- Get more sleep.
- Claim more play time.
- Score more points on Guitar Hero.
- Eat more chocolate. (Yes, I said EAT MORE--not less--MORE)
- Laugh more.
- See more movies in the theater. (So.....that would mean at least 4)
- Do more hiking.
- Try more activities. (Such as yoga, zumba, kick boxing, crossfit, belly dancing)
- Read more books.
- Write more words.
- Play more music.
- Spend more time in the sun.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
New Year's More-Solutions
In 2010 I shall:
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
What Are We Thinking? The First of Many Rants
A woman clings to her window seat.
2.5 billion people do not have clean drinking water. (Worldwide, waterborne illness is the leading cause of death among children.)
A nation obsesses over the sex life of a golfer.
An entire continent is ravaged by war, poverty, hunger, and illness.
Hollywood spends millions on an awards ceremony--and keeps creating MORE awards ceremonies. (BTW, where are the awards ceremonies for parents? Teachers? Medical professionals? Social workers?)
$60 will feed, clothe, house, and educate a child in Viet Nam for an entire year.
Mary Pipher writes about how our global cultural can make us more apathetic because the needs seem both so far away and so overwhelmingly huge at the same time. She contrasts this to a community culture, where the needs a person is aware of are both close and usually manageable. She argues that being more aware of more of the world and its needs actually makes us less involved because it's too big and too distant. Our minds and bodies literally do not know how to reconcile the desire to act with the inability to do so; the defense mechanism becomes to shut down, to withdraw, to develop tunnel vision. And so we give more news coverage to an adulterous athlete than we do to genocide.
I do not claim to have any answers. I do know that I am learning to take my global citizenship very seriously. Does it matter that I purchased Christmas presents from Amnesty International this year instead of Target? Does it matter that I recycle? Does it matter that I think more carefully now about where I spend my money and my time? Does it matter what I write? Does it matter what I teach my children? Does it matter that I vote? After all, I am only 1 of 6,000,000,000. It is easy to feel insignificant and thus to act insignificantly. It is easy to feel powerless and thus to act apathetically. Do my choices make any difference? I do not know if they do. But I DO KNOW that if I choose not to think about my global citizenship, then certainly my choices and actions do not make any difference at all.
Or maybe that's not true either. Not thinking about something is a choice in and of itself and has its own consequences--makes its own kind of difference. Maybe what it boils down to is that I can only be at peace with myself if I take my global citizenship seriously. The alternative is no longer acceptable to me.
2.5 billion people do not have clean drinking water. (Worldwide, waterborne illness is the leading cause of death among children.)
A nation obsesses over the sex life of a golfer.
An entire continent is ravaged by war, poverty, hunger, and illness.
Hollywood spends millions on an awards ceremony--and keeps creating MORE awards ceremonies. (BTW, where are the awards ceremonies for parents? Teachers? Medical professionals? Social workers?)
$60 will feed, clothe, house, and educate a child in Viet Nam for an entire year.
Mary Pipher writes about how our global cultural can make us more apathetic because the needs seem both so far away and so overwhelmingly huge at the same time. She contrasts this to a community culture, where the needs a person is aware of are both close and usually manageable. She argues that being more aware of more of the world and its needs actually makes us less involved because it's too big and too distant. Our minds and bodies literally do not know how to reconcile the desire to act with the inability to do so; the defense mechanism becomes to shut down, to withdraw, to develop tunnel vision. And so we give more news coverage to an adulterous athlete than we do to genocide.
I do not claim to have any answers. I do know that I am learning to take my global citizenship very seriously. Does it matter that I purchased Christmas presents from Amnesty International this year instead of Target? Does it matter that I recycle? Does it matter that I think more carefully now about where I spend my money and my time? Does it matter what I write? Does it matter what I teach my children? Does it matter that I vote? After all, I am only 1 of 6,000,000,000. It is easy to feel insignificant and thus to act insignificantly. It is easy to feel powerless and thus to act apathetically. Do my choices make any difference? I do not know if they do. But I DO KNOW that if I choose not to think about my global citizenship, then certainly my choices and actions do not make any difference at all.
Or maybe that's not true either. Not thinking about something is a choice in and of itself and has its own consequences--makes its own kind of difference. Maybe what it boils down to is that I can only be at peace with myself if I take my global citizenship seriously. The alternative is no longer acceptable to me.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Window Seat
She couldn’t remember the last time she had showered. Or eaten. Or slept. 36 hours maybe? 40? 46? She couldn’t do math in her head anymore. She had seen the same Thursday dawn three times now. How is that even possible? Yet it was true. It reminded her of the time she had flown over the North Pole and watched the sun set out of one side of the plane, then walked to the other side of the plane to watch the same sun rise just moments later. She felt the disruption of the space time continuum in her mind and her body. It at once weighed her whole being down and rent her in two. But wait, she had been torn in two already. How many days ago was that? She couldn’t remember. Her brain was too tired to do math. And she didn’t want to remember anyway.
She was hanging by a thread, and yet she was the strongest of the three. He had cocooned himself hours—days?—ago. His every effort was turned toward keeping himself breathing. Nothing else existed for him, really. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. His body was racked with coughing and fever. When his eyes had glazed over so long ago on that other airplane, she knew she was alone.
And the child she carried—the child she carried—tiny. Sick. Weak. Frightened. She had her own look in her eyes; like the man’s eyes, her eyes reflected the deep struggle for survival that was going on internally. Unlike the man though, the look in her eyes was not detached; the look in her eyes engaged everything around her with the desperation of a cornered animal. The woman could see the panic flowing out the child’s eyes. So much fear and confusion spinning at high speed inside her—and no place for it to go, except out her eyes.
The flight had been booked for them last minute. How many hours ago was that? Or was it days? The man had gone back through security to get the cell phone and make the call while the woman and the child sat in the small office awaiting yet another packet of papers that had to be guarded. By the time he made it back through the metal detectors and body checks, she had the packet in hand and had begun counting the hours until she would be at the airport. On the first plane. Back in the United States. On the second plane. On the ground. In the airport. In her house. In her shower. In her bed. Not only did she know how many hours until each of those things—she knew how many minutes. Her countdown had begun. And she kept track of all those arrivals simultaneously. Her brain was like one of those walls displaying a dozen clocks showing the times of all the major cities across the world and across the time zones. She knew she could make it if she kept that math in her head—if she fixed her mind on the multiple countdowns.
But now she couldn’t remember any of the math—not backwards or forwards. She felt like shit. She knew she looked like shit. Her mind couldn’t grasp at anything to keep her going. She was dysphoric. Trapped.
She walked down the tight aisle of the plane carrying the child. The man had taken his assigned seat—a middle seat toward the front of the plane—several minutes ago. Her seat—and the child’s—were further back. A middle and an aisle.
She saw the stranger sitting by the window seat. She was dressed to the nines. Her hair and make-up were perfect. How was that even possible at this god forsaken hour? She remembers wondering why the stranger wasn’t in first class. Her jewelry, her carry-on, her demeanor all screamed, “I belong in first class.” The woman had a moment of self consciousness over her bedraggled appearance as she asked the stranger to switch seats with the man.
“Where is he seated?” the stranger asked.
“A few rows up.”
“Window seat?”
“No. Middle.”
The stranger pursed her lips and said that she wouldn’t sit in a middle seat. She wanted a window seat and she was going to keep it.
The woman began her story, telling the stranger why the seat change was so desperately needed.
The stranger shook her head vehemently “I am NOT giving up my window seat.”
Are you fucking kidding me? the woman thought (and now wishes she had said). But she had no energy for this. She needed to sit.
She placed the child in the middle seat, buckled the seatbelt around her and covered her with the green blanket. She then placed herself in that confined little space of an aisle seat and tried desperately to dig deeply enough in herself to find a way to make it through this last stretch. The next—how many hours was it? How many minutes? The numbers spun meaninglessly in her head.
The stranger started rambling about some self-centered nonsense. Fortunately, the woman’s mind was already so unfocused she had no trouble blocking the stranger out. The child, who hadn’t slept since—when was it? Tuesday, maybe? But Tuesday there or here? And what is it now here? There? Nevermind—the child began throwing herself backwards against the seat. She threw the blanket off. Then her shoes. Then her socks. The woman understood the child was releasing her agony the only way she knew how.
“Can’t you make her stop that?” the stranger said accusingly.
“No.”
replied the woman as she placed her hand gently behind the child’s head to protect her from the impact of her own fury. The other hand, she placed on the child’s chest to try to slow the rhythm of the child’s body. The child grabbed the woman’s arm, pinching and scratching.
The stranger looked on in disgust. Then continued her rambling drivel.
The child began screaming.
The stranger’s eyes widened.
The woman asked the stranger if she wanted to trade seats with the man now. The stranger tilted her head back slightly and replied, “I will not give up my window seat. She’ll eventually stop crying and fall asleep.” Then she pulled some stupid fashion magazine out of her carryon and positioned herself facing the window.
“What a selfish bitch” the woman thought. “What a clueless, evil, selfish bitch.”
There was nothing left but to endure.
How far was it from Newark to Salt Lake City? How many hours? How many minutes? She tried to find that graph in her head, but she couldn’t. And then she wondered if she were going to Dallas to spend the night there. Wait. Why did she think she was going to Texas? She wasn’t. Was she? She was pretty sure she wasn’t. But she didn’t really care anymore anyway. All she knew was that when this plane landed she was getting off and sleeping somewhere for a long time. She didn’t care where.
The child continued screaming and throwing her body. The woman silently kept her hands on the child. One behind her head. One on her chest. She didn’t even feel the child’s scratches and pinches anymore. She just let her body move in rhythm to the child’s. To protect her. To bond with her. She smiled as the child screamed and the bitch by the window nervously fidgeted around with her ridiculous fashion magazine.
As the plane started moving, the woman looked out the window. In the line of her sight were her own dirty scratched up arm, the screaming and terrified child, the self centered bitch, the ridiculous fashion magazine, the window pane (which reminded her of another window pane—the one she was looking through the moment she blew apart), the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and the sun rising…..again.
She was hanging by a thread, and yet she was the strongest of the three. He had cocooned himself hours—days?—ago. His every effort was turned toward keeping himself breathing. Nothing else existed for him, really. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. His body was racked with coughing and fever. When his eyes had glazed over so long ago on that other airplane, she knew she was alone.
And the child she carried—the child she carried—tiny. Sick. Weak. Frightened. She had her own look in her eyes; like the man’s eyes, her eyes reflected the deep struggle for survival that was going on internally. Unlike the man though, the look in her eyes was not detached; the look in her eyes engaged everything around her with the desperation of a cornered animal. The woman could see the panic flowing out the child’s eyes. So much fear and confusion spinning at high speed inside her—and no place for it to go, except out her eyes.
The flight had been booked for them last minute. How many hours ago was that? Or was it days? The man had gone back through security to get the cell phone and make the call while the woman and the child sat in the small office awaiting yet another packet of papers that had to be guarded. By the time he made it back through the metal detectors and body checks, she had the packet in hand and had begun counting the hours until she would be at the airport. On the first plane. Back in the United States. On the second plane. On the ground. In the airport. In her house. In her shower. In her bed. Not only did she know how many hours until each of those things—she knew how many minutes. Her countdown had begun. And she kept track of all those arrivals simultaneously. Her brain was like one of those walls displaying a dozen clocks showing the times of all the major cities across the world and across the time zones. She knew she could make it if she kept that math in her head—if she fixed her mind on the multiple countdowns.
But now she couldn’t remember any of the math—not backwards or forwards. She felt like shit. She knew she looked like shit. Her mind couldn’t grasp at anything to keep her going. She was dysphoric. Trapped.
She walked down the tight aisle of the plane carrying the child. The man had taken his assigned seat—a middle seat toward the front of the plane—several minutes ago. Her seat—and the child’s—were further back. A middle and an aisle.
She saw the stranger sitting by the window seat. She was dressed to the nines. Her hair and make-up were perfect. How was that even possible at this god forsaken hour? She remembers wondering why the stranger wasn’t in first class. Her jewelry, her carry-on, her demeanor all screamed, “I belong in first class.” The woman had a moment of self consciousness over her bedraggled appearance as she asked the stranger to switch seats with the man.
“Where is he seated?” the stranger asked.
“A few rows up.”
“Window seat?”
“No. Middle.”
The stranger pursed her lips and said that she wouldn’t sit in a middle seat. She wanted a window seat and she was going to keep it.
The woman began her story, telling the stranger why the seat change was so desperately needed.
The stranger shook her head vehemently “I am NOT giving up my window seat.”
Are you fucking kidding me? the woman thought (and now wishes she had said). But she had no energy for this. She needed to sit.
She placed the child in the middle seat, buckled the seatbelt around her and covered her with the green blanket. She then placed herself in that confined little space of an aisle seat and tried desperately to dig deeply enough in herself to find a way to make it through this last stretch. The next—how many hours was it? How many minutes? The numbers spun meaninglessly in her head.
The stranger started rambling about some self-centered nonsense. Fortunately, the woman’s mind was already so unfocused she had no trouble blocking the stranger out. The child, who hadn’t slept since—when was it? Tuesday, maybe? But Tuesday there or here? And what is it now here? There? Nevermind—the child began throwing herself backwards against the seat. She threw the blanket off. Then her shoes. Then her socks. The woman understood the child was releasing her agony the only way she knew how.
“Can’t you make her stop that?” the stranger said accusingly.
“No.”
replied the woman as she placed her hand gently behind the child’s head to protect her from the impact of her own fury. The other hand, she placed on the child’s chest to try to slow the rhythm of the child’s body. The child grabbed the woman’s arm, pinching and scratching.
The stranger looked on in disgust. Then continued her rambling drivel.
The child began screaming.
The stranger’s eyes widened.
The woman asked the stranger if she wanted to trade seats with the man now. The stranger tilted her head back slightly and replied, “I will not give up my window seat. She’ll eventually stop crying and fall asleep.” Then she pulled some stupid fashion magazine out of her carryon and positioned herself facing the window.
“What a selfish bitch” the woman thought. “What a clueless, evil, selfish bitch.”
There was nothing left but to endure.
How far was it from Newark to Salt Lake City? How many hours? How many minutes? She tried to find that graph in her head, but she couldn’t. And then she wondered if she were going to Dallas to spend the night there. Wait. Why did she think she was going to Texas? She wasn’t. Was she? She was pretty sure she wasn’t. But she didn’t really care anymore anyway. All she knew was that when this plane landed she was getting off and sleeping somewhere for a long time. She didn’t care where.
The child continued screaming and throwing her body. The woman silently kept her hands on the child. One behind her head. One on her chest. She didn’t even feel the child’s scratches and pinches anymore. She just let her body move in rhythm to the child’s. To protect her. To bond with her. She smiled as the child screamed and the bitch by the window nervously fidgeted around with her ridiculous fashion magazine.
As the plane started moving, the woman looked out the window. In the line of her sight were her own dirty scratched up arm, the screaming and terrified child, the self centered bitch, the ridiculous fashion magazine, the window pane (which reminded her of another window pane—the one she was looking through the moment she blew apart), the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and the sun rising…..again.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Why You Should Give Me Something for Nothing
Dear Employer,
I am writing to you because I am concerned about my upcoming pay check. I'm worried that it's not going to be as much as I need it to be. I want you to know that earning a good pay check is really, really important to me. Advancing to the next level of this job is also very important to me. In fact if I don't advance right away and if I don't get a really good pay check, I run the risk of losing my government aid and of not being able to move on to my next employer which I really really want to do soon. You see, my whole future, actually, depends on this upcoming pay check.
Now, I know that I haven't been showing up for work very often lately, but I've been really really busy. And I did tell you at the beginning of the job that I had a lot on my plate and might not be able to be here very much. Surely you can understand that right? I'm just too busy to be here every day.
I also know that I'm behind in the projects you've given me and that I totally bailed on my group. So I'm hoping you'll let me start over with a new project all on my own--one where I don't have to bother working with other people, because that's really really hard you know--to coordinate schedules and to get things done. So anyway, I've cleared my schedule for this weekend so I can focus on this job. I swear I can catch up with everything you wanted me to do. And if there's any chance you could give me an extra project on top of it to do this weekend--you know, something to help me earn a little extra money--that would be great too.
And by the way, this is the best job ever. And you're the best employer ever. I've gotten so much out of working here. At first, I really didn't want to take this job. In fact, I've been fired from this exact same job before. But this time it's different. You really helped me get a lot out of it. Thanks for being so awesome. I know you can help me out here.
Oh, and I was only late about half the time. And once I got all my technical issues figured out, I was finally able to send in the work I'd been doing. I don't know why my computer crashed 7 times in the last little while. Oh well. I'll just make up for everything this weekend, ok?
Thanks in advance for the help I know you're going to give me. You're really swell.
Sincerely,
Your Employee
I am writing to you because I am concerned about my upcoming pay check. I'm worried that it's not going to be as much as I need it to be. I want you to know that earning a good pay check is really, really important to me. Advancing to the next level of this job is also very important to me. In fact if I don't advance right away and if I don't get a really good pay check, I run the risk of losing my government aid and of not being able to move on to my next employer which I really really want to do soon. You see, my whole future, actually, depends on this upcoming pay check.
Now, I know that I haven't been showing up for work very often lately, but I've been really really busy. And I did tell you at the beginning of the job that I had a lot on my plate and might not be able to be here very much. Surely you can understand that right? I'm just too busy to be here every day.
I also know that I'm behind in the projects you've given me and that I totally bailed on my group. So I'm hoping you'll let me start over with a new project all on my own--one where I don't have to bother working with other people, because that's really really hard you know--to coordinate schedules and to get things done. So anyway, I've cleared my schedule for this weekend so I can focus on this job. I swear I can catch up with everything you wanted me to do. And if there's any chance you could give me an extra project on top of it to do this weekend--you know, something to help me earn a little extra money--that would be great too.
And by the way, this is the best job ever. And you're the best employer ever. I've gotten so much out of working here. At first, I really didn't want to take this job. In fact, I've been fired from this exact same job before. But this time it's different. You really helped me get a lot out of it. Thanks for being so awesome. I know you can help me out here.
Oh, and I was only late about half the time. And once I got all my technical issues figured out, I was finally able to send in the work I'd been doing. I don't know why my computer crashed 7 times in the last little while. Oh well. I'll just make up for everything this weekend, ok?
Thanks in advance for the help I know you're going to give me. You're really swell.
Sincerely,
Your Employee
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