I believe in peace/I believe in peace bitch/I believe in peace
~ Tori Amos "Waitress"
"Why didn't he just make one? Another angel. I mean, he's GOD after all, why didn't he just MAKE another angel?!" ~ Nicole Kidman in the movie "Rabbit Hole"
God sometimes you just don't come through/God sometimes you just don't come through/Do you need a woman to look after you?
~ Tori Amos "God"
"I just want to be perfect." ~ Natalie Portman in the movie "Black Swan"
I remember yes/in my peach party dress/no one dared/no one cared to tell me/where the pretty girls are/those demi-gods/with their nine inch nails and little fascist panties stuck inside the heart of every nice girl
~ Tori Amos "Precious Things"
I'll never forget the group of "popular girls" at my grade school. Ask any grown woman about this type of thing and - where ever she fell in the social rankings, part of this coveted group, on the fringes, or so far out of range it was just never-gonna-happen - you are bound to get an earful. They weren't always the prettiest, the skinniest, the richest or the smartest (though they often were all this & more), but they had something (charisma? being like-minded? just knew the fucking secret hand-shake?), that set them apart and got them entrance to this world that seemed so very desirable to me, at one time. That was the age (8-12 maybe?) when I pretty much would have sold my soul if I could have just somehow been one of them.
I was a fringer...sort of acceptable in certain ways (I played soccer with them, would help them with their math), but ultimately a little bit too weird to be fully let in. I was the girl who got invited to spend the night with one or two of them...but then I must have done or said something wrong, or perhaps we just didn't "click"? Because I never got asked back a second time.
This was actually EXTREMELY painful for me back then, but you can't really MAKE someone want to be your friend, as my mother probably tried to explain. I remember her telling me that even though I thought they and their lives were perfect, they still had problems and worries, just like anyone else. A pretty astute comment and absolutely dead on, I realize now of course, but sadly I don't think it helped a ton at the time. A friend's mother took a little bit of a lower road by telling her daughter something like "all those popular girls from when I was your age are fat & ugly now so don't worry you'll get the last laugh."
And this was just GRADE SCHOOL - for some I think it only got worse in later years. It's all right there in "The Breakfast Club" when Molly Ringwald's character basically says that she & Andrew (the wrestler) couldn't acknowledge the others when back at school next week, because the fallout from their group of friends would be cataclysmic. And that for Brian (the brain), for instance, he of course would want to acknowledge her & Andrew because well, they're in the popular group, everyone wants to be them! The brain (sweet Anthony Michael Hall) says something like "God Claire you're so conceited!" but she had a valid point he couldn't deny.
Man that movie is full of great quotes! I found three whole separate websites where they're compiled for the viewing pleasure of all us children of the 80s -
http://www.liquidice.co.uk/quotes/breakfastclubq.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/quotes
http://www.retrojunk.com/movie/quotes/7-the-breakfast-club/
And later on Claire says: "I hate it! I hate having to go along with everything my friends say!" John Bender (the exquisite Judd Nelson) has some choice words for her on this topic also, but I won't go into it - you can click on hyperlinks above if you want that trip down memory lane.
For me personally, by high school I had somehow managed to embrace my weirdness and gone off in other directions (not all of which were good - see the "dangerous boys" blog post from a couple years ago), where those "popular girls" sort of no longer existed (starting public school after 8 years of catholic was a big part of this). But I guess I thought of them again recently while watching "Black Swan" because, man, those ballerinas could be some serious bitches!! Is that how some people really are?!
Silly question, I know they are, I'm just lucky enough to not be around women like that much at all these days. (Although there was one piece-of-work I encountered in Milwaukee, I will never forget her, she taught me some great life lessons!) And also fortunate to not be in such a cut-throat competitive profession. I wonder if it's just part of that world and maybe similar to what it's like for actresses and other types of performers? But for ballerinas in particular, the drive for perfection seems inherent - I'll never forget how the main character in that book all us girls read back then, The Best Little Girl in the World was a ballerina, starving herself & throwing up just like Natalie Portman did, and also striving for the impossible.
For it is impossible really - perfection, so it's kinda silly to even try for it, I am starting to think. Only GOD is perfect after all, even if he does seem to make some questionable decisions that make us pretty angry (as depicted in the movie "Rabbit Hole").
What a gift to let go and just do your best. This is especially true for me lately with trying to write better & better software requirements in my now 1-year old "new" job. If those damn requirements could have been perfect by now through sheer effort, believe me they would be! And anyway, I'd really rather be writing blog posts (or my new idea: writing for T.V.! hellooooo Grey's Anatomy) or anything else more interesting.
I gotta admit there is a catty part of me that wonders if any of those "popular girls" are fat & ugly now (I did see one of them later on in high school and was a little, um, surprised by where she was going with her look). Or at least I just wonder in general, "where they are now" - those little "demi-gods," especially the ones who weren't particularly nice to me (for they weren't all evil, truthfully).
But the further truth is, removed from that cut-throat-girlhood world (NOT all sweetness & light, as some might think, obviously), they are probably just regular women these days, no longer the "anointed" like they seemed to me, way back then. Just women taking care of their families, working in offices, sleeping, loving & grumbling, growing older, and making the best decisions they can for their lives now. Normal women muddling through, just like me & just like you.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
My Friends, by Dar Williams
I really love this song. Especially "She's found a common balance/Where you do your work, and you do your love/And they pay you, and praise your many talents." AND "She says 'You know I think you remember every part of me.'" Enjoy!
My Friends
~ Dar Williams
"He's a quiet man," that's all she said
And he's a thoughtful man
It's just he likes to keep his thoughts up in his head
And we finally meet, and she tries to draw him out a bit
She says "He's writing something,
Hey now, why don't you talk about it?"
And he doesn't make a sound
He's just staring at his coffee
And I know there's all this beauty
And this greatness she'll defend
But I think it's in my friend
I have a friend in a bright and distant town
She's found a common balance
Where you do your work, and you do your love
And they pay you, and praise your many talents
Well I'm passing through, and we know we won't sleep
She laughs, puts up the tea
She says "You know I think you remember every part of me."
And the water starts to boil
And if I had a camera
Showing all the light we give
And showing where the light extends
I'd give it to my friends
Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness
And I like the whole truth
But there are nights I only need forgiveness
Sometimes they say "I don't know who you are
But let me walk with you some"
And I say "I am alone, that's all
You can't save me from all the wrong I've done."
But they're waiting just the same
With their flashlights and their semaphores
And I'll act like I have faith and like that faith never ends
But I really just have friends
My Friends
~ Dar Williams
"He's a quiet man," that's all she said
And he's a thoughtful man
It's just he likes to keep his thoughts up in his head
And we finally meet, and she tries to draw him out a bit
She says "He's writing something,
Hey now, why don't you talk about it?"
And he doesn't make a sound
He's just staring at his coffee
And I know there's all this beauty
And this greatness she'll defend
But I think it's in my friend
I have a friend in a bright and distant town
She's found a common balance
Where you do your work, and you do your love
And they pay you, and praise your many talents
Well I'm passing through, and we know we won't sleep
She laughs, puts up the tea
She says "You know I think you remember every part of me."
And the water starts to boil
And if I had a camera
Showing all the light we give
And showing where the light extends
I'd give it to my friends
Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness
And I like the whole truth
But there are nights I only need forgiveness
Sometimes they say "I don't know who you are
But let me walk with you some"
And I say "I am alone, that's all
You can't save me from all the wrong I've done."
But they're waiting just the same
With their flashlights and their semaphores
And I'll act like I have faith and like that faith never ends
But I really just have friends
Grief and Grey's Anatomy AGAIN
Grey's Anatomy inspires me to write on this subject again.
It was another powerful season-ending finale and I had a lot of feelings while watching it, but interestingly one of them was ANGER. I couldn't help but flash back to when I found out about the sudden death of my father, years ago (for details read http://yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-music-died-part-one.html).
There was no staff of concerned-looking doctors (and they are all so attractive aren't they, so pretty, it's amazing!) ready to take me to a "grief room" to break the news gently, there was no world-renowned grief counselor on hand to help me, there was no other people in a waiting room to share the experience with, there was no free coffee!!
So, not entirely sure what THAT is about except maybe after recently posting my "Daddy" poems I'm still processing some level of grief, and still mad at him for dying or just how it happened. Whatever, I'll get over it but I had to share cuz it was that powerful.
Still I loved this episode, the moment when the woman stands up to her husband urging her to leave & says "I would like to stay." And the moment when the distraught woman with the daughter in surgery says "that's incredible" about the people who stayed in the waiting room to pull for her daughter, the one survivor, the "unaccompanied minor" from the plane crash.
http://www.greyswriters.com/2011/05/debora-cahn-on-unaccompanied-minor.html
What some humans will do for another person, it's as beautiful as the shiny shiny people who are the doctors on this show.
And I loved when Meredith says "I am going to get it together and we are gonna figure it out" - her bravery in the face of being alone with her new baby for the first time, being totally responsible for Zola all by herself, just wow. (I'd be completely terrified.)
And what he says to her about being a bad mother - frickin Derek, what the hell?! The writers have to do it for drama, I get that, but what she did is no reason to leave her like that.
I would love to write for Grey's Anatomy but have no idea what I would invent for these characters. Better just to watch and feel whatever feelings I have, I guess. :)
It was another powerful season-ending finale and I had a lot of feelings while watching it, but interestingly one of them was ANGER. I couldn't help but flash back to when I found out about the sudden death of my father, years ago (for details read http://yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-music-died-part-one.html).
There was no staff of concerned-looking doctors (and they are all so attractive aren't they, so pretty, it's amazing!) ready to take me to a "grief room" to break the news gently, there was no world-renowned grief counselor on hand to help me, there was no other people in a waiting room to share the experience with, there was no free coffee!!
So, not entirely sure what THAT is about except maybe after recently posting my "Daddy" poems I'm still processing some level of grief, and still mad at him for dying or just how it happened. Whatever, I'll get over it but I had to share cuz it was that powerful.
Still I loved this episode, the moment when the woman stands up to her husband urging her to leave & says "I would like to stay." And the moment when the distraught woman with the daughter in surgery says "that's incredible" about the people who stayed in the waiting room to pull for her daughter, the one survivor, the "unaccompanied minor" from the plane crash.
http://www.greyswriters.com/2011/05/debora-cahn-on-unaccompanied-minor.html
What some humans will do for another person, it's as beautiful as the shiny shiny people who are the doctors on this show.
And I loved when Meredith says "I am going to get it together and we are gonna figure it out" - her bravery in the face of being alone with her new baby for the first time, being totally responsible for Zola all by herself, just wow. (I'd be completely terrified.)
And what he says to her about being a bad mother - frickin Derek, what the hell?! The writers have to do it for drama, I get that, but what she did is no reason to leave her like that.
I would love to write for Grey's Anatomy but have no idea what I would invent for these characters. Better just to watch and feel whatever feelings I have, I guess. :)
Friday, May 13, 2011
Breathe & Live Wide ~ inspired by Erica Jong
For Claudia, Against Narrowness
From Loveroot
Narrowing life because of the fears,
narrowing it between the dust motes,
narrowing the pink baby
between the green-limbed monsters,
& the drooling idiots,
& the ghosts of the Thalidomide infants,
narrowing hope,
always narrowing hope.
Mother sits on one shoulder hissing:
Life is dangerous.
Father sits on the other sighing:
Lucky you.
Grandmother, grandfather, big sister:
You'll die if you leave us,
you'll die if you ever leave us.
Sweetheart, baby sister,
you'll die anyway
& so will I.
Even if you walk the wide greensward,
even if you
& your beautiful big belly
embrace the world of men & trees,
even if you moan with pleasure,
& smoke the sweet grass
& feast on strawberries in bed,
you'll die anyway--
wide or narrow,
you're going to die.
As long as you're at it,
die wide.
Follow your belly to the green pasture.
Lie down in the sun's dapple.
Life is not as dangerous
as mother said.
It is more dangerous,
more wide.
© Erica Mann Jong
Breathe & Live Wide
I have always wanted to
"live wide" and be free
to breathe
but
the world is so dangerous
and it only seems to get
more so as I age
inevitably
for it's a thin and narrow life
that finds me going from
home-to-work to-grocery-store
for beer & cigarettes, back to this balcony
where I'm putting the damage on
and don't breathe, at all, or just barely
it's a thin and narrow line
I walk, from here to the
fear, guilt & shame I feel, almost daily
that my mother
taught me, so eloquently
my father too
they sat there saying
"we can't control you"
but what did they try to do?
my 21 year old boyfriend
when I was 16, was only going to
help me live more wide (I thought)
they tried the priest, one time
but he didn't know what to do, or understand
a teenage girl and her parents begging for help
and then, when I confessed
to my mother that
I was having sex
she merely said
"you're going to do what you want
but I can't condone it"
my father just raged
and felt helpless
as fathers do
but if he had only looked me
in the eyes and said
Sweetheart, baby girl
that I love - I can't stand to see you hurting yourself
I'm so worried about you
maybe I could have come
to my senses, made different choices and
not be where I am now
but that's all in the past and
I'll die anyway, as we all do
I never did get pregnant, as they probably feared
I went to college, kept playing soccer somehow
was a "good girl" and graduated, so they did a
"good job" and everything is fine
actually, now
it's just that I'm going to die
much faster, with more fear, guilt & shame
and way less "wide" than I could do
otherwise
From Loveroot
Narrowing life because of the fears,
narrowing it between the dust motes,
narrowing the pink baby
between the green-limbed monsters,
& the drooling idiots,
& the ghosts of the Thalidomide infants,
narrowing hope,
always narrowing hope.
Mother sits on one shoulder hissing:
Life is dangerous.
Father sits on the other sighing:
Lucky you.
Grandmother, grandfather, big sister:
You'll die if you leave us,
you'll die if you ever leave us.
Sweetheart, baby sister,
you'll die anyway
& so will I.
Even if you walk the wide greensward,
even if you
& your beautiful big belly
embrace the world of men & trees,
even if you moan with pleasure,
& smoke the sweet grass
& feast on strawberries in bed,
you'll die anyway--
wide or narrow,
you're going to die.
As long as you're at it,
die wide.
Follow your belly to the green pasture.
Lie down in the sun's dapple.
Life is not as dangerous
as mother said.
It is more dangerous,
more wide.
© Erica Mann Jong
Breathe & Live Wide
I have always wanted to
"live wide" and be free
to breathe
but
the world is so dangerous
and it only seems to get
more so as I age
inevitably
for it's a thin and narrow life
that finds me going from
home-to-work to-grocery-store
for beer & cigarettes, back to this balcony
where I'm putting the damage on
and don't breathe, at all, or just barely
it's a thin and narrow line
I walk, from here to the
fear, guilt & shame I feel, almost daily
that my mother
taught me, so eloquently
my father too
they sat there saying
"we can't control you"
but what did they try to do?
my 21 year old boyfriend
when I was 16, was only going to
help me live more wide (I thought)
they tried the priest, one time
but he didn't know what to do, or understand
a teenage girl and her parents begging for help
and then, when I confessed
to my mother that
I was having sex
she merely said
"you're going to do what you want
but I can't condone it"
my father just raged
and felt helpless
as fathers do
but if he had only looked me
in the eyes and said
Sweetheart, baby girl
that I love - I can't stand to see you hurting yourself
I'm so worried about you
maybe I could have come
to my senses, made different choices and
not be where I am now
but that's all in the past and
I'll die anyway, as we all do
I never did get pregnant, as they probably feared
I went to college, kept playing soccer somehow
was a "good girl" and graduated, so they did a
"good job" and everything is fine
actually, now
it's just that I'm going to die
much faster, with more fear, guilt & shame
and way less "wide" than I could do
otherwise
Saturday, April 23, 2011
My Own "Daddy"
Best read alongside Syliva Plath's original, which I tried to model, rather strenuously at times!
http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/Daddy
My Own "Daddy"
You do not do, you do not see through
any more, black goo
in which I have lived like a shrew
for thirty years, over-educated and white,
barely daring to contradict or say this will not do!
Daddy, I have had to learn to hate you
You died before I got there
Coffin full of bear and bluster
Ghastly monument with makeup made you unrecognizable
But still big as a mountain
And a head yet stuck in socialism
Where countries you admired fell into chaos and ruin
In the waters off beautiful coastal Africa
I used to pray to be as interesting to you
Damn you.
In the 50s language, in the LA landscape
Scraped flat by the roller
of movies, movies, movies.
But the name of sad need is common
My Marilyn Monroe
Says there are many orphans.
So I never could tell for sure where you
Came from, no solid root
I never could ask you
The thought stuck in my mind.
It stuck in celluloid snare and wine&beer
Rage, rage, rage, rage
I could barely speak in my own house
I thought every authority-figure was you
And the language was fear
A power, a power
Taking me off like a Gypsy
A Gypsy to a concentration camp
I began to talk like a displaced person before I ever ran away from you
I think I may well be a Gypsy too.
The palm trees of Sepulveda Blvd, the stars of Hollywood
are not what they seem, are not what they do
With my bastard inheritance and my good luck
And all my new age leanings
I may be a bit of a Gypsy-Jew.
I have always been scared of you
With your belt, your fist on the wall
And your black beard
And your squinty dark eyes
Nightmare-Man, how you held us in thrall
Not God but close enough
So fire&brimstone that no dis-obediance could slip through
Every woman marries her father
And gets the boot on her chin, gets controlled again
Booted heart of a brute like you.
You stand beyond the mountains, daddy
that you died on, in the photo I have of you
A dent in your forehead instead of your backpack
But no less the fool for that fall, no not
Any less the hurried man who
Bit my pretty little life in two.
I was twenty-four when they buried you.
At fifteen I tried to die with alcohol
And get your attention back, and get back to you
I thought even a boyfriend 5 years older would do
But they pulled me on to a bright future
And they stuck me together with SATs and college glue
And then I knew I had to go to graduate school
I met&married a man, on model of you
A man in bad clothes with a grumpy look
And a love of the lawyerly argument and the kinky screw.
And I said I will, I admit, I do.
So daddy, I'm now through.
The computer's completely shut down,
The FaceBook-photo memories can't feed through.
If I've killed one illusion of love - I've killed two
The dream of love who said he was you
And took my energy for a year, or two,
Eleven years, if you want to understand.
(But that was a long time ago.)
Daddy, I'm safe, you can rest now.
There's a flower on your grave
And the world respects you.
They are still giving awards in your name to honor you.
They always knew you were a good man.
Daddy, daddy, you asshole, I love you.
http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/Daddy
My Own "Daddy"
You do not do, you do not see through
any more, black goo
in which I have lived like a shrew
for thirty years, over-educated and white,
barely daring to contradict or say this will not do!
Daddy, I have had to learn to hate you
You died before I got there
Coffin full of bear and bluster
Ghastly monument with makeup made you unrecognizable
But still big as a mountain
And a head yet stuck in socialism
Where countries you admired fell into chaos and ruin
In the waters off beautiful coastal Africa
I used to pray to be as interesting to you
Damn you.
In the 50s language, in the LA landscape
Scraped flat by the roller
of movies, movies, movies.
But the name of sad need is common
My Marilyn Monroe
Says there are many orphans.
So I never could tell for sure where you
Came from, no solid root
I never could ask you
The thought stuck in my mind.
It stuck in celluloid snare and wine&beer
Rage, rage, rage, rage
I could barely speak in my own house
I thought every authority-figure was you
And the language was fear
A power, a power
Taking me off like a Gypsy
A Gypsy to a concentration camp
I began to talk like a displaced person before I ever ran away from you
I think I may well be a Gypsy too.
The palm trees of Sepulveda Blvd, the stars of Hollywood
are not what they seem, are not what they do
With my bastard inheritance and my good luck
And all my new age leanings
I may be a bit of a Gypsy-Jew.
I have always been scared of you
With your belt, your fist on the wall
And your black beard
And your squinty dark eyes
Nightmare-Man, how you held us in thrall
Not God but close enough
So fire&brimstone that no dis-obediance could slip through
Every woman marries her father
And gets the boot on her chin, gets controlled again
Booted heart of a brute like you.
You stand beyond the mountains, daddy
that you died on, in the photo I have of you
A dent in your forehead instead of your backpack
But no less the fool for that fall, no not
Any less the hurried man who
Bit my pretty little life in two.
I was twenty-four when they buried you.
At fifteen I tried to die with alcohol
And get your attention back, and get back to you
I thought even a boyfriend 5 years older would do
But they pulled me on to a bright future
And they stuck me together with SATs and college glue
And then I knew I had to go to graduate school
I met&married a man, on model of you
A man in bad clothes with a grumpy look
And a love of the lawyerly argument and the kinky screw.
And I said I will, I admit, I do.
So daddy, I'm now through.
The computer's completely shut down,
The FaceBook-photo memories can't feed through.
If I've killed one illusion of love - I've killed two
The dream of love who said he was you
And took my energy for a year, or two,
Eleven years, if you want to understand.
(But that was a long time ago.)
Daddy, I'm safe, you can rest now.
There's a flower on your grave
And the world respects you.
They are still giving awards in your name to honor you.
They always knew you were a good man.
Daddy, daddy, you asshole, I love you.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Battle of the Body
"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" ~ source unknown
When I was 9 or 10 - I can't remember exactly how old but I'm pretty sure it was well before my teenage years, in other words much too young - I marched down the stairs on a weekend morning and announced importantly to my parents that I was going on a diet. My grand plan? I was only going to eat carrots.
I can't recall how they reacted but I do remember my Dad saying something like "I guess you won't be wanting any of these delicious pancakes I'm making then." And I - flush with my new commitment to what I perceived as a much-needed weight loss - merely hesitated for one moment and then plopped down in a chair at the table to dig in. "Oh well, I'll start eating carrots tomorrow."
And so began a life-long ambivalence towards dieting - something I've not been much good at. Though I've never been a "skinny minny" as I like to say, I was lucky enough that I didn't really have to worry about my weight for many years of my life.
Playing soccer from a young age all the way through college, I was always very active and therefore able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted without undue consequence. And, whatever issues my parents saddled me with that I have to take responsibility for and deal with now, a problem with food or full-blown eating disorder is, fortunately, not one of them. In fact, I hated the way women seemed so preoccupied with weight and found it tiresome, trite & boring.
In my early days of awakening to the injustices of socialization I basically took it on as a feminist issue and tried to get my friends to realize that dieting was a form of sexist oppression. I still remember hanging out in the hallways of our freshman(woman!) dorm one evening and my friends engaging in that particularly female routine ritual of communal self-loathing which consisted of picking apart every self-perceived imperfection possible.
And me exclaiming in sudden frustration "Let's talk about what we like about our bodies for a change. For instance, I just love this little freckle on my right thigh, it's so dang cute!" The silence was probably deafening but I only remember feeling how certain I was that we were not meant to hate ourselves like that, and wanting them to understand that it was possible to feel better.
Yet I was obviously under the influence of some degree of "body dysmorphia" that as a pre-adolescent I was convinced that there was something about my body that was wrong and needed fixing -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder
I look at photos of me from that time and laugh at the notion that I needed to lose weight back then - especially now that I've gone through several rounds of gaining and losing weight since.
Because, fast forward a couple decades and given many a year since college logged at sedentary desk jobs, like most people, I found myself needing to lose weight for real. And to "just eat carrots" was not a sane, healthy or realistic option. So, the first time in my life that I actually lost weight I did it with lots of exercise and cutting back on calories.
Real simple. And, as I recall, not all that hard. But I was in my 20s yet and had a worthy goal: my "carrot on a stick" - yes, pun intended - was my 5 year college reunion, back in Spring of 1998. It was great and I felt powerful: it was the first time in my life I had gone on a diet plan and it had worked!
But it didn't last - fast forward to 2006, past buying a house, getting married and even more years spent at a desk, I had even more weight to lose. 60 pounds in fact, and that time I did it with Weight Watchers. Slow and steady and harder than the first time but I did it, again. (Meanwhile my husband David was effortlessly losing weight by doing something called The Paleolithic Diet, but that's his story to tell, not mine. But link included for those who want to know - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet)
After that I gained some back, lost it again with Weight Watchers and almost got back to what I weighed when I was 18 years old going off to college (back when I, despite my feminist aspirations, still thought I was probably a little bit "fat"). Then we turned our lives upside down & moved to Florida and before I knew it I was back AGAIN well beyond the healthy range of the BMI calculators you can easily find on the internet. How I hate them, even when I think I'm good I always end up too heavy to qualify as "normal" - ugh
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
It's all so tedious and I find me boring myself with my own blog post. But I have to admit that my most recent weight gain coupled with impatience and some amount of desperation (I just couldn't stand to do Weight Watchers again!) and the testimony of several people I know convinced me to embark on the HCG diet plan which I've been doing now for 24 straight days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/hcg-diet.htm
It's been hard but I've been determined and it has worked, I almost immediately lost about 14 pounds. More than that, I've been eating way more fruit than ever before, getting tons more sleep, going to the gym regularly and David tells me I've been much happier since I started so....
But I've plateaued big time since my initial weight loss and been frustrated in the last couple weeks so tonight I snapped & splurged on fried fish&chips and beer. Maybe I'll get back on tomorrow but either way, the battle of the body, which I so reluctantly participate in, continues despite my best intentions, aged feminist convictions and inherent intelligence....
I have one more month before we go to the island of St.Martin (our first real vacation since 2009!) and maybe at some point I'll "just eat carrots" if that's what it takes to feel good in that mythical bikini on the beach. :)
When I was 9 or 10 - I can't remember exactly how old but I'm pretty sure it was well before my teenage years, in other words much too young - I marched down the stairs on a weekend morning and announced importantly to my parents that I was going on a diet. My grand plan? I was only going to eat carrots.
I can't recall how they reacted but I do remember my Dad saying something like "I guess you won't be wanting any of these delicious pancakes I'm making then." And I - flush with my new commitment to what I perceived as a much-needed weight loss - merely hesitated for one moment and then plopped down in a chair at the table to dig in. "Oh well, I'll start eating carrots tomorrow."
And so began a life-long ambivalence towards dieting - something I've not been much good at. Though I've never been a "skinny minny" as I like to say, I was lucky enough that I didn't really have to worry about my weight for many years of my life.
Playing soccer from a young age all the way through college, I was always very active and therefore able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted without undue consequence. And, whatever issues my parents saddled me with that I have to take responsibility for and deal with now, a problem with food or full-blown eating disorder is, fortunately, not one of them. In fact, I hated the way women seemed so preoccupied with weight and found it tiresome, trite & boring.
In my early days of awakening to the injustices of socialization I basically took it on as a feminist issue and tried to get my friends to realize that dieting was a form of sexist oppression. I still remember hanging out in the hallways of our freshman(woman!) dorm one evening and my friends engaging in that particularly female routine ritual of communal self-loathing which consisted of picking apart every self-perceived imperfection possible.
And me exclaiming in sudden frustration "Let's talk about what we like about our bodies for a change. For instance, I just love this little freckle on my right thigh, it's so dang cute!" The silence was probably deafening but I only remember feeling how certain I was that we were not meant to hate ourselves like that, and wanting them to understand that it was possible to feel better.
Yet I was obviously under the influence of some degree of "body dysmorphia" that as a pre-adolescent I was convinced that there was something about my body that was wrong and needed fixing -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder
I look at photos of me from that time and laugh at the notion that I needed to lose weight back then - especially now that I've gone through several rounds of gaining and losing weight since.
Because, fast forward a couple decades and given many a year since college logged at sedentary desk jobs, like most people, I found myself needing to lose weight for real. And to "just eat carrots" was not a sane, healthy or realistic option. So, the first time in my life that I actually lost weight I did it with lots of exercise and cutting back on calories.
Real simple. And, as I recall, not all that hard. But I was in my 20s yet and had a worthy goal: my "carrot on a stick" - yes, pun intended - was my 5 year college reunion, back in Spring of 1998. It was great and I felt powerful: it was the first time in my life I had gone on a diet plan and it had worked!
But it didn't last - fast forward to 2006, past buying a house, getting married and even more years spent at a desk, I had even more weight to lose. 60 pounds in fact, and that time I did it with Weight Watchers. Slow and steady and harder than the first time but I did it, again. (Meanwhile my husband David was effortlessly losing weight by doing something called The Paleolithic Diet, but that's his story to tell, not mine. But link included for those who want to know - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet)
After that I gained some back, lost it again with Weight Watchers and almost got back to what I weighed when I was 18 years old going off to college (back when I, despite my feminist aspirations, still thought I was probably a little bit "fat"). Then we turned our lives upside down & moved to Florida and before I knew it I was back AGAIN well beyond the healthy range of the BMI calculators you can easily find on the internet. How I hate them, even when I think I'm good I always end up too heavy to qualify as "normal" - ugh
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
It's all so tedious and I find me boring myself with my own blog post. But I have to admit that my most recent weight gain coupled with impatience and some amount of desperation (I just couldn't stand to do Weight Watchers again!) and the testimony of several people I know convinced me to embark on the HCG diet plan which I've been doing now for 24 straight days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/hcg-diet.htm
It's been hard but I've been determined and it has worked, I almost immediately lost about 14 pounds. More than that, I've been eating way more fruit than ever before, getting tons more sleep, going to the gym regularly and David tells me I've been much happier since I started so....
But I've plateaued big time since my initial weight loss and been frustrated in the last couple weeks so tonight I snapped & splurged on fried fish&chips and beer. Maybe I'll get back on tomorrow but either way, the battle of the body, which I so reluctantly participate in, continues despite my best intentions, aged feminist convictions and inherent intelligence....
I have one more month before we go to the island of St.Martin (our first real vacation since 2009!) and maybe at some point I'll "just eat carrots" if that's what it takes to feel good in that mythical bikini on the beach. :)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Adrenal gland poem
Turns out
It was my ADRENAL GLAND all along
That FEAR spot, somewhere near my stomach
pumping too much
FIGHT or FLIGHT problem-juice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_gland
I've had all my life
this problem
I'd like to blame my parents but they are gone
and empty
so it doesn't matter anymore
it's still this problem
I have to solve
I'm too excited (FEAR) about
life and find myself killing it
on a daily basis because
it's also LIFE that I find so hard
to take, find it hard to live
I guess
it's an old slow way to DIE
that many have done before me
family members included
*sigh*
but I may be quicker
because I do it more intensely
and there is this known fact about how
women metabolize alcohol differently
I used to think that was about me
being bleery-eyed at midnight and others still
standing
but now as I get older I think
it could be about long-term effects
and how we handle it in
our bodies
Oh God, I'm so afraid
I just want peace and safety
and to be home finally
It was my ADRENAL GLAND all along
That FEAR spot, somewhere near my stomach
pumping too much
FIGHT or FLIGHT problem-juice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_gland
I've had all my life
this problem
I'd like to blame my parents but they are gone
and empty
so it doesn't matter anymore
it's still this problem
I have to solve
I'm too excited (FEAR) about
life and find myself killing it
on a daily basis because
it's also LIFE that I find so hard
to take, find it hard to live
I guess
it's an old slow way to DIE
that many have done before me
family members included
*sigh*
but I may be quicker
because I do it more intensely
and there is this known fact about how
women metabolize alcohol differently
I used to think that was about me
being bleery-eyed at midnight and others still
standing
but now as I get older I think
it could be about long-term effects
and how we handle it in
our bodies
Oh God, I'm so afraid
I just want peace and safety
and to be home finally
Friday, January 14, 2011
New Idea For a New Year - Feeling Goood
Nina Simone - all hats off!
Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
That's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
I'm feeling good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8tuTSi6Sck
Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
That's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
I'm feeling good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8tuTSi6Sck
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
New Idea For a New Year
God, thank you
for this
amazing life
and please
forgive me when
I fail to be completely
grateful for it.
For acoustic version, click on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPlgf6GqLQ4
for this
amazing life
and please
forgive me when
I fail to be completely
grateful for it.
For acoustic version, click on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPlgf6GqLQ4
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Fear & Loathing on FaceBook Etc.
I've had the opportunity recently to reconnect with an old friend, with whom I had a terrible break back right around the time we moved to Florida. This was late-Summer of 2009. Seems like a long time ago right?
But it's fresh in my mind because it was a most intense time, there was a lot going on for me personally and for her too, I think & we were both super-stressed for our own individual reasons. But still I wonder sometimes, if it would have happened differently, if she or I could have handled it better, if the conflict hadn't taken place via email and other electronic communication media....and that is the alleged impetus for this here blog post.
You know, I'm the last thing from a Luddite but there is no TONE on these "social networking" sites we use & so much gets lost in the mix. So much can be misunderstood, misapprehended and just plain f-ed up.
And communication is hard enough as it is. I ought to know - I make my bread and butter by communicating (or trying to) within the wild and wacky world of technology/computer systems.
Witness this recent comment of mine on LinkedIn, for the thread called "Word of the Day: As BA's (Business Analysts) are expected to have excellent communication skills, I request all to post one challenging, meaningful, relevant WORD per BA per day for all to share and digest."
OK maybe I'm a little bit of a hypocrite, blogging about the evils of social media, then posting my own comments but anyways - here's my (slightly abridged) contribution -
Maybe not PARSING the thread properly, but whatevs. I'm tired, after a long day of being a BA, trying to PARSE requirements in the world of chaotic competing demands called the software-development-life-cycle (SDLC).
PARSING–verb (used with object) 1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc. 1. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc. 1. Computers . to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar. Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parsing
There's no elegant (or any) transition here but....I just finished watching the movie "The Yearling" made in 1946, based on the 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning book written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Starring a yummy young Gregory Peck and washed-out worried (on purpose) Jane Wyman, as his wife. And, of course, Claude Jarman Jr. as young Jody Baxter -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yearling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Jarman,_Jr.
This family living in the backwoods central Florida "scrub" at the start of the twentieth century had much to worry about, but it centered on REAL things: it was about hunting and crops and livestock and hunger, if there was a flood and the food (crops) was washed out. Or if a pet deer "et it" - as they would say, in old-agey lingo, lost long ago but captured in this wonderful book & movie.
It wasn't this...have I been de-friended on FaceBook (FB) and what does so-and-so think about my latest status/video posted, am I making the "right" connections on LinkedIn, have I gotten any "hits" on whatever dating site, and shall I Tweet my location when I go out to dinner with friends?
I don't mean to ridicule people looking for a mate on any online dating service though. I'm more making a general statement about something going on that I see...and it amounts sometimes to these shallow connections and ridiculous things that preoccupy our attention today. And, trust me, it's ALL about attention; our quality of it - or lack thereof - is reflected in the quality of our lives, I do believe.
I could barely stomach the playing of "Farmville" games on FB even before watching this movie, but now it's even more aggravating because I think about how people once had (and, of course, still do) actual REAL farms, from which they made money and subsisted. For the sweet family in "The Yearling" that farm meant life or death to them! And it occurs to me that people even 10 years ago - urban or rural - could turn off their cell phones and computers and actually pay attention to those they loved.
And not be concerned that work was trying to get ahold of them or they might be missing out on some FB status, post or newsfeed. As I tweeted, for the first time the other day, admittedly boring and ridiculous nonsense and then emailed my older brother this comment:
I think this social media shit's gone too far. How does anyone SLEEP?! :)
Maybe that's just me, projecting all over the place as I am wont to do, cuz I have definite sleep issues (among others), and maybe not everyone else does? Maybe everyone else sleeps just fine, like babies - as the saying goes. But, seriously, who does that these days? (Serious question.)
Granted I watch "The Yearling", and don't want to be a woman who has to wash the family's clothes by the creek and who yearns for a well right in her own front yard, to make a hard-scrabble life just a "mite" easier. I wash a couple of dishes, usually ungratefully grumbling, in my stainless steel sink - in my nice heated apartment - while we make dinner on an ultra-modern electric stove-range and am glad I don't live in those times. (Also glad we didn't move to Alaska as originally planned, and tried to live off the land, but that's another blog post!)
Nor do I want to go back to when women (mostly) didn't work outside the home and were - literally - property of their husbands, if they were married, and property of their fathers' if they were too young to be married yet. I work now with a few brothers who are from a very "old school" Christian faith where the women wear head-scarves (cuz hair tempts men, I guess, whatevs) and long skirts and are rarely in the work-place, and men are the without-a-doubt "Providers."
They are sweet, good men and so, despite their anti-homosexual views and a lot of other beliefs I basically find fault with, I have befriended them at work. With some of them, I have honest, self-revealing conversations in which I state my piece and we may disagree but they seem to respect me, even if they still believe that I am a "sinner" and my younger brother, especially, is going to hell.
I let them be and it doesn't really bother me. It's the work-place, whadaya gonna do? One of them said, about our very wonderful gay-friendly company, that he thought he couldn't have worked there even 5 years ago.
Meaning that he couldn't have dealt with the lesbian co-worker who actually talked openly about her partner and then "claimed" to be Christian - and also working for a gay boss. I thought about it a good long while and came back with this zinger, which actually made him laugh: "You know, I couldn't have worked with YOU even 10 years ago!" Meaning that in my more politically fervent days I would have just destroyed him. With my logical arguments that is, not like going postal or anything, don't worry. :)
I would have felt compelled to argue against his anti-lotsa stuff rhetoric and also pro-things I don't believe in - like no real "dating" in their church and what sounds like practically arranged marriages - and I would NOT have tolerated much of what he professes to be his belief, his certainty. And let's don't even open up the abortion-debate (I haven't, at work, I know that much at my old/young age). It would have been brutal - and probably destructive of work relationships - 10 years ago that is. Now I'm like "meh" - you have your beliefs, I have mine and as long as we can respect each other and get work done...
And today I truly understand that for them, their way of life makes sense. There are fewer choices for them, in a way, and it is simpler (more simple?). I only wish life could be more peaceful and simple, for all of us, and I guess what I am saying is that this social media stuff isn't making life any simpler. How are we really reaching each other? How are we connecting, really?!?
But still, I do like me some FaceBook. I caint help it (to quote "The Yearling").
Just help me with this - does anyone feel the same? Like something has gone terribly wrong, somewhere along the way? I'm not talking about our current economic slump that never seems to end, I'm talking about something's gone wrong with our food, with our families, our communities, our relationships, with one another, with our...everything.
No matter what your political orientation, or your degree of fervor. Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? We are not seeing or reaching each other. And can we make it better or do more? Maybe the challenge is met every day that we really look at and hear each other...but it's rare, you know?
But it's fresh in my mind because it was a most intense time, there was a lot going on for me personally and for her too, I think & we were both super-stressed for our own individual reasons. But still I wonder sometimes, if it would have happened differently, if she or I could have handled it better, if the conflict hadn't taken place via email and other electronic communication media....and that is the alleged impetus for this here blog post.
You know, I'm the last thing from a Luddite but there is no TONE on these "social networking" sites we use & so much gets lost in the mix. So much can be misunderstood, misapprehended and just plain f-ed up.
And communication is hard enough as it is. I ought to know - I make my bread and butter by communicating (or trying to) within the wild and wacky world of technology/computer systems.
Witness this recent comment of mine on LinkedIn, for the thread called "Word of the Day: As BA's (Business Analysts) are expected to have excellent communication skills, I request all to post one challenging, meaningful, relevant WORD per BA per day for all to share and digest."
OK maybe I'm a little bit of a hypocrite, blogging about the evils of social media, then posting my own comments but anyways - here's my (slightly abridged) contribution -
Maybe not PARSING the thread properly, but whatevs. I'm tired, after a long day of being a BA, trying to PARSE requirements in the world of chaotic competing demands called the software-development-life-cycle (SDLC).
PARSING–verb (used with object) 1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc. 1. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc. 1. Computers . to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar. Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parsing
There's no elegant (or any) transition here but....I just finished watching the movie "The Yearling" made in 1946, based on the 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning book written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Starring a yummy young Gregory Peck and washed-out worried (on purpose) Jane Wyman, as his wife. And, of course, Claude Jarman Jr. as young Jody Baxter -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yearling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Jarman,_Jr.
This family living in the backwoods central Florida "scrub" at the start of the twentieth century had much to worry about, but it centered on REAL things: it was about hunting and crops and livestock and hunger, if there was a flood and the food (crops) was washed out. Or if a pet deer "et it" - as they would say, in old-agey lingo, lost long ago but captured in this wonderful book & movie.
It wasn't this...have I been de-friended on FaceBook (FB) and what does so-and-so think about my latest status/video posted, am I making the "right" connections on LinkedIn, have I gotten any "hits" on whatever dating site, and shall I Tweet my location when I go out to dinner with friends?
I don't mean to ridicule people looking for a mate on any online dating service though. I'm more making a general statement about something going on that I see...and it amounts sometimes to these shallow connections and ridiculous things that preoccupy our attention today. And, trust me, it's ALL about attention; our quality of it - or lack thereof - is reflected in the quality of our lives, I do believe.
I could barely stomach the playing of "Farmville" games on FB even before watching this movie, but now it's even more aggravating because I think about how people once had (and, of course, still do) actual REAL farms, from which they made money and subsisted. For the sweet family in "The Yearling" that farm meant life or death to them! And it occurs to me that people even 10 years ago - urban or rural - could turn off their cell phones and computers and actually pay attention to those they loved.
And not be concerned that work was trying to get ahold of them or they might be missing out on some FB status, post or newsfeed. As I tweeted, for the first time the other day, admittedly boring and ridiculous nonsense and then emailed my older brother this comment:
I think this social media shit's gone too far. How does anyone SLEEP?! :)
Maybe that's just me, projecting all over the place as I am wont to do, cuz I have definite sleep issues (among others), and maybe not everyone else does? Maybe everyone else sleeps just fine, like babies - as the saying goes. But, seriously, who does that these days? (Serious question.)
Granted I watch "The Yearling", and don't want to be a woman who has to wash the family's clothes by the creek and who yearns for a well right in her own front yard, to make a hard-scrabble life just a "mite" easier. I wash a couple of dishes, usually ungratefully grumbling, in my stainless steel sink - in my nice heated apartment - while we make dinner on an ultra-modern electric stove-range and am glad I don't live in those times. (Also glad we didn't move to Alaska as originally planned, and tried to live off the land, but that's another blog post!)
Nor do I want to go back to when women (mostly) didn't work outside the home and were - literally - property of their husbands, if they were married, and property of their fathers' if they were too young to be married yet. I work now with a few brothers who are from a very "old school" Christian faith where the women wear head-scarves (cuz hair tempts men, I guess, whatevs) and long skirts and are rarely in the work-place, and men are the without-a-doubt "Providers."
They are sweet, good men and so, despite their anti-homosexual views and a lot of other beliefs I basically find fault with, I have befriended them at work. With some of them, I have honest, self-revealing conversations in which I state my piece and we may disagree but they seem to respect me, even if they still believe that I am a "sinner" and my younger brother, especially, is going to hell.
I let them be and it doesn't really bother me. It's the work-place, whadaya gonna do? One of them said, about our very wonderful gay-friendly company, that he thought he couldn't have worked there even 5 years ago.
Meaning that he couldn't have dealt with the lesbian co-worker who actually talked openly about her partner and then "claimed" to be Christian - and also working for a gay boss. I thought about it a good long while and came back with this zinger, which actually made him laugh: "You know, I couldn't have worked with YOU even 10 years ago!" Meaning that in my more politically fervent days I would have just destroyed him. With my logical arguments that is, not like going postal or anything, don't worry.
I would have felt compelled to argue against his anti-lotsa stuff rhetoric and also pro-things I don't believe in - like no real "dating" in their church and what sounds like practically arranged marriages - and I would NOT have tolerated much of what he professes to be his belief, his certainty. And let's don't even open up the abortion-debate (I haven't, at work, I know that much at my old/young age). It would have been brutal - and probably destructive of work relationships - 10 years ago that is. Now I'm like "meh" - you have your beliefs, I have mine and as long as we can respect each other and get work done...
And today I truly understand that for them, their way of life makes sense. There are fewer choices for them, in a way, and it is simpler (more simple?). I only wish life could be more peaceful and simple, for all of us, and I guess what I am saying is that this social media stuff isn't making life any simpler. How are we really reaching each other? How are we connecting, really?!?
But still, I do like me some FaceBook. I caint help it (to quote "The Yearling").
Just help me with this - does anyone feel the same? Like something has gone terribly wrong, somewhere along the way? I'm not talking about our current economic slump that never seems to end, I'm talking about something's gone wrong with our food, with our families, our communities, our relationships, with one another, with our...everything.
No matter what your political orientation, or your degree of fervor. Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? We are not seeing or reaching each other. And can we make it better or do more? Maybe the challenge is met every day that we really look at and hear each other...but it's rare, you know?
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