touché, productivity nazi

"It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.' It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint."

My wise and well-missed friend, Rich, posted this New York Times article The ‘Busy’ Trap by Tim Kreider to the ubiquitous facebook. Like he was reading my mind (or my blog).

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets."

Self imposed and unexamined busyness. The Importance of What I Do. The Meaning Endless Meetings provide.

"The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment." 

This busyness I've recently become immersed in is a mindset that is fundamentally false, a "boast disguised as a complaint." I guess I am not so self-aware that I don't need to be reminded of simple, common-sense things. Thank you.

walking adventures; advice

ADVICE

When I was pregnant, I was amazed at how pregnancy (especially in New York, where I was living at the time) broke down social resistance to interacting with strangers. People would come up and talk to me as if they knew me. Most of the time it was sweet and well-intentioned. The flip side of dissolving this social barrier was the number of people who assumed an unearned intimacy and proffered unwanted advice or worse, wanted to put their hand on my fecund belly.

Friends have confirmed this phenomena when out with newborns or pets. Under certain circumstances, people will assume it's okay to communicate whatever pops into their heads.

When I used to walk the tunnels under downtown Houston, I mapped out a 3-mile circuit that I could cover in the hour break I took instead of lunch. It looked boring for sure, but I was mostly in my head or in my music and might as well have been on a treadmill (but for the fools walking slowly, three-abreast blocking my way periodically). I did this every day. I looked hot and sweaty for, at least, the second half of the walk. I tried not to make much eye contact or listen to my fellow walkers. Of whom, the vast majority were middle-aged women who talked for all the world like they should be wearing hair shirts and flagellating themselves. Doing penance for the sin of not being thin.

There was one woman who worked at the counter of one of the gazillion sandwich shops who would not be ignored. She had a seemingly sincere but intrusive friendliness. But the thing that used to amaze me is that every time she saw me walk by she would give me a thumbs up, as if she headed up the cheering squad for Fat Woman Walking. I say this and you demure, how do you know this had anything to do with your size? Perhaps we're being a bit oversensitive? Guess again, Pollyanna. I watched her every day and she did not do her enthusiastic gesture for naught a slender walker. Trust me, she was saying, Way to Go, Chubby! Good Job, Gordita!

While I thought she was basically decent, she felt that my size gave her the right to break that social barrier. I assume that she (or those like her) didn't give the thumbs up to the anorexia-bound teenage girls eating ice cream (one scoop in a cup, please, those cones are SO fattening). I assume that most people don't clap the Cerebral Palsied on the back for making it across the street. I would guess conversely, and maybe I'm wrong, that you wouldn't go up to a fast-food patron with acne and lecture them on the importance of keeping their face clean and their diet healthy. It's just a bit invasive, right?

So I'm walking my neighborhood. It was June. One of the hottest Junes on record. And even though I start my walk at 7am, it's clear that I'm going to be be red-faced and drenched in no time. Down the street opposite me comes an old black man wearing a brimmed hat and pushing a cart. He is, lordlovehim, sporting a friendly demeanor and just a few teeth. Fuck Me. As I get closer, he asked the ubiquitous question, "Going for your walk?" To which I reply affirmatively in my best yes-indeedee voice. Then he says, "You know, that'll help you lose weight!" Now, the urge to retort with "No shit, REALLY?" is strong. But he's old and almost surely addlepated. Yet, more than anything I want to say, "And you know, wearing that hat will keep you from getting any darker!" Because our culture's love of the thin is only matched by our culture's love of the fair. And since he thinks it's okay to join in on the bigotry chorus against the overweight, why should I let genteel mores stop me from pointing out where he falls short on the racist social scale of ideal beauty?

Because, deep down, I'm not an asshole. Even more, because I don't accept or have patience for either of those deeply flawed ideals. I just don't know why anyone feels it is their business to impose this skewed and empty viewpoint on those of us who tip the scales on this side of normal. Whatever that is.

facebook me me meme

I did this thing because I've drunk the kool-aid and been facebooked. Since I went to all the ridiculous trouble to catalog myself, I thought I'd dump a copy here for those of you not thoroughly bored by self-congratulatory list-making. Here are 25 damn things about me:

1. I'm a Puerto-Rican/Irish, ex-New Yorker, naturalized Texan, ex-Mormon (attended BYU—no shit), narcoleptic queer. (for the love of labels, people...)

2. I am now a happy atheist. Going from nun to heathen was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

3. Design is one of my life's passions. I think about it all the time. Typography. Tea kettles. Book covers. Bass violins. China. Chaise lounges. Keyboards. Kiwi salad.

4. I minored in Art History and wept when I saw Florence's Duomo for the first time.

5. As far as I'm concerned, wood, flour, metal, fabric, paper, cement, leather and glass are all the same: raw materials. Knitting, carpentry, baking, metalsmithing...it's just the tools and joins that differ. And I love all the tools. I want to learn all the joins.

6. I am a late blooming feminist and believe that no woman should have children if she doesn’t want them. Ironically, my favorite job was raising my two children.

7. I loathe deferential treatment based on my gonads. I am not, nor will I ever be, a "lady."

8. I find it disturbing when women take their husband’s name. Sorry. It harks back to the days of being property. Besides, you're getting married, not adopted.

9. I was über-dedicated to being the BEST parent ever and fancied myself well qualified and successful. Over time the idealism of early parenting has gotten a solid ass-kicking. When all is said and done, I think I did a decent job but owe my parents an apology for making such a fuss about "not making all the mistakes they made."

10. My (grown) children are amazing. Even Especially when we don't agree.

11. I am ambidextrous. (Yes, Virginia, it's a euphemism.)

12. I have been married (not legally, of course--this IS Texas, after all--but in every way that counts) to the same woman for 22 years. I am still stupidly in love with her.

13. Facebook is too fucking public...okay, even when I was the most obedient, god-fearing, letter-of-the-law little prig, my secret sin was how much I LOVED to swear.

14. I am driven to be financially stable. Obsessed about becoming debt-free.

15. I grew up blue-collar and aim to be a balanced intellectual. Whenever I get too up my own ass about things, my common sense mocks me. Without mercy.

16. I am unfazed by title, degree or position. I have neither reverence nor irreverence for those in power. The only people I am in awe of are those who have done something awesome.

17. Humor has saved my life. Most people survive a shitload of things and credit God, psychotherapy or macrobiotics with their survival. Thanks to my mother I survived a crisis of faith, a divorce, a custody battle, dear friends dying of AIDS and other scary-as-shit events because she'd taught me to laugh.

18. I wouldn't have sex with anyone who didn't love good food.

19. As much as I love design and building and fixing things, writing is dearer to me.

20. I have a job that I truly enjoy. While the process (animation) is very satisfying, the end product (banner advertising) is meh. I'm surprised at how good I am with that. It doesn't hurt that I work with funny, talented people.

21. I love fixing my home. Because we have no option, we've learned to fix almost everything. Ignorance is a valuable asset.

22. I love being at home. With my partner or by myself. It is my favorite place.

23. I have been lucky enough to travel to Europe many times. I lived in Spain for three months. I also woke up in Paris on my 50th birthday. That was fucking awesome.

24. I am a shameless math, word, design, grammar, cooking, technology geek. And I love me some puns.

25. I don't believe that monogamy is a sacrament.

26. I was once a juror on a torture/murder trial.

27. I hardly ever watch television. But I'm not too proud. I'm online way too much.

28. I will get a tattoo someday.

29. I hate what image-obsession and dieting has done to our individual and collective sense of self-worth.

30. I taught myself not to be afraid of the dark when I was young by walking around our basement with the lights out.

31. I am not superstitious.

32. I love adhesives. Epoxy, wood glue, duct tape and...don't get between me and my stash of double-sided tape.

33. Jesus, I’ve reached 33 (too). Oh, I‘m also wordy.