Fast Cars & Target & My Stash

Some friends of mine are cheering me on and providing mutual support to get on me dating apps.

Wow. I thought the Spelling Bee was hard to figure out.

I am learning so much about how guys present themselves with so little information. There are a few themes. The first I'll discuss today is the guy in the fast, sporty car. 

Note to men: If you post a picture of yourself driving a Porsche or a Mustang or some other speedy car, great. I love it. It is awesome.

But you better let me fucking drive the fancy car in the picture. I am not signing up to be a spectator or ride in the passenger seat.

Just saying.

Also, everyone loves exploring other cities. How come no one wants to spend Sunday at Target? Or go grocery shopping? Or, "I spend the weekend maintaining this old house I bought. I need to power wash the deck. Sorry we can't go snowshoeing in the Cascades." I have to admit one guy called BS on all the adrenaline junkie sports as his non-negotiables: "Bungee jumping, rock climbing, sky diving. Those are all cool---from a distance."

Thank you, sir.

What won't I post on my profile: "I have a fabric addiction. I have boxes of fabric that I hope to someday turn into quilts that I don't need. Do you have children or nieces or nephews that could use a quilt? I love embroidery where I more kits than I have time to finish. I also horde paper. Do you need a coupon for Ace Hardware that expired in March? I have one in the stack on my kitchen counter."

How about providing practical information on the profile, like do you snore? Do you have a job that requires you to carry a pager? What does the pager sound like and how often are you called? You know to get out of bed and take the call in another room when I am there, right? What time do you go to sleep? Are you in bed by 8:30 p.m., or are you knocking around until 2:00 a.m.? How do you manage money? Do you have credit card debt? Are you a saver or a spender? Do you know how to fix a leaky faucet? If not, will you expect me to fix it, or let it drip for months until no one notices/cares anymore? Or, will you call a plumber, schedule the plumber's visit and pay for said plumber? My closet door is dragging on the floor. Can you fix it, without looking inside to see how much crap is in there and how disorganized it is? 

Thanks.

There Should be a Word

There should be a word

That describes the sadness you feel

When a vacation ends

But

You want it

To last 

Forever.

Obrigado, Brasil.

Vaults

The apartments and homes 

In the cities of

Brazil

Are vaults. 

The gates are 

High.

Windows barred.

Doormen watch.

Floors above the city

The beautiful people relax

In bars and restaurants

Watching the 

Sparkling streets

Below.

 

Copacabana at night

TSwift x2 , Suck It Scalpers! and the Screecher

Claire-Adele and I saw Taylor Swift twice in Brazil. We bought one set of tickets planning for the trip and a second set while we were here. The cost of the Saturday show dropped to $90 for floor seats, far below the Brazilian face value of the tickets. When Claire-Adele asked if we should go, I said of course. 

Taylor’s initially scheduled two shows in Rio, and added a third based on demand, which is great, but how can the people scheduling concerts know the true demand of the robot scalpers and buying so many tickets hoping to profit? It would be crazy. 

I hope we bought these tickets from a robot scalper  and they had to take a loss on the whole show.

At the second show, a screecher stood behind us. Everyone in the stadium was singing along, but this chick was screaming or yelling the lyrics, completely out of tune. She was sobbing and shouting the lyrics to “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story.” My head was about to explode. I had a few choices:

1. I could continue to stand next to her and resent that she was ruining the concert.
2. I could use my translation app and tell her to shut the fuck up, which would not have represented Americans well.
3. I could passive-aggressively dance in her face and get her to move.
4. I could move.

I could Option 4. I have her the space in front of me so I won’t have her voice blasting in my right ear, and Claire-Adele and I moved three spots to the left. Win-win.

Claire-Adele said there has been a big brouhaha on the internet about Gen Zer’s screaming at concerts. I guess a woman at a U.S. show paid $3k for a seat next to screecher. I was lucky I could move whereas the woman in the US could not. Even though it is a joyful and exciting concert, you can do whatever the fuck your want. Suppose I started singing the Star Spangler Banner in the middle of “Lover” because I was inspired. People would have every right to drag me out of there.

Ditto to the screechers. Back in the day, I remember attending the Steppenwolf theater in Chicago and they posted theater going etiquette in the program. Rick concerts have fewer rules, but there are still some.

The Eras Tour Rio and the Perfect Storm — General Admission, Water, and Safety & Security

Note: Sorry for the seriously clunky title.

As the entire world knows, a young woman, Ana Clara Benevides Machado, died from dehydration from the heat prior to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert last Friday in Rio. My daughter—who is the same age as the woman who died—and I attended the Sunday and Monday Rio concerts. What would have been a simply joyful event became marked with a difficult set of complex thoughts and feelings. I planned this trip with my daughter so I could bounce back from a rough year that included my mother’s death, the finalization of a heartbreaking divorce, and a surgery that had me laid up for six weeks. And now the concert that was to bring joy to thousands was marked by tragedy.

I don’t know the specific details about the Benevides death, but here are some things that I imagine might have contributed to the perfect storm.

The shows here are General Admission (GA) by section. The floor doesn’t have chairs (unlike U.S. shows), so it is just a mob of people. To get a good spot, people arrive early. My daughter and I met a guy on the train home after Sunday’s show who also had tickets for the Saturday show that was postponed. He told showed up at ten a.m. on Saturday to get a good place in line and was in the stadium when the show was canceled. He thought it was a good decision to postpone the show: he thought more people would have died.

I imagine Benevides didn’t have any water all day, not just during the show. Imagine sitting outside since ten a.m. in 100 degree heat with no water bottle waiting to get into the show you’ve dreamed of for months. You are thrilled and full of anticipation. Once you get a good spot in the crowd, you don’t want to leave because you won’t get your spot back. Also, you don’t want to be chugging too much water because you have to pee and then you’d also lose your spot to see a performer whose music has changed your life. Couple this with an otherwise healthy young person who thinks they will never die, and you have a perfect storm for some to die of heat and dehydration.

What changed? 

After the young woman’s death, the best thing that happened was the stadium changed the policy to allow people to bring in factory sealed bottles of plastic water and snacks. I can see why they don’t want metal water bottles in the show for security, but that doesn’t mean they need to exclude all water. Safety and security are not the same. Letting people bring water into the show keeps them safe. Making sure people don’t get beaten on the head with a full Hydroflask is security. 

Do I think the Brazilians should get rid of General Admission? That is up to them to decide, not me. Not having an assigned seat might have contributed to her death, but it didn’t cause it. Lack of water caused her death, and if there are good ways to make sure people are hydrated, then it is fine. 

One good thing about GA is that large groups of friends can attend the concert together because that can each buy one ticket in the same section. On the train to the shows, we saw packs of women traveling to the show together. Claire-Adele saw the show in Seattle and there weren’t as many large groups going to the show together.

I hope Taylor Swift and her team are recovering after the death of her fan. I was shaken after hearing the news—I can’t imagine how Swift felt. A kind woman and her tween daughter helped my daughter and I navigate the Rio Metro and train systems by to get to the show. We were transferring from the Metro to the train when we heard the show was postponed. The tween daughter was stunned and dismayed when she heard the concert was postponed, and the worried she wouldn’t be able to attend the show on a different date.

I have to admit I was relieved the show was canceled. I wasn’t sure the stadium could deliver on their promise to provide water to the crowd in that short of time. Emotionally, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be at a show where someone unnecessarily died less than twenty-four hours before.

Swift is both a brilliant performer and concerned about the health and welfare of her fans. The heavens answered the water question on Sunday with continuous rain during the show. Swift is reported to love rain shows, and perhaps the rain had a healing effect on her and the crowd. Sunday’s show was phenomenal, yet Monday’s was less muted, more vibrant.

I imagine there are some haters out there who would think that Taylor should have canceled all of her Rio shows and to avoid any such possible tragedy from ever occurring.

Bullshit.

The girl died from stadium policies that are the same around the globe. Because this death happened at the biggest concert tour of the century, it caught the attention of the world.

The Eras Tour has brought show much joy to so many people. I couldn’t have imagined it without seeing it for myself. I dreamed about this show before I saw it. I can’t imagine what it was like for the true Swifties. When I looked around the crowd, I saw people crying. I get it. I cried more than a few tears of joy myself.

And yet Taylor’s specialty is singing about sorrow and sadness while dressed in sequins and sparkles. For her surprise song on Sunday, she sang “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” a song clearly about grief and loss, a tribute to Benevides.

My daughter asked me, “Is it okay that we still had fun?” Honestly, I am not sure. I want to say yes, but I am conflicted. The shows we saw were magnificent. As my daughter said, the Eras Tour is a work of art.

My heart goes to to Benevides’ family, especially her mother, losing a daughter so beautiful and full of promise. I lost an infant daughter twenty-five years ago, and here I am in Brazil celebrating a new life with my daughter. I imagine Benevides was kind, only because so many Swifties are. Whether this is due to Taylor’s influence or because Swifties are a self-selecting crowd, I don’t know. Yet, my heart breaks.

My heart breaks for Benevides herself. Not only was her life cut short, but she missed the show.

It is hard to find consolation in any unnecessary and untimely death, but I will say this: I hope the last few hours of this young woman’s life were some of her happiest, full of unrivaled joy, delight and love.

I can’t imagine otherwise.

Weird (Er…I mean interesting) Stuff About Traveling to Brazil

I’ve been in Brazil more than a week, which makes me an expert on the giant place, right? Here are some interesting things I’ve learned about Brazil. Also included are ideas on preparing to go to Brazil.

• Pomeranians are the most popular dog based on my count in the Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo. Fox Dog would fit right in.
• Some cars here run on natural gas. I don’t know if these cars were made this way or if they were retrofitted. I’ve been in Ubers that needed gas and stopped to fill the tank. Drivers made us step out in case the car exploded while they were filling the tank.
• Three minutes a day on Duolingo isn’t enough to learn Portuguese to get around. Not many people speak English. It is surprising how well we can navigate the world using sign language and gestures and the Apple translation app. I should have done 15 to 20.
• “We don’t wear nice things,” said a young woman to us on the train the Taylor Swift concert. A handful people before earlier told us to not look on our phones while we walk down the streets, which is big city common sense. If you are looking at your phone, you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings and that makes you a target. Got it. The woman on the train continued: “That is a nice watch. Don’t wear that watch unless you want to be targeted.”
• Uber has motorcycles where you can hire a ride on the back seat of a bike.
• Traffic in Rio is heavy and chaotic. The white line that divides car lanes is the motorcycle lane. The heavy traffic means the motorcycles look for shortcuts and the motorcycles looking for shortcuts make it chaotic.
• I don’t know how tourists/visitors got around before Uber. 
• Sidewalks in Rio are mosaics, which is neat.
• Want to look like a local? Wear a baseball hat for the New York Yankees. Or L.A. Dodgers. But mostly the Yankees. 
• People on Ilhe Grande are unphased by 15 hour power outages.
• Samba dancing is fancy grinding, as I witnessed people dancing on the beach. I take that back. Samba is a form of dance created by emancipated slaves, much like jazz and the blues in the U.S.  
• People show a lot of flesh, but it really isn’t sexualized. I wore a dress with a plunging neckline to the second night of Taylor Swift concerts. If people looked at me funny (which they weren’t), they have wondered why I was wearing a bra as it was sticking out. (It was part of my outfit!) They would have said skip the bra instead. Maybe Americans are prudes?
• Don’t flush toilet paper here. There is a little can next to the potty for used TP. 
• There also is a little shower head next to toilets in hotels to clean yourself so you don’t need to use as much TP.
• If you aren’t going to bring enough socks and underwear for a seventeen day trip, bring some laundry soap. Shampoo and hand soap doesn’t cut it. 
• Want to stay really, really, really hydrated? Bring Nuun or some other electrolyte tablets/powder to drop into a bottle of water. Also helps with hangovers.
• People shower here a lot. Maybe because every time you step outside, you sweat. 
• Chocolate cake for breakfast at hotel buffets! Woohoo! Red velvet is also wicked popular around here. Maybe it is a Christmas thing?

Taylor Te Amo

The past twelve months have been a fresh slice of hell and heartbreak. My mom died, my dad was hospitalized three days after her funeral, my divorce was finalized, and I was laid up for six weeks after I had survey to remove an ovary which was overtaken by a cyst the size of an orange. And that was just December through April.

(There was even more shit, but I’ll skip all that for now.)

Last June when Claire-Adele told me Taylor Swift announced her South American tour, I said, “Let’s go.”

“Is it crazy to travel just to see a concert?” she asked.

“You are talking to a woman who saw Hamilton in four different cities,” I replied. I am a big advocate for using live entertainment as an excuse to travel.

My dad said people need something to look forward to, and I believe him. I remember in my twenties when I was working and before I had kids, a deep sense of ennui had built up. Planning a trip to Thailand fixed that fast. Seeing Taylor Swift in Rio was the big “something to look forward to” in my life. It wasn’t just seeing Taylor: it was an excuse to book a two week vacation to Brazil.

I haven’t taken a two week trip since New Zealand in 2014-15. This trip was long overdue, and yet I don’t need to leave the continent for a trip more than fourteen days.

Here we are in Brazil. Last night, Claire-Adele and I saw Taylor Swift in Rio along with 65,000 other people. Taylor Swift is not doubt an amazing entertainer, and like Beyonce, sings songs about women for women. I would say she is niche, but women, “girls, gays and theys” are her main audience, which is like more than half the population. She is #relatable. 

The parents who attended with their teens and tweens were probably some of the coolest parents ever. I saw a dad with a his daughter, going to the show. He was wearing a (Taylor’s Version) hat and medallion of Swift in a Jesus pose. The moms were all dressed in Era attire. 

The most impressive part of the show was the audience. not many people here speak English but holy cow the audience knew every word to every song and sang and top voice. At times, I could hear Taylor over the crowd. People were crying they were so moved. After the show, Claire-Adele and I booked it out to get back to the hotel. A majority of the crowd stayed in their seats, perhaps wanting to continue to bask in the magic.

Even though she sings about heartbreak, there was serious joy in this event. After the divorce, Jack gave me a book for my birthday called Inciting Joy. In it, the author writes that sorrow and joy are kin, you can’t truly have one without the other. Taylor has made a career of this, singing of sorrow in spandex and sparkles.

After the show, Claire-Adele me what my favorite part was. There were too many moments too count, including Sabrina Carpenter singing ABBA’s Dancing Queen as part of the opening act. 

Now that I am wake the next morning, my favorite part was when the Brazilian crowd chanted “Taylor te amo” for what seemed like five minutes.

Thank you, Ms. Swift, for sharing your heartbreak and sorrow, and turning it into joy for so many.

P.S. To Taylor— If you ever do get married please don’t change your name. What would the Swifties call themselves then?

Masks

Keith Johnstone in his book Impro writes about using masks in Improv. The idea in acting is that actors inhabit the mask they wear. They become it. A person who wears the mask of a grumpy old man will act like a grumpy old man. We did this in class by making faces and I literally became the Wicked Witch of the West when I scrunched up my face. It was trippy. 

I think about the masks we all wear on a daily basis. We present one side to work, another side to friends, and maybe a third side to family. These masks become us, and we become them. I think of my good friend H, whose mask is Silicon Valley wife. How much does that mask make her life easy and how much does it imprison her? 

So what mask did I bring to Brazil? The mask that serves me in Seattle, does it serve me here? Can I see my own masks more clearly in a different land, and not a European land of my ancestors? 

My mask—and probably the mask of many people I know — is one of seriousness, that work and success and accomplishment is more important than fun and relaxation and living in the moment. How can we live in the moment when we are focused on success? Success is all about the future, not now. We are waiting for some greater reward. 

My mask is probably generally worried and afraid. I feel the weight and heaviness of this mask as I travel, and I want to take it off. When we travel to places we have never been to, to places that are so different from where we live now, it is an opportunity to see our daily masks, and decide how we want to live. 

Where will I go next? Sicily, to see the home of my grandfather? India? I have a bunch of friends form India. I need to get one of them to take me.

It isn’t just about learning what I dislike about my mask. This isn’t a journey of self-hatred and loathing. Rather it is about what is beneath the mask that I can more fully explore. 

Flesh & Tudo Bem

“There is nothing too slutty for the Brazilians,” said Claire-Adele as we have visited Ilha Grande, a beautiful tropical island south of Rio and Copacabana.

I would choose different words, but I can see how the sentiment applies. The people here wear the least amount of clothing with the most confidence. I saw an older gentleman at lunch today—probably in his 70’s—sitting in a restaurant wearing Speedo along with his tanned barreled chest. The guy pulled it off.

Claire-Adele said she thought everyone in Brazil would look like Giselle and that she would look like a troll.  (“Tom Brady fumbled Giselle,” she said.) Not so. Every size, shape, age and color is happy in either a bikini or shirtless, and not just those with six-pack abs. Even their feet are naked in their fancy flip flops. They are confident and content and don’t give a shit what other people think. God bless the Brazilians for no body shaming. 

The only contradiction was for young girls—they all wore long-sleeved swim suits, probably to prevent sunburn, which is real down here in South America. 

Claire-Adele and I had tickets to see Taylor Swift tonight. She scored some below list price tickets yesterday at breakfast and today we hauled ass from Ilha Grande to Rio, to make it to the show in time. We were halfway there when the show was canceled. (We still have our original tickets for tomorrow, which should be cool.) We heard the show was postponed when we were halfway to the stadium on public transit. Some guys started talking  to us in Portuguese, probably trying to tell us the show was canceled, but we couldn’t understand. 

I was surprised how I reacted. After all of the “hassle” to make it to Rio in time, I was surprisingly not upset. The trip to Brazil is amazing enough, with or without seeing Taylor. 

Instead of seeing Taylor, tonight Claire-Adele and I hit the bar at the neighboring Fairmont hotel, listened to live music and pounded a few cocktails and apps. The singer wasn’t Taylor, but she was fun, singing everything from Brazilian classics to the Doobey Brothers to Edith Piaf. I still have “Volare” stuck in my head. 

Tudo bem, as the Brazilians say. All good. 

1888 & Fisherman

1888 was the year Brazil abolished slavery, as was mentioned in the Afro-Brazilian Museum in Ibirapuera Park on São Paulo. The skeleton of an old slave ship transporting people from Africa was one of the central pieces on display. (The rest was mostly art.) after spending half the day in the park with Claire-Adele while we mostly people watched, I never would have guess that slavery ended so relatively recently in Brazil given the racial issues in the US. Based on the hundreds of people I saw in the park, I couldn’t identify a dominant race. I remember seeing a cover of Time magazine back as a kid where an artist predicted what people would look like after generations of racial intermingling. That is what everyone in Brazil looks like. It is really remarkable and so beautiful. That is my observation from Day 1. More to come.

In addition to people watching, Claire-Adele and I did some dog watching. The most common dog: light brown Pomeranians. All of Fox’s long lost cousins live in Brazil. It was awesome.  Thanks, New York Times, for telling us about sitting in the Madureira Cafe where we ate pao de quejo and drank tropical smoothies and looked at people and their pups. Claire-Adele loves big cities, and I think she is right. Sure, I love nature and beaches and quiet resorts, but is something else to mingle with the locals. We also drank coconut milk out of the coconut, which staved off dehydration in the 90 degree weather.

Other interesting news: I saw the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the line behind me at customs in the São Paulo airport. He was wearing branded RHCP merch, which I thought was odd for the lead singer to do. I was going to ask him if he was in the band, but I chickened out. (I need a few more Improv classes under my belt before I start introducing myself to rock stars in airports. Plus I just finished (as did he) a 10 hour red-eye so I wasn’t feeling as bubbly as usual. 

A picture for Pedro: there was a painting in the Afro-Brazilian Musuem of a man holding a fish. The caption read “It is the fish that guides the fisherman.”

I know what you are thinking: hey post some pictures! I’ll have to do it when I get back home. 

The Asshole

My improv teacher was talking about the left brain versus the right. The left brain is logical, analytical and focused on facts. Think of Dr. Spock from Star Trek. The dude has no emotions. The right brain is emotional, compassionate and creative. Think of poets or Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek. We need both the left and the right in our lives. If we live our lives based only on facts, we will never have fun. If we live our lives solely based on intuition, we will never pay the bills.

In our modern capitalist world, the logicians prevail. We are often financially rewarded for our knowledge of math and science and finance and engineering.

In Improv, we need to learn to think with our second head, our second brain, that part where we listen to our gut. We need to turn off the right brain that censors our good ideas because they might not be the best idea. 

“The left brain is the asshole that doesn’t want you to have fun,” Mark said. 

How much have my life have I listened to the asshole? My god almost all of it! Back in college, Northwestern had a wonderful Improv show, The Meow Show. I had friends who said I should have tried out for it, but no, I was MMSS and was terrified of entering the same stage with bona fide actors, the pre-professionals. Maybe I wish I had learned more about Improv then instead of waiting so long, even if I didn’t make the first team.

Why did this friend say I should try out? I used to be funny. Not kind of funny or sort of funny, but make you snort out your nose funny. I want to find that soft, ticklish spot again.

Improv classes are helping me to tame and quiet the asshole. I will always love and honor my analytical side, but I need to make room for fun. The right side needs a chance to shine, to play, to dance, to sing.

Improv and the Three A's

They say that Improv is all about the "Yes, and..." which is true. As I have taken a few Improv classes, I now think it is more about the three A's.

When Pedro went to treatment for anxiety and depression, the family also had to go to therapy school along with him. "Your child didn't get here alone," said Hector, the family outreach director told the parents at an outreach weekend. "If you aren't in therapy, you need to be." 

In the course of recovery from my own mental health issues*, I have learned about the three A's:

1. Awareness
2. Acceptance
3. Action

These are in order for a reason. We need to be aware of a situation first, before we can accept it. Without acceptance, we react or try to force solutions. As we accept, we become open to different options and respond accordingly.

I had my first Improv performance a few weeks ago, which placed me firmly in my discomfort zone. After the performance, I was talking to my friends who attended, who were giving me all sorts of high-fives and you are so cool, etc. I was feeling great.

Then the instructor came by and gave me a low-down on the show. The dude has been in Improv since the 1980's and was trained initially as an actor. Improv is his life and he knows a lot.

"You guys dropped the ball on that scene with the foot," Matt said. Stacy launched the foot into the sky to where the giant lizard were.** "She gave you Godzilla and you missed it."

At first I was annoyed that he was throwing cold water on the warm feelings from my friends who were amazed. I was basking in the glow of my performance and here comes the teacher telling me what went wrong. Seriously?

When I got home, I kept thinking about Godzilla. Matt had hit on a very important point, something that stuck with me. When I was on the stage watching Stacy hit the foot into the air with a gold club to the land of the giant lizards, I had thought "I need to go on stage as a dinosaur."

I didn't act on my instinct, impulse or intuition. I knew I needed to go on stage as a dinosaur, but I was worried I wouldn't know what to do as the dinosaur. The thing is, I didn't need to. I needed to trust my instinct, trust my gut and my intuition, and most importantly, trust my team that we would find the next indicated step. As I imagine the scene now (in slow motion and ten days later), I see myself walking on stage with a royal British accent, sharing the delicious foot with my handsome partner, Tyrannosaurus Rex. I would have been Tyrannosaurus Regina, begging Rex to go to the village below to get more feet for the dinner party with the Dragons.

I've had the intuitions and impulses before. There was another scene where I felt like a pregnant woman in labor, and other where I was in a soap opera where I needed to hire a hitman to kill my father before he gave away my inheritance of a collection of Vogue magazines.

Improv is really about the three A's: 

1. Awareness of the scene played before you. What are the other actors giving you for the next scene?
2. Acceptance is where we understand what is before us, and open ourselves to options.
3. Action is where we step into the scene, ready to go and be willing to respond to what is before us, and move the narrative forward.

I signed up for another round of Improv starting this week. In the first three courses, I was developing my awareness of what is going on in the scene, which is no small task. 

Acceptance is the next level. As improvisors, if we don't accept the premises we are given, we leave our team and the audience frustrated. No one is having fun, and the story we are telling doesn't build. Once I see the scene built before me, I need to agree with what I have been presented with. I let my soul/subconscious/intuition/right-brain take over from there. 

I am finally getting the intuition of what needs be done next. Now I just need to step on to the stage and act on it.

* As I have gone on this journey, I think everyone has some form of mental health issues, giant or tiny. The degree to which our issues impairs our connection with others or our ability to function varies greatly. The people with the greatest hurdles to overcome are those who are outwardly successful. 

** You had to be there. Improv can be a little wacky.

Discomfort Zone

Since I've been divorced, I have been diving into my discomfort zone. I am trying lots of new things where I completely suck at first and it is painful and a struggle. I've been taking Improv classes since the spring, and I had my first performance last weekend, which was both terrifying ad thrilling. I did standup comedy at an open mic night hosted by one of my friends, which was also terrifying and thrilling. Pilates isn't terrifying, but it is a struggle at first. Now I am used to that discomfort. I had my first Pickleball team game last week. It is fun and I am not that great, but why should I be great? I've only played twice ever. I got my ego bruised last year learning to Contra Dance, but it was fun. I took an oil painting class a year ago where I was the only person in the class who has not previously studied art. I can't say I got my butt kicked there because it wasn't competitive, but let's say I was humbled by the talents of others.

I feel like a kid again, and in the terrible way that we as adults don't recognize how awful childhood can be at times. I remember Claire-Adele's first dance recital. She was five and petrified of performing. WE as adults say, sure go up there, you will be fine. But you know what? How many random adults would want to go up on stage in a tutu and spin around in front of their families? Yet, we nudge our kids in that direction, shoving them out of their comfort zones all of the time. I bet more than half of childhood is getting pushed out of our comfort zone.

So here I am, choosing to try to new things. I am learning that the fun and growth and self-awareness I am gaining far exceeds any and all of the discomfort.

Journals

I have several dozen journals that I have collected over the years. They are in boxes and bags around my apartment, collecting dust. Some have writing on every page. Others are mostly blank, with less than half of the pages filled. I often will re-use these half filled books, with differences in months and years between the pages. I treat journals and candles the same way -- I buy way more than I use. Just when I think that the last thing I need is another candle/journal, I buy a new one.

I was going to recycle my old journals, get rid of them. They served their purpose, the end. I was talking to a friend who has been divorced for several years, and she said to keep those journals.

"They will remind you why you left," she said.

Divorce is the death of a relationship where both people live on. It is easy to look back with remorse and regret, especially when the other party so easier and happily has moved on. It is easy to look back at the good things, the highlights, the things I miss.

I don't want to be bitter and angry about my ex, and think he is evil. I want to hold the good and the bad. I have an easy time remembering the good things, the times he was kind and supportive. My mind remembers the good, whereas my journals have the bad, the struggle, the confusion. I wrote and wrote, hoping to find an answer of how to fix him, how to fix myself, how to break the cycle of our dysfunction, but none came.

Instead of disposing of my journals, I put them in storage. I dug through the ones to see which were full and which were blank. I came across some heart-breaking entries, easily found on the front page. I found one from September 2004, the day we moved to Seattle, packing up from the Midwest to move to the West Coast. I found the turquoise blue Moleskine from April 2019, with the meeting notes from when we were initiating the process to send Pedro to treatment. I remembered sitting in Kristin's office, ripping the plastic wrap off the journal. I remember her commenting that I was starting a new page, a new chapter.

This weekend, in the depths of some misery, I looked at the front page of the journal I was writing in. Filled in from December 2021, "Reasons for Divorce" was the heading. It was sparse, but it reminded me of the pain and struggle I was in at the time.

Instructions & the Butcher

My Uncle Bob once said, "Money doesn't come with instructions." I love that expression because it is so true. The idea is both freeing and terrifying.

I think of all of the other things that don't come with instructions, like our bodies, marriage and children, and how often I've tried to find instructions for all of those. I've read countless books and articles, trying to find guidance, insight, wisdom, perhaps. But no definitive instructions.

Recently, I've been trying to find instructions for my body. After I had my ovary whacked out in March, my core turned to mush, along with lots of other muscles. Where are the instructions on how to get it those muscles back? Where did they go? How to find them?

I didn't realize how much I lost my core until I hyperextended my knee a few weeks ago. I am convinced this knee injury is indirectly related to my surgery. I was probably compensating for some weakness somewhere, and then tweak, there goes the knee.

"Surgeons are butchers and you are a piece of meat," said my new pilates instructor after I told her my woes. She is right, and yet the problem isn't that my surgeon is a butcher--she did a fabulous job of getting out the cyst--but no one in the medical system warned me that once I recovered from the wound, that I would need to rebuild. Being able to walk around is a low, low bar. I want to dance again. I want to play pickle-ball and hike and bike.  I wish someone would have told me I needed a rehab plan to return to all of the activities I just to do, not just get back to the simple activities of daily living.

So here I realize my body doesn't come with instructions. I would I have thought I would have figured this out years ago, but alas here I am, trying to make care of this machine, this bag of meat, that before took care of itself.

Worry = Love?

Claire-Adele and I are planning a big trip to South America in the near future. It should be lots of fun, but when I tell people about it, they freak out.

"Promise me you will stay in a safe area," H said. "Please. Some of the countries are dangerous."

My hairdresser warned me about jaguars. "Those cats cat crush your skull. Please be careful." He also warned me that Brazil is run by the mob.

Another friend wasn't worried about my trip to Brazil, but rather driving in Seattle. "There are crazy criminals out there who are rear-ending women driving alone, and then attack and rob them when they get out of the car to investigate. Promise me you'll watch behind you when you drive and keep going in case you get rear-ended. Don't stop, just go to the police station."

Oh dear.

These friends mean well when they dump their worry and fear on me, I am sure they do. 

I was at first annoyed at their worry, but they I reframed it. Perhaps instead they are saying, "We love you and don't want anything bad to happen to you."

The Gazelle and the Groundhog, or Pilates

My daughter and I are going to Brazil in two months and I need to get in shape for a beach vacation. I also haven't bounced back from my abdominal surgery in March and I need to regain strength in my core. I recently read the best health insurance is exercise, so getting in shape will save me both money and agony when I get older. For all these reasons, I am taking pilates.

Back when Claire-Adele was in kindergarten, I met a pilates instructor at her elementary school bus stop. I had thought about taking pilates then, but the classes were expensive and at that time I rarely spent money on myself. Now I have time and money that doesn't need to be spent on my kids. Those years of self-sacrifice are over.

I also want to take pilates because every pilates instructor I've known looks like a gazelle. They are long-limbed, lithe and graceful. Many professional dancers practice pilates.

Since Pedro was born, I've slowly gained weight. The gain has been imperceptible, but this morning I saw the whole sixty pounds I've gained standing in the mirror next to my pilates instructor. 

She looked like a gazelle. I looked like a groundhog.

I looked like Ernie. She looked like Bert.

She looked Laurel. I looked like Hardy.

You get the picture.

I've been to five sessions so far, and posture is improving. I felt my muscle memory come back from when I took ballet, using my core to support me in some of the exercises instead of brute force from my thighs.

We will see where this goes. I am not sure I'll ever look like a gazelle, but maybe I'll feel as light and fleet footed as one. I would be nice to be nimble again.

Bad Poetry: The Moth

 I wish I had

a dude

in my life

to kill the giant moth

in my bathroom.

Instead,

I have locked 

the little critter

in the bathroom

waiting for it

to die.

I hope it dies soon

because 

I really

need

to pee.

Boy, Interrupted

After work today, I was at a used book store in the Market. On the table was a copy of Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen about her two years of treatment at McLean, the famous mental health hospital in Massachusetts. The book was later made into a movie starring Winona Ryder and Angelia Jolie.

I owned a copy of the book years ago, when I was reading everything I could find on mental illness after my brother's breakdown.

I started to cry today when I saw the book, as so much had happened when I read the book in 2007 and now. When I read the story, I had no idea my son would spend time in treatment, and that I would be the one who would ship him off. 

I remember reading the story, and feeling like the parents were the villains, the ones whose shitty, distant, or unaccepting behavior drove their kids nuts. Or, maybe the kids weren't the crazy ones, but the parents were, but because the parents had the power and the means, the kids were the ones shipped off, even if the parents were just as fucked up, or maybe more so.

When I look back to when I first read the book, I saw my own naïveté, my own innocence for what was yet to come. 

I could blame myself, but I won't. I can, however, take responsibility for my own behavior and how it impacted my family and those I love. I did the best I could do at the time, and I continue to grow and heal.

Toxic Capitalism

I am reading a fascinating new book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World, by Malcolm Harris. I haven't finished it yet, but the history it describes is compelling, and much I didn't know. I studied history in college (mostly European) and I had always thought it would be interesting to study the rise and fall of organizations, companies, how they grew and thrived.

This book is the history of California, specifically Palo Alto, Stanford, and Silicon Valley. I am about a quarter of the way through, and I am shocked at how much I am learning. While I may disagree with the author's theme that capitalism is the root of all evil, I think he has some good points. His challenge is that he sees the world in black and white, good and bad. I am not going to go all Gordon Gekko and say "Greed is good," but the money put into innovation can give this world amazing things.

That being said, I now believe in Toxic Capitalism, according to my own definition. Does a company or an organization do the following:

• Was genocide or slavery involved in the production of goods?
• Were land and other resources stolen from a group or state? 
• Did the company creating the product clean up their own mess, or did they leave that to others? Can the mess even be cleaned or rectified?
• Outside of slavery and genocide, are the people doing the work paid a fair wage? 
• Outside of slavery and genocide, are there reasonably safe working conditions? (I am not talking about fire fighters or others whose jobs are inherently dangerous.)
• If the wages are fair, are the job opportunities open to more than the dominant power class? Does the company hire women, LGBTQ people, people of color, etc, for any position, not just menial labor?
• Does the organization have a responsible plan for how to dispose of the product once its usefulness is done?
• Does the product cause harm to people?

As time goes on, I think of more things to add to the list. 

Here is my thought: Can we have Responsible Capitalism? Can we produce goods and have innovation that doesn't hurt people or the planet? 

Claire-Adele was recently in Denmark and Sweden, home to some of the happiest people in the world. the social safety net there is remarkable, and as a result, people feel safe and secure. Is this purely a Robin Hood case of steal from the rich and give to the poor? Not exactly. The poor might be given a roof over their heads, but the country also works to see that people have meaningful work. Claire-Adele told me about a small town in Sweden that used to be a ship building. When the industry went away, the country decided to support the town and see what else could be done there. The town had a ferry that was a portal to the rest of Europe, bringing in goods. Then they built a bridge, so the ferry business went under, and the town was re-invented a third time. (I don't recall the details of this incarnation.) 

Can we have Compassionate Capitalism? Can we have Kind Capitalism?

As I have Returned to Office, I realize that big businesses also need small businesses. I work for a large corporation, but I need to eat lunch near my office, and get coffee and breakfast. I might need to run an errand or two on my lunch break. These small mom-and-pop shops make working downtown not just tolerable, but pleasant and fun. (I don't want to say all big businesses are bad and all small businesses are good, but big companies have a bigger footprint so the impact of their toxicity is greater.)

I guess I feel like Responsible Capitalism could be called "Mom Capitalism," as Toxic Capitalism feels like the world is run by punk-ass teenage boys. I am not convinced we need to get rid of capitalism, but perhaps we just need the capitalists to grow up.

Hypercraftophobia

Hypercraftophobia.

It means "fear of having too many crafts."

I made that word up to describe what I am feeling.

Lately, I've been on a crazy craft buying binge. Why? I don't know. I clearly understand why I had a craft buying jag before my surgery last winter. I was looking at five to six weeks with no place to go and nothing to do. 

I don't have any surgeries coming up. Why now am I shopping for crafts like the world is coming to an end?

I don't know, but this week I bought two paint-by-number kits, two needlepoint kits--which are super cute and one is complicated, a fancy embroidery kit from England where I have to cut a bunch of little felt pieces out and sew them on the background for a Christmas decoration, iron-on embroidery sets, and a punch sewing thing that I don't even know what it is.

WFT? Why?!? I already have a large, unfinished stash of projects, many that are half done and more that aren't even started.

So, instead of being all excited and like "Wow! Look at all of these cool things!" I am freaking out like these crafts are just a million more things to add to my to do list. Because I bought all of these crafts, I feel like I am like behind, that these crafts magically inserted themselves on my To Do list.

Every now I then, I promise myself that I need to finish 

books

make-up 

shampoo

fancy lotions

fancy face creams

crafts

food in my freezer

before I go out and buy more.

Am I turning into a bear and getting ready to hunker down for winter when it is too miserable to be outside where I can sit and stitch by the fire? It is August! I can see having these feelings in October, but man, this is too early in the season to be planning my winter weekends.

When I was growing up and I was working on crafts, my mom would always tell my brother and I not to rush and finish things up, to save it for later. Then, the craft would get put back in the box, back on the shelf, forgotten, never completed.

It was odd, her frugality.

When my mom got Alzheimer's, my dad needed something to do for himself, so he bought drones. 

Lots and lots and lots of drones

plus a bunch of little toys and gizmos that he assembled out of wood.

Every time he felt low or down, he'd head over to the hobby shop and get something for himself. He read that somewhere in a self-care book for losing a partner to dementia. Feeling sad? Go buy something for yourself! To be clear, my father is the opposite of a shopaholic. His hobbies are well within his budget, as are mine.

What are these crafts, these too many crafts that I likely won't have time to do? I have friends who say you always need more crafts than you can do, more books than you can read: that is your stash, your bunker, where you can go to to refill when you are empty. How can you be creative if you don't have supplies on hand for when we are inspired?

Is that it? Am I looking for inspiration? Perhaps, but I think it is something else.

Maybe I am like my dad, buying his drones. His drones and his wooden projects were a way when his life was in transition to grab a hold of himself, and remind him who he is. Those drones were the branch he extended to himself to help him from getting swept away in the river of my mother's dementia. They were a small investment in himself, in his own interests, outside of his marriage to a woman who was gone but still here.

Before my mother died, my father bought a big and fancy drone. 

"This will be my last drone," he said. He loves this drone. I don't think he meant that as he was done flying drones, but he was done buying them. He doesn't buy wooden projects anymore.

He doesn't need to. He's doesn't need the branches to keep him out of the river anymore.

My crafts are my branches, helping me through the transition from the divorce. All of these activities are in part solitary activities. We do them alone, but we can also do them together. I have my sewing circle, women who get together to chat over dinner once a month, but we use sewing as an excuse and as a topic to gather..

But mostly, I do these crafts alone, which is fine. I need this time alone to ground myself, to remind myself who I am. 

"Mistakes"

I was talking to two different friends this week and they both mentioned mistakes that they have made in the past, and were ruing their decisions.

In the past few years given Pedro's treatment, my divorce and my own spiritual journey, I don't see things as "mistakes," or poor decisions. I see people doing the best they could do at the time with the skills they had. 

At this stage of my life, I have friends who are caring for elderly parents who can't fully care for themselves, and with that comes difficult choices. I see friends wanting to care for their relatives, but then they might discover the task is more than they can handle. They were optimistic, hoping for the best. Was the decision to care for their family a mistake?

I don't think so. In crisis management, we have to make decisions with incomplete information. What if we make a "mistake" or a wrong decision?

We make a new decision. We have the freedom to change our minds and change directions. It doesn't mean the past was a mistake. It means we didn't have complete information. Now we have more information, information that may tell us we need to change.

I have another friend who made some bad relationship choices. Actually, I have lots of friends who have been in relationships that needed to end. Does that mean those relationships were "mistakes?"

I recently read Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christine Tate about her experience in group therapy. Her goal was to find a steady, stable, and fulfilling relationship. Her story was brilliant in how she dated loser and after loser, but each loser was a notch better than the one before. This was her learning. She learned from each miserable relationship what she wanted, what she liked, and how to relate. She didn't wave a magic wand and all of a sudden Prince Charming appeared. She had these painful experiences in order to grow.

Are there such things as mistakes? Sure. I think most mistakes arrive when we are self-centered instead of self-focused. (We are self-focused when we operate from our soul. We are self-centered when we operate from our ego.) Maybe we are afraid to end a relationship, so we misbehave, act out, and throw tantrums instead of ending things in a respectful and dignified manner. Our mistakes more lie in how we do things than what we do. It isn't wrong to break up with someone. I might be unkind and hurtful to ghost people or dump them and call them names. 

Glitter and Girl Power

Taylor Swift is in town, the same weekend that Barbie is opening. Claire-Adele and her friend are in town for the concert. Claire-Adele is dressed in the Midnight theme, with a shimmering navy dress and pearls in her hair. Her friend is wearing hot pink sequins.

I was on the Light Rail this afternoon, along with dozens and dozens of women young and not-so-young decked out in sequins, cowboy boots, and glitter cowboy hats. 

And I mean decked out. The Swifties are in town, and I feel like a Muggle. A happy Muggle, but a Muggle nonetheless.

It was like Halloween and prom and a wedding all mixed into one, except unlike prom or a wedding, a date was not required. This is a girl power event. Moms and daughters. Sisters. Besties.

The common accessory are homemade beaded bracelets that fans can exchange with each other during the concerts. The beads spell out names of songs, lyrics or albums, and the colors match the "Era."

At the Light Rail, I saw dads dropping off their teenage daughters to go downtown to the show. I started getting teary. I am so happy for these girls and women, all going to see the show of their dreams. I am so happy for my daughter. It is cool to see her so excited. It is really cool to see a woman performer embrace so many young women fans.

Tomorrow, I am going with some friends (I hope) to see Barbie. I'll confess: my friends and I played with Barbies until I was twelve. My favorite Barbie was Ballerina Barbie, who wore pointe shoes and had a crown glued on her head so she could twirl. The only reason I stopped playing was because I moved to Ohio. Greta Gerwig*, the director, played with Barbies until she was fourteen. Maybe if I played with Barbies for another two years, I'd be an award winning director.

Barbies were my social toy, the toy that I loaded in a grocery sack, plopped in the basket on the handlebars of my bike, and rode around town to my friends' houses. It was awesome.

Fun facts about Barbie that I read in the NYT article about Greta Gerwig. Barbie was the first doll that represented an adult. When Barbie was introduced in 1959, dolls were babies. Barbie has a Dream House before women could get a credit card. Barbie made a few missteps, like her infamous quote, "Math is hard," but we can't blame the doll for that. Was it a dude in marketing that said that? Or was it someone who really struggled to understand Differential Equations? Yeah, math is hard. I studied applied math in college. I should know. Bow down before me, motherfuckers. You all should be impressed. 

I'm just kidding!

 

(Not really.) 

Lots of things are hard. It doesn't mean with can't do them. Maybe they needed to revise Barbie's quote to be "Math is hard, but you are smart. You can do it!"

I am looking forward to Gerwig's movie for other reasons, besides it being the toy of my childhood. 

• Gerwig directed Ladybird, a beautiful movie about a mother and her daughter leaving for college.
• Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls is in the Barbie movie, which is awesome. Close to Fine is one of my favorite songs. 
• Gerwig would spend Friday evenings on her childhood at the home of her Jewish neighbors. No matter how good or bad Gerwig's week was, she felt comfort in the prayers said by the family's father. Gerwig says she wants everyone who sees the movie to be reminded they are a child of god.

I look forward to the next Seattle Sounders and Seahawks game. I wonder how long the stadium will have glitter, sequins and beads embedded in it. I'd love for a the football players to come up from a tackle more sparkly than before they went down.

* I googled "Greta Gerwig" today and the search page turned pink and had pink sparkles. Check it out!

"Keep Calm and Carry On"

Yesterday I almost witnessed a police shooting.

I was walking to work with one of my neighbors for a few blocks and I had picked up my breakfast from Starbucks. Outside the Starbucks on First Ave, I thought I had heard gunshots. Cities are load with traffic and trucks and dumpsters. "Bang Bang Bang" could be anything.

I walked another block and I saw a garbage truck pick up a dumpster. The crashing noise of metal on metal sounded about the same. 

In another block, I saw the police cars and up the hill I saw six cops clustered together. I asked a group of people standing on the corner.

"The police shot a guy they thought had a gun," one of the men said. "The guy said he had a gun." Later, I read the man who was shot was sought in a stabbing a few blocks away.

I nodded, and kept walking to work. As I continued to my office, I saw dozens of police cars, a firetruck and ambulances drive to the scene. I kept walking. 

Yesterday was the first official day people were required back in the office. People were already afraid of coming into big, bad downtown, so I didn't tell anyone what I saw. I just went to work.

My biggest surprise was how acclimated I have become to the craziness. I felt like I was living in London during the Blitz. Government officials had thought that English subjects would cower in fear as the Germans bombed the city.

Nope, a majority of the people carried on with their lives. When the air sirens wailed, people tucked into their safe spaces. When the all clear came, people went back to cooking dinner or reading a book.

After I passed the chaos, I thought to myself "Keep Calm and Carry On." Granted, I was not at all directly involved in the shooting, nor was I stabbed by the guy. Clearly, I'd be way more distraught if I had been a direct witness or running for my life. 

Nevertheless, I wonder: was "Keep Calm and Carry On" an order from the monarch, or was it a description of what people did?

And to let you all know -- my biggest fear of walking downtown is still getting hit by a car making a turn while I am crossing the street. I am more worried about that than getting shot by the police or getting assaulted by a cracked out vagrant.

The Problem with Kings and Queens

I've been reading more about this scandal of abusing football* players at NU. Stewart Mandel in The Athletic writes about how Pat Fitzgerald was "king" of Northwestern football, turning down offers to coach at Michigan and in the NFL. 

Therein lies the problem: Fitzgerald was the king, and the problem with kings and queens is that their power is unchecked. They can say and do whatever they want. They aren't accountable. As Mandel says,

No one questions them. No one scrutinizes them. It’s not hard to see how such a toxic culture could have gone on undetected for years. And yet, the investigators said that “there had been significant opportunities (for the coaches) to discover and report the hazing conduct.”

One of the best lines from the article came from the comments from Dan K.:

I always love the concept that a football or basketball coach has intimate knowledge about every detail of every aspect of their program, but never knows about the bad stuff.

We can hope that our kings and queens will be benevolent, but we are at a loss when they are not. 

Fortunately, Fitzgerald wasn't a real king, and he could be disposed, but not after the hazing situation got grossly out of hand. His royal status allow this problem to grow without anyone checking it. He could have stopped this behavior. He was in charge. He could have pulled scholarships on kids who abused other kids. He could have had an open door and open ear policy with his players and coaches, where he listened to their concerns. 

Hazing is a sticky issue, because I'm guessing it doesn't start out as hazing, but rather evolved from teasing and testing other players into abuse. The abused kids might have put with with low teasing that then evolved into harassment. At what point do kids who have been bullied stand up? 

The very nature of kinds and queens is that we don't stand up to them. Literally, we bow. It takes courage to stand up and speak truth to power. 

As awful as this situation is, the behavior has been called out, and now the abuse can stop. The interim will be painful, but in the end we can hopefully have a safer system.

* The baseball coach was abusing players, too.

For Shame and "My Government Means to Kill Me"

Everybody loved Fitz.

Pat Fitzgerald was the coach of the Northwestern football. He was recently fired after a six month long investigation proved sexual abuse in the program. Fitz was a player for the Wildcats who when to the Rose Bowl in 1997/8.

As an alum, this hurts. It really, really hurts.

First, it is devastating that this happened under Fitz's watch. NU scored when we landed him as a coach. Since he was a player at NU and he grew up in Tinley Park, IL, he was a devoted Chicagoland guy. It was unlikely he was going to be recruited away to a football powerhouse like Notre Dame (see Ara Parseghian.)

Kudos to The Daily Northwestern for breaking the story. When I looked this story up in the New York Times, they referred to the articles published int The Daily.

This isn't like the Penn State scandal where that creepo coach was grooming children. This is where the NU players would haze and sexually humiliate the new players.

This is so wrong, and not because I am a prude. I am currently reading My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson about a young, gay, black man in New York City in the 1985, the heat of the AIDS pandemic. It is a brilliant and engaging piece of historical fiction. There is also a lot of gay sex, and some pretty wild stuff.

So what is the difference between a gay bathhouse and a college football team? Heck, even a fraternity?

Consent.

The guys who went to the bathhouses went on their own free will. Fraternities used to haze--and probably still do--but again kids can choose or not choose to participate in Greek life.

When these kids joined the football team, they did not know they were signing up to be sexually abused by their teammates. These abused college athletes were in no way able to consent or excuse themselves from this hideous behavior. These were college freshmen--still kids--who were away from home for the first time. As NU is a Division I school, a lot of these kids were on athletic scholarships. To speak out against this abuse as freshman might have jeopardized their free ride.

These players are having their own #metoo movement, and in some ways against themselves. Some of the players who were perpetuating the abuse were probably also victims of it in earlier years.

This is so heartbreaking. I feel bad for everyone involved.

Yet, the abuse needs to stop and people need to be responsible for their harmful behavior.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

One of the restaurant owners in my neighborhood was killed Tuesday in a senseless act of violence.

There is a little sushi place in my neighborhood, Aburiya. It is owned by a young Korean couple who live south of the city. During the pandemic, I would order my salmon bento box to go. It is delicious. In addition to the sushi, it came with miso soup, salad, shrimp shumai, tofu, and the little green seaweed salad. As covid restrictions eased, I continued to order my salmon bento box. The woman who owned the place met people at the door and worked a a waitress. I never knew her name, but she knew mine. She knew me as "Lauren with the salmon bento box."

Wednesday, I called there to order my usual salmon bento box, and no one answered the phone. I was too cheap to pay the $4 up charge from the Uber Eats and the like, so I decided that I would eat at the restaurant for a change. When I walked by, a sign in the window said, "Closed until further notice." I had thought they had gone out of business, which was sad enough.

This is the thing about living in a big city -- you get to know many of the people within a one block radius of where you live. I know Bryce the guy who owns Cedar and Spoke coffee. I know Jae vegetable guy at the market. I got to the know shopkeeper at the craft store, Ugly Baby, in the market when I was recovering from my surgery. I know a handful of the dog owners who trot out their pets at the same time I walk Fox. I recognize a handful of others from other places, even if I don't know their names.

The sushi woman died this week. She was 34 years old and 34 weeks pregnant. The shooter had an automatic weapon, and I am going to take a wild guess that the dude was strung out on drugs. He was immediately apprehended. I am assuming this was random as this woman was sweet and kind and beautiful, always smiling. Her husband's arm was shot up, and he is out of the hospital.

Who are the people in your neighborhood? Downtown is such a mixed bag. We have residents and workers, tourists and tramps. What is an urban core? It is where people live densely, and you need a certain mindset to embrace that. We know people and we don't know people. Because we are dense, the human flotsam can blend in a little more than they would in a less dense area. I love the word flotsam -- it means the wrecakge of a broken ship. These broken people turn to drugs and violence to cope with god-only-knows-what horrors they might have seen in their lives.

As much as I pray for Eina Kwon and her devastated family, I also pray for her shooter and those who live on the street. May they find peace in their hearts instead of resorting to violence.

Blocking v Joy

I am taking an improv class, and my therapist thinks this is great. He studied improv and recommends his trainee therapists study it, as well. 

In improv, you are present. You can't be in the past or the future. There is just now. You connect with your team, listen to them, and respond. You respect the pause, the quiet. You give space for laughter.

One thing you don't want to do is block and shoot someone down. It kills the energy between two people, and dead energy is bad.

Let's say one person pretends to open an umbrella and says, "It is raining." The other person could says a million things, like, "That is strange because we are inside," or "I've never seen it rain gumdrops before" or "The is the first time I've seen rain in Hell." The scene can move forward.

Now let's say the second person blocks and says, "No, it isn't." 

The scene is dead. The first person is stuck. They have nothing to respond to.

I've been thinking about blocking in the real world, and how often people do it without even realizing it. Adults do it continuously to children. I am not talking about "Don't put your finger in the socket" kind of blocking, but "That's a dumb idea" or "That's not the right way to draw an apple" or teachers who make the students guess what they are thinking and they get prize if they guess correctly. That is blocking the creativity of the child, and it builds distrust in the relationship. Who made that teacher or parent god?

Most of this blocking probably comes from a place of fear, but it is so damaging to relationships with others. Who wants to be in a relationship with someone who always is stomping on your ideas, your dreams, your efforts? When our ideas and dreams are stomped on, that kills relationships. I know some parents who think it is their job to stomp on their kids' ideas. Oy.

The person I block the most is myself. I was listening to David Sedaris recently talk about writing. He said a good writer will say yes to new experiences. (He added the caveat using common sense, like about not going home with a stranger when you are drunk in a bar.) Sometimes I need to get out of my own way.

Tourists and Me

I live north of Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. As such, there are many, many tourists coming and going. Last night, my friend Alice came over for dinner before we went to the ballet. She brought vegetables and I went to the Market to get salmon. Whenever she comes over, I wince at going to the Market on a Saturday afternoon. Yesterday, I went around 2:00, peak tourist time. If I go around 4:30, the market is slowing down but some vendors are starting to close up for the day and then I have to rush.

I talked about the crowds at the Market with Alice and she said the place was "people-y," a new word to me which means a place has too many people. When I went the fishmonger, tourists were "clumping" in front of the displays, blocking the path for me to get Copper River sockeye.

There is another side to tourism in my neighborhood whichI encountered this morning. I went to church a few blocks from my condo, and there I met a woman from Galway, Ireland at the coffee after mass. She told of some good places to hit next time I'm in Dublin, and I told her to visit the Olympic Sculpture Park and the Amazon Spheres.

A few weeks ago, I was at a restaurant/bar called the Nest with sweeping views of Seattle. There I sat next to two women from Australia. At Le Pichet, I met a couple from New York. The woman was of Irish nationality and her boyfriend was Indian. At the Pink Door, I met a woman from Palo Alto.

Alice was talking about how much she likes to absorb the culture when she travels, and how she likes to meet the locals. 

In Seattle, I am the local. I am the person tourists meet. 

Steve Martin's Dad

I was listening to Steve Martin's Born Standing Up, his memoir about his career in stand-up comedy before he turned to acting.

There is a passage at the end that made me cry. Steve's father was an unhappy, disgruntled and self-centered man. By self-centered, I mean his father was focused only on himself, uncaring and unaware of how his behavior impacted others, especially his son. I don't know if his father was an addict or alcoholic, but he had many of the traits.

Steve told the story of his sitting by his father's deathbed, when his father finally gained some self-awareness. His father was crying, and Steve asked him him the reason for his tears.

"I wish I could have returned some of the love I was given."

I cried when I read this. It was one of the saddest things I've heard. I felt bad this man didn't learn this before he died.

Legal Weed begets Fentanyl Addiction Epidemic, or Dealers Gotta Deal

I was talking to a friend today who told me something that blew my mind. He didn't spell it out, but I connected the dots myself.

As you may know, Seattle has a REALLY big problem on our streets with heavy drugs like fentanyl and meth. Really big. Like we have people in the street -- whom I affectionately call the Zombies Crackheads -- who are wasted out of their minds. Literally, out of their minds. They have no minds. They are catatonic or passed out but in a bizarre barely standing pose. These people are not drunk on Boone's Farm or stoned on weed. These people are not jacked on cocaine. These people are almost anesthetized. These people are drugging themselves to death.

So how did we get here, with this drug addiction ruining the lives of the addicted and making live unpleasant for those nearby?

Legal weed.

Follow the logic here. 

The idea behind legal weed was to decriminalize it, which isn't a bad thing. The goal was to keep people out of jail for something that was not causing a great deal of harm.

When marijuana became legal, it became legal to sell it. So who started selling legal weed? Did the corner drug dealer open a store on the corner?

Nope. 

MBA-venture capital types saw loads of money in making fancy little shops with cute names and lots of products. Average drug dealers probably didn't have the time or skills to make fancy edibles consumed by PTA moms before pick-up. 

So what happened to those pot dealers? The guys who sold weed as a quick and easy way to make a few bucks? Did they get other jobs? Did they get job training to become Tech or Finance Bros or anything else?

No.

They kept dealing and started selling harder stuff to their existing client base because there was much, much less of a  market for weed on the street.

I am guessing here, but not entirely sure, that the client base of a modern pot shop is not the Skid Row type of clientele. My guess that the people to go to pot shops have credit cards and Venmo accounts and day jobs with health insurance. 

So the Skid Row guy who was ten years ago sitting at the U District post office stinking of weed, what happened to him? 

His pot dealer didn't stop dealing. His dealer got a new drug, and these new drugs are very, very bad shit.

So what should we do next? Legalize fentanyl, which is like 50 times worse that heroin and 100 times worse than morphine? Hell no. 

We need to stop making fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Medical establishments still need anesthesia and pain meds, put do we need them so potent and deadly? 

No.

Too many people are dying. They are dying on the streets, in plain view, making out cities scary and unpleasant for those not addicted.

So the people living in tents all over town are there indirectly due to legal marijuana? Yes. 

Sure, some them grew their addictions during the pandemic, and with most of the downtown shut down due to remote working, they filled the vacuum. Legalizing weed didn't get rid of drug dealers. Dealers gotta deal.

The Isolation Hangover & the Lobster

I was texting a friend the other day about a meeting we both attended. The meetings used to be reasonably well run, but this was one was disorganized. He said things like this are happening more often as we recover from our "isolation hangover."

Yes.

In Seattle especially, we have been loathe to get back to normal after the pandemic, I don't know why. I think many people here still believe the pandemic is still happening. Nevertheless, we are coming back together and the results are kind of ugly, at least in my world of remote workers. People who never fully worked remote (grocery store workers, nurses, doctors, etc.) might not have this problem like the rest of us.

Today I went to work in the office -- and there were people there! I thought I'd be overjoyed, excited to have co-workers, but it was odd, it was different. Now I am coming back to work in a place where I never knew the people before the pandemic, so I am getting to know them now. I am not talking about my immediate team, but the teams that are adjacent to mine. My sense was there was a lot of negativity, and then a decent amount of fear. It was like being in a cage with a bunch of grumpy bears that did not want to be in the cage. I just tried to hide and blend in so they wouldn't notice me.

I also joined an Improv class which is fun and hard and interesting and takes a lot of courage to go on stage and act things out by the seat of your pants. It requires thinking and not thinking and feeling and flow.

Afterwards, the class went out for a beer. It was fun, but I think it was one of the first times many of the people there had been out in public with a new group of people since the pandemic. 

I feel like I have been on a boat for the past three years, and I am finally getting back on shore. Everyone else has been on their own boat, and we are coming back to shore together, and we don't know how to act or behave.

Or another analogy -- I feel like a lobster that has shed her shell, waiting for the new one to grow back. In the meantime, I feel a little raw, unprotected in social interactions.

Ireland

Yes, Guinness is better in Ireland. 

Way better. 

Man that beer is so smooth and easy to drink. It is the easiest beer I’ve ever drank. No wonder there are so many alcoholics here. As I’ve been waking around, I’ve been trying to find good restaurants. The drinking culture here is so prevalent. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t really a great separate food culture. Sure, I’ve had some nice meals, but in mostly empty restaurants with people drinking their dinner and smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk patios. 

I know so many “Irish” people in the “U.S.,” people who strongly identify with being Irish whose grandparents or great-grandparents who were Irish, even if they themselves have never been to the motherland. I don’t think any other nationality is quite that in touch with a place they have never been to or have no living relatives there. 

And yet, I saw so many people here who look like people I know in the US. The Irish woman I sat next to on the plane looked like the sister of two of my friends. I’ve seen at least three people who looked like my high school boyfriend. This morning, I thought I saw one of Jack’s cousins in a coffee shop in Kilkenny.

The Irish are still a little sore after being colonized by the English for a thousand years and finally got “Home Rule” about one hundred years ago. (Ireland was the only colony within Europe, which has got to sting.) I’ve been reading about the Great Potato Famine in the 1860’s which drove half of the country to move to the US  so they wouldn’t starve. And the reason for the famine? There was a natural cause of bad weather, but then the British really screwed the pooch by exporting food instead of letting people in Ireland have it. Like they could make more money exporting the gain than they could get from the Irish. Or something like that. Disclaimer: Hey kids, don’t use this info for your school paper. Look it up yourself and don’t trust everything you read on the internet.

Anyway, when India was colonized by the British, Gandhi lead them out of it through being peaceful and “offering wicked no resistance.” The Irish took more of a “Fuck You” violent approach, which gave the British the rationale to respond back with more violence. Oy. It was a shit show. Everyone acted poorly, though the British were more wrong because they started it.

I love traveling because I learn so much history. Instead of reading it in a book—which is useful, don’t get me wrong—I absorb the history through my skin when I’m in a place. Last night, I went to a comedy show and two of the people brought up the IRA. One guy thought his dad might have been a terrorist  How do you sort that out? My dad blew up cars so we could vote on our leaders. Yay?!

I am still suffering from jet lag and I need to go to bed. Today I took a bus tour of the countryside. I was so looking forward to looking out the window and seeing the countryside. Instead, the gentle bouncing of the bus was like Rock-a-Bye-Baby and I zonked out. That and too much Guinness the night before.

We saw a sheep herding demonstration. It was cool. 

The biggest mountain on this side of Ireland. Sigh. This place isn’t Idaho, Montana or Washington. It is still beautiful, but it’s not Glacier.

The Cross of Ireland. The Irish Crown Jewels were stolen in 1907. 

We got to hold lambs. Sooo cute. Holding a lamb is exactly like holding a toddler. You have to relax and let the lamb know it is safe and then it stops squirming. 

Celtic cross. Made with a circle to appeal to pagans who liked the moon and the orbit of Jupiter and whatnot. #marketing