7ToS: OOPS

1. Sign of a good vacation: you lose track of what day it is. We are in Florida, where we go every other year with my mom and sisters for the week between Christmas and New Year's. The weather is truly, epically awful this year (it started raining about 11 this morning and never stopped), but we are managing to have a good time anyway.  And you are getting Seven Things on Saturday instead of Friday because I didn't realize what day it was until it was too late.

2.  There are seventeen of us in a big VRBO house, but it's way calmer than it used to be because our collective youngest kid is now 12. No toddlers waking up at dawn these days, which--predictably enough-- I kind of miss.

3. With the weather so awful, we're all grateful that there are a bunch of fun movies to see. We went to Mary Poppins this afternoon, and we'll probably make it to Aquaman, Bumblebee, and maybe Mary Queen of Scots before we go home. (we saw Spidey-Verse before we left and definite thumbs up). No one has ever accused us of having good taste.

4.The promised "what's not working for me" list: This was much harder to think of than the list of what's working that I posted on Tuesday. In fact, for the "what's working" list I thought of another one. What's really working for me right now is carrying a couple of reusable shopping bags in my purse. I use the standard sized ones from Baggu, which come in great patterns and can be rolled up cylinder-style and stashed vertically in a corner of my bag, but anything you like is better than getting a dozen plastic bags every week at the grocery store. The resuable bags usually hold as much as three plastic bags, so you don't need as many trips to carry your groceries in, either.

(If you need motivation for that one, just Google "pictures of plastic pollution." The results make me slightly sick to my stomach.)

5.OK, so what's not working? I need to do better about getting some cardio into my day. When the weather is better, we frequently go for walks. But in the winter, I get really sluggish. I have a treadmill just a few steps away from my bed, and I'm one of the rare people that doesn't mind treadmilling once I get on it. I have audiobooks and podcasts and music to listen to. It's just the mental hurdle of doing it. If you know me IRL, next time you see me ask me if I'm walking.

6.  Not working: I need to be a better friend. Those of you who only see me every few months may not realize how bad I am about this (or maybe you do). I don't even know how to start. This may be a multi-year project. My temptation is to go to the library and start reading up on it, but in this particular case that may not be the best approach, since diving into books and research is one of the things that keeps me from being a good friend. At a minimum, I need to be more intentional about setting up coffee dates or going for walks or whatever. I've been so antisocial this year that I've mostly just waited until people contact me rather than being proactive.

7. Not working: My stalled project from last year to read books I already own instead of buying new ones. I've already talked about this so much that I don't think I need to say more than that. Or I could say what's not working is the stalled clean-out-the-storeroom under the stairs project. I did pretty well on the rest of the house, but I still haven't tackled the most packed, cluttered space we have.

So maybe I could just categorize those two as "I need to continue to chip away at big projects."

That's all for now. I'm suddenly so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. This vacation thing is exhausting. Have a great weekend.

What's Working, 2018 edition

I know I should write something thoughtful and inspiring since this will go up on Christmas day. Something about gratitude and the birth of the light in the midst of great darkness, yadda yadda yadda. But I can't quite get there today.

I had plenty of Christmas spirit this year-- more than I've had in four or five years now. It's just that we did our family Christmas when PellMel and her boyfriend were here ten days ago, so I've had this strange feeling that Christmas is over even though it hasn't happened yet.

We don't even have any presents left to open. It will be a strange Christmas day for us, since we're not doing our traditional Christmas brunch with our neighbors, either. Maybe we will go to a movie or clean the bathrooms or something equally non-traditional.

I sincerely hope that you've got something more exciting to do on Christmas Day than to read my drivel anyway, so it's probably after Christmas as you're reading this. Ergo: I'm not going to write about Christmas. So there.

Which means I have to think of something to write about. OK. Anne Bogel does a list she calls "what's working for me, and what's not" on her blog at the end of the year. Maybe I will try something similar. (later: this got way too long. Like Anne, I'm dividing it up into two parts.)

What's working for me right now:

(note-- I started clicking around and reading other people's similar posts while I was working on this, and for two of the following things that are working for me, I found someone else who said the exact opposite was working for them. ymmv, as always.)

- I'm still doing squats and stretches in the shower. It's still helping me feel stronger and more fit.

- Taking a shower as soon as I get up. When I stopped working last spring, I got into the leisurely habit of waiting to take my shower until I was getting ready to leave the house. That --first of all-- meant that I would frequently be late to wherever I was going because I would underestimate how much time I needed to get ready. It also meant that I was losing a lot of the benefit of a daily shower (waking up, steaming my sinuses open, doing my stretches, etc). Heading for the shower as soon as I get out of bed works much better.

- Carrying a real pen-and-paper weekly planner in my purse (i.e., non-digital). I need to see my week laid out in front of me, and I've always benefited from writing things down and making lists. Carrying a real calendar instead of trying to keep it in my head or on my phone has been a game changer for me. (Although I do make extensive use of phone reminders.)

- Breaking big tasks down into small, manageable chunks. And by manageable, I mean an amount of work that I can get done in 5-10 minutes. I'm a little bit ADD, and I can have trouble sometimes with starting projects, getting overwhelmed, and giving up. Breaking it up into do-able pieces has helped me get more things done.

- Limiting my sugar intake to the afternoon (i.e., no sweets in the morning or evening). Mid-afternoon is when I usually want something sweet, anyway. And also, it gives my body time to metabolize the carbs before I go to bed. I am really happy with this one, although it admittedly has been difficult to be strict about it during the holidays.

- Writing book reviews on Goodreads. I always thought that it was kind of pretentious to think that people wanted to know your opinion about a book. But I realized this year that you don't do it for other people, you do it for yourself. I doubt anyone else ever reads them (with the possible exception of my brother-in-law). It only takes 5-10 minutes to write a quick review when I finish a book, and it really helps me remember what the book is about, when I read it, and what I thought of it.

So there you have it. I'll combine what's not working with my Seven Things on Friday. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyeux Noel, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, Happy Festivus, or whatever works for you. Have a good day.

7ToF: 2018 books worth reading

1. Here is my list of books I read in 2018 that were worth reading. I used to do this every year, but I don't think I have in awhile. If you want the reader's digest version, hmmmm..... I think my top favorites were Brown Girl Dreaming, A Tale for the Time Being, and A Gentleman in Moscow for fiction, and Columbine for non-fiction.

Carry on for the full list.

2. Fiction:  
- Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Not exactly page turners, but you fall in love with the characters. I didn't want either one of them to be over.
 - A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Starts out with a conventional literary story about two unconnected people, a Japanese teen and a writer living on the west coast of Canada. Their lives overlap more and more as the story goes on. The ending requires major suspension of disblief but it worked for me. 
- Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Terrifically good writing, but I seriously do not agree with reviewers who say that her biggest accomplishment is making the drug addict mom into a sympathetic character because SHE IS NOT. FEED YOUR CHILDREN, YOU DEADBEAT. But it's still a good book.  
- Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie. Two English professors, one middle aged and female, one young and male, spend their sabbatical in London (and no, they do not have an affair, which is what I was expecting from the blurb, although their lives overlap in interesting ways).

3. Non-fiction: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Confederates in the Attic, Lost City of the Monkey God, Reality is Not What it Seems (about quantum physics!! and I read it! and it was good!), The Art of Memoir (Mary Kerr), and Columbine. Columbine (by Dave Cullen) isn't an easy read, but it's not as awful as I was afraid it would be, either, and it is fascinating. It is probably the best book I read this year, even though it was published in 2009.

4. Mysteries: The Dry by Jane Harper. A Melbourne police detective returns to his rural hometown for the funeral of his childhood best friend and then things get complicated. Several by Catherine Aird, which I already told you about. I made myself take a break so I wouldn't get tired of them, but I'm still enjoying them. Some of them are better than others (of course). I'm also slowly working my way through Donna Leon. I read two by Tana French (The Likeness and Faithful Place) and liked them both, but both required major suspension of disbelief (for different reasons).

5. Memoirs: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, We're going to Need more Wine by Gabrielle Union, I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell, Plan B by Anne Lamott, Calypso by David Sedaris.

6. Kids/Young Adult: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, The Red Pencil, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, El Deafo by CeCe Bell, The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang.

7. One 2018 new year's resolution that I did pretty well on was to track my reading on Goodreads. I also decided that I would write a review for every book I read. I didn't do quite as well on that one-- I think I missed half a dozen or so-- but if you want to read any of them, click here and scroll down a bit.

Happy Solstice! By the time you read this, we will be on the other side of the winter dark and headed toward the light again. Have I told  you recently how much I appreciate you, my gentle readers? (Especially if you waded through to the end of this one.) Have a lovely, relaxing holiday, and let me know your best reads of the year in the comments.

The Lazy Person's Guide to Eggs Benedict

Last week was insane. You might have been able to tell since I didn't post. I had two rehearsals, three performances (two choir and one band), and since our daughter could only be home last week, we had our family Christmas on Saturday-- so all the shopping and planning and etc. But now I'm done with all that and I hope I can just enjoy the rest of the holiday season.

There are a bunch of things I've been thinking about and would like to write about eventually, but it's late in the day today, so we're going with practical advice instead: I am going to pass along my treasured recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. You were hoping I would, right?

Dean's family always had eggs benedict for Christmas breakfast. So I tried to continue the tradition. But after a few years of being totally stressed out on Christmas morning with toasting english muffins, poaching eggs, browning canadian bacon, making hollandaise from scratch-- I gave up. There was one year we had bagels with lox and cream cheese and all the trimmings, and I think we tried something else one year.

AND THEN!!! I discovered the Desperation Dinner recipe for Eggs Benedict Casserole. It takes about fifteen minutes to throw together the night before, it bakes in less than an hour, and you make the hollandaise in the microwave, which is almost foolproof. It is now one of our favorite meals, and MadMax requests it whenever he can convince me to do it.

So here you go, just in time for the holidays. This is a modified version of the original from this cookbook. I double the recipe and put one and a half  in a 10x15 ceramic casserole, and the remaining half in a 8x8 pan with no canadian bacon for the vegetarians (it is still not vegan, of course, since it has eggs and several dairy products). The double recipe serves 8-10 people, although around here that has always included several people with big appetites so it might go further with your crowd if you are dainty eaters.

Eggs Benedict Casserole
6 English muffins
10 oz canadian bacon
8 large eggs
2 C milk
two good-sized pinches of salt
one small pinch of pepper
a couple of shakes of powdered onion

Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Cut up the english muffins and canadian bacon in bite size pieces and put them in the prepared pan. Toss to evenly distribute. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until the yolks and whites are combined. Add the milk and seasonings and whisk to combine. Pour this mixture evenly over the muffins and bacon. Use a wooden spoon to press the muffins down into the egg mixture so that everything is moistened. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 350. Bake the casserole, still covered with foil, for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the muffins are just beginning to brown. During the last ten minutes, make the hollandaise. Just before serving, pour about half the Hollandaise over the casserole, and pass the rest in a gravy boat.

(There may be some standing liquid in various pockets on top of the casserole once it starts to brown--it's better not to overbake this thing, so I usually just blot it up with a paper towel.)

Microwave Hollandaise Sauce:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard

Melt the butter in a smallish microwave-safe bowl. Let cool slightly. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Whisk them gently into the butter. Add the whipping cream and lemon juice and stir until combined. Microwave the mixture on high, uncovered, stopping every 20 seconds to whisk, until thickened. Stir in 1 t Dijon mustard. If you have a large mouth thermos, this can be made up to an hour ahead and held in the thermos until ready to serve.

Wisdom of the Hollandaise: every year, every single freaking year, halfway through I think this isn't going to work. But it does. Don't get impatient. Just stand there, set the microwave for 20 seconds, take it out and stir, and then do it again. And again. For about 3 or 4 minutes. At first it looks like nothing is happening. And then it actually gets thinner and you start to despair. And then finally suddenly the top of it will start to look like it's puffing up. Whisk it back down into the liquid and do it one last time. Usually it only takes one more time after the top puffs. Don't overdo it-- remember with microwave cooking, it will continue to cook for a minute or so after you stop, so as soon as it thickens up, stop. (If you keep going, the sauce will break--turn into an oily mess--and yes, I know that from experience.)

There you have it. If the hollandaise makes you nervous, do a trial run a few days before. It really does work just fine, but I admit I've gotten better with practice.

p.s. I could swear I've posted this before but after 15 minutes of searching, I couldn't find it. So for those of you who've been around for awhile, you may have already seen this.

7ToF: take a long ride on my motorbike

1. Here we are again, sim-ply--hav-ing--a wonderful Christmas time!! For better or for worse, I'm one of those who love Christmas. I love the music, and the movies; I get all sentimental as I'm unpacking the Christmas decorations; I love getting Christmas cards, even the family newsletters.

2. But I know not everyone does. So for those of you who bear with the Christmas onslaught with gritted teeth and mounting depression, I hope you can find creative ways this year to get through it. There should be a badge or a lapel pin or a secret handshake so the anti-Xmasers can find each other.

3. This week's interesting read: an article in The Atlantic about parks that allow kids to explore and experiment without adult supervision (it was actually published in 2014 but I just ran across it a couple of days ago). We all assume that the world isn't as safe as it used to be, but the idea of these parks makes me happy. Back in the day, we ran all over the neighborhood, walked to school nearly a mile away, and played with matches (although only after my mom lit a single hair on fire to show us how flammable human hair is). All without adult supervision.

4. But I'm definitely not encouraging you to get nostalgic about the past. In fact, it occurred to me this week that maybe that's part of the problem we're having these days-- all of our visions of the future are dystopian, while we watch endless Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies that idealize small-town rural living as if it were still 1956. I enjoy living in a small town, but I can promise you that not everyone is warm-hearted, generous, and tolerant (for example, me). For every good thing about small town life (and there is a lot that is good), there's a downside. Why can't we imagine an urban future that is vibrant, friendly, positive? I don't know-- no answers, I've just been thinking about this.

5. I bought an Instant Pot when they were on sale over Labor Day weekend, but I hadn't even taken it out of the box until this week. I've made a couple of things with it now, and I'm impressed. It's definitely not instant-- you still have to chop onions or whatever, and the cook time that the recipe specifies doesn't include the time it takes to come up to pressure, or to release pressure when you're done. But it does all happen in one pot, which makes it seem simple. I think I'm going to like it.

6&7. We went to see Bohemian Rhapsody this past weekend. I told you about my love for Queen on Tuesday, and I've written about it before in this post. Also back when I was trying to write novels, one of my favorite scenes I ever wrote was a woman my age who breaks her ankle, and in the backseat of her daughter's boyfriend's ancient car, high on percodan on the way home from the ER, she belts out the entire six minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody. So I have a history with Queen, and I wasn't sure if I'd like the movie, especially given the terrible reviews.

It is easy to pick it apart-- it's more than a little weird that Brian May and Roger Taylor were involved and they made themselves out to be pretty blameless; the costumes look like something you'd see at your office 70s party, and could they not afford decent wigs? And why would you make Freddie's teeth worse than they were in real life? I was never able to forget that Rami Malek had a mouthpiece in. Good grief.

And then I came home and did some fact checking and discovered that it wasn't all that accurate. I loved Queen's music, but it was back in the days before the internet, so I didn't really know that much about them. You couldn't google "What is Freddie Mercury's real name?" and get an instant answer back then. They definitely played fast and loose with the facts and the timeline in the name of creating drama where there wasn't any--Queen never really broke up, and in fact had been touring together right before Live Aid; Roger Taylor put out a solo album before Freddie did; Freddie's AIDS diagnosis was probably a couple of years after LiveAid.

So I don't know what to tell you. In spite of all those reasons not to like it, I had a great time just listening to Queen's music on a massive sound-surround system for an hour and a half. In fact, I'm thinking about going to see it again. But if you don't like their music, it probably won't change your mind.

Have a great weekend. Stay warm out there -- we were down to single digits this morning.

You Light Up My Life! You Give Me Hope! to Carry On!

As you know, I was raised Evangelical, and I spent a considerable amount of energy in my twenties extricating myself. Evangelicalism (the way I experienced it) is a closed system. When you're inside, it makes perfect sense. You can build elaborate thought systems within Evangelicalism and it all works. Or maybe you never think about theology at all because everyone you know and love is in there with you, so there's no need to ask questions.

But then somehow you get a peek at what's outside (possibly because the whole edifice is starting to crack). And if your brain works like mine does, you start investigating it, because you can't not do that once you know there's more out there. And before you know it, the whole thing has fallen apart. You can't go back, because you've seen outside it, and you've realized how limited it is in there. Why would you want to go back in that claustrophobic little box?

I still know and love many Evangelicals, though, so I am never able to leave it entirely behind. Weeks will go by when I don't think about it at all, and then there will be weeks like the past month or so where everywhere I turn, I'm surrounded by Evangelicals.

Sometimes this is good--it reminds me why I love so many Evangelicals. And to be honest, I feel at home among Evangelicals. I'm pretty liberal as far as politics and theology go, but I'm a conservative person. I don't like to party and never have. I've never used recreational drugs of any kind. I can have a really foul mouth when I'm angry, but most of the time I don't swear much. I've been monogamous since I started dating Dean when I was 20. Among Evangelicals, that would be unremarkable. In a group of people who were raised in non-religious homes, I look like Debby Boone.

So it happens sometimes that I find myself hanging out in person or online with Evangelicals and enjoying it. There's no chance I'd ever go back to Evangelical theology, but it makes me remember what I miss about the kind of closeness that is fostered by hanging out with like-minded people. And I get lulled into thinking, hmmm, really we're not that different.

Until some touchy subject comes up, and then I realize, OH. OOPS. Nope, this is not working for me. NOT AT ALL. In the past month, this has happened in three different online situations I've been following-- an online bookclub and two podcasts. We're going along just great, and I'm thinking, hey! wow! this is working! And then suddenly it's not. I can still listen/read there, but I'm no longer under any illusion that my opinions would be acceptable to them.

On a slightly tangentially related topic: here is a story from my past that I remembered while I was hanging out with the Evangelicals recently. I've mentioned the Popcast before, a podcast about pop culture whose hosts Knox and Jamie are sharp and funny, and also clearly Evangelical, although they aren't preachy.

They started a discussion thread on Instagram recently about crazy things you did growing up because you thought God would want you to. Like praying for David Cassidy to be saved (although Knox and Jamie are probably too young to have any idea who David Cassidy is), or burning a book of horror stories in a sudden moment of conviction that Jesus wouldn't want you reading that stuff.

It reminded me that when I transferred from a Christian college to a secular university for my last two years of college, I destroyed my beloved cassette tape of Queen's album The Game because I thought if I had that music, I would be a bad witness for Christ.

Yes, I did.

Just wanted to get that out there, because on Friday one (or maybe two) of my Things will be about going to see the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. I don't have anything all that interesting to say, but this post is already long enough.

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

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!!

smoke screen

Remember I was supposed to come back from my mini-vacation all tanked up and ready to shower you with my brilliance? yeah, well, it might not have happened. The vacation itself was great, and I got to visit two beloved friends, Julie in Oregon and Laurel in Seattle, who have put up with far more of my nonsense than I have any right to expect--Julie, for almost a decade now, and Laurel, since seventh grade. 

I returned home on Friday night and spent the weekend with Dean catching up on all my home-again things. Then tonight it got late and I had one of those moments of realization you sometimes have late at night and it occurred to me that for the past couple of months I've been using this blog as a means of avoidance. Avoidance: my spiritual gift.

If that isn't exactly clear, rest assured it isn't exactly clear to me, either. But it appears I need to prioritize some other things for the moment, so I'm taking some time off from blogging. I can't imagine it will be very long, but probably at least a month. You can email me (address: bnelson four seven seven at gmail dot com), or find me on Instagram at @bhnmt61 for real, or @bookspate for books.

7ToF: Fruit salad, fresh air, Burts Bees, and filling up

1. When we first moved to Montana 26 years ago, it seemed so exotic, like we were moving to the edge of the known world. It felt like a Real Adventure. Then we got here, and realized that there is an entire country north of us, a vast country, and we're nowhere near the edge of the world. Really it's astonishing how ignorant I was about Canada before we moved here.

2. But that's not the point I was going to make. Montana is gorgeous, and there are plenty of world class outdoor adventures available, but it is also pure Midwest. A small town in Montana is going to bear a remarkable similarity to any town anywhere in middle America. And that means that we do POTLUCKS. Often. When our church has a potluck, there is enough food to feed twice as many people as are there, and you can feel your arteries hardening just looking at the spread. I adore potlucks.

3. So after 26 years of experience with potlucks, I'm telling you that if you don't particularly like to cook, the answer is fruit salad. All you do is buy a bunch of fruit (apples, bananas, and grapes at a minimum) and cut it up, and everyone loves it. If they're not too outrageously expensive, throw in a pint of blueberries, or pomegranate seeds, or sliced strawberries. If it's February and all the fruit is sad looking, you can stir in some vanilla yogurt, but I usually just go with bare fruit, since after it sits for 30 minutes, it creates its own dressing with the fruit juices.

4. As a fruit salad aficionado, I've been intrigued recently to see a new development: fruit and veggie salads. Just like a regular fruit salad, except with chopped up carrots or halved snap peas or even bits of radish thrown in. It's great. I've had green salads with oranges or strawberries or blueberries plenty of times, so it makes reverse sense, I'd just never thought of it. Thumbs up.

5. There are lots of cool things about winter (XC skiing, alpine skiing, ice skating, fires in the fireplace, Christmas), but one of the things I don't like is having the house all closed up. I like fresh air. So we've still got windows open trying to get every last bit of non-frigid air before the cold sets in. The longer I live here, the harder it is to remember the good things about winter, especially since the last two winters have been truly harsh. I'm really working on not feeling a sense of dread that winter is inevitably closing in.

6. Is anybody else having post-menopause chapped lips? It started for me a few months ago, maybe back in May or June. Some days it's so bad that I have to put chapstick or vaseline on in the morning so I can get my mouth open. Dean told me the name for it, which of course I can't remember right now. He's got me using over-the-counter cortisone cream, which helps, but I'd really like it to just go away. If you have any advice let me know.

7. I'm a little bit proud that I have never, ever run out of gas. (excuse me while I stop and knock on wood.) So it was odd the night before last when I had a long, extended, very vivid dream about running out of gas. I was on an interstate, and hadn't even noticed that my tank was low. I realized I was completely out of gas as my car died. When I woke up, I was so distracted by the vividness of it and by bemusement at the fact that I ran out of gas that I missed the obvious dream interpretation at first. If I managed to schedule this correctly, as you're reading it, I'm on a quick trip to the west coast, so I hope that next week I will be all tanked up. Maybe I just need a few days away.

Have a great weekend!

7ToT: I'm on mini-vacation. *waves*

1. I read the first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, years ago. Now there is a whole series of of them, told in first person from the point of view of Flavia, a wildly precocious 11-year-old who solves mysteries using her wits, her trusty bicycle Gladys, and her great uncle's chemistry lab. I liked that first one OK, but I couldn't really connect with the voice of Flavia, so I never read any of the others. But recently I tried the audiobook, and the narrator is terrific. Finally understand why people think these are such great books.

2. Flavia does not get along with her sisters. They torment her unmercifully. Sometimes it amounts to outright torture. My first reaction was to be horrified at how awful her siblings were, but then I started remembering some of my own worst moments with my sisters. I have the best sisters on the planet, and as adults, we get along great. But we definitely had our moments growing up. I used to "cook" my younger sister in the oven as a game. The oven was totally imaginary, but I suspect a therapist would be only to happy to unpack that tangle of sibling rivalry issues. We spent hours playing that game. Did you play awful games with your siblings? How normal is this?

3. PellMel will not be home for Christmas for the first time ever. I've known that for quite awhile, but for some reason the implications just sank in this week. This is a heart wrencher. We are big on Christmas around here--not necessarily gifts, but we have a boatload of traditions, including specific movies to watch, the trip to get the tree, decorations to put up, special meals, music, and so on. *Ouch* We're trying to figure out a way we can get down there to celebrate some earlier weekend in December but everyone's schedule is complicated.

4. It's funny, we quit going back to Texas for Christmas more than 30 years ago, and I don't think I ever once thought that might be hard on my mother. So heartless.

5. I am still trying to keep a revolving door on the books, so that at least as many go out as come in. (spoiler alert: it's not working all that well. My most recent method for freeing up space for new books involved packing away old pre-digital photo albums rather than actually getting rid of books. Don't tell Marie Kondo.) I decided the easiest way to cull books right now would be to go through my cookbooks. I have a bunch, more than 40, which is a bit odd, because as we all know, I'm not much of a cook, and when I do cook, I don't usually follow a recipe. But for some strange reason, I looove to read cookbooks.

Some of my cookbooks. This is the stairwell down to our basement.

6. Also, I have several ancient cookbooks that I keep because of exactly one recipe. Those are actually hard to give up-- they are recipes I've used for years, and I know exactly where they are, because it's the wrinkly page in that cookbook. But really, it's ridiculous to keep an entire big fat cookbook for one recipe. So I made copies of those pages and off they went to our church bazaar. I did not cry.

7. But true confessions: then I bought a new one. I read a review of the new Better Homes & Gardens cookbook (titled, appropriately enough, New Cook Book, 17th edition) that intrigued me, so I ordered it. I'm surprised how much I like it. I tend to use cookbooks for ideas more than for actual instructions, and I've already seen a bunch of innovative ideas, in addition to all the old stand-bys. And also it has loads of beautiful photos. Thumbs up.

Hope you are having a good week.

7ToF: If you could only have one color of toenail polish, what would it be? Some version of dark teal for me, I think.

1. I’ve been reading another decluttering book. It’s a less obnoxious than Marie Kondo, but still has some major eye roll moments. I’m working on our bathroom right now—which is an easy task since it is tiny, with a pedastal sink and has no cabinets other than the over-the-sink medicine cabinet we installed when we moved in. The author of this book wants your bathroom countertops to be completely bare. You can have a candle or a potted plant, but nothing else. In other words, your bathroom will look like a hotel.

2. I’m not really a candle fan, and I avoid house plants because I kill them, so that would mean I could have absolutely nothing on the counter. Which is Not Happening. Especially because there are no cabinets, and thus no countertops, in our bathroom. We have a vanity with a sink in our bedroom, and that’s where all my bathroom crap is. My God, she would go ballistic. ALL THAT CLUTTER, AND A SINK IN THE BEDROOM. But you know, our renovation funds only stretched so far and completely rebuilding the master bed/bath was way outside our budget.

3. Why in the world am I always so much wordier than I meant to be? This was only going to be one Thing. So anyway, I did decide that I would try to at least cut back, so that the only things on the counter (on the vanity in our bedroom) are the things I use every day. Everything else has to go underneath in the cabinet. And I have to admit (grudgingly), it does look better. Although I don't think it exactly makes me feel calm and serene.

4. Also, she wants you to limit yourself to one bottle of fingernail polish, one bottle of shampoo, one eye shadow, and so on. Doesn’t she ever have moods? What if she wants green toenail polish one week and fuchsia the next? (says the woman whose toenails are navy blue at the moment). Does she just throw out each color as she gets the next one? Probably not. Probably she is that put-together person who has a signature toenail color, and a signature scent, and all her bath towels match. More power to you, lady, but that’s a little twee for me.

5. (It’s possible that I’ve been overusing the word twee recently but it is so perfect: “excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental” according to Google.)

6. Major new tool in my battle with my phone: I have an iPhone, a 6-Plus, which I love so much that I may just get another one when this one dies. I upgraded to the new iPhone operating system (iOS12) this week and was happy to discover that they've included a new app called "Screen Time" that tracks your screen time by application, and also lets you set limits for how much you want to be on your phone. So far it's by application group, which is less helpful than it could be (for example, both text messaging and Instagram, which are two entirely different things if you ask me, are included in Social Networking)-- but still it has been great. If you go over the time that you specified, you can choose to ignore the time limit, or get a reminder in 15 minutes. So far, love it. 

(Also, if you're setting it up on a teen's phone, you can require a passcode to override the limits, but since I'm just using it as a reminder to myself of how I want to spend my time, I haven't used that feature.)

7.  Food for Thought: I tried a new podcast called Conscious Construction. In the episode I tried (from August 16th), the host Abi Robins interviewed a therapist named Matt Inman, who talks about how to live inefficiently. Our culture prizes efficiency: maximize profit! speed through your to-do list! get more done! streamline your workflow! But the things that make life enjoyable, the things that make life memorable, are things that are inefficient, that accomplish nothing—playing Uno with your kids, sitting and watching the sunset, playing a musical instrument badly just because it’s fun. I mean, let’s face it, dancing around the kitchen while you’re fixing dinner slows you down. I could become a big fan of inefficiency.

So, that’s it for me. I’m pre-writing my posts for next week since I’ll be out of town, but as long as I get them scheduled right (always a dicey proposition), they’ll show up on time. Let’s be inefficient this weekend! Have a good one!

In which I do not act like the heroine in a Newbery award book

There are a lot of things I want to say right now, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to say them. So instead I'm posting this story, which has been sitting in my drafts folder for months--according to the last edit date, the last time I worked on it was in February. I have no idea how it will sound to you.

When I was in junior high (forty+ years ago, in the mid-70s), we lived in a rural area in East Texas a half-hour drive from my school. The school I attended was about one-third black kids, two-thirds white kids. (That is purely a guess, I don't really know the exact numbers.)

We moved to East Texas from Dallas the year I started junior high, so I was the new girl. Lydia, the black girl who sat behind me in English, was just about the only kid in the school who was friendly to me for the first couple of months. Junior high sucks.

I was grateful to her and friendly in return, but neither of us made any effort to be friends outside of class. Generally speaking, the white kids were friends with the white kids, and the black kids were friends with the black kids.

There is no way I can pretend that there was no prejudice at that school, or in our part of East Texas. There were occasionally black cheerleaders, and there were a bunch of black athletes, but for the most part, the popular crowd (which I was not a member of) was all white, and the black kids kept to themselves. Or, to phrase it a different way, although it wasn’t conscious on my part, we didn't allow them to be part of us. The school had been desegregated, but it was still segregated.

In the summer, we had a few weeks of summer band practice every weekday morning. There was a black family with a band kid my age that lived near us in our rural area, and my mom decided we should arrange a carpool with them so she wouldn't have to drive me back and forth all the time.

I have a memory-- which is vague on details but strong in general sensation-- of listening to my mom arrange this with the other mom. My memory is that I knew it wasn’t going to work, and the black mom knew it wasn't going to work, but my mom forged ahead. Even forty+ years later, I can’t decide if I think she was brave for bucking the way things were, or oblivious to the difficult situation she was creating.

The first day I was supposed to ride with them, my mom was off doing something else so I was home alone. (I am ashamed to admit this. It's making me feel flushed and hot to even type it out.) I was at the back of the house, and I "might have" heard a horn honk outside, but I pretended I didn't. I didn't even go to the window and check. After a few minutes, they left -- I guess. Since I didn't look, I'm not sure what they did. I know they didn't honk twice. When my mom got home, I told her they never showed up. We didn't try it again.

Yeah.

I was 13-ish, not an age when anyone is at their best. I suppose I could argue that it isn't a 13-year-old's responsibility to change the world. But this is obviously, clearly bad behavior.

I didn't really think it out and I certainly didn’t think to myself "I am not riding to school with a black family"-- it wasn't nearly that conscious. It was just a gut reaction born partly of a thirteen-year-old's entitled anger at her mom (all the other kids’ moms drove them back and forth) and partly a deep knowledge: This is not done. This is not how we do things at this school.

If I were a braver person, I would have tried it, and maybe I would have forged a bond with that family, and maybe it would have made a tiny difference in a world of prejudice. But I’m not a brave person, and I didn't. I don’t say that as an excuse, I’m just stating the bald truth: I was not a brave child, and I didn't.

It is occurring to me only now (and maybe that is the most shameful part of the whole thing) that maybe I hurt the other girl's feelings. I've always assumed that she felt the same way I did, but maybe she had hoped that we would be friends. I don't know.

Am I culpable for going along with the informal segregation in our school? Yes, I most certainly am. Was I acting on some deep-seated personal prejudice? well, I must have been. Theoretically, in my head, I didn't have any problem being friends with black kids, but I also didn't have enough personal strength to buck the system. I just knew it wasn't done, and I wasn't enough of a maverick to push against the way things were. I wish I had been.

I have no moral to this story. I'm just thinking about it as I read Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson's memoir, which is terrific-- equal parts love letter to and indictment of the South.

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.

Types, and my formative years

I think most of us around here are about my age, in our fifties, a few of us a bit younger, a few a bit older. So we spent our early, formative years in the pre-feminist era. Feminist ideas were hovering around, waiting for the match to spark the flames, but really, feminism, or at least the second wave of feminism*, didn't get started until the seventies when I was halfway through grade school and able to at least partially understand what the issues were.

So we're a funny hybrid. I can't imagine that anyone who reads here would argue against the basic ideas of feminism: outside some minor limitations of upper body strength, women can do whatever jobs men can do, if they are so inclined. Women should not be defined by their reproductive capabilities or lack thereof. Women are not here to be support staff for the important work that men are doing. We should be equally supportive of all human beings, regardless of race/gender/orientation/religion/whatever.

And yet we were raised back in the early 60s, in a world where the old ideas were still strong. Women could maybe have other interests on their own time, but really their primary job was either to be supportive of, or ornamental to, the "real" world of men. We weren't valuable on our own (which is why it was so supposedly awful to be unmarried), but only to the extent that we were helpful or pleasing to the men in our lives. And we raised children.

I was not raised to think that I could be of value just exactly as I was--a sometimes moody, sometimes dreamy, definitely shy, bookish, nerdy girl. How could that possibly be of value to the people around me? I believed that I needed to be cheerful, friendly, uncomplaining, and attractive (thin), to be of worth. I'd never even heard of being an introvert. It wasn't an option.

Whether or not that was what the people around me intended, that was what I picked up, and that was how I modeled myself. I developed a perky, enthusiastic social persona that sometimes worked, and often didn't, and that got me through my first twenty-two years of life. (Nowadays, I can tell when I'm feeling really stressed about a social situation, because I'll find myself pulling that persona out again. If you ever see me being perky, pull me aside and tell me to calm down.)

But putting on that cute, friendly act exhausted me. I still remember the night when it broke beyond repair. I don't remember the exact date, but in late August 1983, after I graduated from college, I was starting grad school for a master's in English, and I went to a meet-and-greet for the new grad students. There might even have been ice-breaker activities.

In other words, it was what I now think of as my worst nightmare. But I didn't know that then. I thought I was supposed to enjoy getting to know my fellow students. About an hour or so into it, I found myself uncontrollably on the verge of breaking into tears. I couldn't stand it for one more minute. I left early, drove myself back to my brand new apartment and cried for hours.

It was weeks, maybe months, before I could begin to understand why I was crying. But now I know: I had reached the end of being able to pull it off, the illusion that I was this eternally cheerful, outgoing person. That minor breakdown started a couple of years of deep confusion for me, culminating in my mid-twenties with the deepest depression I've ever experienced.

I ended up dropping out of grad school, and it wasn't until a couple of years later when I had a job and several months of therapy under my belt (yay for work benefits that include therapy) that I started to feel like I was putting myself back together. Or maybe putting myself together for the first time.

And it wasn't until a year after that that I learned about being an introvert.  It was like suddenly someone handed me a Get Out of Jail Free card-- I was flooded with relief. OH! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! I'M JUST AN INTROVERT.

And to this day, that is what I love about personality types. For me, the primary value is validation. Here you are, and you're just fine exactly the way you are. And 30+ years later, the Enneagram did the same thing for me in a different way, and that is why I am so fascinated by it at the moment.

I listened to a guy, an Enneagram "expert," on a podcast yesterday who said that the danger in using the Enneagram for validation is that it becomes an exercise in narcissism, and I thought: you only think that because you're a man. You've never needed validation. It was a judge-y and catty (and probably unfair) thing to think, but that's the first thing that popped into my head.

(It probably has less to do with gender than whether or not you're already comfortable with who you are.)

Well, this time I didn't get anywhere close to where I wanted to go. In fact, I'm even further away than I was at the end of the last post. But this is plenty long enough. Have a great day.

* the feminism that swept the country in the seventies is called "second wave" feminism. The first wave was the suffragettes back in the early twentieth century. And the third wave is where we are now, with a plurality of different ways to be empowered human beings.  

Types, and therapy, and mental health (or what passes for it)

I was in therapy/counseling off and on from my mid-twenties until my late thirties. It was invaluable. There were a few therapists I saw only once or twice and decided it wasn't going to work, but for the most part, I found great people. If you're confused or anxious or depressed or need a sounding board, I highly recommend it. Find a therapist you can work with (which isn't always the first one you see), and let them help. *advice over*

There have been some definite trends in therapy over the years, and since I'm not a therapist, I only understand them as someone who has been to therapy, not from the other side. But during the eighties, when therapy was still relatively new, even as it was helping me, there were things we were all figuring out.

For example: You, as the client, were always told you were the innocent victim and (whatever had happened to you) wasn't your fault-- which just seemed sort of absurd. All the good people are in therapy, and all the bad people are not? No. Children can be innocent, but with adults, it's always complicated.

There was an undercurrent to the therapy that I received that more-or-less gave the impression that all problems could be solved. If you learned to think rationally about your situation, you could always figure out what was the right thing to do, way to be, how to act. There was a big emphasis on rational problem solving, which is a useful skill, but it only goes so far.

And then there was an assumption that mental health should look the same in everybody. Remember, this is back in the eighties. It seemed to me that there was an unspoken assumption that anyone who was mentally healthy would be ready for a lifetime monogamous commitment, raising children, and "settling down" in a single location to sink deep roots in a community.

So if you went to therapy and started to work out whatever it was that you were working on, pretty soon your life would look like The Brady Bunch. We've had some tough times in the past (weren't Mike and Carol Brady both widowed?)(did that ever get discussed?), but everything's coming up roses now!

But of course nothing is that simple, and people are different, and complicated, and wildly and blessedly diverse. We think differently, we have different strengths and weaknesses, we interact differently with the people around us, we process information differently. Mental health looks entirely different from one person to another.

Therapists are by and large pretty smart people, and they've figured it out. By the nineties, I could even joke a little with my therapist about what therapy had been like in the eighties. Remember back when we thought it was possible to have a perfect childhood? And if you didn't have one, you'd been robbed?

The reason I'm telling you this is because I've continued to read and learn and listen to podcasts about the Enneagram, and for the most part it has been an amazingly, astonishingly helpful thing. But from certain quarters of the widely diverse Enneagram community, I'm starting to pick up this same old thing. If you pursue the path of growth for your personality type, your personality type will disappear. In other words, that same old saw: mental health looks the same in everybody.

Since this seems like a major step backwards to me, it has really surprised me. Really? We're going back there again? I mean, maybe there is some ultimate, transcendent way this is true, but in my own experience, it's just not true. Happiness and contentment in my life may look entirely different than how happiness and contentment will look in yours.

The thing I've found so valuable about the Enneagram is that it has helped me figure that out. You figure out your dominant personality type, and when you understand that, you can learn to manage your needs and preferences. And you become aware of your shortcomings and the ways you can be blind, and you can manage those better, too.

I started out trying to say something specific in this post, and I don't think I got there. But I don't have time to start over, so here you go.

7ToF: Oddly happy

1. It is an absolutely gorgeous fall day here, while on the East coast they are bracing for hurricane Florence. We have family in the Carolinas, so our hearts are definitely with the folks who are bracing for impact.

2. You probably think that when I say I write this blog for me, I'm just saying that. But it really is true. Every day since I posted the phone update, I've reached a point where I've been on my phone five minutes longer than I meant to be, and I've caught myself before it turned into an hour, thinking-- I said I was working on this. I'd better stop.

3. Even though I'm not working, I've signed myself up into busy-ness this fall. I've never stopped doing the food bank on Tuesdays, and now I have choir on Monday night, band on Thursday night, and I started a three-year term on my church's session (leadership team) this week, which looks like it will average out to about one meeting a week. Plus our book club, and blogging and instagramming. It's less structured than work, but I think it is going to be good. In fact, I'm more excited about what I'm doing right now than I have been for a couple of years.

4. I even caught myself with a generalized feeling of happiness this week. I've been happy plenty of times over the past few years, but it was usually connected to a specific event or situation. It's been awhile since I've felt that sort of generalized contentment. And that makes me-- um....., well, happy. :-)

5. Deb Perelman, of Smitten Kitchen fame, has been the source of some great recipes PellMel and I have tried over the past few years. This week she pulled together her favorite recipes with 5 ingredients or fewer. I'm equally grateful for the recipes and that she said "fewer" and not "less."

6. Dean and I were in the mood to watch Jane Austen this week. We started with the BBC's 2009 version of Emma, starring Romola Garai as Emma and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightley. Emma is a horrible snob, so it is only due to good writing on Jane Austen's part and good acting on Romola Garai's part that you end up liking her in the end. And she and Mr. Knightley have some great, very entertaining arguments. The first time I saw this version four or five years ago, I didn't care for it, but it's grown on me. We both give it thumbs up. And yes, I do realize how lucky I am to be married to a guy who will watch Jane Austen.

7. I'm writing this on Thursday, and one of the Instagram photo challenges I follow had this prompt today: "[post a photo of] a book that was released the year you were born." I had no idea what books were published in 1961, but of course Google knew. Turns out I have copies of four books published in the year of my birth: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, and The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, which I just picked up at a used bookshop last week. Since James and the Giant Peach and Phantom Tollbooth were two of my very most favorite books when I was in elementary school, and even better, today was coincidentally Roald Dahl's birthday, it has made me oddly happy.

Hmmmm. Oddly happy would be a good title for this post, yes? Have a great weekend, and if you're on the east coast, be safe and stay dry.

Phone Update

I'm not one to talk on the phone. But I still spend entirely too much time on my phone. It's not the ability to talk that does it, it's access to information. I'm continually googling things, or using imdb to figure out who that familiar-looking guy was in The Post, or using Goodreads to figure out what is the name of the next book in the Brother Cadfael series, or whatever. It's like an addiction-- instant access to anything I want to know.

I spent quite a bit of time at the beginning of the year experimenting with different ways to corral my phone time (see this post and this one if you missed it), and I thought I had it figured out. To my surprise, I missed my two games (Candy Crush and some other game I can no longer remember) more than I missed social media. So I figured if had no games, and I only let myself use my phone between noon and bedtime, the problem would be solved.

It worked pretty well for awhile. But then I put my games back on to pass the time on a trip, thinking that I had been disconnected from them long enough that it wouldn't be a problem anymore. And it is nice to have them for odd moments when you're bored. And my mom and my sisters and I started a tradition of texting every morning (partly to have a daily check in for my mom, who lives alone).

And then six weeks later, I was back to spending an hour or more per day playing games, and I had forgotten all about avoiding my phone before lunch. So I deleted the games again, ran through the whole process again, put them back on my phone, a couple of months later realized I was spending an absurd amount of time arranging little patterns on my screen, and last week finally admitted to myself: I cannot have those games on my phone.

They are like crack for someone with a brain like mine. They feel oddly relaxing at first, but eventually, I'm just rearranging tiny pictures on my screen, over and over, getting that little hit from a line disappearing, their orderliness increasing and decreasing at the same time.

This is why we can't have nice things, the saying goes, only my version is: this is why I can't have games on my phone. Because it starts out fine, and then before I know it I'm on level 348 and I've logged an absurd number of hours just moving things around on the screen of my phone.

I want that time back. So I deleted them again, and I've only had a couple of word games for the past ten days or so. For some reason those aren't as dangerous, so I rarely play them for more than the odd five minutes, which I'm OK with.

But last night I scrolled through Instagram, which is the one social media app that I still really enjoy, got to the end of the day's updates, and decided it was time to go to bed. Those of you who are similarly afflicted can guess what happened-- an hour later, I was still sitting there, scrolling through things I didn't care about, because Instagram--like all social media-- will just keep feeding you new things to see as long as you're willing to sit there.

Which is making me think, maybe I shouldn't even have a phone. Or at least, not a smart phone. Just a phone that does voice and texting, and nothing else. It hasn't been so very long since that was all we had.

I remember Google used to have a number that you could send a question to via text, and you'd get an answer back in a few seconds. It was my first nirvana of infinite info. I could find out ANYTHING. But ten years later, my brain is already oversaturated with information, and there's probably not much of anything that I need to know right this instant. It's tempting to go retro.

But I can't imagine I actually will. work in progress.