'm seeing it more holistically. I'm also taking my health much more seriously, because the hard, cold truth is that I'm 29 years old, so playtime is over. People, I'm nearly 30. One can't afford to be effing around with one's arteries and bone density and whatnot at that age. And considering the amount of effing around (with my health, that is) I did in my teens and twenties, it's high time I made amends. There's no time to waste anymore. Each decision I make now will contribute to my overall cumulative health, and that's serious business. It's hard to explain, and I'm not doing a good job of expressing the fundamental shift in thinking I'm undergoing, but here are some specific changes I have made so far, and some that I plan to make over the next year:

So far, I have set a requirement for myself to eat five fruits and vegetables (total) per day. I'm starting with five, and I plan to work up to seven over the next several weeks. This is a big deal for me, as I have probably never eaten this many fruits and veggies on a per-day basis in my entire life. Fortunately, I'm enjoying the challenge! I have also increased my daily intake of flavonoid foods, which include soy products, tea, and cranberry juice. I am trying to eat fish once per week for now, be it in the form of sushi or a tuna-fish sandwich. I'm rarely eating mayonnaise. I'm cutting way the hell down on my baked-goods consumption. I'm shopping around for a vegetable steamer. I'm setting aside (more) time each week to knit and see friends. I'm taking walks often.

Over the next year, I will be experimenting with Asian cooking and ingredients. I wasn't born with a taste for tofu, but I'll acquire one! I've got friends to help me with this, thank goodness. (Hi, CL!) I'm also excited about incorporating miso into simple dishes and making stir-fry and curry. When I feel my ailing hip can handle it, I'll return to yoga and maybe give Tai Chi a try. I also plan to make keeping a clean, tidy, cozy home a priority. I'd also like to watch less television (gulp) and do more trying of new things.

I think the timing for all of this couldn't be better, since, as I mentioned, I'm turning 30 this year. Perhaps making healthful lifestyle changes will help me greet the Big Three-Oh with less trepidation and more acceptance. Hell, maybe I'll embrace it!

One step at a time, though.

Things That Are Meditative

I've done the type of meditation that comes to mind when you hear the word: the kind that involves sitting on the floor on a cushion or yoga mat, legs folded into the lotus position, palms resting upward on thighs, eyes closed. Each time I've been guided, along with yoga classmates, through the meditation by an instructor, and each time I've felt that I wasn't quite doing it "right." The repetitive, mindful breathing never fully "takes," I guess you'd say. I'm never able to lull myself into that sort of subconcious state of concentration; my mind wanders away from the pattern of the breathing, and the next thing you know, I'm rehashing old high-school relationships or wondering when I'll decide to have a baby and what I'll name it. That kind of thing.

Lately, though, I've started noticing the meditative qualities of other activities, things that aren't called "meditation" but for me result in what I know I'm supposed to achieve during those last fifteen minutes of yoga class. Here's an incomplete list:

-knitting
-running
-singing
-carving a pumpkin
-proofreading long, nontechnical articles
-tallying figures
-making lists
-vacuuming
-stretching
-driving on an empty, scenic road

When I try to determine what all of these activities have in common, I come up with two things: they are repetitious and they require moderate concentration. The key word in the latter characteristic being "moderate." So while adding up columns of numbers for me is pleasantly therapeutic because it requires attention and concentration but is not complicated, filling out a tax return or working through a word problem ("Two trains are coming at each other at different speeds...") is not. Likewise, driving on a country road or remote stretch of interstate is meditative; fighting traffic on La Cienega Boulevard during rush hour is not, because it requires intense concentration and is unpredictable.

Lately I've been hearing and reading (in everything from Newsweek to fiction) about the meditative qualities of knitting, and I can attest to those qualities now that I am an (admittedly novice) knitter myself. I've also heard and read about gardening as a meditative activity, and I could see how that would be true. I might like to take it up as a hobby once I own my own home.

What's intriguing is that it seems that current research indicates that meditative activities are beneficial for health. I've read a bit about super-healthy elderly people who regularly knit, or garden, or do crossword puzzles. The general gist seems to be that incorporating some meditative activities into one's life on a regular basis can contribute to both physical and mental health, which I think is neat. It's not often you hear that something enjoyable might also provide health benefits! (The recent exception being, of course, eating dark chocolate.)It'll be interesting to see where the research leads.

M's Return to Fiction (cue trumpets)

This entry is also available here.

I had bookstore anxiety. It was getting to the point where each time I'd set foot in a Borders or a Barnes and Noble, I'd become overwhelmed by dozens of titles and authors I so desperately wanted to read. Within 30 minutes or so, I'd be hot and perspiring, with a touch of upset stomach. Of course, that's the same physical response I have whenever I want to buy something but feel I shouldn't (clothes, mostly), but lately it's occurring primarily in bookstores, and with great intensity.

The thing is, I was suffering from Fiction Withdrawal. I hadn't picked up a novel since...well, I can't remember! That's not like me. Could it have been that the last novel I'd read was The Color Purple, back in the spring? No, I'm sure not. I must be forgetting something. But the point is, it's been quite awhile. Too long!

I trace my unplanned respite from fiction back to the pleasant June day S surprised me with a copy of My Life, Bill Clinton's autobiography. It was a thrilling, thoughtful gift that S had somehow acquired from his work for free. Woo! So I dove into that with gusto for several weeks, but then petered out about a third of the way through in late August or so (around Clinton's birthday, in fact). Feeling a bit bogged down by the density of the chapters on Clinton's early political life in the nineteen-sixties, I decided to take a temporary hiatus and return to the book at a later date. I should add here that I actually really wrestled with this decision, as I tend always to see a book through to the end on principle. I'm just not one to abandon a story partway through. However, to read Clinton's autobiography from beginning to end without a break might have caused my head to explode, and I couldn't risk that! I must take care to preserve whatever precious brain matter I have left now that I'm on the cusp of my thirties.

Anywho. Clinton got tucked inside my nightstand drawer, and I read a few light things here and there, one of which was...a-hem...former supermodel Janice Dickinson's memoir, No Lifeguard on Duty, which was surprisingly well-written (hello, ghostwriter). Finishing that one (in two days; the thing was such an easy read) stoked my nearly lifelong fascination with the world of modeling and fashion, and I was prompted to buy Michael Gross's Model, The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, which I've been plodding through ever since. The thing is thick, a bit dry (despite the critics' tantalizing snippets on the front and back cover that describe it as a "juicy tell-all," blah blah blah), and poorly written (or edited, or both). It's definitely a comprehensive history of the modeling industry in the United States and France, but I kept getting distracted by Gross's strange turns of phrase and not-quite-right figurative language. He's certainly a thorough researcher, but his writing is nothing to admire, and it can even be bothersome at times.

So. Having made my way from modeling's beginnings to its Studio 54 heyday in the nineteen-seventies, I tired of the book and put it down, again undergoing considerable guilt because of my decision. (Fortunately, though, the book reads less like a continuous story and more like a reference guide, so picking it up again won't require much mental exercise in terms of remembering "where the story left off," so to speak. Unlike My Life. Eek!)

After putting the Gross book down and seeing Funny Face, the Hepburn-Astaire film about an ordinary-woman-turned-international-modeling-superstar cited frequently by Gross in his big old book (it's not such a hot movie; I'll save that for another entry), I officially declared an end to my little modeling jag and wondered what to read next. For some reason, indulging in a novel felt like cheating, since I felt I somehow didn't deserve it after putting two nonfiction works down unfinished. I spent a few weeks with my face buried in magazines and Internet journalism pieces (Slate and Salon, especially around the time of the election), but finally two holiday-shopping excursions to big, wonderful bookstores did me in. There was nothing to do but read some fiction! Even J here at work suggested it might be just the thing.

So this past weekend I finally picked up Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, a novel I'd bought this past summer but hadn't yet cracked open. I'd been feeling nostalgic for Southern fiction on and off this year, and managed to squeak The Color Purple in, but nothing else. Having read The Golden Apples by Welty in that Southern Fiction class in college (fabulous course; brilliant, mercurial, rather inflexible professor who loathed me), and having remembered said professor speaking highly of The Optimist's Daughter, I decided I couldn't go wrong choosing that one. Indeed, I'm not quite halfway through the slim little paperback and already I find myself thinking about the characters on and off throughout the day. It also seems like a timely choice, considering the situation with my grandmother. The main character in the novel, Laurel (the optimist's daughter, natch), has just seen her father, the optimist, die by what comes across as his own will after undergoing risky but not normally life-threatening eye surgery to repair a slipped retina. Now she has returned to her childhood home in Mississippi (from Chicago) to attend his funeral and take care of his affairs. Complicating matters is his father's much-younger wife of a mere one-and-a-half years, Fay, whose behavior suggests she is selfish and childish and holds her deceased husband's family in contempt.

Welty strikes a perfect balance of melancholy and honesty in her storytelling, and her writing seems effortlessly elegant and uncomplicated. She does a marvelous job of attending to detail (but without making things messy, like some writers), like the way she includes the sights and sounds of the loud, rowdy Mardi Gras carnival going on in New Orleans very close to the hospital where Laurel and Fay sit with Laurel's father during the weeks immediately proceeding his eye surgery. Fay longs to join the revelers outside, while Laurel finds them noisy and upsetting.

Anyway, I am thoroughly savoring my Return to Fiction with this book. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, it feels nourishing, in a way. If I'm still hungering for Southern writing when I finish, I've got Clyde Edgarton's Killer Diller in my bookshelf still unread. Otherwise, I might make a go of Jane Austen's Persuasion (another summertime purchase that's gone neglected) or The Lovely Bones, which S read earlier this year and has been recommending to me ever since.

A Shout-Out

I have the coolest coworkers. It's true. I work with three other editors: A, J, and B. B is our managing editor; she's in her mid-forties and has been with the company for a long time. Both A and J are around my age and have been working here a short time, as I have. It's really astounding how much the three of us have in common. We share similar tastes in books, movies, and food. We have nearly identical senses of humor (read "dry"). Our political views are closely aligned. And we're all hooked on e-mail.

I've never had the pleasure of working for a boss as cool as B. She's smart, sharp, and organized, yet she's gentle and soft-spoken and manages us democratically. She makes up our schedules each week, and then she essentially stands back and lets us work. She might check in on us twice a week (if that) to see how we're doing and whether we've got too much or too little work, but often she just leaves us entirely alone. It nicely evens out the somewhat oppressive corporate atmosphere that is ever-present in the office; B has her own little ways of quietly rebelling against some of the more draconian office rules (like the one that forbids employees from using the Internet for personal use, for instance. She sends us links to funny Web sites all the time).

Best of all, B is self-confidant and secure and therefore does not lord her power over her underlings in any way, as the big cheese did at my old company. (Well, he was small, like a leprechaun, actually.) She's very trusting and open and shows no desire to scare us into accepting her point of view on anything, editorial or otherwise. I feel very comfortable approaching her with a work question or asking her what she thought of the latest Harry Potter film. For me, that's a perfect manager.

A and J are goofy and nerdy, like me. One of us (maybe A?) came up with an acronym that perfectly describes us: NERDS (Notorious Editing Ring of Derisive Snickerers). A has a gift for coming up with quick, perfectly groan-worthy puns and hilarious little haikus, and J can talk about anything from reality TV to literary theory fluently and without pretension. I like that the three of us are essentially good people who sometimes let our snarkier alter-egos get out of hand and feel bad about it (but not TOO bad) later.

What inspired me to produce this lovefest-on-paper about the women with whom I work? Well, this week has been crappy, because George Bush pulled out a totally undeserved win against John Kerry three days ago. Since Wednesday morning, the grief and anger in our left-leaning office has been palpable. To try to counteract all this sadness and fear, the editors came up with the winning idea of sharing poetry with each other. For the past couple of days, we've been e-mailing each other poems that remind us of our faith in humanity and the (sometimes bittersweet) beauty in our ordinary lives. It's been an exhilerating experience! I've read some gorgeous, moving, jarringly honest verse that has managed to nudge my mood from despairing to hopeful. On top of that, A has revealed herself as a writer of poetry as well, and she's shared a couple of her own works. It's a compliment that she trusts us enough to let us read these very personal, lovely poems. In return, J and I have invited A to read our respective blogs. (Hi A and J, if you're reading right now!) I'm feeling very fortunate to work with such fine people.

Not to be too over-the-top sappy or anything, but I think it's in times of acute crisis and unhappiness that I'm reminded of all the relationships that are important to me, for which I'm grateful.

So, uh, thanks, red states, for reelecting Bush, thereby crushing my soul enough to remind me of all I should be grateful for!

Sigh.

I Don't Know Jack...O' Lantern

So, last week, when the receptionist at my company announced a pumpkin-carving contest for Halloween, I thought immediately of husband S and his talent for drawing funny little cartoon faces, and I smugly signed on as a contestant. The idea was that S would be my "ghost carver," so to speak. My secret weapon. So full of hubris was I that I even chose the largest pumpkin I could find from the dozen or so displayed for the taking on the second-floor lunchroom table. My fiendish, somewhat deceptive plan was to take said specimen home and have S do all the designing and most of the actual carving. I thought I might help gut the thing and offer words of encouragement here and there, but he'd be the actual artist toiling away on our dazzling orange masterpiece. Back at work, I imagined, I'd present the jack-o'-lantern as my own, win the "Funniest" or "Most Creative" category, humbly accept all the praise and admiration that my coworkers were sure to heap upon me, and drive home with a big fat prize for S and me to share.

Well. You know what they say about the best laid plans.

Not 24 hours after I'd volunteered for the contest and gloated about my sure win to more than a few coworkers, S was ordered to Orlando for four days on business, courtesy of one unsympathetic Fox Sports Net. At first I did the math wrong (no surprise there) and calculated that S would return from the land of Katherine Harris and hanging chads in time to help me whip up our Jack-O'-Lantern To Beat All Jack-O'-Lanterns, but upon double-checking my arithmetic, I realized I'd be doing the damn pumpkin all on my own. Bummer! Let down! Anxiety!

I figured it would be sort of lame to back out of the contest, especially after I'd made such a big freaking deal about it to begin with. So, last night, I made a jack-o'-lantern. By myself!

I'd been dreading it all day. Honestly, I hadn't gotten anywhere near the inside of a pumpkin since I was a kid. Back then, my mom and dad would clear the kitchen table, spread newspaper all over it, drag the trashcan over, set up the pumpkin and the various cutting instruments, and do the majority of the work, with enthusiastic creative direction from my brother and me. Aside from pulling out a few token handfuls of stringy pumpkin innards, however, I was always more of an observer than a participant. (Once I tried to salvage the pumpkin seeds and toast them in the oven. That was sort of a bust. My parents were sweet about it, but I think we all knew the idea was better in theory than in practice.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanywho, I got home from work last night, dragged my big ol' pumpkin indoors, set it up on the kitchen table, and wondered nervously how I was going to pull this thing off on my own. A skilled procrastinator, I spent several minutes preparing. Fancying myself a careful pumpkin surgeon, I went about choosing about half a dozen of my sharpest knives from their various kitchen drawers and laying them in a neat row on the table. I removed all non-essential items from the table and disinfected it with cleaner and bleach. I wiped down the pumpkin. Finally, like Mom and Dad used to do way back when, I dragged the trashcan over to my little surgical theater and removed its lid.

The stage was set.

Fortunately, I had a design in mind. Constant worry over the outcome of next week's presidential election precluded me from dreaming up any idea that wasn't political or civic in nature. All I can think about these days is Please John Kerry, Win and Please George W. Bush, Run Home to Your Native Crawford and Leave Ruling the Free World to the Grownups, which doesn't leave much room for creative thought. Fearing, however, that my very corporate work environment might react in a rather Ashcroftian way to an outright political endorsement-especially for "the liberal senator from Massachusetts"-I opted for a simple get-out-the-vote message for my pumpkin. "VOTE," my pumpkin would read. And I'd try to get the date in there, November 2, if there was room. At lunch that day I'd bought some tempura paint, a few brushes, and a package of those little star stickers teachers use, with the idea that my presumably horrid carving skills could be offset a bit by some jaunty red, white, and blue decoration.

After escaping to a nearby restaurant with a friend for dinner, I was back in my kitchen with everything ready to go and my design in mind. It was only 8:00, so at least time pressure wasn't an issue. The first and most difficult task was to cut off the top of the pumpkin and eviscerate the thing. I had a lot of trouble wielding the carving knife with grace and accuracy at first. And the walls of the pumpkin were about an inch and a half thick! Honestly, sweat sprang to my brow from the effort. Gutting the pumpkin by reaching in and yanking out its gooey, slimy strings and shiny seeds was more fun. Sometimes it's just plain great to get your hands dirty. I scooped and squished the pumpkin pulp and dangled gobs of it in front of my perplexed cat's nose.

Next up, blueprinting my design. I started by using red pen to outline the letters V, O, T, E and the numbers 11 and 2 (for November 2) on the front of the pumpkin. Easy enough. Then, the carving. It took a few minutes and several near-finger-amputations before I got into my groove. The toughest part was cutting around narrow strips of pumpkin flesh, but otherwise, I managed to control the knives without any serious mishaps. (I learned this morning from a pumpkin-carving coworker that one can purchase an actual pumpkin-carving tool specifically for the purpose of jack-o'-lanterning. Who knew?)

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed my little pumpkin-carving adventure. Bent over the fat pumpkin in my bright kitchen with rain falling outside and the McKrells singing away on my stereo, I found myself falling into a bit of a meditative, happy trance. Toonces kept me company as I carved away and hummed along. Most fun of all was the post-cutting painting. Uncapping my "Crayola tempura paints" and filling a cup with water for cleaning the paintbrushes, I was taken back to my elementary-school art classes with Ms. Lotto, where we students would chatter with each other contentedly while working at those long, sunlit tables, perched atop rusty metal stools. I remember enjoying the way my paintbrush water would grow more and more colorful and dark as class wore on. Because of the red and blue paint I used last night, my paintbrush water turned a deep shade of violet that reminded me of grape juice.

I finished my little piece de resistance at around 10 p.m., took a hairdryer to it to speed the paint-drying and slow down the progress of the damp rot that had settled into the pumpkin's rear wall, and snapped a few digital pics. Will I win the pumpkin-carving contest at my work? Lawd no. Will anyone but me vote for the Get-Out-The-Vote-O'-Lantern? Doubtful. But damn if I didn't have a swell time making it!

Gut reactions

Here, excerpted from an e-mail I wrote to a coworker this morning, are some first impressions of last night's debate:

I didn't like this debate. Cheney is just so incredibly unpleasant and seemed to me to just want to get the damn thing over with. And I wish Edwards had simmahed down nah with the smirking and head-shaking and arm-flailing. But, it's his first national debate, so he can be forgiven. But also, I found the questions irritating, and I thought "Gwen" could've worded them better and more clearly. That very first question, for instance, about Paul Bremer's statement, went on and on and didn't invite a focused response.

I wish Edwards had fought back a bit whenever Cheney attacked him for not being present at Senate votes lately. I mean, duh! He's OUT CAMPAIGNING, obviously, and probably hasn't been back to DC in months to occupy his Senate chair. Why didn't Edwards point that out?

I was disappointed that Edwards, like Cheney, didn't address the question about black women with AIDS in this country. Like Cheney, he talked about AIDS overseas.

I think overall I feel stronger about Kerry than I do about Edwards, but I don't dislike or distrust Edwards or anything.

I'm looking forward to Friday's Kerry-Bush debate! I hope Kerry can kick as much ass Friday as he did last week. My hero!

---

This same coworker, J, to whom I sent that e-mail, has turned me on to Paul Begala's and Jessi Klein's post-debate CNN blogs, which are quite effing funny and entertaining.(I do wish Jessi would spell her name with an "e" at the end, though. It's my observation that "i" names tend to signify platform heels and g-strings and lap dances. As in, "And now, taking the stage, the lovely miss Brandi!")

HTML = How Terribly Math-Like

Today I'm back at work after four glorious days in Classroom 3 of my company's Education Center learning HTML and other, more-complicated aspects of Web publishing. I spent all last week (a short one, thanks to Labor Day) enjoying 9 to 4:30 workdays, free breakfasts, and hourly breaks. The class I took was super-informative and incredibly educational---especially for me, a definitive non-IT person.

The first day and a half or so, we learned the basics of HTML (that's hypertext markup language, for those of you who have better things to do than decipher silly technological acronyms), which was interesting, fun, and relatively easy, compared to what would come later in the week. I now understand tags and attributes and am comfortable working in TextPad. If you wanted me to, I could produce for you a simple little Web page with text, images, anchors (links to other pages and Web sites), tables, and frames. From scratch!

About halfway into Day 2, however, we moved from HTML to Web servers and how they work (i.e., "the server side"). I had to really, really concentrate to understand; and even then, I was barely getting it. I had specific questions, too---all pertaining to how I could get a Web site of my own uploaded to a Web server to share with the world. I tried not to reveal my intentions, though, since ostensibly I was attending this class to build the skills necessary to help my department create a Web site sometime in the future. (Yawn.) My questions were along the lines of, "Could a person turn her own home computer into a Web server?" (Answer: Yes, but it's a really, really bad idea.) "Are there companies that sell Web-server space to individuals?" (Answer: Yes, and some will do it for cheap.) "Once you've got access to a Web server for publishing your Web pages, how do you upload your HTML files?" (Answer: Using FTP software.) That type of thing. I just think I would really enjoy building a simple little Web site for myself, but I don't want to begin creating the pages without knowing what comes after that, you know?

By the third and fourth days of class, my head was reeling, and I honest to god had flashbacks of high-school calculus. I mean, the server-side scripts responsible for making Web content interactive? And the script languages themselves? Rough, I'm telling you. It's like when I took algebra in seventh grade with Mr. Tresselt: I was capable of understanding it and applying it, but only with many extra hours of one-on-one tutoring in the mornings before homeroom. It worked that way with SL, my HTML instructor last week: He'd instruct the class from the front of the room, I'd concentrate so hard my brain would buzz, he'd finish up, my eyes would glaze over, and I'd raise my hand for some extra one-on-one reinforcement of concepts he'd covered that my brain hadn't quite processed. Even then, I'd get the general gist, but not the nitty gritty of the individual script languages or their syntax. And when we had to create Web forms that sent information to a SQL Server database? Brutal. I barely, barely clung to the do-it-yourself exercise.

On Friday, our last day, the instructor lectured a bit on search engines, how they work, which are the best, etc. He also talked about the different browsers, and cookies, and other Internet-related subjects that are no sweat for IT people but that have always seemed sort of incomprehensible to me. One cool site he showed us was one in which you can type any operational Web address and find out how many other Web sites link to it in their pages. (I typed in www.waxingprosaic.blogspot.com and a big fat zero popped up. Hee.)

Also on our last day, SL, the instructor, entertained us by making animal shapes from balloons. (He's self-taught, if you're wondering.) He also distributed the exam, which I took and which caused me major anxiety---again taking me right back to my schooldays, when I'd study my bloomin' arse off for a test, only to find that none of the concepts I studied were part of the test whatsoever. Errgghh. After practically assaulting SL to get him to reveal some of the more-difficult answers after I'd turned my answer sheet in, I discovered that the guesses I'd made were good ones, so I don't think I failed the test after all, as I'd feared I might. I mean, really: How lame would it be to fail a test your very own company created? And that you once copyedited?! And whose answer key you've seen before?! Soooo lame.

So, yeah. Now I'm back at work, and frankly, it blows. Turns out that in my absence, a coworker I liked and was just getting to know better was suddenly fired one afternoon. Peculiar. And it's all very hush-hush, so I've no idea what happened. It's unsettling. Plus, I miss the free oatmeal and afternoon snacks in the Education Center. On the other hand, I've missed chatting and e-mailing with the other editors, so I guess it all evens out.

Well, there you have it. I've got no clever conclusion to tack onto the end here, so....that is all.

Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Screw-Up Royally, Start All Over Again. Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Screw-Up Worse. Curse the Day Yarn Was Invented.

Oh, hello there. I almost didn't see you, as I was so engrossed just now in reliving my fun-yet-stressful Saturday-morning beginning-knitter experience at Sweater Babe studio in ye olde Hollywoode Hills. Yessirree, approximately three years after the knitting craze took off here in Southern California among the young, hip, and handy, I've finally bought myself a ticket and climbed aboard.

So, on Saturday morning, after an interesting and unusual night spent dog- and house-sitting for JP over on Braddock Drive, I hurried over to adorably pregnant E's house to pick her up and snake our way through the canyon to Sweater Babe studio. I should add here that I was in such a hurry and so busy with doggie duties that I neglected to 1) drink any water before leaving for the knitting class, 2) eat any breakfast before leaving for the knitting class, or 3) ingest any caffeine before leaving for the knitting class. The latter is cause for alarm, I can assure you. Mornings aren't my thing, particularly mornings during which I'm awoken at 6 to pour "lamb flavored" dogfood pellets into the bowl of a frenzied, barking canine and refresh a guinea pig's bowl of lettuce. (Not only was I dog- and house-sitting, I was rodent-sitting as well. Shudder.) Catering to demanding animals at 6 a.m. on a Saturday should only be attempted after downing a strong cup of coffee, I've since learned. Same goes for attempting to fashion a small, pink blob of knitted yarn from a couple of unwieldy wooden sticks four hours later: In both cases, caffeine is strongly recommended.

Alas, I entered Sweater Babe's Architectural Digest-worthy home studio that morning dehydrated, unfed, and with nary a molecule of caffeine in my system. Not good; not good at all. However, the Sweater Babe herself had kindly set out a platter with a few small pastries on it, and a couple bowls of pretzels, so I was able to at least eat enough to pump some sugar into my bloodstream. She set out water, too, thank goodness. No coffee, though. Sigh. So please understand that I undertook this new endeavor with a dull brain and lethargic mental reflexes; I like to think that's part of the reason why I was the worst student in the class.

Sweater Babe was a very patient teacher. She never once seemed even slightly exasperated by anyone's cries of "Help!" or "I don't get it!" I appreciated this, since most of the cries of confusion were mine. She had a cool way of demonstrating for us, too. We eight students were seated in a U-shape on various sofas and armchairs, and Sweater Babe sat in the center, her back toward us, arms raised and knitting needles held high in the air. The idea was that everyone could get a good view this way; and, generally speaking, we did. We just weren't able to get an up-close and personal view of the individual stitches this way, which is why it was great that Sweater Babe always followed-up her demos by walking around to each student individually to show her again, one on one.

We started by "casting on," a process that begins with the knitter making a slipknot with the yarn. The slipknot caused me problems until Sweater Babe saw that I was wrapping my yarn around my hand in the wrong direction (back to front instead of front to back. Oops). After sliding the slipknot loop onto the knitting needle, we then cast on nine more loops through a needle-hand-yarn maneuver that reminded me of braiding hair. It looks complicated as you're doing it, but it feels strangely intuitive, so it becomes routine and fairly easy pretty quickly. So far, so good.

After we casted on, Sweater Babe introduced us to the knit stitch, the primary stitch of knitting. One can do nothing but the knit stitch and wind up with a very respectable-looking scarf. (I think straight knit-stitching is referred to as the Garter stitch, but I'll need to refer to my helpful Sweater Babe handout to be sure.) Anyway, I was OK with the through-the-loop and the wrap-around, but when it came time to pull the right-hand needle out through the newly formed loop, all hell broke loose. It was damn near impossible for me to determine which "loop" was the new one, and how to pull the right-hand needle through it. Sweater Babe helped me, though, by repositioning my needles in my hands and showing me what to do in slow-motion. She also gave me some helpful tips about keeping the needles upright and maintaining "yarn tension." At this same time, I was quickly learning that both E and I are "tight knitters;" that is, we feel compelled to tighten every stitch as we make it, which is a really bad idea and makes it very difficult to stab a needle through the stitch later. I wondered if my tendency to want to tighten the stitches beyond all reason was in any way related to my compulsion to brush my teeth much too vigorously (I've snapped two toothbrushes in half) and double-knot all shoelaces and drawstrings. Anyway, knitting more loosely is something I need to continually work on.

Once I got the general hang of performing the knit stitch, everyone else had graduated to the purl stitch. Purling is funny: on one hand, it's super mind-melting because it's the exact opposite of the knit stitch; on the other hand, it's intuitive because it's performed on the reverse side of the fabric (when you're switching stitches at each row, as you would for a sweater). So it feels correct to be doing the knit stitch in reverse. I find I have to concentrate especially hard when I'm purling; but otherwise, it's OK.

Changing colors was fun. We learned the easiest way possible to switch yarns: tie a strand of the new to the strand of the old, and resume your knitting, being careful to use the new yarn strand. My knitted fuschia blob (i.e., "swatch") ended up featuring a natty pale-pink stripe in its center, which I liked.

After purling and changing yarns, everybody else moved on to "ribbing," which involves switching from purling to knitting on the same row (to add stretch to the fabric---good for sleeves and waistbands). I, however, needed much more practice doing the basic stitches, so I missed the whole thing. After teaching us (well, everyone else) ribbing, Sweater Babe gave us a quick tutorial on "decreasing" (fairly simple) and "increasing" (an impossible nightmare). Finally, with literally two minutes left on the clock, Sweater Babe taught us "binding off," which, oddly enough, I picked up right away. Again, it just feels right, even if you don't understand how it works.

I left class with a nice little self-contained fuschia rectangle, complete with a thick, pale pink horizontal stripe. I've been marveling at how it looks just like a small piece of sweater---part of a rollneck I might buy at J. Crew, for instance. It's been pleasantly surprising to learn that my hands are capable of turning yarn into fabric and to wonder about the possibilities as my knitting improves. I've set a goal to knit two scarves by Christmas: one for my mom, and one for my mother-in-law. Here's hoping I succeed!

I'll Pass on the Scuba Diving, Thanks

Last night I saw Open Water with S and our friend M, whom I will call WYD for "Who's Your Daddy?" (That's what it said in fuzzy brown letters on his tee-shirt, hee. Plus, he's going to be a first-time dad---woo!---next month.)

So, have you seen Open Water? The shoestring-budget Sundance winner that's now in limited release in major theaters across the country? (In case you haven't, here's a link to its Rotten Tomatoes page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/open_water/.) It's an independent film made inexpensively with unknown actors, a haunting score (to use a tired but accurate cliché), and plenty of lingering, mood-building, wide-angle ocean and sky shots. It's not, as the trailers suggest, a Jaws-type movie, although sharks do play a prominent role. It's not really a survival movie, either. It's more of a look at what happens to a relationship under extreme, nearly hopeless conditions. Except that it's a pretty superficial look at that relationship, which was my only complaint coming out of the thing. The screenwriter thought a little bit about how a couple stranded in the middle of a vast, threatening ocean might behave and interact with each other, but I think he could have given those things even more thought. We get glimpses and snippets of how they're first in denial, then a bit alarmed, then accusatory, then angry, then reconciliatory, then hopeful, then desperate, then resigned to their respective fates. I liked that progression, and I imagine it's fairly accurate. But I wish the writer and actors had explored it further. For instance, there didn't seem to be enough demonstration of sheer panic by these two, considering the dire situation. And we only saw one moment during which they tried to amuse themselves to pass the time---the scene in which they played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which was a warm, touching, bittersweet moment. (Bittersweet in that they're giving themselves a laugh during what are surely the most horrible hours of their lives.)

Regardless, I liked the film. I like stories that beg the question, "How would I fare in this situation?" Except that, in the event that I find myself stranded in the middle of shark-infested waters, miles from shore, with nothing but a wetsuit on my back and a cumbersome oxygen tank strapped to my shoulders, I fear I'll not fare well. It's not like being stranded on a deserted island with only a volleyball for company (ahhh...good ol' Wilson!), where you can at least build shelter and forage for food and rub a couple of sticks together in an attempt to make fire. Watching Open Water, one quickly realizes that two scuba divers left at sea are in what is essentially a hopeless situation. They could be the smartest, most resourceful people in the world, but it doesn't matter. If the sharks don't get them, the dehydration, starvation, or hypothermia will.

I'm quite afraid of situations that seem destined for disaster, over which I have no control. Extreme turbulence on a plane, for instance, really takes a toll on me. I can't help but think that very dramatic, nausea-inducing turbulence signals a problem, and that in the event that the plane stops functioning correctly, we passengers are utterly doomed. When the plane loses an engine and goes plummeting down to Earth, there really isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it---even the smartest among us---and death is inescapable. I prefer a disaster that offers even the slightest, slimmest chance of individual survival. A big earthquake, say. Or a hurricane. Even being abandoned deep in the woods somewhere, in the dark, with a hungry bear hot on my heels. At least I'd have the opportunity to strategize and possibly survive using my wits.

Also, I wondered during the movie about S and me and how our relationship would hold up under extreme duress. Not well, I'm afraid. We've both been known to freak out in stressful situations: kicking and swearing (S), crying and screaming (me). Were we stuck in the middle of the Pacific feeling helpless and pretty sure we were going to die, I imagine we'd each mentally deteriorate very quickly. And previous experience tells me we'd go through our share of finger-pointing before finally clinging to each other and declaring our never-ending love as the sharks close in.

Note: I think I've got this thing set up now so that anyone (not just Blogger members) can post comments. Will someone give it a try? Thanks!

Mind-Boggling

Last night I learned many new things. For starters, I learned several new three- and four-letter words, including aga, haw, and frag. (Frag is the most interesting: "To intentionally kill a higher-ranking member of one's military unit during wartime, usually with a hand grenade.") I learned that when my friend CL's homemade brownies are cut into bite-size pieces, I am less able to exercise good judgment regarding when to stop eating them. Most importantly (and to my chagrin), I learned that, when competing against writers and grad students studying English, I'm not the Boggle champion I thought I was. In fact, I'm barely in the game.

This revelation notwithstanding, Boggle Night at CL's was a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening. Who wouldn't want to pass four hours scanning randomly selected letter cubes for words like pea, peas, egg, eggy, moon, moony, and, in smarty-pants JD's case, plural? I would guess most people, actually; but fortunately, those people weren't at CL's last night (with the exception of her friend S, who looked like he'd rather be standing in line at the post office two days before Christmas, poor guy).

I love Boggle. It's a simple, challenging game. There's no fake money to be acquired; no stupid, shiny, plastic game pieces to be moved monotonously about a flimsy gameboard; and no complex system of oppressive rules. In fact, the only rules of Boggle that I can think of are Don't look at someone else's word list and Don't keep writing once time's up. There are some limits, of course, on the types of words that can earn points. Initialisms, acronyms, and proper nouns, for instance, won't get you anywhere. Neither will two-letter words or words that don't appear in any of the major dictionaries. (You'd be surprised how generous most dictionaries are, though. We found dost and naw and gat in there last night, to name just a few.) Other than that, it's all about staring silently at the Boggle pieces until a word pops out at you. When it does, you write it down. Except that it's a little more active than that (for me, anyway). It's less waiting for a word to appear than forcing hundreds of combinations of letters together in one's brain until one such combination yields a useable English word. (It's so frustrating to spot chien or hola and not be able to get credit for it!)

Boggle offers nerds, English majors, and other like-minded word-lovers a chance to openly revere the language. As I said to S later that night, after the fierce Boggle competition was over and we were sleepily tucking ourselves into bed, Boggle is a celebration of words. Even ordinary words! In Boggle, the word often isn't just a lowly adverb, it's a valuable two-point earner! I like how, as each game player reads off her word list, those listening "oooh" and "ahhh" at some of the better finds. JeK's two-point agony earned some praise last night, as did my one-point (but hard-to-find) urge.

Which brings me to another point: Boggle is fun, yet so civilized! What other game can you think of that involves (and requires) absolute silence for three straight minutes? The noisy rattle of the letter cubes inside the Boggle box contrasts nicely with the intense silence that follows. Afterward, everybody's congratulating everybody else on finding unique, long, or hard-to-find words. It's a big lovefest, really. Just the kind of game a nonconfrontational sort like me is most fond of!

At this point you're thinking, "My god, M. You couldn't sound like more of an enormous dork right now. Honestly, stop writing, before you implode into a big, sludgy, geeky mass." But here's the thing: There are so many others like me! Today at work, some of S's coworkers expressed disappointment and a smidge of hurt feelings because they hadn't been invited to the Big Boggle Bash. And these people work in television, for chrissakes! They're cool! Hip! Young! With it! Furthermore, one of my twentysomething coworkers, A, has told me she participates in Boggle Nights with her friends as well. And my mom recently snagged her mom's (ancient) Boggle set for herself. So you see, there's a quiet little Boggle Movement going on behind the scenes. Nerds, dorks, geeks, writers, grad students, English majors, and all other manner of word lovers: Unite, and play Boggle!
(unite = two points)

Well Hello There, Ladies

(Inspired by a recent night out at Casa del Mar in Santa Monica)

There's nothing quite like watching older, balding, unfashionably dressed, shamelessly self-absorbed men try to pick up young, pretty women in bars. It's a terribly amusing and utterly depressing spectacle. It always seems to play out in the same general way:

1. A pair of men wearing very unhip loafers and tweed sportcoats spot shiny lip gloss, long hair, low-rise jeans, and bare midriffs across the room. Hypnotized by these trappings of youthful womanhood, the men approach, swaggering a bit. Each man is clutching a scotch on the rocks in one hand while resting the other hand in his pants pocket.
2. The targeted women, also a pair, see the men walking toward them and exchange looks of panic. But there isn't time to bolt as the men, smirking in an "I'm devilishly handsome and cocksure, aren't I?" type of way, steadily advance.
3. "Well hello there, ladies!" begins the more outgoing and self-confident of the two men upon their arrival at the women's place at the bar.
4. "Hi!" the women chirp brightly, forcing wide smiles. (Those who don't believe that American women are socialized to be friendly and warm and polite, no matter how alarming or distasteful the social situation, should go out drinking more often.)
5. Outgoing Man A introduces himself and his grinning, somewhat self-concious buddy, Man B. Man A prattles on about what he and Man B are doing in this part of town, where they were earlier in the night, and where they plan to go later. Both men absentmindedly swirl the ice in their glasses while occasionally stealing quick glances at the women's breasts. The men think their glances are surreptitious. They aren't.
6. The women, who hadn't planned on getting to know a couple of lecherous old men tonight, each fold their arms over their chests, cross one leg over the other, and lean back a bit, smiling deliberately all the while. Their self-protective body language is apparent to other women in the bar. It goes utterly undetected by Man A and Man B.
7. The men continue talking, smirking, swirling (ice), and stealing (glances). Man A feels particularly satisfied with himself because he is clearly taking the lead in the conversation. He also has a bit more hair than his partner.
8. The women, fake smiles firmly affixed to their faces, nod at what the men say. They infrequently chime in or answer direct questions. Every now and then one woman shoots a look at the other. Sometimes the look says, "Jennifer, what should we do right now?" Sometimes it says, "Kyra, I can't take another minute of this. Think of an escape plan." Often it says, "I told you we shouldn't have come here."
9. The men, encouraged by the women's smiles and oblivious to their furtive nonverbal communiqués, turn to locate a couple of empty barstools. They grab the stools and drag them over, so that they can sit with the women. The women use this brief respite to whisper quickly to one another. They are devising a game plan, a course of action. By this time, other bar patrons are watching this little comedy with bemusement and a bit of sympathy for the women. (Although some of the female patrons, envious of how cute the women look in their teeny designer jeans and satiny sleeveless tops, are enjoying watching the cuties squirm.)
10. The men rejoin the women, sitting across from them in a tight huddle. The women, still smiling, begin drinking faster. Under normal circumstances, they prefer to leisurely sip their Bellinis and Mojitos and Margaritas, but when the situation is dire, gulping is key. The faster the drinks are drunk, the quicker the bill will arrive, and the sooner the women can get the hell out of there.
11. The men, delighted to be seated with such glimmering eye candy and emboldened by their success thus far, test the limits of their charm. Man A places his hand on the corner of one of the women's bar stools as he talks. In response, the woman deftly retracts from his hand and repositions herself at an angle on the stool. She smiles tightly, with closed lips. Man B moves in a bit closer to the second woman. She, in turn, brings a hand up to her neck, leans back a bit farther, and quickly surveys the room for younger, cooler, hipper men who might come to her and her friend's rescue. She succeeds in locking eyes with the apparent leader of a small pack of twenty-something men who are hanging out several feet away. Her eyes are pleading, and they offer a bit of desperate flirtation. The leader and his pack approach, tentatively. The woman's eyes scream, "Thank you! Thank you! You won't regret this! Don't wuss out!" The leader and his pack get within speaking distance of the women, quickly assess the situation (specifically the unbridled enthusiasm and tenacity of the older men), and...retreat. As the pack slinks away, the leader offers the women a little shoulder shrug of apology. It's too much work for the twenty-somethings. They're out to have fun. They're not out to wrestle a couple of cute women away from men who look like their own fathers.
12. Disappointed, but not totally defeated, the women pretend to listen to the men talk about their very important high-paying jobs, all the while keeping an eye out for the cocktail waitress. Eureka! They've found her. One of the women throws her hand up into the air and waves the waitress over.
13. "We're ready for the check," cry the women, in unison, as soon as the waitress is in earshot. In their excitement, they've interrupted the men.
14. Man A, thinking it makes him seem very generous and in-control and take-charge, insists on paying the tab. Man B hastens to pull a few bills out of his wallet as well, not wanting to be shown up by his buddy.
15. The women flash big, sparkly smiles, tilt their heads a bit to one side, and say to the men, "Thank you so much; that wasn't necessary." Except that it was necessary, because the women have endured these two irksome, slightly creepy, self-centered, horribly uncool men for the better part of an hour. Their drinks most certainly should be paid for. Damn straight, is what they're thinking.
16. As the men settle the tab, the women consider this wasted outing. Who knows what other (younger, cuter, cooler, better dressed, more thoughtful, sexier) men might have happened by their barstools and struck up conversation had Man A and Man B not shown up. The women also consider the dozen or so people nearby who have been watching all along and snickering at the sight of the two old men hitting on the two young women. The women grimace; one flips her hair back in frustration, the other sighs.
17. The waitress has been paid and tipped. The women stand, lifting their handbags from their laps and placing them on their shoulders. They're not happy they have to leave. They love this bar, but what choice do they have? They smooth their jeans, adjust their tops, and prepare for their big exit. "It's been nice chatting with you guys," one of them says, producing yet another megawatt smile. She's already forgotten their names. "Have a great night." She sticks out her hand for a courteous shake. Her friend smiles too, and does the same.
18. Man A is crestfallen. He stands. "What? Leaving so soon?" he asks, genuinely disappointed...even more so when he steals one more lingering look at her breasts. He then takes one of the women's outstretched hands and kisses it. Man B isn't quite so brazen; he shakes the other woman's hand. "It's always a pleasure meeting such beautiful girls," he says, winking.
19. "Where are you off to next?" Man A asks the women as they turn to go, one digging around in her handbag for her cell phone. "You know, we're incredibly tired. We really need to head home," says one. It's eleven at night. "But thanks so much for the drinks!" shouts the other, as the two turn on their heels and walk as fast as they can toward the door of the bar. The woman who has got her cell phone out dials her sister. "Listen, meet us at Shutters," she says into the teeny little receiver. "We'll be there in five minutes."
20. The men, a little disoriented by their dates' rapid departure, sit back down and get quiet for a moment. Finally, Man A asks Man B, "You want another scotch on the rocks?"