7ToF: November podcast roundup

This is going up late, which most of you probably won't even notice, but if you did, apologies. I wrote almost two entire posts yesterday but they were both so meandering that I decided to spare you. Either I'll work on them and repost them, or I'll ditch them. By the time I'd finished those, I was out of ideas. And by the way, this got really long and wordy, so save it for when you have time.

1. The only podcast I listen to every week, usually on the day it comes out, is What Should I Read Next, a podcast for readers hosted by Anne Bogel. Highly recommended. Of course some episodes are better than others, but I have yet to listen to a bad one, and the most recent one with book recommendations for Christmas gifts was great.

The rest of these I listen to whenever I need to pass the time on a drive or whatever, so some of them are old episodes even though I only listened to them recently.

2. Happier podcast, episode 185, Create a Facts of Life Book. Gretchen and Liz, the hosts, recommend putting together a document or a notebook that has all your accounts and passwords and whatever information your surviving spouse or children or executor would need if something happened to you (I created a spreadsheet because I loooooove me some spreadsheets). I've been meaning to do this for years, so it was an excellent reminder. They have lots of good tips in this episode and then more ideas from their listeners a couple of episodes later.

I'm the one in our family who handles most of the financial stuff, so it only took a couple of hours to put it together. But if I'm in an ICU for ten days somewhere, or some unspecified worse scenario, it will enable someone else to step in and figure out what bills are on auto-pay, which ones aren't, what automatic online subscriptions we have (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc), where our long-term care insurance is, or whatever else they need to know.

3. The funny thing is, though, that I was really paranoid about it. I did it the day before I was leaving on a trip, and I had this freakishly unshakable feeling that if I did this, I would die on the trip. So if you have a similar feeling, I am happy to report that I have been on three trips since then-- one solo, and two with Dean-- and I am still alive and healthy. It was really weird how strong that feeling was. The only thing that got me to push through it was thinking, well, if I really am about to die, then this really is necessary.

4. On the By the Book podcast, the hosts Kristen and Jolenta read a self-help book and try to live by it for a week, then report back on how it worked (so you listen to two episodes to get the full report). I find them somewhat annoying, because they often gleefully bash books that have been helpful to thousands of readers and then get their feelings hurt when people bash back. (What did you expect?) But, on the other hand, they usefully summarize the contents of various books, so I don't have to read them, and that is a total win. And also I usually agree with them when they're bashing, so it's not so bad (their episode on The Secret was hilarious).

5. On their August 16, 2018 episode, they read a book called The Curated Closet, about figuring out what to wear and how to organize your closet. I almost didn't listen to this one, because as you know I've already obsessed about closet organization and decluttering, and I am not one to think much about what clothes I wear beyond do I have a clean pair of jeans, but it ended up being pretty helpful. The author recommends pulling your favorite outfits out of the closet, the ones that are the most comfortable and make you feel most like yourself, and then figuring out what makes them work. Then once you've got that figured out, clear out the stuff that doesn't meet that criteria, and more importantly don't buy anything new that doesn't fit that criteria. I haven't actually done this yet, but I've thought about it a lot and it has been useful. Also it has helped me avoid making a couple of recent purchases that I probably would have otherwise.

6. I'm still listening to Enneagram podcasts. I'm less enamored of the system than I was at first, because that's what happens, I think. At first, it's so helpful and it explains so much, and then the more you dig into it, the more you start realizing some pretty unlikeable things about yourself that you'd been blind to before. That has helped me understand why it's so popular with Evangelicals these days (even though it's not at all bible-based), because it's like the doctrine of original sin. If you dig down far enough, you are bad.

That's not the only way to take it, of course, but certain Enneagram experts really do take it that direction (no surprise, the books by Evangelical authors are most likely to do this). But I can't tell you how helpful the Enneagram has been for me, as someone who approaches life through their intellect, to get a handle on certain things about myself I've never understood. I'm in an entirely different place than I was a few months ago when I wrote this post, and although there are several reasons for that, the main one, I think, is the enneagram studying I've done. Podcasts to try: Enneagram for Idiots (lots of NSFW language, but fun and interesting), Typology, and Conscious Construction.

7. I've just recently started listening to The Liturgists, which has three hosts who discuss Christianity from an informed and non-dogmatic point of view. Their third episode on reading the Bible was fascinating. And they just recently completed a five-part series where they asked various people, "Do you identify as Christian? Why or why not?" So far, highly recommended.

Well, this got pretty long and wordy but maybe it will give you some good ideas for podcasts that might interest you. Have a great weekend.

I woke up way too early this morning

Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties and still on the fringes of evangelicalism, I was in a bible study made up of grad students. Most of us were there as part of a couple, but there were 3-4 single people, too. We'd been together for several years when one of the single people bravely spoke up one night about how difficult it was to be a single person in our group, because we all "coupled up" whenever there was a pause in the study.

It was my first adult experience with being confronted with an unconscious practice on my part that was hurting someone else and making them feel left out. I had the classic responses: denial (you're imagining it), we didn't mean to hurt you (#notallcouples), etc. But she was someone we all loved and valued, and eventually we got our act together, realized she was right, and changed.

I'm lucky my first experience with that sequence of events was a relatively minor thing, and so easily remedied. It gave me some early experience with how to handle similar experiences, because it still happens: oh, it can't be that bad. You must be imagining it. Well, even if it's true, we never meant to hurt you. (we! you!)

I'm reading Austin Channing Brown's book I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. The title says it all. I'm moderately woke, as they say. I can't claim any more than that, but I'm lucky to have had some experiences and some teachers (in the form of friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and actual teachers) who have helped me see my own blind spots.

But reading Brown's book, and the other memoirs by black women I've read this year, has opened my eyes to a whole new level of understanding of our culture and the biases that still live within me. It's difficult for me to admit that the current administration has any positives, but there's one: it brought out into the open the festering wells of racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and misogyny that have been building for years while those of us who cared thought we were past all that. Surely all that was left was fixing up the window dressing.

I think many of us who are progressives have been completely blindsided by the tenacity and virulence of our culture's attachment to The Way Things Are. I thought that given enough time to wake up, it would be as clear to social conservatives as it was to me that things needed to change. It was just a matter of helping them see, and once they could see, they would work as hard for change as the rest of us were.

But I didn't realize the power of the power structure. I didn't realize how tightly we would hold on, how defensive we would become, how bitterly we would object to change. There's a guy we studied in my intro-to-theory class in grad school (Althusser? I no longer remember which guy it was, but it was a guy, for sure) who theorized that none of us have any free will at all, we are all just "subject positions," expressions of our culture, acting out whatever the group-think needs to perpetuate itself. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous and extreme. Now it makes a lot of sense.

Sorry. It's 4:30 a.m. as I'm writing this. I forgot to write a post yesterday since we didn't get back from our trip till Sunday night and I was out of my usual routine all day yesterday. When I woke up at 3am, I opened my kindle expecting to drift back to sleep as I usually do. I picked up where I left off on I'm Still Here, and now I can't go back to sleep for outrage and sorrow. Her writing is remarkably free of bitterness and revenge, but it's not an easy read. Read it anyway. We have to wake up.

p.s. this has been a difficult post to word, because at the same time that I identify as "progressive" and as someone who is in favor of change and has been for a long time, I know that I still have work to do on myself. Sometimes I am they/them. Hence the awkward wording.

Best Laid Plans and all that-- Happy Thanksgiving!

I had planned to schedule two posts for this week while we're gone, but it's Monday afternoon and I can already tell it's not going to happen. So here are some pictures, one of the view to our south (carefully aimed so you can't see any houses), and two of our cat being a mighty huntress.

I hope you have a lovely holiday full of whatever you are thankful for-- food, family, football, and maybe also some things that don't start with f.  I am thankful for my readers. I'll be back next week.

7ToF: how much of this stuff can I take?

1. I had a bad migraine today (as I'm typing this, it's Thursday), so I'm not sure I'll make it to seven things today. But I'll give it a shot.

2. I've been having a lot more headaches than usual recently, which-- to be honest-- sucks. Plenty of people have worse health problems than I do, so I'm not going to complain too much, but when you have a headache for ten days in a row, it's hard not to get frustrated. And it's hard not to spend entirely too much time trying to figure out why. My usual is 1-2 headaches a week, and just a few months ago, I went nearly three weeks without having any headaches at all, so I know it doesn't have to be like this.

3. So I'm thinking about hormones again. I don't think I have many (any?) male readers right now, so I can be snarky and say I used to think it was unfair that women had to deal with hormonal issues so much. But we've been watching various sporting events recently and there are endless commercials about male hormones and testosterone supplements, so now I'm thinking eventually things even out.

4. I had a rough time with peri-menopause and menopause, including terrible migraines (much worse than now). But things got significantly better when I started using over-the-counter supplements like black cohosh (sold in combination with other herbs as Estroven and Remifemin), Dong Quai (a chinese herb that is supposed to balance female hormones), and a progesterone cream.

5. But you're not supposed to take them forever, so for the past couple of years I've been gradually phasing them out. The cream was the first thing to go. Last spring I stopped taking the dong quai and started cutting the Estroven tablets in half. This fall I switched from Estroven to Remifemin, which seems to me to be a little less potent (ymmv).

6. Now I'm wondering if I need to just stop taking them entirely. As someone who is headache prone, it's hard to tell if my recent increased headaches are because I'm taking too much of something, or not enough. Either way, my body would respond with headaches (I know that from experience). The only way to find out is to stop taking them entirely, but the last time I tried that-- last January-- it turned out to be premature (resulting in--you guessed it-- bad migraines). Maybe I could try every other day? Maybe I should stand on my head and hold my nose and take a quarter of a tablet? I swear that's what it feels like sometimes as I try to figure this stuff out. If you have any advice, please please let me know.

7. This isn't really seven things, obviously. I'm just numbering paragraphs. So let me see if I can think of something entirely different for #7. OK, here is something I haven't told you. We took advantage of one of the many pre-Black Friday sales to get a new TV. Our old one was at least 10 years old, did not support HD, and was pre-smart TV. The new one is not that big compared to what's available, but it's considerably bigger than our old one, and the picture is an order of magnitude better. I like it. So maybe we will spend the weekend watching movies.

There. Made it. Have a great weekend!

thinking about meditation (again)

Things have been a bit stressful around here recently. It's odd to me that the moments when it would be most useful to meditate, when I am most in need of calmness and serenity, are the exact moments when it doesn't occur to me to meditate. At all. As in, days will go by while I am wound so tightly I can barely sleep before it occurs to me-- huh. Maybe I should try meditating.

Last week when things were finally starting to slow down a bit, then I started meditating again. I've told you before that I'm terrible at the actual act of meditating. I'm lucky if I can quiet my brain for 30 seconds, let alone five or ten minutes.

But there are two reasons I keep doing it: one is because even though meditating feels like a fail while I'm doing it, I often feel the effects later. It seems pointless at the time, but if I can just sit there and let whatever thoughts and feelings I have wash over me, later on in the day, I will feel a perceptible drop in my stress level.

And the other reason is that meditating has taught me the trick of stepping off the hamster wheel in my brain. I may not be able to get my brain to stop, but I can create a little bit of space between me and the non-stop activity. I can back away from it and watch. Wow, look at that thing go.

Because go it does, all the time. (That's one of the reasons I read-- I know I've heard other readers say this, too. A really absorbing book distracts my brain, tricks it into resting.) And that trick, that ability to step off the hamster wheel, has been a lifesaver for me. The more I do it, the more I practice, the easier it becomes.

Except, apparently not when I'm really stressed. Then I forget all about it.

Anyway. Thinking about this got me back into investigating meditation again, so I've been listening to podcasts and reading Mark Epstein and Pema Chodron, and as sometimes happens, I heard/read several times in the space of a week different meditation teachers reminding me that we are all human animals. And as animals, we are first and foremost, before anything else, creatures-- the same way that a giraffe or a spider or a trout is a creature.

One morning as I read something along those lines, I happened to look up and see our dog, who can be the most irritatingly manic canine on the planet when she has a tennis ball in her mouth, looking calm and alert as something caught her attention out the window. 

Calmly alert: Sadie, meditation teacher extraordinaire

She sat there, in that same pose, for five minutes or so, completely calm, but also completely focused on whatever she was looking at. I'm not sure I could do that. #goals

7ToF: Backpedaling

1. I'm scrambling for post ideas, so I'm letting us all off the hook and ending the daily posting. I have no idea what I was thinking. Next week, back to the usual Tuesday and Friday, although I may miss a few since we are traveling for Thanksgiving.

2. Yup, that's right-- for the first time in more than twenty years, we are heading to Texas for Thanksgiving. We had a miserable experience traveling with toddler PellMel a very long time ago, and decided that it was not worth the trouble to fly over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. But for some reason this year we decided to do it. I'll let you know how it goes.

3. After seeing a reference to them on ArghInk, I've been reading Catherine Aird's Calleshire Chronicles mystery novels. I'm only on the third one, but so far, very fun, very British. The first one was published in 1966, but the most recent one came out in 2016. According to Google, Aird was born in 1930 and she is still alive. Part of the interest for me is seeing how much things have changed--sometimes it's hard to remember what things were like pre-Internet, pre-cell phones, pre-feminism, pre-NCIS.

4. Bodily concerns: In this post (scroll down to #5), I wrote about my difficulties with finding deodorant that didn't have aluminum in it. Now there is Kopari, a coconut-based deodorant that is hugely popular-- but fourteen freaking dollars. I decided to try it. Verdict: it's OK. I don't think it's worth the money compared to my previous choice Old Spice Wolfthorn (the deodorant, not anti-perspirant-- Wolfthorn comes in both). But Wolfthorn contains propylene glycol, which some people can't tolerate, and Kopari is "all natural," so YOU BE THE JUDGE.

5. To be fair, part of the reason I didn't love Kopari all that much is that I'm not a huge fan of coconut scented anything, unless it is food. Coconut cream pie, seven layer bars, piña colada? yum. Coconut-scented candles, hand lotion, or (apparently) deodorant? not so much. So if you love the smell of coconut, Kopari might be exactly what you need.

6. I started wearing my Fitbit again yesterday. It was a busy day, and I took the dog-who-is-not-getting-enough-exercise for a walk, so it was pretty easy to get to 10,000 steps. Today, only 5,000. Not sure exactly what I'm hoping to accomplish with this, but for some reason I thought I'd try it again.

7. Awhile ago I set a goal to start reading books I already own instead of buying new ones. Yeah, well, .... I did OK for awhile, but recently it's been a total fail. I'm afraid I have a bit of a distractibility problem when it comes to new books. You may have noticed. But inspired by Whitney Conard's Unread Shelf Project (on Instagram, @whitconard hashtag #unreadshelf2018), I'm trying again. I have dozens of books I really, seriously want to read waiting for me right there on my own shelves. I may not be entirely successful, but I can try.

Have a great weekend! Read a good book!

Nov 18 Day 8: when the weather outside is frightful

Suddenly it is cold here (the high today was 34), which reminds me of the best bits of cold weather advice I've collected over the years. Some of you will never need this, and then there are some of you who could probably contribute more. 

Nov 18 Day 7: the next day

Today's dilemma: I really, really do not like discussing politics-- not online, and not in person. But on the other hand, what else are we going to talk about the day after an election? I thought about pulling out some crazy, silly idea that would give the impression that what happened in the midterm elections was unimportant to me. But it is important to me, so I'm not doing that. Instead I'm going back to some writing advice I heard years ago in a writing seminar: when you get stuck, go small. Forget the big picture and go back to the details, the mundane, the everyday.

So here you go: it did finally snow yesterday. I'm writing this just before midnight on Tuesday, and there is about half an inch of very wet snow on the deck right now, with more on the way. We skyped with our kids for about half an hour tonight, but it was too early to talk about election results so we talked about MadMax's upcoming tests and Mel chimed in with advice for studying for exams, and we talked about plans for Thanksgiving. Sadie, our black lab, sometimes perks up when she hears the kids' voices, but tonight she slept through it. I'm learning a new song on the bells that is my first one where my hands are doing two different things, and it's hard.

And one more, ever so slightly political thought: the community choir I sing in rehearses on Monday night. There are about 80 of us, and although I've never talked politics there, I suspect that we're probably pretty evenly divided between conservatives and liberals. And you know what? The songs for our Christmas concert are starting to come together, and when all 80 of us are singing together on a crescendo, it is glorious. No one knows how we voted.

That's a pretty damn overly obvious metaphor, but I'm using it anyway.

Nov18 Day 6: Snow, Sand, it's all the same, right?

We were supposed to get our first snow last night-- in fact, it was supposed to start snowing at 3 am and still be snowing right this minute. So I didn't schedule a post overnight because I was going to brave the cold early this morning to take a picture of a cool, calm landscape for you (in direct contrast to the hot mess going on in the U.S. today). But when I woke up this morning there was not a snowflake to be seen, so you get beach photos instead. Stay calm out there. If you're on a slow connection, the rest of this post is all pictures.

Nov18 Day 5: I don't even answer the phone anymore

By the time you read this, it will be the day before the November midterm elections. I have no great wisdom to impart, no answers to give, just an observation to make: everyone, on both sides, is sick of this election. Everyone. I'm a moderately blue voter in the middle of a solidly red community, and I can tell you beyond any doubt that my conservative friends are just as sick of this as my liberal friends. We are all exhausted and demoralized to the point of despair. It seems to me that's worth thinking about.

You know, it occurs to me that our country needs a miracle. I wonder how you get one. Just start praying? (or whatever your prayer equivalent is) Sounds a bit crazy, but then, I've heard crazier things in the past couple of years. I'm going to try it.

7ToF: we borrowed the flux capacitor to go back to 1983, but Hertz had no DeLoreans available so we got a minivan instead

Well, the short version of what happened in October is nothing much.

1. But we did go to our 35th college reunion. For years it interfered with our kids' fall break, so we had never been to a reunion. But now that we're empty nesters, we could finally go. Dean and I met in college, at a school that he went to all four years, and I started as a junior transfer. (This was back in the day when almost everyone finished in four years. Imagine.) So really, this was Dean's deal-- I think most college students bond most strongly with their freshman friends, and he had a bunch of people he was looking forward to seeing.

2. But I was kind of dreading it, since over the years I've become progressively less social and less interesting. Also, I'm a frumpy 57-year-old who weighs 40 pounds more than I did in college, and I'm unemployed and not really all that sure what I want to do with my life. By the time we left, I had worked myself into a state of neurotic certainty that I was going to spend the weekend feeling like a total loser.

3. But you know what? People are kind, and for the most part friendly, and it ended up being a lot of fun. I did have to take a break a couple of times, but it was easy to go off for a walk or to skip an event, and it turned out fine. And it helped me get back in touch with a more idealistic, less cynical version of me, which was kind of nice.

4. Also, it helped me realize that I really don't want to be any age other than the one I am-- so maybe I am finally through my midlife crisis. *throws confetti* When a woman we ate lunch with tried to start a conversation about how being 57 is the new 35, she didn't get very far because none of us really wanted to be 35 again.Why can't 57 just be 57?

5. And then of course we were pretty much the coolest people there since the rental car agency was nearly out of normal-sized sedans by the time I got around to making our reservation, so the cheapest option was-- a minivan. Nothing says cool like pulling up to your 35th reunion in a Chrysler Pacifica.

6. We had a gorgeous, sunny October with spectacular fall colors. But by the time we got back from our trip, it was cooler and raining--November weather, right on time. Honestly, after a long stretch of sunny weather, I don't mind a little rain. It puts me in the mood to sit by the fire and read mystery novels. Now I just need to find the time to sit by the fire and read mystery novels.

7. So I had my mini-trip to Oregon and Seattle back at the beginning of October, and I had a second mini-trip to the reunion, and those two breaks really did work to re-charge my battery. Here's a midlife celebration: long-term friends. Dare I say, old friends. I got to see a bunch of them this month, and it's a beautiful and luxurious thing to be able to spend time with people you've known and loved for decades.

I am, of course--now that I've committed myself to it-- wondering why in the world I decided to do the November posting thing again. I will try not to bore you. Or me.

Have a great weekend, and I will be back on Monday.

November 2018, Day 1: re-starting

Hi!! I had decided to start reposting again with this Friday's post, but this morning I woke up, realized it was November first, and remembered that for three (four?) years in a row, I participated in a daily posting challenge during November. So I spontaneously decided to do it again, but with my own twist. The first is that I only post on weekdays (I've done that every time but the first), and the second is new this year: I'm going to try to keep them short-- a paragraph or two. You know how good I am at short posts, so don't over-expect here, but I will do my best. Sort of like if I took a Seven Things on Friday post and broke it into seven parts. We'll see how well I do at that. I will probably do one "real" Seven Things post this coming Friday, because I have lots of things to tell you that happened this month.

And just to show that I really am going to keep these short, that's all for today. After the first ten days or so, I missed posting while I was gone, so I am happy to get started again. See you tomorrow!!