Writing Out Loud

This time of year I have to be very careful with whom I strike up a conversation. Many of my friends and acquaintances tend to have these long and detailed conversations about a topic that, quite honestly strikes fear into my heart. You know what I’m talking about: Spring Cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, I am generally in favor of cleaning; it’s just that I don’t want to do it.

And it’s not even that I don’t want to do it. I just can’t. I don’t have the coordination, patience or attention span to plan to clean.

I think it would be pertinent and ironic to mention at this point that one summer I supported my family in part by cleaning other people’s homes. These poor people didn’t know about my deficiencies nor was there any reason to tell them. Fortunately for them, I was merely bucket holder and mop toter to a frighteningly obsessed woman who knew how to sweep through a home and leave it literally tingling with cleanliness. I simply followed her lead.

These conversations that I refer to reveal people who take a, well– perverse, thrill in chasing dustbunnies down to their demise. I was having coffee with my friend and writer’s group Trudy one day and she mentioned that she needed to get home and wash her kitchen floor. I was floored. You do that? Like, get a buckets and sponges and some kind of cleaning fluid and plan to wash the floor. Like all at once? Not with a paper towel when you spill some spaghetti sauce? I was both impressed and baffled. I believe I had the same confused look on my face as I did when my friend Sue once said to me, “Sorry I was late, I had to iron my blouse,” and I had to ask, “What’s an iron?”

But back to this cleaning thing. Spring cleaning is an age-old tradition – I’m told – which is the practice of thoroughly cleaning a house in the springtime. The practice of spring cleaning is especially prevalent in climates with a cold winter. This is true…I looked it up on Wikipedia. In another ironic turn, I found that this activity apparently finds its roots in the Persian New Year celebration of Norooz. Now, I was at a Norooz celebration this year as a matter of fact. We did not clean. We ate and drank. It was fun. Not like cleaning at all.

Now before you all shrink back in horror and make a mental note to never, ever come visit me – my house is not about to be condemned by the Health Department. I’m not a reality show. The problem is that I’ve tried to clean. I just can’t do it. Here’s an example: Recently I realized that my husband had not replaced the mini-blinds in my bedroom with darker ones; the beige ones we put up when we moved in were still hanging in place. The new color wasn’t a new color at all…it was dust. And, embarrassingly, it was about several years worth of dust. I thought that raising them up and down shook the dust off, in a sort of self cleaning function. In addition, I have had several cleaning ladies on various occasions who apparently still don’t do windows. I’m not going to talk about the cleaning ladies…they were my husband’s idea, I didn’t want them in my house and it was painful and horrifying for me personally. I had to attempt in my challenged way to get the house in order and then flee to another state while they were in my home. And they didn’t clean the mini blinds.

So it was up to me.

The first task was getting them down from the windows. There were three different kinds of hardware holding them in place so it was difficult three different times. I prepared my cleaning supplies…a full bottle of cleanser, a brush, a sponge and took them outside to the front yard to the hose. I will spare you the ugly details but suffice it to say that an activity that would have taken most people about 20 minutes took me over an hour. I couldn’t decide whether or not to clean them fully extended or fully collapsed and it turned out neither was very manageable. I hung the once beige mini blinds over the side of my porch to dry and they looked worse than when I took them down. Seriously. They looked like I took them outside and threw dirt on them.

So, I’m done with Spring Cleaning. I’m not talking about it, I’m not worrying about it, I’m not doing it. It’s a nice concept for those among us who have some coordination and endurance, but for those among us who don’t – and I’m just talking about me here – I will simply pull the shades when the morning sun streams in and highlights the dust on my bookshelves. Besides, I’ve found that there is a plastic container that dispenses handy moist wipes for cleaning almost anything: wood, bathrooms, windows, babies. They’re better than ketchup in a squeeze bottle and they keep the Health Department at bay.

Who wants to talk about cleaning anyway?

My Dad, Jimmy Carter and me

Friday, February 10, 2006

I have a crush on Jimmy Carter. I think he can fix all the worlds’ ills and strife just by opening his mouth and allowing that soft, gentle Southern accent to pick everyone up in its great big ever-loving, peanut farmer richness and get everyone to start remembering just what is important in this world. Like peace, shelter, dignity, rights. I’m not alone in this feeling, am I? The man did, after all, win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Maybe it was because Jimmy Carter was the first president I ever voted for. That is a memorable experience – voting in one’s first presidential election. It is a huge civic and mature responsibility especially when combined with an equally exhilarating milestone – reaching the legal drinking age. I was of age, in Texas, in my first semester at college and voting for a United States president – who won! It doesn’t get much more memorable than that!

Or, maybe it’s because he resembles my dad. My mother has always maintained that I have been drawn to men who look like my dad – blonde, fair skinned, blue eyed, etc. I once kicked my pediatrician’s stethoscope across the room and hid under a table, all because, according to my mother, he had dark hair and didn’t look the slightest bit like my dad. I was pretty sure it was because he was messing with my dress and that he had a huge needle in his hand. I was four, I’m supposed to be discriminating? My dark, chocolate-eyed, Italian husband doesn’t believe that theory, and hasn’t for the last 18 years. But the fact remains, there is a resemblance to Jimmy Carter from my dad. I have definitely done a few double takes when I’ve seen Mr. Carter on TV– “Hey, what’s my dad doing on CNN?” Then I realize – oh – it’s just Jimmy Carter again.

Looks aside, there are other similarities between Mr. Carter and my dad. They are both family men, married to the same woman for almost 50+ years, in their 70s, seemingly ready to retire and yet working harder now than when they had real jobs. Mr. Carter’s real job, of course was being president of the United States. My dad was a chemical engineer at General Electric. Now they are both peace activists working against time and tide of popular thought to prevent war, pain and suffering.

My brother writes a monthly newsletter from Hollywood, where he moved to keep warm. One of them referred to the emails that our dad sends us – daily. With the war in Iraq being waged daily on TV, the internet and in our hearts, the emails come fast and furious alerting us to peace vigils, phone calls to make, petitions to sign, and other people-driven contributions required to remind people that peace is good – war is bad. This activism has not just recently occurred, however. We attentive offspring have been watching our parent’s commitment to good causes all our lives. Because you don’t think my dad did all this alone? The very least he needed was my mother’s support. The best he got was her complete agreement in the issues and causes he felt needed the most attention. Hunger, race relations, conflict resolution, and yes, peace.

And here I sit, going to work everyday, reading or, sometimes not reading, all the emails I get, wondering, who thought it was a good idea to get this man a computer? I feel like I did when I was in grade school gym class. I hated gym class. Besides the fact that we had to wear these ridiculous blue gym suits – ugh – even the most un-athletic of us were forced to participate in very excruciating athletic calisthenics. Like jump rope. I guess my gym teacher also didn’t resemble my dad, because I didn’t like her very much either. Anyway – when the group jump roping started, everyone had to line up and jump in, jump for 10 counts or something and then jump out. Please – could I just wear this stupid gym suit to classes all day instead? It would be less painful. The anxiety I developed waiting to jump in, jump for the expected number of jumps and jump out was unbearable. I would let the other girls cut in line – they liked this crazy jumping!

And that’s how I feel about all this peace activist stuff – I am waiting for the rope to come around at just the right time so I can jump in and not make a fool of myself, or not fall down and get laughed at. What do I do? What can I do?

If I wasn’t so uncoordinated, I would smack myself in the forehead. Of course, it has been before me the whole time – my whole life in fact. I’ve seen what one man – or woman – can do, both on the worldwide stage and the personal. My dad will never have a non-profit, nongovernmental organization named after him, like Mr. Carter. But believe me, he works hard at the same causes with the same impressive dedication. Mr. Carter has unlimited resources at his disposal and he has the dignity to use them with respect. There probably aren’t too many people out there who will say “no” to a former president. Plenty of people say no to my dad. But that’s ok – because he just gets back on the phone, computer, or podium and asks again. I have two role models before me, one whose website I can visit and research the latest work on conflict resolution and one I can call on the phone and ask advice from – that would be my dad. If I haven’t learned by now that one person can make a difference than I haven’t been paying attention. Or, to quote Mr. Carter’s Nobel Acceptance speech, “an individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability but can influence even the greatest human events.” So where does that leave me? I guess I just get in there and jump.

Near death experiences are pretty simple; they end one way…or the other. It’s the “near” part that one gets to live to tell and that part is what I am going to tell you about now.

A couple of weeks, after a particularly stressful month or so, I got up on Sunday morning, only to realize that I had no energy to stay up and after my coffee, went back to bed. Since mid-July I had been traveling, hosting travelers, traveling some more and beginning my crazy-quilt series of jobs that I do to pretend that I’m gainfully employed. Quite frankly, I was tired. So I went back to bed to catch up on some much needed sleep.

For what seemed like the entirety of the two hours that I slept, I dreamed that I was having a heart attack. I was breathing hard and experiencing crushing pain in my chest and asking people for help. At times, I would realize that I was dreaming and try to wake myself up, only to continue dreaming and breathing hard and feeling pain. I pretend woke myself up about three times before I finally actually woke myself up. I was exhausted.

I got up and found the nearest comfort at hand: a peanut-butter and potato chip sandwich on white bread. It has been my go-to comfort food since I was a kid. (Don’t judge me. It was spectacular.) After my sandwich I submerged myself in a Law & Order: SVU marathon. I was still rattled and I couldn’t shake that awful feeling of not being able to breathe. I also was rattled by what I hoped was an old wives’ tale that dictates that if you dream you are dying, you’re dying. That was not comforting. Later that night, at bedtime, I was eventually able to sleep, but it was very late and after several rounds of Sudoku.

The next day I had a routine doctor’s appointment. The pharmacy I go to had messed up my prescription – again – and when I called my doc to have him resend it, they saw that I hadn’t been in awhile, and suggested that I come in. Fine. At my appointment, we chatted about boring aging stuff and then he said, “Anything else I should know about ?”
I said, “No. Well, I’ve had this thing with my arm, where it doesn’t move for a few minutes.”
He said, “Hm.” He sounded serious. “It sounds like a TIA.”

A couple of things here…the first one is that one of the reasons I go to this doctor is because is not an alarmist. No worries, very laid back…take the meds, don’t take the meds…no skin off his teeth. I like that in a doctor. (By the way, my GYN was recommended to me by a girlfriend who swears he saved her life. I like that in a doctor too.) The second thing is this TIA he was talking about is a Transient Ischemic Attack – …a mini stroke. All of a sudden this guy is talking about strokes and blood pressure and he wants to listen to my heart and knock on my knees. What kind of a doctor was he anyway??
“Is there anything else?” he asked.
“No”, I said. Like I was going to tell him about the white flashes in my eye.

I left with him telling me he was going to set up a carotid Doppler. Isn’t that for weather? That didn’t sound fun at all. I figured I had some time before I had to do that, when, on the drive home, my cell phone rang. It was the Imaging place calling to set up the appointment. For the next day.

Now I was getting really scared. Since when does any test get scheduled for the next day? I’ve never had anything scheduled less than three weeks down the pike. The fear and chest pain from my dream came roaring back to me…was it foreshadowing? Was that happening? I was so scared that when I went home that I didn’t even talk about it, not to my husband, my parents or any of my friends. The appointment was after school, and I wouldn’t need a ride, so no big deal. I went by myself. After it was over, and they didn’t rush me by ambulance to the nearest hospital, I decided I was okay. The tech said I would hear from the doc by the next day.

The next day, the doc’s nurse called to schedule both an MRI and an MRA…of my brain. She set it up for the following day. The following day! When does this ever happen – unless time is critical. Once that appointment was made, I was a wreck. I kept thinking that I would have to write letters to my family. You know what I mean—good-bye letters. Just thinking about it made me cry. I pictured my head as a big black time bomb like in a cartoon…just waiting to go off. That’s what I was…a walking time bomb. I dragged all the stuff off the emotional shelf…I was about to become a grandmother, I still have to publish something – anything, I only just got to Italy – was my time up already?

So, let’s jump to the end. (No pun intended.) At my office on Thursday afternoon I got the call that I was fine. At least my brain didn’t indicate that there was any damage or potential danger. Supposedly. But really, and not to sound too catastrophic here, but with us humans, there’s always danger. We’re all so fragile, so oblivious. I don’t know if this experience really counts as a near-death experience, but is has impacted me. I learned lessons. The first one of course is to always keep your mouth shut when you go see your doctor. The second one, and more importantly, is to NOT keep my mouth shut with the people I love. Keeping things to myself – good or scary – doesn’t do anyone any good. Especially me, but it’s not fair to the people I love, either. Then they don’t get to comfort me, boss me around, do endless research on the internet in the hopes of providing alternate diagnoses or feel scared themselves.

As I drove home – oh, let’s be honest – I drove to the liquor store and got myself a bottle of nearly expensive wine – I was smiling. I smiled all night. I wondered if I could get a copy of my brain scan from the Imaging place for the profile picture on my Facebook page. And then, I fell asleep…and didn’t dream much of anything at all.

Hello, dear readers. I’m resposting again…just to keep things updated! This one is an old favorite and bears repeating…Thanks, as always, for your support!

I think I’m about to coin a new term…ready? “Civic Delinquency”. You know what I’m talking about. No? Well, welcome to Civic Delinquency 101. This is not anything like civil disobedience which is tolerable – and actually obedient, really, in its practice of demonstration against government without antagonism or anger. No, this is more insidious and rampant. Civic Delinquents are those people who behave in a way that negates anybody else’s existence or importance in the community. Civic Delinquents can be male or female, young or old, rich or poor. They can be in positions of authority, like an elected politician or just your basic Joe (or Joan) Schmoe on the street. Civic Delinquency seems to be hereditary, unfortunately, and is passed down to the young in alarmingly increased numbers. This is evidenced by the amount of squished bread at the bottoms of grocery bags across the nation, thoughtlessly packed by neophyte Civic Delinquents at their first jobs.

Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “what the hell is she talking about?” I’ll elaborate. This is a typical scenario in which you will find a Civic Delinquent (CD): You’re in the grocery store after work, picking up a little something for dinner and trying to remember if you bought mayonnaise the last time or do you already have 4 jars of it at home? Lots of people do this at the end of a long work day. Everyone is in the same boat; busy, stressed, hungry and wanting to get home before LOST comes on. You’re halfway done…heading down the home stretch and suddenly you are stuck. An abandoned cart in the canned vegetables section is angled between the ill-placed display of turkey basters and your only clear route. There is no driver – she’s down the aisle looking at soups. After a polite “ahem” doesn’t grab her attention, you attempt to move her cart enough so that you can get by, but by this time there’s an oncoming cart and visions of twisted metal and spattered beet juice are all you can see. You think about picking up a 2 lb can of peeled tomatoes and heaving it at the absent cart driver’s head but you’d probably miss anyway and now a cart jam looms so instead you continue to try and reach over the seat of your cart to jockey her cart out of the way so that you and the now other person behind you along with the oncoming cart may safely pass. At this point the CD looks up and sees you handling her cart and gets up and walks toward you as if to apologetically help clear this potential disaster. You start to smile as if to acknowledge this momentary lapse in good sense when you realize – she’s pissed at you! She snatches her cart away without so much as a “sorry -thanks” or glance at the pile-up she’s caused and strolls indignantly on her way. Clearly you crossed boundaries by touching her stuff. And the whisper that escapes out from under your breath is … “bitch” You’ve seen her, haven’t you? Grocery stores are veritable breeding grounds for civic delinquency, both in customers and employees. Any retail establishment for that matter is obviously the perfect place for a CD, because they are always standing at the front counter answering “No, we don’t have that” to before even a question forms in the customer’s mouth.

But by far the activity that contains the biggest possibility for civic delinquency is driving. Cell phones make it practically suicidal in taking your car on the road anymore, but that is an entire commentary in itself. We even had a guy wearing a hands-free headset nearly run us down one time, so keeping both hands on the wheel clearly isn’t the problem. I’m talking about the woman in the big brown Hummer parked in the right turn lane in across from the church last Sunday evening, ostensibly to pick up someone, but who knows? No blinkers, no visible emergency like smoke pouring our from under her hood. Just parked because it was easier than making a left into the parking lot or parking across the street and actually walking to where she needed to go. Another one of my favorite examples are the people who are visiting your neighbors and park in front of your driveway. Now, sometimes I don’t even have to walk out of my house, much less take my car and go anywhere so it doesn’t really hamper me, but seriously…in front of my driveway?

I could go on and on…and I just might. But it gives one pause…what the hell are these people thinking? Its as if no one else exists in the world and that they are entitled to land anywhere they want to without regard to anyone else who might be in the vicinity. You can see it in the CD’s eyes – they’re a little more distant than others because they are probably thinking of the next thing that they need. A parking space, a can of soup, that lane on the highway (the one you’re in, but they’re behind you and you need to MOVE! Who cares if there is a semi on your right?) And one of the more disturbing manifestations of civic delinquency is litter. I guess the anti-litter campaign in the seventies really hit its mark with me, because when I see all the trash that is collected on sidewalks or around doors to public buildings or on the roads and in the parks, I have to wonder – who still thinks its ok to throw garbage on the ground? It must be Civic Delinquents!

But, then, this morning, my husband and I were on our way back home from the gym. (You don’t even want to know what some “lady” civic delinquents do there to the ladies room!) We approached a crosswalk in front of the library where we could see 3 kids waiting to cross. In our town we have a rather loose “law” regarding crosswalks – stop or not…we really don’t know what the actual law is. These boys were about 12 and they stood at the sidewalk watching both ways on the lightly trafficked road. We saw them in time so we slowed to a stop. These boys didn’t just dart across the road as if everyone would stop in their presence. They waited – acknowledged that we were in fact stopping and the first kid gave a wave with his hand, like – ok – we’re going for it! They trotted across, made it safely to the opposite sidewalk and started to walk in the direction of the local movie theater a half a block down. As we passed them, I watched as one of the kids looked back at us while we drove by – and smiled and gave a little wave. I waved back. And smiled. There’s hope yet.

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Andy Warhol

When I was little, I used to stay up late at night and watch the Johnny Carson Show. (Do I have to link to Wikipedia here for the youngsters? Before Jay Leno, okay?) I used to imagine sitting on the couch across the desk from him, engaging in lively and somewhat risqué banter while inconspicuously tugging my beautifully frothy dress over my knees and demurely crossing my elegant, sparkly-heeled feet. Why was I being interviewed? My fantasy didn’t include those details. All I know is that I held Johnny in thrall and he hung on my every word while I smiled and chatted and talked about – well, again. Who knows. But I was delightful.

Many years, and a whole Tonight Night host debacle later, I have not been on Johnny’s, Jay’s or anyone’s late night talk show. I have laid low, raising children, teaching some folks and posting my essays on my website. I haven’t done anything, it appears, that anyone has ever wanted to interview me for or put me before a camera.

Until now.

Some of the folks I teach are members of the over-50 crowd, the AARP set, retirees. I teach writing using a journal and mostly it’s a fun way to dig into parts of life that have often remained unexcavated. A few weeks ago, a former student from that class emailed me and said he had met some folks who wanted to put together a show with local writers, poets and musicians and would I be interested. Sure, I said, count me in. I had to audition, which was nerve-wracking, but it was kind of fun to be in a group of creative people and try out my work. I heard a few days later that I was in the line up – the first “First Thursday” was April 7th – and it was going to be videotaped. As this venture was a whirlwind, I didn’t realize that the couple behind it all were recent transplants who were interested in starting up another TV business here in Connecticut like they had back in Britain. I thought it was just going to be videotaped for posterity’s sake, not for commercial purposes!

But, ok. I’m game…

The night of the show I was nervous. I don’t mind being nervous because I feel like it keeps me on my toes and that way I don’t make any really huge mistakes…only lots of little ones. Like I might keep playing with my hair, but I don’t forget to read a whole page. I went on second, after the host’s intro and the first vignette – a scene from a play. I had to walk through the kitchen and time my entrance between the exit of the actress from the scene before and the possibility of the host coming back out to introduce me. He didn’t so I stepped out from behind the curtain – and into the lights.

I wish I could say that I took to it like a duck to water, but that would be a flat out lie. During the rehearsal, the director told me to remember to look at the camera. The sound person reminded me to speak directly into the microphone. I forgot it all as I stepped up to the mic and introduced myself. After that, everything was a blur…

Until now.

It was videotaped. I’m on film. The producers told us that they’d have it online for us to see, but after I obsessively checked the website on the day it was supposed to be launched, I forgot about it. (Fine. I didn’t forget about it, but I had other stuff to do, too. Like work. And compulsively check online for the video.)

Today we got the email that it went live. The couple, David and Douglas Bibbey have worked tirelessly on the editing and it shows. Meanwhile they are also trying to get the next show ready to put up — it’s called First Thursday remember, so it’s soon. And they have kids. And it’s Spring Break. Lots and lots of reasons to put off editing a video that millions of people are waiting for. But they did it and it’s ready.

My fifteen minutes of fame. Actually, it’s less than that, but I’m okay with it. I closed my eyes the first time I watched it, just peeking as if I were watching a Scream marathon. Then I watched it again and I didn’t hate it. I kind of like it – which is why, of course, that I’ve written this whole description just to let you all know that now, you can watch it, too.

I hope you enjoy it. (Let me know!)

On February 24th , I picked up Annie from the bus station because she came up from Brooklyn to help me the next day with an event I was hosting at my home. She dug through her bag and pulled out a card and said, “Pull over for a second…Tony and I have something for you we forgot to bring for your birthday.” I pulled over and turned on the overhead light. I opened the envelope, thinking to myself that I was about to get a nice gift card, flipped over the card and read, “For Grandma on her Birthday…”

I screamed.

As many times that Annie and Tony came up and I wished that was the news they had – slyly testing out my unfounded suspicions by offering Annie a glass of wine as she walked in the door, only to have her readily accept – I didn’t see this coming. To be fair, my friend Guy had a premonition about this, but he said I’d hear about it around Christmas time (which is why I was always at the ready with an open bottle of Yellow Tail Cabernet and a glass…for testing purposes only). I can’t even explain how I felt…it was a mixture of disbelief, joy and another, somewhat surreal feeling, as if everything was about to change.

Which it will.

Annie and I hugged and cried in the parking lot of Dunkin’ Donuts for a few minutes before getting on the road to home. I felt a huge obligation on my shoulders as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. Every car was a potential bad driver, every shadow held a potential danger. I think I was gripping the wheel as hard as I did when I drove Annie and then Christopher for the first time when they were babies. The responsibility was monumental and I was as alert and vigilant as I’ve ever been.

On the way home, Annie told me about the suspicions that led her to the early pregnancy test section of the drugstore, her confirmation trip to the doctor and the way she let Tony know. We devised a fun way to tell Angelo (telling him about a new magazine we thought he’d like that Annie just got – Pregnancy & Newborn! Get it? We are so clever…) and he was just as overcome as we were. We spent the evening eating some dinner and having some wine…just me, though. Grandmas don’t have to quit drinking during the pregnancy.

Thank God.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of baby talk and planning. Annie was amazing at helping me with my event – hosting a presentation and a high tea for a literary organization that I am a member of. The other ladies in the group loved Annie and couldn’t say enough complimentary things about the way she “co-hosted”. The one thing they couldn’t say, though, was “Congratulations!” Because Annie swore me to silence on the news. But it was on the tip of my tongue for the rest of the day. And week…and month.

She and Tony decided to initially share the news only with their parents because it was so early in the pregnancy. Siblings and grandparents came a couple of weeks later…but I still couldn’t tell anyone else. (The real question is, of course, did I anyway?) After I told my parents, I couldn’t wait to tell my brother and sister. But I couldn’t. So I quit talking to them. I quit talking to almost anyone that I might spill the beans to. And I definitely couldn’t post it on my Facebook page.

Dammit.

While I respected their right to make this decision, I was going crazy to tell people. So I told the relatives in Italy when we were there. So, yes, they all knew two weeks ago. But many of them don’t speak English, so I figured I was safe. Since Friday though, the ban has been lifted. Annie and Tony went to the doctor and saw the heartbeat on their little bambino/a. I got the go ahead to call people now…but still no Facebook! Annie called me on Saturday night to ask me how many people I called. I finally talked to my sister, but I didn’t reach my brother. But that’s it. I’m not really a phone person anyway and I stewed about how I was going to tell everyone without the effortless megaphone quality of Facebook. And then I realized…I’m a writer. I’ll write about it. (duh) So, this, my friends is my official announcement – I’m going to be a Grandma! In October!

I think I should learn how to knit.

There were many, many people in attendance at my daughter’s wedding a year and a half ago. Very few were from our side of the family and the many many were from Tony’s side; his friends, his family. One young woman who was there was in the middle of a competition to be declared the most Fit Person in America. She and I were not mistaken for each other. It is with that clarification that I report what happened to me this morning: I got up early to exercise. On purpose.

I have never, ever gotten up early and thought to myself, “what a great morning to exercise!” Never. I am not an exercise person. I have exercised before in my life and I have the various multi-colored accoutrements to prove it. Lime green and midnight blue exercise bands. An enormous rubbery, silver ball. Slate gray dumbbells. Bright red ropes with handles and attachments for ease of mounting on doors or other sturdy objects so that when you pull on them you don’t fall down. I have books, large and small, on easy to do yoga, quick fat-burning walks, 5 minute core-building and toning my everything. And am I quickly and easily toned? Nope.

Here’s what happened. Last month I wrote about my husband’s and my new Fitness Pal. Because of his commitment to fitness, he wanted to do more exercise and was interested in the new Xbox Kinect. So I bought it for him for his birthday. I know, I’m the nicest wife ever. We played around with the games that came with it – also purchased by the nicest wife ever – and found that the “mini games” were wearing us out! So my husband bought the personal trainer game to get into better shape. He’s been much better at it than I–shocking–but I’ve done a few of the activities myself. There are a couple that require coordination, which I hate, but I do them anyway. And much to my surprise – I’m liking them.

So, this morning I woke up early. I laid in the warmth of a Bob-o-pedic mattress covered by a toasty warm electric blanket until a strange thought occurred to me. “Why don’t I get up and exercise?” I looked around to see who had said that, but I was the only one there. I got up and put on my sweatshirt and yoga pants. (Yes, I do have yoga pants even though I don’t really do yoga. It’s good to have them, though, just in case.) I went downstairs, turned on the Xbox and faced the Kinect sensor. It identified me – probably because of the yoga pants – and me and my personal trainer began a rousing session of Stack’em.

Let me clue you in to how the Kinect works, because it’s pretty fascinating. There are no controllers for this game system. I am the controller. The flat little black box with its one red eye and one green one scans me up and down and records the image somewhere in its complex Xbox brain. When I do the exercises, an image of myself is on the screen and I can see exactly how uncoordinated I am when mirroring the “instructor’s” motions. I can also see my cat on the screen when she prowls over to see what the hell I’m doing since when I hold my arm out to my side, it’s not because I want to pet her – it’s because I’m holding up a virtual balance board to catch all the falling blocks that stack up and give me points. I often drop them at the wrong moment and they crash and burn into the wrong bin. That’s when the instructor says to me, “You’re not really doing it right.” Fortunately, she’s virtual, so I can’t slap her. She also said to me once, “Hey! Where are you going?” when all I wanted to do was drink some water. And make some Holiday Bark. But I came back…eventually.

So, exercising on purpose. What a concept. And my husband and I can do it together. I totally kicked his ass in the Virtual Smash, but he’s better at mostly everything else. Hopefully the Kinect won’t go the way of the exercise bands, yoga dvds and dumbbells, but for now, it’s fun. Besides, I hear there’s a new Harry Potter game for Kinect. Maybe that’s like exercise, too.

Around this time of year everyone starts to think about giving. Food banks and other charities count on the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a large part of their income. The Salvation Army has landed on the shores of grocery stores and shopping malls everywhere and I even received a Black Friday flyer over a week ago. (That was disorienting – I thought I had completely missed Thanksgiving!) Throughout the holiday-festooned months of November and December, there is always the not-so-subtle conscience-poking theme of Give Thanks. It’s a six-week binge on giving that leaves most people depleted and wrung out somewhere around January 2nd only to repeat the cycle starting earlier and earlier every year. It’s starting to feel like “giving” = “how much money can you part with?” To combat that exhausted, Scrooge-y feeling in the months after the New Year, I am going to do things differently. Instead of wondering how I’m going to Give Thanks for a couple of months, I am going to Live Thanks all the time.

I will Live Thanks with my family. I had a conversation with a friend not long ago and she told me how much she hated listening to people complain about their parents. She had lost both of hers too soon, her mother first and then a year later, her dad. It hadn’t been me who had been complaining, but have I complained about my parents at times? When my Dad has another computer problem, even when he just got a brand new one last month, and it’s another 20-minute call to try and resolve something I can’t actually see? Yep. My parents live in Florida and drive up to Maine each summer. They are active in their church and community and we talk on the phone every week or so and email in between. They require nothing of me but love and respect. I think I can manage a tech-help call now and then without complaining. I’m pretty grateful that my dad is around to make them. And that goes for the rest of my family, too. I’m sure I’m not the only one who, on occasion, can get perturbed, irritated or put out by a member of my own family. I might even be the family member who is causing the perturb-erance! The way that I will Live Thanks is to tell each of them how much they mean to me on a fairly regular basis.

I will Live Thanks for my friends. My friends are few and far between but ever-present in my heart. They are scattered across the state and the country, but they are the best people I know. Just last year I reconnected with one of my former college roommates. We met in New York City and in an instant had covered the past twenty-five years and were up to speed on each other’s lives. The familiarity of being with a trusted acquaintance was immediate. I think friendship is like that; each person shares a part of themselves that forges the bond that remains intact forever. This is true of friendships made long ago and new friendships recently begun. I will Live Thanks for my friends by honoring that bond, even though miles and time are constant barriers.

I will Live Thanks for my community. This one might be harder than it seems. Everyone can volunteer, contribute to the food drive and vote. Especially vote. But can I do it on a regular basis? I know what to do in my immediate community; it’s the greater community I’ll have to really work on. By greater community I mean a little further away than the comfortable Watertown Public Library or the familiar Boy Scouts food drive. I belong to a global community, too, and I better not forget that. Living thanks in that respect means that I can no longer think of myself as not being impacted by there not being enough clean water to drink in Africa or that 17 million children in the United States live in hunger. If one believes in a collective consciousness or a unifying universe, however, then my giving doesn’t only comprise of what’s in my pocket, but what’s in my heart; which is not a sneaky way of getting out of sending a check. I’ll do that, too, when I can. But let’s remember what the goal is–I can do other things to help bring the bright lights of awareness to shine on the darker areas of the world that people have trouble seeing. In that way, I can Live Thanks.

I am also going to Live Thanks for myself. This one might be the hardest one of all. It might sound a little self-absorbed, but hear me out. I am going to try hard to do my best every day. When the day is done and I didn’t do my best, I’m going to try harder the next day. And try harder again. And then, every once in awhile, I’m going to give myself a break. I’m going to remember to be thankful that my legs can take me up and down stairs, my hands can pick up laundry and cook meals for my family and greet neighbors and hold babies. Even if I do have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I will be grateful that I can do it easily by myself and crawl back into a warm bed in a safe and sound home. I am grateful that I can hear the soothing lapping of the lake when I’m up in Maine and I can see the brilliant colors of the earth changing every season. I will remember every day that I am a very lucky woman just by virtue of the fact that I live my life without having to be afraid of anything. I don’t fear not having food to eat, I don’t fear not having a roof over my head, I don’t fear for my personal safety. I have to be grateful for that, when so many in this world live with fear. If I Live Thanks for myself, then I am going to put high expectations on my abilities and have compassion for my limitations and those of others. Because we’re all kind of the same, aren’t we?

It’s a big commitment – I know. In a few months, I may be writing about how it was a great idea at the time, but it just didn’t work out. Or, then again, maybe not.

I’m dieting. Again. Both my husband and I are, but I’m clearly the expert. He’s only had to start watching his weight in recent years, as he grew up thin and lanky, never to be bothered by the number of calories or the latest diet. (The Ice Cream diet was one of my early favorites.) It’s only aging that has him keeping an eye on his intake—damned aging—otherwise he’d be scarfing down pasta unregulated by those pesky portion sizes or calorie counts. I, however, have been dieting since I was about two. Adolescence was not my friend and even during my first pregnancy, my doctor put me on an 1800 calorie a day diet. There was no eating for two for me and I had to say good-bye to the Snickers bars that I had thought I’d be able to munch on to my heart’s content.

I’ve been on the Drinking Man’s diet, the Eat Right for Your Type diet, and the aforementioned Ice Cream diet. I’ve been a Weight Watcher and a Calorie Counter. The medical community has encouraged me to diet and discouraged blaming my weight on a poky thyroid or genetics. Genetics wasn’t much of an excuse though, because both my brother and sister are thin. And so, for most of my 52 years, I’ve battled getting into my jeans on a daily basis. When my friends would declare—after their babies – that they were going to “get back to when they were thinner” I had no such declaration. I was never thinner. They could drop a penny on their newly taut stomachs and it would bounce happily off while if the same penny were dropped onto my stomach, it would disappear into the depths, never to be seen again. It’s been frustrating, to say the least.

There has always been one strategy that has come up over and over again, but which I’ve disdained each time. Keep a food journal. Nahh. I know what I’m doing – I’ve been dieting forever. I know about portions, calories, exercise. I know not to eat after 8pm and I know never to skip breakfast. I didn’t need to write anything down – I already know it all. It’s ironic, too, since I’m a writer and I keep a (somewhat) daily journal. I just didn’t think I needed to write down everything that I put into my mouth. Until now.

Ever the trailblazing techie, it was my husband who found an app for his iPod to keep track of his daily calories. “I want to show you something” he said to me one day. I thought he had bought me a present, so I bit. “What is it?”, I asked coyly anticipating a new electric blanket or tickets to Italy. “Look at this app!” he said breathlessly. “Just download it on your iPod and you can enter in all the food you eat each day!” I tried to contain my excitement. “That sounds like so much fun” I said, mentally unpacking my suitcase for Rome. “No, really, it’s so easy…” and he went on—and on – to show me how you can look up practically any food you eat, because it’s connected to an online database containing thousands of entries. No more fudging on calories or fat content because it’s all right there. “I can’t wait to start”, I said and I slid my iPod screen over to my Sudoku app and started ignoring him.

But later, when he wasn’t looking, I went ahead and downloaded the app, perkily called My Fitness Pal, and entered in my information, obviously lying about my current weight. According to my goals (ha! goals…I had to put something down!) I was “allowed” 1200 calories a day. Total – not for each meal. The first day I went over 1500 calories. Not a great start. But as the days went by I was able to stay within my limit and not feel like Tom Hanks on the island in Cast Away. After a couple of weeks of this torture, I realized two things: Number one – I wasn’t losing any weight and Number two – I must have eaten a whole lot of food before I started writing it down. As long as I’ve been moaning about not being able to lose weight, I’ve also apparently been oblivious to how much food I’m eating. It’s very easy to eyeball a plate of pasta and decide that yeah – it’s probably about six ounces…or whatever the recommended dosage is. Now that I’ve been actually writing stuff down, the rate at which it adds up is startling. There’s nothing like looking at a tote board of calories for my meals for the day and realizing that I’ve been able to eat three times that before and still consider myself “on a diet”.

But I’m still me. I will never bounce a penny off my stomach and have it spring back off like a trampoline. In fact, last night, because my husband was out of town at a workshop, I indulged in my favorite dinner—popcorn, wine and cheese and crackers. For dessert – chocolate covered pretzels. Yum. But I entered it all into my iPod and grimaced as the total for the day came up – I was over 1100 calories. And then a funny thing happened. I didn’t feel guilty. And not only that, I was looking forward to today when I’d be back on track, weighing my portions and having my daily total be in under-1200 green instead of way over-1200 red. Because I do like to have a nice meal, with wine and dessert every once in awhile, and if I keep this up, I can. Without guilt and maybe with a little success.

After the first few weeks, the daily documentation started to work. To date, I’ve lost 11 pounds. I don’t want to re-lose them, so I think I’ll stick with the program. It’s changed the way I look at “dieting” and has expanded my awareness about what I tell myself I’m doing as compared to what I’m really doing. My Fitness Pal now joins my husband and me at dinner as we punch in our meals and see how many calories we have left over. Or not. Writing this stuff down really keeps you honest. Who knew?

Main Entry: id·i·ot
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
usually offensive; a foolish or stupid person

Often, when I was doing a workshop or class on technology, I would open with a joke. I would tell the assembled technology novices that, “Most all computer problems are caused by an I-D-ten-tee error.” Some of the rapt class would nod and murmur knowingly. Then I would write it out on the whiteboard – “I-D-10-T”. And I would turn and smile…and hopefully there would be a round of chuckling in response. Then I would self-deprecate: Most of the problems people have with computers are caused by the user – even the problems that I have. Even though I was lumping us all together in one I-D-1-0-T pile, I never really thought of my students as idiots. But it was an icebreaker that usually made them laugh and there are not usually a lot of laughs during a technology integration workshop. At least I could start out with one.

Over the last 24 hours, two people I know have referred to themselves as idiots in my presence. Now, these two people happen to be women, and they are both extremely talented, creative and smart. Definitely NOT idiots, if you go by the definition above. If I’m honest with myself I can admit to scornfully muttering that particular slur in reference to myself when I’ve done something I think of as – well – idiotic.

This self-critical characterization is not limited to females as I’ve heard males I know label themselves as such, too. One time a man with whom I was sharing a beverage accidentally knocked his over and it spilled out across the table and he berated himself for his stupidity. The waiter came over with a towel and sopped it up and said, “Shall I get you another one?” and my companion said, “No.” The waiter was halfway back to the bar to replace it and had to stop and say, “Really?” But no, my companion didn’t think he deserved to have another because he was such an idiot.

None of the things that the two women were complaining about were so bad that they should have called themselves idiots. Most of the things that I’ve lacerated myself about don’t require such derision and especially not that spilled drink thing. I mean, honestly, haven’t you berated yourself for something insignificant? It got me to wondering about why smart and capable people don’t go a little easier on themselves. And then I thought about another thing, too. You know who doesn’t think that they’re idiots? Idiots.

You know who I’m talking about. Not to sound uncaring, but I work with many of them. They are my clients and before you think I’m the most heartless, callous person on the face of the earth, they don’t know that I think they are idiots. But when you work with people who aren’t able to see their way to providing for their children, you run into an idiot or two along the way. There are idiots all over the place; in the grocery store, on the highway, in politics – everywhere. We know who they are by their obliviousness, their carelessness, their short-sightedness. And they never, ever realize that their thoughtless or inconsiderate blundering through life impacts anyone else in their path. Yes, yes…I know that they are also all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, but please. Have a little awareness.

Several years ago I worked with a couple of women from whom I learned a lot. They were the epitome of integrity, the paragons of professionalism. We did professional development together for an educational agency and one day we all happened to be in the office together, comparing notes, emptying our overloaded canvas tote bags in preparation to load them up again with handouts, laptops, chocolates and dry erase markers. Somewhere along the conversation, we all ended up admitting that we all felt like phonies. That someone in one of our many workshops (the one sitting at the back of the room grading papers, probably) would stand up, point at us and shriek, “Those idiots don’t know what they’re talking about!” We commiserated about the fact that we all felt that way and we joked that our job was to keep our tiaras on straight and keep the charade going. We dubbed ourselves The Tiara Sisters and didn’t tell another soul about the chicanery we perpetrated on scores of innocent educators around Connecticut. These two women, like the ones I mentioned above, are far from idiots. They are the opposite of idiot, the anti-idiot. And yet, one crummy evaluation or being duped by a former employer was enough to earn them a cilice tunic.

Of course, if I were suffering from an attack of idiocy, I’d appeal to any one of these four women for support and encouragement – and they’d give it to me. No questions asked. But try and tell them to turn that skill and brilliance towards themselves and cut themselves a little slack and you’d think they were asked to perform their own root canal. My therapist says it’s a lack of appropriate coping skills. (Oh, whoops. Did I forget to mention I see a therapist? Sorry – I’m an idiot.) An inability to self-soothe or some crazy notion. Whatever. It’s probably something I should look into but for now, I will tell my friends that they’re nothing like idiots and remind them what capable, intelligent women they are over and over again. And I’ll tell the grocery clerk at the cash register who can’t give me my change back because his computer is down that it must be an I-D-10-T issue.