10 Things I Learned from my Dad.

1. You can learn anything and everything from a book.

2. We are not lost. We are right here. 

3. Only boring people are bored. (This was especially infuriating to hear when I was a pre-teen, but it's true.)

4. There's no reason to commit to only one instrument (or in my case, hobby).

5. But there is true love. And you should hold out for it, but if it's not right there, it's okay.

6. If you say no to opportunities, they will go away. So always say yes. Just in case. (I didn't say all this advice as useful....)

7. Learn some good jokes, so you can tell them over and over to perfect them over time. If you forget the punch line, sometimes you can remember it if you just start telling the joke anyway. If not, time to make up a new punchline! Funny voices are always helpful. 

8. Take care of the wood, and it will last forever. 

9. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. 

10. Cooking is fun. But McDonald's is handy, too. 

These might not be what he intended for me to learn, but that's I heard / observed / absorbed. 

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

#Yesallwomen

Earliest memory of street harassment: I was probably 10. I had just bought from the neighbor's yard sale a sparkly glass heart necklace, and my mom needed me to run to the grocery store. Could this be the best day of my life? I had on kelly green scoop neck t-shirt and a floral print skirt (I wore skirts every day of childhood unless I had to go to Girl Scouts camp until the mean girls of 7th grade bullied it out of me.) I put on my sparkly necklace and walked down the driveway. The store was maybe 2 blocks away.

I much prefer wolf birthday horns to wolf whistles. 

I was cutting a diagonal across the huge parking lot of the grocery store. My necklace was dazzling in the sunlight, shooting prisms to the pavement. I heard a man yelling, and assumed it must be because of my amazing necklace. I entered the store, feeling responsible and helpful and like a good girl, the best daughter that I could be. I got the milk. I put the change inside the paper bag.

As I retraced my steps across the parking lot, the man was still yelling. I started to feel a little scared. I couldn't really hear what he was saying, because he was far away. But he was heading towards me, and I would have to drastically change my very short route to get away from him.

So I stayed on target. He walked right up to me, and told me horrible things about my chest. I didn't look at him, but I said no. He didn't have a car, didn't offer me candy, so my school training was useless. I kept walking. I crossed the street, and he followed me. I looked into the passing cars for help, started to run a little. He got tired of yelling, or something, and stood on the sidewalk while I ran towards home.

I was crying when I brought the milk into the kitchen. Should I remind you I was 10 years old? I was pretty sure I had done something wrong, perhaps by wearing such a pretty necklace. I didn't want to tell my mom what the man said. I should not have gone by myself, or should not have been so proud, or should have run the whole way. I was the worst daughter.

And this has continued through most of my life. It was worse when I was a young woman. I am going to hope it's because I look less harassable now, but realistically I probably no longer look as much like the fantasy (young, busty, easily intimidated). But highlights (or rather, low points) include being harassed while jogging (so much so that after one particularly harrowing incident I didn't run again for 10 years), and having a man in a car nearly run me over to cut off my path, so he could tell me how good looking I was. (I still see that man at the bar. I am hoping that I remember it wrong, that he's a separate creepy starer, but it's a pretty small town. I am pretty sure it's the same guy, and I continue keep my distance.)

Until mass murder, it somehow never occurred to me that this was wrong, nor did I realize that there were men that didn't believe these things happen. It's just the way things work. Right? Do I prefer it this way? Oh, fuck no. I would much rather be able to move around town as needed, without consideration for time of day or looking "too good". Wouldn't it be great to be able to banter with strangers?

But no. That is not the way it works right now. I will, and would recommend that you do too, continue to judge each situation as it occurs. I am told the gut always knows, but I haven't ever been successful in using it in a useful fashion. I always remember to notice after the fact, oh, that didn't seem right.

I think that maybe the real danger here is the broad paintbrush, and the misguided painters that use them. It's the stereotype hammer, squashing all nails indiscriminately. It's not all all men, or all gun owners or all the mentally ill, or just the kids with Asperger's, or the politicians, that are the problem or solution. It's realizing that you can't paint them with the same broad brush, and you have to pay attention and be lucky in knowing when to defend and when to withdraw.

I do know we have to adjust the systems that make undesirable behavior easy. I believe that's called, society? I think it's important that so many women have been able to tell their stories and illuminate the crazy framework. We can't just keep telling the victim story, though. So am I going to encourage younger women to stand up for themselves, and we will always decline the pick-up artist, and dance wherever and whenever we want.

Memorial Day memories

Because I am saving my Half Year Resolutions for the 4th of July, here's some Memorial Day musings. In list formation, because you know how I love a list.

Wild lupine and honeysuckle at the trail head.

1. I feel a little bad that I didn't thank the troops on facebook for making freedom possible (yes, I am a very bad American....), but I would like to point out that Memorial Day is for remembering those who were lost at war. Presumably, they do not have profiles or regularly read them. 

2. As was outlined nicely on Salon (albeit in a weird sports kind of way), the military doesn't have much to do with freedom. If you're a philosophical sort, you will probably know either that free will does not exist, or that freedom is intrinsic and cannot be granted, it just is. 

Richard photographing his grandfather's grave

3. That being said, I do have many fond memories of accompanying the marching band for the high school my dad worked at to various rural Memorial Day parades in the 1970s. At least, I think they were Memorial Day parades, since they often went by or stopped at the town cemetery, which you wouldn't ordinarily do for the Blossom Queen parade. 

4. We rode our bikes today down the rail trail that would have gone through a few of these small towns, had we the energy to keep going. 

5. This gave me plenty of time to think about the interconnected nature of things. For example, as well as thanking the troops, who may not have directly "given" me my "freedom", we should probably thank everyone for everything. I was particularly struck by one section of the bike trail, where wildflower restoration was going taking place. I happen to know the woman who the project for the last 5 years. I don't think your average bicyclist or jogger would know that it had taken numerous volunteers 5 years of removing invasive plants to make the display you see today. They just take it for granted. 

6. So even though I am a reservedly non-patriotic American, you can't have America without me. And I thank you for your service, whatever it is you do. 

But I haven't got a thing to wear...

It's a well known quirk of mine that I have a rotating uniform for the office. (Because I love clothes, I couldn't have just one uniform, you know.) Monday is a sweater, Tuesday a skirt, Wednesday a scarf, Thursday a jacket, and Friday is for dresses.

But I don't really have a uniform for weekends or fun time. And I suspect because I like to leave things unplanned to see what happens, thus unintentionally hindering my fun while I stress about what to wear. Seriously, this happens. Ask The Smiths!

So, today I made a list of things that happen on the weekend, and what I might want to wear. This may seem like a lot of rules, but I think of it more like parameters. Because unlimited choices means anything but freedom to me. It's more like overwhelm. Because if you can wear anything, then you'll need to try on everything, right?

Which somehow lead to the bigger breakthrough. I'm afraid it will slip away again, so I'm going to write it in all caps, despite the fact it's not very catchy. I MAKE SYSTEMS TO GET THE DUMB DETAILS DOWN SO THE JUICY OTHER STUFF CAN HAPPEN. It's as big or small as you let it be, I suppose. Yes, what I'm wearing is small. But it lets the other stuff happen, right?

What's the other stuff? Always in motion is the future. Yeah, I just quoted Yoda.

The Laptop's Lament

If the warranty emails from my laptop brand are to be believed, this thing is 1 year old. This shiny, solid-state, over-stimulated mouse control hunk-o-junk was purchased specifically to write this blog. And yet, weeks of silence happen.

Is there more coffee?

It's not because I don't want to write. It's about making the time, making some dinner, getting there on time, scrolling through distraction. I wish it was more about gazing at the morning sun on my cat, or hiking trips, or a meditation retreat or something, but I guess it's just poor time management. The tools are ready.

So here's to trying harder. I've got some new tricks, new motivations (it's pathetic how much we love checklists), and new focus. Soon, I can tell you at length about all my new experiments, adventures, and searches. But not today.

It's okay, Grandma.

Grandma likes to be comfortable, and gets cratchity if there's too much noise, or static over music, or especially two kinds of music. Sometimes, I need to withdraw from the fray for a while and knit.  Hi, my name is Liz, and I might be my own grandmother.

For example, here is my ideal bed. Sadly, currently only available in cat sizes. 

Or, I might be moderately highly sensitive (yes, both adjectives are required). HERE'S a quiz if you want to check yourself. As I was happily reading clickbait on the social network that impersonates the internet these days, an article about "highly sensitive people" floated by a couple weeks ago. I lunged for the worm, and the hook was set. Apparently, the primary book on the topic has been on my coffee table for years (but probably not since 1996, when it was published). I feel a little sheepish about not reading it sooner.

The book is The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine M. Aron, PhD. My husband picked it up a couple years(!) ago on a random book store trip. He says he read part of it, and it was "good". That's all the encouragement I need, as I will read anything in front of me. It was cereal boxes, back in the pre-internet days.

So, I read it, and it was very reassuring. I'm not prematurely elderly. There's a name for it. And it's okay to take the time and solitude I need to feel comfortable.

Dr. Aron has a very kind writing voice, and I liked that there was research and field experience to back her suggestions. The book is broken into sections, to assist with feeling comfortable in a general lifestyle, at work, in relationships, etc.

I will note some of the exercises in the book felt a little too woo woo for me. That's a lot of woo woo, if you've read me before. I'm quite willing to make a vision board or set an intention while de-cluttering a room. But I'm not very comfortable with visualizing myself as a fussy infant, and then having a conversation with myself (as myself now, with myself the infant) to find out what my needs are.  Yeah. That's not working for me, even though I tried.

I've always been puzzled about the introverted extrovert, or the extroverted shy person that I seem to be. This concept of a personality trait seems tie it together better. And not that it matters what you call it, but everyone wants to know that they belong, and this seems like a good solution for me and many of my friends. There's no longer a reason to refer to myself in the third person as "Grandma". I can just be my sensitive self.

No, really, what's it all about?

I haven't been around lately. I would love to say I was traveling, or on a yoga retreat or something, but I was staring at my smart phone.

All my little experiments are about learning to wobble. Finding whiz, get it? That's what it's all about. There's no destination, just speed and sometimes grace. Sure, it's a little frustrating, because you never get there. You just keep turning over rocks. So, what am I working on now? Sleep. Steps. Meditation. All of which I can monitor from my smart phone.

So we wobble on. In fact, let's learn to wobble.

Sleep Cycle is my favorite app, perhaps of all time. You use your phone, placed under your pillow, to measure your sleep quality. When you set an alarm, the app uses your measurements to wake you up at the shallowest portion of your sleep cycle with a catchy, calming, echo-y song. You then can review all the oddly lovely graphs of your sleep. I've only got a week of measurements, but I'm seeing that I really do use weekends to "catch up" and stress makes my sleep poor, where exercise improves it. Duh. And Oh!

Steps are on my mind again. The snow is melting (very very very slowly, but that's probably good for the ground and my basement humidity). It's time to go for some walks. Now that I'm motivated to be well rested, I'm amazed to discover that the daylight savings time light seems to be a good fit for getting up early (I know, it makes no sense). So maybe I can get some walks in before work even! And my activity tracker is still motivating me.

And the holy goblet of meditation, you wily nebulous goal. One of my newer apps, called Happier has a meditation program. (I would love the app so much more if they didn't constantly direct you to purchase one of their programs, but I am loving the Meditation one....) Sure, I thought, nothing else has worked (like pure force of will). Why not? And it's really good. The facilitator has removed quite a few of my mental barriers to why I "can't" seem to meditate. Turns out, I was doing okay. I just needed a mantra to focus on. But it's only a 7 day program, and I'm on day 5. What to do next?

Wobble on, I guess. Because really, I'm not trying to "save" time, or increase my earnings, or lose 20 pounds fast (although all those things sound good sometimes). I'm trying to do better, so I can love better.