Book Review, etc: Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

This post got long because I had a surprising number of thoughts. Since I can't imagine anyone is all that interested, I decided not to divide it in two. This is the goodreads review I wrote of Funny You Should Ask, a romance novel by Elissa Sussman, followed by further reflections, because the book has been the subject of a minor controversy that I knew nothing about until after I was done reading (and writing my review).

----------So the review I wrote, slightly edited:

Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

Ten years ago, Chani Horowitz was just starting out as a journalist when she was handed the chance of a lifetime, an interview with Gabe Parker, the actor who had been chosen to be the new James Bond. The story she wrote after spending a crazy weekend with him ended up going viral and changing both their lives.

They've barely seen each other since, but now Gabe’s career has nosedived and his PR team wants her to do it again. Funny You Should Ask is a complicated story that moves back and forth between ten years ago and the current time, but it reads easily— Sussman does a great job of managing the timelines so we get just enough information to move the story along. What did happen during that weekend?

What worked really well for me was the story of a smart, maybe over-educated writer who is trying to reconcile her career of writing “puff” pieces with the more serious careers of her former grad school friends. Chani’s story was pitch perfect. 

What didn’t work so well for me is the same old stuff that hasn’t worked well in almost every recent romance novel I’ve read. And since I’m clearly in the minority, I’ll just make myself sound ridiculous by saying it, but I find it tedious to read through (literal) pages and pages of how strong their sexual attraction to each other is. OK, so you want to lick him. Got it. I don't need two pages of elaboration. That stuff is easy to skim over, though, so not necessarily a deal breaker if the rest of the story is good, and in this case, it is. 

There’s another aspect of the story that had me doubtful, though. I’ve lived in Montana for thirty years, and it’s rare that a writer who doesn’t live here gets it right. So when Gabe turned out to be a Montana native, I rolled my eyes. Montana so often means some symbolic thing to people — it’s romanticized and westernized and sanitized; people who have only visited in the summer in the tourist areas, or winter in the ski towns, don’t get the reality of life here.

But I'm giving Sussman a pass on this, mainly because she didn’t make the mistake of trying too hard. In fact, you have to wonder why she picked Montana, because the handful of scenes that are set here could have been in Wyoming or Colorado or even the Sierra Nevadas. At least there was no wrinkled old ranch hand named Willy who’d known Gabe since he was knee-high and taught him everything he knows about riding a horse. In fact, she leaves horses out of it entirely. There are a lot of people who ride horses in Montana (and more who don’t), but again—super hard to get it right, so good for her.

Besides the obvious wish-fulfillment/fantasy aspect of a world-famous movie star falling in love with a nerdy nobody, the development of Chani's and Gabe's story is believably done. I read it on vacation, and it was exactly the kind of book I wanted to read at the time. Highly recommended if you're in the same sort of mood.

p.s. Gabe is from the fictional town of Cooper, Montana. It didn't occur to me until after I was done reading the book that that is probably a nod to Gary Cooper, the actor and star of many westerns, who was from Helena. 

--------------------

(If that sounds appealing to you, please stop here and read it before continuing on.) 

Then at some point I was reading reader reviews on Goodreads and discovered that Sussman has come under fire for writing this book for a reason that struck me as puzzling. Apparently, Sussman said in an interview that the original idea for the story came from an interview that another writer did with Chris Evans (of Captain America fame) that appeared in GQ. The most upvoted review related the reader's outrage that Sussman never says this in the acknowledgements, never name-checks the other writer, plus more, and is therefore a reprehensible human being because she stole the idea and etc etc etc.

I disagree with the commenter on two fronts, and but it turns out that she changed my experience of reading the book for a reason I don't think she intended. So here goes: First off, she claims that a journalist having a drink with the subject of her interview and interacting with him/her on a personal level is unethical and unprofessional. I'm not a journalist, so I don't know if there are professional ethics standards here, but I call bullshit on this. 

For one thing, it's hard to imagine a similar claim being made if the interviewer were male. For another, there's a long, complex conversation already occurring around the impossibility of any journalist being able to remain "objective" and personally uninvolved in the story they're telling. The myth of the passive observer journalist is just that, a myth. At least in this case she is upfront about her involvement.

Also there's the claim that since Sussman started with something that someone else wrote, she is stealing someone else's idea. I didn't go check, but I don't think there's any accusation made that she actually cut and pasted the words of the GQ article, so I'm inclined to let this one go, too. If you handed the original interview to a room full of novelists and told them to go write a book loosely based on that article, you would get a room full of entirely different ways of working it out, even if you restricted them to writing romance novels. Are there any novels that spring up whole cloth out of the writer's imagination? It's hard to believe that there are.

I do agree that it might have been nice for Sussman to own up to the original spark for her story in the acknowledgements, but seriously-- I am not going to start judging authors for what is and is not in the afterword. Up until the 80s (90s?) or so, most books didn't even have acknowledgements. This is not as big a problem as the commenter wants it to be.

But on the other hand, having a real person identified as the fantasy Gabe really changed my feelings about the book. Chris Evans is someone I follow on social media, and he's someone I like and admire. Putting a real person's name and face on the character of Gabe gave it a ewwwwww factor that wasn't there while I was reading and just imagining some impossibly handsome nameless movie star. 

Honestly, it's surprising to me how much this changed my attitude toward the book, all in retrospect. I originally gave it five stars (I've told you before that I believe strongly in star-inflation, but let's not get off on that right now), and I even considered going back and knocking off a star or two just because of this. The older I get, the more sympathy I have for celebrities and how their "adoring" public must make it practically impossible to have a real life. Which I suppose you could argue, they are complaining about all the way to the bank, and you have a point. 

Trying to think of some smart thing to say in summary, but I can't. That's all. 

HEALTH.

I've told you before about my Thought for The Year. One year it was "lighten up," last year it was "pay attention." During 2020, there were some moments when the phrase "pay attention" would pop into my head, occasionally in surprising contexts, but also weeks went by when I didn't think about it at all.

So it seemed kind of pointless. This year, the first week in January, I decided that I wouldn't do one this year. Before the thought was even fully formed, the word HEALTH popped into my head. 

Me: That "phrase of the year" thing didn't really do any good last year so this year I'm not ...

HEALTH.

Me: No, seriously, I'm not going to do one th...

HEALTH.

Me: Health? 

Yes. HEALTH.

So, OK, looks like HEALTH is my word for the year. 

And honestly, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I didn't exactly let myself completely go last year, but it was a shitshow of a year, and there were times when my own well-being just didn't seem all that important compared to everything else going on.

By the end of the year, I was no more stressed or exhausted than anyone else, but I was definitely stressed and exhausted. I had arrived there in my own individual way, and learning my way back has to happen in my own way, too. 

I've learned some things from all that lockdown time, some things about myself that I'd never really known, because who the hell thinks about what it would be like to be shut down for six months before it happens? 

First and foremost, I figured out that mental health takes some work. I've told you before that I have periods of depression and paranoia, and over the years I've figured out some ways to jostle myself along when I'm in the pits. But I don't think I fully realized that being responsible for my mental health means being proactive-- because at least some of the things that I need to be proactive about are things that happen without any effort when there's no shutdown.

For example: making it a priority to spend time with people I love, even if it's just a zoom call. Seeking out fun and laughter. Not letting myself get too bored.

And that's on top of the things that I already knew: avoid sugar and too much caffeine. Stay away from books and media that will leave me feeling dark despair. Get some exercise. Get outside every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. Hold on to my sense of self, the things I know about myself, so that I don't give in to pressure from others to do things I know I don't want to do. 

Vibrant health has a lot of components: healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit. Feeling loved and loving others. Knowing that you have something to contribute. 

I'm figuring this out as I'm typing. Maybe this will be an ongoing topic going forward. My version of health will be different than yours, but maybe we can think about this together. 

p.s. I hope you've been around long enough to know that I don't seriously believe I'm hearing a voice in my head. But I do have these thoughts sometimes that feel like they are from some other source. Sometimes I think it's because I spent so many years in therapy when I was in my 20s and 30s. I have an internalized therapist. Maybe I should give her a name. For example, a couple of weeks ago when I got in a weird situation with an acquaintance, my therapist voice wisely (and somewhat irritatingly) suggested that maybe a little KINDNESS and HUMILITY were in order. Apparently my inner therapist speaks in all caps. 

Have a great weekend.

7ToF: changing my demographic, headaches, and my favorite Kind bar

The color of spring

1. Years ago, I realized one day that one of my best friends was the same age as my younger sister (i.e., less than two years younger than me). When my sister and I were young, twenty months seemed like a huge difference. But with my adult friends, I never think about age differences. It's always seemed like all women between mid-thirties and some unspecified older age were my peers.

2. But it has been gradually and then suddenly dawning on me that this is no longer the case. Finally at some point last week the whole idea burst into bloom in my head all at once: I'm in a different age bracket now. I think it's been evident to my younger friends for years now-- no, you are waaaay older than me, not just a little bit-- but it was news to me. After the initial shock of realization, I'm totally OK with this. I am embracing my inner crone. I envision rocking on the front porch with friends and a pitcher of vodka tonics and cackling over inappropriate jokes. I think it took me so long to figure this out because I was still a mom with a kid at home until I was 55. That's my excuse, anyway.

As you can imagine, there will be more on this topic in the future. Can this still be a blog about mid-life? Am I a senior citizen now? The AARP has been sending me stuff for years, so they certainly think so.

3. Since I may be offline for a couple of weeks, here is the headache update. I am way better, and same as the last time I tried an elimination diet, there weren't any foods that made a difference. Stretching and working with my neck and shoulders seems to be the key-- which means I need to avoid spending all day hunched over the computer or curled up with a book. DAMMIT. So I've been getting out more and reading less, and reminding myself to get up and stretch, etc etc.

4. Elimination diets are interesting. Since I've never done one unless I was desperate--three weeks of headaches will do that to you--I never do it in an organized enough way. There are so many variables, and unless you can go live in a convent somewhere, it's just impossible to shut everything down. Or at least, it is if you're me and you don't really care about it that much. I ended up going about two and a half weeks with no alcohol, sugar, or artificial sweeteners, and about one and a half weeks with no dairy and no grains (gluten or otherwise). I've slowly been adding stuff back over the past ten days or so, and since at the moment I've only been headache free for five or six days, I don't think it's any of the food items.

5. Over the last few days, I've added back corn-- I waited on that one since I was a little suspicious about it. The worst migraine I've had in a couple of years was after I had tamales for dinner the previous night. But I've had corn every day for the past three days, and I feel great, so I think that's ok. I still haven't had any peanuts or peanut butter, so that's the only thing left to add back in. But I think it's going to be fine.

6. The "no dairy" and "no gluten" evangelists, I think, would say I didn't give it long enough. And yeah, maybe they're right. But I know people who are gluten sensitive or lactose intolerant, and they can tell within hours if they've eaten something they shouldn't have. If that were me, I would totally get on board. It wouldn't take five minutes for me to sign on to that program if it made that big a difference. But if you have to avoid something for weeks, and then three days after you add it back in you still can't tell any difference, I'm not convinced it's a problem. The stretching and the activity level seem to make a much bigger, more noticeable difference for me.

The color of spring #2

7. But there are headaches, and then there's how I feel in general. And doing this did remind me how much better I feel (headaches aside) when I avoid sugar. I feel no need to become a zero sugar person, but I do feel better if I limit sugar, and if you want specifics, at the moment that means that I'm avoiding anything that has more than 6g of sugar, which I somewhat arbitrarily picked because my favorite Kind bar has 6g of sugar. I feel noticeably better when I'm not eating a sugary snack two or three times a day-- and that can happen if I'm not paying attention, because I have a definite sweet tooth.

On an entirely different topic: I've been learning a lot recently, and we've had a couple of significant life changes--like MadMax moving back home after college-- but it's not stuff I'm ready to type about yet. And also, we're headed out to our favorite lake for the holiday weekend, so I'll be out of range for at least a few days. And since I'm supposed to be spending less time at the computer, I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to be offline for awhile. So, not sure when I'll be back-- probably soon, I don't seem to be able to stay away-- but I hope you have a great weekend and a good start to your summer.

Things worth reading/listening to:
- This older post about writing and storytelling from Jenny Crusie
- Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer Reading Guide (you have to sign up with your email address)
- Book rec: Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (heavy on the profanity but sharply observed)
- Fascinating podcast episode of the week: An interview with Ezra Klein on the Ten Percent Happier podcast, episode #248. Klein dissects our polarization and what can (and can't) be done about it. I'll be thinking about this one for weeks.

7ToF: we're reopening around here

This got long. Save it for when you have time.

1. The governor of Montana has started a three-phase plan for reopening the state, starting with allowing non-essential businesses to reopen, but keeping in place all of the social distancing guidelines, limiting groups to no more than 10, etc. Montana has the lowest incidence of COVID-19 of any state (per population), and most of the cases have been in Bozeman and a senior care facility in Shelby County.

2. Montanans as a group are nothing if not stubbornly opposed to anyone telling them what to do, and some have taken the lack of virus as a sign that the whole thing was just an over-reaction by the liberals who are trying to take control of our country. And, you know what? If we follow the rules of social distancing and cautious public gathering, maybe we will be able to avoid an outbreak long enough for a vaccine to be developed, and they will be able to believe that they were right.

3. Which is a really strange thing about this whole situation (among about a million other strange things). There are all these people, one is tempted to say all these idiots, who in spite of the mounting numbers of cases and deaths, are determined to believe that it's not really a crisis. That this is just another in a long string of examples of liberals over-reacting and getting hysterical about something that's really not a big deal, and that if we'd just treated it like the flu, it would have gone away-- and I wouldn't have lost my job/had to home school my kids/had to cancel my wedding/etc.

As, one is tempted to say, a more reasonable person, you're left in the strange situation of almost wanting things to get bad so that you can prove to these people that see, it really is a real thing. We're not exaggerating. It's like the classic lose-lose situation: either you're right, and hundreds of thousands more people are going to get sick and some of them die (lose); or you're wrong (lose), and those idiots are going to say they were right all along.

4. Anyway. I hate wearing a mask, I hate having anything on my face, and always have. But I'm wearing one, because Dean is one of the faces of our medical community, and I'm trying to be as supportive as I can. Sometimes I forget, but for the most part, when I'm in a building besides our house, I wear a mask. I have a bunch of oversized bandanas that I bought to use as napkins last year when I was trying to cut down on our use of paper products, so usually I wear one of those, quadruple folded. But as it is becoming more apparent that we are going to have to stay masked at least in certain situations for a long time, I finally got on Etsy and ordered half a dozen homemade masks. Yet another time I've wished I could sew.

5. I don't think I've talked all that much about my never-ending sickness, which I've had for a couple of months now. There is a fair amount of evidence that it's not COVID-- I'm pretty sure I did tell you about Mel's negative test when she went back to work after spring break, and it hasn't behaved like COVID seems to behave. But still, once antibody testing becomes widespread enough that I can justify getting tested, I am looking forward to finding out.

What I'm getting around to here is that I have had a lot more headaches than usual. In a good month, I have maybe 10-12 headache days, and about half of them will be bad enough to take migraine drugs. But recently, I've just had a headache all the time. I've had to not take migraine drugs, because I'm worried about running out. In the past month, I had maybe three or four days of feeling healthy and headache-free.

6. So I've finally decided I have to do something to make a change. And the only thing I can really try right now is changing the food I eat. I'm somewhat skeptical about this. Believe me, I tried all the things back when I was having a similar headache-intensive stretch in my 40s. I tried dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free. Sugar and caffeine made a difference, although not a huge one--my headaches decreased in frequency, but were not "cured." Dairy and gluten made no difference at all.

7. But my metabolism has changed. It changed for the first time in my late 40s/early 50s as I was dealing with pre- and post-menopause. And now it seems to be changing again. For example: I've been drinking black tea with unsweetened soymilk first thing in the morning for more than a dozen years now, but more and more often, I come downstairs in the morning and the idea of tea is not appealing. Or coffee, but that's less surprising since my stomach dictated that I quit drinking coffee long ago. I've switched to green tea for the moment, but maybe it's time to get off caffeine again.

ALL THAT LONG RAMBLING MESS was just to tell you that I'm on an elimination diet at the moment. If it was for weight loss, my inner rebel would come out with flags flying and refuse to participate, but since it is to see if I can freaking feel better for a change, I seem to have sucked it up and gotten on board with the plan. I read about Whole30, but the logical inconsistencies in their theories made me nuts (don't get me started), so I just made up my own plan. No alcohol, which is easy because I don't drink much alcohol anyway, no dairy (not too hard since my only dairy is yogurt and cheese), no gluten (harder), and low sugar (which also comes under the heading of "don't get me started" but I'll save that for another post).

Who knows how long I'll be doing it. My initial commitment to myself was to try it for a week and see how I feel and re-evaluate. I'm five days in right now and although I do feel a bit better in terms of energy and general well-being, as I'm sitting here typing this I'm trying to decide whether or not this headache is bad enough to warrant migraine drugs. Ugh.

So in spite of that downer of an ending, other than physically not feeling well, I'm actually doing fine. I seem to have figured out a rhythm for sheltering at home, and my mental status is pretty good. Headaches are status quo for me, so having them isn't necessarily a sign that things are bad.

Have a great weekend. Sorry this got so long. It's about twenty things instead of seven.

mental health at midlife, "one" more thing

At the end of my last post on midlife mental health (there's another one here), I said there was one more piece I wanted to tell you about but I had run out of room. And then life intervened, as it so persistently does, and I never got around to it.

But that "one more piece" continues to come up, and the first thing to say is that it is laughable that I said there was "one" more piece. There are a million more pieces. But that piece I was thinking about has been important, so here you go.

My family was pretty garden variety dysfunctional. I'm pretty sure my dad was a narcissist, and my mom an experienced enabler, but I've heard a lot of stories over the years from other people, and our particular mess was not out of the ordinary. And I say that with some sadness, because in the sixties, there were a whole lot of family dynamics that were weird and stifling and maiming, but it was just the way things were. My parents had their problems, but they also did a pretty dang good job considering the times and their own histories.

In the eighties, when I was in my twenties and psychotherapy was relatively new (at least to me), I was all about blaming my parents. I was so angry at them. I could tell you inside out how awful they had been, especially my dad. Some of it was necessary stuff that I need to process, but a lot of it was just me being young and self-obsessed. I'm not knocking therapy-- it helped, it helped lots. I'm just rolling my eyes at my youth, and my ability to think that my own pain was the most important thing. Maybe that's what a lot of us do in our twenties.

Anyway. Then I had kids, and once you have kids, it doesn't take long to realize that no parent is able to be the parent they wish they were. I was simultaneously developing the ability to protect myself better from my parents' ability to wound me,  and also becoming willing to cut them a whole lot more slack. They were doing the best they could. So I gradually dumped the whole digging-into-my-family-of-origin schtick because I just couldn't do it anymore.

I spent the next twenty-ish years aware that there had been some difficult issues in my family of origin, but not thinking about them, because I didn't know any way to do that without coming down on my parents with an attitude of self-righteous fury, and I knew that wasn't where I wanted to go. So I stopped (not overnight, but still a pretty thorough stop). And honestly, I had been pretty obsessed with it for awhile, so it was probably a good move at the time.

But recently, some things have resurfaced, and as I've become a student of my own brain and ego through meditation and whatever other tools I can find, I've realized that I still have a lot to learn from looking back and trying to understand some things from my childhood.

Not to sound like I'm overly wise or anything, but just to acknowledge the truth: if you let yourself, you do learn some things as you get older. I am wiser than I used to be, at least on this front. Because now I can look back and do it without blame. I can feel compassion for all of us, my parents, the community we lived in, the world we lived in, and see how we were all trying so hard to do things right, to do the things we thought we were supposed to do. And yet we were wounded, and we did some wounding. We muddled through, just like everybody does.

This is also turning into a muddled mess, and I'm not even sure why I'm writing it, because I don't know if anyone else is going through it, and if you're not, that makes this an exceptionally boring bit of navel-gazing.

But if you are, just this: it can help to let yourself go back and re-experience some old hurts. Sometimes when I'm meditating (my current meditating theme is to let myself feel what I'm feeling), it hurts so bad it's almost overwhelming. But it's not happening right now, it happened a long time ago. And if I can sit for five minutes, one minute, and let the feelings wash through me, it feels awful at that moment, but then later it feels better. It really does. I don't know if this will make any sense, but I feel more clear-eyed than I have in a long time. Maybe ever.

p.s. the book that was helpful in thinking this through is Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. I had some problems with that book, but I still learned lots. Gottlieb, a therapist, says: "The purpose of inquiring about people's parents isn't to join them in blaming, judging, or criticizing their parents. In fact, it's not about their parents at all. It's about understanding how their early experiences inform who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present (and not wear psychological clothing that no longer fits)."

Yup. Have a great weekend.

7ToF: ding dong the decorations are dead

1. Finally got the Christmas decor put away. It seems like it took 7 or 8 hours divided between last night and today, but that can't be right, can it? No wonder I was dreading it. I do love all my Christmas tchotchkes but that seems a little excessive. If I had to do it again next week, I would do something about it. But by next December I will have forgotten, so I will do it all again. Happily.

2. Do you keep up with food and nutrition news? In the past few years, many of the sacred cows of healthy eating have fallen -- it's OK now to eat eggs, fat is no longer the big demon it once was, and more and more signs are pointing to sugar as the real problem in our diets-- and then did you notice that it's OK to eat full fat dairy products again? (as long as you can handle dairy, I guess. I have several lactose-intolerant friends/family.)

Montanans were never fooled. The dairy industry has been part of the local economy for decades, and long-time locals have never varied from their preference for full fat milk. If we have full fat milk at the food bank, it gets grabbed off the shelf so fast you'd think there were $20 bills inside. I used to think they were uneducated, but turns out they were right.

3. But you know what food advice has never, ever changed? Eat your vegetables. No one has ever come along with a fad diet that said to avoid vegetables. (Have they? given the insanity of the diet industry, maybe they have.) I was raised in the sixties and seventies in Middle America, when veggies were usually soggy and canned, or frozen and then overcooked. I was not a fan. Is there anything more disgusting than canned spinach? What was Popeye thinking? I didn't experience fresh veggies lightly cooked until I was in college. I liked those just fine.

4. But you can only get fresh, in-season veggies a few months of the year in Montana. So I am making a concerted effort to investigate creative ways to use winter vegetables, or frozen out-of-season ones. Maybe I will even try some canned ones. I read an article that with modern canning techniques, less time elapses between harvest and processing canned vegetables than getting them to your grocery store. (I'm still not doing canned spinach, though. I have my limits.)

5. The first try was cabbage. When I was a kid, cabbage was always a soggy, overcooked mess that smelled terrible. I was determined to try it, though, so I found a recipe in Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook for steamed cabbage. Result: I was so worried about overcooking it that it was still practically raw. The recipe called for coring and quartering the cabbage and then steaming the wedges and drizzling with butter, lemon, and thyme. But it was almost impossible to eat those big chunks (possibly because it was still crunchy-raw). I think I need to give it another try, because the outside leaves that were reasonably cooked tasted pretty good. What doesn't taste good with butter and lemon drizzled over?

6. However. It was also a perfect illustration of the problem with organic produce (at least after it has been shipped three or four states over to Montana). The 3 lb head of organic cabbage was nearly $7. I bought a 2-pound pork roast (hormone- and antibiotic-free and no additives) that was less expensive than the cabbage. It's ridiculous. (The pork roast was also an experiment, I'd never cooked one before. It was OK. We are not big eaters of roasts.) It's not going to break our bank to pay $7 for a head of cabbage, but that puts it out of the reach of many. We're talking about cabbage.

7. Lots going on around here. It always seems a little silly to announce that I'm taking a break, because why don't I just do it without feeling like I need to tell everyone? Plus, I'm not sure how long I'll be offline. Maybe a weekend will be enough. Or maybe I'll post once a week instead of twice. But since I'm in the sort-of habit of posting on Tuesday and Friday, it always feels like I should give you a heads up if I'm going to miss one or two. Or ten. Last time I said I'd be gone at least a month and it only ended up being a couple of weeks (did you notice?).

This week's interesting read: hope vs. cynicism (from 2015)

Have a great weekend.

7ToF: recreation of a post that disappeared

I got my Seven Things on Friday post done down through #6, and then I lost it. This has happened once or twice before, and I do not understand it. It is so frustrating, because I've been sitting here for over an hour and I thought I was almost done and now I have to freaking start over. UGH. This was worded more gracefully in the original.

1. It's fall. It's gorgeous. I like it.

2. A woman on Instagram posted that sometimes with book-to-film adaptations, when she isn't sure if she wants to read the book, she goes to see the movie first. Thus breaking the ancient law of all book snobs: Read The Book First. I had Crazy Rich Asians in my To Be Read (TBR) pile and I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it, because maybe it would reinforce Asian stereotypes.

3. So I decided to try her idea and go see the movie before I read the book. The movie is fun-- both Dean and I enjoyed it. And I see her point, because now I feel no need to read the book. And since I always have too many books to read, that is a good thing. New opinion: sometimes it is OK to see the movie first.

4. blah blah blah about how painful the issue of body weight is for women our age.

5. This week's interesting thing around the internet: an article that rounds up a bunch of research and makes a pretty clear case that our current thinking about obesity is counter-productive, although the title is a little exaggerated: Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong. He rightly calls out the medical profession for fat shaming. Worth reading.

More about the Enneagram ahead, leave now if you're not interested, and have a great weekend!

6. (this part existed elsewhere, so I could just cut and paste it again) I saw a post by a person of color last week that dismissed the Enneagram as something for white people with too much time on their hands. Point taken. I can't think of anything to say in defense. I'm Caucasian/cis/straight, so there is an entire universe of challenges I don't have to deal with, challenges that would be both energy draining and time consuming. Just thought I should acknowledge that for the record.

7. However. Being white/cis/straight is not something I can change, and at the moment I am finding the Enneagram to be extremely helpful. The "path to growth" for Type 5 is yielding insight after insight for me, and since we all have elements of all the types within us, some of the other types (esp 9 and 4) are helpful, too. So I'm going to continue to work on it for awhile. There will be at least one more post next week, apologies to those who aren't interested, although I guess you've quit reading if you're not, so never mind.

OK, I hope this made some sense. Maybe I will come back later and work on it some more when I'm not so pissed. Although maybe it makes more sense like this than it did when it was way wordier. Have a great weekend.

7ToF: in which we discuss fitness for couch potatoes

If you're someone who already has a fitness routine or exercise program going, move along, there will be nothing for you in this post. This is for those of us who are naturally sluggish (which sounds slightly nicer than saying we're lazy), but you know, at midlife, we'd probably better stay active. Damn it. You know how the saying goes: if you don't use it, you'll lose it. I hate that.

1. We've all read those articles that tell you in order to get the full benefit of exercise, really you should be exercising at an elevated heart rate for 45 minutes, five or six days a week. Five-ish years ago when I was in the midst of my determined (and unsuccessful) plan to regain my 40-year-old body, I proudly told my primary care doctor that I was exercising for 30 minutes, 6 days a week. She told me that really I should bump it up to 45 minutes.  *auntbean deflates*

2. But I am not a person who is going to exercise 45 minutes, six days a week. It's just not gonna happen. Everything I most love to do involves sitting on a couch or in front of a keyboard. So then for about a year I did nothing, which is when my weight skyrocketed up to an amount that was not OK with me, which led to the Weight Watchers stint, etc etc etc. You've heard that part.

3. So now I find myself looking for a fitness routine that's first and foremost sustainable. A fitness routine that I can really do long-term, because in spite of my desire to sit on the couch all day and read, study, write, and/or nap with a cup of tea and snacks within reach so I don't have to move ONE CENTIMETER, I know I need to move. For one thing, I'm stiff enough these days that if I sit still for 45-minutes, I'm creaky when I get up.

4. So I started with doing squats in the shower as I dripped off. That makes it sound like a real exercise, but honestly the first time I did one, determinedly bracing my feet against sides of the shower, I could barely make my butt drop a couple of inches without feeling like I was going to fall over. I think I did two sort of half-assed mini squats that first time. I've gradually worked up to doing six or eight real ones. It's not much, but you know what? It only takes about 30 seconds and it has made a noticeable difference. I can feel how much stronger my legs are when I'm just walking across a parking lot.

5. And since that worked so well, I've gradually worked on adding other things. My post-shower routine is now up to about 3 minutes of neck and shoulder stretches plus two sets of squats. And a few days a week I fit in five minutes of working with handweights and/or a walk, and it feels manageable, like something I can keep doing long term. It sounds so feeble--seriously, this is a total of about an hour spread out over an entire week-- but it's made a remarkable difference in how I feel. Maybe I'll keep adding to it, but maybe this is it, my lifetime fitness routine. I should write a book.

(aside: squats may not work for you, especially not if you have bad knees. If you want to try squats and you've never done them before, watch this 2-minute video about how to do them without hurting yourself. And I should probably say something like check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program and don't sue me if you hurt yourself, etc etc etc.)

6. Do you still take a shower every day? More and more of my friends say they don't. I still do. I've always had oily skin, and although of course it is way less oily now, I'm still a mucky mess when I get up in the morning. I'm a sweaty sleeper. I'm not even going to dignify that by saying I "glow." I wake up gross. So yeah, I still take a shower every day, although I only wash my hair every 2-3 days now, after religiously washing it every day from about age 13 until a couple of years ago.

7. The other "types" post I was going to write was a long one about how I figured out what my Enneagram number is, because I think it's fascinating. But I was telling someone else about it last week and it was about 30 seconds before their eyes glazed over, so maybe it's only fascinating to me. I had an image of myself formed decades ago based on one of those family myths, and it turns out that I'm really not that person. This has been huge for me, truly transformative. If it's a topic that interests you, highly recommended. Try this book for the brief overview, or this one for a more in-depth explanation. (Those are Amazon links, but just for informational purposes. I am not an associate, I don't get anything from them.)

that's all from me. Have a great weekend.
p.s. Apologies if you got this early, I set the publishing date wrong and it was sent out yesterday before I had edited it. Oops.

7ToF: Will you help him change the world, can you dig it? yes I can

I've been waiting such a long time, for Saturday....
Listen children, all is not lost, all is not lost....

Love that song. Not feeling even slightly apologetic for putting it in your head, too.

1. I'm trying to stop reading on my Kindle. Only temporarily, because I love the thing, and there is nothing better for reading in bed at night. (We've discussed this before.) But I'm not reading the actual books that are sitting on my shelves, and there are a bunch I want to read. I'm so attached to my Kindle that this oddly feels a little scary. (how weird is that?)

2. My waitlist of e-books at our library's website has coincidentally come to a halt-- my next one is Amor Towle's Rules of Civility, which I'm supposed to get in six weeks, and the next half dozen are stacked up after that, so it's a good time to do this instead of rooting around for more kindle books to read.

3. This week's interesting column, from the UK version of Elle: I stopped eating carbs after 2:30, not because I think we should stop eating carbs at all, ever, but because of the discussion toward the end about how everyone processes carbs differently, and we each need to figure out our individual metabolism. I think this gets discussed way less often than it should be-- there is no one healthy way to eat that works for everybody. What looks like a healthy diet for you may not be healthy for me. And what worked for me twenty years ago is not going to work for me today. I guess the key is to pay attention to how my body responds to different things and figure out my own healthy way of eating.

4. Update: you may remember that a couple of months ago, I told you that I was going to try exercising more without dieting to drop the pounds I gained over the winter. I hate to weigh myself, but I thought this was working because my clothes fit again the way they did last summer, and I'm definitely stronger than I was when I started this. But then I had my annual physical this week, and not only had I not lost any weight, I'd actually gained some. I know, I know, muscle weighs more than fat and I can tell myself that the workouts are working and etc etc etc.

5. But at some point, I have to be shocked that I weigh within a few pounds of what I did when I was nine months pregnant with MadMax, and I gained forty pounds during that pregnancy. I am not a skinny person who is obsessing about a couple of extra pounds, I am a dumpy (plump?) 56-year-old who weighs more than 170. I really should not be carrying this much weight. So how can I work on this without a) obsessing about it, or b) beating myself up about it (because I got a thumbs up on everything else in my checkup, including all the bloodwork)(except I'm low on Vitamin D). I guess it goes back to the previous Thing: pay attention, and figure out what works for me.

6. And the most important Thing to remember: I have a basically healthy body that is taking good care of me. I need to continually remind myself of that-- to be gracious and thankful to my physical self for allowing me to be here--rather than to feel that stupid frantic sense of panic that I let myself feel all to easily-- how the hell did I get this heavy?? I'm a whale! I'm a disaster! No, actually, I'm not. On the whole, my body is coping remarkably well with the challenges of menopause.

7. I'm taking a Facebook vacation for the rest of the summer. I took about ten days off recently (partly because of being out of town), and when I went back to it, in ten minutes I was stressed and depressed. I do have my beloved groups there, so I won't be deleting my account or anything drastic, just taking a break.

Also due to my mental summer mode: I may not be posting regularly. Not sure about this yet, but I may ignore the usual Tuesday/Friday schedule, and get back to it after Labor Day. Also, at some point I am going to re-post the "Celebrating mid-life" posts from a couple of years ago (which, in spite of the name, are not always celebrations) so we can get started on that again.

And that's it for me. Hope you have a great weekend.

Day 23: the post of shame

OK, I'm not really ashamed, that was just to make you laugh. But I am a bit embarrassed, and I was going to tack this on to the end of last night's post in just a sentence or two so maybe no one would notice. But then I decided it would be better as an entire post on its own, because it might work better to motivate me to change my ways if I put up here front and center on Monday morning.

Friday my spouse and I went in to our local athletic facility for our healthy lifestyles checkup, the one I told you about in this post that we did a year ago. Last year we passed easily, which meant we got a reduction in our deductible. This year, we passed again, but I didn't do nearly as well.

Pain in the neck, plus Too Much Stuff follow-up

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you I was going to see a physical therapist for my neck? Part of his treatment plan involves setting up a more ergonomic computer space--and since for several years now I've spent a good part of my day hunched over my laptop, this has been too long in coming.

So right this minute I'm typing on a split keyboard--not one of those ergonomic keyboards with a raised center and an inch of space between the two halves of the keyboard, but an entirely split keyboard. I've got it set up so it's about three inches apart (a little further than in the picture), which makes it so I can square my shoulders as I sit here and type. So far, I love it.

Kinesis Freestyle 2 keyboard, with separate
accessory kit installed. It's wired, but I've never liked wireless
keyboards anyway since it seems like they need new batteries
every ten minutes.

I thought it would take me awhile to adjust to the split, but it hasn't taken any time at all. Also, in the boring-trivia-you-don't-need-to -know department, I've discovered that I always hit the space bar with my right thumb. There's half a space bar on each side of this thing and I would have guessed that I use them interchangeably, but I don't. Right thumb, every time.

The PT also recommended sleeping with a pillow between my knees. I took this with a grain of salt, because while I can see that would be a great help to someone with hip or lower back problems, how would it help me with my neck? I didn't even try it until four or five days after I saw him.

But you know, your hip bone is connected to your...spine (someone should write a song about that), and your spine runs right up your back to your neck, and it has made a remarkable difference. I'm sleeping better, and waking up without feeling like I'm eighty. I still feel like I'm 53, darn it, but not 80. Highly recommended.

Too Much Stuff follow-up:

Seems like everyone I know is dealing with clutter right now, and in her Friday post, sister-of-the-heart Debbie mentioned using her old stuff in craft projects. Oh my word, is that ever something I wouldn't think of-- you can't imagine how un-crafty I am-- but it is a great idea, so I thought I would pass it along. If I understand the process correctly, she is cutting old T-shirts into strips, which will then be knitted into a rug. *envy*

London Mabel also wrote a post about how you figure out which things to keep and which things to toss, using Marie Kondo's criteria: does this item bring me joy? Great post exploring the larger implications of how we organize our lives.

If you haven't heard of Marie Kondo, she wrote a book about decluttering as spiritual practice that is really popular right now. On Amazon, it is here. I haven't read it yet, but I've read enough about it that I almost feel like I don't need to.

And if you're looking for inspiration, I have two sites to recommend. The FlyLady is an entire internet phenomenon all to herself. I personally would not recommend joining her group or getting her emails, since they can be a bit overwhelming and obsessive (my opinion, and many people disagree). But her website is great and has lots of good ideas for how to get started and how to keep going.

And Unfuck Your Habitat (excuse the profanity). In spite of the profanity in the title, UfYH is a great resource with not much other profanity. She has checklists of ways to get started, and an entire community of people who post before/after pictures of their formerly-junky-now-spacious habitats (keep scrolling down if you're not seeing pictures). It's aimed at young people who are on their own for the first time, but still there is some great inspiration.

One thing both of them highly recommend (and I completely agree) is starting small. Fifteen minutes a day, or whatever works for you. It's too easy to get overwhelmed if you try to spend an entire weekend cleaning your whole house. You'll burn out right after you get everything pulled out of your storeroom and then you'll just have a bigger mess.

Not that I would have any personal experience with that, I'm just relaying what I've heard. Really.

So off I go for my fifteen minutes.Well, actually, I'm taking Sadie on a walk first, but then I'll do my 15 minutes.