Month: May 2012

Lose It!

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According to this month’s cover Atlantic story, The Perfected Self, by David Freedman, people, including the author’s brother, have lost weight with the free app Lose It!

The application seems a perfect way to use social media to connect people around positive life goals. I know I have blogged (almost) every day because of the prodding of my online community of Catherine Flowers, Julie Jordan Scott, Kim Koning and Meredith Cardenas Weis at Post A Day (Week) Challenge at Postaday2012 on Facebook.

I have another friend who regularly documents the pounds she is losing on Facebook and she receives a ton of support (and a bit of unasked-for advice!)

The Freedman article is an homage to the psychologist B.F. Skinner who advised positive reinforcement as a route to changing individual behavior for the good of society. Alcoholics Anonymous does this for problem drinkers who seek sobriety.

I’m not sure if an app can replace a support group (or peer pressure). For me, one real-world application for this app is: Sure, I feel good when I work out — but I feel even better when I work out and other people compliment, encourage and admire me for doing so! (Or compete against me!)

I’m always bragging (complaining) to my kids — “I did Pilates and rode my bike to work today!” To which, they shrug!

I like praise for working out! I’m just not sure if an app will praise me enough. Will the app shrug at my efforts for health and fitness? I may try it and find out and document my attempt at: Running Aground, my health and fitness blog.

Memories of Meeting Chris

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It was about 1992 and I’d recently come back from a retreat offered by Marble Collegiate Church about relationships. I realized three qualities I wanted in a partner were brilliance, creativity and financial independence. And after a few times hanging out with Chris, (thanks to a Kirk Douglas film he was in with a mutual friend), I realized Chris had those three qualities. And more. He was a good listener. I was attracted to these qualities.

He had been an English major and so had I. He was the only person ever to express an interest on the topic of my Master’s thesis – deconstructionism and psychoanalysis. English majors just generally tend to get (and love) one another. When I met Chris, he was reading Updike’s Memories of the Ford Administration. Here was a guy who loved Updike and was a good listener? Nice.

So life ensued. We married in ’95. The kids came along in ’97 and ’99. And after a bout with prostate cancer about 10 years ago, Chris was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease about 9 years ago.

Chris and Cat watch the trailer for the Endgame Project.

While I know many of you love Chris as an actor and an artistic colleague, and I, too, love the brilliance and the creativity, but there is another quality Chris has brought to my life which may not sound so sexy: his steadiness.

He is not literally steady, because Parkinson’s does cause his hand and arm to shake, but figuratively, he is a rock. When the kids were little, one preschool director, Holly, commented that she’d never seen a dad so involved with the kids as Chris was.

He’s a real family man. And even as the disease progress, Chris is aces as a parent. He still cooks and shops and walks the kids home from late-night parties.

And he listens well. He’s steady. And I like that.

He no longer reads Updike the way he used to, but then again, who does?

Chris is making a documentary with a buddy who also has Parkinson’s about putting on Becket’s Endgame. To see a clip of the documentary, link to: The Endgame Project.

What I'm Reading

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For mother-daughter book club, we are reading The River Between Us by Richard Peck. It is the story of the Civil War told from a girl’s point of view. I love the Civil War as a metaphor for families in conflict.

For my friends’ book club, we are reading Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (we had previously read March. Loved it!) For workplace book club, we’re reading What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn. All three of these have astute girl narrators, nice!

**

I wrote this a few weeks ago and never posted. So now I must update. In my workplace book club, we are reading Hanhunt: The 12 Day-Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson. And for friends’ group, we are reading The Hunger Games (though I’ve seen the movie!) by Suzanne Collins.

I am not very far in either of these books. But I know that they are quests. I love novels about a hero’s journey, especially when the hero is a spunky heroine!

Valuing Beauty

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Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. – William Morris

I love this golden rule. And I love and value all things useful and beautiful.

I am not always good at decluttering. I think, Wow, this old broken hand mixer might come in handy. Not!

Sometimes in our disposable and materialistic culture — YES! America, I mean YOU! — we need and want a quick fix, but beauty takes time. (So does decluttering and throwing away the old hand mixer!)

Yesterday, my techie son helped me download about 9,000 photos from my iPhone to a hard drive. He handed me the hard drive and said, “Here’s your life.”

Among those photos I noticed this random photo from the Stony Point Retreat Center. I thought. Wow. Beautiful sun room. Useful. I want my home to be as full of light as this room. I want to find beauty in my home. I want my home (my life) to be of use. 

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Fleet Week

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I feel sorry for all the sailors dropping anchor in New York City’s harbor for Fleet Week this year. They’ve hardly had one sunny afternoon with all this rain.

But let’s face it, the sailors look for sunshine at the piano bars after dark in Manhattan during Fleet Week. That’s when the men and women in their crisp white uniforms laugh and smile and sing.

If you’re a New Yorker long enough, you know where to find the sailors. They flock to Marie’s Crisis and Don’t Tell Mama’s. As well they should. No more fun can be found on land nor sea than singing show tunes in New York’s cabaret scene after hours. I think my workplace chums are planning to go out and sing with the sailors tonite!

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Moving Is Better than Exercising

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I bike to work and do Pilates twice a week at lunchtime in my workplace. Sometimes I feel that I should have nobler fitness goals. This is why I love this blog post by Nick Crocker about Finding Exercise in Life’s Margins at Harvard Business Review.

Weaving exercise and intentional movement into the fabric of my life feels way more possible (though less sexy) than training for a triathlon.

I let our family gym membership lapse because I just wasn’t going. And I felt guilty — for not going, for the expense, for the lack of family pool time. I felt I was a fitness failure. But I wasn’t. Just because exercise is easy — like slowing down on my bike past the flower gardens in Riverside Park — doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.

You don’t have to hate exercise in order to get fit, feel good, or even lose weight. (The same goes for time at work — you don’t have to hate it.) Why not love what you do? I love playing tennis. Consistency is more important than breaking a personal record.

Personal brag: my son just won an athletic award this week. He was a triathlete — competing in three varsity sports as a 9th grader. But of one of the sports, track, he said he lacks passion. I say, Fine, drop it, if you like. Just keep moving.

Drop your gym membership too. Just stay active.

Weave fitness into every day. A little moving regularly is way better than a lot of fitness once in a while.

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A guy on the bus seated in front of me was carrying
this bundle of flowers. A rosy outlook only costs $3.99.

Workshop on WordPress

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One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be viewed as an expert. So I have been teaching a lot since January. Teaching is a great way to find out how much you know and how much you still need to learn.

I’ve been teaching middle school kids comedy and creative writing. Beth Buchanan (on the right) and I’ve taught communicators social media skills at the Religion Communicators Council and at the United Methodist Association of Communicators. (I love team teaching — much less stressful than solo teaching.)

Me and Beth Buchanan. She’s my social media guru. Because of Beth, I got on Facebook and it’s been all downhill from there.

My next (solo) teaching gig is at Word Camp at Baruch College in New York City from June 9 to 10. The title of my workshop is “Social Media and Social Movements.”

My session, one of 80, is hands-on — perfect for beginners, non-techie types, and people devoted to a cause. But there are a lot of workshops that are geared to people who love ideas like digital marketing, shared hosting, HTML5, and hyperlocal. (Attend this conference to find out what those terms mean. What’ve you got to lose? It’s $35.)

I love WordPress for being my landing page — a place to post my resolutions and then achieve them. And along the way, help others to become experts too.

Day of Rest

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I rode my bike very fast across the walkways in Central Park to get to my day of rest. (I note the irony.) I thought I’d take a short cut behind Belvedere Castle. But I hit Shakespeare’s Garden and endless steps. Shoot. I had to slow down. I had to bounce my bike up and down the steps.

I do not like being late. Yet I am frequently late. 

I got to 95th Street and Fifth Avenue but felt lost. I’d expected a church. Instead, I got a mansion, a beautiful retreat center, the House of the Redeemer, just off the park.

Our small group from Rutgers Church talked about times we’d felt refreshed. We reported that we’d felt relaxed during a storm with the lights out, while laid up in the hospital, on vacation in the Caribbean, or pausing for a moment when we ran near the ocean. I felt relaxed just talking about relaxation.

But I could not rest long. At lunch time, I had to bike again back across the park to meet the kids at the post office to renew and reapply for our passports. (I avoided the gardens.) I don’t know where we’re going, but I know we must be ready to go.

We will probably be late for wherever we are going. We will probably go the wrong way. We will probably hit steps when we least expect them. But I bet the place will be better than we had imagined, once we do arrive.

Riverside Park

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The girls did gymnastics.A butterfly stayed close by.Toes in the grass.

Last year on Mother’s Day I was disappointed — no presents, no dinner out. Ultimately I just wanted to be alone!

But this year I let go of expectations. My motto? Low expectations = high results. High expectations = low results. So when one of my BFFs suggested a picnic in Riverside Park, I jumped. We spent hours with our toes in the grass, talking about work, books, politics, kids, health, mothering — all the usual.

We fought off a bold squirrel who kept inching closer, stalking our Middle Eastern and Mexican food. We watched our girls turn cartwheels. A hawk flew low with a squirrel dangling from its talons.

Mother Nature put on a show this Mother’s Day. Who needs a bouquet of roses when you have friends, Riverside Park, ethnic food, and nature? My beautiful New York.

Hysteria

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I learned a lot from this movie in which many Victorian women have pleasure at their doctor’s hand. Here are my take-aways:

1. Female pleasure cures many ailments.

2. While many Victorian women sought help from doctors, it is likely that their husbands were not able, willing or interested in doing their duty. So, alas, women turned to Hugh Dancy.

3. The doctor needed a little relief as well. Hugh’s vulvic massage technique became a hardship, causing his cramped hand and overwork! Poor dear!

4. The doctor, while doing his duty, asked the female patient things like, “Is that all right?” Sweet! (The expressions on the women’s faces were priceless!)

5. Settlement Houses for the poor did (and do!) a lot of good. Especially when a headstrong woman like Charlotte, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, was in charge.

6. In running the Settlement House, Charlotte had a secret agenda — to empower women. Love that! (Also, she refused to put down socialism — the French would agree!)

As you probably know, Hysteria is about the invention of the vibrator. This is the first movie I can think of in which female pleasure is seen as a cure-all. But even in this movie, the women are seen as slightly silly or “hysterical” if they want or need sexual enjoyment. (For example, Charlotte is too busy tending to her flock at the Settlement House to need this middle-class luxury of sexual release! “She’s a tough case.”)

In most mainstream movies, it is a given that men must seek pleasure — usually from flawless, scantily clad woman wearing black lace. In this movie, there’s a bit of lace but it is found in a high collar or a long skirt. When the women are pleasured by the doctors, they are fully dressed, and their lower bodies are hidden behind a velvet curtain (which resembles a puppet theater).

This delicious movie opens in a week. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about another feel-good English movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which senior citizens discover that they are still entitled to pleasure. First, senior citizens and now women! Such radical notions coming from England — all adults are entitled to pleasure! We’ve come a long way, baby.