early in the morning

So, we were all up at 5:30. Husband because he’s actually insane and wanted to do his mind-and-body-punishing workout before starting his day (we know he’s there because we can hear the grunting from the basement as he hoists himself up into his 55th pull up orsomethingequallyridiculous). Daughter and I because she had to be at school at 6:45 to get on charter buses for A Very Special Field Trip.

Can I just say that nothing gets your day started like getting to maneuver around 250 probably-already-not-that-good-of-drivers who are possibly as addled as you are by the fact that they had to get up in the middle of the night.

At one point I sat at the stop sign to turn left/exit while 17 cars turned right into the school drive; but ONLY TWO OF THEM HAD TURN SIGNALS. IT’S THAT STICK-LIKE THING THAT PROTRUDES FROM THE LEFT SIDE OF THE STEERING COLUMN — YEAH, THAT THING THERE WITH THE UP AND DOWN ARROWS ON IT. USE IT!

When we got in the car (at 6:25; it only took Only Daughter 8 minutes to put her shoes and socks on; I think we might have a record) it was pitch dark outside; “like 2 a.m.,” Only Daughter said. It didn’t occur to me to ask her how she knew this. On the hilly road before her school there was one little panel of fog, at Prius-roof height, parallel to the ground; my lights caught it in such a way as I crested the little hill that I actually ducked. (We’re fine.) By 6:50, as I was returning home, the sky was blue rather than black, with inky smears of clouds not yet caught by light. Kind of beautiful in a what-the-blank-am-I-doing-out-in-the-world-already sort of way.

By 7:15 a.m. I’ve found wrapping paper for two gifts I need to wrap, sorted and started the laundry, and written an email to First Son about the fact that sometimes there are better things to do in terms of building relationships with people than having to be RIGHT all the time (hmm, wonder where he gets that from). All before my first cup of coffee.

I have vowed not to go back to bed — too many things to do — but am wondering if sleeping on the couch counts. It’s a little couch, and not all the comfortable to sleep on, and the cat hair makes me sneeze. . .

1-12 The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)

 

so much for that

So, in the past week I have had about a 4-day midlife crisis, followed by the discovery of Amanda Palmer’s “In My Mind” song and video, which triggered 2 days of feeling pretty goddamn good about myself; a feeling which involved various vows and “realizations” such as “If you want to weigh less you just need to exercise more and eat fewer potato chips” and “It’s really all up to you, and what you do or don’t do is actually a choice in any particular direction.”

So I tackled the piles of crap on my table and did all of my grading and cleaned off my dresser (okay, I was looking for an iPod cord that I still haven’t found, but I did clean off the dresser; I’m really tired of being “someone who loses things”) and captured all of the dust bunnies in the living room and dug out my list of topics I’ve wanted to blog about, including:

an NPR report on the adverse effects on children’s attention spans from watching SpongeBob SquarePants (who knew?) and the benefit of watching shows like Sesame Street (which my more-than-the-average-boy-ADD son could not tolerate) and Caillou (whiny bald child; helicopter and apparently-unemployed parents)

and

there’s some activity in the direction of taxing sugar in sugary drinks and snacks in an effort to turn back the trend which points toward 1 in 3 children being diabetic and 1 in 2 adults being obese by the year 2030 (how about we also get rid of all the excess sugar in even the most minimally-processed foods like yogurt and “healthy” cereals and granola bars, and spaghetti sauce; while we’re at it, how about NO MSG ANYWHERE!!!???!!!)

and

how great it felt to do yoga this morning, including side planks and a pretty long headstand (against the wall, but still) and a kick-ass Pincha Mayurasana preparation pose that I love, where you’re on your forearms with your heels against the wall and you walk your feet up the wall until your body makes an upside-down L and you stay there feeling abdominal and arm muscles you had forgotten you had

(someday I will do this, just like that, without the wall and everything!)

and

there’s evidence that, contrary to popular (and my occasional) opinion, adolescent brains aren’t actually “damaged,” they just evaluate risk against benefit differently, and because the “benefits” they are evaluating are relatively elusive and/or unimportant to most adults, this evaluation still ends up leading to what looks an awful lot like risky behavior.

I even have a probably-not-that-profound-or-unusual revelation that I should stop evaluating my successes and/or failures in terms of what I have or have not accomplished, but in the fact that I have never stopped wanting to learn and challenge myself and grow — that life might actually be more in the seeking than it is in the finding (I know, duh, right?)

And then I go try on clothes to wear to a wedding we’re going to this weekend. And not one of my “dressy dresses” fits.

Of course everything in my husband’s closet still fits — he has suits he bought in the 80s, that, if you overlook the excessive shoulder padding and plethora of pleats, (ah, the 80s), still look pretty darn good. And, they fit him. This isn’t fair. Yeah, he eats way more healthfully than I do, and he exercises vigorously and regularly, and drinks gallons of water every day, and all of this only makes me feel worse because I know what I need to do and I still don’t do it. Okay, so maybe it is fair.

I’ll spare you all the saga of weight lost and found again, and a recounting of each outfit tried on and rejected, although maintaining a certain level of stress, or living and working outside in cold climates (fishermen, Norway) can produce “brown fat,” which reputedly increases metabolic rates. Don’t think I haven’t considered it.

"Think we should head back?"

The discussion about the “shapewear” I was hoping would help was amusing, basically Husband asking me “Is this ‘Spanx’?” and me answering (in between gasps as I tried to breathe while being suffocated by my underwear), “Yeah, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.”

It is interesting to me what a blathering idiot we can turn into when we feel, as I put it, “old and lumpy.”

I’m also trying to spare myself the 5-year plans, and to remember that not only must we live in the moment (there isn’t really any other option), but that the bitterest irony of all is to look back and realize the person you weren’t happy with being was actually the best version of you you could be at the time.

So, let’s keep it simple: more time on the treadmill, more yoga, more water, fewer potato chips.

A couple of questions, though:

Is it bad to decide to feel good about how you look because the person you love the best loves how you look? Isn’t this supposed to come from yourself first?

Would I look ridiculous if I got a tattoo? I want a little swoosh of stars around my ankle. Maybe something like this.

But I never, ever, want to look ridiculous.

Oh, and tomorrow, I might be shopping for a dress.

a new five-year plan

The bloggess posted today about a meeting with her “shrink,” and the shrink’s desire for her to figure out what she wanted out of her life.

She replies to this, after a week of thought, with:

I’m not one of those people.  I just do shit and then other shit happens.  Sometimes it’s good shit and sometimes it’s shitty shit, but none of it is planned.  And I sort of suspect that if I stopped to actually consider who I am, I’d stop being “me”.  ”Me” never knows who I am.  And now I sound like an existential Tarzan.  Awesome.

It’s been eating at me for the last week, but I think I’ve finally figured it out.   My five-year-plan is to never be the kind of person who’s stable enough to have a five-year-plan.  It’s technically the same plan I had five years ago, and guess what?  I’m totally on track.

Those of you who read her blog will recognize her particular sense of humor, and writing style, but this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and, as you know, quite intensely. You can read about my midlife crisis here, if you haven’t already.

I met with a good friend this morning, a woman a few years older than I am who has just started a new business in facilitation/leadership coaching/engagement consulting, and we brainstormed about my strengths, interests, personal and professional goals, etc. I have a few ideas, some suggested readings, and a model for designing a business plan.

I’m excited about this, and hope it leads to some clarification for me, and maybe a more focused path for the next/last twenty years of my professional life. I’m thinking these are all good things, and wondering if they are things I should have done twenty years ago, but never mind about that.

I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about my “self” twenty years ago — what I thought I knew, what I thought I wanted, how I thought I’d get it or decided I didn’t deserve it. Part of this recent thinking is triggered by professional frustrations, but also because my sons are approaching the long-awaited Age of Independence, and I’m constantly trying to find the balance between being a “parent” and letting them figure it out for themselves. As I commented on the Bloggess’s post, my sons make me crazy sometimes because they’re so optimistic and I just think they’re being irresponsible because they don’t account for all of the possible things that might go wrong on the way to their poorly-thought out, not-that-ambitiously-pursued dreams. At the same time, I kick myself Every. Single. Day. for not being braver, and thinking of all the cool, kick-ass things I would have/could have/should have done when I was young and relatively free of responsibility if only I would not have been afraid. So clearly I’m not qualified to give them advice, or even a hard time — maybe they’re doing right all the stuff I did wrong.

She also posted this video. Amanda Palmer, “In My Mind.” Love the words, and although I’m not planning on getting any tattoos (maybe a little one?) or painting my eyebrows on quite like that, I find it to be very inspiring. I think I’m going to listen to this every morning for a while.  UPDATE: I especially like the last stanza: And in my mind, I imagine so many things, things that aren’t really happening, and when they put me in the ground I’ll start pounding the lid, saying I haven’t finished yet, I still have a tattoo to get that says I’m living in the moment. And it’s funny how I imagined that I could win this winless fight, but maybe it isn’t all that funny that I’ve been fighting all my life, and maybe I have to think it’s funny if I want to live before I die, and maybe it’s funniest of all to think I’ll die before I actually see that I’m exactly the person that I want to be.

So my new five-year plan: look for open doors, and walk through them. Meanwhile, try to more thoroughly enjoy the room I’m in.

the latest fashions

Nowhere on the internets has a selection of absolutely hideous pants quite like shopbop.

I don’t know how they do it.

Here’s a snippet. (You might want to shield your eyes.)

Oh, it burns.

I like to go there every once in a while just so I can feel better about the crap hanging in my closet.

They seem to hit about 50/50 on the dresses, alternating between average, stunning, and whatweretheythinking?

To whit, and which I rank:

Quite stunning           Beautiful                   To-ga To-ga,                    Ugh. . .                  Hmmm. . .maybe?

I can’t help but wonder if they’re actually trying to sell clothes, or just posting random styles for our confusion and/or amusement.

Then there’s the maternity clothes page, modeled by a) women who are clearly not pregnant and b) badly misshapen men.

And let’s not forget anorexia corner the swimwear.

Now I’m just sad.

 

comfort food

I think I’m having a midlife crisis.

Okay, I won’t soft-pedal it; I’m having a midlife crisis.

I can’t alleviate this crisis by leaving my husband and taking up with someone younger/richer/more handsome because I love him dearly and right now he seems like maybe one of the few things I’ve “done” right in my life, and I can’t imagine a day without him.

Besides, the crisis is mostly professional. For the first 10 years after my masters degree I mostly raised children. I couldn’t figure out how to practice 4+ hours a day, teach enough students to help make our budget more-or-less balance-able, and take care of busy toddler boys, so I just did the latter 2 out of 3. I played when I could, a little collaborative work here and there for area graduate students and miscellaneous faculty, accompanying my bff Jackie’s violin studio when she took them to contests or played recitals, that kind of stuff.

I’ve since spent the last 14 years as an adjunct at various colleges, while adopting my daughter from Korea and completing my DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) degree in 2005. This was prompted by the realization, as I worked as an adjunct in various college/university music departments, that I was as good a performer and probably a better teacher than a lot of the people I was working with, who had full-time, tenure-track jobs, so why shouldn’t I go for it? But you won’t even be considered for such a position without a Doctorate these days, so, after 5 years of 100-mile-each-way commutes, reading and writing and practicing and studying and performing while still being the primary parent (oldest son was 10 when I started), I had a DMA. And now I’m a fully-credentialed musician in a world with way more fully-credentialed musicians than there are jobs, and in an academic climate which favors piece-work-paid adjuncts over full-time professorships.

I don’t know the numbers on how many pianists graduated with DMAs in the past year, but there is currently ONE tenure-track position in piano posted at the College Music Society. One. In the whole country. One.

So, I’m having a crisis, and as far as I can tell, there are two things I can do about it:

1.) I can suck it up, be grateful I have any work at all, and continue to work at ~ 25% pay for the rest of my life (when compared to what full-time, tenure-track faculty are paid) or

2.) I can find something else to do, and by this I mean something for which I will be paid, which does not include such activities as writing a blog that 135 people read every day or eating my weight in potato chips. Fun as these activities may be, they do not contribute to paying the mortgage.

So. What are my options?

1.) Areas I am interested in and could maybe make a living at:

a) Nursing. Would have to start from scratch, reconcile myself to being a complete “newb” at the age of 50, and probably do things like hold bedpans and inject people with needles.

b) English/Language Arts for secondary school instruction. Would have to  start from scratch, reconcile myself to probably 4 years of school while still paying off loans from my DMA pursuit, still teaching, which can be rewarding, but is also frustrating as there seems to be a general dearth of curiosity/interest in learning amongst “students” today. And are there any teaching jobs anymore?

c) Writing for Pay. Have written two children’s books that start “Nicholas Picholas Tickle-Me . . .” and based on the mischievous antics of my now 18-year old. Also started one called “Hannah’s Hungry,” but haven’t finished it. Don’t know how to get them published, can’t seem to find anyone else who knows. Presumably this is done, routinely, given the number of books out there. And some of them are really dreadful. Have also considered trying to write articles and submit them to magazines, but have not done so, partially in interests of time. Also have a few short story ideas and a family history/memoir/birth-order-memory-what-makes-us-who-we-are book idea but not enough time to really pursue them. Would have to take some time off from earning actual money to see if these lead anywhere, and no windfall/lottery wins/inheritances in sight. Also feel like it’s an act of supreme arrogance to think that I have anything to say that that many people would want to read, and yet here I am. . .

d) Opening some kind of bed-and-breakfast. What I would really like is to move to Italy and buy a few acres and a little villa somewhere and grow my own grapes and host and cook for tourists. I could even teach piano lessons to all the little Italian children in the area, but would have to improve my Italian first. Or offer it as piano -and-English-lessons or something. Although sometimes I don’t even want to teach any more.

Sigh.

Lots of ideas, lots of ways to talk myself out of them.

I joke sometimes that my life’s goal is

2) to be a kept woman.

I don’t think I would be very good at it, though. This is the first semester in a few years I haven’t taught a Music Appreciation class, and, despite still having a pretty full teaching schedule, the lack of this prep has made my days seem rather long.

I’m trying to talk Husband into a dog. A little white Havanese, named Zuzu.

What do you think?

Meanwhile, I can always cook. Am making gumbo today. Have thought about starting a second blog called “Soupy Sundays,” and making a different soup every Sunday and writing about my life, my week, what’s going on with my “crisis” although it seems a little too Julie Powell.

Maybe just a new category then.

Today’s soup:

Gumbo

Heat 1/2 c. canola oil in a large cast-iron soup pot, then whisk in 1/2 c. whole wheat flour and lower the heat to low/low-medium. Allow to brown for 5-10 minutes, whisking occasionally.

Meanwhile, chop:

1/2 large onion

3 stalks celery

1 large red pepper

1/2 lb. okra (slices)

2 cloves garlic (slice, then mince)

Add the vegetables to the roux, stirring to coat, and allow the vegetables to begin to soften.

Add 8 c. chicken stock (recipe below), 1/2 tsp. cayenne or 1 or 2 dried red chilies, snipped into flakes, or 1/2 tsp. dried red pepper flakes (use both cayenne and pepper flakes/chilies if you like it really spicy), 1 tsp. kosher salt, 1/2 tsp coarse black pepper.

Bring to a boil, then add

12-16 ozs. andouille sausage (the nitrite-free kind if you can find it)

and allow the soup to simmer for as long as you’d like — 1 – 3 hours.

A few minutes before being ready to eat, add 1 lb. of peeled shrimp (the big ones are great, but cut in half so you have bite-size portions in your soup spoon), bring soup to boil and boil just long enough to cook the shrimp.

Serve with a crusty bread, and over cooked rice if desired.

I’d include a picture, but the shrimp aren’t in the pot yet, and I’m drying 7 bags of leftover bread bits on my stove, so I’m a little embarrassed. Maybe next time.

Homemade chicken stock

Every self-respecting cook should make this themselves. Way too much sodium in even the low-sodium kinds, and it’s easy. I like to roast a chicken for an easy meal, and then make the stock overnight.

In a large soup pot, put one chicken carcass, and add water to cover by several inches. Add coarsely chopped onions and celery (the top part with the leaves is the best), a handful of whole peppercorns, a couple bay leaves. You can leave the skin on the onion if you want a golden broth, and add garlic or carrots if you want it more flavorful, but this will make it a little less adaptable for certain recipes because the garlic especially adds a very distinctive flavor. I don’t use any salt, so I am free to salt the final dish.

Cover and bring to a boil, and then allow to simmer for HOURS. We often leave this overnight and put it in a bowl to chill the next morning.

This part is important: Pour the stock through a strainer into a large bowl, and chill the broth thoroughly; then skim the fat off the top before putting into 4-cup containers to put in the freezer.

 

Meanwhile, if anyone has any life- or career advice: Please share!

 

 

 

 

 

 

marketing makes the world go ’round

Did anyone else notice this at the US Open?

An undesirable urge between Games to go out and buy a Mercedes?

Branding, branding everywhere.

The latest: on college campuses. The two noted culprits in a recent NY Times article: American Eagle and Target.

University of North Carolina vice chancellor Winston B. Crisp, commenting on the clothing retailer American Eagle paying people to wear company T-shirts and to “volunteer” to help freshman move into their dorm rooms : “They are not supposed to be using the opportunity to help people move in as a way of forwarding commercial ventures.” This spoken while he’s STANDING NEAR THE CASH REGISTERS AT TARGET while upperclassmen hand out free Vitamin Water and miscellaneous snacks to students who have been BUSED IN FOR FREE  to  a university-sponsored midnight “event” at a local Target store.

One presumes he spoke without irony, although the reporter of the article doesn’t weigh in on that.

In one of the most blatant examples of spin I’ve heard recently, employees such as T-shirt clad movers are referred to as “brand ambassadors.” There are also such jobs available for companies such as HP, where part of your job is to plant yourself in a prominent location with your HP laptop and engage those around you in casual conversation, while working in positive references to your hardware computer equipment.

(Phew. Glad I caught that. For a minute there I sounded like I was talking about Ladies’ Night at the local pub. Or was I. . .?)

And then we have what might be one of the most stupidest naive people left on the planet:  “When you know that the company is not just there to get your money, they’re actually willing to, like, help you as an individual in whatever way possible, it makes you respect them a lot more. . . I’m definitely going to give American Eagle, like, a second thought when I go by next time.” This spoken by 20-year old Kiley Pontrelli, who volunteered along with her sorority to help the American Eagle employees help freshman move in.

Yeah, you’re probably right, Kiley. AE just wants to, like, help.

Sheesh.

Michele Bachman’s Mouth

Maybe she’d do better if she kept it shut.

Not that I mind if she reveals herself to be the idiot that she is.

“Maybe she’s a little passionate, but she’s not scripted,” said Kent Sorenson, an Iowa state senator who is chairman of her campaign there. “She’s real. I think people are fed up with these politicians who are so scripted that you don’t know who they are.”

Yeah, she’s real, alright. Real stupid, and we know it.

Why has it become more important in this country that people who want to be PRESIDENT be “real” rather than “smart” or “educated” or “informed” or “articulate”? Is this part of OUR national insecurity (not to be confused with that of Canada), this knee-jerk reaction to someone being smarter then you possibly being better than you? If what you are comparing is apples to apples, in the category of intellect, if they’re smarter, they’re “better”! And you’re probably smarter than someone else, and you’re probably also smart enough to know that you’re not smart enough to be President.

And yet we feel perfectly comfortable electing people no smarter than we are to be president.

“When you speak six times a day, slip-ups can occur. . .”

And yet she thinks she’s ready to be president. I wonder how many times a day a President needs to speak, coherently and accurately. Without doing a statistical analysis, I’m guessing it’s more than 6.

Republican candidates for 2012: Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest

I already quoted Mitt Romney, with the “Corporations are People Too,” but there’s also “I’m also unemployed.”

Except his net worth is estimated to be between $190 and $250 million. I have a feeling that this is not the case for the majority of the people he was addressing at the time.

Then there’s Mike Huckabee and  “Americans should be indoctrinated at gunpoint.”

I might be wrong, but it seems like that might violate several of our civil rights.

Ron Paul would have voted against the civil rights act, and Rick Perry “sleeps well at night” despite the fact that at least one of the more than 240 people executed on death row under his watch was probably innocent.

Bachman has too many to list here, so click here for a list and the explanations.

And then we have Sarah. Ah, Sarah. Where have you been? I must admit I’m a little less angry at the world all the time now that I’m not hearing your whiny, nasally voice on the radio on a daily basis. But you have also failed to provide me, or Tina Fey, with any material for, is it possible?, months now!

We’ll just use this then: “Lipstick.”

why?

A blogger I follow recently posted this picture of Lindsay Lohan:

with the heading “If You’re Thinking of Tampering With Your Face”

What has happened to this girl? She looks 50. And hideous.

I always thought she was one of the most beautiful young actresses I had ever seen.

Look at her “then”

What is she thinking?

I can’t imagine it can merely be puffiness from her raucous lifestyle — what I want to know is how can the girl directly above look in a mirror and decide that she needs to do something to make herself prettier?

This is difficult for me, because I really want to have my neck fixed. I didn’t like my neck when I was in my 20s, and I really don’t like it now. And despite Nora Ephron’s advice, I don’t like turtlenecks; they make me feel like I’m being strangled, and I don’t think they actually help because they just push that little pooch of extra skin up so not only is it visible, but it looks even bigger than it actually is. But, as I’ve written before, I’m vehemently opposed to plastic surgery and everything it represents, especially the idea that we’re not supposed to end up looking like we’ve lived in our faces, or that there’s some ideal of “beauty” that we should !!! all aspire to.

I also worry because Only Daughter has just been accepted as “talent” at a local modeling agency, and she’s very excited. Except she, all 4’5″ 60 lbs of her, already thinks she has fat calves, wishes she had curly hair like mine (she’s Korean, I’m not, and my hair is just curly enough to be annoying) and obsesses over every pimple.

She’s beautiful, and I worry that throwing her into this world of models and clothes and the quest for “perfection” and eating disorders and body obsession and inadequacy is only going to play out badly. How does someone manage to grow up and look in the mirror and still see beautiful?

A lot of people speculate that Lindsay Lohan’s mother is behind a lot of her problems, as well as her sister Ali’s and her apparent eating disorder.

The radical difference shown above is reported to be a result of “natural” changes from adolescence, and Ali becoming taller and “slimmer.” Do they mean starving?

She’s so skinny. This just makes me so sad.

Anyway, I know it’s always easy to blame the mom, even though sometimes it probably is the mom’s fault. I always joke that I’m willing to take all of the credit and none of the blame, but that’s not really true. I take a lot of the blame, even when I probably shouldn’t.

Yes, that sign applies to you, too

It says “No Parking.”

You’ve left your vehicle.

That’s parking.

I don’t care how expensive your car or your clothes were, how much of a hurry you’re in, or how important you are, or that your husband is still sitting in the passenger seat. We all need to drive there, and your car is in the MIDDLE of the road. Maybe you’re too rich, or busy, or privileged to notice, but there are three cars behind you that can’t exit now, and you didn’t even bother to pull over to the SIDE of the driveway so people could get around you without hitting the parked, Parked, cars on the other side.

If you’re smart enough to drive. . . well, never mind. If that rule applied there’d be less than half the traffic there is now. Maybe you’re not.

Sigh.

I’ll look at this as a good opportunity for me to practice my new don’t-stress-out-at-stupid-people-on-the-road policy.

Thank you?