This week's sporkful

Facing 40

2012-01-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s happened. I have turned 40. It has not been especially traumatic. It doesn’t really feel different. It is a reminder that time is passing, though, and that nothing has really changed significantly.

Back in the days when I was working at Intel, I remember thinking that if nothing had happened in terms of becoming a professional writer or getting married and having children by 40, then I would need to reevaluate, and maybe I would need to think about becoming a foster parent, or going into politics, or going back to school to become a teacher. I have still not ruled any of these things out permanently, but I am not changing making any of those changes right now. Instead I have set some long-term goals for things I would like to do when I am 50, so that I have a plan to guide me through the next decade.

It started with the thought that I would like to do a triathlon when I am 50. Now, setting a goal for that far off can easily be completely useless, because it’s like the procrastination is built into the goal already. That is not how this is going to work.

For me, part of it is that it will take me a while to reach that level of fitness. It would not take me a whole ten years, but it could take five. However, I don’t want to just get in shape, do an event, and then let it all go again. It’s kind of that I want to be doing a triathlon at 50 so that I know that I am entering my older years in a good way, that I might still be doing one when I am 60. It’s more about the kind of 50 year old that I want to be.

That has been part of the plan for a while now—I don’t even remember when I first decided it, but I have also put two other goals with it. One is that I will have visited all the continents, and also I will make a movie.

Obviously, for those things to happen, many things need to happen in between, and I have some ideas on that.

The travel one is the easiest, but it was originally a goal for when I was forty. As it is, I already have three continents down, so I really only need to do one new continent every three years, and then go to Antarctica when I am 50. Of course, that’s the one that’s melting, so I may just have to do that one sooner. Julie and Maria want to go on safari for their 40th anyway, which is 2017, so that will get Africa. The first one will probably be South America, and then Asia sometime after Africa. Travel fits well into my normal mode of life.

(Yes, I will do some more things in Europe and North America, even though I have already been there. Repeats in Australia are less likely, but not impossible.)

For making the movie, the first thing that happens is that I need to catch up in writing. That means catching up on all my pending blog posts (this would be easier if I quit coming up with new ones, but that’s not going to happen) and writing two more screenplays so that I do actually have nine of my own. Also, I need to rewrite the existing ones, adding more detail. I tend to write with very Spartan descriptions, because then the director can fill in their own looks, but sometimes it is more appealing if you give them some description. They’ll make the changes they want anyway. This process can take us much as two years, and it is all fine.

Afterwards, I will need to start filming things in different lights, indoors, outdoors, daytime, nighttime, human, animal, athletic, dance, panoramic, microscopic and so on, just to really develop a good working idea of how to capture the look that I want. World traveling will not hurt those efforts. I will also want to work on some film editing. I think a lot of this will come down to music videos. I can do tribute videos on Youtube with film or television clips, and shoot music videos for local bands.

This should give way to doing short pieces—maybe some stuff for funnyordie, or I could make my own Youtube channel. I have thought it would be good to do some demo videos for emergency preparedness. Anyway, this is how I will build know-how. I hope to be pretty competent with filming and editing within six years.

The other thing I should probably take some time to do prior to that is maybe taking a month or two and writing a bunch of six page scripts. There is a regularly running contest for 6-minute films, and a lot of people like doing films to show their ability to do special effects, but they are not writers, so I could have an opportunity to make some connections and be helpful there.

Certainly there are opportunities for networking, and maybe seeing if I can get some jobs or do some volunteer work locally on the independent scene, or even with some of the professional shows that film around here, but then it will also be time to start planning. I will need to pick a script, scout out locations, and get all those things ready. If I go super fast, maybe I can film it when I am 49 and then spend 50 entering it into film festivals.

Finally, what about that triathlon? Well, this is not an ambitious beginning, but the first thing I need to work on is sleep. I do not have good sleep habits, and that affects my eating and exercising and focus.

On the activity side, I have prepaid for four fencing lessons this year, and I want to bike to work at least five times this year. Not terribly ambitious, I know, but I am taking a slow approach. Also, if Forest Park has that thing for covering all the trails, I want to do that. I found out about it too late last year.

Other steps along the road will include taking swimming lessons, because I can paddle around okay, but I have no form, and that will make a big difference, and building up my endurance for all three events. I have been okay at swimming and biking before. I have never been anything but horrible at running, but I am a good walker, and I will start adding small runs to the ends of my walks, and as I start feeling more confident I will probably take a clinic. The good thing is I know a lot of runners, and I am fond of Foot Traffic, and there is just a lot of help for runners out there.

You may notice that I have no intellectual or spiritual goals there, but I find that those work better in the short term. I would not have any idea how to make a goal for my spiritual self for ten years from now that I would not think that I should get done sooner. I’m not worried about that.

Obviously, even these three goals could change, as unpredictable as life is, but I know they are okay, because they are things that I want to do, and that I will enjoy, and that will keep life interesting for the next decade.

Basically, I just intend to be awesome.

End of the Year Clearance! Everything Must Go!

2012-01-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, not really everything, but compatible desires for less stuff and more money have had me posting lots of things on Craig’s List.

It started around Christmas time. Julie got the idea that maybe we could sell things to pay for our principle excursions in Mexico. The big ones are that we have a tour guide who will take us to Chichen Itza and Tulum (that will be $165 each) and then our admissions to Xcaret Ecological Park will be about $71 each if we buy online.

Now, that does seem like a lot of money to hope for, but we have a lot of stuff, and Julie and Maria were mainly looking at getting rid of some Disney things. There were two Pooh Cookie Jars, a Cinderella snow globe, and a Wedgewood Cinderella figure.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, but they are all collectible items, and have been marked by others at fairly high prices. The problem with collectibles is that you have to find someone who wants them. I got lucky a few years ago, and I found someone who came and took a set of Pooh snow globes and several ornaments without haggling. I was hoping she would see these, but maybe she went out of business.

Our timing was somewhat off. I think we should have gotten them posted a full week before Christmas, but it is a busy time of year and we didn’t. The week went buy, and the only thing that went were Julie’s spare Medifast items (those things are gold!). We just posted again.

I added some items of my own. There are two more sets of ornaments, a set of Pooh mini-snow globes, portable keyboard, and a food sealer.

Mainly they are things that are collecting dust now, and we could use money, so there are very practical issues there, but there is also an element of letting some things go, and letting other things stay.

I honestly wish I had never bought any figurine in my life. Once you have them, and have spent money on them, getting rid of them feels like a waste, but keeping them isn’t necessarily rewarding. (I’m not even trying to sell the Cherished Teddies, but if I thought anyone would pay for them…)

Also, sometimes it is letting go of plans, but maybe they weren’t good plans. The food sealer was for food storage, and especially for packing up pet food for pet 72 hour kits. I have never opened it. We still have a respectable food storage, and that’s growing. I don’t have great pet kits, but I can do what I want with Ziplock bags and duct tape. I didn’t need to be so complicated.

The keyboard is awesome. It is a Yamaha PSS-140. I know the Casio SK-1 had better name recognition, and that was actually what Danielle started with when we started the band (such as it was) and it seemed like a wise choice. Later though, when I felt like I needed my own keyboard, I had to go for the Yamaha. I think it was the drum pad that really won me over, and of course it was bigger.

I do feel like I will go back to music some day, and start writing music again, and this time I will somehow get down actually being able to pick out the notes, rather than just having to remember them in my head (or use that cool software like in Drumline). However, I think I will stick with the piano. I like the texture and the resistance with the piano better, despite my fondness for the sample rhythm on the Yamaha. The keyboard is fun, but I don’t need it.

With the Disney stuff, a lot of it was more, oh, that is cute, and I have disposable income, which is why you make small children save half of their disposable income and train them against impulse buys when they are young. Otherwise just being able to buy things is kind of intoxicating when it happens, and it’s not awful, but it’s not valuable either.

Some of them had plans. The Wedgewood figure was going to be the topper on Maria’s wedding cake. I’m not saying she will never get married, but she may not need Cinderella on top. They may not end up with separate households requiring cookie jars. We have so much junk like that. I did accumulate a hope chest, and most of the items have either come into use here, or been given as gifts, or been given away. We are now using Julie’s china set, and Maria’s bathroom set. Really, just save cash. Even if your circumstances change, by the time they do, your tastes may have changed also.

So we will see. If they don’t go as marked, we may try eBay or Amazon marketplace. They don’t need to go, and we will still do what we want on our trip if they don’t sell, but it would be nice.

Let me know if you want anything!

Underachiever

2012-01-08T23:23:00.000-08:00

This is the flip side of “Loser”. Without ever getting an amazing lucky break or windfall, I am nonetheless having a pretty good life, and that takes a certain amount of intention and follow-through, and it is completely okay not to have the big break. However, is it enough?

This is not so much a matter of whether or not I need more to get by. I would like to have a bigger travel budget, but I can live with it. The question is whether I should have more.

It’s not like I have never asked the question before. I remember when I bought the house thinking that it was my first real milestone since I had graduated from college. Without getting married and having children (which I am not even going to touch in this post, but there is a multi-part series coming up), not a lot necessarily happens. I went on a mission, graduated from college, got a job, and just worked, eventually buying the house.

Sometimes I would catch up with schoolmates and they would be impressed that I worked at Intel, but I would downplay it, because it was not really a prestigious job, or a loved job, just a normal job that I was good at, and that paid okay, and for which my education was completely unnecessary. I never climbed the corporate ladder, with Intel or CDI, and I didn’t really want to. Now I have to think about whether I want to do that at Regence.

To be fair, one thing that helped me stay content at previous jobs is that I got to try a lot of new things, being creative and taking new responsibilities, so it kept me stimulated. This tended not to result in an increase in pay or a change in job title. That possibly could have been different if I had pushed a little more. I turned down some options because I didn’t think I would enjoy them, and I accepted one job change not because I wanted it, but because I knew anyone else doing it would be disastrous. I took the job because it was going to be less annoying than having to deal with someone else in the job.

I know there will be people who find that completely pathetic, and now approaching forty without much to show for it, they may be right, but then I go back to having mostly enjoyed my life, which not everyone can say.

When I went to Italy and met my family there, I wanted to make sure I could communicate, so I decided I would ask everyone about their jobs and how they met their significant others. Those seemed like reasonable questions, where I could listen and get to know them.

No one had much to say about their jobs. They had jobs, and they told me what they did, but it was so utterly unimportant to them. They talked more about their personal lives—their families, trips they had taken, things they enjoyed doing—that was what mattered. I kind of like that.

At the same time, I do have a really good brain, and I don’t want to waste it, and my real strength is language and I am not using it for my career at all. I think you see my quandary. Of course, part of what got me here was that my plan was always to work with language. I was going to write.

Around the time I started college I read a column by William Raspberry advising his niece (who wanted to be a journalist) not to major in English. Instead she should study the world and then she would have something to write about. That sounded very logical. After all, the popular writers then were Michael Crichton (who went to medical school), John Grisham (law school).

Also, it corresponded with my own desires. The classes that interested me were foreign language and history, but those worked. Studying other languages enriches your grasp of English, and studying history is studying everything—science, psychology, sociology—everything that happens for any reason comes into play in history. Also, I had no desire to take English classes, because the first year or two is graduate students trying to make you write like them, and who needs that?

So that was all very logically planned, and enjoyable, and the only real problem is that I am still not a professional writer. I have written one novel, one children’s book, and six screenplays on my own, plus collaborated on another one, and developed a pilot for a television series, and I have made $0. It’s times like this when you need to reevaluate a dream.

I have thought about other ways of doing it. I could try and go in for technical writing more, as I have actually done some as part of my other duties. They usually want certification, but that’s doable. I could set up a freelance writing business, and that is probably something I could do well at after spending some time building up a clientele. The only problem is that those plans generate no enthusiasm for me.

I hate selling myself. It’s bad enough having to pitch screenplays and write query letters—trying to get people to let me write their ad copy is not going to happen. Getting into technical writing would be easier, but it wouldn’t be a real step up from what I am doing now, and any of those efforts would take away from my already scarce time.

It seems like I need to stay as I am. In one sense I am viewing every job as a temporary job, until I can support myself as a writer, but that is only horrible if the jobs are horrible, and none of them really have been. Even as dysfunctional as the last one was, I was so deeply into it that I didn’t see it. (Also, it was a lot more functional while I was there.)

That was one thing, where I was having this slow realization that a lot of my obstacles were disappearing. The job that took so much out of me was gone, the draining writing project was finished, and the ward that took so much out of me was gone (more on that later too). I had a good visiting teaching companion and route, and Mom’s knees were done, and I was thinking, okay, maybe it is time to really make some progress on things I want to do, and then I got really sick.

Now I am healthy again, but moving into the time of year when overtime is encouraged. That doesn’t last long, and who knows, maybe the house will burn down, or—no, I don’t even want to put any of those things out there. In the eleven months that I was unemployed, I had flu, there was severe weather, people died, I was depressed and financial and emotional strain of the unemployment led to family stress, and I wrote four and a half of those screenplays. There’s always going to be something hard, but it doesn’t prevent progress from being made.

Ultimately, I still have to be writing, because I am not right in my head if I don’t. Characters and situations get in, and I keep replaying things over and over until I get them written out, and then they move on. It’s the same with the blog and the journaling—nothing really gets resolved until I have written about it, and I have about 35 blog posts that I know I need to do, plus at least one journal session, not even counting the fiction. Do you know that the soap opera is a dying genre, and yet I still have two going around in my head (one inspired by Jaws 2).

I’m afraid I’m not terribly impressive, but I am me, doing things my way, and I was never going to pull off anything else.

Christmas giving

2011-12-23T13:32:00.001-08:00

I was thinking I should take a little break over the holidays, starting again on Monday after Christmas, but then I thought I should put up something Christmas-themed.

Every now and then around this time of year, I question our decision not to get gifts for each other, because everyone else seems to be doing it. Sure, it feels like it works for us, but maybe that is just because we are jerks.

We do give to other people though. We will think of people who need a boost, or who need to know that someone remembers them, and something with that provided some insight for me. My sisters sent some Oregon ornaments to friends who have moved out of state, and the messages they got back were so grateful. They made those friends’ days. And I told them, “Nothing we could get each other would have that same effect.”

We had just gotten to the point where Christmas shopping for each other felt burdensome. This is where we might be jerks, and certainly there is plenty of other evidence for that. Maybe it is because our birthdays do come in so close, so that if we all had summer birthdays it would feel completely different.

I know if we had small children in the family we would totally be buying for them, and for all my observations about how giving too much doesn’t really make kids happier, and it is better to limit, I would probably have a really hard time doing so. As it is, this seems to work for us.

My sisters have another friend whose guideline for the children is a want, a need, something to wear, and something to read, and that sounds awesome, and I like to think I would do something like that, with the addition of a family gift, like a puzzle or a game or maybe even a movie, but something that would then be a family activity for the day. I think that sounds good, but then I imagine not being able to stick to one want each. I am very weak in some ways.

Anyway, thinking of that, I decided the dogs are really the closest thing we have to kids, and although they do not know it is Christmas time at all, I decided to go for these things that Target has, where it is kind of like a covered dinner plate, but all toys. We got the lobster dinner with baked potato, corn, lemon, and I guess some kind of a vegetable is what the green rope is supposed to be. Maybe asparagus? No; probably broccoli. I think we will all have fun with that on Christmas.

It makes me feel bad that we don’t have something for the cat, but she doesn’t really like toys and I’m not comfortable with her reaction to catnip. However, she loves turkey, and we will give her some of that. Also, one of the things I am requesting for my birthday is a laser pointer, and that is really for her.

Toyland

2011-12-21T21:43:00.000-08:00

The grand panda total was $314, which bought a lot of toys. I actually don’t know how many, because other people brought in toys too, and there were the ones I brought in with my shopping, but I think when I got the final count in the cube, it was153 toys. This does not include toys that other people on the floor had already turned in.

My initial thought at the beginning was that I wanted to get 37 toys personally, plus contributing to Panda. I had 31 or 35, and my sisters had given me another five, but then the last week there was another Buy 1, Get 1 special on the $6.99 toys at Walgreens. I had $56 left from the one paycheck, but then there was the extra one coming in the next day, so I decided the kids could have that all, and that got another sixteen toys.

On the last day I brought those in, and also sorted through my claw machine prizes. Initially I was thinking that I would only give the nicest ones, because you know sometimes they are using scrap fabric and the animals aren’t always that pretty, but my teammates thought they were all good, because younger kids don’t care if colors clash. Even the crab and lobster, which were small and kind of weird, they thought were good because they had such cute eyes. I resolved my concerns by putting a rubber band around their claws so they would stay together. That way, it was two small toys, instead of one.

There were three I kept. The rabbit is the first I kept after starting to play the machines again, so it had some sentimental value. One is an elephant that I do really like, but also the fabric is kind of easily frayed, so it would not work well as a toy. The other is the Queen of Hearts from the old Disney cartoon, and I think she’s just too weird. These are poor kids. They deserve a break. Anyway, that was another fifteen toys, counting the crab and lobster as a single unit.

Otherwise, there was so much variety. Lisa S had brought a Justin Bieber doll and a Monster High doll. There were balls. There were scientific things. There were play sets and art sets, and the thing is looking at it you almost feel the glee of a small child—not to the point that you need to run and tear into them (which is good because it would be counterproductive)—but enough to smile and get wide-eyed.

My teammates give me a lot of credit for it, both for my organizational role and the shopping I do, but there are two points that I need to make.

First of all, this is my Christmas shopping. Everyone else has children or boyfriends or parents or siblings, and we don’t do that, which works for us, so that frees me for this.

Also, it would not work as well without the participation of everyone else, It’s not just the money and the baking either. Holly does scrapbooking and cardmaking, so she made some Christmas cards and gift tags for the raffle. Teresa brought in some jewelry sets she had picked up at a sale for a silent auction. Mary brought in some socks and slippers for raffle in association with Slipper day, and Sydney, who is one of out temps, donated a pie server for a raffle as well. I did pretty well myself, winning a pair of slippers, some gift tags, the pie server, and a pair of earrings that I liked. Ultimately, we have a lot of fun with it.

When the totals came in, our floor ended up with 868% participation, or about 8 ½ toys per person. The next highest amount was 358%, so we feel pretty good. I know we can do that because we do it as a team.

The one thing that I did not really do that I thought about last year was trying to get the other teams on the floor into competing with us, to really increase the results. However, the one group moved to a different location, and the other group telecommutes a lot and we never see them. Next year though, I hope we can get other people more involved.

For all of our unholy glee in winning (and there is some of that), the giving still feels good, and it’s good for the soul.

While I was out

2011-12-20T22:39:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I missed some time at work. Also, I was not really in great shape for cooking, as even when I was not completely exhausted I felt like a cauldron of germs. This happened at an especially bad time of year, because it was during the toy drive.

Now, I posted about the toy drive last year. I posted in the summer, several months later, because that’s just kind of how things were going, but if anyone wants to catch up on it, you can do so at http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2011/07/toy-drive.html.

If I had won money, what I wanted to do was spend $500 on toys, with $100 each going to Small World Surprises and Piccolo Mondo, and maybe even spending some at Finnegans, so that local businesses were being supported. Since that didn’t happen, I had to adjust, but it worked out pretty well. I decided that each pay day I would check the ads, and spend $20-$30 on toys. That way, there was no big drain, but I would be able to accumulate a lot of toys.

I ended up getting pretty much all of them from either Walgreens or Fred Meyer, which are chains, but my sisters ended up getting a few from Small World Surprises, so there was local representation. This was doable, and also I hoped that having a long-term plan would help me from going crazy at the last minute, which I did a little last year. (That was fairly successful. There was one week when I intended to buy six toys and I bought ten or twelve, but otherwise I stayed on target.) Anyway, even without prize money, I could contribute a lot of toys. (I will go over actual numbers in a subsequent post.)

Now, on to the stuff I could not do. We intended to have fundraisers for the Panda again, and people floated different ideas around, but things weren’t actually getting planned, so finally I laid out a schedule of what we were going to do, covering about a three week period.

The first week was going to be the In the Gravy potluck. Let me explain. Once when I was planning the monthly happy hour, I wanted us to go to Fourth Down because I’d had totchos there, and they were really good. I found out that Fourth Down had closed, so we ended up at Cheerful Tortoise, but now I had totchos on the brain, as did some of my teammates. (Totchos are tater tots with nacho toppings. Mmmm!)

Anyway, we ended up making it a potluck to celebrate the end of one of our quarterly exercise challenges. As we were planning this, and talking about totchos, which is fun to say, frequently the Village People would come to mind singing “Totcho, totcho man. I’m going to be a totcho man.” It was catchy. Alison suggested that we do an “In the Gravy” potluck, because she wanted to make rutamousse, and you can put gravy on that. I had to hold her off, because other people had already expressed desire for a peanut butter sandwich bar, which of course we called P, B, and J (Y M C A). We had that in early September, for back to school, so finally it was her turn for In the Gravy, completing our trio of Village People inspired potlucks.

We’d had a bake sale last year, and we wanted to do that again, and also Teresa had mentioned a pajama party, where we would eat doughnuts and pie. That had to be scaled back to crazy slipper day, but nonetheless, we had a plan.

Okay, technically I made the plan, even though I was just organizing other people’s desires. However, as the main organizer, I was starting to feel a little dictatorial and bossy. In many ways it seemed to be encouraged, but I didn’t want to have to start coming into work in combat boots and fatigues, so to mitigate my role, I went and asked different people to organize each event. Alison was a natural for In the Gravy, and Teresa would have made sense for the Slipper Day, except that she had also made strong points that we needed to get customers from other floors for the bake sale, so they would subsidize our beating them in the toy drive, it was valid. I put her in charge of that, then had Mary take over slipper day.

My only motivation was to spread responsibility, and not turn into Castro, but it turned out to be really lucky, because then I was not in any shape to participate. I was not even there on the day of In the Gravy, so I have still never tasted rutabaga, in mousse form or otherwise. I was there on the day of the bake sale, but I did not bake anything. I did bring a purchased pie for Crazy Slipper day, and it turns out no one really cares about pie. So really, I was a very minor presence for all of this.

And you know what? It was fine. People ate. We raised money. It was fine.

Then, because we are getting some new neighbors, we were having a two-team potluck, and I was asked to organize that, which I did, and I couldn’t be there for that day either, because I had a dental appointment. I should have had it the previous week, but I rescheduled because I thought the uncontrollable coughing might be a problem. So I worked out the signups, and then delegated the setup for that day. Again, it was perfectly fine.

There are a lot of reasons that I overfunction. Some of it is probably avoiding my own issues, and some of it is trying to compensate for my shortcomings and be worthy, but also some of it is having a hard time trusting other people to come through. That’s the part I hate the most, because it feels like a superiority complex, like I am the only one who can do things, and I don’t want to think that, but then I am left having to trust again. I am getting better about that. Also, I’m on a really great team.

When a secondary infection is good news

2011-12-19T22:35:00.001-08:00

I suppose I should be more clear--developing the secondary infection was not really a good thing. Having it diagnosed, however, was kind of a relief, to the extent that I was able to appreciate anything.

In retrospect, the cold had been stalking me for a while. All of the long Thanksgiving weekend I had kind of a scratchy throat, but even the days before I was feeling a little tired and rundown, and just putting it aside, except that I skipped Eli's jam session on Wednesday night (which I had really been looking forward to). Otherwise I still worked and shopped and did yard work and walked the dog we were sitting for, and all of the things I felt responsible for. I still made homemade turkey soup from scratch, including the noodles, on Friday. I was really pretty functional, except that I like to prepare the Thanksgiving leftovers for further cooking (putting the right amounts aside for specific meals, and then slicing or chopping or whatever it needs) and I could not bring myself to do it. Everything just went into the freezer, except what I cooked with over the weekend.

Sunday it hit. I was very congested, I had a sore throat, and I had absolutely no energy. I pretty much slept all day. I did still make dinner, on request, but that was pretty much all the energy that I had.

Monday was the same, but I made myself go to work. At that point, it basically felt like a cold, I was capable of working, and I should have been past the contagious stage, so there didn't seem to be a point in not working. I looked awful and sounded awful though, so no one was too surprised when I called in Tuesday. I mainly did that so I could sleep, but also so I could go to the doctor. Maria was convinced I had strep throat, and if I did, that needed attention.

Going to the doctor Tuesday was almost a total bust. The nurse did do a throat swab and the strep test came out negative, so that felt like good news, but the doctor was not much help. She said it was a cold, and she could write a prescription for Sudafed for me to help me dry out, but she made it sound like that was a bad idea, so I declined. I may have been reading too much into that. Honestly, she seemed like she could not get away from me quickly enough, but she was pregnant and I was a cauldron of disease, so I guess that makes sense.

Now confident that I only had a cold, I went back to work Wednesday. I was still not in great shape, but Thursday I am usually off anyway, and I thought I would take one more day of sleep, and then I should be okay. When I was a kid, a cold was five days of sniffling, right? I was almost done. Ha!

First off, I was talking to someone Wednesday night who mentioned having a really bad cold for two weeks, and that was my first premonition I might have longer to go. Still, that was not the worst of it.

Honestly, for most of the day Thursday I was feeling better. My throat still hurt, and the congestion was still bad, but I felt like I had more energy, and more alertness. However, when I went to bad that night, my throat kept filling up with fluids, and I kept having to get up and clear it out. Finally I gave up and moved to the chair in the living room. I was still having to get up a lot, but it was better than when I was lying down. So, being in the chair kept me from drowning, but it was not particularly restful. I called in Friday, and that day was miserable.

I no longer felt more energetic and alert. Sleep deprivation is the fastest way to destroy me. I don't know if I should really make that public. I don't have a lot of enemies, but as far as I know they both read my blog. However, before the despair generally comes irritability and snappishness, so it might pack it's own solution there.

Friday night I was in the chair again, and Saturday morning I went back to the doctor. There had to be something else going on.

With two nights of almost no sleep, and feeling physically weakened and worn down, well, there wasn't much left to me. The nurse started the preliminary questions, and I started getting teary. He handed me the tissue box matter-of-factly, finished his business, and walked out. I tried to regain my composure, and talk myself down from the ledge. Look, you're at the doctor. We'll figure something out even if it is just the Sudafed. Just keep it together.

The doctor walked in and started to talk to me, and then she did a double-take and said "You look like you're going to cry." "I'm not doing very well. (Sob)" I did not have it together.

I started bawling about all the symptoms, and not being able to lie down, and there had to be something, like maybe the first doctor missed something or there was something I could try--and she was like, "Well hold on; I haven't even examined you yet." It was oddly comforting.

So she listened to my lungs and asked me various questions, mainly focusing on my breathing, and she sat back.

"First of all I don't think we should really say only a cold, because they can be pretty nasty, and the one we have going around now is bad and lasts for two weeks..."

Oh no, I am going to be like this for two weeks.

"...but also it leaves us at a risk for secondary infections, and you have pneumonia."

Actually, at first I was too stunned to really comprehend it. How did that happen? I mean, other than the severe cold creating a perfect breeding ground for it. However, I had skipped a lot of the symptoms. I never had a fever, or wheezing. I think I actually did have difficulty breathing one night, but it kind of got mixed up with this weird dream that seems to have been inspired by a commercial for "Once Upon A Time", so I'm not actually sure what happened there.

The doctor said she was going to write me a prescription for some antibiotics, and mentally I am thinking, That's it? I think I was still on edge from how little I came away with from the last appointment, and how badly that turned out. Also, okay, the antibiotics will get the pneumonia but what about the cold? I just asked if there was anything I should be looking for or doing, and she said I should feel better, but if not to come back in.

It started to sink in on the way to the pharmacy. I had something treatable, and this was going to work. I was still in some emotional turmoil.

I have to say, it was beautiful how quickly the Azithromycin worked. I started feeling better within a few hours. I still was not able to lie down Saturday night, but I could for a few hours Sunday morning, and that felt wonderful. The cold was still there, and even now, a bit over two weeks, there are some lingering effects, but when you can't sleep because you feel like you will drown if you lie down, what would feel bad under normal circumstances feels freaking fantastic. For the first few days I felt like I should be writing love songs to the Z-Max 5-pack.

Now I am just on the slow road to getting better. Monday I took one more day off to recuperate. Wednesday was my first night going into deep sleep (that was also a big one). Yesterday I took a walk on my lunch break--the first time I really felt like going outside. (I am writing this on Wednesday, December 14th.) There are a lot of things I have had to let slide, and I burned through all my sick time, but most of all, I have to remember to take care of my health. I used to be able to get away with ignoring a lot, and that just won't fly anymore. Old person now, but it is probably better to be health-conscious anyway.

Things I Can Do, and Things I Can’t

2011-12-19T00:07:00.001-08:00

On with the introspection! So, obviously there was no big cash payout, and so things I had thought about doing with that were not going to happen.

I never expected to win pay-off-your-house-and-quit-your-job money, so I hadn’t been looking at that, but one day’s winning would probably have paid off credit cards (boring, but nice), and then any extra would pretty much have been divided between helping my family, charity things, and travel. I am glad to report that things are not nearly as disappointing as they could be.

Yes, I do still have lingering consumer debt, and I don’t like that, but considering how things were in 2009 and 2010, this isn’t so bad. I have had to adjust to a different life, and I am getting there.

One thing that we really wanted was to bring Sarah on a vacation with us. She had come out for a road trip and we got snowed in. Hanging out was nice, but we really wanted to try a trip again. That is not going to happen. Also, we are trying to get the entire family on a cruise, and some winnings could have made that much easier. Those things are disappointing.

However, we are still taking trips. We found a way to get to Victoria, and Disneyland, and we will work out Mexico and the cruise, and many other interesting places. Honestly, the financial concerns with the cruise holdouts are probably not the biggest obstacles. The Sarah thing hurts, but we’ll do something else sometime.

For the charity stuff, my big things were the food bank, the toy drive, and maybe something for Plan (that’s the group my sponsored children are through). Well, there will be more on the toy drive later, it was good. Also, I remembered that we did have an extra paycheck this month, and I do have places to put it, but I took out some extra for gifts of hope, and let me recommend that by the way, because they can do some awesome things:

http://www.planusa.org/giftsofhope/

The Food Bank is kind of my local charity. I care about hunger, but there are lots of good causes and I could have gone with lots. Somehow, anytime I end up doing volunteer work it ends up being them, so when it was time for the United Way campaign last year, I chose them. This year, I was able to double my pledge. Don’t get excited with that—I went from one dollar a week to two. Considering the challenges Oregon faces with hunger, especially with children, it’s nothing, and yet it is something. I am giving something.

It helps me a lot to know that no matter what my problems, I can make a difference for others. I think I need to do one thing for Bonnie L Hayes, too, and then I will have to stop, but I am grateful for that extra pay period. It’s really good timing.

There was one thing, and it is actually the one that stings the most, but very important for the point it leads to. I mentioned that when I tried out for the very first time, our dorm’s RA and his friend went missing on the mountain and died. I told myself then that if I won, I would donate something to a scholarship or something for Frank. I didn’t get on, but each time I tried out I thought it again. Well, I finally made it on the show, and I can’t go back on, and there’s nothing.

That being said, I also know that their parents provided a generous endowment to the Outdoor Pursuits Fund, so there is a memorial, and it’s a good one, and it has been functioning for years without any action on my part. Maybe that one just wasn’t my job. And it’s hard because a part of me is like, so all I can do for Frank is remember him? Well, yes, apparently.

I do this thing that we call overfunctioning, where I want to fix everything for everyone. I will probably write more about that later, because I do need to get over it. First of all, it is often used to prevent the overfunctioner from having to deal with their own problems, and that’s no good, but also, fixing things for other people generally isn’t really possible or appropriate. I have friends whose kids have never been to Disneyland, and I would love to fix that, but it would probably also be too weird. I don’t want my giving to be a burden. Maybe it would throw off the balance of things if I paid off my sisters’ bills, as well as my own, and make things weird. (I have a few people who have promised to take care of me if they win the lottery, so that could be an issue, but I’ll worry about it when it comes up.)

It is helpful to learn and remember that it doesn’t have to be all me. If facing my lack of a windfall caused me to have to deal with that anyway, it became even more of an issue when illness knocked me out of commission for longer than expected, and at a really busy time of year.

Loser

2011-12-18T01:08:00.001-08:00

That isn't quite as harsh as it sounds. I have discussed a lot with my sisters that we just don't win things. This is not that we have a bad life, but we don't win contests or have rich relatives or strokes of good fortune. My not winning on the show just seemed to cement that. Of course I didn't.

Now parts of those conversations have been that we still have gotten to do some pretty cool things. We have good friends, we have a lot of fun in our day to day life, and we get in a fair amount of travel, so it is not just us sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. Still, there is always stress about money, and things that we would like to do but can't swing, and a constantly unrequited wish for something to happen to make things easier.

What I have had to realize is that most people don't get windfalls. It happens sometimes, and it's a nice thing to happen, but for most people it's just never an issue.

Maybe it's for the best. I have written before about how most big events only increase happiness for a year, but in the case of winning the lottery, it often seems to attract a lot of unhappiness. Even on a smaller scale, such things could be unreliable. Our father did get kind of a windfall once with a lawsuit settlement, and he blew through it very quickly without really having anything to show for it.

So, basically, we are living fairly ordinary lives, just like everyone around us. If one setback does not completely destroy us, it is because we help each other, and also because of that we do get to have some extras. Maybe if the first disappointment for a girl who loves fairy tales is that there is no Prince Charming to come take her away, the second is that there is also no fairy godmother to turn your rags into a beautiful dress, or make a coach out of a pumpkin.

I guess the point of that is that you can't base your life on "some day", because it could easily never come. I'm still waiting to sell a screenplay, but we've already been to Italy, and to Australia and New Zealand. I did not win on the show, but we still went to Disneyland, and we're still going to Mexico, and we're still going to go to lots of other places.

Talking about the show someone had mentioned it as a "bucket list" item, and no, I don't have one. I kind of dislike the idea of one. I'm not making a list of things I want to do before I die. I think of things I want to do, and then I figure out ways to do them. And I don't do them because I am going to die some day. I do them because I am alive, and I like things to be enjoyable and interesting and educational. Obviously a lot of that for us is travel, but it is also doing things locally, and learning new skills (or trying to and finding out it's not your bag; there's no shame in that). Really, a lot of it is the relationships. Some of our best times are just laughing around the table, riffing off of each other which, lucky for us, is free.

At the risk of sounding too preachy, a good life doesn't happen by accident. There are so many times when my sisters and I could easily stay in front of the television, or in bed, but we get up anyway, and we go and usually we are glad we did. And we don't do it all the time, because stressing yourself out detracts from the quality of life in another way, but the point is we are thinking about it and making things happen. No one will do it for us. Or you.

Do Greyhounds Make Good Pets?

2011-12-17T00:26:00.001-08:00

Sometimes things from the show will be edited for time, and this happened with my interview. Alex ended up asking me three questions about greyhounds total, and the middle one, "Do they make good pets?" was omitted with my response. I may have taken too long to answer (I tried to be concise), or it may just be that I equivocated, so I want to give the full answer here.

You see, I have a theory of dogs. I notice that most people end up sticking with the same breed, and I believe this is because dogs are wonderful, and you grow to love them and will think that is the best dog ever. We were a collie family before we became a greyhound family. However, just because you can fall in love with a dog of any breed does not mean that there are not actually breeds that would work better for you, so a little research is reasonable before getting a dog.
When a movie comes out with a specific breed, adoption groups usually do a good job of getting out information on the breed, so that not everyone ends up with huskies or Dalmatians without knowing what to do with them. Until there is a movie about retired greyhounds, I will try to fill in.

First of all, here are some of the things that are great about greyhounds, and why they work for us. As a result of their racing life, they generally come leash-trained and housebroken. Those two things are important, and we are not great disciplinarians, so having that already covered is awesome for us.

Greyhounds tend to have very sweet dispositions. Even at times when you can tell that one has been badly treated during their training or racing days (not nearly as bad now as it used to be, but it can still happen), it rarely makes them aggressive, just sometimes extra shy.

It was the personalities that we fell in love with, but there are other things that work well. They do shed, so don't let anyone tell you they don't, but the short hair does not get matted like it did with the collies. Maintenance is easier and it does not hold in odor the way our golden retriever friend's hair does. (He is an adorable boy, and I love him, but sometimes I come away from him and I can barely stand to wear my own coat because his smell has transferred to me.)

Greyhounds are also good "medium" dogs. I am a sucker for dogs, so I will even think a Chihuahua is cute and want to pet it, but at the same time, I kind of think small dogs are ridiculous, and they're usually too high-strung for me anyway. Really big dogs are cool, but they eat a lot and they tend to have short life spans (maybe 5-8 years). Greyhounds are mid-range on size and lifespan. The life expectancy is fourteen years, and we have had a few go to fifteen. If you are wondering how we ended up having fifteen dogs over the course of about twenty years when they do live reasonably long, that's partly because we took a lot of old ones who needed homes, and partly because at various times we had up to five at a time (though whenever we had a fifth one it was always one with health problems, so I was usually not walking more than four at a time).

When some breeds are not recommended, it is often because they are working breeds, and they get destructive without stimulation. Greyhounds are referred to as 45 MPH couch potatoes. They like to run fast, but they will do this for a few minutes a couple of times a day, and then take long naps.

So, what might make a greyhound not the right dog for you? They are really needy. I know our collie, Laddie, was happy with any attention he got, but he never came around begging for love the way these dogs do. I guess he was just more self-assured, and the greys need frequent reassurance that you really do love them. Granted, that's part of their charm; if you want a pet that doesn't care how you feel about it you should get a cat. (Just kidding, kind of, and we have had as many as five cats at a time too, though we are currently down to one.)

If you are going to be gone a lot, or have a demanding job, or have small children who need a lot of attention, then you may be breaking your greyhound's heart when you keep having to do things other than petting it. Retired couples and childless couples often do great with greyhounds, because the dogs can be their jobs and their babies.

That alone makes it less of an issue of whether they are good with children, but that is mixed bag. We have known owners with children where it was fine, and we have seen other dogs be kind of nervous around children, but there are other breeds that are meant for it. It is probably good that we had collies when we were younger. We got Laddie when I was around six, but my mother has told me of coming in and finding my brother, Lance, as a toddler, standing on a different collie (Orlando, I think), to look out the window. This probably did not feel good for the dog, but he took it patiently.

If you want a dog to run with, you can make that work, but you need to build up to it. Remember, they are sprinters--not endurance runners.

If you want a dog to play with, well, their play is kind of different. I think because they spend so much time kenneled, but they often have soft toys, that chewing on a toy is something that they like, but interactive play does not come naturally to them. We never taught Laddie how to fetch, but it was something he always wanted to do. It didn't matter whether I was throwing a Frisbee, stick, or ball, it was the most exciting thing ever! The greyhounds have no concept of fetch. They could probably be trained on it, but really, what they want to do is cuddle, and we support that. A lot of people will do lure-coursing or agility training with them, so that's another option.

It is common sense with any dog to either keep them in a fenced yard, inside, or on a leash, but this is especially important with greyhounds. They are sight hounds, meaning they navigate by sight rather than scent. So, they can easily get distracted by something shiny (Squirrel!), take off after it at high speed, and have no idea how to get back to you.

Health-wise they do pretty well. They do have a tendency towards bad teeth, and cataracts as they get older are really common. We have had some cancers and some seizure dogs, though that is less common. We used to see a lot with low thyroid so they would take pills, but I haven’t seen that for a while. With thin skin and no fat, they do bleed easily. That's not saying it's a reason not to get them. Laddie had bad skin, and then his hips started getting bad--that is common with collies. Both of the golden retrievers I have sat for have had hot spots, and one has digestion issues. It just makes sense to know what is common.

On that note, I will give one more word of advice. This will sound weird, but start with a brindle. If you think about it, their coloring is hereditary, as are many other traits, and certain things seems to come along with different colors. Both of our seizure dogs were fawn and white. Of the two we sat for who had seizures, one was fawn and one was champagne (pretty close to fawn). Our more aggressive dogs have been fawns. Our worst separation anxiety has been fawn and white.

Okay, so maybe that just sounds like a reason to avoid fawn or fawn and white. Actually, the only trait I have noticed with blacks is that they seem to be really protective of their families, and a couple of them have been button-pushers with other dogs, looking for ways to annoy. The point is, brindles are really solid dogs, tending to be healthy physically and mentally. There are always exceptions, but they tend to work well, and it makes sense to start with an easy dog. If afterwards you get addicted and keep getting more, and you start taking in old ones and injured ones, well, that is a path you can take, but start with just looking for one good pet. Or two. Some of them really need to have other dogs around.

Afterwards

2011-12-15T22:17:00.001-08:00

That pretty much wraps up the story of my taping. I then had to decide what to do about telling people. Even though I had been hoping for the Halloween show, getting it meant that people would have a lot of other commitments. I decided not to invite people anywhere to watch, though that was probably also somewhat influenced by not winning. If I’d had multiple games, I might have organized something for the Tuesday, but then if you tell people you are also on Monday, it gives too much away.

I ended up just posting it for my Facebook status on the day of, and also posting in the Aloha forum. I thought about doing it as an event, because people will get notice of the invitations, but that seemed a little too conceited, and more likely to cause confusion on whether I was actually inviting people to come over. Some people did wish I had publicized it more, but my friend and junior high locker partner Heidi posted it on Youtube, and then I could direct people there.

I will get a check for $1000 120 days after my appearance, so around March. This should pretty much cover transportation, hotel, and clothes, so it works out pretty well. This is sponsored by Aleve, incidentally.

I cannot do another game or reality show for six months from my airdate. I suspect this will not be a problem. Although many people have suggested that my family should have a reality show, we have not had any offers, and also I think they are wrong. We’re more fun for what we say than what we do, so I think a talk show would make more sense.

For another game show, I don’t know. The only other shows I have really been interested in are both off the air: Remote Control and Win Ben Stein’s Money. Actually, one of the other contestants had attended a taping of Remote Control, so that would have been cool. I think I could have done well on that. With Ben Stein, the questions focused a lot more on political science and recent history, which I did not know as much about then, but I have caught up a little.

For current shows, nothing really appeals. I do watch Wheel of Fortune sometimes, and I am fairly good at guessing the puzzles, but I have no confidence in my ability to spin the wheel well, and I don’t know what things cost, so The Price is Right is out. Family Feud could be fun, but it’s more complicated getting five people together, and then instead of coming up with facts, you have to come up with what people think, which can be pretty random.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think my game show career is over, and that’s okay. I had fun, and people who knew me had fun.

If you are wondering about recognition, I would have said that people who had already seen me around recognized me, but not strangers on the street. So people who knew me recognized me of course, and a lot of people in the building where I work asked me about it. A few neighbors have stopped me while walking the dogs, and a former neighbor’s daughter called right after the game. So far, all people who have seen me at least a few times.

There is a wild card now, so I don’t know. When I was picking up my prescription a woman I did not recognize said she had seen me and I did a good job. I thanked her, but I didn’t stop to talk, because after all I felt miserable and I could not wait to get home and take those pills. I have no idea whether that was her first time seeing me, or she has seen me several times around the store, which is certainly possible, because we go to Walker Road Fred Meyer a lot, and I pick things up at that pharmacy a lot. Possibly I actually do know her, but I wasn’t able to recall because at the time I was sick and sleep-deprived and I did not have my full mental faculties. If she only saw me from the game, kudos to her on recognizing me while looking like death warmed over. Good eye.

So really the only thing left is thoughts, and even though I have shared many thoughts, there are more. This is where things start getting personal again, and maybe less entertaining but more insightful. We’ll see how it goes.

And Alex....

2011-12-14T23:11:00.000-08:00

I kind of feel weird even covering this one, but a surprising number of people asked me if Alex was a jerk. My initial response was "No! Are you crazy? Why would you even ask that?", but it was asked enough that I have to wonder if a lot of people have this impression, and since I disagree with it, I want to confront it head-on.

That being said, I can't quite hit it head on, because Alex is the person you spend the least amount of time with really, which is important for the integrity of the game. He come on right as the game starts, and all the time you spend with him is filmed. In Prisoner of Trebekistan, Bob Harris (no relation, that I know of) mentioned that he gets asked a lot what Alex is like, and he told different anecdotes, and let people draw their own conclusions, and I'm kind of going to do it that way.

First off, let's go over possible reasons why people may think it. I was told that there was a video on Youtube of him swearing and cursing people out. I could not find that. There were some weirdly edited videos and some of people filming the television and laughing in the background, where you can't even tell what they are laughing at, but nothing impressive there.

I know he does have a somewhat reserved manner, but he's Canadian, and it seems appropriate. He is also self-deprecating, which not everyone likes, but it works for me.

It could be a matter of the corrections he does, but those serve a purpose. One of the things Maggie told us is that they work really hard to get things right, because she has heard people say that something has to be right because they saw it on Jeopardy! Therefore, having a correct pronunciation given is important, and when they do those clarifications like "You were thinking of..." that actually shows why the person's response was not way off base, even if it was wrong.
Actually, even with my game, there was a moment that could have been misconstrued. In the Shells category, I guessed "Awl" when the correct answer was "Auger". Alex's "No" is broken into two syllables, and it could have been taken as condescending, but what I understood it as is that when I started to say "Aw-" he thought I was getting it right, and then had to adjust. There wasn't any bad will there.

Without strong evidence of jerkiness, I have to attribute any rumors to haters, which is a real thing, especially on the internet. Apparently, some people may just have nothing better to do, or no desire, anyway.

I have my own reasons for thinking Alex is not a jerk. My first impression of him was that he has kind eyes. It is just an impression, but I have never met anyone with kind eyes who turned out to have a bad personality. Also during the visiting he was nice, and made a point to praise all of us, and that was good.

For other indications, look at what a great set it is. I can't remember whether I had the conversation with my friend Cathy the night before I left, or with one of the other contestants in the green room on game day, but I was talking about how great the group of people I work with is, and the person I was talking to said that is really a sign of good management, because those things carry on down. Having been in highly dysfunctional workplaces, I have seen the reverse of that as well, and it is true: leadership matters.

Now, you could argue that Alex is not really the boss--that maybe that would be the executive producer or the head of Sony, or something like that, and that is entirely plausible. Even so, all of those awesome people love him.

Of all of the references to Alex that came up during the storytelling and preparation and even at the audition, all of those references were affectionate. They were so proud of him for chasing down the robber. Even when I was in the audience, and there was a crew member behind me running some equipment, and he heard me explaining something about the robbery to the guy I was sitting next to. Even he weighed in, saying that he knew all Alex cared about was the bracelet his mother gave him (we were wondering if he had gotten his stuff back, and at the time he hadn't yet), and there was a protectiveness in his voice that was really kind of touching.
If Alex Trebek is a jerk, they've got the most brilliant cover-up ever. The CIA should take lessons.

And I also hope he gets his mother's bracelet back.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/alex-trebek-chases-down-burglar_n_911550.html

The Best Set in Hollywood

2011-12-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, I don't technically know that, and it's not technically in Hollywood because the studio is located in Culver City. Nonetheless, I would be really surprised to find out there was one with more laughter or with more caring people.

I mentioned the rapid-fire patter as we were going over all of the preparation, but I can't adequately explain how fun it was. Not everyone is as high-energy as Maggie, but everyone is pretty funny. There is a lot of joking, and random bursting into song, both in the green room and on the sound stage. There is also just a lot of caring. And that's not just with the contestant crew. We spend more time with them, but everyone, from make-up to the person who wires you with your microphone, is super-nice and doing everything they can to put you at ease.

We know it's not logistically possible for everyone to win, but it really felt like they were rooting for each of us, and they cared about us as individuals.

This brings me to a story from years back. The stage manager, Glenn, used to be the contestant coordinator, like Maggie is now. I remember him from my very first try out for the college tournament. At one of the Portland auditions (I believe the one where I played the practice game, but did not do well) as I was exiting I remember him giving me an encouraging look. And that would have been nice anyway, but the other crazy thing is I remember a look of recognition, like he remembered me from the other times. And I remember thinking, that's crazy--they must see hundreds of people. Well, they do see hundreds of people. I know for the last online test I took, there were 100,000 people who took it. Out of that, they need 400 for the season. I'm not sure how many make it from the test to the auditions, but I would guess at least 1200, probably more. And yet, when I saw Maggie that day, she mentioned something about the audition in Seattle. I don't know how many people it is even possible to remember, but I know they are paying attention, and I am pretty impressed by them.

If you are thinking about trying out yourself, that may be one of the best reasons. They're good people, and a lot of fun.

The Big Day

2011-12-12T21:39:00.001-08:00

Despite some disappointments, the day was a lot of fun, and most of the credit needs to go to the crew. I love this group of people. They take really good care of you.

The first few hours were a sort of organized chaos. Contestants have to do several things, and they are sort of happening all at once, so some of us were getting made up, some were going over final paperwork, some were practicing Hometown Howdies, and some were practicing interviews.

Remember those five interesting facts? The staff narrowed that down to three to give to Alex, and then Alex picks what to ask. I have seen at times he will pick kind of a common theme for all three contestants, if there is one. Richard told us what three were on there, and we could indicate if there was one we wanted to be asked about more, but it is still up to Alex. My three were the screenplays, the claw machine, and the greyhounds. I said I preferred the screenwriting thing, because honestly, I think the more people who know I do that, the better. Alex went for the greyhounds, which was fine because they are wonderful dogs, but not everyone thinks of them as pets, and the claw machine one would have been great too, because I am really proud of that. I just won a stuffed monkey Friday night!

Maggie worked with half the room on practicing the hometown howdies, while Richard worked with the rest of us on going through each of the interview questions. There was also a lot of instruction on things that people have found helpful, experiences that other people have had, what will count against you, what won't, and lots of random bursting into song. It was all very rapid-fire, but it served the purpose. When you are on stage and Alex asks the question, you are ready. When it is time to tape the Howdies, you are ready. And most of all, there was so much laughter and information that there was not a lot of time to shrink inside yourself and freak out.

That kept up as we went to the stage for our practice games. We were rotated in and out in a stream for the length of about two full games. That gave everyone a chance to practice with the buzzer and get in the habit of selecting categories. One of the things I had put down as wanting for my game was the chance to make it a true daily double. I got to do that three times during the practice games (getting up to $60000--probably more than I would have wagered during an actual game, but it worked out).

After the quiz show scandals in the 60's (for more on that, watch the movie Quiz Show--Rafe Fiennes is remarkably beautiful in it), several steps were put into place to prevent another such occurrence. One important part of this is that there is a compliance person who oversees everything. For every game, he is presented with six scripts, and he chooses one. For the contestants, you have the returning champion, of course, and everyone else has their name written on cards placed face down, and two are picked for each game. So when sometimes there is a category that one of the contestants just owns--that is pure luck. One of the reasons that I wanted to be on the Halloween show (which again, was pure luck), was that I was hoping for really fun categories. "Trick or Treat" and "Halloween Candy" were okay, but there may have been much cooler, spiooky ones that did not get picked, and there is just no way of knowing.

Evan and I were picked for the first game, so we and Sunni got our make-up touched up, got miked up, and off we went. It's funny how excited I got when I saw Alex peeking around the corner. I mean, I knew he was going to show up--it wasn't a surprise--but I still felt like a total fangirl.

The show tapes pretty much like it airs. They do pause during the commercial breaks. In every break, they bring you water, and check to see if you need your makeup touched up, and how you are doing. While this is happening, Alex is fielding questions from the audience. I was pleased to learn that he gets irritated when people jump around the board, because I do too. I was very proud that we cleared out the board in both rounds. I hate it when there are questions left.
During the first break we took turns getting our picture with Alex. Right after our picture was taken I shook his hand and said it was nice to meet him. Alex looked surprised by this. It wasn't a freak-out like you would get with Howie Mandel, but I think people usually don't do that.

From my point of view, it was like when I had the picture taken with the koala, and everything happened so quickly, and they are trying to get you to look at the camera, and they grab it back, so that I have no memory of holding the koala, which I would have wanted to remember. I just didn't want Alex to be another koala.

One thing that was a little different for us, but will happen a lot, is that Alex stayed at his podium rather than coming to us during the interviews, as he was still injured. He was not wearing the boot on camera, but he was wearing it off-camera, and walking around too much wouldn't have been good.

The one thing I really found awkward was during daily doubles. It is traditional to put down your buzzer and clap, and that was my intention, but trying to put the buzzer down so I would not lose it, but could get it quickly again, and to get it down quickly enough to clap at the right time, was a little too much for my level of manual dexterity.

Something they are quick to instruct us on is that at the end of the game, do not jump up and down, or jump off to go congratulate the winner. The reason for this is that we are on raised platforms that go up and down to try and get everyone to a similar height. Since Evan was pretty tall, Sunni and I were both fairly high up. They do help you down, and all of those striped areas on the stage are steps actually, and they are also very careful with you coming around there. No one wants you to fall. We had no accidents while I was there.

After the game, and we had been unhooked from the mikes and lowered from our pedestals, we chatted with Alex at center-stage over the end credits. Mainly we talked about how it was a pretty good game and everyone did well. If you were watching and noticed a part where Alex looked surprised, that is probably when I made a reference to it being okay that Evan one because he had the growing family. He had mentioned that his wife was pregnant backstage, and so I let the cat out of the bag to the host.

Regarding Evan, I know many people on online forums and Facebook expressed some irritation with his mugging, and okay, he was pretty hammy, but he was a nice guy, and I didn’t have a problem with him. Honestly during the game you don’t even know what other people are doing—I just knew he was like that from the practice game. I did not notice how hard he worked the buzzer until I watched it at home. He may have been on to something though. Maybe I needed to flail more.

I went into the audience for the next game. It was interesting to watch from the audience side, and if you get a chance I recommend it. I was the only person who did not have any guests, but they seated me next to a pretty interesting group. Three of them were from England, and they met up with the fourth in Vancouver BC, and were on a road trip that was going to end up in New York. The question on Kate Middleton’s dress led to me finding out that one of them had gone to school with Prince Harry. How’s that for random? They were fun to chat with, and since they had just watched me they were very interested in what it was like, and I was able to answer a lot of their questions.

For other celebrity sightings, Jimmy from the Clue Crew was in the audience. I saw Johnny Gilbert, but did not talk to him or anything. Oh well, at least he announced my name and where I was from. How often does that happen?

I left after the second game. I sort of wished that I had stayed, especially when I found that after the second game aired they went straight to the Tournament of Champions, so I had to wait a long time to find out how the others did. At the time though, I started to think that maybe if I went to the airport right away, maybe I could get an earlier flight. Since you can potentially be at the studio until 6, the first flight I could trust was at 9:30, getting me in to Portland at 11:30. I was working the next day, and a few more hours of sleep would have been good. Sadly, I could not get an earlier flight.

Also, though, I needed some time to be sad, and feel the disappointment, and call my mom. So I spent a long time at the airport. I got some reading in, and I charged my phone, and I was amazed to see a Best Buy Express vending machine. Seriously, who would buy an iPod from a vending machine at an airport?

The Look

2011-12-11T22:04:00.001-08:00

I got several good compliments on my appearance, so I thought I would devote some time to that. People mainly commented on the dress, the makeup, and the hair.

First off, it makes a huge difference having makeup applied by someone who knows what they are doing. If I could do that, I might wear it more often. We had two makeup artists, and actually I sat with both of them because (I hope I am getting the names right) Sandy did the main job and then Melissa touched me up later, right before filming. Sandy does Alex Trebek's makeup as well, and he thanked her in his speech from when he got his lifetime achievement Emmy, so that was pretty cool, and she was really nice (as was everyone, but more on that later). She told me that I cleaned up well.

The dress was a knot dress by Merona, ordered through the Avenue. Emily was telling me that she had one like it, so I joked that I hoped we did not end up in the same game, but she also had it in two colors, so we did not need to worry. She wore the green one in her second game. She got hers from Old Navy, and I hope she didn't think that I was one-upping her when I said mine was from the Avenue. That didn't mean that I shopped at fancier stores--it means I shop at stores for big girls.

Actually, shopping is never very fun for me, but between Catherines and the Avenue in person, plus the Avenue on line, I ended up with one pair of pants, four tops, two dresses, and two skirts. That may be overdoing it, because really I don't like one of the skirts and one of the tops that much. At the same time, though, I cleaned out some old stuff while I was doing this, and the green skirt that went out I had in 2002 for sure, if not sooner, and the black skirt was older, so I was probably due. I do love the red dress. It's a power color, and the sleeves don't do any of the common sleeve errors that irritate me so. My only concern is that sometimes I worry that the neckline is going to sink a little too low. It's the closest I come to dressing trampy.

Many people have assumed that the hair was done professionally too, along with the makeup, and no, that was all me. I think I can explain why it looked better than usual, though, in that after conditioning and brushing like always (and maybe I did brush a little longer, but it was the usual process), there was no walk to the bus stop, and journey on public transportation, marching through city streets, and then repetitively running my fingers through the tangles in my bangs while I sit at my desk (that New Year's resolution about not running my fingers through my hair didn't really pan out). I do clean up nicely, I just can't maintain it.

Nonetheless, it was nice to have cleaned up nicely. I thought about changing back at the hotel before going to the airport, but I decided to stay that way, and it was kind of nice. I got compliments from the shuttle driver, and guy delivering bins to airport security, and kind of by the girl who noticed that noticing and was slightly jealous. Plus, Emily also told me that my smile lit up the stage, and then all the compliments that came after the appearance. It was fun because one of my other big regrets, besides not winning money, was not losing weight (ever, but especially before taping), and just being able to look better. Somehow I was still pleasing to others. It's important to remember sometimes that other people do not see you the way you see yourself.

Now I want to go off on accessories a bit. I was hoping I would get in on the Halloween taping, so I wore Halloween jewelry. (I can only hope I would have had time to change if it ended up being a different show.) I had my bat earrings, and a Halloween bead bracelet. The earrings were tiny, so you could not really notice. Normally the pair I wear on Halloween is the big spiders, and those would have shown, but Jeopardy is a dignified show. It's not Let's Make a Deal.

The bracelet was one that I saw and bought three of, and sent one each to my friends Karen and Ericka, because I tend to send the Halloween cards, and associate them more with that holiday than others. The other jewelry that I took with me, and never got to wear, all ended up being meaningful.

There was the manatee necklace that I mentioned wanting, and my sister Maria gave me one she had bought for herself. There is the turtle necklace my brother and his wife brought me from Hawaii, and the half-formed pearl necklace that another friend brought me from Rarotonga.

The origami crane earrings were made for me by my friend Jennie back in high school, and the flower petal earrings were a gift from a family I knew on my mission. The key earrings are also from Maria.

Looking for something to put them in, I got a free gift with a clothing order once that was a gold bracelet with all of these good luck symbols, and it came in a purple pouch. Well, I could use some luck--might as well bring that along too. I was carrying some good associations in that pouch. I didn't get to show off most of them. I guess I just need to wear jewelry more often.

Hometown Howdies

2011-12-09T23:27:00.000-08:00

If you go to http://www.jeopardy.com/showguide/thisweek/, you will see small video clips for the contestants for the week. These are recorded for airing in the local market. I have not heard of anyone seeing mine on television, but some people did go see the clip on the site.

You actually record two. The short recording is very basic: "Hi, I'm so and so from here. Watch me on Jeopardy!" The long one is a little more involved. In addition to your name, you give what you do, so now instead of just so and so from here, you are so and so, a this from here. Then you need to say something cute that relates. For example, the hotel clerk said "Check in with me on Jeopardy!" and the retired math teacher said "Watch me be calculating on Jeopardy!"

I was having a hard time coming up with something, mainly because there is nothing interesting or cute about being a document specialist. It left me needing to work with where I was from, and that was hard too.

I was thinking about trying to work something in about Powells, which is pretty well known, but of course that is Portland, and using Portland could have been easier, but I was deliberately saying Aloha, and I wanted to stick with that.

Ultimately I had to think about why I was saying Aloha. Saying Portland would be easier, and I’ve done it in the past, but this time it didn’t feel right. It's just that Aloha has been trying so hard to revitalize itself lately, and I want to be a part of that. I'm thrilled that there is a business organization now, and that they had a tree lighting and are putting in a library. Those are great things.

I'm always going to be an Aloha girl. First of all, I'm strongly loyal, and Aloha has been home since I was six. Also, I have a thing for underdogs, and we’re that too. It’s easy to pick on Aloha as trashy, but it’s also an oversimplification, and I think this place has some grit.

So I love my economically suffering, unincorporated area, and I had to make that work but wasn't sure how, and then I thought how the heart of the community is the high school, and it had to relate to that. Warrior pride, you know?

At first I was worried about it sounding too weird or obscure, but again, this is for the local market. The Warriors just won the football championship last year, and some of the other teams have been doing well, and so really anyone who watches Jeopardy on KATU could have heard of us. Now it felt right, and I nailed it on the first take.

"I'm Gina Harris, a document specialist from Aloha, Oregon. Watch me fight like a warrior on Jeopardy!"

A little information about me

2011-12-06T22:41:00.000-08:00

One of the first things you do after being selected is fill out paperwork. There is a legal agreement that needs to be signed, and you answer various questions.

The most basic part is the five fun facts, which I mentioned in the part about the audition. I kept mine basically the same, except on the screenwriting one, I took out the part about "After you've selected me..." and added a bit on quantity.

If I can just clarify a bit on 1 and 3, I really only know that Julie and Maria and I are good at claw machines. We haven't really tested any other family members, but I would think their odds of doing well should be good. I have included a photo of the shelf at work where I am storing the prizes now. Some will end up in the toy drive. Maria used to give a lot to her kindergarten kids. It just depends.

On three, well, I think I have to blame it on Destiny's Child doing a cover of Emotion. I started hearing other songs that I thought were remakes of BeeGees hits, and after I realized they couldn't all be, then I realized I could do it with any song (though the Destiny's Child/Beyonce oeuvre is a surprisingly good fit). Anyway, I used to think it was weird, but then I found out that a coworker of mine can hear any song as it would sound performed by Bob Dylan, and her boyfriend can too. So if there is a guy out there who can do it with the BeeGees, we may be soul mates. Call me!

Part One

Name: Gina
From: Aloha, Oregon
Occupation: Document specialist
Booking Date: 9/21/11

1. I come from a family of skilled claw machine operators.
2. We are on our 15th (and 14th) adopted retired racing greyhounds.
3. I can hear any song in my head as it would sound performed by the BeeGees.
4. I speak French, Spanish, Italian, and Laotian.
5. I have written 6+ screenplays. I have not sold anything, but I read that the average before a sale is 9, so I believe I am still on schedule.

Part Two

Have you ever been at a turning point in your career?
I worked in the tech sector for many years, but when I had to choose between keeping my job or going to Australia and New Zealand for a month, I chose the travel. After a rough patch, I now work in health insurance, and under similar circumstances I would change again. All the Aussies and Kiwis were very supportive of this.

What is the one mistake no one will ever let you forget?
When I first got glasses, in 9th grade, colors and shapes were more intense, and I had just never seen things so sharply. This may be why I told my father that I never realized his eyes were so blue. His eyes are brown.

What is your funniest travel memory?
We were at an animal park in Queenstown NZ, and our very frugal Scottish guide had bought us some food for the animals. You could fill a coffee can for 2.00 NZD. When we were down to about a quarter of the can left we got to the goats, and they swarmed my sister Maria. She panicked and dropped the can, leaving it to the goats, and Chris’s response was “Two dollars wasted!”

Do other people think you have a funny quirk or habit?
Even when I know that a question is rhetorical or facetious, I have to answer it seriously. I have one friend who enjoys this a little bit sadistically.

Everyone has a special talent or quality? What is yours? How do you use it?
I am really good at keeping my head in stressful situations. To better use it I have taken Community Emergency Response Team training and other trainings to be ready for anything.

Part Three: More questions

Who or what first got you interested in learning/knowledge/education?
I think it was learning to read. I did not have any kindergarten or pre-school, so the teachers expected me to be a little slow, but I caught on to reading, shooting from the lowest reading group to the highest in a few weeks, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on. I still love it.

Do you have a favorite teacher from your past?
That is hard to choose, but Mr. Pitzer was probably the most influential. He taught AP History, and was a good teacher, but he also led me to Professor Brown, which led me to Professor Taylor, until it was only natural that I became a history major.

What is your first memory of Jeopardy!?
When I was seventeen I was working in retail, and it would usually be on in the break room when I would take my last break. I would play along and my adult coworkers were impressed, and that’s when I first started thinking it would be something I would like to do.

Why did you want to be on Jeopardy!?
I guess I want to see how I can do. I don’t have a lot of competition playing at home. Don’t get me wrong—I would love to win money, but also it is a show that I have watched a long time, and enjoyed, and I would like to be a part of it.

Is there anyone you would really like the chance to compete against on the show?
Not necessarily compete, but I really enjoyed Bob Harris’ book, Prisoner of Trebekistan, and I always remember when Wes Ulm was on.

What do you hope will happen from your Jeopardy! appearance?
I hope it will be fun—that I will enjoy the playing, and the interaction. I would like to do well and acquire some money for more travel, too. I would love to get the chance to make it a true daily double. Also, I hope I will get the game that occurs on Halloween, because that’s my favorite holiday and I bet the categories will be fun.

What are your expectations about your appearance?
That I will probably start out a little nervous, then get into it, and that I will watch my game with friends and family, so I should probably plan on ordering pizza.

What is your educational background?
I have a BA from University of Oregon, with a dual major in Romance Languages and History.

Why did you choose your majors?
I have always loved language. I started French and Spanish in high school, and then continued with those and added Italian in college. My mother’s family is all Italian, so it was important from that aspect, but it was not offered until college. For History, I was taking some classes and wanted to keep taking more, but I was going to have to stop and start taking other social science classes unless I made it a double major. The choice was easy.

Tell us what you do for a living?
I am a document specialist for Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield. That means that when groups have new policies or renewals of existing policies, I do a final check on them to make sure all of the information from the different sources matches up, so that everything is accurate. Then I publish it to the internet so members can view their policy and member services can provide assistance, and I get contracts sent out to the offices. It’s not an exciting job, but it’s important, and I work with a great team of people.

How did you get your job?
My sister works for the same company and let me know about the opening.

How did your career come about?
I majored in subjects that I liked instead of ones that were practical, so fairly randomly.

Do you have a dream job?
I write screenplays. Eventually I would like to be selling some screenplays to other filmmakers, but probably shoot one independent movie a year so that I do sometimes get creative control.

Preparation

2011-12-05T22:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay friends. I was hit up by a nasty virus or two, which will eventually be detailed in “When a secondary infection is good news.” For now, I really want to finish this series on Jeopardy!

I realize my preparation efforts may not be of the most interest, because on one level they did not work. That may be kind of the point though, and also, I did more then one kind of preparation.

I tried a three-pronged approach for the intellectual preparation. First was catching up on my Smithsonian magazines. I am always behind on reading my magazines (other subscriptions are Shape and Psychology Today), just like I am always behind on books. It’s part of being overly ambitious.

I love Smithsonian specifically because it covers such a broad range of interesting things. In every issue there will be art, history, technology, biology, and popular culture. Taking time to catch up on those was a pleasure.

I also looked into books covering basics. Ones I ended up reading were from Kenneth C. Davis’ Don’t Know Much About... series, including Geography, the Universe, Presidents, and Everything Else. A friend also loaned me one called What are the Seven Wonders of the World, which basically went over things by numbers (three fates, three types of pillars, ten plagues of Egypt, etc.), and I checked out Bartending for Dummies and an ESPN almanac.

That was a mixed bag. The Seven Wonders book was pretty interesting, though it varied from topic to topic. Bartending for Dummies made sense to read, because Potent Potables comes up regularly, and I don’t drink, but I’m not sure how much I’ve retained. The Davis books are great. Well, the big ones are. The “Presidents” one was for kids, and the “Everything Else” one was done quiz style, and felt really disjointed. However, “Geography” and “Universe” were good, and I totally see myself reading more like them later. It’s not really that I don’t know much on the topics, but he reviews in a really good way, laying things out and building on them, and his style works for me.

The final prong was taking cards out of trivia games and reviewing them flash style. The result? Completely minimal. The only question that related at all was during a practice game, on Wyoming being the Equality State, which I had just read the night before, and actually I already knew that. It was fresh in my mind, but actually, I think I was too slow ringing in on that one anyway, so it was pretty pointless. I mean, reading things I enjoyed was good, and it’s gotten me where I am, but basically, I already knew enough.

And so, I never actually cracked open the sports almanac. Don’t get me wrong—I like playing and watching sports—I just have never cared about the statistics. If I at some point find an awesome book about sports history, I will read it, but I no longer feel any need to memorize cities that hosted the Olympics or World Series winners.
Ultimately, I guess I do not recommend cramming. If you can answer about 2/3 of the board, you should be okay. There can always be some stumper in Final Jeopardy, or even on a Daily Double, that throws your game, but since it is not possible to know everything, knowing a lot has to be the goal.

There was some other preparation though that was important, and I do recommend. First of all, even though I was thrilled to get the call, I then started having moments of doubt where what if it was too soon? What if I was not really ready for Jeopardy? (This was thinking I did not know enough, but maybe later on I would.)

I had a journal writing session where I went over things, and all possible outcomes, and knew that even with the worst possible outcome, I was okay. I am employed. I am getting by. Maybe if I did badly I might have some humiliation going on, but I have supportive friends and family, and nothing could really be too awful. (I was only thinking game outcomes—not like plane crashes or earthquakes or things like that. My anxiety was fairly specific.)

The other thing I did was I went over possible winning amounts, and what I would do with them. This was good because even people who do well normally don’t win life-changing amounts. Tournament winners can start new businesses maybe, and people who win a few games can get a down payment on a house or take some awesome trips, but usually you need to stay grounded. So my super-mega hope was to win thirteen games, and then come back and win the Tournament, and yes, not getting that is a little disappointing. But I can also totally live with what happened, and I knew that going in.

How I got there, or my road to Jeopardy!

2011-11-29T23:02:00.000-08:00

My first memories of Jeopardy are from when I was working at K-mart. I started my junior year, and worked there until a few months after high school graduation. My evening break was usually during the time it was on, and other people would be watching it in the break room. This would have been around 1989-90. I would call out answers, and amaze the adults, and they would say that I should be on the show.

That was a nice thought, but I never thought of it as a real possibility until my senior year at U of O, when I saw an ad to try out for the college tournament. I did apply, and I was invited to audition. This happened in November 1995.

I actually wrote a little about that time at http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2006/06/my-weekend-with-baywatch-babe.html, but it doesn’t really mention much about the tryout. Obviously I did not get on, and that was discouraging, but one thing I realized is that with a tournament there are only fifteen slots, so your odds of getting in are much worse, though the cash guarantees if you get in are much better. We took a written test on the Jeopardy sound stage, and since I did not get called back to play the practice game, I knew I had missed too many. I can tell you that one of the questions was about the author of Trees, because I could not remember Joyce Kilmer while I was in there, but the moment I left the studio I did.

I was not at my best then. Things on my mind included my father leaving my mother, the dorm RA being missing and presumed dead (that presumption was correct), and desperately wanting to talk to “Mitch”, but also having been stupid with him and being fairly sure that he saw through it. In those ways, it was a kind of rough weekend. On the plus side, I came to an epiphany that we desperately needed a vacation, my family bought in, and that started our Disneyland tradition. Also, life did go on.

I am not sure exactly when I started trying out regularly, but I do remember at one point being discouraged, but one contestant on the show, Wes Ulm, mentioned that he had tried out five times before he got on, and he made it into the Tournament of Champions. Actually, he was in the same tournament as Bob Harris, author of Prisoner of Trebekistan. Also, a few seasons ago a tournament winner, Vijay, had tried out nine times, I think, so part of it is just realizing that it is hard to get on.

The process has changed some now. My first two times at least, there was not an online test, and only people who got enough right on the written test played the practice game. (They stop counting when they hit the right number, and you never find out how you did, if anyone is wondering.) Now with the online test, you still do a written test at the audition, but everyone plays the practice game—maybe I should call it an audition game—but also everyone there has been somewhat qualified by the online test.

So, you take the online test, get a mysterious number correct, and get invited to an audition. At the time you take the test, you are asked to pick which city would be best for you. My first non-Teen Tournament audition was in Seattle, then there was one in Portland on the waterfront, two in Portland on Alder. Those were all pretty easy to get to.

The next invitation was for Los Angeles. This was a concern, especially as I was unemployed, but Julie let me use her frequent flyer miles for the airfare, and I had Travelocity bonus points for the hotel. What I did not have was good health, which was somewhat related to the lack of insurance, but there were some bad decisions there too. While I was in the emergency room, getting IV antibiotics, Mom came in and told me that our cousin had died. I’m not sure how that compares to my first audition weekend, but it ended up not being an audition weekend. I had to cancel, and it was really a bummer. On the plus side, we were still able to use the credits and miles for other things, so that helped a little.

The chance came around again, this time in Seattle. One thing that is really important is that I tried to improve every time. The first few times I did not pass the written test, and then when I did, I did poorly in the practice game. The next time I was looser with that, but I still was not called. All you know is that if you did okay, you are in the file, and may be called over the next eighteen months. I was thinking it could be two things. Maybe I had too many blackout dates (that tryout was the year I was going to Australia), or maybe it was personality.

The dates were easy to fix—I put none. Sure we had booked a trip to Disneyland, but that’s the same area. I would make it work. We were booking a trip to Mexico and a cruise, but we could reschedule. I was going to be free.

Personality was tougher. I told myself that I would have to make small talk with the other people trying out. In a stressful situation, I like to turn inward, but this time I was going to force myself outward. That was a mitigated success, as I did make some small talk, but other people withdraw too, and I can’t handle rejection. I did some visiting. During the interview, though, I was charming. I flashed my smile, made jokes, and when they took my photo I stuck my chin out, lowered my eyes, and started looking up as they took the photo. That’s supposed to be good.

There was one more display of confidence needed. For my five facts about me, instead of just putting that I am an aspiring screenwriter, I put “After you choose me for this, I hope to someday return to the Celebrity Tournament as a successful screenwriter/filmmaker.”

Honestly, I’m not sure that I was doing the eye/chin thing right, but something worked. The audition was on a Tuesday and they called me that Friday. Oh yeah.

I Lost On Jeopardy! (Baby)

2011-11-28T22:44:00.000-08:00

In trying to think of those people whom I know read my blog upon occasion, this is old news—it is pretty well known now that I appeared on Jeopardy and then lost. Still, I think it is worth blogging about. For one thing, in the questions that I have fielded since then when talking to people in person, the same things come up over and over, so there may be some value in just putting the information out there.

Also, writing about things is how I deal with them, sometimes via blog, sometimes journal, and every now in then in the random letter to the editor. (I am not usually consciously working out things in my screenwriting, except for that one time.)

So, I did not win. There were some negative emotions about that, even to the point of wondering how much I should publicize it. It turns out, people generally think it is cool to see someone they know on television, and no one has been too mean about the not winning part.

Also, I did not really embarrass myself. Most people who were watching thought I did great, and this is an area that I want to write more about, especially because I have a greater appreciation now for what it is like up there.

I answered seventeen clues correctly. There are sixty-one total clues, counting Final Jeopardy!, but of course everyone gets to answer in Final, so lets call it sixty, with me getting just under a third. Not bad, though of course which ones you get are important for point totals.

I knew twenty-two other correct responses, but I just could not ring in quickly enough. It is a game of general knowledge, but it is also a game of speed. As Alex finishes reading the clue, there are lights that go on. Ring in before, and you are locked out for half a second. Wait too long, and someone else gets in. It turns out, and this should not be a surprise, that I am slow.

Well, that’s physically slow, not mentally slow. When I was practicing at home, I would practice identifying the correct response right away, then focusing on the last syllable of the clue (then pressing on the side of the remote—I did not really have any good approximations of the clicker). I was good at this, and when I knew the answer I would start clicking right away, but my timing was just not great. As it was, I was shocked any time I actually made it in.

We play practice games before filming, so you can try different things. Some people do better using their non-dominant hand. Actually, Ken Jennings is one of those. He is right handed, but plays left-handed (probably to keep from ringing in too early). Maggie (the contestant coordinator) was telling us this in the green room, and I suddenly had this vision of him playing Watson, and in a Princess Bride moment suddenly saying “I am not left-handed!” then switching to his right and winning, but it didn’t happen. (Actually, I was rooting for Brad, but Watson played like a machine.)
Anyway, I mention this because I think most players up there are in the same boat. In any given game, probably all three contestants know a good 60-70 percent of the board, but they may not be able to prove it. The third place contestant in the game after mine ended with fairly low points, but I saw him in the practice games and he knows plenty of stuff, and he was not even terrible with the buzzer—it’s just how things worked out.

In other statistics, there was one where I guessed, but got it wrong (auger shell), three where I could have gotten it right, and probably even rung in first, but I was unsure and hesitated (oil as an export of Angola, conch shell, and Charms Blow pops), and six answers that I absolutely should have known but could not think of, and eight that I simply did not know. I did know all the daily doubles, even though I did not get them.

My two worst categories were Hospitals and Follows the Band. No one did really well in Follows the Band. I had no idea on Little Monsters (Lady Gaga) and Apple Scruffs (the Beetles), and I did know Parrotheads (Jimmy Buffett) but was not fast enough. I should have been able to figure out that Blockheads was for New Kids on the Block, but was still trying to figure out the category at that point. I’m embarrassed that I did not realize that Phans was for Phish, because I have seen Phish Phans before, but I thought it was someone being clever, and did not realize it was a thing. The only thing I could think of was Liz Phair, and I knew that was not right, so I did not ring in.

That brings us to Final Jeopardy. This is also somewhat embarrassing to admit, but the truth is, I was already mentally defeated at this point. I had 10600 points, but I was in third, by a fair amount, so the only chance to win was if I could get the response right while the other two missed, which was a long shot. I wagered accordingly, but I was not mentally there, and I made a key error.

Some of it was contextual. The category was 19th-century quotes, and it referred to the goal of a certain group being the abolition of personal property. It has been a Civil War Anniversary this year, and I had just read articles about the raid on Harpers Ferry and the attach on Fort Sumpter, and of course a big issue was that the slaves were considered to be the property of the owners, and abolitionists were a threat to that mindset, so that’s what I put down.

If I’d had my wits about me, I would have realized that when the correct response is “Abolitionists”, there is no way that “abolition” is going to be in the clue, because that’s way too easy.

I don’t know if I would have been able to come up with the correct response regardless. If I had been in the middle of my progressive reading month, maybe. If I had ever read the Communist Manifesto, probably. I had some economic theory reading coming up, but I had not gotten to it yet. Also, I tend to associate Communism more with the early 20th century, but yes, the thoughts were already out there long before they became a major influence on world history, and that’s good to remember.

The thing is, even if I had gotten it right, so did the other two. The scenario I needed happened in the next game, where only one person knew the answer, and it was one I knew, but if we had gotten that clue in my game, chances are that Sunny the English professor would have known it too.

For irony, a few days after filming, I clicked on a link that someone had posted to Mental Floss. It was a list of words with no counterparts in other languages, but it linked to one on nicknames for fans of musical acts, and every single one was on there. Seeing that earlier might have helped. With the other things though, like if I had not hesitated on those three, and gotten them, well, the impact on the score would have been minimal.

Really, the only thing that could have changed the outcome would have been for me to be faster, and have gotten more of the responses that I knew. That not only raises the score, but being in control of the board increases your odds of getting the daily doubles. Those have a huge impact on Evan’s score.

Genetically, I’m pretty sure I don’t have much in the way of fast-twitch muscle fibers, but I can’t help but think that maybe I should have spent more time playing first person shooter games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFoqZ-azKBs

2011-09-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

I was silly to think that I could start posting regularly again while Mom was in recovery. Yes, it has been better than last time. I am taking better care of myself, and she is doing better herself, and there is no refinance going on, but I have been working on two major projects and trying to overachieve, and it just hit me all Friday where nothing was going right and I felt like I had lost all ability to cope.

Saturday and Sunday I forced myself to spend eight hours in bed--I was not able to really be asleep the entire time, but I was still at least partially resting, and it helped.

I do have much to write, and I will get to it, but I did want to post a little today about being grateful for my relationship with God. As I struggle with being relentlessly human, I am grateful that there is a way for repentance to work. I have a bad tendency to try and save myself, and then be forgiven and blessed. It's funny, because for all the things that Martin Luther got wrong, that's the one thing that I really relate to, is how it must have felt for him to realize that he did not have to save himself; it would be done through God's grace. I still constantly don't try and let it work that way.

Despite that, or because of it, I do know that God listens while I pray, and that He loves me, and I take great comfort from that. I am grateful for the answers that I receive. They are there. I am grateful that He has infinite perfection to cover my seemingly infinite shortcomings.

I'm not really sure when I will get it right, but I am grateful that I still accomplish some things even while I am not accomplishing everything. Imperfect people can still do good and understand some things and be loved, and that keeps this world from being one of despair.

I am not where I want to be, but I'm getting by.

Post Op

2011-09-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of school, which does not have a lot of meaning in my household, but it seemed like a good place to restart. More to the point, it is almost a month after Mom's surgery. We are not quite done with the disruption to our lives--that will take about another month--but still, things are better.

I am glad to say that I was not driven nearly as close to the edge this time. I have actually not written about that yet, but trust me, it's a good thing. The dogs dealt with it better, and I was more careful, which helped.

Also, Mom's recovery has been much better. I think there are a few factors in this. One is that this was the second knee replacement, so she has two good knees now, instead of one good and one bad. Also, this knee was never quite as bad, so they were able to get out of the surgery more quickly, which makes a difference. She did not really even go under full anasthetic, but they used a combination of medication and nerve blocks, and it worked well. Finally, it is warmer, lighter weather (not as light as a typical August, but still brighter than December was.) I think this has been a big help psychologically for her. Doing it the week of Christmas was convenient from a time off perspective, but it was gloomier in many ways.

That is not to say it is all hearts and flowers. There is still a lot of pain that is just inevitable. The patient will have two months of pain, and there is really no getting around it. Over time pain fatigue sets in, where you just can believe how long it has been hurting, and knowing it will be a few more weeks is not comforting. For one weird kind of bright side, Mom thinks this time is worse than last time, because she does not remember it hurting so badly. It did--she just blocked it out, and since none of us were on oxycodone at the time we all remember. So, she will probably block this out too at some point.

There are a few things that experience did not improve. In terms of getting a clear answer on taking the patient home, it was still just as impossible. I think they are afraid of giving a time and then having a complication arise. Still, we got her home roughly when we expected.

I thought about doing a guide to OHSU on the travel blog. Not that you would willingly vacation there, but if you need to go there you might use vacation time for it. It still doesn't quite fit, but here are some key things.

One is that I was surprised when the cafeteria was closed that first time. Well, even though it is on the floor where you check in, and where the waiting room is, that is not the main dining hall on Floor 9. Go to Floor 3 for that.

The other thing is that based on my experience, there are only four floors in the fourteen story hospital where things actually happen:

9 – Check-in and waiting
10 – Patient rooms
3 – Main cafeteria
6 – Pre-op/anesthesia

Okay, maybe part of my experience is that both times we have been with orthopedics, with the other floors being used by other departments. However, I ended up on one of the other floors (I won’t say which in case this reaches the wrong eyes), and there were no signs or windows—just long passages with a couple of people in scrubs scurrying off.

Based on this, I can only assume the other ten floors are used for horrible experiments. It’s so obvious.

Family Scripture Study

2011-07-21T22:37:00.001-07:00

I just lapped myself in the Book of Mormon. My personal reading Saturday night ended in Alma 43, and our family reading on Sunday did too.

Growing up, we were not a family that read the scriptures together and prayed together, though there were periodic attempts at Family Home Evening, though my father went with pretty unusual topics. We prayed at meals, which could not have been more formulaic if we had specific recited prayers, but after my father stopped speaking to me the prayers kind of ended, and family dinners were happening less too. I did not mean to sabotage the spiritual growth and intimacy of my family, but also I kind of didn't.

I tried to read in the scriptures daily, but when I would finish something it would sometimes take me a while to get started on something else, and everyone had read the Book of Mormon at least once (probably twice), but things changed slowly and then built up.

It started with Brother Maurer co-teaching a class with Brother Weed on the teachings of John. We did not know Brother Weed yet, though we would become quite fond of him, but we already liked Brother Maurer a lot, and my sisters thought we should take the class. Obviously, this covered the Gospel of John, his three epistles, and Revelation. They generally covered three chapters a week.

The classes were good, but somehow we ended up missing quite a few. One night when they were asking me if we could skip (again), I said it was okay as long as they read all of the chapters personally, so that they still knew the material.

They agreed, but the reading was slow in happening. Finally I suggested we read them together on Sunday nights, and we started doing that, three chapters a week.

I totally see the value of starting your children on things young, because there was resistance to building up these habits. Sometimes it went smoothly, sometimes there were protests, and pretty much any time there was a fight, it didn't happen. Most of the time, though, it did, and as we reached the end of Revelation, it didn't feel right to stop. We decided to just read the rest of the Gospels too, and it just worked out that with a few extra sessions around Christmas, we were able to read in Luke 2 on Christmas Day. As we finished Luke it was natural to read the Acts, and then we just kind of gave up and read the rest of the epistles. I was worried about this, because I get frustrated with Paul, and most of the epistles are his, but it was okay. Finally, we had read the entire New Testament, and it didn’t feel right to stop.

During all the time that we were snowbound (back in 2008), there were some times when we wanted to read, but Misty was not there, and it did not feel right to go on in our Bible reading without her, so we read a little in the Pearl of Great Price. That seemed like a logical next step, and it’s not a huge commitment because it’s not very long. We started that, and I realized that everyone really needed to be familiar with Genesis first. We shifted to that.

After reading Genesis together we read the Pearl of Great Price, and at that point we realized, okay, this is something we are doing, so we started the Doctrine and Covenants. Since the section length varies so much, instead of going by chapters we moved to doing eight pages a week.

Now we are in the Book of Mormon, right at Alma 43, and doing ten pages a week (meaning that we can finish it in a year). Again, this is probably what everyone has read the most, so that may help for familiarity, and it is good to be reading together. Now people almost never try to get out of it, or get out of it without trying but due to fighting. Somehow, for all our heathen ways we are a scripture reading family.

I am having concerns about what comes next. The obvious choice is the Old Testament—it’s all we have left. It’s also really long, and in parts quite dense. My first time through, all I remembered from the Chronicles was a long list of begats. My second or third time through, I started to notice some more things, but honestly it was only the last time through that it clicked, and I saw a really dynamic counterpart to Kings.

Christ himself referred to “the Law and the Prophets”, so we could read just the Pentateuch and the Prophets, but that still gives us Numbers, and Leviticus has a lot of symbolism and meaning that is cool, but that doesn’t make it easy reading. Besides, there are good things in the History and the Poetry, though I can’t imagine reading Song of Solomon together. (I wish they had just left that part out. The justification of it as a metaphor for Christ’s love for the church is iffy, in my opinion, but I feel too guilty skipping it, because it is there.)

Really, it will just be quite the undertaking. We did not do the New Testament in straight front to back order though, so maybe we will do something more creative with the Old Testament. I don’t know, maybe we should work through a Conference issue first. We still have a few months to figure it out.

But I know that just as it took me several times to get Chronicles, and it took us many tries for scripture reading to become a habit, that persistence is the thing. You have to stick with it, and then the rewards come.

Alma 53 – 58
8017 steps

Why and How We Pray

2011-07-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

This is not a treatise on human prayer, though that would be a worthy topic. This is specifically about our family prayer--how we got started and what we do.

It is a pretty well accepted thing in my church that families should pray together regularly, but my family didn't really. A few different things came together to get us doing it.

The idea for praying for specific people to help them along towards marriage actually came from ET (if you know her, this does not surprise you), who told me once about talking with one boy about why he was not married, and they discussed his issues, and then they prayed together and said she would keep praying for him. I remember thinking that it was cool, and that probably a lot of guys could use additional prayers, and it helps the women too, because it is more the male half of the equation that is the stumbling block.

However, the whole thing may also go back some to back when I was eighteen or nineteen, and there were people that I prayed for, and it occurred to me that they might not have anyone else praying for them. If you come from a religious family, it would seem logical that you might have parents and siblings praying for you, but many people don't, and it struck me as a little bit sad and lonely.

From the conversation with ET I had in mind that maybe I should get different girls in the ward to pray for different guys--like we could make it a project. Still, it seemed a little bit arrogant to start, and also, without the conversation part, would it work? With the first one, he had the desire, and he was willing to work on it, so the prayer was just extra help. If we just started praying at random guys, would that really do any good?

Anyway, that was something that had been on my mind for a while, and then when my sisters and I were going to Australia and New Zealand, and were going to be traipsing around on the other side of the world for a month, changing locations every day or two, we had some worries and I proposed that we make a habit of praying nightly while we were on the trip. One thing that I had seen from the scripture study is that once you start doing a good thing, it seems logical to carry on, so this was a good introduction to family prayer. It looked temporary, but it wasn't.

There was something else that helped. I wrote some time ago about feeling like I wanted to be out of the singles ward, but feeling like I was still needed there, and this was true for my sisters also. I proposed to them that if we needed to be there because there were people who needed us, then maybe we needed to work harder on helping these people, so that we could be finished.

That sounds like we were trying to pray people married, or at least out of the singles ward, and that is largely true, but not exactly right. Again, I knew that just randomly praying at an unwilling suspect won't do much. What I have found, though, is that praying leaves you open to inspiration, and so that as we would pray for people, we would be better able to know what was needed, and what we specifically could do. It's not like it was going to hurt anyone.

So even though we were in complete understanding and agreement that really we were just hoping to help people, and marriage is tricky, in starting out we nonetheless picked three very marriageable men who (we felt) just needed an extra push. They were all good, nice, employed, perfectly fine men, for whom we could hope that a little nudge would be sufficient. There was certainly no harm in it, it could help, and having three extra people in your prayers is not a big deal. Of course, it did not stop there at all.

I cannot promise that the following is in the exact order, and obviously it would not be fair to use real names, so I have everyone numbered on a list, and we'll just see how it goes.

I think the next step was that while commiserating at a bridal shower, we mentioned what we were doing, and Fifteen asked that we pray for her. How can you say "no" to that? Actually, that was what happened with Eighteen and Nineteen also, though at different times.

Sixteen was different. The truth is, we think she and Two may be perfect for each other, and it occurred to us that maybe we should work that angle from both ends. We have given Two our opinion, though he was noncommittal (like so many of his kind).

Actually, we have let many of them know that we are praying for them, and have made suggestions to some of them. I did make a suggestion to Three, but he was already in progress on his eventual wife, and that was absolutely fine. When he moved out of the rotation we added in Eight. I had a great talk with Eight, and he did start trying my suggestion, but then gave up when it didn't seem to be working right away (you can see why a lot of them need nudging).

Five and Seven were ones that we thought needed a lot more than a nudge, which is why we did not start with them, but then we felt guilty not praying for them, because they certainly need some help, even if it is at a different level. Six is really just because we love him, and we usually hang out with him and One together, though honestly he is young enough and dating enough that I don't worry too much about him yet. Oh, and Four is because we love his parents, and he was a source of worry to them. Actually, I gave him lots of advice, and again, I can't take credit, but he also is married now, and I think it's a good move. We did think he would need more than a nudge, but when it did happen it all happened very suddenly.

Incidentally, when Three was engaged, it felt weird dropping him. We sort of did it gradually, sometimes just leaving him in, and sometimes praying for him and his fiancée, and all the engaged couples, because there were quite a few at the time.

Nine was not a source of worry, but our then-engaged home teacher, who was also Nine's roommate at the time, knew what we were doing, and he said we should add Nine, in Nine's presence, and we were good with that. Ten was going through a hard time with a girl, and he is a really good guy and I hated to see his hurt and was really worried about him, so he got in.

With Eleven, it was not even dating--he is young and has plenty of time--but he was having health issues. I am actually thinking maybe we should rotate him out, because he is doing really well now, but evicting someone still feels weird.

Really, with Twelve, Thirteen, and Fourteen, it has not been about marriage for any of them. Thirteen struggles on and off with his testimony (and maybe depression), and he is Six's brother, so that makes us care even more. Fourteen desperately needs to grow up. He is not a bad guy, but his wisdom really needs to catch up to his chronological age, you know? He does seem to be making progress now. Enough to rotate him out? I don't know. And Twelve, well, sometimes he goes through rough periods and makes bad decisions. He has never been anything but good to us, and we are going to be there for him. I know we will be praying for him for a long time. Certainly at least forty-four months minus time served and good behavior, but probably even longer than that.

Seventeen was another person who was just having a rough time, and whom we care about. Eventually we added her boyfriend Twenty-three, because maybe the best thing that could happen for her is that he mans up and quits dragging his feet.

Twenty and Twenty-one we added when they started aging people out of the singles ward, because it was going to affect them and they seemed pretty marriageable. Actually, Twenty is engaged, so that may be working but we are keeping her in the prayers at least for now. Twenty-two is a friend whom we reconnected with, and she was having a hard time, so we are being there for her, and we will continue to do that.

So there it is. Really, it is only twenty-one people (not counting temporary add-ins for specific issues), because two have graduated, but still, it is kind of a lot. It is especially an issue because with the things we need for ourselves, plus everyone else, well, I kind of like the gratitude expressed to take about as long as the requests, and we have a lot of requests. Actually, initially we had an issue with Mom praying with us, because she would hear us asking for everyone else, but not us, and she would start giggling. She is better about that now. Furthermore, I am always the one saying it, because my sisters use the excuse that they might forget someone, and it is hard to argue it.

Also, even though I call it a list, it is not a list, and I don't want it to become one, because I think that would take away a lot of the good with it. These are people we are thinking about, and checking on, as much as we can, and coming up with ways to help. It would seem that if we were to keep adding in, at some point the prayer would become vain repetition

At the same time, I am amazed at how much caring we can take. With Facebook where we can see updates on so many so often, my personal prayers have often added people in based on that, and it's amazing to me sometimes how many people can be in my heart and mind at once.

And, of course, there are so many people who still need blessing. We all love A, and at least I love B (though my sisters get annoyed a little more quickly). C and D may be too bitter to help right now, but is that any worse than being too messed up psychologically to be ready for marriage? And yet we still pray for Five and Seven.

Actually, someone suggested, and there may be merit to this, that Five will not move on before his brother does, so maybe we should be praying for E. And I could totally come up with F, G, and H--I don't even need to try hard.

Maybe it will be okay if we are still staying under thirty.

17308 steps
Alma 49 - 51

Pruning

2011-07-14T23:06:00.001-07:00

Last year I waxed poetic a bit about picking blackberries, but that is not my only meditative horticultural pursuit.

The truth is, we have several overgrown shrubs. We have four lilacs in the front of the house, and then in the backyard we have three butterfly bushes, and it looks like it’s four roses of Sharon, but really, the two on the right are a single entity that has spread. A lot.

The roses of Sharon had the added disadvantage that there were big evergreens on the other side of the fence that were crowding them out, so they have grown out as much as they have grown up. Otherwise, though, most of the issue is ignorance and neglect. Mom took care of the yard, but as she was losing her abilities to keep up with it, I did not immediately pick up the slack, and also, she did not have a lot of knowledge. I only know what things were specifically done wrong now because I found it on the internet.

Last year I started with the butterfly bushes. I did check out a book with general information on pruning, but I didn’t start looking up the specific species until later. What I did was not necessarily bad, but you can be a lot more severe with butterfly bushes, cutting them back to 12 inches if you want (after they have bloomed), and honestly, I think that’s what I am going to try, because those things grow like crazy. We found out after they were deeply rooted that they are considered an invasive species. They sure do work for attracting butterflies though.

One thing I have learned is that you are supposed to deadhead lilacs every year. That is when you cut off all of the faded blooms after they are done. If you don’t, the tree tries to grow bigger, and puts more energy into that instead of producing blooms.

It will not be possible this year. There are so many of them, and so high up. Next year I think we will be giving a lot of bouquets to people so there won’t be as much work afterwards. That would be nipping it shortly after the bud. One man did come one year and asked if he could use our lilacs for his daughter’s wedding, which was nice and kind of gave us a free pruning. I hope the guy who came and offered to prune this year did not want them for a sweet ulterior motive, because we said “no”. (It was Sunday, and it seemed like he was just looking for work.)

I do have some limitations. Pruning an overgrown shrubbery produces much more debris than you would guess just by viewing it unpruned. I generally fill up the debris bin in one hour, and it only gets emptied every two weeks. Therefore, I prune for about an hour once every two weeks.

There are some good things about that. Fighting trees does wear me out, so only doing it once every two weeks is probably for the best. More than that, and this is where I start getting philosophical, it is a project where you need to take the long view.

When I first started last year, I felt like it was going to be a three-year project. That is probably still right, but it could be longer. The first year was going to be thinning, so I could see what I had to work with, and then there would be shaping, and in all likelihood there would be more shaping as I saw how my initial shaping choices grew out.

I can see that a lot of the new growth, in addition to being too crowded, is very brittle. The tree was trying to do too much, and ended up not having enough resources. I see places that I know will need to be trimmed, but other things need to be clipped first before I can even reach that place, so it waits. Patience is required. Sometimes there are branches that are both good branches, but they rub against each other, leaving the chafed spot open to infection, and so you need to choose one to keep and one to let go. Those are all good lessons for me. And yes, a lot of times I end up lopping both branches off, but metaphors can only go so far.

It’s funny, because I used to hate yard work. I hated the feeling of dirt in my hands, and there was no comfortable position for weeding, and I would get little splinters from the bark dust (I hate bark dust), and so it still seems crazy to me when I dream about having a farm. But that dream is not all a response to reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Some of it is how much I have grown to love the work that I do outdoors now. It gives me a real sense of peace. Maybe I did not know how to value it before.

My appreciation for the current pruning schedule notwithstanding, I do worry about not getting to all the trees at appropriate times, so if anyone feels like they could use the leaves and twigs for mulch, just let me know. We’ll arrange a time for pickup and I will make time to give you as much as you want. Or, come pick your own dead lilacs. I will share.

Alma 31 – 33
10539 steps

Other Holidays

2011-07-12T22:04:00.001-07:00

I don't know that anything that is left is quite as interesting. For New Year's we had a friend visiting, and it was a ridiculously loaded day. We went to the Forestry Center to see the Polar Bear photography exhibit (very last day, but we could not get there sooner), then Julie, Maria, and Lilliana went to go see a movie (Morning Glory, I think), and then Lilly and I went to the Pink Martini show.

Valentine's Day was largely dominated by my getting over food poisoning and missing the Fanconi Anemia walk. I wasn't really focused on being perpetually single, because I had already gone over that. I did try and thing of things to do to for others or with others, but again, that food poisoning thing really drained me. Well, draining sounds gradual, and it was pretty sudden, but there was no extra mental energy to be had.

Saint Patrick's Day was focused on the Shamrock Stride, and that I did make that. Our team captain also had brought green leis, so I had something green to wear on the day itself. My wardrobe is pretty green deficient. It's not intentional, but I haven't worked really had to correct it either. People feel less free to pinch you in the workplace than at school, so it's less of an issue.

For Easter we went to visit Lilliana, so I guess we have a holiday thing going on. I made Easter dinner at home the next week, so it was late, but I still did a great job. That sounds braggy. It was really the cake. I got a chocolate rabbit, some jelly beans, and coconut to decorate it, and I knew my sisters would like it, but they were skeptical, but then I was vindicated. I do sometimes get ideas where the execution does not go well, so I understand the skepticism, but I knew this one would work and I was right.

The interesting thing about Mother's Day was that the night before someone asked about it, and I totally forgot that it was Mother's Day, and yet we had already got Mom gifts, and dinner had been planned with her in mind, so it totally worked, and I guess I just realized how unstressful our holidays have become. We do special things for them, and we decorate, but it's mostly hassle-free, and I like that.

Father's Day is a little tougher. It makes me grumpy seeing all of these posts and profile picture changes and church talks and all these reminders of what fathers can be, and often are, and then I feel grumpy for being grumpy. No one should refrain from celebrating just because I have issues with my father, and regardless of his faults, he certainly could have been worse. I like it being over. I may have to find a better way of dealing with it.

For Independence Day, we took Mom to Fuddrucker's for lunch, then went to see Midnight in Paris, and it was a good day. It was pretty low-key, and again, I am totally fine with that, though I was more aware of the damage caused by illegal fireworks, and upset by it. I think I am going to make it my mission to try and get Aviary a lot of business when they reopen after repairs. They were a new restaurant that was doing fairly well, and then a stray bottle rocket has shut them down for a month. The first year for any restaurant is really crucial, and it just angers me that someone's stupidity and carelessness could sink someone else's dream. So, knowing nothing about them or their food, I will be trying to get people to go there. Not logical, perhaps, but very me.

I'm hoping for an uneventful Labor Day, and we probably will celebrate Sundae Sunday this Sunday. We did last year and we still have chocolate syrup left over, and we do have ice cream, so might as well.

Alma 21 - 26
13032 steps

Christmas Carols

2011-07-11T23:05:00.001-07:00

This is a story about making contact, and it going really well.

One hardship for my sister Julie is never getting enough Christmas music of the right kind. She has gone to many shows and come back disappointed with the selections. Even at church, her favorite Christmas hymns often get passed over, while we just keep singing Silent Night over and over again.

When I saw that our stake was having a singalong evening, I thought this might be the answer. To my surprise, my sisters agreed.

I also felt that I should invite two friends we had not seen in a while, Tricia and Cathy. We did not hear back from Tricia, but Cathy thought it sounded like fun, and agreed to meet us there.

The evening itself went pretty well. We sang hymns, carols, some really old carols, and then we finished on the Hallelujah Chorus (probably the weakest part of the evening--it may require a little more working up to it). All four of us enjoyed it, and then after the singing was over we stayed chatting for quite a bit. If it had just ended up being a pleasant evening, that would have been good enough in itself.

It was more than that, though. First of all we realized we missed each other, so we arranged to get together again. That was fun--but wait--there's more!

Cathy is very talented musically, unlike us, and Julie and Maria asked if she could give us voice lessons. It was not supposed to be any huge undertaking, which was fine, because teaching voice is not her specialty, but she thought she could give us about four weeks of instruction, and that would be about right.

Well, I'd be lying if I said that there were not weeks when we talked more than we sang, but nonetheless we did learn some stuff musically, and we had fun. We went over meter, and and how to lead music, and did lots of practice, focusing on Pink's song "Perfect". We have some things we can work on to become stronger vocally, but I can tell that they seem more confident singing. (For just singing hymns in church I was already pretty confident anyway.

What's more, Cathy is going to start knitting lessons. I can't swear that our lesson-taking, getting-out-there-and-doing-stuff selves are the inspiration, but it's still cool.

Good stuff.

July Ensign
9303 steps

Toy Drive

2011-07-10T22:38:00.001-07:00

The sadness over losing a friend did not mean Christmas was awful. Mom being in the hospital for most of that week was stressful, as was finding out a friend was in jail, but there were some good things too.

One was that we did a toy drive at work that was fun on multiple levels.

Way back in October, we did a drawing for prizes, and one of the crew got a foam pumpkin for décor, which he discovered was hollow. Messing around with it, he cut a slot to turn it into a bank, and began accepting donations. Donations started pouring in, so we switched to a bigger bank (a panda), and Scott decided we were saving for a pizza party, which sounded like a good plan.

When the toy drive was announced, Lisa S suggested that we take part of the money for toys. There was a prize for the floor with the most participation of a party, so then we could possibly get two parties, plus help kids. Everyone was okay with that.

Our group manager and supervisors were touched, and said they would buy us pizzas, and it could all go to the kids. That’s when we went nuts. People started bringing in treats and raffle prizes for people to give panda donations, and just putting in whatever loose change they had. I don’t remember how much we raised, but I think it was around $340.

Michelle’s husband works at Sears, so they went shopping, using his employee discount I think, and got a ton of toys. In addition, many people bought toys as well, and we blew away all of the competition, even the spirited third floor. That felt good.

Our pizza party was great. The prize party was this cold cut spread that for some reason looked absolutely disgusting to me, so I did not touch it, but still, we won, and I was amazed at how competitive some of us felt about it. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming food drive goes, because after collecting it we also make art of it.

There were two other revelations for me. One is that Walgreens had some amazing deals on toys. I never thought of them as being a place to shop for toys, but they had some really good ads, so I went in, and they had awesome toys!

That leads to the second revelation, which is that buying toys is really fun. We don’t really shop for Christmas, and the youngest people in the immediate family are 34, so it’s just not an issue, but it is so fun. And I can see that for some parents, who are worried about money, and giving their kids everything they want, so that their child does not feel bad when their cousins are bragging (and yes, I do see some things wrong with this) lose some of the fun, and I get that, but I had fun. One the one trip I ended up with four big shopping bags and I had gotten some deals, let me tell you.

Also, I may have some issues with impulse control.

Alma 36 – 39
12093 steps

Christmas cards

2011-07-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

For Christmas, there are actually three potential topics. Two of them are good things, and one is sad, and it is probably the least Christmas-y of all three stories, so I guess it should go first.

It really goes back to the reunion, August 2010. As wonderful as it is to see everyone who is there, you always notice people who are not there. I ended up going through the booklet and circling the names of people whom I did not see at the reunion, and who were not on Facebook, and who did have addresses listed, and I was going to write to them and say "hello", and maybe encourage them to get on Facebook. The difficulty I ran into, and maybe it was silly to even worry about it, but I wanted to send cards, not just letters, and I could not find any that I really liked for what I was doing. I decided to do it at Christmas, and send Christmas cards.

For the most part, that went pretty well. I did not get any physical mail back, but two of the people I wrote to are on Facebook now, and one messaged me through there when he got on, and it's cool. So far that is not sad. The sad part is that before we got to Christmas I read that Gary Krumholz died.

I've written a few times about having your classmates die and how that feels. Well, it feels wrong, always, and there have been a few times where along with the sense of loss there has been some sense of guilt, wondering if I could have helped in some way. In this case, I had circled his name and address, and I was going to be writing out a card to him in a month, and I'd waited too long.

I made myself look. It was weird, but even though I knew that I would have and must have circled his name, and I had to look it up and see that mark, telling me that I was going to write to him, and now it was too late.

Most of the people were on the list were athletes on one of the teams I managed (Men's Basketball and Soccer, and Combined Track and Field). Gary was the one non-athlete. He was in band, actually, which was the one extra-curricular activity that I had the least to do with. We had gone to Five Oaks together though, and even though we did not hang out a lot of that, we had good talks when we did. He showed appreciation for me more openly than any other guy I can remember, which I am grateful for, though we were never an item. I would have liked to talk to him again.

I don't know that I could have. They found him in November, he was reported missing in October, but I don't know when he actually left. If you are an adult living alone, it can take a little longer to figure out when something has gone wrong.

And really, it was not a ridiculous amount of procrastination. The reunion was in August, I sent cards out in December, and it was a perfectly reasonable schedule. It just still wasn't soon enough, despite all that, and that one is going to sting for a while. What can you do?

I guess, as always, what we do is remember that life is unpredictable, and to appreciate people while you have them. It's not that I believe death ends everything--not even close--but this time here is important, and there are things that change when it runs out.

Gary, I'm sorry I missed you. I'm glad to have known you.

Alma 12-15
10656 steps

My Thanksgiving

2011-07-07T23:27:00.001-07:00

At one point, I really thought three to five of us were going to be doing the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. It's an activity that I could earn Regence Rewards points for, and seeing that, I was just kind of intrigued. Maybe we could be the kind of family that does physical activities on holidays.

I discussed it with Julie and Maria, but we did not get very far because at one point it looked like Mom might be in the hospital. That ended up not being the case, with her surgery happening a month later, but it was still good that we did not sign up for the walk. Mom was doing home visits for the golden retriever, and as she went for her first visit, her car would not start. The alarm had gone out, and it was one of those alarms that instead of making loud noises, just keeps the car from starting. Julie and Maria needed to shuttle her back and forth, and it would have been a real pain. The three of us did go take a walk at the Nature Park, and the repair ended up being relatively painless the next day, so all was well that ended well. Will we trot this year, or simply walk in a nearby location where there are no lines or entry fees, but also no Regence points? We shall see.

There were a few things that struck me about the holiday, so that was what I really wanted to write about.

One is that some people are against Thanksgiving because of Indian genocide. That was not going to be me anyway. I mean, I don't even hate Columbus. Regardless of the Native American/Immigrant American issues, I still think Thanksgiving can and should be a wonderful holiday. First of all, relations did deteriorate later, but at that time they were good, and these moments of harmony are precious things. Also, it was a Native American tradition to celebrate gratitude then, so really, it is honoring them to carry on the tradition.

Finally, it is simply a beautiful thing to celebrate gratitude. It is important for increasing personal happiness and humility, and so it is something that makes the world a better place. Some will say that is actually more of a reason to not have a Thanksgiving, because it should be something you do daily, and it absolutely is, but that extra day still helps. It is good for the people who don't think of it regularly to have a reason to think of it, and it is good for those who try and incorporate it all the time to have company, and additional time to focus.

I know for me, Thanksgiving is the most peaceful and least commercial holiday. I know with store ads and football it is not peaceful and non-materialistic for everyone, and I totally admit that the last hour before we eat is really hectic, but mostly it is a peaceful, relaxing, family day that inspires good behavior as I reflect on my blessings.

I suppose it is because I care so much about the Giving Thanks part that the second thought bugs me so much, but I hate the term "Turkey Day". I suppose it is the equivalent to using X-mas instead of Christmas, but at least the X is a symbol of Christ. Well, no, actually I never really use it anyway. I just remember the day before Thanksgiving thinking how "Turkey Day" trivializes such a wonderful holiday, and realizing that the person I was about to see would say it, and she did, twice, in the first few minutes. Sigh.

I will keep my Thanksgiving.

Alma 9 – 11
29213 steps (I did my Terwilliger/Sam Jackson walk today)

My Halloween

2011-07-06T23:16:00.001-07:00

My last posting before the gap was October 4th, and then things started getting crazy and overwhelming, followed by maddening and depressing. We'll go into that more later. I just mention it now to explain that I was fairly busy and stressed.

I should also point out that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the creativity that comes with it, as you dream up costumes and spooky settings and pumpkin designs. Naturally, creativity requires some mental capacity, and executing it calls for some time.

There were a few things going on at work. Obviously, Halloween itself was on the weekend, but the Thursday before (because so many people are out on Fridays), there was going to be judging of costumes, desk decorations, and of the scary Halloween treats that people brought.

I have a go-to Halloween treat. Back in college one year, when I was really hyper, I made skull sugar cookies for my Spanish class. They were inspired by the Day of the Dead confections. I don’t do bright colored fancy streaks, but I will scratch on teeth with a knife or toothpick, and make eyes out of inverted chocolate chips.

I am never really satisfied with them, because I am shaping them freehand, and the details could be a lot clearer, but people like them. It made my Spanish teacher’s day (because she had an otherwise bad day, but she said the one good thing that happened was the cookies).

Decorating the cube sounded great, but I did not have time to come up with anything really clever, so I just pulled out the stuff I already had and arranged it around my cube. It was overwhelmingly plush. I mean, I like stuffed animals, but I think it gave the wrong impression. Since right across from me there was a giant rat attacking people in a graveyard filled with green mist, I felt somewhat lacking. However, I do think the spiders milling about and then forming a column marching away from the web was good, because you could tell they were bent on world domination.

Someday I have this really ambitious idea of working with my natural curls to create snakes and have this really amazing Medusa costume, but that was not going to be 2010. (Odds are against 2011 as well.) I bought a witch hat, and paired it with my fancy red blouse and a black skirt and my spider earrings. Initially people thought maybe I had a date or something, until they realized the clothes went with the hat.

There were two basic problems with the costume (besides needing to keep an eye on my cleavage, since that neckline kind of borders the danger zone). One issue was that with my thick hair, once I put on a hat I can’t take it off. I get really bad hat head. So I was wearing it all day, and on to the Max station, and on the bus, all the way home. It would have been a little better on Halloween itself, but this was three days before, and no one else was dressed up. (Obviously someone else at work was wearing a costume, because I did not win the prize, but no one else on my team was, though one outfit did reference Wednesday Addams.)

The other issue was that not wearing this particular shirt much, I was not aware that with a little bit of moisture the color would run. I have a pink bra, and a partially pink slip now. I guess I need to wash that with some vinegar or something.

So, I did not win any prizes, and at times I felt silly, but I tried, and I did add to the general mood. People enjoyed my contributions, even if they did not live up to my dreams. And at the time, that seemed to be the story of my life, but it wasn’t awful. It was okay that I was accomplishing something at all.

Alma 4 - 8
17086 steps

Halloween Videos and Also-Rans

2011-07-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

Since we have spent some time talking about music, and I wanted to go over various holidays that occurred during that last, vast, blogging gap, this piece seems like a good segue.

As we were approaching Halloween, the radio started playing “Monster Mash” and “Thriller”. Now, I have nothing against “Monster Mash”—it serves its purpose—but it is not a high quality song. It is a novelty song, and it works for that.

I have a lot against “Thriller”. Not only does it play into my feelings about Michael Jackson as an overrated child molester (and I know I am in the minority on that one), but also I really hate zombies (I realize that will also be an unpopular decision). They are the grossest monsters of all, so an extra long video of them was really just not for me.

What bothered me was realizing that for most radio stations, this was it, and it led me back to my earlier displeasure at the lack of play that Warren Zevon got. Sure, I don’t listen to the radio much now, but I used to listen to the radio and watch two music video channels that actually played music videos, so how did I get through so many Halloweens without ever hearing “Werewolves of London”? It’s a travesty.

Anyway, I decided for the weekdays leading to Halloween, I was going to post a different Halloween-themed music video on my Facebook page, and try and broaden people’s horizons.

Deciding which videos to use was a challenge—there was so much to pick from.

The first thing I did was eliminate anything where the video fit the theme but the song didn’t. Primarily, this meant “I Think I’m in Love” by Eddie Money and “Doing it All for My Baby” by Huey Lewis and the News. That is not a judgment on those songs, but since it started with thoughts about radio play, the songs had to work in an audio only medium.

From one point of view, anything can be scary—jobs, love, teachers—but I wanted to kind of stick with a theme, and really things ended up fairly supernatural-centric. I do have a Halloween CD, with a mix of songs and scary sounds, and it has Cameo’s “Candy”. Candy is a reasonable Halloween theme, and I had heard one that I thought would work, but was not familiar with it, Through lyric searching, I found out it was “Come on-a My House”, but I could not find the version that I heard. I remembered hearing something pulsing, and almost feral. There was real menace with the invitation, as if it was the candy house where the witch wanted to eat Hansel and Gretel, or maybe it was just the Big Bad Wolf.

Honestly, it reminded me of a version of “Fever” that Rita Moreno did on The Muppet Show, which probably has you thinking, ‘How feral could that have been?’, but it was kind of. Animal was accompanying her on the drums. Anyway, I listened to every version I could find, even ones that I knew could not be it (like the Chipmunks and Surf Punks), and nothing. Maybe I just remembered it better than it was. I do that sometimes. That leads to my next one.

I also considered adding Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”, because the song focuses on the ghostly aspects of the book, and something literary is nice, but after checking out the videos, I decided against it. The chorus is haunting, but the verses are a little too shrill, and besides which, in looking at the videos it is really distracting how crazy she is. And I say videos because there are two, and when she was too crazy in the one, I was glad to see there was another. Maybe that one would be better. Nope, she is even crazier in the red dress version. Maybe how unsettling that is could be good for Halloween, but I just wanted to steer clear.

I was very sad to not be able to include “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah”. A fan had made a pretty good video for it once upon a time, but it was removed (as frequently happens with fan videos), so that was out.

I also felt bad about not including Alice Cooper. Scary is kind of his thing, but I could not find a video that I liked for “Feed My Frankenstein”. (Well, I don’t think I did, anyway. That’s the problem with blogging about things so much later. Sometimes you gain perspective, sometimes you lose memory.)

I could have done “The Man Behind the Mask”, Cooper’s theme song for Friday the 13th: Part VI. I could also have done Dokken’s “Dream Warriors” from Nightmare on Elm Street 3, but I didn’t. Do you know why? Because if we are going to do a theme song from a horror movie I will never see, it is going to be “Pet Sematery” by the Ramones. It will always be the Ramones!

(I am aware that the band Muse is getting associated with the Twilight movies, so there might be some kind of appropriate video there, but no, never.)

Of course, Alice Cooper is not the only musician who tends towards the macabre. Probably almost any song of theirs would work (except my favorite of theirs, “Joey”, which is not about Joey Ramone), but the one I went with was “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man”.

Actually, as much as I love “Werewolves of London”, and it was one I used, it is not my favorite Warren Zevon song either. My favorite is “Splendid Isolation”, but it’s not very Halloween. However, “Excitable Boy” and “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” totally are, so I had some options.

Perhaps in my tendency to be contrary, I did include Michael Jackson, but not as himself—I posted Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me”, with Jackson on backup. It was an effectively creepy song and video, and I guess it’s nice that Geico is giving it some new life. (Though if I ever find a little stack of cash following me around, it’s going in my pocket, googly eyes or no googly eyes.

And finally, I am pretty sure the last one was “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr. I like the movie, I like the song, and this one probably does get played around that time of year, but I had not heard it.

If I could just find my brainstorming list, I could relay the play list with total accuracy, but maybe it’s more important to quit getting so behind in my blog.

Mosiah 28 – Alma 3
10592 steps

The Strange Case of Rebecca Black

2011-07-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

I first heard of the song "Friday" long before I actually heard it, and while I was amazed at how bad the lyrics seemed, based on what was being quoted, I did not think too much about it. I thought it was just some teen fooling around, and you don't expect great songs out of a fourteen-year old, so big deal.

When I actually heard the song, I was pretty stunned. The main thing I remember was when the rapper started in, saying her name first, and I thought "She didn't earn that." Then I saw the video, and was kind of surprised at the production values. I mean, it's not super slick, but this is not just a teenage girl fooling around. I thought maybe this was a new version made after she was getting a million hits or something.

Despite the sense of disbelief I still wasn't that invested. Where things really changed was when a coworker said the whole thing was a hoax to promote a movie about robot teenagers designed to be pop stars. I was pretty sure that was not true. Also, some people were thinking that there were pushy stage parents trying to force their untalented daughter to make it anyway. That seemed more likely, and I was at least invested enough to do the internet search. That's when it really became interesting. Apparently there is a company, ARK, that will guide your teen into the music business by giving them a song, and recording it, and doing the video. This service cost $4000.

My first thought was that $4000 should get you a better song, but I think I am actually wrong about that. First of all, with all the other services involved, I'm not sure how much of the "value" of the package would be allocated for the song, but it might not be very much. Also, if it was actually a good song, she would never have gotten so much publicity. It is easier to be bad enough to go viral than to be good enough to go viral--unless you are a cute animal.

On the other hand, it seems like a poor investment. It will be a miracle if she can truly make a career of this. I mean, the obvious use of the auto-tuner does not show a lot of confidence in her vocal talent, she is not writing her own crappy songs, she didn't show off much in the way of dance tunes--there just seems to be a limit to how far this can take her.

On the other hand, I guess it's nice that you can now become a talentless internet sensation without having the financial resources of the Hiltons. That makes shameless fame-whoring a lot more democratic, so that's good, right?

Still, I am not sure that this is the right message for parents to send to their children. Helping children develop actual talents and follow their dreams, good; buying their way into unmerited exposure while they are still pretty young and stupid, not so good.

I'm not saying the tune is not catchy at all, but sad experience has shown us that there's nothing to stop a bad song from getting stuck in your head--they are often stickier than the good ones.

So, I am just not sure what to make of it. It seems inherently wrong, but I can't point to much actual harm occurring from it. Rebecca may end up totally narcissistic, or the eventual failure could give her an eating disorder, but as an American teenage girl with relatively affluent, overly indulgent parents with bad judgment, that was all on the table anyway.

I don't think ARK will make much of a difference to the general music scene. The more clients they have, the more people will stop caring. Sure, people keep watching cute kitten videos, even though they can be a little repetitious, because they are also usually short, and they are guilt-free. It will not be that way with wannabe teenage pop stars.

I don't like the message that your parents' money is more important than talent or skill, but I suspect they are not having too much of an impact on that either.

Perhaps the whole thing doesn't matter. I could try and come to a conclusion, but I don't have time. It's Friday, and it's so exciting, because even when tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterward, there's another day left due to the holiday. I've got to go get kicking!

Mosiah 14 – 21
12050 steps

Concert Journal Part V: The Best

2011-06-29T23:01:00.001-07:00

I have been holding off on this one because I just know that I will forget to mention some great concert, and remember it shortly after posting. Still, I've got to try.

Two of the best concerts have already been mentioned. A-ha, from my series on the first concerts I attended, and Presidents of the United States of America, from shows at the Crystal (though I saw them at the Rose Festival too).

I can't rule out that part of A-ha's appeal was how much I loved them, and how young and new I was. Still, I'm not sure that I loved them that much more than Charlie Sexton, and I still knew his concert was not as good. The energy was high, Morten was flirting with all of us all night. (Can someone tell Chris Carrabba that playing to teenage girls does not have to be boring?) They were awesome, and as disappointing as it was that they did not come anywhere accessible on their farewell tour, at least I had that.

The Presidents are just fun. Maybe removing the extra strings from their instruments gives them more time for awesomeness, or maybe it's that they don't take themselves that seriously. Energy of the crowd is one thing, but the energy of that band is something else. If Chris Ballew had any more energy, they would need to tether him to the stage.

There's a lot to be said for showmanship. Googoo Dolls wasn't a bad show, but it was almost more like watching a jam session. Johnnie and Robby were riffing off each other, and sometimes they would remember to look for us, but at times it was just a little flat. Now change that to Third Eye Blind. I mention them together because there were a lot of similarities in venue and audience and so on. The difference was that Stephan Jenkins lived for us! He was all about the audience and that made a better show.

That was one of the great things about the Psychedelic Furs, which is largely giving props to Richard Butler. He didn't have a lot of "business" (like Stephan came into one of the balconies, and had a hat)--all Richard did was pretty much the same dancing and jumping, which had kind of a nerd vibe, actually. But he was just so happy to be there! You could feel it, and it made us feel good. Really, if rock stars can't enjoy their work, who can?

With a really great show, even previous rules may not apply. For example, I was at a punk show, on the floor with no seats (not in the moshing area, though there was one), but it was Green Day and it was awesome! I don't even know what was going on with the puppets, but somehow it worked. Talk about your audience attention--Billie Joe was so careful to not leave anyone out he mooned one half of the audience, wriggled his pants back up, went to the other side of the stage, and repeated for the other half. Okay, I could have done without that, but don't you see? He was there for us.

One of my more fun reads this year has been Rob Sheffield's "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran", so it seems appropriate to end on them. One thing he pointed out was that there is always some band or singer teen girls scream over, but then they want the guys to respect them, so they take on a harder edge and lose their fan base. Duran Duran was always perfectly happy to be entertaining the girls--there is no guilt in their pleasure.

So, when the original five reunited came on the stage and just stood there, basking in it for a moment before they played, it did not matter how many years I am removed from teenager, or that they are not even in my top bands, and that my sisters and friends have always liked Duran Duran more than me. I was a girl and they owned me. And it was a great show.

Mosiah 7-9
12784 steps

Concert Journal Part IV: I Love You, But We Just Can't See Each Other

2011-06-28T22:39:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you go hoping for a good show and getting disappointed, but sometimes you know that you just shouldn't go in the first place.
I came to the Ramones late, and they were already starting to die off, so attending one of their shows was really an issue. If you had a reunion show of all the surviving members now, you would have three drummers and one guitarist (obviously Elvis Ramone doesn't count). Still, take me back a few years, and I still don't think I could have ever belonged in the crowd at CBGBs.

This isn't necessarily the fault of the band. Punk bands back in the day attracted a lot of skinheads and thugs who were really just there to get in a fight. Even those who were showing their appreciation for the music were often doing it with bodily fluids. This is just not my scene. (And it would be about the same with the Clash, but I can't imagine them reuniting either, even if they have only lost Joe Strummer.)

I think things would be different for an established band, playing a concert hall instead of a club, but that doesn't necessarily mean I belong in the audience. I heard that Rancid and AFI were touring together, and I have to say that intrigued me. At the same time, Rancid looks as stereotypically punk as you can get. AFI looks more Goth really. Musically, I remember listening to their CD and thinking they were talented and it was powerful, but it really sounded like they had been attacked by vampires and had some real anger issues over it. I think that could have lent an oppressive mood to the show.

Anyway, even though I would be drawn to that concert, somehow I think I would be kind of an anomaly there. I suppose I could just hang out at the back, but when I heard about it they were actually already gone. I don't really listen to the radio much, so I am often behind that times. I will think a song is new and great and it's been out for two years. I guess I haven't been hip since MTV stopped playing music videos.

With the previously mentioned concerts, that is my speculation that I would not enjoy the show despite enjoying the discography, but there is one group where I kind of know. Blink 182 has a concert CD, and it is really annoying. I kept having to fast forward the banter, because it was too stupid. If I attended a concert, I would just be yelling at them to grow up, and if they were interested in that they would never have joined a rock band. But musically, I like them.

Mosiah 1-6
10769 steps

Concert Journal Part III: Hey, I paid good money for that!

2011-06-27T22:35:00.001-07:00

With the recent karaoke thread kind of bringing us back to music, I thought this might be a good time to get back to the concert series.

Back in September I wrote about the tendency of the Crystal Ballroom to have atrocious opening acts, but I will say that once we got to the main attraction, the shows I have seen there have been quite good. Sadly, that can't be said about every show I have attended.

One thing that I have found is that the venue does matter. A good venue does not guarantee a great show, but a bad venue can really make things harder. This is why I don't really like shows at the Roseland or Wonder Ballroom. The seats are uncomfortable and the rows are too close together. You can be down on the floor, but I am a rapidly aging person and I like having the option to sit down, or to get up and dance. I suppose that makes it weird that I like the Crystal, but good bands give good shows there for not very much money, and it just works out.

I would say the Wonder Ballroom is a little better than the Roseland, but really, I hope no one I really like ends up there. The Roseland show was Franz Ferdinand, though I think I also saw Gogol Bordello there (that was a trip). The Wonder Ballroom show was Dashboard Confessional, which had much worse problems that shall be treated later.

Now, the Memorial Colisseum can be a fine venue, but not when its festival seating on a weeknight. Coming in from work to see Franz Ferdinand (again), we roamed and roamed trying to find seats, but everything outside of nosebleed was taken, and any time you stopped security would tell you to move along. They wouldn't help you find seats, but they would have no sympathy for your inability to find seats on your own. "Festival" makes it sound fun, but it wasn't.

Honestly, besides the Crystal, I think I had had my best luck at the Keller and Schnitz.
Sometimes the venue is fine, but the atmosphere can still be wrong due to the audience. This was definitely an issue when my sisters and I went to see Sting at the Rose Garden. I know he's older, so I guess his fans are older too, and maybe that's why no one was getting into it. We did dance some, but we felt like we were sticking out like sore thumbs. It was more than a feeling, in fact, because the next day at church Mark and Amy mentioned seeing us. We were embarrassed, but they were like “Good for you. We wanted to dance.” Still, it’s good I went then, because I am completely over Sting now.

Worse than issues with the venue or the crowd is when the band lets you down. After all, that’s why you came. This has happened to me three times.

The first time was Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl was really obnoxious, and there was just no spark. I believe it was due to a little too much alcohol. Probably some people do perform better with a mild buzz, but if you overshoot, well, all he could really do was talk about how great it was that Portland had so many strip clubs. Seriously, for the next few weeks I was looking for an announcement that he had entered rehab. The concert was not a total loss though, because the opening band was Wheezer, and they were great! It was like a total reverse of every Crystal show, only more expensive.

The second time was Cheap Trick. This was really disappointing, because with Foo Fighters I was more there for my sisters, but I thought it would be a good show. I knew Cheap Trick was going to be a great show, and then it wasn’t. I hated the venue. It was Spirit Mountain, and I don’t love casinos anyway, but that’s where they were playing. The hall has too much of a lounge feel, so perhaps it is not an ideal setting for rock, but Robin was just barely there. Rick tried to compensate, but it was hard not to notice.

The last one is that Dashboard Confessional, and it is not really fair of me to complain, because in this case he did bring his A-game—it’s just not what I was expecting. I mean, I had noticed that he had a tendency towards the slower and sappier, but he still had songs that I liked, and that had some energy to them. What I did not realize was that in a live show all of that energy would be promptly killed.

All right—maybe it wasn’t so much killed as transmuted. Chris Carrabba totally played to the audience, but that audience was composed primarily of 14-16 year old girls (one argument in favor of age-restricted shows). What these girls wanted to do was gaze at him in adoration and sing along to every word. He accommodated them by slowing everything down, and amping up the heartbreak. I would say he became extra soulful, but if you say “soul” that implies there was some spirit, and there wasn’t. What it was is that every song sunk to the level of "Stolen", which is his slowest and sappiest, last time I checked. It wasn’t fire or ice.

And really, it should have been a little more fierce, because I noticed something about him that night. Chris Carrabba is remarkably hairy. I had seen the prominent eyebrows, but I hadn’t really thought about them until I got a load of his arm hair. He must never get cold. Anyway, it suddenly seemed very likely that he was a werewolf, so that should have been somewhat exciting, but it wasn’t. I guess it does mean that all of those teen girls were on Team Jacob.

Enos – Words of Mormon
17689 steps

Pool Theory

2011-06-26T22:46:00.001-07:00

In my last I gave you my thoughts on karaoke, but last night involved pool too. (If anyone is wondering, I did “Falling for the First Time”.)

My first encounter with pool was, I think, at the open house after Aaron Munter’s bar mitzvah. He had many toys, so I got chances to try out ping pong, mini-billiards, and I think some video game, or maybe it was darts. Basically, I just remember showing no aptitude for any of them, especially the billiards. I couldn’t get a proper feel for holding the stick, and nothing went where I wanted it. The other things I felt like I could improve at, but not pool.

(I do understand that pool and billiards are not the same thing, but I believe that they are similar enough that being lousy at one is a good predictor for being lousy at the other.)

It never really came up that often, so I didn’t worry too much about it. However, at a recent alumni get-together at Ringlers, people were playing, and I realized that even people who played missed a lot of shots. It started to change my perspective. Maybe it’s not something you’re supposed to be good at. I can do stuff like that.

One guy there offered to teach me, and he was really good. He explained the basics, made me take several practice shots before we started, and when I really messed up a shot during the game he had me go again. I don’t think he was intentionally missing shots and giving me good leads, but it was still a lot of help, and I actually won that game. That being said, I won it by sinking nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, three balls, nothing, two balls, nothing, nothing, well, you get the picture.

So I thought, I can do this. I can play pool. Then, there was another get-together, this time at Henry’s, and I got to play pool for the second time (I don’t really count the bar mitzvah). It was different this time. The other people playing were fraternity brothers who, though having known each other before, apparently bonded a lot over pool during college, and Joe even now has a pool table in his basement. I was toast.

I had to amend my theory at this point. You don’t have to be good at pool, but some people certainly do become good at it. I believe it is like golf in this way, only, you know, less boring and elitist.

Anyway, my third round of pool happened Saturday night, where Bernadine and I played pretty steadily for an hour. I did win one game, when she inadvertently sank the 8-ball early. Go Default! She was significantly better than me, but no Joe. Anyway, she was not given to gloating, and it could have been worse. I am hitting the balls I mean to hit on a regular basis—they just usually don’t go where I want them to after that. And yes, I saw Donald in Mathmagic Land—I totally get that it is all about geometry; it just isn’t quite enough yet.

I guess what I am really trying to say is that if you are lousy at pool, I would love to play you. It’s not even so I can beat you, but I would love to lose with more dignity.

Alma 28 – 31
11514 steps

Karaoke

2011-06-24T23:46:00.001-07:00

I'm supposed to do karaoke tomorrow night. Well, I will be at the place for sure, because I organized it. The "supposed to" part is that I am just not sure how the turnout will be, and if the environment does not seem supportive enough I may not sing. Anyway, it seems like a good time for my theory of karaoke.

I am not an expert at all, but I have overanalyzed it in the same way that I overanalyze everything else, and I have some thoughts.

My main thought is that it kind of doesn't matter whether you sing well or not--you just need to own the song. This should involve you liking the song. My first karaoke experience was not great because I could not find any good songs. The book we were looking at was listed by song titles, and that's a horrible way to try and find something. Having done this a few times since, I now know that there was quite possibly another book there with them listed by artist, but I ended up just settling on "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" which is my favorite Smiths song (for what that's worth), but I feel like the meter is a little weird, and it's not very melodic.

It helps when there is a strong melody to the song. With songs that are more spoken than sung, it's hard to sound right. This is why, even though I do like Dashboard Confessional's "Hands Down", I never choose it, and I think I would regret it.

I have done "Vindicated" which is also Dashboard Confessional, and it was not horrible, but it was not great. I tend to gravitate toward male singers because my voice is low, but somehow when I am singing louder, my voice starts getting higher, so what works when I am singing to myself may not work when I am singing to people. The last time I went, I kind of surprised myself by singing "Never Forget You" by the Noisettes, and it worked. Someone sang Cee-Lo Greene's (well, really Gwyneth Paltrow's version) "Forget You", and it put me in mind of the song, and I just felt like I could go for it, and it worked out.

Of course, a lot may vary depending on venue. That time, I was at Voicebox with coworkers, so there were just seven of us in the room, and it was pretty casual. This may help shy singers feel more comfortable, and more daring. The downside is that we would have some pauses in between while people were deciding what to do.

On the other hand, the time before that was at Galaxy, and man, they take it seriously there. Everyone seemed to have a really good voice, or choreography, or boundless energy. The DJ was great, and you could hear some good stuff, but it was also a bit intimidating, and I wouldn't go there as a first-timer. I did sing, but I felt kind of lame. The crowd was supportive, but that’s typical.

Ultimately, I don't know that I am really a musical performer. I do stand-up every now and then, and I like entertaining people with words, but I tend to be better at appreciating music than doing it. And yet, I really like to sing. And it feels better when you sing loud, and karaoke is a chance to do that where it is totally socially acceptable. I will sometimes sing at the bus stop when there is nothing around but speeding cars, or walking down the road, but most of the time there is someone around, and singing loud makes you a bit of a fruitcake. In karaoke, this is endorsed.

I’m not sure what I will do tomorrow night. I have been wanting to try Counting Crows "Accidentally in Love", or maybe Barenaked Ladies "Falling for the First Time".

Actually, I do very much want to do My Chemical Romance "I'm Not Okay" (Old School Version, no F-word), but I have a funny feeling that when I do finally go for it, I won't have any voice for three days. Do you know how hard it is to mime smart-aleck remarks? It completely throws off the timing. Torture!

Jacob 5 – 7
13172 steps

Quibbling

2011-06-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

I sometimes think that I should made my user name "Sporadic" instead of "sporktastic". Of course, when I was setting up the blog, I had no idea how I would be. One project that was keeping me very busy is completed now, so that is nice, though there is always a long waiting list.

Anyway, one thing I was thinking about was vocabulary. You may think of me as having a fairly good one, and that is pretty true but there is a weak area in that I learn most of my words from reading, and I often have poor instincts on how they should be pronounced.

This came up recently when for some reason I used the word "sadist". (It totally made sense in context.) Now, I have actually heard people pronounce this with a long "a" (SAY-dist), so I should be okay on it, but I have also read "A Wrinkle in Time", which refers to IT as the "happiest sadist", (pronounced SADD-est), and said that most people pronounced it wrong. So I was corrected, but common, this is a Newberry Award winner! If I can't trust Madeline L'Engle, who can I trust?

Now it was bugging me, so the next resource was the dictionary. Surprisingly, they gave two correct pronunciations, though it looked like the one was more sod than sad, as in Marquis Du Sade-ist. This led me to greatly doubt Ms. L'Engle.

(I had a similar issue with “sloth”, which my father insisted should be pronounced with a long “o”, and the dictionary does give that as an alternative, but no one ever says it that way. As it is, I feel like I am saying it wrong regardless of how I say it, when really, I am right no matter how I say it.)

Going back to the original issue, I also had to wonder if SAY-dist was never really wrong, or if it has just gained acceptance. After all, language changes and evolves based on usage all the time. There is a dictionary entry for "irregardless" now, though they admit it is non-standard.

That would be one reason to accept either pronunciation, or all three if we could get more people to use it, but I hate it when errors become accepted through common use. I get that ignorance is really democratic, but I still always feel like ignorance should be refudiated (sic).

The comic "Frazz" helpfully came through for me with a storyline about someone using the word "penultimate" instead of "ultimate", but then getting it correct. First, let me say that a lot of these errors come from people trying to dress up what they say, when speaking simply but correctly is always more effective. But I digress.

Anyway, in the June 9th strip, Miss Plainwell compliments Mrs. Olsen on admitting her mistake.

Mrs. Olsen: Eh. All I have to do is wait. If people misuse a word or phrase long enough it just gets absorbed into the language.

Miss Plainwell: Evolution isn't like a license.

Mrs. Olsen: I could care less.

Indeed.

2 Nephi 33 - Jacob 4
11803 steps

Walk this way

2011-06-10T22:59:00.001-07:00

I decided to start giving my daily steps instead of minutes exercised for a while.

Regence has various programs it does throughout the year, and we have just started the Summer Games, where we are tracking our steps via pedometers, so right now I am really focusing on my steps.

I am still doing periods of concentrated walking, because taking time to exercise is very important, but it is pretty much always going to be walking through July 17th, and I thought maybe it would be more interesting to see how many steps than how many minutes walking. Once the games are over, I hope to start working some biking and swimming into my exercise, especially now that I have a beautiful extra day off.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, though, because I need to get into bed. Tomorrow is the Grand Floral Walk (four miles), and I want to get a good night’s rest.

12075 steps
2 Nephi 15 - 23

My first extra day off

2011-06-09T23:33:00.001-07:00

We are trying a pilot program at work where people are working four 10-hour days instead of fivc 8-hour days. Based on reasoning that had a lot to do with the dogs (surprising, I know), I chose Thursday as my off day. This is the first week.

I love the idea, and I was working four 10’s when I first started at Intel back in 1997. One thing I learned is that there are a lot of things that are easier to get done on weekdays than on weekends, so I became a fan of the extra day then. What I have learned since then is that I do not get much done on workdays other than work anyway. It just drains me enough, and there is not time to get anything started really. An extra day should be helpful there too. Of course the days that I have are longer, and I have to get up earlier, but there are still definite advantages.

Today I did get some pruning done, and washed Julie’s car, and I did exfoliate and deep condition my hair. I did not color my hair, shave, or research publishers. Dinner did get made, but I also intended to assemble dinner for tomorrow so it could just go in the oven, and that did not happen. It’s an okay start, but there is room for improvement.

Pretty much like always.

40 minutes pruning
2 Nephi 6 - 14

The Knee Replacement, Part 2

2011-06-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

I did not intend for this to be a two-parter, but I left out a really important point, and then I keep remembering more. Oddly, forgetfulness is part of why this was an issue for us. I sat in on all of Mom's appointments, because she often tends to forget key details (well, my sisters and I debate whether it is forgetting or not catching in the first place, but that's a whole other issue), and we felt we needed a second pair of ears.

Your parent may have a fantastic memory and a firm grasp of details, but they are older, they are getting a lot of information, and it is even more personal for them, where even a close, loving relative may be able to be more impartial. Again, there are just more emotions tied up in all of this than you would expect. Maybe it's because getting a joint replacement tends to mean they're old, they are doing it because they are experiencing chronic pain, and the path out of that pain involves more pain, money, and some risk. It's a lot for one person.

I will give one example. I wrote yesterday about how my mother does not have great range of motion, and her therapist was goading her about it. Naturally, we brought it up on a follow-up visit to see where we should be, and if we should be doing anything differently.

That was where we found out that the surgery does not tend to increase range of motion, but we discussed that Mom was able to do what she wanted for the most part that way. She's probably not going to hop on a bike any time soon, but she can drive and walk and do things around the house and yard. So, the Physician's Assistant said we had three options. First, since Mom was pretty happy, we could do nothing, and leave it as it was. Second, we could switch to outpatient therapy and see if they could accomplish more that way. They have more equipment there, which allows more options, and also that meant Mom was going back to Randy at Aloha Physical Therapy, whom she liked, and not dealing with the visiting therapist anymore, whom she did not like. (Physical therapists seem to often have a bit of a complex about not being doctors, and can be a little overbearing as a way of compensating. At least I assumed that's what was going on when she was talking about how she knows more than doctors about these things.) Anyway, we decided to go with outpatient therapy.

The third option was that Mom could go back into the hospital, go under anesthesia again, and they could try bending her knee to break up some of the scar tissue. If we were going to go that route, we would need to do it soon, because the longer you put it off the harder the scar tissue becomes, and that increases the risk of causing damage to the bones while doing it.

At the office, we agreed to go with outpatient therapy, got an order written for it, as well as a new prescription for drugs to assist with the extra therapy sessions. However, the thought of going back into the hospital freaked Mom out so badly that she did not remember anything else that was said in that conversation. Sure, she participated in it, but only on the service. On the inside she was remember how woozy she had been, and being away from home, and cold, and every thing that was bad about the experience (just for being at the hospital--they were good to her and did a good job). Fortunately, I had pieces of paper that proved we had chosen another option, so she had to believe me.

I think I am closer to actually done now, but the range of motion issue makes another point. When you have flexibility, it is important to keep it. If you start experiencing joint pain, don't stop moving just so you don't feel it. You will probably still feel it, and then you can lose the ability to move. In retrospect, she should have done the surgery much sooner. We have a tendency to play through the pain and just keep going however you can manage, and there are good things about it, but sometimes you need to be smart about it too.
I do want her to start tai chi after we get the other surgery out of the way, and maybe even if she can't build much flexibility up for her knees, it can help keep those hips and shoulders limber. It's nice that the replacements are available, but better not to need them.

To be fair, I don't know that she could have afforded the surgery before she got on Medicare, via Humana. I have to give high praise to them. Mom is getting the best care of her life now, and I really appreciate that.

It's also worth mentioning that the way we managed home care was that Julie worked from home for several weeks. Mom was able to walk right away, but slowly, and it helped to have someone there for some waiting on her, but also to be able to attend to the dogs. They complicate everything.

20 minutes walking outside
1 Nephi 22 - 2 Nephi 5

A Guide to your Parent's Knee Surgery

2011-06-07T22:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Mom set the wheels in motion for her next knee replacement, so it seems like a good time to cover the first go-round.

I suppose we waited too long in the first place. She had gotten to where she was in so much pain that it was really affecting where she went and how much she did, and she had a lot of days that were just miserable. She did get some physical therapy, and cortisone shots a few times, but they were only temporary helps, and her orthopedist told her flat out that there was nothing else he could do for her--she needed to get surgery. The x-rays showed bone grinding on bone in both knees, so there's a limit to how much you can mask that.

Our first appointment was November 14th, and the surgery was scheduled for December 21st. That's a bit of a wait, but at least where we did it (which was through OHSU, with Doctor Huff), they do an MRI to get precise measurements and then a firm custom makes the implant, which takes about a month.

The other thing we needed to do was a pre-surgery appointment where a doctor not involved in the surgery assesses whether the patient is a good candidate for surgery--so questions about previous reactions to anesthesia, testing the heart rate, looking at overall medical history, etc. I found out, which I had not known before, that Mom did have a bad reaction to anesthesia the last time she was in the hospital. However, that was 1977, and the field has changed so much since then that those results were probably irrelevant. On the same day Mom met with a physical therapist to talk about after-care, and a physician's assistant to cover any last minute concerns.

One thing we have been asked a lot is why we did not do both knees at the same time. We did ask about that in the first appointment, and there is a really good reason for it. Your biggest risks with any surgery are infection, breathing problems, or clots/stroke. It turns out that your risk for all three is more than doubled by doing both knees at once. It's a huge strain on the body, you are under anesthesia longer, and you have more entry points for infection. Also, it is very important to get the patient moving around soon after surgery because the new joint needs to be used to get it working well. Having one good leg makes this a lot easier.

We knew the day of the surgery more than a month in advance, but you don't learn the time until right before, because there could be cancellations or reschedulings, and actually, even with our 1:00 time when we got it, someone else cancelled that day and we were called to see if we could get in earlier.

The time change was not a big issue, but perhaps just one more area of uncertainty. That being said, we are now at the really grueling portion of the story. So, if you have something like this coming up, this part may be the most helpful.

All four daughters had the day off. Maria and Julie had dental appointments, and then were going to go watch the dogs. This is not a frivolous thing. A major part of Mom's worry was leaving the dogs alone, and she kept saying not to visit her but to just take care of the dogs. She thought she meant it, but she also got very lonely in the hospital, so it was just something we needed to balance, and I knew it would be that way. Misty was the driver, of course, but she hates hospitals and did not want to come in, so I was the only one there. I thought that this was fine, because some company can be worse than no company depending on the situation, and just waiting around the hospital for several hours seemed like enough of a waste of time that you should not have multiple people doing it, but, yeah, I did not know what it would be like.

Much like surgery times, they don't assign a room until the surgery is over, so there is nowhere to put the stuff. I had really not thought about this part.

I had my coat backpack with me, and in my naive mind I imagined myself dividing my time between writing out Christmas cards, reading, and taking little walks through the halls. However, I ended up also having Mom's coat and cane, the bag we packed for her, and the bag the hospital gave us for putting all her clothes in. It was a lot of stuff, and carting it around was not really practical, so I ended up being glued to the waiting room. I left once to go to the bathroom, asking the concierge to watch the pile, but that was it. I would have needed food, but Julie and Maria had thrust a bag of mint meltaways at me as a backup, and I ended up having, I guess it was two or three an hour, just to keep me going. Yes, I realize that was less than ideal. If you have someone else with you, you can all take turns watching the stuff.

I did not take any walks or write out any Christmas cards. I did read, and I was lucky that I had a gripping new book (If You Really Loved Me, by Ann Rule). Starting it in that room, and going on through hours of surgery interrupted by worry and phone calls, I read close to 300 pages. I don't think I actually got over 300 until I was on the train.

The other thing I was not prepared for, and where company could help (the right company, anyway), is the emotional toll. Mom was really scared, and once she was prepped for surgery--covered only in a thin gown and with the drugs starting to take effect--she was very vulnerable, and I had to leave her, and wonder about her. That was followed by hours of waiting (two more hours than planned, actually), and every time my phone went off someone was asking for information I did not have, because I had not gotten any updates (incidentally, cell phone use in hospitals is okay now, except maybe in cardiac wards), and when the doctor finally did come and tell me it was done and Mom was okay, despite the fact that I had no reason to think it would not be okay, and was totally expecting it to be okay, I burst into tears.

Still, seeing my mother be weak and vulnerable was not over. She was very groggy in the room, and looking very frail. It was so late by then I could not stay long, and she was not that alert anyway, but at least I was able to drop her stuff off.

I was completely drained, and somehow I still needed to get myself home and get myself some food. The cafeteria was long closed, as well as the gift shop. It occurred to me that my easiest route was to take the tram to the streetcar, get off at the MAX line, and eat somewhere right there so I did not have to do any more transfers or walking, which is why I ate at Maya’s Taqueria.

Getting some solid food, and protein, into me did help, but I was still really tired. My emotions had been through the wringer, and somehow the fact that the surgery is very normal and went fine did not help.

Let me tell you, the emotional toll does not stop there. For one thing, there was waiting to find out when we would get Mom back, and making sure she got a visit and phone calls every day. This was partly our misunderstanding. We had originally heard 2-3 days, but they will only do the 2 days if the patient is going to a rehab facility. Since we were going straight home, they needed to be sure that she could do various things, and for a while it looked like it might be four days. As it was, we brought her home on Christmas Eve.

Then there was the recovery period. Your parent will have a lot of residual pain. An associate doctor predicted that six weeks after, Mom would be really mad at him, but by eight weeks she would wish she had done it sooner. That was pretty much how it went.

There is also a continuous round of icing, elevation, and exercising. Our mother was not a good patient for this. We reminded her, we wrote up a schedule, and yet she only really started taking it seriously when I got really mad at her and gave up on her, and then she was going to show me. I did sort of do it because I suspected it would work that way, but I was also sincerely mad.

You do need to have realistic expectations. The surgery is for taking away the pain, but generally does not improve flexibility. Most patients have a greater range of motion than our mother did, who has been carrying herself stiffly for some time. Getting rid of the pain was wonderful, but the visiting therapist was really ragging on the range of motion.

That is one thing that I think we should have done differently. After several weeks of home visits, we switched to outpatient physical therapy, which was more helpful. I think we should have done that sooner, maybe after three weeks.

I do think the second knee will go better. First of all, it is familiar this time. We know what we are getting into, what it looks like, and what we need to do. In addition, the weather is warmer and the days are lighter, which should make things less gloomy. We did the first one around Christmas because, of our two choices, that was the one where everyone had time off. It did work, but Christmas feels like it didn’t happen, and also, Mom was cold all the time. Also, the first time Mom’s recovery was hampered by the other knee being bad, but this time all joints should be working (unless her hips or shoulders start going out).

I’m pretty sure I will end up alone at the hospital again, so all I can really do is pack lighter. She did not use a single thing in her overnight bag that night, and don’t think she used it the next day either, so maybe it can be brought the following day. She should not need a coat. The cane will be necessary, but I will not bring anything but my purse and a book. I am planning on Green River, Running Red (Ann Rule again).

For Mom’s clothes, the family does not have to keep the bag, but it improves the odds of nothing getting lost or stolen. I will probably keep it with me, but if that is all I have it should not be so bad.

For the emotional aspects, I am just hoping that familiarity will make it better this time. There are a few less stressors in my life than there were then, and I have learned some things about my ability to handle it all, but that is actually going to be another blog post. Being able to plan helps, and that’s why I share. Well, it’s one reason anyway.

35 minutes walking outside
1 Nephi 16-21

Not as planned

2011-06-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

So, I had just started reading my scriptures, and the phone rang, and I ended up talking to a friend for over an hour. However, I did walk for 25 minutes at lunch.

My Native American Heritage reading month

2011-06-05T21:30:00.001-07:00

So, yes, this should have been for November 2010, and it ended up really going from January to May of 2011, with multiple interruptions. We already covered why that happens, and actually, it is a good thing that it happens. I find that a lot of the books that I feel I need to read end up wearing me down a little. I do think it is important to know about societal problems, but then you know about the problems, the impact, and the difficulty of fixing them, and often I end up kind of sick of humanity. So, if I can have that interspersed with some light-hearted fiction and comical narratives, it helps me maintain an even keel.

When I started planning these reading months, back in February 2010, that Black History month consisted of several books that I had been meaning to read for a long time. There were two books (The Slave Community and Time on the Cross) that I owned from browsing at the PSU bookstore, which would have happened while I was working at Clear Connections, which would have been in either 1995 or 1996. I had started browsing through “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in the Knight Library at U of O the summer after my first year there, so that was 1991. Finally, my friend Rose had recommended “Beloved” to me back when the movie had come out in 1998, when I was still fairly new at Intel. So really, I was overdue to read them all.

The creation of the Native American reading list had some similar origins. I had first intended to read A Century of Dishonor back in junior high. We had to create newspapers for various years, there was a passage in the textbook about this book coming out. I wanted to read it, but could not find a copy. I did find Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona in our library, and ended up reading that. My newspaper had a blurb about one of the books coming out, along with other relevant articles. I think it was Ramona, for 1884, and in the blurb I mentioned her previous book from 1881. You know, 25 years later, the details get a little fuzzy.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was just one I had always heard of, and of course I first heard of Open Veins of Latin America when Hugo Chavez gave a copy to President Obama, but reading a little more about it made it seem worth reading—regardless of any issues with Chavez.

Finally, when 500 Nations came out, it got good reviews, and I had been interested. It was not strictly a book of course, but I spent six hours on it, and there’s nothing wrong with some multimedia.

Being fairly recent, 500 Nations was probably the only one that did not suffer with age. I already mentioned that Jackson’s book is from 1881, and the other two are from the 1970s.

I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee first, and initially it felt a little abrasive. Of course we get that it was wrong, and that in many ways the Indians were maligned. Then I remembered, in that time period, it was not an “of course”. This book was groundbreaking, and had an influence, and could be worth reading for that reason alone. And it did turn out to be pretty even-handed.

It was not what I expected at all. I initially thought it was a narrative account of Wounded Knee specifically, when actually it covers many events and many tribes. Perhaps because of that, it took me a while to get into it, but I did, and it was really good.

A Century of Dishonor covered very similar ground, with a lot of overlap, but there are some key differences. Jackson started with a legal argument for the property rights of the Indians based on the earliest treaties. Brown does not make those kinds of arguments, probably because he assumes that as you get to know these people and what happened, you will feel the immorality of the treatment of the Indians, regardless of points of law.

In addition, so much of Hunt’s argument focuses on the response to Christianity of the Indians as they converted and started to adopt the ways of the whites, where Brown would appear to want them left more to their own culture. I’m saying this clumsily, but it totally makes sense that one book is by an elderly devout maternal woman of the late nineteenth century, and that one is by a probably left-leaning librarian who had recently been through the sixties.

One other key difference is that Brown was writing when it was all over. Jackson still believed things could be turned around. Brown’s title made sense, because the Battle of Wounded Knee was the last major confrontation between the natives and the military. It was done. Jackson was dead before Wounded Knee happened, and it would have broken her heart.

Probably the most important thing to take from the books is seeing how many times the various tribes had to start over, and then be moved again. They reached a point where they began to be afraid to make any efforts. That, and the removal of children from their families may be the crux of a lot of the problems that they face today.

Interestingly, I ended up seeing two plays during this time period that related, which would not have happened if I had actually gotten it done in November. One was Ghosts of Celilo, which is specifically about some children who were taken away to school, and what happens with them, and also the adults who got them there. There are parts where it is a little clunky, but it was still very moving, and of course it added to my reading.

The other was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which I did not even think would relate, but the reason Chief Bromden is in there has a lot to do with what has happened to his people, and his father’s role in that. Anyway, that all worked well.

For 500 Nations, the part that interested me most was that on the Mound Builders, which did not go into as much detail, but November will come around again. You know, or May, because of that easily distracted thing.

Finally, Open Veins of Latin America. Again, age may be an issue. One of Galeano’s complaints is how the Western World pushes birth control on his people, and I am a big believer in letting women control their own fertility as something that helps families escape poverty. But one thing the age of the book does do is let me hope that things have gotten better, because there are some awful things in it, and they come from greed, and it really shows the evils of colonialism, and explains how the US was different. Really, really fascinating book, and richly written. This book has inspired some passionate devotion, and I can see why. It can be a good companion piece to “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, and it makes me wish I had tried harder with “Sweetness and Power”, even though it seemed unreadable. Well, maybe I will try it again some other year. And it really makes me wish I had seen Josh in “The True History of Coca Cola in Mexico”, but I have other reasons for that.

I have not decided what I will do next year (well, this year) yet. I feel like the story of what happened to the children sent away to school is important. How much of their identity was stripped away? Did they have children who don’t even know they are Indians? Rabbit-Proof Fence relates as well. Still, most of the books I have on my reading list are farther back in history. Still, I have some time to decide. I may read Windwalker, because I don’t mind a novel now and then if it captures things well, like Beloved, and maybe I will read 1491.

There is always more to know.

32 minutes walking outside
Alma 16-19 (with family)

One more thing

2011-06-05T00:14:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe I forgot this, because it is so important, and it is very much a part of the whole bin Laden issue. I am very bothered by people who say this proves the efficacy of torture.

No. No. A thousand times no.

While some of the people who eventually provided useful information may have at some point been subjected to enhanced interrogation, the information that ended up leading to bin Laden did not. This is not a coincidence; this is how it works.

The enhanced interrogation techniques were developed based on training for increasing resistance to brainwashing. This cannot be stated enough.

The problem with any torture (beyond the moral considerations) are that people will often say anything to stop the pain, so if they don’t know the desired answers, or the truth is not believed, they will lie or make things up.

Beyond that, the specific methods that have been at issue, like waterboarding, are designed specifically to break a person down so that they will say what you program them to say. Useful, if reprehensible, if you need to propagate false information, but disastrous if you need accurate information to provide maximum results and safety.

This has been well documented, but it just doesn’t seem to matter. People still say it is a necessary tool. Maybe it’s because it always worked for Jack Bauer on “24”, but that was fiction, and the writers could make it come out how they wanted. When you really have 2 hours to find the ticking time bomb, you don’t have time to chase down a false lead, realize it is wrong, and correct. Torture is the last thing you should do.

Just needed to get that off my chest.

40 minutes walking outside
1 Nephi 9-16

Good Riddance

2011-06-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

I was originally going to call this post Random Opinions, but I realized I had so much on Osama Bin Laden that I might as well put all of those together. The downside of being a procrastinator is, of course, that this is all old news, but I am just going to put it out there anyway.

First of all, I have no qualms whatsoever about the death. I feel it was completely justified. What he had already done previously was more than enough to be worthy of death, he was actively planning ways to bring more destruction, and while it really just seems lucky that there was resistance offered to justify killing rather than capturing, capturing would have been awful. Trials and sentences can be great, but I just imagine the rescue attempts, and demonstrations, and his increased demagoguery since he is no longer trying to stay hidden, and I think it is much better that such a can of worms was never opened. For that reason, I am also fine with burial at see, avoiding a new shrine, and it was nice that we followed Muslim customs.

Also, I have no problem with Pakistan not getting advance notice. There seem to be some good reasons for that. It is not normally how you treat an ally, but if you have doubts about how helpful your ally really is, well, it just makes good sense, and I can't help but think it would have been better if the one vehicle hadn't crashed so that no prisoners had been left in Pakistan. At least we got to take the computers.

For those who are critical of the operation, I disagree based on the reasons already given, and to Fidel Castro specifically, there is no way you can take the moral high ground on this one buddy. And I say as someone who feels that US policy on Cuba is wrong-headed and harmful, but no, you are just wrong and a hypocrite.

There are other things that do bother me of course. I understand, but do not agree, with the people who were celebrating it. I mean, we were appalled by the people celebrating the Twin Towers falling down, and yes, cheering the deaths of thousands who were just going about their day is worse than cheering the death of one mass-murderer and a handful of his help, but it still just seems tacky and low.

I also disagree with the people who were so quick to criticize the president. This happened in two ways. One was people saying that he was taking all the credit and glorifying himself. I disagree on that. I thought he seemed pretty balanced in crediting the different people involved. There were definitely some "I" statements, but I think a lot of that is the acceptance of the ultimate responsibility. For those who would criticize the raid happening at all, or how it was done, or that any respect to religious beliefs was paid regarding the burial, for all of that the buck does stop with the commander in chief, and he knows that, and if the information had been wrong, and he approved the raid anyway, that would have been a disaster and that would have been his responsibility too, so that does have to be acknowledged.

The other thing was I saw a bunch of Facebook statuses that the president didn't kill bin Laden, it was a soldier, and he was trying to cut their wages. No. The threatened government shutdown was coming from the Republican side. That is so twisted it is not even funny.

Less bothersome, but still kind of irritating, was the editing of the situation room picture by a Hasidic newspaper. Not being able to show any pictures of women ever, because they are too tempting for the men, is a horrible policy anyway, but if you must stick with that, then you just don't get to show the pictures. Sure, there's some serious loss there of impact and understanding, but the editing is a loss of integrity.

However, I do not have a problem with the code name Geronimo. First of all, part of code names is that they should not be immediately recognizable. So if it were codename "Hitler", "Arab Scum", or "Ultimate Evil", it would not be a very good code name. I really don't think it casts any aspersions on Geronimo himself. Both men were hunted for a long time, though for vastly different reasons, so it is not a completely unreasonable comparison in that sense. If you really need to take offense at something, and crusade against it, there are much better options.

33 minutes walking outside
1 Nephi 1-8

Living in perilous times

2011-06-02T22:52:00.001-07:00

I don't actually know anyone who took the announce Rapture seriously, but a couple of months ago there was a different quack predicting a major West Coast earthquake for the week of March 21st, and that did make some people nervous. (The guy, Jim Berkland, actually does have some credentials, but I guess he's let it go to his head, and if you check his web site he is referring to 3.0 quakes as "major", so okay, that's one way of looking at it.)

Anyway, I rolled it over in my mind, because I certainly do believe that the Pacific Northwest is due for a major earthquake (for me that would be bigger than 3.0, however), and I believe we are at a time when we are going to see increasing natural disasters. Fortunately, I found that I feel pretty good about things.

I can't say that I am as prepared as I would like to be. I would like to have more food storage, have it be better organized, and have more space to put it. Honestly, we should probably have more water storage than we have. But we do have some, and that is helpful. We have flashlights, and batteries. We have a first aid kit. We could definitely be better about having every single member of the family ready to shut the gas off at a moment's notice, so that's something to work on, but the point is, the worst I have is things to work on, rather than abject fear and panic.

We had a similar situation a few months earlier. They were predicting heavy snow or ice, and I am sure all of the memories of those weeks spent homebound in 2008 contributed, but the stores were packed with people emptying the shelves. We were there because it was our normal shopping night, but I remember being glad that I did not have to panic--we had supplies. The only real concern I had was milk, and that is due as much to our rate of milk consumption varying as to milk being perishable.

I don't want to give the wrong impression. There are a lot of things that we could do better and I hope to continue to improve. My point is just that whatever preparation you do will be a comfort.

In my first aid class, I had this insight that I think a lot of my zeal for learning is because I feel like knowledge will help me keep situations from spiraling out of control, and I am wrong. There are a lot of wild cards out there, and you can't plan for everything. It doesn't matter how good I am at first aid if you get decapitated--I am not going to be able to fix that. Or if the blow to the head comes to me, again, I am no longer in charge of that situation.

That being said, ignorance isn't going to make anything better, and the more things that I am ready for, well, I guess it just improves the odds of a good outcome, and I will take that.

Finished June Ensign
Walked 21 minutes outside

Overbooked

2011-06-01T23:19:00.001-07:00

I see it’s been almost a month since my last post. That doesn’t look promising.

Part of the problem is that I just have too much going on. There have been weeks where I had something going on every single night. Some things I have done since the last post are defrosting the freezer, attending music lessons, getting re-certified for first aid and CPR, packing green beans for the Oregon Food Bank, finishing three books, and learning more about extreme coupon-ing.

Some things I have meant to do but have not done include repainting the bathroom and replacing a couple things in it (well, it’s the shower drain and the toilet handle), fixing the door, creating entries for the Jelly Belly cupcake decorating contest, and taking my walk down Terwilliger. Plus, lots of blogging. I was pretty good about exercise, and on and off with scripture reading, but obviously there was no blogging.

At the same time, I have got to spend time with Karen, Jill, and Connie, and I will make time for other friends too. I have more things coming up.

Somewhere in all this there lies a balance, and finding it will be an amazing achievement when it happens.

20 minutes walking outside
Reading in June Ensign

I make myself sick -- literally!

2011-05-05T23:22:00.001-07:00

I am always thinking about diet and exercise. I don't always make good decisions, obviously, but it is always in my mind. What that really means is that I should plan ahead, because when I don't know what to do I get stupid with indecision. Seriously, sometimes I have gone to lunch an hour later than planned because I just could not decide. I realize it's ridiculous, but it keeps happening.

The Wednesday before the Fanconi Anemia 5K (February 9th, to be precise), I had not packed a lunch, and it was important to me to get in a walk, because I was getting ready for a big walk. When I am buying lunch, my two favorite places are August Moon and Mandarin Cove. August Moon has really good food, with good prices on their lunch specials, but you need to allow a little bit of time to wait. Mandarin Cove is faster, because they have the food ready to go, only having one lunch special per day. However, on Wednesdays it is Mandarin Chicken, which they use wings for, and eating it is quite messy. I did not want to bother with that eating at my desk.

When I head out for a walk on lunch, going North is easy, East hits the river really quickly, and South and West give me a lot of uphill for a more vigorous workout. It occurred to me to walk uphill to Safeway. I think I had a forty-five minute lunch that day, so I was going to walk for thirty minutes, grab something there, then rush back and eat at my desk.

It was one of those plans that sounds reasonable but then doesn't work, because the lunchtime crowd was building up, and there were lines at the deli, and nothing ready to grab appealed to me, and then when I finally did just pick something the regular register lines were bad too.
I did not want to be late. I did not have cash for the machines. I did have to eat something.

Suddenly I had a brilliant idea. I would go back to work, but then on my last break I would run across to the buffet, fill a carton there, and eat that at my desk. That worked for timing and money, and I had eaten there before. If it was not great, it had not been terrible, and at least one coworker thought it looked good.

I ate at about 2:30, and worked until 6. For that last half hour, I was not feeling great. I was meeting my sisters and a friend for dinner, but Outback Steakhouse was not sounding so good when I felt like there were shards of broken glass churning in my stomach. I thought I could tough it out, by just not eating very much and drinking a Sprite to help things settle.

This is not going to be too graphic, but some people may want to check out now. Anyway, suddenly I really needed to go to the bathroom. I did, and I thought, okay, maybe that will be enough. I returned to the table, and in less than five minutes I needed to go back, and this time there was no sitting down.

My group was fine with leaving, so we took care of that, and I guess the most amazing thing of all is that I was able to remain quiet while we paid, left, during the car ride, and through my sisters' stop at, oh, I think it was Rite-Aid. That part is fuzzy. However, as soon as I walked in the door, I needed to dash to the bathroom again, and I have to say, this is the first time I have really understood what is meant by projectile vomiting. I mean, what I thought it meant seemed like an exaggeration, but now I understood why you would call it that, and it works.

I was quiet through the night, and had every intention of working the next day. I got up, showered, and was about to walk the dogs, but as you can imagine, my mouth was not feeling that fresh. I just wanted a small drink of water to rinse out a bit. That was a mistake. I didn't really think I had anything left to throw up, but I was wrong.

Well, I was still committed to walking the dogs, but after doing that I called in, got undressed, and went back to bed for several hours.

Around 2:30 or 3 (I guess that's why food poisoning is commonly called 24 hour flu), I was able to get up, and when my sisters brought home Little Caesar's for dinner (I know it's junk, but I was not cooking) I ate it without a qualm.

So, basically I was well again, and I worked Friday (and withdrew any recommendations for Cookie Cabana, which turned out to be unnecessary because I was not the only one who made that connection), but at the same time I was still feeling a little weakened. Jettisoning all nutrition along with copious fluids from your body will do that.

I still wanted to do the walk, and I prepared my supply kit (rain poncho, supplies for low blood sugar, etc.), but I did not make it down to pick up my packet Saturday, which meant an especially early departure time Sunday. I set my alarm, and I was really determined to go. I had said I would, and I am stubborn, but I especially did not want to miss this thing that I paid for just because I couldn't find time to make a lunch, or find the mental clarity to make a decision, four days earlier. But then when I woke up it was raining, and I was exhausted, and I surrendered on the spot. Maybe I have gotten a little less stubborn.

But I still say it was all very preventable.

Matthew 21 – 25
No real workout as I am trying to walk off a leg cramp from last night.

Walking with Gina

2011-05-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

I just signed up for the Grand Floral Walk. This is the third organized walk I have signed up for, despite my continually changing my mind about whether to do them or not.

It started with a thought to do the Turkey Trot back in October. We can earn gift cards by participating in wellness activities, and that was one option. It sort of got into my mind that my sisters and I could do that. We are trying to be more fit, and we go on walks together. At the time we did not sign up, because it looked like Mom might be either in the hospital or recovering from surgery, but we did go for a walk that day.

Fast-forward a few months, and a coworker was looking for some kind of 5K before the Shamrock Run. I knew I had seen something, and found a run/walk for Fanconi Anemia on February 13th. I could find it because after realizing that the Turkey Trot was not going to work out, I was a little disappointed. However, I also walk by Foot Traffic on my way to the train, and I had started realizing that there are always different events going on.

Anyway, as I was passing on the information, I started thinking that I could do that. I had walked a 5K route before (the day after the actual event) so I knew I was physically capable. Why not try it?

So I signed up.

Almost immediately after that, someone started getting a group together for the Shamrock Run. I had just signed up for a 5K, and paid good money for it, so I did not originally intend to do it, but I gave in to peer pressure and suddenly, I was doing two walks exactly a month apart. I still kept seeing more events coming up, and I was thinking, I could do this all the time. Well, that was before I did one.

For reasons we will cover later, I did not do the February 13th event, so my first official 5K was the Shamrock Stride. Fortunately, as part of a group we got our numbers and shirts early, so I did not need to go down for check in, but could just show up at race time. This only eliminated some waiting around.

There were just so many people! One concern with the various events was that they all take place on Sunday, and since we are on the late schedule now I was sure I could get back in time for church, but we started forty-five minutes late because it took so long for all the 5K runners to get started. There were thousands of people in every event. It was 32000 total.

It was somewhat cool hanging out with my coworkers before the event (by the end of my walk, I had no idea where any of them were), and seeing the different costumes and things, and there was definitely a sense of solidarity and participation, and I definitely walked faster than usual, even if I was still slow compared to a normal person. Still, I came away thinking that it was silly to pay deal with a crowd. I didn’t regret doing it—I just wasn’t hungry for more.

However, the Grand Floral Walk is on a Saturday, and Regence sponsors it, and my coworker is telling me how fun it is, and then you get good seats for the parade, which normally I would not feel a need to watch downtown, but maybe one time would be okay. It doesn’t mean I will do it next year. I will say that it makes me nervous that there is only a half hour lead-time between the walk and the parade. I know parades don’t move quickly, but neither do I. I’ll need to make sure to start out near the front so maybe I won’t be the last person to finish. That’s how I did it for the Shamrock.

That being said, I do look forward to taking many other walks throughout the course of the year. I can’t usually see a path without wanting to go down it, and then there have been articles about different trails, so I have a lot that I want to try. These include a tour of Portland’s oldest buildings, the Waterfront/Esplanade loop, and Laurelhurst.
The first one will be one that was not featured in any article, but with the frequent knee-surgery related trips to OHSU, I found myself drawn to the path that runs alongside Terwilliger. I want to put it first because if you keep going down Sam Jackson Road you end up at Duniway Lilac Garden. It seems logical to do it while lilacs are in bloom, and that is coming fast. I have not picked a day yet, but technically I guess I am in training now for the Grand Floral Walk, so I should be trying new exertions. As near as I can tell, it’s a bit more than 2.5 miles, but with a fair amount of downhill. After that, we will see.

If you want to join me for a walk, let me know. I move slowly, but am otherwise good company.

24 minutes walking outside
Matthew 13-20

Book Slut

2011-05-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

I've already mentioned how it took a long time to get through my progressive books. Well, I am currently in the middle of my last November book (Native American heritage month), meaning I have not even started my February list yet (Black History month). This is partly due to being overly ambitious. I am generally reading about two and a half books a month, so if I assign myself four or five for one month, I am setting myself up for failure.

However, this would not be enough to get me as far behind as I am. That is more a matter of literary promiscuity.

I am not saying I have no standards at all. Every now and then I get a crack at a book that I turn down. (The last two were The Time Travelers Wife and Requiem for a Dream, based on flipping through pages and seeing that I would not enjoy them), but usually, I'm not really a "no" kind of girl.

Let's examine the start of my "months" going awry. I finished Perfectly Legal on August 27th, indicating that I started late. I was supposed to get to What's the Matter with Kansas next, but Julie had checked out Last Words, by George Carlin, and I had to read that. We love George. I got back on track, finishing Kansas and Free Lunch in September, at which point I figured I would be bleeding into October, but still done before November started and it was time for Native American heritage.

Well, then a dear friend loaned us two books, The Big Year by Mark Obmascik and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Obviously you have to get loaners read, and then my sisters also checked out Who Killed my Daughter, by Lois Duncan, because it was true crime, and recommended by Ann Rule, and set in New Mexico, which they had visited. I enjoyed all of them, but I did not get through The Wrecking Crew until November 4th.

That was still not that awful, and since I finished Wealth and Our Commonwealth on the 12th, there was no reason not to start on Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee right away, except that The Unthinkable (Amanda Ripley), had just come through after being on hold. Around then, I also found out a certain friend was in jail, and I really needed to read Losing My Cool (Thomas Chatterton Williams) to see if it would be good for him (and it was--he's been loaning it to the other prisoners), plus I needed to read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow (which I cannot send to him because it would be too depressing). Oh, and there was this one book that I thought would be good for a newsletter I needed to write, and then my sisters checked out this Rob Sheffield book, and then his other book, and seeing Ann Rule speak led to both reading me one we already owned and us putting her new one on hold, which came through again. Add to that three other books that one or both of my sisters wanted to read, and one that a friend loaned, and you see how it goes.

It's just very hard for me to say "no" to a book (unless it's awful), and I do go looking for distractions everywhere. One of the most annoying things about those e-readers is that you can't even see what other people are reading. I mean, the last two times I chatted up guys on public transportation it was about books (speeches of Malcolm X and Qigong). I mean, how am I supposed to get my flirt on?

So yes, I do get sidetracked along my reading path, but that's okay. For one thing, in most of these cases it is because of my sisters or friends, so that just gives us more connection, and more things to talk about.

Also, no matter how many books I have not gotten to yet, each book adds to the whole--and they do relate. So Katherine of Aragon was Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter! Of course! Or, oh, that tradition goes back to 18th century maritime trade. How interesting.

The destination keeps jumping farther out, but it's a good journey.

20 minutes walking inside
Crunches
Matthew 7 - 12

Task: Goodreads

2011-05-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

I really love Goodreads.com. I was suspicious of another social networking site, because Facebook should really be enough, but I love books and I thought I would try it out. I'm so glad I did.

The social part of it is fun. Sometimes I will add a book, or a review of a book, and see other friends add it to their lists, and I like that. I will add on the recommendation of others as well, so it's very mutual. It is fun seeing who is reading what, and what they thought about it. To some extent it fills the void left by the dissolution of my book club. So really, that part is great, but it came later, and would probably have not been enough of a draw on its own.

What really pulled me in was the ability to sort my reading lists, and that's where the task came in. You see, I always want to read more books than I can immediately get to. Frequent inspiration came from the Oregonian book review section, Smithsonian magazine bibliographies (which they don't really do anymore), and one memorable summer reading column by Georgie Ann Geyer.

Tracking was hard. I printed out the column, and scrawled things in a notebook, and as I became more digital I created a Word document where I would write book information. I later added an Amazon wish list to track new books, but I didn't really want the books as gifts--I just wanted to remember to read them.

Suddenly, Goodreads created a great way of putting them all in one place, and the task was to get that done. It was a bit tedious, but this is one of the goals that I actually accomplished fairly quickly.

This is one area where I became impressed with Goodreads, because they had almost everything. I think the only things I could not find were a Lao-language history book, and another book that was really old, and may not have been published normally. It was a huge step up.

It also became very clear how far in over my head I was with my book desires, because as I finished I was at about a 3:1 ratio of book to read versus books read, and I have not been able to shake that. I'm sure I have not entered every book I have read yet, but I have not entered every book I want to read either, so clearly that's just how it's going to be.
Still, I am reading more, and this is another way that the site really helps. It is so easy to find ideas for what to read next. It's true there are other factors there. I have time to read on my evening commute, which I did not before, and by the grace of Maria's frequent trips to the Cedar Mill library, and their extensive collection, I have means and opportunity added to my motive. It is a beautiful thing.

So my reading is more prolific and more organized, and I have to credit Goodreads for that. If I want to enter Steve Duin’s reading contest for this year, I can easily see what was read and check the page count. I do still have one little problem though. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, come friend me on Goodreads. I have awesome shelves!

39 minutes walking outside
Matthew 1-6 and James

My Progressive Reading Month

2011-05-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of May Day—which honors the eight-hour workday, the Haymarket Incident, and attracts all manner of socialists, communists, and anarchists—it seemed like a good time to go over the contents of my progressive reading month.

Why a progressive reading month? Well, having this renewed library access has been great, and combined with being able to keep my reading list organized via GoodReads (more on that later), I have been making more of a point of getting to books that I have always intended to read. There were a handful that I tended to associate together, which related to modern politics and money, I guess. Since I had my Black History month in February, and was going to do my Native America Heritage month in November, I decided that I would put my progressive books together in August. It would be my progressive reading month, which at times I called my socialist reading month, my liberal reading month, and I might have even called it my communist reading month.

The first thing I should say is that I can’t really just decide to read four or five books in a single month and expect it to happen with no distractions (again, more on that later). I did not actually finish the last book until November 12th. Anyway, let’s go over what they were.

One potential advantage to procrastinating is that you can then read the original book and its follow-up close together. Therefore, I read two books each by David Cay Johnston and Thomas Frank. Here is the total list in the order read:

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everybody Else, by David Cay Johnston

What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, by Thomas Frank

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense, by David Cay Johnston

The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, by Thomas Frank

Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes, by William H Gates and Chuck Collins

How do they stack up?

Most fluid/interesting reads: What’s the Matter with Kansas and Free Lunch
Driest reads: Wealth and our Commonwealth, followed by Perfectly Legal—that’s what happens when you write about tax code.
Most important to read: The Wrecking Crew and Free Lunch (they are also the most appalling)
I can’t say they really changed my political philosophy at all, so that’s not why you would read them, but a lot of what they did was provide context on things that I already see are happening, but this is how it got there, and why. I have to say they were all pretty well written, and very educational, and I wish everyone who complains about government spending would read Free Lunch. To be fair, a lot of that is more state and local spending than federal, but if you consider that all of the money comes from somewhere, and that there is a finite amount to cover needs, then those spending issues are really very important.

One point that Johnston repeatedly made in Perfectly Legal was that for all those who evade paying taxes, there is more that the rest of us need to pay. I had looked at it more as just there being less funds available in general, but since we are spending over budget, and accumulating interest, which we do need to pay, well, he may be on to something.

One of the most interesting unexpected lessons was from Wealth and Our Commonwealth, regarding the push by the right to get people to refer to the estate tax as the “death tax”. They had something like swear jars where interns would have to put in money any time someone used a term other than “death tax”, which would fund pizza parties. Words are powerful, because they are how we form thoughts, and the words that get used are not random.

The most discouraging part of all the reading is that there did not really seem to be much in the way of solutions. Johnston focuses primarily on getting people better informed, which seems pretty hopeless. Even if you had a knowledgeable general population, you still need to overcome apathy and systemic roadblocks, but getting people in the age of willful ignorance to pay attention to facts? To read? I just don’t know if I have that much optimism handy.

That leads to a very sad quote, which came from Wealth and Our Commonwealth:
“In 1879, Henry George published Progress and Poverty, a book chronicling the dangers of consolidated land ownership. This remarkable book, which would today be considered too dense to enjoy a wide readership, sold over 1 million copies, and excerpts were serialized in several popular magazines." (Pp 32-33, emphasis mine)

I’m sure they’re right, but it makes me sad.

Mosiah 26-29 (as part of family scripture study)
Walked outside for 36 minutes
Pushups

What just happened here?

2011-03-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

As we have established, it is nothing unusual to have periods where I write more, and where I write less, but this was kind of a long spell. It's not the longest I have ever gone without blogging, as the records show that a gap between January and September 2007, but since then the longest absence had been three months, until now, and just when I had been so on track! But really, all that happened was life. Life happened hard.

When we left off, I was settling into my new job, and finding out that it was not enough money, but having high hopes for the screenplay that I was working on, because someone with actual experience was interested in it.

Remember, I was working with a partner to adapt a book. My writing partner is a professional author. People have bought her books. The author of the book we were working on was in her writing group, and the producer was someone she knew, so the project would not have existed without her at all. Our writing styles are very different, but I know that I learned more that way. However, she was not always great at communication.

Initially she was forwarding messages from the producer with his feedback, and what he wanted, some of which I thought was questionable, but I was trying and then suddenly she sent me an update script where he was credited as a writer and if it was good that would have been one thing, but I hated what they had done with it. It had become really ugly, and I know you can't always follow a book one hundred percent, and we had not been trying to do so, but at least come up with something good! I really hated it.

Anyway, I had thought it would at least result in a paycheck, because he was all set to make a film. He had purchased the rights to one story that was set in New Mexico, but the script was not working out. We were working on a story set in New Mexico which we quickly finished, for him, and that seemed really perfect, but I guess he needed to find financiers for a filming budget. New Mexico had some good incentives set up, so it seemed probable, but I guess it didn't work out. I had soured so much on the project that I almost didn't care. Actually, I think this was probably really good experience for Hollywood, except when you are a professional and this happens, you at least get some money out of the deal.

That would have been nice, because I really was not making enough. When I first found myself unemployed, I did some math and figured out how much I would need to scrape by. When I got hired I was making a little more than that, but after one year unemployed and one year underemployed, I had a bit of a debt hole built up. So here I was working, with a really good team and great health care and yet I was still always running short and stressed out over it. I decided to try refinancing, though I was not sure if I would be an attractive prospect for it. This led to my next major source of stress.

I decided to work with my credit union, because getting the original mortgage through them had gone fine, and I was a loyal customer. Well, I don't know that shopping around would have helped, but it was a whole different process the second time around.

It is probably partly due to that whole worldwide financial collapse thing, and maybe partly due to the hits my own credit rating took. All I know is that my loan officer was cold and unresponsive, and she kept asking for money. They needed $250 to lock in the rate, $400 for a deposit and the new appraisal, and then the amount the entire loan would be shy for paying off my credit cards, which was done by the title company mailing out checks, even though I could have paid them off online instantly if they had deposited those funds into my account. I guess they did not trust me. Therefore, when I noticed one small credit line had dropped out of the agreement, I did not tell them because I did not want a demand for another check to pay off that also.

The frustrating thing was that with the delay waiting for the mail everything was in process but I had late payments and was getting calls, including on the original mortgage, through the same credit union. The stupid thing was amounts fluctuate anyway, so once all the checks arrived I still owed a small payment to one card, and had credits on two others. It is done now, but it was grueling while it lasted, and I have a lot of bad feelings towards my credit union now, but with a new 30 year mortgage, breaking away is not likely to happen soon. Honestly, I think they are becoming too much like a bank. If I do ever start getting writing income, I think I will start a new account at First Tech, and ease into the transition that way.

With my job, I hit the first round of overtime, which was welcome in some ways for the extra money, but then just as I was getting used to it, it dried up, and I entered this period where I was constantly having to learn new tasks just as I started feeling comfortable with the old ones. This was good in one way, because I learned a lot and I was certainly constantly stimulated, but it came at a time when I was exhausted and felt like there was too much change anyway. My sisters and I also changed the ward we are attending. This is nothing like changing religions, but it is change, and we had things we wanted to get done first where for a while there was a rush of self-imposed obligations, and there were some emotions involved.

This may seem like a lot of stuff, and it was, but the big undercurrent running through everything was that my mother could no longer avoid knee surgery, and that became an ordeal all in itself, with many appointments, and questions and fears. I knew it would be stress, but I had no idea the emotional toll the surgery would take, nor how much lost sleep it would mean, nor how much of an emotional toll the lost sleep would take.

Anyway, on top of the exhaustion, and stress about work, money, family, and aging, there were also health concerns and at least one round of depression (I can't decide if it was multiple rounds or one that ebbed and flowed). But things are much better now.

I have not been writing much, except for the occasional fevered journal entry, and I am itching to write again. Right now I want to focus on blogging. After I have gotten everything out, I should be ready to get back to screenwriting, but I have too much angst built up right now. Plus, I need to get into the habit of daily writing again, and the time management that makes it possible. Having a goal to write daily seems a little crazy, in that I am working some overtime again and I am feeling a need to focus on good nutrition, exercise, and rest to keep me functional. I mean, I don't know why I think I can manage all of those things at once. Maybe I will need to learn to be concise in my blogging. That would be a trip.

Still, I feel like it's important, and probably it will help me prioritize and use my time better. After all, if I can get all of my issues to date worked out, stand in better stead for my eventual career goals, and get to wear I can do a good job maintaining my health even during times of great responsibility and stress, that should stand me in good stead when Mom gets the other knee done.

Phase 2

2010-10-04T00:05:00.001-07:00

I haven’t blogged for days. I was getting ready to. I would write down “22 minutes walking outside” or “Crunches” or “1st Thessalonians 3 – Philomen”, and plan on blogging, but I would be so tired, and I had gone past the 40 days already, so I let it be.

Well, now I have listened to Conference, and I have thought about what is next, and I did play some video games, and yeah, it’s time to move into the next phase.

There will be more posts, and I will finish the concert series and write other things, but I will not be blogging daily. There are things that have been really good about it, and I have gotten great support, but it is just too time-consuming to keep up. It can always return at another time.

I probably will not post again this week. The producer wants more changes to the screenplay, and originally I thought they were impossible, but I have some ideas on how to carry it out now, and so this week I really want to concentrate on that. Still no money showing up, but I’m still sticking with it. I’m nothing if not tenacious.

I suppose before moving on I should report on the last forty days. Overall, it feels like an accomplishment. I don’t see a trip to Amsterdam in our immediate future, which is okay, and I was disappointed to find that I gained 6 pounds, which would have been a good amount to lose.

I was kind of afraid it would happen, and there is a good chance that it is new muscle, because with the crunches and pushups I went from about 5 at first to 30 now, and that is a pretty fast increase, but still. It did provide a funny moment though, because I was talking to Julie about how if that happened I would be momentarily suicidal and then move on, and she was like, “But you’re so—“ and I don’t remember if the word she used was logical or practical or what, but sure, that’s the end result, but it’s not my initial state.

I do feel more energetic, I am walking faster, and I have stronger abs and arms. Some of my clothes do feel looser, but I wear stretchy things so it is not definitive. I want weight loss, but I’m on a four-year plan, and I do have time to catch up. I should probably take my measurements too, so that weight is not the only available indicator. (For the record, I am 321 now.)

So, what’s next? Well, 20 minutes minimum of scripture study and exercise daily is still the rule, and I am swearing off video games and impure thoughts again, this time through November 24th. This is a 52-day period instead of 40, so one change is that it is longer.

Another change is that I am going to keep up with the rotating toning exercises, but substitute leg lifts for wall sits. I just didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere with them. Part of that is that with your legs and thighs supporting your entire body all the time, they are probably going to always be more developed than other muscles, where it will be harder to see change. Still, there may be better measurability with an exercise that you count instead of time, and at least it mixes things up a bit. I will need something more taxing soon I am sure, but one step at a time. No matter how many times I have gotten into a good routine for aerobic exercises, I have never had a great program for strength training, and fixing that will probably take longer.

Also, I will be keeping a food journal strictly and diligently for the 52 days. This is something that I have tried many times before and failed at, because I will forget things, and fall behind, and just give up, and so giving myself a limited time to focus on it should be helpful. Maybe I will just be trying a different strategy every time for the first few phases, and then I will start combining them. Maybe there won’t even be any weight loss until after the first three years. That would be discouraging, but it would fall within the plan.

I feel like I will eventually need to set some kind of goal about getting better rest, like making myself get to bed earlier, but at this point I would be setting myself up for failure, and I am trying to focus on the achievable.

I will still be working on various tasks and goals that I set for serving others and working on my writing career, but those are not specifically part of the 52 days.

Also, I will be praying for help in loving someone who is difficult for me to love. Well, actually, it’s more the liking her part that is hard, but the point is that I will be working on it.

Concert Journal Part II: Live at the Crystal

2010-09-28T22:54:00.001-07:00

If I had not been so badly impoverished in college, there would have been another trio of concerts seen in Eugene, that would have included the Presidents of the United States of America, the Gin Blossoms, and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. Two of the first concerts that I saw in my employed adulthood compensated for that, but they also introduced me to something Badly Bradley had only hinted at—deplorable opening acts.

The Presidents put on an amazing show. “High energy” barely begins to describe it. I saw them at a Rose Festival concert also, and still great. They sing about silly things, and they don’t use all of the available strings with their bassitar and guibass, but they make it work. I might have to call them an absurdist band, actually, except that seems like more of a Leningrad Cowboys thing.

So, at the Crystal, they had two opening acts, and the second, the United States of Electronica, was actually pretty good. In fact, when the Presidents took the stage, they gave a hand to USE themselves, leaving Anna Oxygen out in the cold. Well, that’s what the rest of us had done.

I guess no one ever explained to her that you need to earn the respect of the audience. So, if you can’t do your songs right because your projection system is not working and the right images do not come up for your songs, and this impairs your act, it makes us think that the songs are not very good. Okay, you proved that one anyway. And you can’t make us dance to the dance steps you want and demonstrate. If we like you we might do it, but we didn’t. And getting whiny and cranky with us just reinforces our impression that you suck. Really, it was very sad and annoying.

Oh, one funny thing at that show. Where we were, there was part of the stage that I couldn’t see, which basically meant that I could see everyone but the keyboardist for USE. So later on, during Presidents, I was dancing next to him and didn’t know until my sisters told me.

So, let’s say that the Presidents are absurdist, and that Anna Oxygen was really trying to be a performance artist, and the USE keyboardist’s hair was a work of art, because the when it was time for the Daddies, there was some artistry and illusion going on. Their opening act seemed like a joke.

First of all, musically they sounded rather like a garage band playing a frat party—mainly loud, not particularly memorable, and they only lyrics I could make out were about riding a snake (and if that’s not fratty, I don’t know what is).

Also, their outfits were very costume-y. It was like each member had chosen to play a different character, and there was no thematic connection between the different characters—especially the leprechaun one. So I was there thinking it had to be some kind of joke, and then during the Daddies performance, which was great, this idea started building in the back of my mind, and sure enough White Hot Odyssey is Steve Perry’s other project, and if I can’t like the music of his other band, I admit to being impressed with the ability to do two full shows in one night, which he does on a regular basis. Crazy.

Other memorable shows at the Crystal have included Jimmy Eat World, which was good but I had to leave before they were done, which makes the use of two sucky opening acts particularly egregious.

The Finn Brothers were a great, mellow show, almost acoustic, but still moving and energetic and wonderful. The crazy Celtic lady with the enormous flower in her hair was weird, but I can’t tell you who she was because I could not understand a word she was saying. You know how sometimes when people fake an Irish accent they sound like they have a toothache and it obscures their speech? I’m sure she was not faking, but, yeah, something was not right.

I think my favorite show there was the most recent one, when we went to see the Psychedelic Furs. I guess one good thing about having a voice where you sound like a lifelong smoker is that aging does not show as much. Richard Butler sounded incredible—like time had stood still for him. And he danced around on that stage as if it had not been twenty-odd years. His dancing was a little nerdy, actually, but he was enjoying himself so much! I felt like he was happy to see us, and it was endearing.

Actually, this is the weirdest thing of all—I think their opening act was okay. I don’t know how that happened.

22 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
1st Corinthians 15 – 2nd Corinthians 8

Concert Journal – The first six

2010-09-27T23:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, I am still doing this for a few more days—through Friday, I guess, and then I will see.

Breaking up my concert experiences, there are six that I consider to be part of my youth. After that, it is all adulthood, and I couldn’t tell you what year it was—it probably happened sometime between graduating from college and now. These six are actually two trios.

The first set occurred when I was in junior high. Somehow I had reached that point where going to concerts is possible. I know tweens have parents who take them to concerts, but my parents never did it that way. So, at thirteen I was old enough to go to a concert, and it was okay.

They all happened within the span of a summer. Charlie Sexton came to town first, in July, I think, and then A-ha came in August. Those were my two favorites at the time, and that they were both coming was amazing.

For Charlie I went with Marisa and Misty. He played at the Civic Auditorium (now Keller), and we wandered around the venue before and after, talking to a roadie, and a bus driver, and a limo driver. The most exciting part was seeing Charlie, pre-show, leave through a side door and enter a limo. If I had any presence of mind, I would have taken the camera I had out of my pocket, and snapped a shot, but I didn’t. The opening band was Badly Bradley (a guy from Quarterflash was in it), and they were not good.

Although this first concert was exciting, A-ha gave a much better show. I think Charlie was still a little shy—Morten was not. He flirted and joked and was amazing. I went with Gina Caldwell, who was only two years older than me (Misty is five years older, and Marisa was older still), but my brother Lance was working security at the concert, and he drove us, so there kind of was some adult supervision. I did nearly get in trouble, because exploring had been so much fun the first time, I wanted to try it again, and I did meet their bus driver, which was fine, but I sort of wandered into an area where I wasn’t supposed to be (between the Schnitz where they played and the Heathman where they were staying), and had to bluff my way out of it. I guess it was good practice for later.

It does seem weird to me that even though I know that Bourgeois Tagg was their opener—I remember their name on the ad and the ticket and everything—I have no memory of them performing. Even seeing that “I don’t mind at all” is theirs, it’s like, Really? Hmm. I guess the main event completely overshadowed them.

I bought a t-shirt there, and a dog tag at the Charlie Sexton concert, and I wore both of them for my next school picture. My souvenir at the Monkees was a program, but even if it was something wearable I might not have, because they were kind of disappointing.

The thing is, I did like their music okay, but I had really been a fan of the show, and suddenly these young guys are old, and the shtick is a little thin. Maybe I should have stuck with my memories. I think Nikki may have been a bit disappointed with it too, and she was a way bigger fan than I was. Of course, I could have been part of the disappointment. We had a slumber party the night before, and the night before that I had to be up early for a trip to Seattle, and I just could not sleep, so I didn’t. I can be great for 24 hours without sleep—a little hyper, but fine, but then I crashed. I was a very boring guest that night. Nikki’s mom took her, Nancy, and I, and even if the Monkees were a bit disappointing, I guess we still got our money’s worth, because the ticket included Herman’s Hermits, the Grass Roots, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and a Beavers baseball game. (That was at the old Civic Stadium, before it became PGE Park.)

I don’t know why, but I didn’t go to any other concerts until just after high school. I know the first one was Billy Idol and Faith No More, because I remember Faith No More making fun of Nelson, and Billy Idol making fun of MC Hammer, and those were the next two. I went with Ericka, Bill, and Scott. Honestly, it was weird that the four of us went to a concert together, but I guess it worked out. Bill never paid for his ticket. I guess it was okay, but those are the memories that stick out, not the music. Well, and I remember Faith No More singing the Nestle Sweet Dreams jingle. It was kind of weird but it worked. Oh, and I remember us speculating on the fate of the fish in their video.

Nelson was the last in that group, because I was already away at college. I hitched a ride back up with Bob Fife’s girlfriend. I can’t remember her name and it is bugging me. I can totally picture her. Greg was supposed to meet me outside, but he never showed, so I was actually at the concert alone, though there were people all around. It was fine. It saddens me that as much as I loved that album, that then they went country and Gunnar became a tool on Celebrity Fit Club, but these things happen.

With the MC Hammer concert, there were so many problems that I don’t even know where to start, including that I never saw the show.

First off, he was supposed to tour with Vanilla Ice, and that was part of my motivation, but I think I was already starting to be embarrassed. I bought his tape on the strength of Ice Ice Baby, and the rest of the tracks were pretty stupid, and even for his good song, you know, sampling is pretty common in rap, just own up to it. I had found him cute, but then he kept doing stupid things to his hair and sticking his tongue out, and it was turning out that everything he said about himself was a lie, so yeah, speaking of tools. Anyway, then he was off the tour, and I don’t remember who replaced him, which I would have if I had seen the show.

I was supposed to go with Matt Davis. I was getting ready, and found that the tickets had disappeared. I tore my room apart trying to find them, but they never turned up. I have no idea what happened. We had some people working on the furnace, and my roommate at the time was not above stealing, but it was so frustrating, and I had to disappoint Matt, and then afterwards I always wondered if we would have become closer, and maybe I could have made a difference later when he needed it. Stupid, but it stung.

Anyway, they were playing for two nights, and my tickets were for the first night, so the second night was the one where I snuck in. Well, I planned to sneak in, anyway, but then when I got to there, Trail Blazer at the time Alaa Abdelnaby was there with his date, and he was allowed, but he was not sure how to get in, so I showed him the doorbell and then tailgated. And yes, that was kind of cool, but you can’t really hear anything backstage, and all I saw was a few dancers, and I knew it would be pushing my luck to stay very long, so yeah, that whole thing was kind of a waste, though whether I should have been bolder or not bothered at all is a reasonable question.

Disco Sweat (20/70)
Pushups
1st Corinthians 4 - 1st Corinthians 14

In Memoriam

2010-09-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty sure this is my last thing from the reunion, but it is meaningful for me.

The class of 1990 lost ten people along the way. I was close to some and barely knew others, but in each case it just doesn’t feel right that they’re gone. When I have lost people to old age, it is sad, but for people in my own age group it is a shock—that’s just not how it’s supposed to work.

I know many of my classmates were affected the same way, and that often the way it came out was a desire for more details. Having some details would just lead to a desire for more details: “I know it was cancer, but do you know what kind?”

I have observed this before, especially with suicide. There is such an element of shock there, along with guilt and every other negative emotion that goes into that mix, that I believe we hope the additional details will help things make sense. It doesn’t always work, but that desire is still there.

Also, I think to some extent there is a desire to hang on, and a feeling that more information will help. Since Josh died I have dreamt of him a few times, and the first time I remember asking him about this hat he used to wear. It was silly, and even in the dream I knew it was silly, but I understood that I was asking for something tangible to hang on to, and when I say it is silly, it’s because that even in the dream I kind of understood that it wouldn’t work. Whatever souvenirs you have, the person is still gone.

So, I understand that there’s a limit to how much getting more information can help. Not only did I suspect it, but I got a chance to test it out, because a week later I was meeting with some friends and I got more information about Adam and John, and David, and I gave information about Josh, and then the next night I got more information about Darin and Tricia. (I still have absolutely no idea what happened to Russ or James.)

On one level, it’s horrible, because I think as we add the details in the hopes of making sense, we also find ways where maybe it could have gone differently, and not happened, and there is a keen little pain there. It still seems to be part of the process, somehow, of arriving at acceptance. It took me years before David’s death seemed real—I kept half-thinking that someday someone was going to tell me, “Oh, that was a mix-up. He’s got a job over in North Carolina now.” That was partly because I heard one thing, that didn’t make any sense (it does make more sense now, incidentally), and I never saw an obituary or anything else, and it was certainly horrible if it was true, so somehow, it didn’t quite seem true.

There are other levels of comfort of course, and I will probably write about those some other time, but what I am getting at now is that I want real obituaries. In our reunion program we had their names and a poem, and it wasn’t even a good poem.

It’s not just their deaths. We also wanted to know more about their lives. All the living get a chance to submit short biographies (a chance which many squander, by the way), and maybe some of us don’t have anything new to report, but they did do things. Some had children, and marriages, and jobs and accomplishments. Okay, Paul did not have a chance to do anything after high school, and John and Adam barely did, but they still had hopes and dreams and things they would have done, and people who cared about them—there is something to say.

And yes, we do want to know about their deaths. The trend here, even in newspaper obituaries, seems to be for less and less detail, where it is very frequent for there to be no cause of death listed, so maybe it’s not a popular idea, and it could be morbid, and it totally might not help in the way that is hoped, but knowing all of that anyway, I still want to know. “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” And everyone with whom I have shared this sentiment agrees.

So, that’s what I want, and I know Classic Reunions will not take the responsibility, but it still seems desirable and possible. I would welcome feedback on this one. I kind of always do, but more than usual this time, I guess.

Otherwise, all I can do is express my fervent wish that the list doesn’t grow anymore for a while.

40 minutes walking outside
Rest
Romans 9 – 1st Corinthians 3

A few more thoughts post-reunion

2010-09-26T01:06:00.001-07:00

I intended to do a recap of various concerts I have attended today, to balance all the things that I want to go to but haven’t yet. Since I just came from an 80’s party, it seemed like good timing.

However, it would be so long! I have been to a fair amount of concerts, and with comments on each of them, well, it would just end up being a lot. I have been thinking if there is some way to break it down into smaller posts, like maybe categorizing them, but there are a lot of blurred boundaries. For example, the Presidents are like the Daddies, in that they are bands that I wished I had seen in Eugene, but then saw at the Crystal, which is part of a larger subset of shows seen at the Crystal. However, I also saw them at the Rose Festival, which would put them with Violent Femmes, but the Femmes are part of the disappointing shows group, but disappointing in a different way than most of them. Anyway, I’m still figuring that one out.

Since the party was thrown by a school friend, post reunion stuff works here too.

I have already mentioned people telling me I look great, or haven’t aged, and my theory that it is because I set the bar so low. Tonight I was actually told that I looked better than in high school. Well, if so, I can say that I am carrying a lot less baggage than I was then. I have worked out some issues, and even if others are still there, it does make me more confident and more peaceful, and that should help.

The other thing is that there are a few people who seem to just think the world of me, and I kind of don’t get it, but all I can come up with is that I was nice to them, except that it shouldn’t have been that rare, and if it was rare, I didn’t know it.

Pauli mentioned being relieved that I don’t remember her being mean to me, because I did remember when her outlook changed—it just never resulted in her picking on me. I understand that, because when I was looking at old yearbook inscriptions I remember being relieved to see so much gratitude from the younger kids. I was pretty sure I had always been nice to the lower classmen and looked out for them, but it was nice having it confirmed. I would have felt really guilty about picking on anyone younger.

I do remember times of saying mean things, or realized that I had hurt someone or was coming close to annoying them, and I remember those things clearly and with great shame, so it amazes me that people remember good things about me.

Maybe it is because those events were rare that they stick with me; perhaps if you are mean regularly it all just blurs together. Maybe I did not notice other kids being mean to each other, but it was happening.

All I really know is that after the feeling of amazement passes I am left with gratitude. I don’t seem to have done anything too terrible, and I am left with a good reputation. That’s good. I do have good friends who are close, and beyond that I have others where we are not close but where there is warmth and support, and I’m grateful for that.

I know that I was really messed up in some ways, and there were a lot of potential pitfalls, but somehow I still ended up with a pretty good life. I am amazed and humbled by that. I have to believe that things will continue working out, because they have in the past. What I haven’t been healed of yet, will come in time. And the more I talk to other people, the more I find things in common.

In general, the reunion has been a really good gift. I know it wouldn’t be that way for everyone, but I’ll take it.

There is one thing that I would like to see changed though, and I will address that in a separate post.

25 minutes walking outside
Crunches
Acts 25 – Romans 8

Other live shows

2010-09-25T00:16:00.001-07:00

I was unpleasantly surprised this morning to see that I had posted the preparedness letter to this blog, not the preparedness blog. I felt so ahead of the game to have written it Wednesday night, and then review and send it Thursday morning, instead of writing, reviewing, and sending all late Thursday night, but I am not at my highest functioning level in the mornings. It makes me wonder if my review missed anything. Anyway, on to today’s topic.

I did not have an official task for this one, probably because the issue came up after I had made the list.

Basically, I know many people in bands. Because we are connected through Facebook, I get invitations to see them play, but it usually doesn’t work out. One real problem for the non-driver, is that these events often happen later at night, without easy access to public transportation. Even when you know people in the band, it may not be wise for a lone (I don’t think I’m naïve, but if I was, would I know?) female to hang out in bars and then walk to a bus stop and hang out there.

Sure, I can invite friends who drive, and the bands would really like me to get extra people out there, but I always feel guilty and awkward asking people who will need to drive me, like the ulterior motive would negate the fact that I think they will appreciate it, and that I want to spend time with them, and those other things. I’ve grown a lot but I still have issues.

The other thing is just the dearth of free time on my calendar. It’s amazing how many events collide with each other. I’m double-booked for tomorrow night actually. Initially, I got dates mixed up, and thought Mike’s show was the same night as Mel’s karaoke fundraiser, which was workable, but it is really the same night as Pauli’s 80’s party, which I think is impossible. And then I missed Mel’s thing anyway, because after errands, Branden and Kehaulani’s reception, and taking Mom out to dinner for her anniversary (we have a twisted sense of humor in my family) I was running out of steam, and then the rain created transportation complications, and someone said something that made me feel crappy, and I was just done. I lay down and cried for a while, and then I wrote, and lashed out at someone, and it probably would have been better if I had been out singing, but it just didn’t happen.

Anyway, before I get too far off track, there were bands that I wanted to see, and sometimes I can close, but really the only show I made it too was the Lost Creek Gangsters when they played the Cider Mill. And sure I love Eli, and it was a fun show, but I really feel like I can do better than that.

So I was thinking that around January, and it wasn’t exactly a resolution, but it was the start of the year, and even though the next few months were going to be really busy, and I would not be up to going out for a while, before the end of the year I was going to make a point of seeing LCG again, plus seeing Toque Libre, Lindsey Pool, and Nate Botsford. Four local bands did not seem unreasonable with an entire year ahead, even if I was taking the first three months off the table.

Well, I have not been to any shows this year, which has been filled with poverty, exhaustion, and attempts at overachievement, but also the list of people I would like to see keeps growing.

Even if a rocker takes time off, so you can’t find any word of them, they always seem to end up in another band. I could not find any dates for Cornbred, or that other band that he played in, but now Darin Joye is in Celilo. There were no signs of Mike Johnson that I could see for a long time, but now he is in two bands: The Flurries and Stone in Love. Mel Ortiz was playing in Detention Room, but they might be breaking up, but Patrick Riggs’ wife has a band too, the 13th Soul. If I was a really good friend, I would be linking to web sites for everyone, but there’s this thing called Google.

On the plus side I have decided that Botsford is not really a priority, because I think I figured out that the reason Jim was always inviting people to Nate’s performances is because they were happening at Jim’s café. I should look into that. Still, it’s a lot of bands.

Another plus is that it gives me hope that other people will turn up too. I would love to get a line on Andrew Diamond of Movement, and John Sabol and Kurt Landre from Something She Said. (There are no plans for a No Socks reunion, incidentally.) Also, any time I make it should be a positive. Seeing live local music is usually a good time, and it doesn’t tend to cost very much, unlike regular concerts, which do not always give you more bang for your buck (more on that tomorrow).

I suppose all I really need is a new club and coffeehouse buddy, kind of like a new concert buddy. The easiest thing might be to have a boyfriend with a car, and then going to the shows could count as dates. It could hamper my ability to flirt with the band, but it’s not like that ever ends up anywhere anyway, so that would not be a reason to avoid it.

I think we are going to end up exploring that whole relationship thing again, but not tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a lot more music.

27 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
Acts 16 – Acts 24

Task: Concerts

2010-09-24T00:23:00.001-07:00

At one point I started thinking about different shows that I would like to see, and decided to make a point of keeping an eye out for them, lest I be caught off guard and miss a good opportunity. So, I made a list and looked them all up, and no one was coming near us. However, things change all the time, and so I need to periodically check again.

Here are the bands I would like to see:

A-ha—As we have covered, they are not coming to Oregon on their farewell tour, but I do have some vague hopes of traveling to see them. I did see them on the Hunting High and Low tour, but Julie and Maria never have, and I would like to see them again.

Gin Blossoms—I have liked them for a long time, but the only time they came nearby I was a poor college student, and even though tickets were cheap I just did not have it. I had the same issue with the Presidents of the United States of America and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, but have seen them both now at the Crystal Ballroom, so it would be appropriate for them to come there.

Of their current listed dates, the closest they are getting is California, but they have a new album out so it would be logical for more dates to follow.

All-American Rejects—On my own I don’t listen to the radio a lot, so it takes me a while to discover new bands, and I probably just started liking them a little too late, where I could have just missed a tour for all I know. Nothing is scheduled now, so I could blame Tyson Ritter’s acting career, but I am just going to lay low and hope for the best.

Maroon 5—I have actually had tickets for them, but then I got very sick (cellulitis outbreak), and Maria ended up taking a date. It was disappointing. They actually are touring now, but not coming closer than Tacoma. Well, the only one I could conceive of traveling for now is A-ha, so probably not this go-around.

Jimmy Eat World—I have seen them once, but it was a work night, and Maria made me leave before they finished the set. Then they were going to open for Green Day, and Maria was late getting off work, but she assured me there would be another opening act, and it would be fine, but she was wrong and we missed them. (Maria does seem to be a bit of a jinx.) Don’t get me wrong; Green Day put on a great show, but it was frustrating.

They are touring, but it seems like no one is coming to Portland anymore. What is the deal with that?

Keane—This is another one where we had tickets, but this time the show was canceled. By “we”, I mean Maria and I, so I guess I could blame her, but Tom’s drug habit and stint in rehab could not really be her fault. I guess it’s important that he took the time he needed, but the fees that Ticketmaster keeps are a crime. Anyway, they did play some dates in the summer, but nothing here.
Finns—This could include any incarnations of Neil Finn bands, and maybe Tim Finn solo, but the good thing is, we have done pretty well. We have seen the Finn Brothers, and Crowded House, and I have even kind of seen Split Enz because there was a concert that they filmed and ran on Nickelodeon back in the day. Sure, I would see them again, but there is less urgency. Which is good because I don’t think there is currently anything happening.

Charlie Sexton—A-ha was my second concert; Charlie Sexton was my first. However, he was just starting to be a solo musician after being a session musician, and he was doing pop, when I think his real strength is more blues-y rock. I would like to see him now, as a mature musician. He actually did play the Aladdin somewhat recently, but I couldn’t make it, and then I decided that I really did want to see him, so he is on the list. He seems to have been focusing on Europe recently.

Henry Rollins—That’s for his spoken word, and again, when I did see him I had to leave early because of Maria. And we have missed our last two chances because we were out of town, and then we were broke. So, clearly, I need a new concert buddy, but at least Hank is one who returns to Portland regularly, and will often film and release his shows.

Occasionally I will see other shows and think that it would be good, but having no money wins out a lot. Generally, it is those 80’s revival acts, like Modern English was just in town, so that could be good. We did go see the Psychedelic Furs, and they were great.

It’s amazing how often they are coming on work nights (I actually still think of those as school nights). I know, with all the different venues out there, you can’t limit yourself to two nights a week, but if you came from the 80’s your fans are getting older, and they have jobs and kids, and babysitters who will not stay out till two on a Wednesday—at least start earlier.

Also, cut the crappy opening bands. This especially goes for you, Crystal Ballroom. If the purpose is to warm up the audience, even if the act is good (which is rare), the waiting for take-down and set-up will kill the mood anyway, so when we do get excited for the main attraction, it truly is for them and nothing to do with the opening. And if it is just to give the local acts some exposure, well, that sounds noble, but is not worth the time if I need to be up at 5:45 the next day.

Belly dance basic moves (30/30)
Pushups
Acts 8 – Acts 15

The Preparedness Newsletter

2010-09-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

This will be short, as I was mainly working on the preparedness newsletter. I thought of just posting a link to it, but I have not posted it yet.

Traditionally it goes out on Thursday, which I picked because people are less likely to read things on Monday and Friday. With my natural tendency towards procrastination, it is sometimes late. If you send something at 11:30 Thursday night, it is an awful lot like sending it on Friday.

I have found that it works better if I write it, then sleep on it and check again, so I should be able to successfully do that this time, having written the first draft on Wednesday.

Sometimes the writing does not flow, and I will find I have taken the wrong approach, or I am missing something. For example, long ago when Chandra Levy disappeared, I read someone’s suggestion that young people living alone should always leave notes when they leave, giving where they were going and when. Writing a newsletter on not being a crime victim, I really wanted to include that, because I thought it was brilliant, but it just was not working.

I realized that the problem with that tip is that it is to make it easier for people to locate you after you have disappeared, and I wanted to focus on things that would keep them from disappearing. Sure, it’s nice being able to solve the crime promptly, but it falls short somehow.

Last month’s letter was always going to be on whole grains, but I thought it would focus more on specifics of using them, and benefits, and it was really more about making a smooth transition as you incorporate them into your diet, and easy ways to get started. Really, you can never give all of the possible information, so it is more about giving them a good start where they can logically follow onto their next steps.

The other reason that I like to leave it overnight is that, well, sometimes I worry that I get too harsh, like can I really say that? Is that too much? I’m a passionate woman, and very direct and down-to-earth, and maybe sometimes people need some sugarcoating. Actually, I never really soften things that much, but I think about it.

Also, I worry sometimes that I use too many big words, but I don’t change those very often either. Well, I still like to give myself enough time to have the option.

26 minutes walking outside
Crunches
John 20 – Acts 7

True Confessions on Day 36

2010-09-21T23:45:00.001-07:00

Saturday is set to be the last day—at least the last day of refraining from video games and bad thoughts while also blogging every day. My intention is for the twenty minutes each of scripture study and exercise to be permanent.

When I decided to do this I marked each day on my calendar with the number and which strength move I would be doing. Tomorrow is 37-C, for day thirty-seven and crunches. Sunday is marked M/DD, for Mappy and Dig Dug, the two video games I plan on playing.

My original intention was that I would play and relax for five days, then start a new fifty days at the same time as General Conference, not sure what the program would be. Perhaps it would involve keeping a food journal, or doing something more involved for strength training, or some other writing goal, but I would figure it out based on how the forty days went, and what seemed needed.

Now I am starting to think that maybe I should extend, at least for the things I am abstaining from. Seriously, I keep thinking that I cannot keep up blogging daily, because it is really time consuming and I could put that time to writing other things, but I have at least 20-30 other blog ideas jotted down, and new ones keep coming, and I have gotten some really good comments, so you see, it’s a quandary.

The other part is that I had a hope in conjunction with this, which I was not planning on sharing, but now I am going to.

My sisters and I love the band A-ha, and they are currently in the middle of their farewell tour. We were disappointed to see that they were largely skipping the US, only playing dates in Los Angeles and New York City. It seemed like we were out of luck, and then Julie noticed that they were playing a date in Amsterdam, which would be perfect because it’s somewhere that we do want to go, but would not require a lengthy trip and there is a direct flight.

I am highly impressionable, and I got the idea that maybe this could happen, if I was a very good girl, that the screenplay would sell and then it would be possible. It does not seem at all likely, and it didn’t really seem that likely then, but the idea was there.

I understand if you are thinking that this sounds delusional—a lot of what I do must. What I have always understood though, was that it was okay if it didn’t happen. No one would have wronged me. The whole thing is a long shot anyway.

There are two things that have been really good about it. One is finding the power in me. I have had different resolutions and failed so many times, but this time I am making it. I have thought at various times of how easy it would be to just give up—go play a game or slough off on exercise—but I have this hope that I don’t want to jinx.

Also, I just don’t want to fail. I believe all of these components are important for me accomplishing what I want and being whom I want. I want to be healthy, and have my blood sugar under control, and the daily exercise is an important component where I have not been good in the past. Some times my sisters and I would walk four days in a row, and I would think, okay, we’re doing it, and then things would get busy and weeks would go by. Choosing to make that inviolate has meant that it gets done, one way or another.

I have so much that I want to get done, and video game addiction is very time-consuming. You only intend to play a few minutes, and then that doesn’t work out, and an hour is wasted. That’s why I was thinking I would start an additional, longer time period: keep the free play limited to a few days.

For the scripture study and the thoughts, I want to be ready for inspiration, and to feel good, and this has helped. I had really felt like I was plateauing before, and now I feel invigorated again.

With the blogging, writing stuff out does help me, but also reporting the three items at the bottom each day, yes, I have completed these goals, and here is the post to prove it, well, that gave me more accountability. It’s harder to slack off when people are watching.

That’s the other thing that has been good. I was not going to tell anyone I was doing this, but then I did tell Julie and Maria, and then some friends, and now it is out there for anybody. This is important, because I used to never share any plans with anybody. I never wanted anyone to know in case I failed. It didn’t matter whether it was a new diet, or a new writing project. Letting people in would let people know that I had these delusions of grandeur, and then see how delusional they were when I didn’t accomplish anything. But because no one knew, it was also very easy to quit.

It took me time to learn that most people don’t really look down on you for your imperfections, and that they aren’t really out to get you. Instead I found that people get really relieved, because the have similar issues, or similar feelings about them, and then we get this camaraderie going on. Somehow, it also becomes easier to improve the imperfections that way. The motivation goes up, because then you don’t want to let people down.

I have had really good discussions with my sisters, and they have set some goals too. It may be the blind leading the blind (especially when Julie is looking at my techniques for pushups), but it’s good. Opening up keeps being a good experience for me. I’m also seeing that I am not satisfied with mediocre, and I think that is leading me to good places too.

So, I have no idea whether I will be playing video games on the 26th or not, and no idea if I will be on Amsterdam on the 10th. And now, if I do not go to Amsterdam, you can all know that I wanted it, and failed to manage it, but I can’t quite say that it will be a disappointment. There will still have been many gifts with this experience, and maybe it would be too greedy to get more. At this moment, I am just trying to do what’s right, both in general and for me personally—wherever that may lead.

24 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
John 11 – John 19

Task: Exfoliate and condition, hair

2010-09-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I’m not sure why the comma was there, because I assume it was the hair that I was supposed to condition. I think it was that I wanted to do something else to my hair as well, like trim it or color it.

Regardless, these are periodic tasks. I don’t have an intensive beauty regimen. Basically, I wash my face with Noxzema morning and night. I hate the way makeup feels on my face, and while I admit that lipstick makes a difference, the other things don’t really look right, and with the lipstick I am always afraid it is going to end up on my teeth, or get faded, or not stay right, that it just does not seem worth it.

That being said, I do try and exfoliate every now and then (face and body, but not at the same time), and more frequently than that I do a deep conditioning treatment with my hair. I’m surprised that shaving was not in the task. (I don’t think that’s what the “hair” was referring to. I know, I am gross, but I am never barelegged and shaving is a pain.)

Anyway, despite exfoliating and conditioning having been accomplished a few times since the list was written, they will always pop up again, and my roots will show, or I will decide it is time to whiten my teeth again.

I have been thinking about this topic more for two reasons. One is that my younger sisters mentioned that they did not really get good guidance on hair and makeup and fashion from their older sisters. True, and yet I think what started the conversation was looking at an old picture with a bad haircut, and some bad haircuts were considered very stylish back then.

Every now and then I would experiment with a wilder outfit or try to get a little fancier, but it wasn’t really my personality. It was easier to pull on jeans and a t-shirt, and so I did that almost every day. And my strategies for taming my hair would not be helpful for many people.

The other reason I am thinking about it is that I have decided that the October newsletter will be on preparing to be more attractive. It would make more sense to focus on the September one, which I need to write and send out this week, but I keep thinking of what I will put in, and whether I will have any credibility based on my own relative level of attractiveness.

The thing is, I know more than I do, and I believe I can be helpful. Part of the focus will be that you are probably not going to do everything, but find the things that work for you. That’s one of my key things in general, is trying to get people to think rather than telling them everything. It’s a two-page letter. I can’t tell them everything on any subject, but I can tell them likely scenarios, and ask key questions, and hope that gets the thoughts flowing. I am staunchly pro=thought.

I am good at analysis in general, and that helps in many areas. If a look does not work, I can usually pinpoint why. So, I hope that it will be of some use to people, instead of being irritating. And I will retire the blouse eventually, but right now it goes with two skirts that it would be hard to find another match for, and I am not that into clothes anyway, so I’m allowing it with full knowledge that it was never that flattering anyway and now it is all snagged.

There is one thing I want to make clear, though, in case I have raised any questions. I may not be that girly, but believe me, I am all woman.

Disco Sweat (20/70)
Pushups
John 3 – John 10

Blackberry girl

2010-09-19T22:18:00.001-07:00

Well, the last few days of rain have finished off the blackberry crop, which was on its last legs anyway. It’s a disappointing moment every year, but it was not always like this.

I used to kind of dislike blackberries. Besides my family doing a lot of U-pick stuff when I was growing up, I also picked berries for pay for a bit. There was a summer program where school buses would take us to different berry fields and brings us back, and we would get paid for each flat we turned in.

Those were always strawberries. I remember seeing something like a work permit application or something that mentioned caneberries, so there may have been teens picking blackberries and raspberries somewhere, but for me it was always strawberries through that location, and then I picked blueberries on the farm of a family friend.

Regardless of what and where I was doing, somehow I always ended up making about $5.00 a day. I think I could have doubled that if I had really applied myself, but for a twelve-year old in 1984 that seemed pretty good.

Blueberries were definitely my favorite. With strawberries you had to be low, so you either crouched over and killed your back, or sat in the dirt and got filthy. Also, there were stickers growing between the strawberry plants. With blueberries you could stand, and maybe a branch would poke you every now and then, but it was relatively injury-free, and also, blueberries were always delicious.

That was part of my problem with blackberries. They could be very sweet, but sometimes they weren’t. If I had to be picking from thorny canes, at least let it be raspberries, which were tasty and I remember the thorns as being less vicious, but I could be fooling myself. Also, I did not like blackberry jam, only strawberry and raspberry (blueberries were for pie).

This all changed by accident. It was the Fourth of July block party, and we decided to take a pie. I thought I grabbed a bag from the freezer to defrost, but the ice was thick and I had really taken out a bag of blackberries, which I didn’t even know we had. Well, what was done was done, so we just made blackberry cobbler instead.

It was so delicious. Maybe blackberries are not always sweet off the bush, but bake them with sugar and they are magically transformed. It was amazing. I guess that was when I started to think about the blackberries around the barn.

The property next to our cul-de-sac is going to be a park someday, but they have not gotten around to it yet. It was a small family farm when I was growing up. I liked to see the cows there when we went by. Where the horses used to be, there are now apartments, and where the sheep used to be, there is assisted living, but the cow pasture is still basically a pasture, and the barn is still there. It is now surrounded by blackberry bushes.

Sometimes when walking the dogs or something, neighbors would call over the fences telling me I could pick them, and it was fine. I didn’t think about it much, but now I had motivation.

It has become kind of a special experience for me. Oddly, I have never been unemployed during blackberry season (just before, and then something comes up while they are ripening), so I always have to find moments here and there for it, but it is time I enjoy. It becomes kind of meditative for me, and educational.

First of all, the reason the berries are not always sweet is they look ripe sooner than they are ripe. You know if they are ready by the feel as you pull on them. Ripe berries slip off of their caps easily. Not yet ripe, and they cling. (Overripe and they squish.) You have to listen to the berry.

Secondly, the thorns are there, but the navigating around them, then that pull that tells you if the fruit is ready, plus being outside, all of that leads to the meditative part. Yes, I do get stuck on a regular basis, but it’s not really that bad. Or maybe I just feel that way now because for the last fourteen years we have had a ferocious cat. The cats we had back when I was a kid, not so much.

Also, and this could just be my imagination, but it seems to me that if you pick more, they produce more, and I am kind of impressed by that. It seems very generous of the berries.

I also started to have other feelings, which I am sure were at least partially brought on by the economic hard times we have had. Fresh fruits and vegetables can be so expensive, and here was all this good fruit for free, but so much of it was going to waste.

I am not the only one who picks there, but there is still so much more than ever gets used. I was stretching our food dollar, which was great, and despite the pie experience we were often just eating them straight, as fresh fruit, but it just made me more aware of food waste and nutrition issues.

The house is still being rented, and that area is fenced off. On the other side of the fence there is a pear tree, and often while I was picking berries I would hear pears plopping off the tree, too ripe to stay. The family renting the house could have picked them, but they didn’t.

As I walk around more, I have discovered a plum tree that started dropping like crazy, and they lay in the street and quickly turned to fruit leather, stinking, and useless. They’re on road so it doesn’t even become compost, and I hate that waste because I know it could be much better. Okay, if it’s too much fruit for you, give it away. Aren’t there gleaners around or something?

So yes, I sound a little politically sensitized there, but in general the activity is peaceful, and so I have some regret when the fruit goes away, and I never know exactly when they will develop the park and the vines will go away.

I know those vines get rooted in deep, and so they are a pest for a lot of people who get blackberries on their property, but I will never be able to see them that way.

28 minutes walking outside
Rest
Luke 19 – John 2

Task: CFL, needle drops, and mouse

2010-09-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

I was thinking this one was done today, but I forgot about the mouse part.

There are a few different stories here. One is that I do inject insulin once daily, and so then I have a syringe that cannot go in the regular garbage. When this first happened I would take a full container to the pharmacy, pay them $5.00 to dump it, and then buy a new one from them. That seems like a sweet deal for them, but most pharmacies don’t want the hassle anymore.

Looking for a new solution, I stumbled upon Metro Hazardous Waste Roundups, where they hit different locations and you drive up and they take your waste. With the sharps, they give you a new container, free of charge, so it works really well. I had one getting really full, and I needed to look up a collection event. Since the events run March through October, when I looked it up I realized that I had a problem, because it was winter.

http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=760

I was coming up with all sorts of creative ideas, but then I opened one drawer to get something else, and somehow I had a big empty one that I had completely forgotten about. That is why I could make it through to September. Regardless, it was still on the list, and today both boxes were dropped off, replaced, and we also got to drop off the CFLs.

Yes, we did have a bag of some that had merely burned out, but that was not how it ended up on the list. I have alluded to Jane’s personality issues, and one thing with that is that she likes to steal things and chew them up. I have lost more pairs of shoes this way than anyone, but Julie has lost much more expensive shoes.

We do take precautions to put things out of her way, but it is easy to underestimate the reach of a dog, and in this case we did. I was on the computer, job hunting, and Mom had just gone to check on the dog she was sitting for. I think Mom leaving was the trigger, but if I had been in the living room, instead of my bedroom, maybe it could have been prevented. As it was, I paused in my job search when I heard a faint crunching sound. I knew it couldn’t be good.

I came out and found Jane happily munching away on a Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb and the box it came in. That was not good. Those things have mercury in them was the main problem, followed closely by the also disturbing issue that the dog did not have the sense to quit chewing broken glass. In fact, she would fight to keep chewing it.

Fortunately, I tend to keep my head in these moments. I grabbed a piece of bread and threw it outside. Jane will generally choose real food over non-food items. (If it’s real food, we will probably need to use a combination of a chair to hold her off and Mom’s cane to pull the item away. It’s not pretty, and we know that we suck at discipline. It never mattered before Jane.)

Anyway, she followed the bread into the back yard and I closed the door. I then looked up instructions for cleanup on the internet. It was a fairly complicated process involving duct tape, a canning jar, paper towels, and a vacuum, all of which made for a situation where MacGyver would have been more than welcome, but I was on my own. I did the best I could, and sealed everything in the jar, but then there was no place to take it. It had been on a kitchen counter for several months now, but today it is gone!

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

I suppose there could still be traces somewhere, and someday one of us is going to pull a Jeremy Piven, but you can only do what you can do. The really funny part is that Mom was calling Jane “Argento Vivo” because of her speed and energy (and mood swings). That of course means Quicksilver, which is of course an old word for mercury. Well, Jane is mercurial.

So what I forgot to do was the mouse. I wrote about the mighty mouse a while ago, but I still haven’t disposed of it, computer parts not always being easily recycled. I guess for now I am hanging onto it. It does have sentimental value.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2009/12/requiem-for-mouse.html

23 minutes walking outside
Crunches
Isaiah 22 – Isaiah 30

Task: Contests

2010-09-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

Specifically, that task was to check the details on specific screenwriting contests and see about entering.

There are some really negative feelings out there about screenwriting contests in general. A lot of industry insiders will tell you that the only one that has any real worth is the Nicholl fellowship, and maybe they will give some credit to Scriptapalooza. The issue is that if the judges aren’t people who can really buy your script, then there’s not much value in having those people read it.

I get that, but they say it in conjunction with “Sure, maybe you will win some money.” I would love to win some money. I would be all for it. Also, winning is still something that you can say to possibly give you some credibility, even if it is only a small boost.

My issue is that there is always an entry fee, and sometimes that just isn’t something I can swing. They usually aren’t even that expensive, but I have been pretty broke.

In this case, I ended up skipping The Big Break, but entering Past Present in the Nicholls Fellowship, and Coulrophobia and Sisters of Justice in Script PIMP (PIMP stands for Pipeline Into Motion Pictures, so get your mind out of the gutter).

Script PIMP announces in November, I think. The second round of the Nicholls is going on, but I did not make it in. That was pretty disappointing, but the competition is really stiff. That is one contest that truly does give you exposure, and quite a decent prize.

There are more contests going on all the time, so there is always the opportunity to enter—you just have to know that it may not mean anything.

Disco Sweat (20/70)
Wall sits
Luke 10 – Luke 18

Task: Agents

2010-09-17T00:06:00.000-07:00

Of the various tasks on the original list, I am avoiding writing about some of them because I haven’t actually completed it yet, and I need to get on the ball. With this one, it may not be worth finishing.

Back when it first happened, I felt like it was too soon to seek an agent because no one would be interested in me. Someone else told me that what I had at the time (four or five screenplays) was a decent body of work, and it might be worth asking around. Not sure where to start, I went to the Writers Guild site and printed out their agencies list, then started making phone calls.

It turns out what I had was not nearly as important as what the list had, which was an abundance of places that didn’t really do literary, only talent (actors); lots of places that were not taking on new clients, or not before the end of the year, or not without referrals, or all of the above.

So, it was slow-going work and not very rewarding, but I was planning on calling through the entire list when I got the Intel job, which kind of derailed me. That’s okay, taking the contract was probably more productive.

Also, a lot of the information that you get has a surprisingly short shelf life. The other thing that happened right before the Intel job was that I attended the 2009 Willamette Writers Conference. One of the speakers there, Rima Bauer Green, did have a literary agency, and I liked her and thought I should look her up.

I probably waited two months, maybe three, but not much longer than that. When I went, the site was gone, and internet searches only found a few mentions in old blog posts. Granted, it was a bad economy, which is probably why a lot of those agencies were not accepting new clients, but to be an invited guest in August and a missing person in November is a little scary.

Anyway, the WGA list is not as helpful as you might hope. Perhaps my first instincts that it was too soon for an agent were correct. I may return to the list, if for no other reason than to check my notes, but it is not my main priority, or even in the top 3. Still, if anyone knows a well-connected agent, can you refer me? I promise I’m brilliant and productive.

30 minutes walking outside
Pushups
Luke 3 – Luke 9

The Well

2010-09-15T23:50:00.001-07:00

Sometimes people will ask me where I get my ideas. That varies a lot, but here are some examples.

Jade Mask: I dreamt I was walking down a street in Italy, arguing with Barry because he needed to get something and he was planning on stealing it, and he was not thinking straight. (Barry is not a thief, I am sure.) Also, there was the imagery of the safe, which was stunning, and when you have a haunting image, sometimes those stay with you more. Anyway, the argument happens pretty similar to the dream, except that it is set in the protagonist’s apartment, not on the street. It is set in Rome.

Between the Lines: Years and years ago, I went to a single adult dance, when I was still a little young for them (maybe 26, and even though they are 30 and up, there is more emphasis on the up). Anyway, they do a lot more line-dancing and specific dances there, and two songs that I had never heard before, “I just want to dance with you” by George Strait, and “500 miles” by the Proclaimers. Somehow those songs stuck with me, and ended up part of a Cinderella story set in Connecticut where line-dancing plays a role.

Hungry: Well, this stems from the infamous vampire dream I had in 9th grade, but it has gone through so many changes that the only remnant left is the explanation for why vampires have reflections. Some influence came from other dreams, including one I’d had after reading a bunch of vampire short stories, including “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”. Even though there are no plot similarities, that’s how Christine ended up being a model.

Past Present: Actually, the ideas for this one had been kicking around on and off based on old relationships and some of the scars that they left, though not necessarily on me. When Josh died, the loss and the reminiscing brought it all together, and it just poured out of me. I wrote the entire thing in a month.

Out of Step: This one came from another dream. In it, I saw the girl I would have been if I had never been fat, and she was pretty shallow and insensitive—not necessary mean on purpose, but with no thought for others at all. There had to be some suffering to rectify that. My trajectory from the injury was largely inspired by someone else I had met who was a champion wrestler in high school, and then was in a car accident where it took him a year to get back his ability after a very brief coma (less than a day). I think it made an impression because television and movies get it so wrong.

Coulrophobia: Actually, it was largely the word. It’s a cool word, and fear of clowns is an interesting concept. I think I may have to rewrite it as darker though. Right now the clowns are coming off too well.

Sometimes it isn’t clear. With Sisters of Justice, I know it was based on my relationship with my younger sisters, but I’m not sure how we ended up as orphans fighting crime in different fields. I had a similar thing going on with Cara (the novel I wrote), but no one had careers yet, and the parents weren’t dead (though the father was gone). Some ideas just stick, and actually, writing is what makes them unstuck.

Once an idea takes hold, it is like there is this story, with its own world, that I visit periodically, exploring it and figuring it out, and seeing what happens. Once it is all written out, I don’t need to do that anymore. Like with Past Present, it is probably not at all commercial, but I could not have written anything else at that time.

Of the things that are on deck right now, one television series and one movie came from dreams, one movie would be a sequel to another movie (which didn’t do that well, so there’s no point, but that wouldn’t stop me), one movie came from a combination of Henry Rollins’ thoughts on dating and my frustration with the powerful corn lobby, and one television series and one movie basically come from thinking something smart alecky and then recognizing some potential.

And I don’t think any of that was detailed enough to be a risk for my intellectual property!

Hip Hop Body Shop (20/60)
Crunches
Mark 12 – Luke 2

Writing update

2010-09-14T23:07:00.001-07:00

I have gotten a few questions about what is going on, so here we go.

The screenplay was submitted to one person who showed interest, and who was planning on filming in New Mexico anyway, though that property was having problems. He pointed out some changes that needed to be made, and a new draft was submitted. Now he wants still more changes, though there is still no money changing hands or commitments.

The good part is that a professional is actually looking at it, and considering it as having potential. Sure, if we were professionals instead of aspiring, there would be an advance or something like that going on, but we’re not, and this is closer than I have ever gotten. I completely understand that.

The downside is I have no motivation to go back and look at more changes. I keep trying, and then recoiling. Sometimes forcing myself to open the file and sit in front of it helps, but I admit I am having a hard time. I might be a little overextended, or maybe just cranky from the criticism, as I think he has a different vision than we do, and if you want to get paid, sometimes the artistic vision gets tweaked.

Anyway, I am going to keep trying on that. I wish we had been farther along when all of this started happening. As it was, I submitted the second round of changes right before I started the new job, and that’s where the overextension comes in. Actually, my most compelling reason for wanting to write professionally is that it would leave me time and energy for writing, which a full time job really cuts into.

Anyway, I think the next few posts will focus on different writing-related things, and maybe that will get me in the mood.

24 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
Mark 5

Mama Ru’s

2010-09-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, today I actually did the travel blog instead. I had promised to put up a link to the site I was working on when it was done, and I still feel like I want to do a lot of things with it, but for now I still wanted to share something. So…

Blog post: http://sporktogo.blogspot.com/
Actual site: http://mamarus.com/

27 minutes walking outside
Pushups
Matthew 25 – Mark 4

Leash Laws

2010-09-12T23:09:00.001-07:00

Picking up where we left off, I do keep our dogs on leash when they are out of the house. I think this is very important. They don’t have any bad intentions, but they don’t need to. If the other dog was not happy to be charged, there could still be an altercation. Also, our dogs have no understanding about how cars can hurt you.

(I think other breeds are probably this way too, but when I tried to ask someone who had pit bulls, all she would say is that they were perfectly behaved dogs and that more dog bites come from cocker spaniels than any pits or rotties or any of the scary breeds. Which is true, it was just beside the point.)

Having your own dogs leashed isn’t enough if other people don’t do it. We’ve had two of our dogs attacked by dogs running out of houses, and it had an effect on both of them, especially Fozzie. We started having him wear his muzzle on the walk because sometimes if another dog was around he would get nervous and nip at our other dogs.

It was bad for us, but it wasn’t really good for the other dogs either. I don’t know if the dog that ran at Angel every had any other issues, but the dog that ran at Fozzie got hit by a car on another occasion when he was running loose.

I don’t blame those dogs at all—it is the owners. Granted, anyone can have accidents, and we have had dogs get loose accidentally, and it is always scary and embarrassing, but some owners don’t even try because they know that their dogs are perfectly friendly, or so well trained, that it is fine. Then you see that the manner of training is that when the dog is irresistibly tempted, and leaves his spot, he gets hit with the stick, and yeah, I’m not impressed with the methods or the results.

The scariest time was not with our own dogs, but with one we dog sit for. When we sit for greyhounds we board them, but we do home visits for a friend with a golden retriever, and one time when I was taking him for a walk, we were charged and surrounded by two rottweilers. The owner came over with this stupid grin on his face—they had just treed his cat also, but he knows they won’t do anything bad.

Well, to his credit, they did not bite, and Cav, who is very well-behaved, did not bite either, so it was fine. However, I sometimes encounter another man walking two dogs in that area. The one is fairly docile, but the other is very aggressive when he sees other dogs. It doesn’t matter, because he has his dogs on a leash, and I have mine on a leash, and they stay separated. If the rottweilers had charged them, I think the one dog would have attacked, they would have bitten back, and probably the other dog and the man would have been injured two. And rotties have strong jaws. It could have been really bad.

Ultimately, dogs are impulsive, and they don’t think about long-term consequences. It’s part of their charm. It’s also a really good reason to limit the freedom that you give them. We have a fenced yard, which is great, there are dog parks which also allow some control, and they generally don’t really mind being on a leash anyway. Plus, it’s the law, if that matters.

Anyway, I am totally cool with the leash part of the leash laws. I have mixed feelings about the other part.

It stems from an episode of “Head of the Class” from shortly after Billy Connolly took over. He described seeing someone collect their dog’s waste, “the most biodegradable substance on Earth”, seal it in a plastic bag, and throw it away, so that “someday some archeologists will be digging and one will go ‘Oh look, I found a CD’, and another will say ‘I found a walkman’ and the third will be like ‘I just found a really good reason not to be an archeologist.”

It’s what he said about it being the most biodegradable substance on Earth. I’m not even completely sure it’s true—maybe that title goes to grass clippings—but it is pretty biodegradable.

I think adding to waste in landfills should be avoided if possible, and that’s where it ends up. I know it would not be high-grade fertilizer like you get from ruminant herbivores, but still, it would go back in.

I can see that leaving it on sidewalks or other people’s lawns, or even nature trails is gross, but I’m kind of in favor of leaving it on roadsides and in the middles of fields. Anyway, I get a twinge whenever I am placing dog waste in plastic bags, and not just because it is disgusting.

I do this with Cav the most. One thing I have noticed is that whether a dog will go on walks or in their yards seems to be a personality thing. Chevis, his predecessor, never went on the walk. He always does. (Of our current home crew, only Jack does.)

The pickup must seem like the strangest thing to him (to the extent that dogs think). Feeling lighter, he is all ready to go, and suddenly I am holding him in place and scooping, and he is like “Come on! What is wrong with you?”

That’s unless he ever gets the idea that I am putting it away for a snack for later, in which case he would probably decide it was brilliant, because dogs are gross.

38 minutes walking outside
Rest
Matthew 16 – 24

Because I’m so ugly!

2010-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

That’s a quote from Overboard. My sisters and I quote movies a lot. I’m not in as bad a state as Goldie Hawn with poison oak, but I do have a temporary issue.

Thursday morning I was walking the dogs, and a jogger and his dog came around behind us. He was on the other side of the road, which shouldn’t be too bad, but our newest dog, Jane, has a bit of a hyperactivity problem, and she when she sees another dog out there with a human it is the coolest thing in the world and she needs to go and sniff them right now! There is also a good chance she will jump on the person, which we have not broken her of yet.

Her interest is friendly, but it is still appropriate to keep your dog from forcing herself on others, so to make sure she could not wriggle out of her double harness, I tried to get closer to her. The grass was wet, there were other dog bodies in the way throwing me off, and she was bouncing around trying to escape. When she bounced against my legs, I went down on my knees.

I can’t even say that she bit me. It’s more like as I was going down and she was coming up, one of her teeth collided with my face and grazed it. It did still result in some bleeding, and so I have this scab above my lip, and now a small bruise has developed next to it.

I’m sure it will all be gone in a few days, but I’m kind of sensitive about it now. The bruise is like a small crescent going around the scab, so unless you get close it is hard to tell what the discoloration is. People may think it’s hair, and that I need a wax.

The wound is what bugs me the most. Any time you see people with little face wounds on the news it is meth. I just had a couple of small zits break out on me too, so my face is getting really close to ravaged.

I just started a new job. What will they think of me? During training, I kept shifting from alert to almost asleep. Sure, that was based on the room being stuffy, so when we were doing stuff I was okay, but I was having trouble during the just listening parts, but it could have been drugs. They don’t know me.

I guess I’ll have to be really careful not to lose any teeth before this heals.

25 minutes walking outside
Crunches
Matthew 11 – Matthew 15

In or out?

2010-09-11T00:42:00.001-07:00

I don’t know whether I am an extrovert or an introvert. I’m sure I have a lot of friends who would vote for extrovert, but if you observe my life in general, I look more like an introvert.

I’m not saying it would not have been confusing before, but it is more confusing now due to my changing my thinking about the definitions. Simplistically, I used to think of it more as extroverts being loud and introverts being quiet.

Karen was the one who initially got me thinking. We were talking about her plans to re-enter the workforce (which she has since done successfully), and she told me that one thing that she had learned about herself was that she really was an introvert, meaning that dealing with people takes energy from her, and she needs solitude to recharge, so jobs teaching or training or presenting would not be a good fit for her. I love that stuff.

Well, life circumstances came up that made me question my type, during which time period I read an interesting piece by Orson Scott Card (he has a column in the Mormon Times that I really enjoy) on that topic. Card is an introvert. It is not that he doesn’t have social skills or like people or anything like that—he just needs a certain amount of solitude. Since his wife is an extrovert, getting energized by dealing with people, they need to compromise with each other at times.

The circumstances were that low-paying job that required three hours worth of travel. I was getting up quite early, and everyone tried to tell me that the bus time would be good reading time, only I was too tired to read, so I tried to just keep my eyes closed, attempting to counterfeit rest without getting enough out of it to risk missing my stops. It took a lot out of me without really giving back, and I started to feel like I hated people.

This is where I reveal myself to not always be a nice person. My kryptonite has always been needy people anyway (attention-seekers, really—there are other needs that do not bother me), especially if they are stupid. Oddly, if you spend your life focused on getting other people to validate you, it seems to damage a lot of your cognitive ability.

One nice thing that I discovered about the job was that they got the Oregonian. This meant that I could read the papers at work, and have one less thing to squeeze into my small amount of leisure time. Unfortunately, there was a needy coworker, and he would follow me on my lunch, and talk to me while I was reading, trying to impress me with things he knew or had done. This did not go well for him, but some grim satisfaction in thwarting him was not enough compensation. I started leaving the building, almost running to throw him off my tail. I would try waiting him out, but he was more patient than I was, so I actually started eating lunch in the workroom, so he would give up and go, and after he came back, that’s when I would really go on break.

He left, and I thought this would be some relief, but one of the new people who came on, when she had downtime, liked to scoot over and watch what I was doing. She was not zealous about personal space, I guess, so I would have her knee pressed against my thigh, and she didn’t smell too great (I think it was coffee breath), and it just wasn’t good. And she was a nice person, and I was feeling at the time, maybe I should try and befriend her, or earlier that maybe I should try and reach out to him, but I just didn’t want to. And when I say I didn’t want to, I don’t mean that I was vaguely against it. I mean that I was internally screaming “Go away and leave me alone!”

That is not the worst of it. Riding my last bus, and getting off at my stop, was someone I used to know. I pretended not to know him. No, there were no verbal snubs—I just avoided eye contact or signs of recognition, and I could see he was thinking I was familiar, but I did not leave an opening for follow up. I should mention that he has cerebral palsy, because somehow that makes my behavior seem worse, though that wasn’t really a factor in it. Ultimately, he is a very nice person, but he is also a stereotypical sci-fi geek who married a crazy woman and then was always kind of bummed that things weren’t working out (like she wouldn’t live with him, for example), and I just had no energy for him.

So, does this make me an introvert, or just a jerk? Because at the same time I was seeing annoying former coworkers in stores and ducking away before they turned around, I still loved talking to my enjoyable former coworkers, and kicking back with friends. I’m not sure if it energized me or not, but it was a completely different feeling. I like attending social gatherings, but I will often take a passive role in them, listening and watching rather than doing. I guess what I need to do is pay attention the next time I hang out with friends and see if afterwards I need a nap.

There may be one more clue. Recently, our trainer for the new job had us all take this learning styles assessment so we could be aware of what works for us as we took in this new material. Anyway, some of the questions focused on what worked better for you, and some on what you preferred. I couldn’t help but notice that my preference was usually the opposite of what worked best for me.

Maybe I’m just contrary.

20 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
Matthew 1 – Matthew 10

Not dieting

2010-09-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

When I wrote about how I was not working on driving, I referred to looking at three trouble spots (where I had not even been thinking about driving), and deciding that I could really only focus on one. I was not dieting, and I was not looking for love, because what I was focusing on was trying to get things in order financially.

Technically that is still my only focus. It looks like I am working on weight because of the exercise reports, but really, everything I am doing in that area is pretty minor. I am trying to launch a writing career while maintaining a day job, after finally getting a day job, and surprisingly this takes time.

Sometimes the priorities are set by urgency. Without steady income I get behind in my bills, which includes the mortgage, and besides leaving me homeless that could result in the homelessness of three other people, three dogs, and a cat, all of whom I love.

Beyond that, there seem to be a lot of ways in which having money helps with fitness (despite being fun to spend on other things). Money comes in handy for doctors’ appointments, medicine, gym memberships, fresh produce, and all sorts of things. You can eat healthily without a lot of money, and you can exercise for free, but the money still seems to make things a lot easier. Perhaps my perspective is shaped by going so long without it.

Of course, in my dream world, where I am selling screenplays, I have more free time for exercise anyway. Writing does take time, but a lot of the time is thinking time, and you can exercise and plot things out at the same time, much more than you can plot while answering customer questions or checking documents for accuracy.

It has been long enough since I had figured all of that out that when I seemed to be experiencing mission creep, I initially thought, well, it’s okay for plans to evolve. Upon further reflection, I think I haven’t actually changed anything. The time I am putting into exercise is really pretty minimal. I do other little things here and there, like trying to remember to take my vitamins, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator, adding a whole grain or a fruit here or there—but it is really all very minor.

The blogging is the big time drain, and it does take away from commercial writing time, since I don’t expect to ever be discovered as a blogger or turn that into income. However, it feels like something I should be doing, and I may be gearing up for something.

For new readers, a few years ago I did this 200 page document where I went over everything in my life. That has never been posted, though a lot of the things that I wrote about have ended up having blog posts as well. The point is, it felt like something that I needed to do, and even as I started I sensed about how long it was going to be and some of the places it was going to hit. Shortly after finishing that, I had the dream that grew into my first screenplay, and started writing that. I’m going with this.

I suppose the part about not focusing on looking for love will have a post or two in the future, but one step at a time.

25 minutes walking outside
Pushups
John 14 – John 21 (and Psalms 22)

The biggest loser

2010-09-08T23:30:00.001-07:00

When I walk before work, I have a route that has been taking 22 minutes. Today it only took 20, and I had to lengthen the route a little to get that in. So, I am still slow, but less slow.

For those of you who might find this an unnecessary level of detail, that is a real concern of mine. You see, I find that I don’t have the best role models for weight loss. No, I don’t specifically mean the process of losing weight and keeping it off—it’s more the staying a good person while you do it.

I noticed this recently when a good friend began losing weight. Just as the pounds started dropping off gradually, she also gradually lost the ability to talk about much else. The last time we were out together, we were at an activity and she started talking to people about how she did it, and receiving their compliments about how great she looked, which is fine, but I had heard it before, so I wandered over to talk to some other people. I came back, “One night I just had cookies for dinner because I wanted the cookies and it took all my calories....” Okay, I wandered off and socialized some more. “I substitute the vegetables…” And it just went on.

There are only three restaurants that she can go to now, because they have meals that fit her requirements, unless we go on the day of her weigh-in so she has a week to recover, and they are not good restaurants. Conversation will be focused on who has paid attention to her, and recaps of conversations where she was called hot, and I find I don’t enjoy being with her anymore, and I have pulled back.

I feel guilty about this, like I am not a very good friend, but I don’t feel like I can talk to her about it because I know she will think it is all jealousy. I don’t think it is. I mean, my emotions are not exactly right either, because I find I give vent to my annoyance by ordering more fattening dishes, or dessert, but those might be things that I would order anyway—I just know that I am feeling annoyed when I order.

However, I do know that she does not take criticism well, because the one other thing that she will still talk about, besides her new hotness, is her grievances with other people. Her ability to take things personally and hold a grudge has bothered me before, but when I have tried to talk to her about it she does not get my point at all, and starts getting touchy and I back off. It’s just funny because I have seen her cut off other friends before, and heard her complain about them, and I guess I am in that group now.

The thing is, before this happened it felt like a lot of my time with her consisted of comforting her and complimenting her and building her up, and it would appear that she doesn’t need that now, except that I fear that the new self-confidence is hollow, so maybe she does need me, but she’s annoying. As you can see, I have some conflicted feelings.

Anyway, it was interesting to me because I knew two other people who had lost weight, and had personality issues, and it caused me to reflect.
The one is just a seething mass of resentment for all the wrongs he suffered while fat, but he kind of had a bad personality before, so may not matter so much. I would be more concerned about being like my third example.

She is actually a fairly pretty girl, and has had some good opportunities and really has a good position in life, but she always had a little extra padding. I wouldn’t even have called her fat, actually, though hey, if you’re thinner than me, I don’t think of you as that fat.

Anyway, this girl lost some weight, and she looked great and bought new clothes, and maybe she always had kind of a mean edge before, but she started getting really nasty, especially about other girls who were receiving positive male attention, and I think the issue is that she really thought that losing weight would fix everything, and when it didn’t she was pissed.

I could see this happening to me. I have always thought of weight loss as the magic bullet—then I will be worthy of love. When I put that kind of pressure on it, weight loss proved to be impossible, but I can also see that maybe it would have been harmful. I’ve let so many things go, and I pretty much like myself now, and that’s a good thing to have gained.

I guess my good example is Karen. (Steve has also lost weight, and he has probably done fine with his personality, but I don’t see him enough to take good or bad lessons from him. Still, good job.)

Karen and I had very similar self-images growing up, and while we had different experiences with it, we understand each other pretty well. She has lost weight, and sometimes we talk about that, and diet, and exercise, and a lot of the things that have worked for her are not things that I will be putting into practice, but it can still be helpful to think about.

(Actually, I don’t really want much in the way of diet or exercise advice right now. I’m trying to just take very small steps that work for me, listening to my inner voice, and that may change, but right now it’s where I need to be.)

In addition to that, though, Karen and I also talk about books and movies and travel and old friends and new experiences and our families and animals, and she is just open to a very big world, regardless of the amount of space that she does or does not take up in it. Yes, she does appreciate positive male attention, but she does keep some checks on the ego, and she always asks about me and looks out for me too, which is nice.

(I did have another friend once who was very self-centered, and I knew whenever we went out she would be talking and I would listen, but she talked about interesting things, and so it felt different. Of course, she could not talk about being hot, since she was still overweight.)

Maybe the good thing about being on a four or five year plan is that if things do happen that gradually, there would not be sudden personality shifts. Julie sent me an article recently from someone who had lost weight, and so now she was in the thin person club, where she could hear the things that thin people say about fat people, and see how she is treated differently. There are good things about that, but she closed by hoping that she would always remain a fat girl on the inside.

I want to feel good about my looks, but I don’t want to care about them too much. I don’t want to full of resentment because I end up seeing that people are nicer to me, or that men pay more attention. I don’t want to be eaten up with regret at not getting my act together sooner.

I think I will be okay. I am still really good at being happy. Some of that comes from a tendency to be grateful for what I have. I think my sense of humor is a big part of that, because sometimes if I start to veer into the melodramatic I realize it is ridiculous fairly quickly, and I am grounded again. And some of that is that even if I have not had romantic relationships, I have had great relationships of every other kind, with people who have been supportive and helpful and appreciative. So, I have that to hold on to.

However, if at some point in 2014 I start going on about how this guy said I was hot and that guy was looking at me, even though this other girl was there, but he was looking at me, slap me upside the head—figuratively, literally—whatever it takes. Seriously.

20 minutes walking outside
Crunches
John 7 – John 13

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself

2010-09-07T23:22:00.001-07:00

One thing that has been very inspiring for me in my quest for health was the book “Born to Run”. I actually read it twice because I wanted to make sure that I really had it down. Granted, I have not done much running yet. I did some really short running intervals when I was on the treadmill, but I can’t maintain it for any period. That will take a while. I do feel myself wanting to more—I actually dreamt I was running down up Baseline a couple of weeks ago—but I am focusing more on walking. (Though I recently did need to run for the bus, and I did pretty well for that short sprint.)

Anyway, there is a lot of good information in the book, and one point he makes is that you need to be doing status checks on a regular basis. Are you getting overheated? Dehydrated? Are you thinking clearly?

I could not have gotten into my current situation if I had done that. It is hard to think that there were times when I was relatively fit, but that I had the same or worse self-image that I do now. In ninth grade I rode my bike everywhere and I could roller skate for two hours and it was no big deal. In high school I felt tired running up and down a basketball court, but I could still do it, and I was decent at free throws. In college I could do many ballroom dances, and one classmate told me that during my tango final I did something with my shoulder that was grace personified. I cannot do any of those things now.

(And that’s just sticking with the physical, leaving alone things like not noticing that I was letting people I didn’t even like determine my self-worth, and all of that garbage.)

It is frustrating, but dwelling on it is not going to be helpful. I do want to learn from it though, so I need to be aware of myself now. Am I improving or backsliding? What can I do? Where do I need work?

Actually, in my current state I remind myself of this old TV commercial for a garbage bag. Comparing the advertised one and the rival, “Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy” “Hefty, hefty, hefty”, like they were opposites, but I am both. I cannot believe how weak I am in some ways.

That being said, I am doing more pushups and more crunches now on their respective days—still wimpy, but getting better. I see no improvement on the wall sits. I don’t know. Maybe that one doesn’t actually build muscle; it merely reveals the lack of it.

For the tapes (many of which I was once better at), sometimes it is a relief that I only have twenty minutes free anyway, other times I would be able to go longer. It depends on the tape. Some of those instructors are a lot more sadistic than others. Richard Simmons is a freak, but his workouts are the most accessible.

I don’t walk that fast, but my endurance is good. I’m still terrible once you throw in an incline, but also some of it is just pushing through. One nice thing about having a relatively low minimum of twenty minutes is that you know you can achieve it, so that gets you through the first five minutes or so, which is usually the rough part, and then by the twenty-minute mark you have gotten into the swing of things, and so you can add on.

I am feeling pretty good. I think both the exercise and the scripture reading are helping out there. I am not getting enough sleep, I know, but there is so much to do. After the forty days are up, and I have had a week, I will start a new thing, and blogging every day will not be a part of that, because it is a little burdensome for that part. Still, I think it is serving a purpose now, maybe getting me ready for the next step, and I’ll stick with it.

I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture. I still hate how I look (especially photographic evidence of it), and realistically, I would probably still have a hard time accepting romantic interest (give me a chance and we’ll see). However, I guess I am thinking about it less. I am thinking about health more, and depending on weight loss to fix my entire life, and that is good. I do see that no one else seems to be as bothered by my weight as I am (well, maybe Mom), and although I do get into these trains of though where I imagine things happening quickly, ultimately I am still on the five-year plan. (Four years would be better, though, because that’s Julie’s next sabbatical and she’s planning this European excursion and it would be nice to be fit for that.)

Anyway, things are good overall, and I am paying attention, and being in touch with my body, as cheesy as that sounds. I don’t want to overdo it though, because I have a whole other set of fears, which is probably what we will get to tomorrow.

Hula Workout (20/40)
Wall sits
John 1 – John 6

Feeling trunky

2010-09-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if anyone other than missionaries uses this term, but “trunky” was sometimes used to describe missionaries getting close to the end of their service who were losing their focus—they already had their trunks packed.

When I said I was first called to emergency preparedness eight years ago, I know because I know how old I was. Tanasbourne is a young singles ward, being for ages 18-30. In some places where they have enough people there are units for older singles too, but not around here.

One month after I graduated from high school they started a new singles ward in the area and I started going. It was great. It wasn’t a big ward, but there were really awesome people in it, and we were a pretty tight-knit group. It was amazing. I left at times to go off to college, and then to go on my mission, and they changed the building where we met a couple of times and the name of the ward once, but basically I had been in that ward for twelve years, and then I turned thirty without having gotten married.

Now, no one kicks you out. Some people do linger, and then eventually take themselves off to the regular wards after a while on their own, but it was time for me to start thinking about it. I realized that I had been teaching Sunday school for three years, and it was on a four-year cycle, so I decided that I would stay for one more year, and I would complete the Sunday school cycle about the time I turned 31, and that would be the perfect time to move on (I’m a sucker for completeness). Then I got called to emergency preparedness.

Well, that kind of changed my plans, and I no longer had an idea in mind for when I would go out. I have thought about it at different times, and then I kept feeling like I was needed here, and this was where I belonged. The last time the bishopric changed, they brought in the Duncombe’s whom we have known for ages, and loved, and I went right in and told him “I’m old, but I feel like I’m needed here,” and he told me that I should do what I think is right. He told my sisters that they were there for as long as he and his wife were, but at least at the time he said I had a choice.

Well, time kept passing, and all three of us keep getting older, and yet still we feel needed here. At some point (it’s been over a year but I don’t remember exactly when we started), we started praying for people, going on the assumption that if there were people in the ward who needed us, then we could work harder on getting their needs met and on getting people out of the ward. Then we could get on with our own lives.

There were two parts to this plan. One was that we would really try and keep our eyes out for people’s needs, and be helpful, so we would pray for charity and inspiration together. Also, though, we were going to pick three guys who were pretty close to being ready to get married—maybe they just needed a little nudge—and pray for them every night, and then as they got married we could rotate in other people.

So far only one of them has gotten married (though many other people we have not prayed for have gotten married), but it just kept expanding, to where we are praying for nineteen people now (another one did get engaged, so that’s something). Maybe it is not working as intended, but it probably makes us better people, and more loving, which we need.

The point of this is that last year, I started feeling close to done. When they release the bishoprics they usually do it in December, and in October I started thinking that maybe this would be it, and I would be done, and yes, I had my trunks packed. Then, they didn’t get released, and I turned thirty-eight, and I started to see the error of my ways, but I couldn’t quite let go of the idea.

I was visiting with the bishop, and he was talking about all of the good I do, and his gratitude for that, and I started feeling about ten inches tall, and I knew I had been wrong, but I told him what I had been thinking anyway, and I got a little bit of a smackdown there.

I realized that a lot of my thinking had been pride-driven. At the best of times it does not feel great being 38 and single, but in a single’s ward, where there are people who were not born when I graduated from high school (not many, but still), at some point it starts to feel unseemly, but that was my ego.

Talking it over with my sisters, they pointed out that the unseemly part would be if I were chasing guys, which I am not. We have had some friends marry younger guys, and that can be okay, but everyone pretty much feels like younger siblings. (Well, actually there are two men who kind of are age-appropriate, but I can’t stand the one, and the other, well, it would be surprising if things went in that direction.)

Don’t get me wrong. There are other things that are hard about the ward. It is bigger than that original group, and I feel like there are more issues with cliquishness, and shallowness, and ego. There are a lot more people that frustrate me, where years ago I only remember there being one or two. (I know, different kind of pride.)

At the same time, that’s why we are needed. Our faith is strong—like our personalities—and we are committed to service. Julie and Maria are brilliant at helping girls who feel like they don’t fit in, and there are a lot of those. We are good at helping the other people who try and serve and get exhausted by their efforts. So yes, I know I am needed here.

I do still sometimes wonder if I’ll be done by the time I’m 40—surely I won’t have to still be in the young singles’ ward when I’m 40—but I really don’t know. All I can do is work with what I have got right now, here where I belong.

37 minutes walking outside
Push ups
Luke 17 – Luke 24

Task: Zones

2010-09-06T00:10:00.001-07:00

Since I have the preparedness blog, and sometimes mention the newsletters, it may be clear that I am in charge of emergency preparedness for my ward.

For non-members, your ward or branch is the congregation that you meet with. A collection of wards is a stake. Several years ago (well, I guess eight) I was called as the ward emergency preparedness person. Later on I was called to stake, and then they did some reorganization and we were in a different stake, which released me from the stake calling, and suddenly I was called back as ward emergency preparedness specialist.

Preparedness is one of those callings without a set way to do it. One part of the calling is helping members with their own preparedness, which is what the newsletter is for. There is no requirement to write a newsletter, but I have in all three phases of my calling, because it is a natural communication method for me, and it feels right to do so.

The other part of the calling is to be responsible for the plan in which we will check on everyone in the event of an emergency, and provide necessary help. There are two ways in which this is harder in a singles ward.

One obstacle is that the area is so large. Generally a ward has set geographical boundaries, and while that can get pretty big in areas where the members are scattered, out here it usually isn’t so bad. However, with a ward or branch where there is some special factor other than geography, it spreads out quite a bit. We have members in Beaverton, Hillsboro, unincorporated Washington County, Forest Grove, Vernonia, St. Helens, Banks, and so on. The Spanish branch would have a similar situation, I am sure, and my understanding is that the deaf branch really sprawls.

The other thing that is hard is that the turnover is so frequent. People get new jobs, they go off to college and come back, they change roommates, and ideally they get married (the ultimate roommate change). To handle the large area, I divide things into zones, and then we have leaders responsible for reporting for each zone. We try and get responsible people, so they tend to be the most likely to move on in some way. We don’t call people whom we know are going back to college, but they advance their careers and get married pretty regularly.

Anyway, the zones task was to update the zones and figure out new leaders, which has been done, and done again, a couple of times, and is now ready for another round. I think the last time we called leaders it was May, and of those seven, one is married, two are engaged, and three have moved. Well, summer is over, people are going back to school, so the zone members would have needed updating anyway.

It is a rather Sisyphean task, but it is important. We’ll want to know how people are doing, and who needs help, and without having some kind of plan in place it would be total chaos. The plan just ends up having to stay fairly loose. Realizing that a smaller number is easier to track, however, is a big part of how my sisters and I decided to start praying people married. Yeah, I’ll explain.

28 minutes walking outside
Rest
Luke 11 – Luke 16

Glass half full

2010-09-04T21:50:00.001-07:00

Today my mother and I were headed to the temple. We want to go regularly, but we have been having a hard time. Not only do our weekends fill up fast, but she is so often not feeling well.

The arthritis is a factor, but it goes beyond that too. There are other aches and pains that show up in places where she isn’t supposed to be arthritic, or it hurts in different ways, and we don’t find much that helps. At this point, it requires a different approach almost—that instead of hoping she will feel well enough, it is more like planning on just playing through the pain.

I have found recently that it seems to work best to plan a date, give her advance notice, and then remind her a few times so her mind just gets set on it, and that was how we ended up going today. Perhaps I should say how we ended up leaving, because we did not actually get there.

As we turned on to Murray (near Murray Hill), well, it was like the texture of the road changed. Things didn’t sound right, but it wasn’t engine noises or anything like that. I know some stretches of road do sound weird, but it was keeping on. The most obvious solution was a tire, but the car didn’t seem to be pulling at all, which I thought would have been happening.

Anyway, Mom was getting very freaked out, and not sure what to do, but her driving was fine and I gave her a place to pull over so we could check. Sure enough, the front driver-side tire was completely flat, and it had been fine when we left. We didn’t see any signs of something going into it, but something had happened.

We did the normal things. Called AAA. Called Julie to let her know what was going on. After the assistance from AAA, drove to Les Schwab. We did not have to wait long for the truck, and by a stroke of luck Misty was at McDonald’s right when we were at Les Schwab, so she picked us up and took us home (their wait time was an hour and a half).

At the time it was disappointing, and we kind of felt like the day had been ruined, but even then I saw how much worse things could be. Mom did not lose control of the car, she does have AAA, and he arrived within twenty minutes, and had us on the way pretty quickly, plus we got a ride home quickly. Also, I knew that it was good that I was with Mom, because she freaks out easily, and psyches herself out, and I was able to calm her down, get her safely parked, and find the AAA card which was in plain sight in her wallet, but which she nonetheless could not find.

If it had to happen, it could have been much, much worse. However, assuming that we had driven over something pointy, when we were just trying to do the right thing, was, again, somewhat disappointing. We did not drive over anything.

The AAA guy had looked at the tire and been unable to find anything, but he said the guys at Les Schwab would find it. What they found was a valve problem. They replaced it for free, and replaced another one that was on the verge of the same problem. Apparently, it did have to happen, and given that it probably did happen about as easily and conveniently as possible.

We’ll go next week.

36 minutes walking outside
Crunches
Luke 6 – Luke 10

A few words on the new job

2010-09-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of our two-week training period, so it seems like a good time to fill in some details.

I am working for Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, which provides health insurance in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah. As new groups set up plans for their members, there are many steps, but my particular area is checking for accuracy before the booklets, summaries, et al are published. Some of it is making sure that we have the correct information for the group, both for mailing purposes and display in the documents, as well as that we have accurately reflected their choices in what they offer to their members.

There is also checking for compliance with state laws on the maximum dependent age, provisions for domestic partners, and things like that. Clearly attention to detail is important, as well as an understanding that this information is important both in how it affects those receiving healthcare and for legal compliance. It is pretty routine, but I do well with that.

I recently had to take training on Privacy and Ethics, and I will say that Intel has trained me well for that. The only real difference is the addition of HIPAA, which I have some familiarity with as a patient.

I am working downtown. In the morning I ride in with my older sister. She does not start until 9, but taking me in makes her count as a carpool, which significantly reduces her parking fee, so it looks like she is going to go with it. I then take the bus home. I have not got my sleep schedule worked out yet, but I will adapt.

They have some pretty good benefits, even beyond health, so I think things will be good. It is a relief to be working at something sustainable after all this time.

23 minutes walking outside
Wall sits
Mark 15 – Luke 5

Things I am not working on: Driving

2010-09-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

On my last round of soul searching before this one, I looked at the three basic areas of my life where I felt like I needed to make changes, and basically decided to ignore two of them, because fixing the third would make fixing the second easier, which would in turn be helpful for the first. (That order is probably arbitrary.)

I think I have another long series coming on, which is handy, because I am blogging daily through the 25th, but for now I will say that one thing I could have added—a fourth problem area—is driving, and I am just not working on it.

There are many times when I feel how lame it is to not have my license, like having my mother pick me up after karaoke. Sure, I am in a bar, but I’m not drinking. As far as that goes, I didn’t even want her to pick me up. I planned on taking the bus, but she worries about me getting raped or murdered or hit by a car, none of which are impossible.

At some point it becomes a compromise, and it is a familiar compromise at this point. When I went to Toronto, I called home every night. I felt lame, but I had a worried mother who needed the check-in to feel good. She would have felt even better if I had not traveled thousands of miles away alone (you know how dangerous Canada is), but I wasn’t going to give up the trip, so calling is reasonable.

The bar pickup is worse. The fact that I can take a vacation by myself and be perfectly happy kind of speaks well of me, as someone who is capable and adventuresome. Not driving, on the other hand, is something I kind of hate, and am ashamed of. Maybe part of that is all of the bad memories from the time when learning to drive went so very, very wrong.

I actually can drive, though I have not done it for a while. I am a very conscientious driver, if a little overly cautious. That’s because I am terrified. It just feels like everything is happening so fast, and there is the potential for so much damage, and that at any moment my father is going to come yell at me.

I do want to get over this at some point, but it will require time for practice, it will probably require some money, and I will need to have other stressors under control. I have had periods in this past two years with a lot of time, but there was a lot of stress and no money, and I just wasn’t there. Now I have replaced the old stress with new stress, which is good, and will turn out well, but I have absolutely no time, and it will be a while before money feels comfortable again. Ultimately, I just don’t have it in me. Sorry, it’s one more entry on a long list.

At least the new job comes with a bus pass.

22 minutes walking outside
Push-ups
Mark 7 – Mark 14

Task: Recipes and myrecipe.org

2010-09-01T23:37:00.001-07:00

Occasionally I will post about something that I made, and someone will want the recipe. That’s flattering, and I like accommodating people anyway, so I would post things as much as possible.

I am a big fan of Goodreads, and someone had posted about a site called Cookbooker, and I thought, hey, maybe I can be organized in sharing my recipes, so I wanted to go check it out. I have previously mainly used http://recipesource.com/, but you get a lot of duplicates, and I was willing to believe there was something better.

I found the site, http://www.cookbooker.com/, and found out that the title is actually quite literal. The recipes have to come out of books. You can list your variations, but everything has to start with a book and page number.

Well, that wasn’t going to work for me at all. I get recipes off the internet, and out of Foodday (the recipes in both of which often do come from books, but I do not pay attention to that), and I also just make things up. Sometimes I think of how I believe it will work once I have an idea, and often I will look at a few similar recipes as a plausibility check, but I do not cook by the book.

I still had the bug, though, so I was looking for other sites. I finally decided the one I wanted was http://www.myrecipe.org/. I liked the setup, so I created a log in and entered two recipes that I had just posted on Facebook: fake fried rice (the rice is steamed, then you add the fried ingredients) and cashew chicken.

It was a lot of work. It has you add one step at a time, and it likes pictures to be added. Actually, that is very practical in terms of the end result, but it is not user-friendly—at least not with the kind of cooking rebel that I am. I have a photo gallery of making gnocchi, so it should be easy to add, but there are all those steps, plus I never know the amounts of anything I am doing.

I did try taking additional photos and measuring more, but I was always trying new things, and never sure how it would come out, and ultimately, I still only have those two recipes up. I have not given up on the idea, but as priorities go it has slid way down.

That being said, I will gladly describe how I cook anything over the phone, or we can get together and I will demonstrate. If it doesn’t come out because of my refusal to be consistent, well, I hope you find that to be part of the fun.

P.S. These methods don’t really work with baking.

Tae-Bo Instructional Workout (20/60)
Crunches
Matthew 27 – Mark 6

Task: Christmas letter and cards

2010-08-31T23:32:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe it’s already September tomorrow. Yes, when I was writing all of these down, I was trying to decide whether I would mail out cards, and whether I would write a letter. I ended up going mostly electronic, just to save money on postage really.

I like sending actual mail. I think there is a charm to a card that e-mail does not quite equal, but I was so tired and broke. (The tired part is why I almost did not even have a letter.)

I also have tended to bake every other year, but somehow the two years of unemployment put a damper on that too. Well, maybe this year. It’s funny how there is always something that can come up.

In this moment I feel good, and I have well wishes towards all. I don’t have a super amount of available time, and that only seems to be getting worse, so it could affect things, but it at least seems probable that I will be able to afford a book of stamps this year. Let’s hear it for employment!

Disco Sweat (20/70)
Wall-sits
Matthew 19 – Matthew 26

Scripture Study

2010-08-30T23:32:00.001-07:00

Well, if you are keeping track you will have noticed that I have finished my backwards round through The Book of Mormon, and am now starting the New Testament—just forwards. Am I going too fast? Possibly. I may read the gospels twice before I get into the epistles. Sometimes Paul just wears me down.

In family scripture study we have one week left in the Doctrine and Covenants, and then we will be starting the Book of Mormon. Since Sunday school is Old Testament now, and will be New Testament next year, I guess it is fairly balanced.

Personal scripture study started for me when a church speaker said you should read the scriptures every day. This was back when I was a child who spent most of the meeting drawing on the program, but for some reason I looked up at that moment, and it stuck. I have not read the scriptures every day of my life, but I have had many periods where I was doing so, and I think that is something that has helped me.

Family scripture study came much later. A few years ago there was an institute class on the Teachings of John, and Julie and Maria said maybe we should take it. I was stunned that they would suggest such a thing, but you have to encourage stuff like that so we enrolled. Unfortunately, we were quite busy, and our attendance was erratic. One night when they were asking if we could skip, I said it would be okay as long as they read all of the material, and they kind of agreed.

As it was, they did not get around to reading, and I said, Okay, let’s read it together. Each class covered about three chapters, so that is what we did. Well, after we finished that, it should natural to go back and do the rest of the Gospels, and as long as you are doing that you might as well read Acts, and eventually we decided to read the epistles too, and somehow it became something we agreed to keep going, and it has been a blessing for us.

After we finished the New Testament we started the Pearl of Great Price, but I realized it was not going to make any sense unless we read Genesis, so we did that, then went back and finished the Pearl of Great Price, followed by the Doctrine and Covenants which we are just finished.

My estimate is that the Book of Mormon will take a year. We have been reading eight pages a week now, but I want us to bump it to ten, and I don’t think that should be too onerous. (We read on Sunday nights.)

The question is afterwards, do we take on the Old Testament? All of it? Maria thinks she likes it because of Genesis, but we could totally lose her in Numbers, and it was only on my fourth time through that I enjoyed Ezra and Nehemiah. Plus, every time I go through the Old Testament I am tempted to skip the Song of Solomon, and then I feel guilty, and I read it anyway, but seriously, even as a metaphor it is not spiritually fulfilling. Also, last time through I had to spread the Psalms out over the course of the prophets, because one psalm is beautiful, but read a few and they start to cloy.
Well, at least we have a year to figure it out.

27 minutes walking outside
Push-ups
Matthew 11 – Matthew 18