Battle of the Sexes/Make Love After Midnight

Yikes, it seems like everyone in my sphere is testy today. When that kind of thing happens, I just can't take it personally - it's got to be chalked up to something astral - some planet crossing path thing. I'm thinking there is so much we don't know about ourselves and the influences that bombard us. Who knew that our bodies are bombarded and infiltrated by tiny neutrinos that pass through us? Not to mention the influence of light, barometric pressure, sound waves, gravitational pull, etc..

Today Shay and I - battle of the sexes. Have asked him repeatedly to put the toilet seat down - he can't seem to make it a regular habit. And today I was told it was an impossible request - that he cannot comply, that it makes him crazy. "Bullshit," I said. "If someone told you that in a month they would give you a brand new car if you could go for one month without slipping up, you would make it a priority to keep the seat down."  And it really IS a battle of the sexes that goes deeper than a toilet seat. Men, I think, have a need to imprint their masculinity on a home, assert themselves. I get it - it's primal.  And yet, this is NOT his castle, he doesn't get to be alpha here. This is a chick space, a goddess home. I think I surprised him when I said, "If Patrick lived here and told me, "Woman, this is going to be a toilet seat up house," I would acquiesce because he would be my lord and liege - he would call the shots. I was his Kate.  But, Shay, nah.....he is not my husband. Sitting here laughing that we're going rounds on this issue - it is so stupid, right? - with all the big stuff to worry about? I'll take a step back from this mini struggle in an effort to defuse. I've said what I need to say - it's a respect thing, it's a "know thy place" thing, it's a "who's the boss here" thing. It's a "it's my house" thing. Noblesse oblige.

The thing we can talk about today is two interesting articles I just read about sleep - one in the NYT and the other, New Scientist. The NYT article entitled, Rethinking Sleep raises interesting questions about the apparently modern notion that we all need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. This idea was challenged in the early 1990's by a history professor who compiled references to sleeping found in literature (Canterbury Tales) the writings of 16th century doctors and more. Over and over again in literature and historical records there was mention of "firste sleep" and "second sleep". Doctors noted that laborers conceived more children if their pattern was to copulate after their first sleep. One doctor counseled that the period of time between first and second sleep was the best time for study and reflection. So what's this notion of first and second sleep that has been lost to us? Turns out if we remove all distractions including artificial light, the body falls into a segmented sleep pattern, with a waking time shortly after midnight.

And it seems to be an American thing to eschew sleep at any other time except night. Other countries embrace power naps, siestas, even enforced napping to improve productivity. The other article in New Scientist is entitled, Is 8 Hours a Night Right for Everyone?  The article informs that our sleep patterns are not individualistic - they are largely dictated by the needs of a capitalistic society. "Ever since industrialization, eight consolidated hours of sleep each night has been touted as optimal."  If your sleep requirements fall outside of this "norm" you are out of synch with modern society. The author argues for honoring differences in sleep patterns -work-time napping, later school start times for adolescents, etc.

Every day this week, I grabbed a very short mid-day nap to reboot my body. The shortest nap was about 10 minutes long. Arrived at my voice lesson 10 minutes early and found myself sleepy. In front of the house, I put the seat back, set an alarm and quickly fell into sleep for a delicious ten minutes.  I absolutely adore that I can will myself to sleep anywhere, anytime and that the act of falling asleep, even for a very few minutes resets me in such a way that I am energized for many more hours. I can't say enough good things about a quick power nap. It was the reason I could work that US Cellular project for 18 hours a day, month over month.

Challenge today is thinking about your individual sleep requirements and patterns. Do you experience anxiety if you're not getting the prescribed 8 hours? Do you fret when you wake in the night, thinking there is something wrong with you? Have you tried the after-lunch power nap? Thinking we can rewrite some of these post industrial sleep rules!

Peace,
Sarah

Invitation/Who is Sarah?

Thursday and Landmark Seminar tonight - the "Being Extraordinary" one that meets weekly for a few hours and challenges us to make unreasonable requests of ourselves and other people. Apparently, being unreasonable is a desirable thing! Too many of us are timid and don't expect enough out of life, ourselves and others. Tuesday a call from Jen one of my fellow students who is in the midst of the Leadership course. She made an unreasonable request of me (especially because it was the second request, having said no to Landmark before). She asked that I host an introductory Landmark event in my home and invite a dozen or so people. I knew it took courage for her to reach out to me and make this unreasonable request, knew she was passionately trying to make a difference (her opening comments were something like, "I'm taking this leadership course to help change the world"), so I pushed down my distaste for Landmark recruitment practices (they can be SOO pushy) and just said yes.

Date is Friday, October 26th at 7 PM. I'll cook something wonderful like gourmet pizzas and we will sit around and talk about what breakthroughs we hope for in our lives and the lives of the people we love. The goal of the evening is that some portion of the attendees will be inspired to take the next step and sign up for the education. If you're local, please come. It's really challenging - this whole being a human being thing - life just doesn't have to be so hard. Landmark is just one way of cutting through the detritus - enlightened, curious people have been struggling for time immemorial to understand their place in the universe, how to lead a worthy life, make a difference and live life powerfully and serenely. Religion seeks to answers these questions, the Buddhists certainly, the French philosophers, authors, poets, psychiatrists, and more. It's a discussion worth having. If you, as one of my leaders said, "ache to be authentic", suspect there is more to your existence than you've tapped into, feel stuck, want breakthroughs, then come and explore.

Yesterday, Kaveh.....cried. It's finally here, the big reveal - the end to our relationship, the good good-bye. I told him a couple of things. One time he mentioned that psychotherapists have a much higher rate of suicide than the general population - it must take a tremendous toll on some practitioners to absorb the pain of others, day in and day out. I made Kaveh promise that, if life turned bad for him and he ever considered being the agent of his own end, he would find me and I would save him. I would. Next was a request for one more good-bye at the end of our lives. Assuming I die first and that there is a window to say good-bye to loved ones, I want him at my bedside. I'll be there if he goes first. Finally, I told him that every year  I will send a Christmas package with eighteen presents in it. As the years go by, I can imagine the conversation as the box is opened. "Who is Sarah?" his kids might ask. "An old patient of mine..she was very special." "Do you still talk with her?" "No, but I think of her often."

I love that man. I owe him my life.

These days I'm thinking about how hard life is for the people around me. I want to make a difference in peoples' lives but in a different way than I have in the past. Back then Sarah could be counted to throw a few bucks at any problem or in the case of my youngest, a lot of bucks. I couldn't really offer my heart (it was under lock and key), I had no time to give (busy building my business) but I could offer some problem solving in the form of dollars. These days the money doesn't flow like it used to, I have more time and my heart beats unarmored in my chest. Trying to learn new ways. Listening, appreciating, just being with people, volunteering time, being present in their lives.

And much of the time Sarah=hypocrite. I write pretty words to live by and then too often my guns are still ablazing (like with the James thing or more recently youngest daughter who called me up for motherly love and I washed my hands of her). Time to put the Landmark training to use and be extraordinary even though some days extraordinary just sucks. 

Recently Carol and I talked about her husband George's brother who has harbored resentments against George and his mother since childhood. It's a war story. A family broken apart by the Communists - they were Hungarian nobility (or close to it) owning one of the largest companies in the country. The Communists moved in, appropriated the business (or "stole" as Carol says) and the family had to flee with their lives. The father and one brother made their way to California and the mother and the youngest boy fled the country with bullets whizzing over their heads (seriously) and made their way to the UP of Michigan. They were never reunited. The father has long since died. George and his mother are here in Chicago with the younger brother feeling estranged, still in California.

When we talked, Carol was at a loss as to how to heal the rift between the brothers and their mother. So much of the resentment is old and misguided. She asked me to explain, in the words of Landmark, what you do when a racket is being run on you (rackets are persistent complaints tied to stories of the past that are perpetuated). Do you just go about your life and ignore the racket? I'm a novice at this so I wasn't sure how to respond - had to dig deep for what I hoped was the right answer. What I ended up saying is, we are NOT separate from each other. If George's brother is NOT OK, then George and his mother are NOT OK. There is a family fabric with a hole in it that weakens everyone. And, even if the brother never does his own work to dig deeper for understanding and forgiveness, the possibility could be created by George in which he envisions a new healthier family dynamic.

Once that possibility has been declared and shared with the mother and brother, it is given life and a voice. Even if the other family members don't subscribe to the new possibility, George can keep his vision front and center in his own life and here's the important thing - act accordingly - align his behavior and interactions in line with his vision. What would that look like? Not fueling the fire when the insults and recriminations come, but returning hostility with love and compassion, planning wonderful family events and working to make meaningful connections happen (sending an airplane ticket, making a trip there), encouraging his mother to call and send loving gifts, making his brother an active part of a family Facebook page, celebrating his accomplishments (which he has a lot of). That kind of thing.

As I write this, my mind wanders to my youngest daughter. I SOOOO don't practice what I preach. I'm fresh out of ideas when it comes to her, so worn out, worn down with worry and disappointment. I just don't know what to do to make a meaningful difference in her life. Feels like I've tried everything. Feeling UN-extraordinary when it comes to her. I need to find a quiet corner, meditate on her, create a new possibility for her and us and then, regardless of how she conducts her life, align all my actions in line with my vision, not surrendering to the naysayer in my head.

Your challenge today?  Ha Ha!  Sending me an e-mail that you'll come on the 26th!!!  sbritton ( at ) brittoninfoservices.com.

Peace,

Sarah

Picture is of my youngest.

Evolutionary Learning/Rights for Robots

Wednesday, crazy busy day. Work projects, getting ready for my trip, a Landmark conference call, Kaveh at noon (our last phone chat before I go down there on November 5th for the big good-bye which has been in the works for a while), and more. Good to be busy! And writing group tonight which will be Liza's last (from now on she'll be in Urbana during the week). Should be interesting too in that James and I haven't spoken since his rude text (not sure how it's going to play out).

Last night Catherine and I at Hamlet - Writer's Theater in Glencoe. She loved it - I didn't. I found myself dozing off, escaping the long confusing speeches. I love Shakespeare - used to have season tickets at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, so not sure why I had such a hard time with this production. Either my Shakespeare language synapses in my head have atrophied or I was just too tired to handle the Middle English. And Hamlet - I found him annoying, slight and effeminate, whiny. He pranced around the stage, scowling most of the time, flinging scarves over his shoulder. Not a manly prince at all!

Feeling like a kid in a candy store this morning - so many fascinating articles to read in New Scientist and not enough time. Seriously! What's not compelling about titles like, Bionic Legs Could Soon Be Controlled by Thoughts, Handle the Truth: Navigation Knowledge in the Web Age, Can Castration Really Prolong a Man's Life?, New Killer Virus in the Middle East, Our Token Involvement in the Game of Life, and finally the one I just had to read, Mimicry Beats Conscious Gaming's Turing Test.

Last we checked in with the Turing test, we read the book called, The Most Human Human by Brian Christian. The Turing tests are events where robots and humans vie to be dubbed, "The Most Human Human". Based on scientist Alan Turing's work in the 1950's in which he asked the question, "Can Machines Think?", the test measures a machine's ability to exhibit human behavior. Until now humans have always won the Turing tests, barely scraping by in recent years as robots have become more and more sophisticated. Now, for the first time, the bots have won - in a recent test where bots played video games alongside humans, the judges incorrectly chose the bots as the human players.

And so interesting to understand what some of the big challenges the bots had to overcome! Leaving a room for instance - you don't even think about it, right? For a bot, maneuvering out of a room is a very tricky affair, and until now, the quality of their movements towards the door have been a dead giveaway to their machine-ness. To overcome this, the winning bot was programmed to study and mimic their human opponents behaviors, even though much of what we do must seem illogical to a robot.

His team recorded dozens of humans playing Unreal Tournament, spliced out the bits where the human released themselves from different geometries and then programmed the bot to deploy the human strategy used in a situation most similar to whatever it finds itself in. For other aspects of play, UT^2 deployed evolutionary learning, in which successful strategies were bred to produce offspring strategies that were even more human-like.

Article concluded that, now that the spatial reasoning barrier has been cracked, the next big breakthrough will have to be language.  

Still, Miikkulainen says that intelligence is made of up of components, at least one of which has now been solved. "In terms of spatial reasoning, it is possible to act human," he says. "Language is a much bigger problem, but it's nice to know that in this part of intelligence, we can do well."

The film critic Roger Ebert would put robots to a totally different kind of test. No robot has yet been able to pass the Ebert test which would measure a robot's ability to tickle our funny bones. His test would determine whether "a computer-based synthesized voice has sufficient skill in terms of intonations, inflections, timing and so forth, to make people laugh." (Wikipedia)

This topic is fun to read and think about. Fascinating, right? These tests - academic fun but not really affecting our lives in any appreciable way. But I think that's going to change in the not too distant future. We seem to be on a trajectory where the barriers between humans and machines are going to continue to be challenged and breached. I predict this topic will become very heated with people facing off - the naturals versus the transhumanists (cyborg-wannabees). 

Challenge today is thinking about this. We saw last week that the first Transhumanist politician has been "appointed" There are ethics boards springing up, attempting to apply human rules and values to the emerging science. There are even people concerned with robot rights - seriously! Some folks feel like robots could become an exploited underclass and as such their rights need to be protected (robots sharing our "inalienable right to the per-foot of happiness?)

Someday robots will be in our houses as playmates for children, servants for adults.  They may become sex surrogates.  They will be in the courts as judges. They will be in hospitals as caretakers.  They will proform dangerous military and space tasks for us.  They will clean pollution, save us from numerous hazards.  The child who loses her robot because of malfunction will when she grown up always remember her robot.  She may, at the insistence of her parents, relegate robots as persons of the world of fairies, goblins and ghosts, the unreal and the impossible. Or she may decide that her robot like her family, friends and pets is part of her, is part of life itself. 

We believe that robots will one day have rights.  This will undoubtedly be a historically significant event.  Such an extension of rights obviously presupposes a future that will be fundamentally different from the present.  The expansion of rights to robots may promote a new appreciation of the interrelated rights and responsibilities of humans, machines and nature. (The Rights of Robots: Technology, Culture and Law in the 21st Century by Phil McNally and Sohail Inayatullah.)

I'm sure too there are corporations whose fortunes are being hitched to the star of transhumanism.  Robot soldiers, robot teachers, robot doctors - far fetched, right?  Nope, they're already here. Are we OK with that?

Peace,
Sarah

C'mon Baby, Exploit my Ancient Neurobiological Circuits!

Monday night. Just got in from Petterino's - went with new friend Adrian and a friend of hers. I sang well - My Romance, a great tune. High octane day - got a ton done, good juggling between work and personal action items.

So the dating thing...arg. A few noteworthy conversations:

• chatted (IM) at length with a really nice fellow, attractive, successful, interesting. We hit it off, and then....he told me what he was looking for - a woman with nice feet and hands. Sweet, right? NOT! He has a foot fetish! I didn't dismiss him out of hand, thought to myself, well, maybe I could indulge that requirement - I do, after all, get pedicures every three weeks and I always get a pretty little flower on each of my big toes that no one really sees or admires. Maybe my feet crave attention! See the depths I'm stooping to?! I'm actually considering foot fetish guy - hey I'm the one with a thing for Santa which someone else might think is weird!! :)
• Another guy got so excited about my profile that he wrote me a "book" and got so swept away that he had songs picked out for us to sing as duets (this was his first message! If we were younger he might have had names picked out for our kids!) He described himself as normally shy but there was something about me. Didn't post a picture and was coy when I asked him about it - either means he's unattractive or married, right? So, tucked into that tome of a response, were comments that raised flags for me: nostalgia about the past, the old price of gas, saying he wanted to sing but was loathe to just go out and do it, waxing poetic about the days he used to play guitar (hadn't picked it up in years). My response was cruel - told him I wasn't interested in a guy living in the past, told him I didn't want to be anyone's pilot light. OK, I was really, really mean to the point that, when Josh read my response, he shrieked, "You're a bitch!" I couldn't disagree. Why, oh why did I feel the need to decimate that poor, sweet, shy man. I wrote back and apologized. He confessed it had taken him a lot to reach out to me. In his words,
• PS--Any guy who sees what a diamond you are and has the courage to strike up a conversation--online or otherwise--is reaching for the brass ring. Gold? Well, maybe silver after that horrible personality shakedown you gave me... 
• Josh is winning. He just texted me that it looks like he has a date. Grrrrr.....I absolutely hate losing.

Just read an interesting article in New Scientist entitled, What is This Thing Called Love: Mere Chemical Trickery. I knew it! I'm a drug addict! Patrick is meth. Here's an excerpt:

Young, who is arguably one of most prolific researchers in the social neuroscience field, plants his flag firmly: he argues that love is truly an addiction and one to which none of us are immune. He takes a reductionist approach, focusing on molecules like dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin, and examining how these chemicals exploit ancient neurobiological circuits. 

Some may feel uncomfortable when Young and Alexander claim that sex tricks women into "babysitting" the men they love - nurturing them as they would their own infants, thanks to the goodly amounts of oxytocin released during the sex act by men hitting the cervix with their large penises and playing with their breasts. Sceptics probably won't feel much better when Young and Alexander postulate that vasopressin helps men see their female partners as simply extensions of their territory.

Now, that I know that, I can beat this thing just like I did the alcohol thing. It's hard to give up an addiction, but not impossible - just requires a huge burst of willpower and then some sticktoitiveness. Eventually there is smooth sailing with even the stickiest of habits. Really! Remember that book, Willpower? There are exercises you can do to increase your willpower muscle. 

Your challenge today is causing me to think hard - what the heck can you take away from Sarah's dating sharing/angst today? I guess it's giving thought to being in love as just a drug - nothing more. If you are married and looking askance at your spouse, wishing for romance, think again. You're really just wishing for your brain to be drugged with feel-good neurotransmitters. Probably less destabilizing for you and your spouse to get high together. Being in love is a bitch.

Peace,

Sarah

Swim I Must/Unstoppable Josh

Monday morning. This week I travel to Boston on Friday for a week with my mother and sister. Also going down to Plymouth (the town I grew up in) to visit dear friend, Rose for the weekend. Hard to be away from my life here for week (I feel the tug already) but it's needed, this trip.

Friday, as hoped for, a rocking good time at Schallers' - the staff and patrons are, I think, amazed when we descend on them en masse with singing that's good enough to be in a show. I enjoyed my new favorite drink, sparkling water with a splash of cranberry, glad to be there, among fun new friends. Christ accompanied me on three songs (guitar) and we sounded great together.

Saturday and Sunday were days to be endured. No plans for Saturday and I thought to hang out with James (Liza was en route to Baltimore for Henry's third appointment) but 'twas not to be. Hmmmm...what to say here. There was a flurry of texts between he, Liza and me as I tried to get the lowdown on whether James would be babysitting for her or whether he would be free to hang with me. She and I communicated - he felt like I was doing an end run around him and that made him crabby. I was just determined NOT to spend yet another Saturday night alone, sad, missing Patrick which is what happens when I have downtime.  Like a shark, I have to keep swimming, swimming, always swimming. Should I stop swimming, I'll sink to the bottom. So I get out almost every single night, schedule up most every minute. When, despite my best laid plans, I find myself at home alone, too often I sink right to the bottom. So, swim I must.

Anyway, I get that James might have been offput with my zeal to nail down my plans (his plans) but what happened next just punched me in the gut. A really offensive text from him - the kind of text written by someone who really doesn't like you very much, even though they do a good imitation of it. Not the kind of communication sent to someone whose feelings you care about. My response to his harshness?- well of course you already know my M.O. if you read this blog. I am, after all, The Queen of Hearts. "Off with his head - the peasant!" What I wrote, "You can't be serious. Have a good life." And that is where we are. Me wondering if I even want him in my life much with Liza mostly out of the picture. Not loving the idea of being a two musketeer. Questioning his place in my life. Time will tell - one thing that's constant in life - change.

Sunday, grrrrr... tickets to see a play at the Porchlight Theater - supposed to meet Carol there at 2pm for a matinee performance of A Class Act.  Only problem was that NO WHERE on the website for the Porchlight  Theater does it give the address of the theater in which they perform! All over their website is their corporate address which is way west on Diversey. Plugged that address into my Garmin, got there in due time only to determine, when I saw no cars, that they must have two addresses. Dug further, found a tiny reference to a Belmont address and got there 15 minutes late, hoping Carol would have figured out something was wrong and gone into the show (she doesn't have a cell - so couldn't communicate with her). Seething at this point, then apoplectic when they told me they wouldn't seat me because I was late. Murderous at that point. Went home and sulked. Then an evening with Josh at his new apartment - had a wonderful time - he helped me salvage the day.

And it's Josh I want to talk about today. Wow! He is an inspiration and I'm proud of my role in helping him get where he now finds himself - a place of optimism and hope with a solid foundation on which to build. It was just two months ago when his world fell apart, relationship going up in flames, business failing, ruin everywhere. His well meaning family counseled him to move in with them, live in the basement, go on public assistance if necessary, find a little job in the country where they live. Instead Josh grabbed the brass ring, pushed down his fears and just DID IT - made a new awesome life for himself despite the terror of it all. Friends, including me, gave him daily pep talks - he and I would compare notes at the beginning of the day as to when we would arise, what we would eat for breakfast, what out daily agenda would be. Then, at the end of the day, we would circle back and review the day, encouraging, making course corrections, boosting and patching each other up so that we could intrepidly face another day. Yesterday evening, we sat in his gorgeous apartment. We coffee klatched as he unpacked boxes. We talked about his fabulous new job and compared notes on our pathetic dating attempts, laughing, knowing we would figure that out too, eventually.

Your challenge today could be gaining inspiration from what Josh accomplished in such a small amount of time once he set his fears to the side and just dove in. He silenced the naysayers in his head, listened to the people who told him he had what it takes and then just did it. He went from hopeless hand wringing to being a person with an amazing future - all in two months. And success begets success. The first steps were the hardest for him - had to create some positive inertia. Now, the wind is at his back and he is absolutely unstoppable. I can't wait to see what's next for him. I'm very proud of him.

Peace,
Sarah

Good Liar/Dating Game

'Tis Friday! Tonight a huge crowd at Schaller's. It will, I'm sure, be a high energy night with lots of laughter and great singing! We will blow the roof off that little bar! Going to bring out a new medley tonight - two songs that go so well together: Shining Hour/I'll Be Seeing You. Anne Hampton Callaway performs these two songs together - copying her. Rest of the weekend, the same old fare - again no date for Saturday which is JUST not right! This whole being single thing is frustrating. The online dating thing should be the ticket to meet new people but for some reason, it just isn't. It's like everyone on that site has dating paralysis - they go through the motions every day to check out a few new people, leave a message or two, maybe even chat, but it all seems like a chore.

Yesterday I chatted with a gent who was a "very attracted" to me but he confessed he was probably not what I was looking for (think my profile may be daunting). I reviewed his answers to the myriad of questions that are available for you to answer and provide more insight. Right away I discerned he was a pot smoker, in sales and hating it, and most troubling were his answers to questions designed to illuminate his character. To the question, "Are you a good liar," he answered, "yes". "If you could get away with it would you sleep with your significant other's best friend?" Yes again. Stuff like that. When I told him his answers were a blazing red flag to me, his response was, "I am a good liar. I'm in sales. It goes with the territory."  Seriously!!! I'm in sales and I consider it an honorable profession. Lying to your clients!!??  No way. Lying period - to anyone - nope. It's no way to live.

Josh and Shay think I'm setting my sights too high - holding out for someone extraordinary (like my last boyfriend). I can't imagine I would ever be happy with someone who didn't measure up to him - I would always be wistful that I had settled. And yet, lonely in my ivory tower over here. Second rate guys buzz around me, want me, and I choose to be alone.

Josh and I concocted a plan - we're both stuck in dating inertia and know we just have to get out there. We have a series of dating bets, kind of like Project Runway where each week there is a new and ever more bizarre challenge. Here's what we've come up with so far. First challenge - go on a date that culminates in a romantic kiss and a promise of a second date. It's sudden death - whoever gets the date first wins, with the loser having to buy the other an expensive dinner. Second challenge - go on a date with someone 15 years your junior or senior. Third challenge - go on a date with someone of the opposite sex you normally date (that means a woman for me and a woman for Josh since he's gay). Fourth challenge - invite a total stranger/date to a double date where we four will carve pumpkins.

Last night blew off Landmark "Being Extraordinary" seminar - I was not extraordinary and need to own up to that. These days I'm working the "good to my word integrity" thing really hard. Punctuality is an area where I'm learning to excel. As such, I allowed for an hour plus of travel time for what is a 35 minute ride with no traffic. Construction on Lake Shore Drive meant I didn't get into the city until 7:10 (10 minutes late) and once in the city, my Garmin got dyslexic. "Take a right here. No take a left. Make an immediate u-turn". She seriously has serious issues around skyscrapers or something. Infuriated to be lost in a town I know well (the meeting was offsite), not able to see the street signs because they are all but unreadable at night, late and out of integrity with my group - and when you walk in late to a Landmark session, there are disapproving glances all over the place. So, I just said, "Fuck it," and went home. Two plus hours in the car for nothing.

To salvage the evening, Josh, Shay and I went to a male gay bar owned by a friend of mine - Big Chicks in Uptown. I'd never been there and always promised her I'd check it out. Josh is determined to get a date and win the bet. I was the only woman in the place and it was so strange to be with so many men, knowing that not a one was attracted to me. They barely noticed me. Josh struck out; Shay slept in the car the whole time; we went home to bed feeling out of step with the social scene.

Today, no lofty thoughts - just putting one foot in front of the other, trying to wrap the week up in an honest productive way. For today's challenge you might want to give thought to the whole "Being Extraordinary" thing. I'm going to have to get the assignment for this week which will build on homework from previous weeks. The muscles we're trying to build so far are:

• Integrity - being a person whose word is gold. If you stagger home after a horrible day, collapse on the couch and your cat reminds you that you promised her you'd get cat food on the way home from work, you'd better get your ass off the coach and get the cat food. And it's not just the promises to others. If you make a commitment to yourself, being a person of integrity is keeping that word too. Two days ago, I made a commitment to myself to NOT go to Patrick's Facebook page anymore - so far so good. I plan to keep that promise to myself.
• Giving up being right, even when you know you are. Try this, it's really hard but wow, practicing this opens up whole new ways of communicating with people.
• Give up the feeling that "something is wrong here". This one is tricky. When you're in a situation that feels wrong, or you're just having a misfiring day, it's easy to become dour and unproductive and negative. Better to say, "Hmmm....this is unexpected....what to do."
• Live powerfully through communication without the use of force. This is what Christ practiced the other day in the breakthrough conversation he had with his son (talking about my friend Christ, not the guy on the cross) - listening in a different way, having each conversation be an invitation to greater intimacy.

Have a great day, beloved readers.

Peace,

Sarah

Be a Chia Pet/Let me Feed You Soup

Thursday - Fallish - feeling like a squirrel readying. Furnace man came yesterday to service the three furnaces (mine plus the two apartments), wood man came the day before and stacked a half cord of wood in the wood crib. Snowblower was serviced and is at the ready. Still on the list, puttying the windows, putting the gardens to bed, winter clothes brought to the front of the closet, boots polished, hats and gloves accounted for. Oh! And I have to flood my cranberry bog and clean out my quail shed. The pumpkin patch will have to be mowed over. The little sweaters I'm knitting for my denuded angora rabbits (ironically made from yarn spun from their own fur) are almost done! My windmill needs winterizing and the lavender harvested and braided into wands. Oh, wait - that's Martha's list, not mine. She and I had lunch the other day - she must have left it behind! Phew!

Last night Sarah actually stayed home! Don't do that too much these days! Was peaceful. My men drifted in from doing battle and on the stove was a big pot of kale potato chorizo soup that I made during the day. It's a great Mediterranean recipe that I've altered to be healthier (the chorizo is from Whole Foods - Amy's Chicken Chorizo with almost no fat). Kale can be hard to love, especially eaten raw but it's so good for you - good cooked in a soup. A dash of Sriracha Thai chile sauce added just a bit of spice. When Elizabeth came to pick up Mr. Joe she was thrilled by the soup. So that's it - the way I'll care for those I love. Soup all winter, all types, all delicious, filling the house with wonderfullness - a pot always on the stove - my house a soup haven - soup for all, even the UPS man.

Josh is high on Chia seeds, he is a Chia seed evangelist. He made me pick up a bag of it from Whole Foods and he quickly set to making himself the most disgusting looking, tapioca-ish, gelatinous, green slimy-looking drink that he made me try. Just looking at it made me want to gag. And when he drinks this Chia drink, it's really a combination of drinking and chewing, weird to watch. He touts an incredible list of health benefits from eating Chia. Amazing really.  Here's what I just Googled as the top ten reasons to make it a part of your diet:

1. Lose weight without feeling hungry.
2. Balance blood sugar for health and energy
3. Keep digestion regular
4. Have good heart and cholesterol health
5. Chia contains a natural source of complete protein
6. It's easy to prepare foods with Chia
7. Chia adds age-defying anti-oxidants
8. Chia cuts food cravings
9. Major source of fiber and Omega-3
10. Chia is a healthy food that saves you money

The good news is that you can also eat the seeds raw and they have no taste, kind of like sprinkling poppy seeds on your food. This morning I sprinkled my oatmeal with a teaspoon of the stuff. It was benign and didn't affect the taste or texture at all. Now, as I write this, my stomach feels like I just had an eggs, bacon, and hash brown breakfast - feeling almost overfull and I only had 1/2 c. of oatmeal with a few berries sprinkled on top. Thinking Chia just might be the thing that kick starts my weight loss again! If I can cut portions further, using Chia, to trick my body into feeling full, and never be hungry, wow!

Here's another thing. Just read an interesting article in the NYT yesterday entitled, For Weight Loss, Less Exercise may be More.  First part of the article describes experiments on a cross section of young men in Denmark, fellows who were heavy but not obese, with no health issues. The men were assigned to three groups: one group made no changes to their sedentary life and ate as they normally would, the second group undertook 30 minutes of exercise a day, designed to burn about 300 calories - they also made no changes to their diet. The third group were assigned to a strenuous hour-long routine, burning on average 600 calories.

The very surprising result at the end of thirteen weeks was that the group that fared the best was the group whose exercise was limited to 30 minutes. At this point I had to read further - this is so counterintuitive!!! When researchers dug further and examined the food journals of the men (who had been told not to alter their eating), they discovered the heavy exercisers had actually increased their consumption - apparently their routines caused them to seek out more calories. It was also noted that the men who exercised more were less active when not exercising.  Here's an excerpt:

The men exercising half as much, however, seemed to grow energized and inspired. Their motion sensors show that, compared with the men in the other two groups, they were active in the time apart from exercise. “It looks like they were taking the stairs now, not the elevators, and just moving around more,” Mr. Rosenkilde says. “It was little things, but they add up.” 

The overall message, he says, is that the shorter exercise sessions seem to have allowed the men “to burn calories without wanting to replace them so much.” The hourlong sessions were more draining and prompted a stronger and largely unconscious desire to replenish the lost energy stores.

This is something to digest! Recently I purchased a monitor from Weight Watchers that was developed in partnership with Phillips. It's called ActiveLink and I've been wearing it clipped to my bra (it's tiny). The concept is to measure all your activity in a day (not just steps like a pedometer does). The device can detect all movement made by your body core (can't measure things like bicep curls). The idea, just as described in the article above, is that it's overall activity that counts most - not just the 30-60 minutes spent in the gym. There are choices we make, continually throughout the day, that translate into a sedentary or active lifestyle. Seems many of us kid ourselves that we are more active than we really are, just because we hit the treadmill for a few minutes a day.

Challenge today is running (not walking) to Whole Foods to buy a bag of Chia seeds - the miracle substance that will apparently change our lives dramatically and sprinkling it everywhere. I personally am waiting for the day when I will look like a walking topiary, a human, living Chia pet! Challenge is also reading the exercise article and enjoying the fact that you can maximize your health benefit without having to train for a triatholon. Apparently thirty minutes of honest exercise and active choices made during the day are the ticket!

Peace,
Sarah

Gang Target?/Could the Problem be Us?

Wednesday and adrift a bit - need tethering. Will write this blog and then work the list with the ever present, uppermost goal, organization and mastery of the niggling things that insist having a place on my plate. This morning, a knock at my door - the police - an officer noticed that, written in the dew on my car window was a gang sign from a new Evanston gang - one to be taken seriously, there was a lethal shooting last week between this gang and another. He wanted to know if I was being targeted, did I know anything about the gang that calls itself D-Block, a spin off of the Latin Disciples? Hmmm...something new to worry about!

Last night I was newly inspired at Landmark when I attended Christ's final evening. His leader was spot on with an amazing rapport with the attendees she had recently spent three full days with. And Christ? He was "all in", energized, newly excited about life's possibilities, amazed that it took a weekend like that to create breakthroughs in his life. He got up and talked about having a conversation with his son that would have never been possible but for the recent weekend. He and the son have never communicated that way before. I could tell he was well loved at the seminar, his fellow students seeking him out, hugs exchanged. Some of the pretty girls snuck glances at me, wondering if I was his girlfriend, probably wondering if I was worthy of him! He's an impressive guy and from the sounds of it about to land a new job that sounds wonderful. Don't want to jinx it but hopefully, yay.

Lately what's niggling me (that word just surfaced today and I've used it twice already in this blog!) is an uncomfortable observation that it's easier and more fun to embrace the new, be new with new people, find new sources of inspiration, be out in the world beating the bushes for things to care about - all the time, feeling enervated about the people who already occupy a place in our lives, with whom the honeymoon period has long since come and gone.

Kaveh would say that's the time things start getting real and interesting, when the arc of a relationship has crested the top and the newness has given way to familiarity with few illusions. My kids for example. We occupy each others' lives but without the enthusiasm that we reserve for others. What's up with that? Does this strike a chord with you? I've often heard folks say, if the people in their lives weren't related to them, they never would have chosen them as friends - and yet they're stuck with them and struggle to find common ground. Today I'm wondering if that's a cop out - if the real problem doesn't lie in the discomfort of really being seen without the veneers.

Newbies think we're amazing, extraordinary, delightful, funny, talented, inspirational (fill in any wonderful adjective here) and that kind of reflection is something to seek out and crave. Our own family? Not so much. They may love us, need us, but they harbor few illusions about us and as such, what's reflected back is often not so gratifying -bordering on scary if you don't really like much about yourself. Can't hide the real you from family and close friends. Is it "familiarity breeds contempt?" Or maybe that's too harsh. Thinking it's "familiarity breeds discomfort".

I'm thinking it's a huge lost opportunity to not get to the other side of this equation - to "familiarity breeds authenticity". The arc of a relationship; first glitter and veneer. Then scary sharing, we dare to show someone we are learning to love our dark sides. The relationship grows and adjusts - masks are set aside. But then, invariably, disappointment when character flaws and fault lines are uncovered - our loved one is not so great after all. Relationship ennui and fatigue sift over us like ashes from Pompeii, stunting growth and possibilities. Detente - each person tiptoeing around the other - so much unsaid. Polarization.

I often think of the play, Huis Clos by Jean Paul Sartre. I read it in French in high school. Here's an plot synopsis that describes it:

Inès, however, demands that they all stop lying to themselves and confess to their crimes. She refuses to believe that they all ended up in the room by accident and soon realizes that they have been placed together to make each other miserable. Garcin suggests that they try to leave each other alone, but Inès starts to sing about an execution and Estelle wants to find a mirror. Inès tries to seduce Estelle by offering to be her "mirror" and tell her everything she sees, but ends up frightening her instead. 

After arguing they decide to confess to their crimes so they know what to expect from each other. Garcin cheated and mistreated his wife; Inès seduced her cousin's wife while living with them; and Estelle had an affair and then killed the resulting child. Despite their revelations they continue to get on each other's nerves. Garcin finally gives in to Estelle's attempts to seduce him, which drives Inès crazy. Garcin begs Estelle to tell him he is not a coward for attempting to flee his country during wartime. While she complies, Inès tells him that Estelle is just agreeing with him so she can be with a man. This causes Garcin to attempt an escape. After trying to open the door repeatedly, it suddenly opens wildly, but he is unable to leave. He says that he will not be saved until Inès has faith in him. She refuses, saying it's obvious he's a coward, and promising to make him miserable forever. 

Estelle, infuriated by her treatment of Garcin, tries to kill Inès, stabbing her repeatedly. As they are all already dead, this attack does nothing - bemused, Inès even stabs herself. Shocked at the absurdity of his fate, Garcin concludes, "hell is other people" - not torture devices or physical punishment, but the torment of those he can't escape. The play ends with the three joining in prolonged laughter before resigning themselves to spending the rest of eternity together.

Today I'm challenging myself to evaluate my oldest relationships, spend some time thinking about what it is I love about the people in my life, honoring their strengths, focusing on what it is that makes them great. I'm visualizing holding two orbs in my hands: one with my loved one's strengths and the things I love - the other, their flaws and the attributes that trouble me. These shimmering orbs in my hands (and mind) will start out the same size (or maybe the troubled one will weigh that hand down). As I meditate on the hero qualities in each of the people I love, I will visualize that orb growing larger and the orb of disappointment and disillusionment shrinking. 

Bottom line, I need to take these relationships home...they are the ones that matter most. Hell doesn't have to  be the people you share the "room" with. Wouldn't it be wonderful to feel safe enough to stand naked in front of the people you love the most, all your weapons left at the door, open, vulnerable, real and loving - agreeing that life is damn hard, agreeing that you're all full of shit much of the time? Laughing about it? Your challenge today is giving thought to this. List the people in your life who energize you. Then list the people who enervate you. Are the energizers new acquaintances who are enamored of the enameled you? Are the enervators the people you love the most? Could the problem be us?

Peace,
Sarah

GTGCCAGCAGCCGCGGTAATTCCAGCTCCAATAGCGTATATTAAAGTTGCTGCAGTTAAAAAG

Tuesday and the temperature has dropped below 50!  Fall is here which is wonderful - invigorating - I get to wear boots and sweatery layers and see my breath! Last night - Petterino's and had a blast - sat with Janet and Curt and new friend Adrian who is lots of fun - met her while doing the Welfare Sewing at the Women's Club. She's an older gal - her kids call her eccentric - I call her cool. Loved hearing about her careers, children, loves, interests. She was a professional dancer/performer and had her own TV show! She loved the music last night and we all about lost it over the performance by the lead actor in a new play, A Class Act.  I yawned in boredom as he started what was sure to be a saccharine song about his twin brother that he supposedly wrote when they were eight. Quickly though, the performance deteriorated into a song of abject loathing for the hated twin, complete with lyrics about how their parents hated the boy, how they were plotting his death and how happy the family would be when he was gone. What made it incredibly effective and believable was how he wrote it deliberately sloppily with too many words ill-placed with the melody - just like a kid would compose. It was staggeringly funny and I worship him for having composed and performed such a gem. If I could laugh that hard and well each and every day of my life, I would need little else!!!

Tonight, going to Landmark - final evening of Christ's basic course. Yes, he was so inspired by my experience that he signed up for it. I was, of course, a bit nervous because you tout something as wonderful and then cross your fingers and hope that the people you take on the journey with you get as much from it as you did. He is amazed and grateful - changed and empowered to live a life he can love. Comes at a perfect time for him to feel large and powerful - his job at the casino was eliminated so now he finds himself pounding pavement, looking for a new position. I'm only a bit worried for him because he is credible, accomplished, engaging and inspiring. To be in his presence is to feel good. Someone will scoop him up - just wait and see!

Today, day starting too slowly even though I awoke at 5AM. Time with my men, Shay and Josh, talking about their day's agenda - nice that we three are morning people and love an early chat avec coffee - it's the absolute best time of the day, in my opinion. Now I'm here in my office with another monster list, wishing this blog would have written itself today - I feel a commitment to you to write faithfully and well - each and every workday.

Blown away by two articles I read this morning in New Scientist..  The first: Meet the World's First Transhumanist Politician, and the second, A Brief History of the Human Genome.  We've talked about cyborgs before - I've even joked that we should outsource the left side of our brain to computers - they do a much more efficient job at processing information than our own gray cells. It's the right side where our humanity lies. But really, terrifying, right? -the boundaries between humans and machines blurred in an effort to create a race that is immune from the vagaries of nature.  Here are a few quotes from the first article that grabbed me:

Transhumanism is a philosophical doctrine that aims to continuously improve humanity..aims to free humanity from its biological limitations, overcoming natural evolution to make us more than human.

Being less human is not necessarily a negative thing, because it could mean we are less subject to the whims of nature...we want to retain the positive aspects of nature and reduce the negative ones. 

We are already taking steps in becoming cyborgs...look at Oscar Pistorius (the sprinter with prosthetic limbs who beats natural runners).

Then, from the second article an incredibly humbling discourse on our origins. Did you know there are DNA sequences in your body that have been passed down to you from your "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) - who first made "his" appearance 3 billion years ago!?  That sequence which can be found in every single living organism is:

GTGCCAGCAGCCGCGGTAATTCCAGCTCCAATAGCGTATATTAAAGTTGCTGCAGTTAAAAAG.


According to the article, "our genomes, then, are not just recipes for making people. They are living historical records. And because our genomes are so vast, consisting of more than 6 billion letters of DNA - enough to make a pile of books tens of metres high - they record our past in extraordinary detail. They allow us to trace our evolution from the dawn of life right up the present."


We are cracking the code - mysteries are being solved!  This LUCA (our ancestor to some billionth mathematical power) "wasn't a discrete, membrane-bound cell at all but rather a mixture of virus-like elements replicating inside some non-living compartment such as the pores of alkaline hydrothermal vents."  

So, why so interested and why did I make a connection between the two articles? Take the time to read the genome article and you'll be stunned that a) they figured out this shit and b) how we got to where we are today was absolutely random and bloody. If you're thinking like I am, you will laugh at the silly attempts of people, like the transhumanists, to prevail over nature. Ain't going to happen. They would have us think it's possible to tame nature so we could enjoy a beautiful sunset but avoid nature's corrections like the black plague, or pandemic flues.  

Our genome is far from a perfectly honed, finished product. Rather, it has been crudely patched together from the detritus of genetic accidents and the remains of ancient parasites. It is the product of the kind of crazy, uncontrolled experimentation that would be rejected out of hand by any ethics board. And this process continues to this day - go to any hospital and you'll probably find children dying of horrible genetic diseases. But not as many are dying as would have happened in the past. Thanks to methods such as embryo screening, we are starting to take control of the evolution of the human genome. A new era is dawning.

I get the hopeful thought of that quote - that we now possess the knowledge to improve the human race and take control of human evolution through better breeding and culling and, maybe there will be a subset of humans who actually take this path and work to create a super-race, harnessing the power of evolution and technology. But, my guess is, if we can't even figure out as a race how to address climate change, what's the likelihood  we will prevail over nature and our ever evolving DNA?  

Peace,
Sarah

PS.  Oh, right - challenge.  Simple. Read and be knowledgeable.

Extraordinary/Failing

Sunday, mid-day, writing the blog early so I can hit the ground running tomorrow morning. Friday at Schaller's was a ghost town - got there to only three or four cars in the parking lot, walked into the bar and sure enough besides Bobby, the pianist and his student/friend Marion who also sings, there was almost no one else. That on the heels of Friday being a self-care wobbly day pushed me over the edge and I ended up having a self-pitying, unauthorized (Friday was NOT a Federal holiday!) martini. One thing I promised you here - honesty. 'Twould be lovely to never have to report anyting other than fabulous success in all my endeavors, Sarah=unfailing inspiration. Truth is, it's really hard to be a human being some days, hard to muster enthusiasm for Living Well, hard to be true to a path. Impossible to be consistently extraordinary.

Extraordinary. It's the word that pulses through my life these days. Started with the Landmark Basic course, the word reintroduced in the Advanced class, and now the weekly seminar entitled, you guessed, it, "Being Extraordinary." Carol, George and I talked about it the other night - what is means to be extraordinary. Gabor=sweet because he said, "You are absolutely extraordinary already. Why do you need to take a course in extraordinary?" I assured him that, when asked to make a list of all the areas of my life where I was not only, NOT extraordinary, even just plain pathetic, the list was very long!!!

So Saturday, woke up after having disappointed myself with broken contracts (lousy eating the days before and the martini). Thought to myself, "How can I get through this weekend?" Pathetic, right? - to start the weekend with the though of just surviving it?  Then, "Hell no....I am going to figure out how to have an extraordinary day even though I'm feeling unextraordinary." I knew the day would have to be active, rich with people and good conversation, productive and accountable for it to be extraordinary.

First stop, Weight Watchers. Didn't go for the previous two Saturdays and I knew the scale would reflect back to me, my lack of commitment. But go I would with the thought that I would be my own hero and do the right thing. Sure enough, bad news. Over three weeks of hit or miss compliance I gained 3+ pounds.  Bad right?  But good to look that fact square in the face and make a plan. This is my plan. "Sarah, stop being a smarty pants and thinking you can put your own spin on everything, tinker with  rules, make side deals. Surrender to the plan the way it's designed. Be humble, be committed, dig deeper - get back to basics. WW is a great plan, it works if you give it a chance. No excuses, no tinkering."  What's more, I made myself a solemn vow and I'm reiterating it here before you for further accountability.  Between now and the end of the year, I commit to going to WW every single Saturday regardless of how the week has gone. Even if I have a wretched stretch and watch the scale climb, I will go and face that scale each and every week. It's what I need." Accountability.

Rest of the day was full and rich - picked James up and we strolled the Farmer's Market together, then lunch. Cleaning, errands, nap, reading and then a play at The Raven Theater with Catherine. Tonight singing at 12 West Elm - hanging with Josh.

Another thing to be honest about...Patrick. He is still a palpable presence in my life even though there is almost no communication. I keep up with him on his Facebook and he, in turn, reads this blog (at least I believe he still does). Yesterday, a heart-stopping moment when a cryptic post  made me think something terrible had befallen either him or someone in his family - he thanked friends who came to his aid without being explicit for the reason. I quickly messaged him with fear and concern - turns out all is fine. My feelings which flared so quickly made me realize just how important he still is to me, regardless of the loss of the relationship. Sometimes I think I'm love retarded, a weirdo to still care so much, unlike other people who would have let go after sixteen months. Friends don't understand me. I don't understand me. The only one who does, apparently, is Kaveh. Goes something like this:

S:  Kaveh, what's wrong with me?

K: There is nothing wrong with you, Sarah - you're in love.

S.  But it's been almost a year and a half - normal people move on by now.

K:  Not necessarily.

S.  I've tried everything to forget him...I'm doing everything right. I am living a full and productive life, loving friends and family, throwing myself headfirst into new projects, making other peoples' needs my priority - trying to  live in a worthy and unselfish way. I'm out most every night of the week. My house is filled with love and laughter and yet, every day, I mourn the loss of him.

K: Grief can't be denied. You are grieving still. It's a terrible thing to not be with the one you love.

S: Will it get better in time?

K:  I think so.

Honesty. My silence may have led you to believe I've healed. No, but I'm getting really good at Living Well with a hole in my heart.

Just finished The Paris Wife - a book about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley. Such love they had but it ended when her best friend set sights on Ernest and he traded in the old for the new. He left Hadley even though he still loved her fiercely and, at the end of his life, it was the loss of her he regretted the most. A quote that brought tears this morning.  He wrote to her as he left:

You've changed me more than you know, and will always be a part of everything I am. That's one thing I've learned from this. No one you love is ever truly lost.

Challenge today may be complete - slogging through the self-expository, self indulgent drivel I just wrote. I meant to write about being extraordinary, not about failures (failure to move on from a broken relationship, self-care, etc). And yet failure is what this post ended up being about. If there is any gem of wisdom here that can provide inspiration to the day it's that we fail constantly, day in and day out. We disappoint ourselves constantly. From Michael Jordan:

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Thought: maybe being extraordinary and failing aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe extraordinary people have figured out how to stay in the game and on the court knowing they will fail often.

Peace,
Sarah

Carol The Connector/Stay The Course

Friday again! Yesterday, great day in a bunch of ways. Loved spending the day at the Women's Club (my club!) in that venerable gorgeous building - ancestral really - one large room was set up with a dozen ancient sewing machines that have been lovingly maintained through the decades by previous Welfare Sewing members. These are the most basic of machines - just straight stitching, can't even reverse - the earliest electric models. And I don't think it's just romantic me who feels the presence of the women before who sat at these same machines and sewed for charity while chatting amiably about their lives. I love being part of that continuum - it's my turn now, and after I'm gone, the sewing will continue, maybe even on the same machines.

I dove right in and made prototypes for the breast forms - three different sizes. The organizer will take these samples to the American Cancer Society for their approval and, assuming they like them, we'll start mass producing them. When done with that, I sewed small "chemo pillows" which are given to people undergoing chemotherapy. Someone identified the need for little pillows to cushion the the chemo port from the shoulder seat belt - I guess the seat belt hits at just the wrong spot for most chemo patients, hence the need for the little pillows. I cranked out a few dozen of them.

Then dinner at friend Carol's house with her and her husband, George. We've both been busy and haven't had a good feet-up chat in way too long. And talk and talk and talk we did, inspired by each other's goings-on. Those of you who know her will, I'm sure, agree she is a treasure - a trove of information about wonderful topics from literature (she's working on her Master's in Literature) to science, to interpersonal skills, to the arts, and SOOO much more. Some people call her Carol the Connector. I call her my Concierge for Life. If you're at all like me, your inspiration can be fleeting without follow through. Not Carol. Even though it was late when I left, she hit her computer and sought out more information on the book Incognito, the Higgs Bosun discovery, Landmark Education - things we discussed over the course of the night. Not for her, fleeting interest! If something captures her imagination she takes it to the next step! And when she is excited about something, she networks the hell out of it, sharing it with everyone for whom she feels there will be interest and value, making connections all over the place. Don't spend time with Carol if you're not prepared to be challenged, have your world expanded, meet some new people, read articles and books she is sure to recommend, go to events all over the city. I value everything and everyone she sends my way.

Today I'm thinking hard about basics and that bug dance we all do when we deviate from basics. By the time we hit the mid point of our lives, we've accumulated a lot of data, a lot of practical wisdom. We have a darn good idea of what works and what doesn't. And what works is often pretty simple and straightforward and uncomplicated - not always easy to stay true to, but an elemental truth in our lives. "What's she talking about," you're asking by about now. I'm talking about stuff that's the basic care and maintenance of our lives: the way we eat, the way we move, the rhythm of our days, our relationships, our work. We know intuitively what we need to do, how we need to behave, what commitments we need to make to have those areas of our life function well - and yet...... it's tough, right? - to do the same things day in and day out, life in and life out - over and over and boring over again. Then along comes something new and exciting, a new way to lose weight, a device on the home shopping network that will trim inches while we sit and watch TV, some self-proclaimed pundit who tells us that our vices are now the new healthy, a book called The Four Hour Work Week.

This week, I found myself playing around with the idea of scrapping Weight Watchers - tried and true and eating-for-wellness Weight Watchers - in favor of something fast and easier. Maybe liquid protein, maybe the diet an acquaintance is on where I would drop 7 pounds a week, maybe gastric bypass (although I'm probably not heavy enough anymore to be a candidate - not sure).  BUT DUMB IDEA!  It's just me seeking a quick fix to a slow problem - impatient, frustrated, wanting something new, tricking myself into thinking there's an easier and better way when my deepest instincts tell me eating well is unglamorous, plodding, putting one foot in front of the other day after day - that healthy eating is about more than shedding pounds - it's medicine. Anyway, that's just one example of a fickle attention span.

Challenge today is thinking about this as it relates to yourself. Are you a stay-the-course kind of person or are you constantly ADD'ing between this and that in an effort to gain traction with a challenge? Reminds me of when I was a new mother. The newborn baby would cry for some inexplicable reason, inconsolable and I would try everything: over the shoulder bouncing, laying her across my lap and patting her back, pacing the floor, classical music, folk music, once I even put her in the bottom of a pillow case and swung her gently back and forth to emulate the womb. And the poor thing! I would try each of these things impatiently for a few minutes at a time, not waiting to see if it worked before I whipped her into the next position as I tried something else.

The blog today is about staying the course, even if it's a boring and unexciting one (if that course is your best path). There is so much information that bombards us, promising new and easier ways of being accomplished - it's all so seductive. Most of it is poppycock, but you already know that. And you already know there is absolutely no substitute for showing up every day, putting in the time, maintaining the focus even when your lenses are blurred and keeping your goals alive through hard work.

Peace,

Love in Odd Places/Apple-time

Wednesday night.....writing tonight to clear the way for a productive morning. And today was largely a bust - not just for me but for so many people I talked to. Victor, Josh, we all hit brick walls today for one reason or another. Me? Think my new getting up at 5AM needs to be rethought especially if I get to bed at midnight. I didn't feel well, was exhausted by 9AM, got almost nothing accomplished, felt dispirited and then took a midday nap. Landmark - "Give up the feeling that something is wrong." But what do you do with a day like today? Finally I just said, the day is, what the day is and there is nothing wrong with having a wretched day with eating off balance, lists undone, cylinders misfiring. To think there won't be days like today is dumb - of course there will be - lots of them. Trick is to get the plates aloft again in the AM.

Writing group tonight. Even my writing was less than brilliant today. I don't hate what I wrote but it was like pulling taffy to get it on paper. Tomorrow - taking the middle of the day off for Welfare Sewing, looking forward to busy hands and the camaraderie that comes from a group of industrious women doing something worthy.

Tonight I'm thinking about how we cobble together our lives, taking our pleasure where we can, finding love in odd places. Cases in point. There were two remarkable unremarkable moments today that could be easy to overlook if I wasn't attuned. First, was what has become a really special 4PM ritual - apple-time. I started apple-time years ago on the advice of an old woman, a successful Weight Watcher who, when asked the secret of her success, said  "Every day, an apple at 4PM". So, most days find me in the kitchen cutting an apple into thin slices and taking a small plate, mounded with apple slices, to the sun room where I eat them peacefully and slowly. Turns out Joey likes apples too and so lately we share the apple. He's peaceful too - doesn't gulp, takes his slice gingerly in his mouth and then carries it to the other side of the rug where he sits and eats it slowly. Then he lazily comes back for another slice and so forth until we've finished the apple together. I love that time with him sharing an apple - think it's special for him too.

And tonight,  as I entered the house after writing group, I walked into the kitchen to find Shay and Josh talking happily and cleaning up the mess I left from baking a cake for Women's Club tomorrow (didn't have time to clean up). They were animated and delighting in doing something for me - wanted me to come home to a clean kitchen. How sweet and loving is that? I love my men. Love making a home even if the inhabitants are unexpected, temporary and unrelated - we take our love in odd places.

Here is one of the pieces I wrote tonight. The prompt was three random pictures taped together from which I had to construct a story: two punkers getting married, a crocheted lap blanket on a chair in a library, and a picture of a dandelion.

When the lunch dishes were cleared, the orderlies gone and Mrs. Mountbatten retired for her afternoon nap, Sophie passed out the wedding invitations which were nothing more than napkins penned with "Sophie and Ahmed - wedding tonight - midnight - rec room."  Everything had been planned to a tee - Ahmed had seen to it that the rec room would be opened. And it turned out Spike was an ordained minister - he used to have his own church before his breakdown. Fatima was Sophie's maid of honor and had fought Ajax for the honor, literally the two friends duked it out, Ajax's lip split open, Fatima's eyes swollen shut. Scissors paper, stone - problem solved and friendship thankfully restored. 

Fatima was in charge of wardrobe, appropriating bits and pieces from the psych ward - stashed in the sleeves of her army jacket. A crocheted lap blanket from the sanctuary would be draped around Sophie's waist, the mesh pull-back curtains layered and sewn into a make-shift veil, even a sign for Ahmed's back - "Just Married."  Fatima also made noisy strands of soda cans to to attach to Ahmed's boots so that when he walked they would clatter behind as if he were a newly-wed car. "Hey, desperate times..," she thought. There would be no honeymoon for Sophie and Ahmed, no get-away car. At least they could have the tin cans. 

It was the flowers that flummoxed Sophie and Fatima. The carefully manicured grounds of Lakeview Sanctuary were sterile and devoid of anything but the severest evergreens. And it was April, so even if there had been some wild flowers or flowering shrubs, it was too early. Definitely no lilacs or forsythia to pilfer. It didn't seem auspicious - a wedding with no flowers but Sophie pushed down her unease and focused instead on how lucky she was to have fallen in love with Ahmed. Ahmed, who was fine 9/10ths of the time except when he had night episodes where he hurt people - because of the  motorcycle accident. 

Ahmed loved Sophie immediately. "You're the one for me," he had said, the first day she arrived. He got her off the drugs, sometimes bribing the orderlies, sometimes taking them himself - he loved Sophie that much. 

"Twas almost midnight. Sophie and Fatima and guests were assembled - Ahmed was late. Finally, his footsteps and that unmistakable chuckle. "She's going to love these," he said to his best man Carlos as they rounded the corner. And in he walked with armfuls of dandelions. Flowers after all.

Thanks for reading. It's such a challenge to get the idea down on paper within the requisite 15-20 minutes. I could have gone on and on. This is Thursday morning now - just wrote half the blog last night. This morning laying in bed with Obi curled up against my neck purring - another purr-fect morning, looking out onto the huge elm tree, letting feelings and fears wash through me, determined to get the plates aloft this morning. "It's OK to stumble," I assured myself.  Josh walked by my open bedroom door. "Good-morning," I called out. "Do you feel better this morning?" "Yes," he replied, then realized he was in a safe place where bullshit is left at the door with the shoes. He amended his answer, "No, I don't."  "Neither do I," I said but let's have a great day anyway.

Your challenge for today, if you are feeling what must be some kind of astral, celestial, enervating force like Josh, Victor and I are experiencing, is pushing through. Thinking some days it's easy to embrace it all, float on the air of all life's wonderful possibilities, apply easy and concentrated focus to all that's before us. Then there are the molasses days like yesterday when nothing comes easy. By now you know that no one guaranteed you easy. Hang in there and have a great day, despite.

Peace,
Sarah

Eat Like A Diabetic, Even If You're Not

Wednesday and writing group tonight with seven writers RSVP'd. No Lucas though because today is the day she and her entire family drive to Baltimore for her deaf son, Henry's implant activation. The implants were installed in his head in August, but not turned on, I guess because they want to give his body a chance to heal from the surgery. Lucas (Liza) has watched countless YouTube videos of kids hearing for the first time when the switch is flipped. It's unpredictable how Henry will react - if he's like some kids he will be delighted to hear but there are also those who are disoriented and upset. The volume will be set very low initially so as to not assault his new sense., giving him a chance to acclimate. Very exciting and scary for their entire family. And if you're of the mind, and want to help this struggling family with the expense of all this, consider going to this website and making a donation. Soon Lucas and Henry will be headed to live in Urbana for the school week, returning only on weekends. It's the only program that will take him, given how behind he is (Liza didn't want to implant him sooner because of the risk of meningitis which is a side effect of implants and the reason why he went deaf in the first place).

Last night Women's Club President's dinner - I was special with stars on my name tag because I am one of a handful of new members. I can tell I'm going to love it - the women are interesting, diverse and enthusiastic and share a love of Evanston, their club, each other and their work for the community. Fun and welcoming to boot! I was asked repeatedly what committee I had joined, and while I am going to be in their spring Cabaret parody show, the committee I signed up for is Welfare Sewing. Folks seemed surprised and amused by my choice, I guess because I'm so outgoing. Welfare Sewing, it seems is maybe for the more shrinking violet types in the organization and the impression is that it's for the older gals. Met with my committee to take pictures and they were lovely. This Thursday is the my first sewing meeting and we will be sewing breast forms for mastectomy post-op women who have not yet had reconstructive surgery.

These days, among other things, I'm fixated on eating well and losing weight because, truth be told, the weight is just not coming off like it should. I'm up a pound, down a pound, week after week. True I've lost 16 pounds since returning to WW in the spring, but if I'm going to achieve my goals, I've got to kick this thing up a notch. It's the whole when the going gets tough.....  When WW changed its program, it got tons easier with the hugest change being, you can eat unlimited amounts of fruit. Each week I go to Whole Foods and buy the most luscious fruits in season regardless of cost: pre-cut pineapple, cartons of berries, Rainier cherries, pluots, Concord grapes, Comice pears, Honeycrisp apples, figs (did you know that all figs have wasp carcasses in them?) and more, more more.  And I usually eat 4-5 servings of fruit a day under the new rules. Hmmmmm....thinking I might have to cut that down to lose weight.

The post I wrote the other day got me to thinking that we ALL need to eat like we're diabetics even if our blood-work is perfect (and mine is). Thinking we need to understand just what is and what doesn't constitute a low glycemic diet. One thing people may overlook as they fill their plates with whole grain goodness is that, to keep your blood sugar from spiking, it's not just what you eat but also how much you eat.  Food eaten to excess, even good food, will raise blood sugar beyond healthy levels. In the last two days I have on, at least a dozen occasions, stared at my fist. Your clenched fist is approximately the size of your stomach. The food we consume at any one sitting should not exceed the physical size of a clenched fist. That's not a lot of food, right? I keep that image in my head and counsel myself, after eating a small lunch of a half a sandwich and an apple - I tell myself, "You are perfectly filled. I know how big you are and I just consumed an amount of food that fills you perfectly - be satisfied.  It works - the imagery. Try it! If you are still hungry, close your eyes and picture your little stomach the size of a fist filled with the sandwich and apple - that is plenty - there is no need to stretch it beyond its original shape.  this is yet ANOTHER new muscle to work and get to know!

Rambly today, I know. Up so early these days working the "early to rise" muscle, keeping all the plates aloft. Another huge list day so I've got to run and get things underway. Your challenge, if you can relate, is embracing the whole "eating as a diabetic" challenge. Let's learn more - get on some diabetic web sites - learn the do's and don'ts. And portion control - the fist. Stare at yours and memorize its size then start eating in proportion what is really a pretty small organ.

Peace,
Sarah

Shadow of Their Loss/On Being Nothing

Monday night. Getting a jump on tomorrow's blog because I've got a heavy day tomorrow. Just got in from singing at Petterino's. Sat with my singing friends and the place was packed in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Cabaret show (called Monday Night Live) - lots of luminaries and professional singers. We all sang great - Judy and Bernie brought out some special material. Judy wrote a parody on "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and Bernie sang a song he wrote that was achingly lovely and even though he wrote it before his marriage to Judy, I'm sticking to the story that he wrote it for her!

Things are good at the frat house (that's what Madeleine's friends call my house now, given that I've got four young men living under my roof; the two tenants as well as Shay and Josh up in my unit in the two spare bedrooms). Somehow it got odd - the testerone imbalance around here. It's all I can do to enforce the "toilet seat down" rule. Shay especially struggles with that so I put a post-it note saying, "Dear Men, Toilet seat down!" It's affixed to the underside of the lid they lift to pee. Hey, a girl's got to enforce some standards in a male-heavy house. Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink (or is that men, hmmm....)

Interesting today that there is not one article on 911 in the New York Times - it's my go-to place each morning for headlines and often inspiration for this blog. And even though it's not a major anniversary of the disaster that rocked our world eleven years ago, it seriously doesn't even get a by-line? So, a moment here in this blog to remember where you were and how your life was changed by that incident. I remember the initial rush for blood donations, the call went out to everyone so that the blood banks could be beefed up in anticipation of all the wounded, and then the horrifying, creeping realization that the blood wouldn't be needed after all.  I didn't lose anyone that day but I did lose a chunk of my heart and I mourned like everyone else. Did you cry like I did, each and every day for months or did the event cause me to become uniquely unhinged? I remember hearing a snippet or anecdote on the news as I was driving and having to pull the car over and put my head down on the steering wheel to cry buckets of heaving tears - incapacitated. That was when I gave up the television - couldn't let anything, ever again penetrate me so deeply. Had to step back from humanity a bit and get my bearings. So today, love to all my fellow Americans and especially the fatherless and motherless children who may be struggling to grow in the shadow of their loss.

Read a great article by Brian Jay Stanley in the NYT this morning called, On Being Nothing.  The article jumped out at me - ha ha!- as if it were written JUST FOR ME! which is funny and ironic for reasons you'll understand in a minute. And the reason this article caught my eye is because a central (and potentially depressing) theme of Landmark is that everything is meaningless. It's that whole French existential thing that, if you can't move beyond, will stop you in your tracks and paralyze you. But, in Landmark, once you grasp that life's events are random and meaningless, there is something to rejoice. It's then you realize your insignificance, the fact that your life is nothing more than a meaningless blip -  and there is liberation in that fact. Frees you to get off the grid, put on shoes with wings and zoom around the planet, tasting this and that, doing this and that, simply enjoying the ride.

Brian Stanley is reaching the same conclusion in this article. He chronicles the awful loss of omnipotence he felt when he went off to college. "I was a king without any subjects. Arriving at college was like stepping out of the medieval world into the modern. The campus was a chaos of otherness with nothing at the center, least of all me. Unknown students from unknown places lived unknown lives, unconnected to mine. What did my actions matter anymore since no one was keeping track of me but me?"....I began noticing every small sign of my insignificance to others." He goes on to say, "Some days I feel so insubstantial that I am startled by signs of my visible presence in the world.."

I have a friend, years older than me, who like me, is a telecom consultant. For years we enjoyed each other's company on the phone, rejoicing in our uniqueness and congratulating each other on our brilliant and correct use of language - a self satisfied club of two people impressed with themselves and each other. As years progressed, I noticed, in public settings, he no longer felt the need to put himself forth. There would be a discussion with some young whippersnapper puffing himself up about something my friend was 10X the expert on. I would look at my friend, bemused, waiting for him to put the guy in his place - to show him up with his superior knowledge - take the spotlight, gain admiration. And I was amazed when my friend just sat quietly and let the other guy have the floor. It just didn't matter any more. He had arrived at a place where he had left his stories behind, realized his contribution was unnecessary, didn't care about admiration - he was allowing himself to try on a new role - spectator.

In the article, Stanley concludes  with the most important of observations to anyone who struggles with a desire for recognition:

Society is adroit at disillusioning newcomers and many self-assured children grow up to be bitter adults. But bitterness, instead of a form of disillusionment, is really the refusal to give up your childhood illusions of importance. Ignored instead of welcomed by the world, you fault the world as blind and evil in order not to fault yourself as naive. Bitterness is a child's coddling narcissism within the context of an adults's harsh life. Instead, I know that the world only tramples me as a street crowd does an earthworm - not out of malice or stupidity, but because no one sees it. Thus my pain is not to feel wrongly slighted, but to feel rightly slighted. 

There must be a Copernican revolution of the self. Instead of pointlessly cursing the sun to go around me, my chance of contentment is learning to orbit, being the world's audience instead of demanding the world be mine. If the world is a stage, then everyone's an extra, acting minor roles in simultaneous scenes in which no one has the lead. With so much happening, society is poorly made to satisfy pride, but well made to satisy interest, if we will only let go of our vanity and join the swirl of activity.

Wow...there could be so many challenges today. Pick one or all. Take a moment to contemplate the anniversary of 911, remembering the bittersweetness of that event in American history. Bitter, obviously, but sweet, too, in that it galvanized us for a time. And maybe you see yourself in the article above - struggling with the idea that you are an earthworm. Time to embrace your earthworminess?  Here's the link to the article .

Peace,
Sarah