Ombailamos

a thousand words

I assure you, this post will not be a thousand words.  I don't write haiku, though, so it's likely to get away from me.  

I was watching Anthony Bourdain's new show and he was in San Francisco, Mr. P's hometown and a city that I love, and I had a little flashback to a breakfast joint that we visited a couple of years ago.  It was one of those "secret" places that supposedly the locals all know, that gets known through word-of-mouth.  One of those places that doesn't take reservations and you might have to wait.  For a while.  

As I recall, we didn't have to wait long because we got out of our Union Square hotel and up the street to the joint quite early.  It was already crowded, though, and by the time we left there was indeed a queue.  But what I chiefly remember about that visit was not the place itself, or the food, or the general experience. No, what I chiefly remember was our waiter.  

This is not something that happens often.  We get good service almost all the time because we are nice to the restaurant staff and we find the good places.  (Restaurants with crappy service generally do not survive for long, nor do they get good reputations.)  But it's usually about the food, or the wine, or the view.  

So anyway, this waiter.  What was it about this guy?  

I don't as a rule take photos of people but I really wanted to do a portrait.  I barely know how to take a good portrait, but the look of this guy suggested such a story that, witness this rambling nonsense, after all this time I haven't forgotten him.  I didn't ask even though I had my camera, because we were out at breakfast and the place was busy and it might have seemed weird and I am not immune to "what will people think?".

His name was Nico and he looked Mediterranean; southern Italian, or Greek, possibly; Cypriot or Turkish, maybe; but he spoke with no accent so that's as far as I got.  Dark hair, dark eyes.  Beautiful eyes, with long lashes, and down-turning outer corners, and a nose like Isabella Rossellini's.  The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up a couple of turns, and I could see the edge of a tattoo showing below the cuff on his right arm.  Not enough to see the design ... just another tantalizing bit of no-information.  And he had the faintest suggestion of a bruise along the bone framing his left eye.  As if he'd caught the edge of a punch a couple of nights ago.  

Yes, he was a good waiter.  He was charming and quick-witted and prompt.  But he looked like someone we should have come across in the context of art or music or a sailboat or boxing, not pancakes; and it's that little fishhook of a story that caught me, and I still kind of regret not asking if I could take his picture.

having a fit

A fit of decluttering, that is.*

I finally updated my library index - even converted it to Excel! - and was both amused and appalled to discover that, despite decluttering literally hundreds of books over the past two years, we still own over 1200 honest-to-goodness paper Books.

Yikes, y'all!

So I am about to commence another purge.  In the first pass, I attacked our hall closet, where I had a stash, and cleared half of it out.  Next is my bedroom closet.  After that, not sure: I have to get Mr. P involved in order to address certain areas, and he is not always receptive to this type of project.  Marriage: it's a process!

In the course of de-stashing those books, I also de-stashed some other stuff that was lurking in there.  It's all too easy for me to not deal with stuff that is not out in the open bugging me.  Hey, it's behind closed doors, it's not a problem, right?

Except it is.  It's not stuff I need.  I'm not using it.  Probably won't be using it.  Why keep it?  Am I more likely to use it next year?  Evidently not, since I've had it at least twice that long already!  I am working on getting to the point of, if I don't have a project immediately in mind for something, out it goes.  I have plenty of projects that are already on simmer, I do not need to hang onto anything "just in case" it sparks an idea.  My idea factory is backed up!  I need to execute!

Decluttering is kind of like self-directed therapy.  Once you get into the decluttering mode, it becomes easier and easier to sever emotional ties to Stuff.  Its nostalgic or sentimental "value" goes to nil when you realize that you've had it in a box for five years without ever missing it.

Books, at least - and DVDs and CDs - have gotten a lot easier in the past few years, what with digital downloads, Kindle, and Netflix.  Many of the books I intend to declutter on this pass are now available for Kindle, so if I absolutely, positively have to read something again, I can. 

Other books are simply out of date, or no longer of interest.  I've had a little bit more difficulty with these categories - as has my better half - since it's sometimes hard to admit to ourselves that we went to college THAT LONG AGO or that we're just not interested in doing that activity any more.  People often self-identify, very strongly, based on what they did in their youth - I certainly have - and it's kind of wrenching to give up that picture of yourself (myself).

But people CHANGE.  Interests change, activities change, everything changes.  And that's okay.  We don't have to hold onto every piece of evidence that we were once an expert on [insert topic here] in order to have value as human beings.

Who we are has very little to do with what we have.

*this post was originally published last summer, and updated for the New Year.

how to do what's important FOR YOU ... and still be a team player

I would like to quote from Havi's Friday Chicken (check-in) at The Fluent Self:

“Setting boundaries.

One of the many useful, true and eternally frustrating things that
I have learned from being consciously alive is this:

Intentionally setting strong, healthy boundaries is the most
compassionate and important thing that you can do. And not just for you, but
for everyone in your world.

However, rigorous scientific study by me has shown that most
people don’t like it when you do it.

Even when it’s best for them and for the greater good and for
everyone involved.

So that can be uncomfortable and not fun, which makes it kind of
unappealing. Except that if you don’t do it, then everything gets even worse. ”

I am involved in a lot of different stuff, and as others before me have learned, the
more stuff you are involved with, the more stuff tends to stick to you.

And if you are good at organizing stuff, as I am, then oftentimes the other people
involved with that stuff will tend to assume that you are in charge.

I just want to say, to my friends and colleagues, I am not in charge. :-)

I am doing what I do because I enjoy it, not because it's my job or because I want that project to Belong To Me. I don't have much of a personal stake in anything I do that happens outside my own home.

So if I ask you a question, it's because I believe the information I am seeking is pertinent to the project that we share, and typically I ask when I ask because I need the information at that time. Not next week.

There is a certain level of seriousness that I expect my colleagues to share. Not to take ourselves seriously, and not to take our projects so seriously - we are not obliterating polio or world hunger. All we are doing is some mostly-recreational dance stuff. But we still have to approach it seriously, because each of us is giving up our own time to do this and all of us are worthy of respect.

Also, we are representing a larger organization. If we flake out on our team and don't show up and participate, that's a shadow on the organization and not just on our own personal reputations.

Each of us can only do what we can do. None of us should be expected to do more than we willingly volunteer to do. But once we have made a commitment, we need to follow through on it.

If there is part of a project that we cannot participate in for whatever reason, we need to be very clear about that. We don't need to apologize for it, but we have to let the others on the team know so that they can find someone to fill the hole. And if we possibly can, we need to help fill that hole before we bow out.

We are at a point where the team can't cover all the necessary tasks without some members doing more than they really want to.

There are three options at this point:

• cancel certain projects;
• recruit more people for the team; or
• suspend operations altogether until the absence of activity stimulates more people to volunteer.

Obviously option 3 is not desirable, but it wouldn't be the first time a chapter has had to resort to it.

Options 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive. Ideally we recruit more people so that we don't have to cancel any projects, but it might prove more beneficial, in the long run, to cancel some projects so that we have breathing room to recruit and train more volunteers.

Our projects are not rocket science, but they do require a little bit of know-how about the organization (what it is and why it exists) and the local structure (what we've been doing and how we've been doing it).

The truth is, some tasks have been neglected for nearly the entire life of our chapter, because there just weren't enough people on the team. We're going to have to make some decisions - and some changes - very soon. My personal boundaries require it.

a link for the morning after

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/drink/2011/12/bloody_marys_the_breakfast_martini_and_the_corpse_reviver_what_to_drink_the_morning_after_.html

I won't be drinking on January 1 ... or at least not before noon ... because I'll be out in the daylight (ouch!) dancing (argh!) while the Kit-Cat Clock float for the Rose Parade gets judged. Thankfully, it is the float as a whole, not the haggard middle-aged dancer(s), who will be judged. Watch (or DVR) the Parade on January 2 and play spot-the-dancer!

happy at home

slippery slopes, and the deception of clothing sizes

Crazy Aunt Purl recently recounted a sad tale concerning a well-intentioned gentleman who was desperately trying to figure out what size dress to buy for his lady friend, and CAP's timely intervention to save him from imminent ruin by sending him to the jewelry counter instead. (Read it here: http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2011/12/earrings_always_1.php#comments )

Why is it so darn hard to find the right size, people?

If you go in Forever XXI or H&M, if you can find numerical sizes at all, they are going to be around the same size they were in the 1980s. If you go in Macy's or Bloomingdales, numerical sizes are going to be one to two sizes bigger than they were in the 1980s. Now, if you are like me, you don't buy things like tank tops or tee shirts at Macy's; you go someplace like H&M or OC Designs, where these disposable garments cost what they should (i.e. $5 to $10).

But if you aren't like me, and don't mind spending $20 on a tee shirt, you may be buying an 8 and congratulating yourself that you still fit an 8. Unfortunately ... you don't. You're now in what would have been a 10 or 12, twenty years ago.

This is only one of many nefarious ways that the clothing industry enables you to slowly, gradually, gain weight without "noticing." As you get older and generally more prosperous, you start shopping in stores with higher average prices and bigger, on average, sizes.

Another example. This fall I bought my first pair of jeans in about twenty years. The helpful saleslady at Macy's steered me toward Not Your Daughter's Jeans, because obviously I am middle-aged, and everything marketed for people under 30 is made with that ridiculous "low-rise" cut, which by the way I abominate. It only looks good on very thin people who never sit down.

But back to my story. I was getting frustrated with the various jeans I was trying on (not only NYDJ) because all of them marked 8 were too big. I know perfectly well I am not smaller than I was in 1989, so a size 8 should FIT, dammit. Or be TIGHT. It should not be so loose that I could stuff my entire large handbag under the waistband.

NYDJ markets themselves as making you look and feel a size smaller. You know why? Because their jeans are cut so generously that a size 6 is too big - the waistline on the jeans I finally settled on has room for 10 extra pounds of belly - for a woman who is demonstrably not a size 6. The thighs and the butt fit great, I'll grant you - except that the butt is always sagging because the waistband is so vast. I don't want to wear a belt, people. I want my jeans to fit. Is that so wrong?

I have only been a size 6 once in my adult life, and that was after six months of subsisting on bagels and coffee while I tried to get a hostile ex out of my apartment.

Do those jeans make me look and feel a size smaller? NO THEY DON'T. Because the body inside is still the size that it is - a solid 8, and on a bad hormonal day, a 10. Just because the tag says "6" does not make it so.

The moral of this story is: don't believe what you read. Shop, once in a while, in a store intended for people under 25, and you may get a rude awakening. We have to keep ourselves honest, and not fall for marketing that tells us we can look and feel a size smaller ... without losing the weight.

I'm not getting into a real size 6 pair of jeans in this lifetime. I don't even want to - I would lose most of my (if I may say so myself) excellent ass, if I tried. All I want is a pair of pants that fit.

I may have to start shopping in the men's department. They are still cutting men's pants with a ten-inch difference between hip and waist. Isn't that sad? A whole industry out there, telling you lies so that you can lie to yourself.

happy holidays

This was taken a few years ago, in Beverly Hills.  It's a crystal star that was hung at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel and I suppose it was at least 15 feet high.  There's a lot of stupid stuff that goes along with living in L.A., but there is also ... well, there's stuff like this.

Motivation: from the archive

It's about the time of year when people start thinking about New Year's resolutions. I prefer to work with an ongoing (and ever-evolving) to-do list of goals. Some are trivial by nature; some are bigger. I try to break these bigger goals down into easily-digested chunks; I find it's encouraging to cross something off the list, even if it's just a small part of a greater project.

My goals are always drawn from my three great motivators: health, good dancing, and quality of life. I know, for example, that Mr. P and I are happiest when we have time to do stuff together - whether it's an afternoon at the beach or an evening at the movies is unimportant. So "us" time is always on the calendar and in the budget.

I also know that doing something creative is essential to my personal contentment; and that I need to budget some "quiet time" every day. That might just be a few minutes to water my plants and watch "my" hummingbirds, but it's important.

Health and good dancing serve to motivate most of my fitness activity. The women in my family tend to live a long time, but to be in poor health for the last decade (or more) of that time. Therefore, it's important to me to push my physical and mental limits, since both physical and mental exercise have been proven effective in delaying and mitigating disability late in life. Fortunately, my dance obsession serves both purposes very well.

Partner dancing requires four-dimensional thinking (direction, rotation, elevation, and time are all involved), good social skills, and good health. The physical exercises I do are always chosen purposefully, to improve my dancing. There is a limit to what I can achieve as a dancer because I started relatively late in life. However, I don't use that as an excuse to be satisfied with what I can already do.

I was pretty bendy as a kid, though I never played any sports or had any real physical training. Then I started doing yoga at 28, and started dancing at 32. At present, I have almost the same range of motion throughout my body that I had at 15, and am now stronger, with better balance, agility, and endurance.

I've been lucky; I've never had a serious injury and the worst illness has been flu. But these "lucky" factors are also linked to a history of good nutrition, an active lifestyle, and plenty of sleep.

When you make a goal, it's important to think about why you are motivated to pursue that goal. But it's also important to look seriously at how you live your life. You have to give yourself space and time to achieve anything, and you have to give yourself the right tools.

If the way you live is working against what you say you want to achieve, then some self-examination is called for. It's okay to change what you want.

If you've been going along thinking you want Thing A, and everything you do is directed toward achieving Thing B, you may just need to change your thinking. It's okay.

Unless, of course, "Thing A" = getting healthy, and "Thing B" = staying unhealthy. Then you probably actually do need to change what you are doing versus what you are thinking.

personal economies

Here is a short list of very important changes that I've made in my life over the past five years. They are important because they save time, which allows me to do other things; and they save money, which also, coincidentally, allows me to do other things.

Pretty much all of us have a limited budget of time AND money, and at this time of year that budget gets tighter. So that's why I'm putting these up now.

The things I've changed may be things you've never spent time or money on. But if you feel like there is never enough time or money, you may want to examine the ways you spend YOUR time and money to see where you could create your own personal economies.

• I started cutting my own hair. This saves a minimum of $20 in my market, and given that I was previously going to a West Hollywood stylist with an industry clientele, it was averaging me $60. I have long straight hair. It's not that hard. It takes me less than ten minutes to chop a few inches off when the mood strikes, and I can do it whenever I want. An appointment never took less than two hours (getting there, getting my hairs cut, getting home) and often more. So, this one economy saves a minimum $20, actual $60, and actual two hours, every six to eight weeks. Over the course of a year that's a minimum of $120 and 12 hours saved.
• I started coloring my own hair. This pre-dated doing my own trims because if the cuts were expensive, the color was ridiculous. At most, I got it done professionally no more than twice a year and it cost about $100, and three hours, each time. At home I can do it every month for $10 and I can do something else while the color is cooking. So I save "only" $80, and six hours - but six hours is a lot when most of your life has to fit into a weekend.
• I learned to cook. We used to go out to the finer steakhouses pretty often - I'd say at least once a month. A steak dinner for two, with wine and starter and dessert, would average $100. And it took about three hours. An equivalent dinner at home? About $20, and half the time. So I save $960 and 18 hours, over the course of a year.
• I stopped getting facials and massages. This one hurt, because I don't do much self-pampering, but after voluntarily downsizing myself, budgeting $80 a month for a facial or massage just wasn't in the cards. I could afford it now ... but I don't want to. I'd rather put that money into the retirement fund, the coaching fund, or the travel fund. Saved: another $960, and between 18-24 hours.

As you can see, with just four changes of habit I save well over $2000 a year. And close to three entire days' worth of time. That's a whole long weekend I've given myself!

There are other things I've never done (like getting manicures or waxing) and a lot of things I'd like to do but just don't (martial-arts classes, renting time at the silversmithing bench).

There is only so much time and money. To me, right now, my time is better spent on developing the personal creative projects, and the personal fitness practices, that I can do with less money. Because my money is better spent building the future I want. Or on products or services that I really truly cannot make or do for myself, like anti-frown-line injections.

Ultimately, my point (and, to quote Ellen D., I do have one) is that finding the things that give a poor return on investment and cutting them out of the budget can free up unexpectedly large amounts of that time and money we all need in order to do the things that are really important. To us. It's personal.

discuss amongst yourselves

This is a "link" article. http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/who_are_you/

This is the point of the linked essay:

You Are What You Learn.

Here is a little sample:

"If all you know is how to be a gang member, that's what you'll be, at least until you learn something else. ... A person changes at a fundamental level as he or she merges with a particular field of knowledge. If you don't like who you are, you have the option of learning until you become someone else. ... There's almost nothing you can't learn your way out of. Life is like a jail with an unlocked, heavy door. You're free the minute you realize the door will open if you simply lean into it."

And now, a few words from your host. A first, big, fat, important point:

Learning involves a lot more than just reading something. You can read about politics and the economy, or about fitness, or about dog grooming, every day and you will not have learned more than the barest, most superficial factoids about the multifarious complexities of any of those fields.

True learning requires study. Study requires access to multiple sources of information, configured by people or institutions with multiple points of view. It then requires reading all this information with a truly open mind, with all biases identified and neutralized to the extent possible. It probably requires writing, or otherwise restating, your understanding of the material in a context enabling correction by others that are conversant with the material. (This would be also called "school.")

Self-study can be great, but you miss the opportunity to defend your conclusions, which is key to weeding out the errors.

And learning doesn't just stop at study. In many, if not most, fields of knowledge true learning requires the physical application of the knowledge. A doctor isn't licensed to practice until he or she can demonstrate his or her physical ability to carry out the procedures required. A plumber, car mechanic, or manicurist isn't, either. (And a ballroom dancer can't say she's learned a figure until she can execute it correctly.)

In the context of fitness, this means you can read about best practices all day every day, but if your level of activity does not go beyond moving from bed to car to office chair to car to couch, you probably haven't actually learned much about fitness. You may have many facts at your disposal but without a physical understanding of the practice required, those facts, and the time spent acquiring them, are useless and wasted.

So for example I consider myself to be learning yoga and ballroom dancing because I practice yoga and ballroom dancing. But all I know about running is theory.

Applied to nutrition, this means that you can have every diet book ever written on your shelves at home, but if your daily diet goes from bagel to cheeseburger to pizza, you haven't learned a damn thing. You may have all those books because of magical thinking, you may even have done what they said - for a while - but you didn't look at the information in them as part of an entire body of actual, scientific, knowledge.

Acquiring information doesn't take much time or effort. That's why most people stop there, and don't go beyond into true study or into the physical application of the knowledge.

Your choices, in many ways, are the most true definition of what you've learned. And your life is the manifestation of your choices. If you are not happy with your life, learn your way out of it. Choose to learn, because learning gives you a different set of choices.