7ToF: Boldly Small

1. Interesting Things Around The Internet Dept: This week's 7 Things on Friday title is from a post on Megan Coakley's blog. Go read it, it's a great addition to the discussion about midlife. Since I don't have much intelligent to say this week, I can at least point you to other resources. :-) It's a different take on the discussion a few weeks ago about realizing that certain dreams you've had just aren't going to happen. Some dreams are really hard to give up, some are easy. Some feel like you're giving away a piece of yourself, some feel like a sigh of a relief. But if we're re-focusing down to what we can do, what is still important to us, it may feel smaller, but it might also be more important. The older I get, the more sure I am that the real way we make a difference in the world is in the way that we live, the way we interact with other friends and family, the way we are with the network of our people. (Cue It's a Wonderful Life). The big splashy stuff? maybe not such a big deal.

2. Part of the reason I don't have anything intelligent to say this week (do I ever?) is that I've felt like crap. I've had a bad time with the migraines recently. It's made me realize that I judge all of the food/health trends (fads) I've tried based on how they affect migraines. Gluten-free, dairy-free, caffeine-free, sugar-free, yeah, yeah, yeah. People do them for all sorts of reasons, but the reason I try them is to see what affect they have on the frequency of my migraines. So far, I've been unable to come up with any food or drink or category of ingestible items that has a long-term effect. For awhile, avoiding caffeine seemed to help, but the last time I went caffeine free, it didn't seem to make any difference at all. Given the steady stream of research showing that moderate caffeine intake is actually good for you, I'm back having caffeine once or twice a day now. Work in progress.

3. These headaches are slightly different than my usual--they are much more involved with my neck. I won't bore you with the blow-by-blow of the past couple of weeks, but I ended up going to see a physical therapist today to see what they could do about my neck. It was really interesting--he pulled out his Atlas of Human Anatomy and showed me pictures of the inner workings of the cerebral vertebrae. My neck often feels stiff and tight, but apparently the stretches I've been doing are exactly the wrong ones--I've been trying to stretch the large muscles that I can feel when I reach back to my neck and shoulders, but apparently the ones that I need to work on are the tiny ones that run between the vertebrae. Fascinating.

4. Hence, he recommended one of these (which of course they conveniently sell right there in their office), and let me tell you, it is fabulous. Like brownie fudge ice cream for your neck.

5. Wildlife sightings: two bears (or one bear that can move really fast, there was disagreement among the ranks) last weekend out at the lake, two deer running through our backyard Tuesday, and the heron was back today. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get pictures of any of them. We almost never see bears, so that was pretty cool--and we were in the car, so relatively safe.

6. Late one night recently, I was clicking around and I ended up at some guy's blog in something called the manosphere. Or maybe he was complaining about the manosphere, I don't know. I'd never heard of it, and after reading two or three of his posts, I was uninterested in further exploration. He was so blatantly, militantly hateful that I felt like I was staggering away from reading it, buried under the weight of his negativity and bitterness. I spent several days trying to figure out how to respond. At one point I had mapped out in my head a three-part series of posts, but I still couldn't figure out how to say what I wanted to say. It got me so tied up in knots that I was practically losing sleep over it. And then I thought, you know what? I am not responsible for responding to his crap. Especially since he'd probably never see it. So... moving on. The manosphere or anti-manosphere or whatever it was will just have to get along without me.

7. Happy Anniversary to us! Thirty-one years. Dean is a saint.

pictures and not much else

When we first moved here, for several years we went camping on Memorial Day weekend. The weather was so awful that we finally gave up. Kids in diapers and cold, rainy, muddy camping trips do not mix. I don't think anyone around here expects Memorial Day to be nice. So when it is, it's like a bonus--it's not just a holiday, it's a holiday you can spend outside!! woot!

Today actually ended up a little rainy (I'm writing this while it's still Monday), but the rest of the weekend was gorgeous. I took a bunch of pictures of the trees trying to catch the bright, new green colors, but they didn't photograph well with my little camera, so I just ended up with a bunch of pictures of trees. oops.

We spent Saturday at the state track meet, which was here this year. When you attend a high school sporting event in Montana, you experience why they say Montana is a giant small town. There can't be more than two or three degrees of separation between any two people in the state--in spite of being the 4th largest state geographically, we only have a million people. The kids drive all over to compete against each other, so by the time you get to the state meet, everyone's pretty friendly. The competition is fierce, but the vibe is fun.

MadMax made finals in javelin and discus, but didn't place in either. He was disappointed at first, but since he spent several weeks of the season with an injured back, we were pretty proud. He made definite improvement, and he set himself up well for next year. (And for the record, MadMax's blog name was chosen years after the original movies--which I never saw--and years before the new one was even a twinkle in George Miller's eye.) 

So all you get this time are some pictures from our weekend, because although I have three blog posts half-written in my head, none of them are ready for typing. Hope your holiday weekend was fun. There may be a few extra posts this week because I've got a lot on my mind. Or maybe not.

And because it's Memorial Day: thank you to those who have given their lives in the service of their country, in the military or otherwise.

7ToF: got a full tank of gas and the money out the mattress

1. We had a great time in our road trip to Seattle last weekend. PellMel and her friends were radiantly happy to be done with the classroom. I had a great time with my dear friend Laurel and her partner Kami, and got to spend a wonderful afternoon wandering around Elliott Bay Bookstore. Dean and I went to see the Star Wars costume exhibit at EMP, which made my geeky little heart rejoice. Also had terrific meals at OddFellows for lunch, the Skillet Diner for dinner, and Portage Bay for breakfast. I love going out for breakfast.

2. I listened to hours of great podcasts on the road. Usually I listen to music or audiobooks, but for some reason I ended up mostly listening to podcasts on this trip. I'll tell you about my two favorites. A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment, the podcast of Sherman Alexie and Jess Walter, leans toward the literary and makes me think. They and their guests are funny and honest and interesting. I end up feeling respectful and a little awe-struck (they are two of my favorite writers) but also unworthy. Ohmygosh would I be intimidated to hang out with those two.

On the other end of the spectrum, I love The Big Boo Cast, the podcast of Melanie Shankle (one of my favorite mom bloggers) and Sophie Hudson. It's like eavesdropping on a couple of women chatting at Starbucks. Their accents remind me so much of my Texan and Southern roots that it becomes the podcast equivalent of comfort food. I don't even need to listen to what they're saying, it's soothing just to let the voices wash over me (although they are at times really funny). Their topics range from buying a new coffee table to the changing style of blue jeans to the release of their respective new books. Love.

3. Remember I did a walking challenge last month? This month I'm doing a yoga and meditation challenge. For years I did yoga twice a week, but it was a long time ago--before MadMax was born. I've done the odd twenty minutes of sun salutations over the years since then, but this is the first time I've regularly practiced yoga in a long time and I'm remembering why I used to love it so much. If you approach it gently, with respect for your body, at the end of a workout you just feel good. I've been trying to do 20-30 minutes five days a week. Highly recommended. The challenge group is going on to body weight stuff next month (burpees, pushups, etc), but I think I'm going to do this for another month. It is great.

4. Interesting Things Around the Internet Dept: I found a cool free resource on YouTube, 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene. She's really young, which is annoying sometimes when she can do impossible things easily, but she has a calm clearness that I really like, and she has occasional dorky-cute moments so you don't feel like she's some lofty guru. The workouts (which range from 20-40 minutes) are interesting and varied. If you've never done yoga before, it's probably not the place to start--although she does have a Yoga for  Beginners video. Anyway, the video for Day 1 of the 30 days is here if you want to check it out.

5. Reading Report: Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (fiction, 4 stars out of 5), Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (YA, 5 stars), The Kid by Dan Savage (memoir, 4 stars), Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim (memoir, 3 stars, by the woman who played Nellie Olesen on The Little House on the Prairie TV show), Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger (fiction, 3 stars), The Commitment by Dan Savage (memoir/essay, 4 stars), Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (fiction, 5 stars).

6. Jon Krakauer's new book about sexual assault on college campuses is set in the town that I usually call UTown--Missoula, Montana. I love Missoula with a fierce love, and I had a terrific experience while I was in grad school there. So I was really sad to see that he titled the book Missoula, since it's unfortunate that such a great town will now be known to many only as the place where all those sexual assaults happened. But the incidents he described are real, and the controversy surrounding them was frequently in the papers while I was there. It is a serious, important issue, not just in Missoula, but on college campuses all over the country. As the young woman who wrote this thoughtful, brave piece pointed out, having the name of Missoula smeared is a small price to pay if it leads to change. (I haven't read the book yet, will get to it eventually.)

7. I've had some great feedback from many of you about what works and what doesn't in this new blog, and also I've been poking around some and looking at other blogs. I've discovered that I'm not alone in being conflicted and frustrated by all the hormonal crap that goes with menopause. No one has had quite the same experience I have, but it makes sense that everyone experiences it a little bit (or a lot) differently. So in spite of the fact that I seem to have upset some of my readers, I'm not going to shy away from being honest about my experience. The good news is that things are already better. I'm still having bad times and even entire bad days, but I've also started having some moments where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel--moments where I feel better than I've felt in years. I'm hanging in. I'll get there.

Also, on a more mundane note, Laurel pointed out that for those who don't have a feed set up, it's nice to have a predictable schedule of when posts will appear. So for the time being, I'm going to try to post on Tuesdays and Fridays. We'll see how it works.

What I've Learned from Volunteering at the Food Bank

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've been working at the food bank for about nine months now. I'm not one of the stalwarts who work there as a full-time job, though, I just volunteer for a four-hour shift on Tuesdays. Here are a few of the things I've learned.

• When you're restocking desserts, everyone's your friend.
• There are a few obese people, but not nearly as many as you'd expect. And they're not always the ones picking up a dozen cupcakes, either. That person is likely to be a mom who is thrilled that she will have cupcakes to take to her kid's school on his birthday.
• The kids who accompany their parents to the food bank are, on average, far better behaved than the kids I see at the grocery store.
• For every person who is there looking for full-fat milk and white bread, there is someone else that is thrilled there is hummus and almond milk this week. Well, OK, that's an exaggeration. Probably for every TWO white bread people there is someone who wants hummus, but you get the idea.
• I don't need to rush around in a panic to get everything out. I'm almost over my bleeding heart panic stage (HURRY! THE POOR PEOPLE ARE ALMOST OUT OF ORANGE JUICE!). If I take my time and wait patiently when there's a knot of people I need to move through, everyone (including me) is happier and less stressed. And if I take my time, I notice people more, the real individuals, not just a crowd.
• Many of our clients are funny, kind, and intelligent. Some of them have obvious physical disabilities or illnesses. For the most part, they are patient and grateful. Occasionally I hear entitled griping, but not nearly as often as I hear genuine gratitude for the work we do.
• There's such a thing as helping too much. I was guilty of this several times when I first started (and I still have to fight it). Example: not long after I started, a trans woman showed up. I can't even imagine how much courage it takes to live in this small, conservative town as a trans, so I was practically falling all over myself to help her find things. I think it came across as condescending, though, because she's avoided me ever since. My new motto is to be friendly, kind, and patient, but hang back a bit and wait till someone asks for help. As should have been obvious from the start, most people are pretty competent to figure things out for themselves.

If you ever need to use the food bank, pay attention to how things work and ask questions (politely) to help you figure things out. There are better and worse times of day to come based on when deliveries arrive and what's happening generally. Much of the food we distribute comes from local grocery stores, so the week after a holiday is a great time to pick up desserts (after Valentine's Day, we were practically shoving pink cakes into people's carts). Local fishermen donated so much fish last fall that people were getting sick of it (salmon? again?).

I was thinking while I was restocking milk and juice today about Jesus's phrase "The poor you will have always with you." It's used too often as an excuse to not help the poor and disadvantaged. But where it works best for me is in learning to moderate my own desire to help against the endless need out there. There's no way to phrase it without sounding smug and complacent, because obviously I could do more than I do. I could do way more. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, it's a little silly that I should make any claim at all that I've done enough to deserve a break. But at some point I can stop. Maybe that's all I will say about that.

Blog thoughts

It never occurred to me that creating a new blog would take so much thought and strategizing. For some reason I thought that I would just start the new blog, keep writing posts, and voilà--new blog.

But it hasn’t turned out to be quite that simple. On the old blog, within a week of publishing a new post, I would have 20-30 pageviews. If it was something that people found interesting enough to share, I might get 50 or even considerably more. That’s plenty for me. As I’ve said before, I’m not interested in world blog domination.

But for some reason, those readers haven’t transferred over. In this blog, a week after I’ve put up a new post, there are one or maybe two readers. And although those two readers mean the world to me, it doesn’t quite seem worth the effort of maintaining a blog for the three of us. I could just type things out and email them, you know?

So I started doing status updates on Facebook when I put a new post up. That worked great--the first time I did it, I had over a hundred pageviews, an enormous success even by my old standards. But then the next time there were about 45 pageviews, and the time after that, only 17. Which is a little demoralizing, to put it mildly.

Also, at some point a bunch of people un-friended me, which could be completely unrelated, but it’s hard not to take it personally. Really? It was that bad? I’m not sure exactly when it happened, because I didn’t notice until yesterday. I'm paranoid enough to think that I embarrassed myself with my ranting last week, but then I go back and read that post, and it just doesn't embarrass me. Maybe it should, but it doesn't.

Or maybe it was because I dropped an f-bomb. Profanity doesn't bother me all that much. (although I've been reading the Thug Kitchen cookbook, which takes the use of profanity to knew and untold heights and causes even me to raise an eyebrow. whoa.) But I know it is a total deal-breaker to many people. After all, my parents--fully grown adults--use(d) phrases like "H-E-double hockey sticks" and "mell of a hess" to avoid saying the word hell, which barely even qualifies as profanity on my personal scale.

Whatever. I’ve always said that the reason I do this is for me, and that is absolutely true. The benefit I get from typing stuff out and posting it far outweighs the minor embarrassment of finding out that most people don’t find it worth reading. But I’m feeling a bit burned at the moment. So, no more Facebook updates for awhile, which means for the time being, it's just us.

Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow

Tucked up behind a lamp on our deck

The funny thing about a blog is that if you don't post for awhile, it looks like nothing has happened. But usually, probably, the opposite is the case--you're not posting because you're too busy to sit down and type. Or whatever else is going on. At the moment, unfortunately, none of our goings on are interesting enough to make into a blog post, unless your idea of a good time is to hear about me being sick and sitting on the couch reading. And then, I turned the page! And then, I turned another page!

So back to celebrating midlife.... Celebration #7: We've been around for some great music. Dean and I were staining the uprights on our deck this weekend (once I started feeling better) and listening to the Oldies playlist on my phone. Lots of great stuff back there. I should be embarrassed to admit that I love the old pop stuff just as much as the classic rock, but I'm not.

I've got Elvin Bishop singing "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" and Earth Wind and Fire's "September" right next to "Fool in the Rain" and "Southern Cross." As old as we are, we're actually a bit young for the classic rock stuff. When we started college in 1979, there were plenty of aging hippies still hanging out on campuses telling us that we were sellouts and that we missed the glory days of student activism. They could be pretty annoying, but they were also playing all their old music, which I grew to love.

So I get it, and I have days where I drive around getting my Led out, but I also love "Good-bye Yellow Brick Road" and "Heat of the Moment," even "Can't Smile Without You." There. I said it. Maybe there should be a 12-step group.

I'm all right, don't nobody worry about me. you got to give me a fight, why don't you just let me be?

OK, sorry. If you're my age, now we'll both have it in our heads all day.

We're headed to Seattle this weekend because our amazing daughter is graduating from her pre-clinical training. They're not completely done yet, so it's not a full-scale graduation, but it's Friday afternoon at the big fancy symphony hall downtown. Mom brag. So I get 1. a road trip, 2. to see my awesome daughter, 3. stay with beloved frequent commenter Laurel, 4. visit Seattle, one of my very favorite cities. That's enough to snap me out of any funk.

More next week.

*feeling slightly embarrassed that I vented all over you yesterday*

It occurs to me that I probably should not leave you hanging, worried that I'm about to dump kerosene over the house and drop a match on it, or murder poor Dean in his sleep. Fortunately for me, it almost always cheers me up to write things out and post them (one of the main reasons I have a blog), so I've already evened out a bit. Which isn't to say the black stuff won't come back--I suspect it takes a couple of years to get through the last dregs of the legacy of hormones-- but at least I'm not in immediate danger of going up in flames.

There are several other completely unrelated things I could go on and on about, but I'm tired so I'll save them for another time.

further adventures in midlife crisis

I've had a kind of rough couple of days, so it's time to celebrate some more. I need to concentrate on the positive here.

The next thing I'm ready to celebrate about being middle-aged is (Celebration #4): we've already been through a full 25-year cycle of fashion, so we remember the current fashions the last time they were popular. I was around the last time maxi-dresses were in style, so I already know that five years from now we're going to wonder what the hell were we thinking? I can save myself the grief and not wear them.

Celebration #5: We don't expect to be happy every single minute. This one has been major for me. When I was younger, I would get to a good place and be happy and think,  this is how it's going to be for the rest of my life. Then I'd get stressed or busy or down about something and wonder what was wrong. But at 53, I know that nobody is happy every single minute. Enjoy the good moments when they come. Don't get too upset when they go. The good times come back, the bad times eventually go away.

Celebration #6: We know that you don't have to wait until everyone around you is happy to be happy yourself. You can be happy even if your friend is down (although you might want to be careful not to rub it in her face). You aren't responsible for making everyone around you happy before you can be happy yourself.

You know what? fuck it. I don't feel like celebrating today. Here's the real thing I'm dealing with: I'm pissed. I seem to be pissed all the time. I know women who sail through menopause like it's no big deal--one woman told me, "I wish I'd known that was going to be my last period. Maybe I would have done something to mark the occasion. But they just stopped. I've had no symptoms before or since."

I seem to be at the opposite pole. The three years before my last period were the most miserable of my life, health-wise--floodlike periods, migraines, depression. Thank God, the health part of it is way better now. Now I'm just a fountain of negativity, bitterness, and anger.

Here's my theory. You know if they pump lab rats full of testosterone, the rats become aggressive, violent. If they pump them full of estrogen, they nest, they make everything nice for everybody around them. What if estrogen masks what you're really feeling? Maybe now that my body isn't producing estrogen so much anymore, suddenly I'm having to deal with every little bit of anger and frustration that I avoided for the sake of nesting for the past --oh, how long was I cycling? Forty years?

It's not like I never got angry before, but this is different. This is like a well of dark, bitter, ugly stuff that bubbles up and I can't get to the bottom of it. I'm doing my best to just have faith. Everything I know from psychology, Buddhism, Christianity, even just my experience with life, tells me that if I just keep letting it go, eventually I'll get to the bottom of it. But I'm starting to be afraid that I'm just turning into a dried up, bitter old shrew.

At least I do have some skills for dealing with it these days. I used to have that "I'm feeling angry and I'm pushing it away at the same time" thing going on--like when you're letting yourself indulge in chocolate, but at the same time you're thinking I shouldn't be doing this I shouldn't be doing this I shouldn't be doing this. I mean, if you're going to indulge, you have to just let go of the guilt and the shame and indulge, or else what's the point?

And I think the same thing applies with all this negative stuff. I've got it, but I don't want to have it, so at the same time I'm feeling it, I'm pushing it away. I hate feeling like this, I don't want to feel this, I shouldn't feel like this.

Now I know I've got to stop with the pushme-pullyou thing and immerse myself. It's the only way to get where I want to go. But God, it sucks.

7ToF: You Walk Like an Ace Now

1. Here is the heron that visited the pond out in front of our house for a couple of days last week:

2. The post title: song ID anyone? Dean is off today, so we went to the new Thai restaurant for lunch. That song came on while we were eating and I was impressed to find out that he knew every single word. Sometimes you can still surprise each other after 30 years. Practically 31, our anniversary is at the end of the month. The Thai food was good, but having my own private Beach Boys concert? Priceless.

3. The other significance of the post title (you walk like an ace now, you walk like an ace now), is that I participated in a 100-mile challenge in April. Everybody else was running or riding their bikes, so I was at a major disadvantage since my knees allow neither of those activities. I made it to 61 miles walking, though, which is not bad considering that the weather sidelined me for several days earlier in the month.

4. Have I told you about volunteering at the Food Bank? I've been working a four-hour shift on Tuesdays since last fall. It's really fun, but also a lot of hard work. I don't think I've had a job that was purely manual labor since I was in high school (work crew at Pine Cove, as I know several of you remember). I'm in charge of restocking the coolers with milk/yogurt and deli products. On Tuesday nights I can barely even sit up I'm so tired. It's great. If you're looking for a place to volunteer, I highly recommend calling your local food bank.

5. Another in my collection of Easy Recipes that Are Far More Amazing Than They Should Be: a friend of mine told me about gluten-free peanut butter cookies that a co-worker brought to their office that were about the best cookies she'd ever had. I thought I bet the recipe is on the internet because OF COURSE IT IS (here you go). The reason they're gluten free is because they're flourless. If you don't want to click on the link, here's what you do: stir together 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 egg. I also added a couple of shakes of salt and about half a cup of mini chocolate chips, and I used half brown sugar and half white, just because I like the flavor of brown sugar. Bake at 350 for ten minutes. Yum.

6. Interesting Things to Read Around the Internet Department: The Moral Bucket List. David Brooks' list of things that moral people do appeared in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but I was really intrigued by his idea that there is a set of skills that you can learn to develop inner character. "Résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. Eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful." The religion of my childhood concentrated on whether or not you believed the right thing--i.e., getting your theology straight--rather than making the world a better place. This column is purely secular talk about creating meaning by living a richly moral life. Maybe a bit preachy at times, but also thought-provoking.

7. I went through quite a bit of torment over posting a picture of myself --these pictures have been on my phone for weeks while I decided whether or not I wanted to post them-- but I wanted to make a point. The picture is two halves--the top half is me before I put on my makeup, the bottom half is after. I was going to tell you about what a huge difference it makes and how silly it is that I can't make myself do it most days because the time difference between the two pictures is six minutes. How can I not have six minutes to do this?

Then I spent twenty minutes cropping the pictures, merging them into one file, uploading them, etc etc, and during the upload, blogger stripped out most of the resolution. So now the two pictures look almost exactly the same. So really, what's the point? You can tell I have mascara on, but not much else.

But I did all that work. So here you go: this is the first and possibly only time I will post a picture of me by myself in this blog.  :-)

Happy weekend, Happy May, happy happy.