September 25, 2019 - 12 - "Cup of Joe"

     Any day that Michael and I wake up in the same place is cause for celebration.

     We've both traveled a lot throughout our relationship. Often it's been for work, but sometimes it's to visit friends or family, and sometimes to toil away endlessly on random houses in random places.

     Okay, really, we've just done this with two houses, in one foreign locale, but it's currently causing more time apart than we prefer.

     Really, we've just done this with two houses, in one foreign locale, but it's currently causing more time apart than we'd prefer.

     Anyway, today I'm thinking of all the things I miss when we're apart.  The list is long, but the biggest one is Michael bringing me coffee in bed.  

    It's not just the nice gesture, it’s the ritual around it I miss most.   

It's always the same:

September 24, 2019 - 11 - "Eat Your Spinach"

     You probably come here looking for a little bit of distraction, maybe even actual entertainment, but this post is really more of a a Public Service Announcement:

September 23, 2019 - 10 - "Where I Write"

     I prefer to write in a coffee shop on rainy afternoons.  It's ideal.  I put my AirPods in and listen to some gentle music, the weather isn't luring me outside, the soft hubbub of the other coffee-swillers creates a sense of camaraderie... while not requiring me to actually interact with anyone.

     This preference probably sounds limiting.  But, actually, I write almost exclusively in this environment.  If it's not a rainy afternoon, and there's no coffee shop; I just create my own.

Setptember 22, 2019 - 9 - "Taking Steps"

     Michael and I both have step counters on our phones.  We like to compare and contrast our activity levels.

     I think the most steps I've ever gotten in a day was around 19,000 steps.  We were in Madrid and headed out to explore the city early in the morning and didn't get back to our hotel until late at night.  Most of my days are more in the 7500 steps range.

     Michael told me yesterday that he topped 20,000 steps. 

September 21, 2019 - 8 - "Mindset"

     You know how sometimes you'll hear a new idea and it shakes up your entire world?

     If you've ever had this experience then you are my friend.  It indicates that you have a Growth Mindset.  And this openness to life is something I truly admire.

     This relatively small idea has absolutely revolutionized my way of looking at the world, and has given me a whole new understanding of people.

September 20, 2019 - 7 - "Exercising Discipline"

     More than three years ago (edited:  realized I began in July of '16) I started doing a workout program designed by Kayla Itsines.  A coworker told me about Kayla's Beach Body Guide fitness plan and said a lot of people were having success with it.  She suggested I search online for ‘BBG transformations’ to get an idea of what it could do for me.

     I looked at just a few of the images and stories and thought:  ‘Wow. I'm doing that.’  I downloaded her app and got to work.

September 19, 2019 - 6 - "Delivery Devotee"

     I suppose the addiction started when I lived in Manhattan.  Even way back in the Pre-Amazon-ian Era if you were in the city you could get almost anything delivered to your door at any hour of the day or night.

     This was a godsend for me for so many reasons:
          1) I was flying international trips then and my exhaustion level and inability to distinguish night from day made establishments with traditional hours challenging for me to patronize.
          2) As an introvert who spent a lot of time with masses of people the interactions involved in going out my door, down my apartment stairs, and down the street to the corner store seemed overwhelming.
          3)  Just putting on pants was an insurmountable obstacle at times.
          4)  I have a deep and abiding hatred of all errand-running.
          5)  My overall laziness about, and apathy towards, leaving the strong force field that surrounds my home has always been hard to overcome.  Some people get cabin fever quickly and just can't wait to get up and out into the big bright world.  I'm more the hunker-down-until-stores-of-food hit-critical-lows-before-I'm-involuntarily-forced-out-of-my-lair kind of person.

September 18, 2019 - 5 - "Higher Ground"

      The beautiful and affirming book "The Artist's Way" talks about how we circle back to things in life.  Like, basically, we keep revisiting and/or repeating past mistakes.

     That idea used to bum me out.  I'd see myself returning to that same friend who I regretted calling, or that same junk food that I'd just later regret having.  It felt so defeating, like:  'Crap!  Here I am again?  You've got to be kidding?!  Why am I still having to deal with this same old problem/memory/bad habit, etc...?'

     But Julia Cameron made it all make sense for me.  She says that, yeah,  it's kind of true that we do keep looking at the same old stuff.  But it's as if we're circling up a mountain path and every time we come upon that same situation  it's from a different, higher viewpoint.

September 17, 2019 - 4 - "Man Bun"

     I flew with a young man with long hair he'd tied up into a top knot.  

     It suited him.  Made him look kind of edgy and cool.  

     Male flight attendants, traditionally, (and formerly by absolute company mandate), have tended to look incredibly conservative.  I loved that this guy was doing his own thing.  

     Another crewmember, a woman about my age, mentioned his 'man bun'.  

Me:  "Cool, huh?"   She sort of guffawed and looked at me like I was a nut.  

September 16, 2019 - 3 - "Two Quotes"

     I was boarding a flight recently and had several patience-testing moments in a row.

     That last sentence is, of course, redundant.  Getting a hundred and something people, and all their baggage (both mental and physical) settled into very tight quarters, with severe time constraints, by definition,  is patience-testing.

    A man watching all the commotion and ruffled feathers around me said:  "Wow.  How do you manage to stay so calm and pleasant through all of this?"

September 15, 2019 - 2 - "Surviving the Life: Frenemies"

First off; a Disclaimer: 

     The truth is, I could fill a whole big corner of the internet with what I don't know about friendship.  I have gotten it right, and I have gotten it hellaciously wrong.  

     But I have learned some things.  So here are just a couple of my gems of wisdom.  These gems, like all gems, were formed by extreme pressure.  In this case by the pressure of those two-ton 'friendships' that hurt your heart and prepare you for the darkest challenges of life.  Stuff like political debates and bouts of strep throat.

September 14, 2019 - 1 - "Our Daily Thread"

Willpower Doesn't Work

     I'm reading (aka listening to on Audible) "Willpower Doesn't Work" by Benjamin Hardy.  It's yet another attempt of mine to form a more perfect writing habit. I've been working on this goal for some time now; more or less since I could form letters of the alphabet.  

     The main point of Hardy's book is that accomplishing hard things in not about willpower.  It's about setting up environments that make the daily work of your goals nearly automatic.  I'm only a couple of chapters in, so clearly am no expert, but I'm sharing what I've learned so far to explain how it's helped and motivated me already.

   

---

     Hardy says you first have to have a compelling reason why you want to achieve something.  He calls it your "Big 'Why'".  

So here are my reasons for wanting to write:      

Non-Fat Cat

     The vet said our cat was fat.

     She went on at great length about just how bad this is for cats.  Talked about how they get less and less active and it's a downward spiral of more lethargy, more food, more weight...leading to less activity, which leads to more boredom, which leads to even more food...and more weight.

     The vet said when you look down at a cat they should have a waist.  She told Michael off about it.

     At length.

     In front of people.

     She then took a plastic food scoop, dramatically swiped a line on the side of it with a Sharpie, (in front of everyone in the waiting room), handed it to Michael, and explained  the line indicated the shockingly tee-ninetsy amount of food she felt Ella should eat in a day.

---

     This is all very very bad for more than one reason.