Stay of Execution

A Word About Rice

I had some rice for breakfast this morning, with a little soy sauce, yum.  I was out of brown rice so I made myself arborio rice.  I was wondering whether white rice is just brown rice with all the good brown stuff processed away, or if it was a different creature altogether.  The answer is here.  (The answer is "yes," white rice is just wimpy processed brown rice, for those of you too lazy to click through.)

Why I Resist Podcasting

It's not only because I don't have an iPod, or even because I'm a complete latecomer to the whole mp3 player "craze" that you young people are all so into these days.  People are acting as though podcasting is the new blogging, and won't it be great when all blog posts are auditory experiences that people listen to in their cars or at the gym or whenever the heck they want.  Who needs this stinking computer anyway?  Who needs text? 

I think that is silly.  There are things I say out loud and things I say in writing.  Writing lets you set a scene.  Speaking doesn't.  Almost always, when speaking, you assume that your audience and you share a context.  We are in the habit of speaking to people who are in the same room as us, who therefore already know the context, our surroundings, the temperature, and our mood.  So, when speaking, we never have to give that to our audience.  We have been learning to give some background to a speaking audience because of the phone, but I'd argue that we've not really mastered that kind of communication yet.  Usually it's unsatisfying, "oh, geez, hang on a minute, the dog has just grabbed the empty popcorn bag out of the trash and is dragging it into the living room and kernels are going everywhere and it smells like butter get back here I said no! Drop it!" 

Podcasting is a kind of speaking where the audience doesn't share a physical context with you, nor a context in time.  Unlike the phone, the audience isn't listening at the same time you are speaking.  So neither place nor time can be assumed.  The podcast is utterly contextless.  But voice, our expectations of voice and the intimacy of hearing someone's voice, that seems to demand context. 

I have tools for reaching across place and time when I write.  I don't have those tools when I speak.  Someone suggested recently that I start podcasting this blog.  What would that be?  Would I just read into a microphone the words I compose in text?  When I speak, with my voice, to a person, I don't talk the way I write.  I mean, sometimes I do, but when I write I am trying to show you scenes and moods.  I'm almost never in a position where I have to do that with my voice, because if you can hear my voice you probably already know a lot about me, and you know what time it is and you're probably in the same place with me.  I would feel silly speaking all these small descriptions with no point, but I like writing them down, and I feel like they're not so silly as text.   Would I instead just speak into a microphone and tell you entertaining snippets?  But who are you?  What do you want to know?  How would I know what to say?   Voice is more intimate than text.  But podcasting's not intimate at all. 

It's a different medium, the spoken word, is all I'm saying.  You young people with your crazy podcasting ideas, you're going to leave me in the dust.  There's something I can do with writing that I don't know how to do with my voice.   

A Grab Bag of Unrelated Topics

1) A friend loaned me Ashley MacIsaac's Hi how are you today? CD, and it surprised and delighted me.  I thought I knew what it would sound like because I'd gone to see Ashley MacIsaac play.  But in concert he was unaccompanied, so I wasn't prepared for the album's fusion of techno and rock with that spectacular Cape Breton fiddle mastery.  It's like nothing I've heard.  I turned it up loud, really loud, and was glad for a long moonlit drive to a party on Saturday night. 

2) Yesterday I went to an educational seminar.  Big room, lots of people.  A lot of talk about Rule 11.  But it wasn't lawyers, it was sailors.  Rule 11 says "When boats are on the same tack and overlapped, a windward boat shall keep clear of a leeward boat."  Sounds simple, but there's a lot more nuance than you might think.  We also discussed Rule 18 a whole lot, and of course rules 15, 16, 17.  We discussed a whole bunch of the Racing Rules of Sailing, which are updated every four years and just changed in January.  Dave Perry led the seminar.  He's great.  He's a fellow graduate of the Yale Sailing Team, and a sailing legend.  He helped out the team from time to time when I was there, and I've always been an admirer of his.  What's great about him is that he's not only a great sailor but a great sportsman -- warm, encouraging, friendly, helpful, respectful, self-effacing, and easygoing.  He's a leader in the sport, not just on the racecourse but as an organizer and a volunteer.  I highly recommend Winning in One Designs (need to re-read it myself) and Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing. 

3) I learned about this event yesterday.  Since I'm busy appreciating my hip flexors today, it would be premature to say that I'm already scheming about finding a partner with a canoe, and borrowing some snowshoes, and thinking about a good costume to wear.  But tomorrow I might start such scheming, if my hip flexors permit it.

4) I have decided that today is the last day of the Get-Rid-Of-Disfavored-Tea-By-Drinking-It project.   We have done great work.  Gone is the dreaded Forest Equinox, the Orange Spice, the Decaf English Breakfast.  Gone is the peach-infused Green Tea.  Gone is the French Vanilla flavored black tea.  The Brassica decaf black tea, the Chinese Restaurant Tea.  The damn Tazo passion herbal tea is still around, alas.  There's still plentiful jasmine tea, gunpowder green tea, and lapsang souchang, but in fairness all that stuff is pretty good.   There will be a tea party tonight or tomorrow, where we throw our unwanted tea into the harbor in a display of independence.  And from that day forward we will buy only such tea as we actually wish to drink.   I will gently decline gifts of tea from well-meaning friends and family. 

Hip Flexor Appreciation Day

I would like to announce today as Hip Flexor Appreciation Day.  Please take a moment to thank these helpful, strong, and sometimes unacknowledged muscles for the important work they do.  All hail the hip flexors! 

My three hour cross country ski excursion on Saturday, on lovely groomed trails at Pineland, has made it particularly easy to appreciate my hip flexors today.  You can ski a lot further and longer on groomed trails, especially pretty ones through the woods, than you might be accustomed to skiing.  Sometime yesterday afternoon my hip flexors decided to remind me of all the work they'd been doing on Saturday by gently refusing to do any additional work.  If I wanted to cross my legs while sitting, the hip flexors said, "Get your arms to do this.  We're resting today."  So I was actually picking up my leg with my hands and helping the process along.  Oh boy, do I appreciate my hip flexors.  Today, the appreciation continues. 

Googlegripe

It is not cool how dependent I have become on my Gmail account to manage everything for me.  It's been down now for fifteen or twenty minutes, and I'm paralyzed here at my house when I should be on the road to Boston.  What time did I say I was going to meet so-and-so, and where?  I didn't need to write it down, it was right there in the infinite storage, wonderfully indexable depths of my Gmail account.  Who needs memory, or even memory aids, when I have Google and Gmail? 

This is why it can't ever go down.  The 502 server message is tantalizing as well.  It keeps telling me that this is a temporary server error, and suggests I try back in 30 seconds.  Like the monkey pushing the lever that used to produce a treat, I keep trying. 

Foolish.  I'm off to Boston, directions or no directions, the specific plans I've made lost somewhere in Google's brain.  Catch you later. 

Question for Health Insurance Pros

Um.

I have this low grade health issue.  Well, this is the thing.  I've been thinking it's low-grade, because it doesn't bother me.  But there's something wrong.  Let's not go into the details.  Something's not right, although I feel fine. 

Unfortunately, the easy, obvious, relatively innocuous explanations have now been eliminated.  There are plenty more easy, relatively innocuous explanations, I am told, but going forward the process of figuring out what's going on may get a little bit expensive, and involve specialists and, um, procedures.       

I'm on a short term health insurance policy.  It's up at the end of March.  I haven't used it thus far because I didn't want to mess with the claim process.  I could use some advice about the timing of my claims, and the impact of this whole thing on my ability to get coverage going forward.  If any of my readers know about the ins and outs of health insurance, would you be willing to email me? 

Peace Out

I got an email today signed "peace out."  I've never liked the expression.  I don't think it makes any sense.  It made me think of all the other email closings that I find mildly irritating.  "Cheers!" sounds very silly to me.  I guess people like it because it is meaningless and can be an opening and a closing.  I dislike it for the same reasons.  "Ciao" and "Ciao bella" strike me as foolishly pretentious, unless you're a romantic sophisticated older man in New York or Paris sending me sweet nothings over email, in which case I will think it is sweet and quaint. 

Don't even get me started on the random quote generators that sign off with some kind of clever quotation that your machine decided to append to the bottom of the message you're sending me, for no particular reason.  And if the quotation is about how magical cats are?  The spam filter awaits. 

What I Think

This is an uncharacteristic post.  I reserve the right to delete it.  But here's my take on the whole question of my unsuccessful love life. 

1) Thanks for the comments, and for your support. 

2) I have heard the "men are intimidated" comment too many times to dismiss it out of hand.  Where does this come from if there's no truth to it?  Plus I know intelligent men who have confessed to being intimidated by strong women; to wanting a woman who is not challenging.  I have heard smart, cool, men describing a mutual friend, and why she's attractive.  "She's the least intimidating person I've ever met."  There's something about putting people at ease that is a feminine characteristic.  There's something about softness and sensitivity and openness that's attractive.  I think part of that "you are strong and that scares men" statement is about this softness, the feminine ability to make a safe place where emotion and vulnerability are accepted.

I think I'm actually pretty soft and sensitive and open.  You blog readers might see this more easily than others do.  You see me walking around and looking at the beautiful things in the world, you see me crying when I hear a song full of heartbreak and yearning.  You see all the things I notice and how I respond to the world with emotion.   I'm intuitive and I'm learning to trust that side of myself.  This is a place where I do that more and more.    

I'm not sure this is what the world sees.  I don't have conversations where I say, "the moon this morning hung still in the sky and the air was so cold that smoke was rising off the water and the way the ducks hunched together in small groups made me long for the warmth of my kitchen," or those kind of snippets that I put down here regularly.  In life, I tend to be saying things like, "Let's go have a drink and play cheesy bar games!"  That's a caricature, perhaps, but not so much of one.  I am a social organizer and I'm tuned into other people's comfort zones and I entertain and schmooze and sparkle and listen and laugh and in all these ways I'm Rock Star Charisma Barbie.   And in professional situations I'm busy asking all kinds of questions and solving problems and making connections and being logical and rational and competitive and curious and engaged.  Those two personas are me, they're real.  But they're not a complete picture of me.  You guys don't see them so much.  The rest of the world sees them 95% of the time. 

3) It is my habit to hide the sad, lonely, and vulnerable parts of myself.  It is true that I am pretty confident, fairly capable, reasonably smart.  I'm generally optimistic and cheerful, absorbed and contented with my life.  I think it's fair to say that my baseline mood is a pretty high level of happiness.  So if people think I'm happy and complete, well, they're mostly right.  But the things that worry me and fill me with dread and shame, the places in my emotional life where I feel clumsy and broken and half-formed, the things I'm struggling with, the things I yearn for that I don't know how to find for myself, the places that scare me, the ways I haven't yet learned to be comfortable, the part of me that just wants to be held, well, all that stuff I do not share easily.  My own neediness scares me, and because of that I think it will scare others.  So I keep it to myself.  And what comes across about me is a picture of a happy girl, and all the ways I'm confident and sure of myself and engaged with the world.  Those parts are true.  But there is more about me than that.  I'm a girl who's lonely at times, who feels stunted and broken in ways, who wants encouragement and comfort but doesn't know how to ask for it. 

It's why I don't understand how on earth I could seem intimidating.  I don't feel intimidating.  But I think I might be, in some ways.  And the ways I might seem intimidating aren't necessarily ones that make it the man's fault for not responding to me.  It's not so much that I think what I project is validly intimidating.  But I think there may be men looking for a softness, who don't see it in me even though it is there, and who turn away and look elsewhere. 

4) I think my project is to become braver about those ways I don't have things together, rather than trying to barricade them off and project only my strengths.  I don't think that's about "catching a man," but rather a larger project, about being more honest and complete in my life.  Letting go of the fear of my own unresolved parts.  I was worrying about something the other day and thinking that I could use some good advice.  And I realized that I never, ever, ever ask for advice about things that really worry me.  If you're a friend you might think I am asking you for advice but by the time I get to a place where I can make something public I've usually worked out my own answer and am coming to you for confirmation or a reality check.  Unless I'm crying when I talk to you it's probably not raw, or fresh.  It's already been worked through.  It takes years and years of knowing me before I will cry in front of you.  I cry alone. 

5) It's true that I don't want a man who would want me "dumbed down."  Or who would be threatened by my success or my confidence.  ("Success" being entirely theoretical, since I don't know quite what it means, or whether it's in store for me.)  I don't want a man who's afraid to ask me out.  I want to feel loved and wanted and worth pursuing, like a special prize.  All of that suggests that I should wait to be asked out, and then sort from the pool of men who've done that.  (And it comports with all of the bestselling pink-covered dating advice books in Barnes & Noble.)  But I ask out men from time to time, and I like that about myself.   I like being the kind of person who reaches out and who takes emotional risks, who follows my intuition.  In every other aspect of my life -- professionally, socially, creatively -- when I reach out to someone and try to make a connection I am rewarded with warmth and gratitude.  I believe in reaching out.  Except that it means that by doing that I am, by definition, investing some hope in people who haven't already decided I'm worth pursuing.  It makes me feel like I'm auditioning, in an arena I feel I've already failed at again and again.  It's scary, and it makes me doubly likely to cover up those broken, soft, vulnerable parts, and turn on my high beam personality, dazzle with smarts and confidence and charm. 

6) The solution, I guess, is the same.  Just try to be braver.  Reach out when I feel a connection.  Respond when someone reaches out to me.  Be myself.  All of myself.  Which means the broken parts and the sad parts and the soft parts and the little lost girl parts as well as the grown up capable friendly together parts. 

Danger

So I've been running regularly enough over the past month that I want to do it almost every day.  No, I'm not fast, and no, it's not that fun, but there's something about the feeling I get from it that I find myself craving. 

This is where I went wrong back in the fall.  I had a training schedule of 4 days a week of running, but actually was running 5 or 6 days a week.  That's how I got the shin splints that made me cringe when I tried to walk.   I don't want that to happen again.  So I'm being rigorous about Hal Higdon's schedule.  Today is a rest day.  Since I didn't lift weights yesterday I might do that.  But no running.  Even though I feel like I have energy to burn.

Lingering

I love this post. 

It reminds me, oddly enough, of why I liked drawing pictures when I was trying to learn something in law school.  Because I'm not an artist, but the little girl in me likes to color and likes trying to draw new things or to think of funny ways to represent concepts, I found that I spent much longer trying to capture certain concepts than if I had just been scratching words onto a legal pad, or, worse, typing them out.  So I would sit with a subject I was outlining -- the exclusionary principle in criminal procedure, for example, coloring in the fruit on the poison tree and sort of idly thinking about where I might draw a judge or a police officer.  And sitting with it, not specifically thinking about it but just letting my mind kind of roam on its own, I always had three or four more thoughts about the subject that I hadn't already identified or captured.  Sometimes those thoughts or connections were the most useful of all.  If I hadn't had some coloring to do or a reason to stay, half aware, near the topic, I would never have gotten to those insights.   We value speed so much, quickness of association and immediate retrieval of information, that I forget sometimes how much good work your mind can do if you wait another couple of minutes and see what else is in there.