Edie Freedman's Blog

What one should not eat, or so they say.

2011-12-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Bread. Chocolate cake. Toll House cookies. Ice cream. Danish pastry. Coffee cake. Croissants. Cotton candy. Gummy bears. Snickers bars. Pasta. White rice. Hot fudge. Chocolate. Sugar. Flour. Salt. Butter. Oreos. Fritos. Potato chips. Popcorn. Mac-and-cheese. Eclairs. Junior Mints. Smartees. Frosted Flakes. Pixie Stix. Tortilla chips. Gravy. Potatoes. Pancakes. French toast. Eggs Benedict. Hamburgers. Bacon. Christmas cookies. Rum balls. Girl Scout cookies. Toblerone. Hershey’s Kisses with Almonds, Mounds bars. Macaroons. Cupcakes. Donuts. English muffins. Deep-dish pizza. Necco wafers. Hot dogs. Cracker Jacks. Chocolate frappes. Big Macs. French fries.

Glue. Dirt. Dryer lint.

Global Village.

2011-10-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

I have a Japanese rice cooker. It plays a Scottish jig when the rice is done.

They're just not that into you, Mr. President.

2011-09-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

As the White House dithers around Mr. Obama’s jobs speech next Thursday (after a ridiculous back-and-forth with John Boehner about the scheduling), I find myself wondering why the administration is acting like a loser who keeps dating jerks.

So I turned to the bestselling book He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, and found dead-on descriptions of what the President has experienced with the Republicans in Congress, along with some very good advice:

It’s quite clear that the Republicans are just not that into you, Mr. Obama. If they were, they’d be trying harder:

"A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the woman he loves."

And yet you keep trying.

"We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating.”

You act as if the Republicans are as good as their word, and you don’t call them on it publicly when they don’t follow through on their promises of true bipartisanship.

"We have become a sloppy bunch of people. We say things we don't mean. We make promises we don't keep. "I'll call you." "Let's get together." We know we won't. On the Human Interaction Stock Exchange, our words have lost almost all their value. And the spiral continues, as we now don't even expect people to keep their word; in fact we might even be embarrassed to point out to the dirty liar that they never did what they said they'd do. So if a guy you're dating doesn't call when he says he's going to, why should that be such a big deal? Because you should be dating a man who's at least as good as his word."

Remember when you were meeting with John Boehner about the big budget initiative—until Mr. Boehner walked out and refused to take your phone calls?

"There's nothing worse, in dating terms, nothing worse, than that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when it looks like the guy you were seeing or getting to know has decided to bail on you instead of talking to you about it. Nothing worse."

"Don't ask yourself what you did wrong or how you could have done it differently. Don't waste your valuable heart and mind trying to figure out why he did what he did. Or thinking back on all the things he said, and wondering what was the truth and what was the lie.”

In the end, maybe this is where you will find yourself:

“Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope."

Not good enough, sir. The country needs far more than that. I am hoping that you come out swinging, with a hugely audacious plan you believe in and evangelize everywhere, every day. A plan to put tens of thousands of people back to work, rebuilding our infrastructure and renovating school buildings, making them safer, more energy-efficient, and better places for our kids to learn. And that, rather than cutting spending for programs that truly do make a difference, you go after more revenue from those who have exploited the system for their own profit.

"It's very tempting when you really want to be with someone to settle for much, much less — even a vague pathetic facsimile of less — than you would have ever imagined. Remember always what you set out to get and please don't settle for less.”

Let the Republicans hoist themselves on their own petard, as they rally around the billionaires and the bankers—the supposed job-creators who, in spite of tax cuts and loopholes, have yet to create the jobs Americans so badly want and need.

It’s past time to keep playing their game, Mr. President, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The bottom line is this: they’re just not that into you. Kick ‘em to the curb and reach for your ideals. Stand up for yourself. Stand up for us.

You can't handle the truth.

2011-08-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

I've received a few online messages in the past few days from well-meaning friends passing on information they got online, either via Facebook or email. In both cases, the information was either completely false or mostly so. One was a fake Amber alert – and everyone, bless their hearts, wants to help find kidnapped children. Unfortunately, few people stopped to check it out on the Amber alert website [http://www.amberalert.gov/] or on one of the other websites [http://www.snopes.com/] that tries to verify email and internet rumors. That anyone would create a fake Amber alert is unthinkable; that we have to verify urgent Amber alerts is just sad.

In this era of intense national politics, I’ve been disappointed to see how many people on all sides of the various arguments are just repeating what they’ve heard about the details of proposed legislation, what some politician has avowed or disavowed, or where the president was born and what his religious affiliation really is.

Information comes at us from a seemingly infinite range of sources, online and off. Some people trust Fox News, some trust talk radio, others trust the NY Times and NPR, and still others look to Jon Stewart. We whack each other over the head with whatever we’ve decided to believe, wielding “the truth” like a weapon. When those ”truths” collide—as they so often do--there’s no winning, and no clear way forward to sort it all out. People don’t want to take the time to find out for themselves. It’s all too easy to be exposed to misinformation, and way too hard to get the unvarnished facts. And even when people on opposite sides of an issue look at the same data, their interpretations of it can vary widely.

So the question is: what to do? I try to do some research on political issues on my own, looking at data from the Congressional Budget Office and tracking down truths/half-truths/pants-on-fire lies at Politifact online. But in the end, there's just too much information, too much to read, assess, interpret, and digest. Way too much.

Absolutely

2011-07-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

Democracy doesn’t work absolutely. That is to say: democracy requires compromise, not absolutes. Rigid adherence to economic theology—on all sides of this debate—is not representative government. Millions of people live in this country, and we don’t all agree on how things (anything, really) should be done. But we all live here together, and so we need to get along, negotiate compromises, and get to solutions that meet at least some of each side’s goals.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about governing, it’s about politics, money, and power. It’s about making it impossible for Mr. Obama to succeed at anything, so the GOP can claim the White House in 2012. And if they do, then what? Lead in our water, health insurance premiums through the roof, the super-rich getting super-richer?

Since 2008, the Republicans have been far more invested in seeing Mr. Obama fail than in seeing the country succeed. Their cynicism is overt, with their talk of how this debt ceiling debate is hurting the “Republican brand” and stating publicly (from the start of his presidency) that their main goal is ensuring that Mr. Obama is a one-term president.

* * * *

I continue to be amazed that the people who are most likely to suffer at the hands of the robber barons are the people who most enthusiastically support them.

Fall in Love with Your Life

2011-06-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

My current advice to everyone is this: fall in love with your life. Pursue the things that bring you joy. Let go of things that don't. Know the difference.

Make it intentional. Make it your goal. Make it your reality.

April fools

2011-04-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

The Republicans in the House
South Dakota (with its too-intrusive anti-abortion policy and its not-intrusive-enough firearms laws)
Mississippi (the state where it's safer to stay in the womb, with highest child mortality rate in the country)
The Koch brothers
General Electric
The culture wars: sheer idiocy vs. total chaos
Michele Bachmann
Newt Gingrich
U.S. energy policy
Everyone, everywhere, who denies our role in global warming
Donald Trump
Orrin Hatch (The only thing I ever liked about the guy was that he used to play bridge with Teddy Kennedy.)
AMC and the producers of "Madmen"
The NFL
Today's weather

Lessons Learned

2011-02-20T18:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve been managing people at O’Reilly and elsewhere for over 25 years now. I’ve made boatloads of mistakes during that time, but I've learned a lot, too:

Manage up and out, not down. Represent the best interests of your group by managing your manager. When the people who report to you need support and guidance, step in.
Understand that it’s not about you. If you don’t get that, you’ll never be a good manager. Or a good employee.
Treat your employees like adults. You’re not their parent or their third grade teacher. You’re a mentor and advisor. You define the goals and objectives for the group and for each employee. And then you help them do what it takes to get there.
Be as committed to your employees’ success as you are to the success of the company. And vice versa. One feeds the other.
Let go of controlling how people do their jobs. As long as people are doing their jobs effectively, let go of the how and keep your eye on the desired results. Insisting that things be done only your way prevents your employees from developing their own ideas, and limits the organization as a whole. Your employees are not extensions of you. Give them room to do it their way, as long as they’re not disrupting anyone else’s work and you’re getting the outcomes you’re looking for (or, odds are, better outcomes than you envisioned).
Don't forget that you don’t have to have all of the answers. Your job is to figure out what questions to ask, and to work with your employees to find the answers. Collaborate with them to solve problems, and ask for their help when you need it: it’s a two-way street. If employees are always coming to you for answers, they don’t develop the kind of independent thinking that results in big benefits in the long run. Challenge them to figure things out for themselves; be there to advise and consult.
Let people make their own mistakes, and don’t come down hard on them when things go awry or fall through the cracks. If you have good relationships with your employees, they don’t want to disappoint you. They feel bad enough about making errors. If people don’t feel that they’re empowered to make decisions—and allowed to make some mistakes—they’ll turn to you to make all of the decisions. That’s not helping anyone, especially you.
Don’t ask questions without context. “Did you know about this?” in email can make an employee wonder whether you’re pleased with whatever you’re referring to or if you’re asking what their culpability in the situation is. Not knowing what’s behind the question makes it feel like a trap.
Try not to put people on the defensive. It makes them far more likely to develop the habit of covering their asses (CYA) rather than doing things that might lead to new and useful developments.
Avoid contempt. Try to keep it out of your attitude and out of your voice, no matter how you may feel about some of your colleagues and their work. Perhaps you need to spend a little time examining what’s behind any contempt you may feel, as it probably says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else.
Don’t be harsh with your employees. You can register disappointment without raising your voice and/or being a jerk. Being harsh with your employees puts them in self-protective mode. They’re less likely to seek your guidance and advice. Less likely to tell you what’s really going on. And more likely to be afraid to take on additional responsibility.

Harshness makes people contract and harden, not expand and flow. It makes them feel incompetent, erodes their self-confidence, and causes them to second-guess themselves far too often. It makes them afraid of you, which is counter-productive (and not much fun for either of you). Working with you should be a positive experience, not a minefield your employees have to tread carefully.

Take responsibility for your actions. If anything you’ve done has added to a problem, own up to it.
Give your employees context. Explain what’s going on in the company, or with a new initiative. Tell them what they need to know to understand how what they’re doing fits into the big picture.
If you can, give each employee meaningful responsibility for something: make each one the go-to person on a project, an ongoing task, a topic area. Give them ownership. Be clear about your expectations and then get out of the way. Pay attention but don’t micromanage. When other people come to you with questions, first direct them to the person responsible for that area. Be there to advise and support, and guide them back on track if you see things going off the rails. And then get out of the way again.
If someone’s behavior is inappropriate, discuss it in private. Getting your knuckles rapped in front of your peers is humiliating. Don’t put your employees in a situation where your actions cause them to lose face in front of others. Note I said “discuss” the behavior. No yelling. Be clear and straightforward with your feedback. And give them a chance to explain.
Don’t speak negatively about an employee with his/her peers.
Give your employees overt, public credit for their successes. And when they do something well, let them know that you noticed—and that you appreciate it.
Meet with your employees privately at least once a quarter to check in. This is in addition to the day-to-day interactions you may have. There should be no surprises on their annual performance reviews. They need to know how they’re doing – and you need to know what they’re struggling with – on an ongoing basis.
Give people your complete attention when you’re interacting with them one-on-one or as a group. 1) It’s way more efficient than trying to multitask, and 2) it lets people know that you take their concerns seriously.
Listen at least as much as you talk.
Ask for feedback on your performance as their manager. Find out what your employees think you might do better in general, what you could do to help them more effectively, what you perhaps should stop doing. LISTEN. Acknowledge what they’ve told you. It’s fine to explain the things you feel you need to, but wait until the person giving feedback has said their piece. Avoid sounding defensive.
Know when to cut your losses. If you have given an employee as much support and guidance as you can and they’re not able to perform up to the requirements of the job, help them move on. If it’s not a fit, it’s not a fit, and there’s nothing that either of you need to apologize for. That may mean letting them go or suggesting other, more appropriate opportunities for them in the company. Don’t let situations that aren’t working fester. Do what you need to do for the employee, your group, and the best interests of the company.

Why every family should include at least one marine biologist

2011-01-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

My nephew Adam is getting his PhD in Marine Biology. A few years ago he took me way out into the Everglades to catch and tag a few alligators. It was a blast.

Adam is a very handy resource when it comes to important marine biology topics. Note this recent email exchange:

Hey, Marine Biologist -

CSI Miami's latest episode opens with a guy on his cellphone stepping into his swimming pool, not noticing that there's an alligator in the pool. Which, of course, proceeds to attack him, making for a nice bloody dramatic beginning. Questions for you:

1. Would the alligator survive the chlorine?

2. Would an alligator in a pool automatically go after a human? If not, what would make an alligator attack someone in a swimming pool? (Not a super-big alligator, either.)

Just wondering. I know everything on TV is true (especially on CSI: Miami)...

- Your favorite auntie

* * * * *

Hey Auntie E,

Yes, an alligator could survive in a chlorine treated pool, but not for a really long time (like months). Gators can survive being exposed to almost anything for short periods of time (days - weeks) as long as they keep their mouth closed because their oral cavity is pretty much the only part of their body that contains highly permeable surfaces and therefore is the site for most ion exchange with their environment (i.e. chlorine, salt, etc.). If they don't open their mouths, they don't get exposed and it's all good in gator land.

An alligator would not automatically attack a human in a pool. Depends on the size of the gator and the size of the human. Alligators generally don't go after prey that are bigger than they are, though there are exceptions to the rule (e.g., deer). What would happen in the pool, I think, is that the gator would sense a human entering the pool through the vibrations on the water surface caused by their entry (they sense these vibrations with their "dome pressure receptors" located on their mouth), and also by the noise of course. The alligator would come over the the human to check it out and inspect the situation, and then it would decide to attack or not attack based on the human's size relative to it and its own hunger level. Gators also like the element of surprise, so if the human saw the gator and started trying to hit it or punch it in the mouth or something like that then the gator might decide that attacking wouldn't be worth it. If the gator on the show was small (less than 6 ft. or so) and the human was a big adult then I think most likely the gator would not attack, at least not immediately.

glad my PhD learnin' is proving to be useful in many contexts

love

adam

Stepping Out on the Ledge

2010-11-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

A close friend here in Gloucester lost her younger brother yesterday morning. He was shot outside his Detroit townhouse by one of his neighbors, who then went home and shot and killed his father before killing himself.

* * * * *

On my way to her house yesterday afternoon, I listened to “Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune),” a song about Beethoven, by Joni Mitchell:

You've got to shake
your fists at
lightning now
You've got to roar
like a forest fire
You've got to spread your
light like blazes
All across the sky
They're going to aim
the hoses on you
Show them you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die

* * * * *

Late last night I watched a documentary about Bruce Springsteen and the making of the album Darkness on the Edge of Town. After a long legal battle with his manager following the success of Born to Run, Bruce and the band finally got back into the studio and spent a year working to make Bruce’s vision for the new album a reality.

They worked at it month after month, recording multiple versions of over 70 songs, trying different approaches, mixing the tracks in various ways, pushing the limits of the technologies, the musicians, and, no doubt, everyone’s patience. They spent three months just trying to get what Bruce felt were authentic drum sounds – instead of the polished and pristine sound of drumming in the studio, Bruce was looking for the raw essence of drumming, a sound he just had to find.

Some people would see this as obsession; others would call it genius. What I see is his clarity of vision and an unwavering belief in himself and what he was trying to do. The film shows his burning intensity, compelling and hard to watch in equal measure. As the exhausting and seemingly endless process of iteration continued, it’s remarkable that he didn’t get so tangled up in the doing that he lost sight of the getting there. But he recognized the endpoint when he reached it, and the album was done.

Talking about that period in his life, Bruce said, ““More than rich, more than famous, more than happy – I wanted to be great.” Watching his dogged insistence on realizing his creative vision--believing in it, absolutely convinced that it was great--I thought about how infrequently I have pursued my own dreams and vision with anything even vaguely resembling that level of clarity, commitment, and conviction. I haven’t walked that far out on the ledge. These past few days have made me think about what it would take for me to take the first step, and the second.

* * * * *

Our time here may be long or short or somewhere in between. What shall we make of the time we have left?

Big Money, Bad Money

2010-10-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

Seems to me that a whole lot more good could have been done with the billions of dollars that have been spent on negative political ads and campaigns for the upcoming midterm elections.

There are 310,554,258 people in the United States; the combined total of all of the money spent for these elections is far more than that. The money could have gone to more productive things, like helping people pay their mortgages, donating it to cancer research, or repairing roads and bridges. Or they could have given everyone in the U.S. $5 apiece and saved us all from the constant barrage of campaign crap.

Grey

2010-08-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

I spent this past weekend preparing myself for letting Grey go. He spent the weekend sleeping, eating a little here and there, and occasionally sitting in my lap, purring. It’s clear that he is uncomfortable and feels unwell; his beautiful sea-green eyes are distant and he sits facing the wall, as if he is waiting for something. Today I will take him to the vet for the last time.

It’s sad to lose him, but sadder still to watch him suffer. So, I will be there with him at the end, with many tears but also with love and gratitude for all that he brought to my life.

Grey is, above all, a persistent cuss. He has always been a good communicator, and generally got his way, demanding food and attention, insisting on sitting in my lap while I was working, and deciding when it was time for me to stop working and come to bed. When he thought it was time for breakfast, he’d walk back and forth on me as I slept, and then would stick his face right into mine, tickling me with his whiskers until I got up.

Since he’s been ill, there have been a few flashes of his old spirit, but mostly he’s been quiet and sleeping a lot. He has tolerated a certain amount of medical treatment, but I can tell that he’s done with that, it’s not making him feel any better, and he’d just as soon let this body go. And so I will help him with that.

I am quite sad, but also immensely grateful for the time we had together. May we meet again someday.

Marketing Tips for the Administration

2010-06-22T03:32:00.000-07:00

Time to do some marketing, Mr. President. (And you Congressional Democrats.)

Run a series of ads spotlighting the individual Americans who are benefiting from the stimulus package. Let the people speak for themselves about their jobs and how their lives have changed as a result.

Run a series of ads spotlighting the various projects across the country that have been funded by the stimulus package. Let the project/site manager and/or the people working on the project speak.

Include a counter in the corner that ticks away, rolling up the numbers of how many jobs have been created -- just keep it ticking away, still going as each ad ends (to show it's an ongoing process).

Stop ceding this ground to the Republicans and TeaBaggers. You can win the battle for people's hearts and minds.

Stop telling everyone what you're doing and the impact it's had on people's lives -- show us. Over and over and over again. On TV. On the radio. Online.

Time Zones

2010-06-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

I grew up in southwestern Ohio. It’s in the western end of the Eastern Standard Time zone, along with most of Indiana. On early summer nights, it would stay light out quite late and we’d be out in the back yard in our pajamas, catching fireflies before bedtime. I remember thinking how wonderful it was to be running around in the soft evening air, looking for the intermittent flashes of light in the darkest corners of the lawn.

Now I live on the north shore of Boston, which lies at the eastern end of the time zone. And although I have lived in this area for over 25 years, the morning light still surprises me. On these early summer days, it starts to get light over the marsh at around 4:30AM. The cats begin to stir around 5:30; the birds are already fussing and twittering. The cats want their breakfast. I fend them off as long as I can, but invariably I end up getting up before I really want to; their persistence defeats my desire to catch another hour of delicious morning sleep.

. . .

Many summers ago I went back to Dayton for the wedding of one of my childhood friends. The evening reception was held outdoors on their family farm, with a big tent with tables and a dance floor set up next to the hay fields.

It was a beautiful evening. The music was sweet, the air was as soft as I remembered it, and there were thousands of fireflies over the fields, signaling to each other as darkness slowly fell.

Art in West Texas

2010-04-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Spent last week driving through West Texas with one of my oldest and dearest friends. We flew into Austin, then drove 7 hours due west to Marfa, a small town that boasts both the “Marfa Lights” (UFOs) and a huge installation of artwork by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and John Chamberlain, among others.

Judd’s and Flavin’s pieces are minimal and meticulous. Flavin’s spare but vivid fluorescent light environments are housed in a series of six former military barracks. Donald Judd designed and installed a large number of antiseptically clean, rectangular aluminum boxes into two huge artillery sheds. All of the boxes have the same outer dimensions, with variations of inserted planes and open sides.

With most sculpture, the setting is the frame within which one perceives the work. In this case, not so much. There was a nearly complete lack of interaction between the art installations inside the buildings and the landscape surrounding them. The buildings that housed the art could have been anywhere—say, in upstate New York or urban Seattle or southwestern Ohio. The grand and glorious desert landscape did not matter, for the most part. Judd did have some concrete boxes out in a field, but the scale was wrong (too small) and they seemed plonked down somewhat randomly, without any clear rationale or apparent sensitivity to how they were placed in that space.

* * *

The Texas desert is spectacular. Huge sky, clouds moving constantly, and a landscape of muted color: sage, sand, dark browns and greens. Small deer. Coyotes. Cows. Sheep. Goats. Horses. Llamas. Vultures. Turkeys. Sun. Rain. Stars. And lots of open space. It's a landscape on a gigantic scale which made me feel small and rather inconsequential. Not so for Donald Judd, or so it seems.

* * *

One of the aluminum boxes in the artillery shed created a frame for the desert, but the others did little but reflect each other. It seemed very odd to me that the artist chose largely not to interact with and respond to the beautiful land and sky.

I came away thinking that Donald Judd’s ego was significantly larger than his vision.

What I Don't Want to Pay For

2010-03-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Some conservatives are blocking the health reform bill because some government money might be used for abortions. It’s a short-sighted position, not least because statistics show that countries that offer guaranteed health care that includes coverage for abortions have a much lower rate of abortion than we do here. That means that giving people universal health coverage does more to reduce abortions than not giving them that coverage because they might use that coverage for abortions.

But all of this has gotten me thinking about what I don’t want my tax dollars to be used for. For example, Viagra. Hey, if women can pay for their own abortions, men can pay for their own erections. Bet that wouldn’t get through Congress.

A few other things I’d rather not support:

Pre-emptive war
Faith-based anything
Medicare charges that are way out of line, just because they can be
Hundred-dollar hammers for the military
Fancy offices for government officials
Bailouts for financial institutions that pay bonuses to their employees, no matter how well they perform
Social security for multi-millionaires
Subsidies to big agribusiness
Earmarks like the infamous “bridge to nowhere”

I’m sure this list would be much longer if I knew how all of the dollars that disappear from my paycheck are spent on my behalf.

I am not interested in shooting anything but a camera.

2010-03-04T18:43:00.000-08:00

As I’ve listened to news stories this week about the gun case being argued before the Supreme Court, I’ve been immensely dismayed to hear what some of my fellow Americans have to say about guns and gun ownership. Aside from target shooting or bagging Bambi for dinner, I wish nobody owned anything more powerful than a BB gun.

To my mind, a handgun is essentially a device designed and manufactured to kill other people. And it makes it so easy to do it. Lose your temper and blow someone away. Forget to lock your gun cabinet and your kid shoots another kid — or himself — by accident. Hold up a convenience store and shoot the clerk who refuses to open the cash drawer. Kill the teenage mischief-maker who breaks into your garage, looking for beer.

With a gun, it takes a millisecond to remove the obstacle that stands between you and whatever it is you want. Unfortunately, that obstacle is often another person.

I don’t believe that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” People with guns kill people. We can get rid of the people or we can get rid of the guns. I vote for getting rid of the guns. And then I can go to national parks again.

Some gun owners don’t trust the government. I don’t trust people with guns.

Dope Slap

2010-02-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

I am fed up. I wish I could give all of the idiots in Washington and in “fly-over country” a big dope slap. All of them. The prissy, pissy Republicans (whack!) and the groveling independents (whack!) and the unfortunate, disorganized, discombobulated Democrats, who squandered a rare opportunity (whack!).

And let's not forget Sarah Palin and the Tea Party folks, too (whack! whack! whack!). And Senate candidate Martha Coakley (whack!).

• • •

In the 1950s, my grandmother served in the Connecticut State Legislature. When she was in her late 80s, I brought a friend of mine to meet her. As I made the introductions, I mentioned that she had been in politics. She drew herself up straight and rather starchily said, “Government, dear. I was in Government.”

She understood the difference.

They've done it again.

2010-01-20T05:47:00.000-08:00

The Democrats have done it again. Amazing how they managed to choose a candidate for Teddy’s seat who was so “Kerry for President”-esque. Martha Coakley had all of the advantages going into this thing, but, as it turned out, she was tone-deaf, seemed remarkably cold-hearted, and is a terrible campaigner.

Jon Stewart made the point the other night that George W. Bush was able to do pretty much whatever he pleased, even though he did not have a filibuster-proof majority supporting him in the Senate—far from it, in fact. The Democrats just can’t get out of their own way. Remember Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug message in the 80s -- “Just Say No”? The Republicans have extended that, very successfully, into anti-everything.

I find those shiny, well-groomed, hard-edged Republican pols and their toadies at Fox News to be so entirely and universally repellent. They’re like mass-produced gingerbread men (and a few women), nearly identical and in lockstep. They seem nearly Swiss in affect – but without the good chocolate. They make their politics look so tidy because there’s only one note: No.

The Dems, on the other hand, are an unkempt bunch, hard to define and even harder to organize. They can’t figure out how to pull together as a party, because they are so busy being, well, sort of French. Dramatic, emotional, each going their own way, wanting to be seen for who they are as individuals, a cacaphony of passions, intentions, and purposes. That’s no way to run a party, and, unfortunately, no way to win elections – or people’s hearts.

At the end of the day, it just slays me that the people who are most passionately for the Republicans are the ones who get screwed by them the most. And it seems so easy to get that constituency to believe whatever they are told, from death panels to the evils of socialism to the old “Democrats are soft on terrorism” crap. I’ve said it before: people are addicted to fear, and the Republicans serve it up again and again.

….

So, pretty boy Scott Brown wins and takes health care reform down with him. Sigh. Well, maybe the Dems will sort a few things out. As for me, I see a future in which Scott Brown and Sarah Palin get married (after they both first get divorced, of course) and create beautiful babies and bad policy together. God help us all.

'Nuff Said

2009-12-26T23:21:00.001-08:00

Taking Care of the Livestock First

2009-12-19T05:52:00.000-08:00

There's an old rule of thumb in farming: take care of the livestock first. Whether it's feeding, tending to, or providing shelter in a storm, seeing to the animals' needs before one's own is no doubt good farming practice, protecting one's investment and livelihood. It's also our responsibility as their caretakers, something we chose when we adopted or acquired them, a decision they had no part of. That responsibility doesn't stop when the animals get old or infirm. Much as we'd like to hold onto them forever--to make time stop--there's a point at which keeping an animal alive becomes more about us and our needs than about them and theirs.

Verlyn Klinkenborg has a piece in the Times today about making the hard decision to put a beloved dog down. It's an eloquent articulation of all that I believe to be the right course in such things, as heart-wrenching as it may be.

• • •

It reminded me of a wonderful story by David Updike, written in 1978 when he was still in college, "Out on the Marsh." It's a reflection by a young man at 21 about the passing of time, illuminated by his sudden awareness that his dog, Mtoti, has gotten on in years. Here's the last paragraph:

I had been out on the marsh for several hours that day, and Mtoti was tired and followed a few feet behind me. I turned to him and ran backwards, clapping my hands, calling his name, and he worked himself into a run. On the lawn we stopped, and I bent down to hug him. In the afternoon light, I could see that the gray flecks on his muzzle had gone to white, and I realized that he had drifted into old age without my having noticed. I have thought of him all these years as my peer, but it is only now, in the blue light of spring, that I realize he has grown old without me.

Getting on the Other Side

2009-12-03T05:08:00.000-08:00

Some years ago, a friend of mine was struggling to manage her new horse, a somewhat feisty Argentinian polo pony. It was a challenge for her to overcome her fears and ride the horse with the confidence it required. She rode for a while with a local trainer, a born-and-bred horseman, nearly Midwestern in his approach to horses. He took everything in stride and remained both calm and patient when working with difficult horses.

At one point, when she was frustrated and expressing her doubts, he looked at her and said, “You’ve just got to get on the other side of that horse.”

In addition to being good advice, it’s a great concept. There is, I have found, a tipping point at which nearly every formerly insurmountable problem becomes manageable. Reaching that point requires patience, determination, and a commitment to hang in there until the thing sorts itself out, one way or another.

. . .

I started last summer wondering if Wolfie and I would ever form a workable partnership. He was spooky, I was nervous; not a good recipe for success. But I stayed with it, and rode nearly every day, alone and in company. I rode through spooks and shies, calmed my butterflies, and just kept at it, even on days when I just didn't feel up to it.

By the end of the summer, we had made great strides together: he doesn’t spook at everything now, his spooks are smaller, and I just ride them out and keep on going. No more butterflies. We’re both calmer and our rides are a lot more fun.

I figure I got on the other side of that horse. And I think he probably got on the other side of me.

What to Eat

2009-11-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

Have been thinking a lot about eating meat, for a few reasons:

Saw “Food, Inc.” – movie about where our food comes from. Haven’t had a hamburger since, don’t plan to have another anytime soon.
Heard a caller yesterday on NPR’s show about Thanksgiving recipes talk about how she was getting a fresh turkey this year. She said it would be slaughtered today and wondered if there was enough time to brine it before roasting it.
An article in the NYTimes by a vegan, talking about not using animals for food or anything else—and then mentioning his cat. Found myself wondering what he feeds his cat.

I am very conflicted about eating animals, and, to a lesser extent, fish. Lots of issues:

Animals do eat each other. And a bear or an alligator or a tiger (if there are any left) might be quite happy to eat me, under the right circumstances. Why not eat them?
We are the only species that raises animals specifically to kill and eat them. There are far too many of us to survive by killing and eating wild animals (especially since we’re obliterating their natural habitats, bit by bit).
We pay other people to kill the animals we eat. And we don't want to know how the sausage is made.
I live with and take care of animals that I couldn’t begin to consider eating, even if I was starving to death. Why are they different than any other animals? Because I know them?
Some people believe that animals are lesser beings, as they lack the ability to reason. Seems to me that they reason just fine: my cats know that if they bug me long enough, I’ll feed them or come up to bed when it’s late. I didn’t train them to do that—they trained me. My horse knows that if he comes when I call him, he’ll get a carrot. I’m not saying that they’re going to understand or develop the theory of relativity, but they understand cause and effect, and certainly know how to cause to get effect.
Animals have very distinct personalities, likes and dislikes, fears and favorites.
Animals can suffer and feel pain, including the pain of separation. They will fight for their lives.
The way we treat the animals we raise for food is horrific and inexcusable. Beyond inhumane.
The way we process meat and poultry products is just plain scary from a health perspective. Ecoli, anyone? Rat droppings? How about the fact that a single hamburger may be made of ground meat from a hundred different cows from different places?
I grew up in Ohio, next door to a farm that raised black angus cattle. And we ate meat or poultry pretty much every night. It's always been a major part of my diet, and I like meat. Or at least I used to. Am not so sure these days.

So, what else would I eat, if I didn’t eat meat? I have a bit of a lactose intolerance, which makes cheese a bit problematic, and it’s not like we treat our dairy cows all that much better than the cows we eat. And soy products aren’t a great solution, either. Soybean agriculture is a main contributor to deforestation in the Amazon, which is bad for man and beast alike. And I read somewhere that people are more likely to get sick from eating imported vegetables than meat, because of the way veggies are grown and processed.

I have thought about raising chickens, just for the eggs. Unlike Tyson, I'd give the chickens a safe place to roost, good food, with plenty of room to roam around. Of course, it would mean eating a lot of eggs, if that was my main source of protein. Not so keen on that.

I have also considered eating only local produce, buying at farmers’ markets from farms I know, canning my own food for the winter, even grinding my own flour. A lot of work and, who knows, I could easily give myself botulism (or worse, if there is anything worse).

I don’t have an answer. All I know is that it's just about Thanksgiving and I don’t feel good about eating meat. Or poultry. Or soybeans.

In Search of the Quick Fix

2009-11-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

I’m continually surprised by how short people’s memories are. Watching the "commentators" on Fox as they opine about (and misrepresent) the economic mess, the health care debate, and the president’s deliberations on sending more troops to Afghanistan, I wonder how it is that a lot of my fellow citizens have come to believe that all of our problems should be resolved—or nearly so—by now, one year into Mr. Obama’s term.

Americans believe in the quick fix. From reality TV shows about transformations seemingly wrought overnight with plastic surgery to commercials from pharmaceutical companies that promise relief from intractable conditions to beauty creams that tout instant results, we’ve become a culture of impatience and false expectations.

If you’ve ever had major surgery—of any kind—you know it’s not a cakewalk. The healing process can be long and quite painful. A friend of mine had shoulder surgery this summer; his doctor told him that it could be up to a year before he’ll be completely pain-free. That's reality.

On a long plane flight this summer, I watched an episode of “Make Me a Supermodel” (yes, I know), in which a beautiful young woman with very bad teeth spent 24 hours getting her teeth fixed—drilling, grinding, implants, the whole thing—and was expected to (and did) walk the runway a few hours later, without complaint or apparent discomfort. That’s just not how it generally goes, as anyone who’s had dental surgery can attest.

It took decades to bring the country to its knees economically and culturally. The girlfriends’ rule of thumb for getting over a bad relationship is that it should take up to as much as half as long as the relationship lasted. With that math, we should not expect to be back on our feet for at least 4 years, if we just count the W/Cheney years. And some of our problems go back a lot farther than that.

The people on all sides who are saying that Mr. Obama “hasn’t done anything” don’t seem to understand that fixing problems of this magnitude—and so many of them at once—is an excruciatingly slow and complex process. And it’s not like he’s the only guy in the room. There are a lot of other people involved: one political party that is mostly engaged in making sure that things stay as they are until the midterm elections, one party that squabbles within itself endlessly about everything, and a whole lot of people in the middle who are looking for a quick and painless fix.

It's going to take time. Some things are still going to get worse before they get better. So, fasten your seat belts. And adjust your expectations accordingly.

Garbage Day

2009-10-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Whenever I take my trash and recycling out to the end of the driveway for the town to pick up, I feel lighter somehow when I get back to the house. That stuff is gone! The kitchen garbage, the stuff that can't be recycled, various things that I am getting rid of that can't go to Goodwill and no one else wants. All sorts of bits and pieces that came into my house one way or another are gone from my house for good. It always feels like progress.

But more and more, I am aware that that is an illusion. The stuff is just gone from here. It's not gone gone. It is somewhere. Maybe it gets incinerated, maybe they just dump it in a landfill somewhere. I've never bothered to find out. I should.

* * * * *

When I am walking or riding along a road or on a beach and see litter that people have discarded along the way, first I wonder who and why, and whether they considered, even for a second, what they were doing when they dumped the stuff there.

Then I wonder if the packaging designer gave any thought to how the package would look, lying on a beach or in the grass by the side of the road.

And then I think about this: imagine that when you die, you are suddenly confronted with all of the trash you generated in your entire lifetime. Not the trash that was generated on your behalf, just the trash that you discarded yourself. Aside from a few collectors' items (your old Barbie Dream House, for example), the stuff is garbage. And it's all yours.

Whether you dumped that six-pack of empties along the road in high school or just tossed the cans in a dumpster somewhere, it all comes back to you in the end. And so there you are, looking at a mountain of everything you ever discarded. (FWIW, recyclers might well have smaller mountains, since the stuff they recycle is reused and won't count against them in the end.)

I haven't figured out what happens next.

About Passion, II

2009-10-22T17:10:00.001-07:00

People who love what they do—for work or pleasure—are a joy to be around. Sure, if you're a landlubber with no interest in boats and you have to spend hours on end with someone who constantly talks about boating, eventually you'd want to run screaming from the room. But the hit you get from a conversation with someone who's totally jazzed is pretty darned wonderful.

One of the things I love about my job is how passionate the people I work with are, from the people at the highest levels of the company to the production editors I argue about commas with, the designers who fuss if something is one point (that's 1/72nd of an inch) out of alignment on a layout, and the sys admins who take care of problems of all sizes and all urgencies, every day.

The people I work with care. They care about punctuation and customer service and sales figures and marketing copy and book bindings and the food we serve at conferences and the new products we develop. I'd wager that there's nothing we do that someone in the company isn't passionate about, one way or another—someone who sees it as their mission to ensure that we do that piece of our business properly and well. (In fact, some of us are rather relentless about it, although I'd like to think that I've mellowed a bit over the years.)

Without that level of engagement, working at O'Reilly would be like working the assembly line at a cannery, all of us passively waiting for the conveyor belt to bring us the next item and the next and the one after that, rarely looking up to see what's coming toward us and never trying to get further upstream, where the decisions are made.

Instead, even after 30 years, the company still feels like a startup in many ways. From my perspective, it's all about passion. And that's what keeps me here.

An Untidy Life

2009-10-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

Here’s the thing: whether it’s working out a knotty design problem on my computer or making a shadow box or trimming the hedge, I use up my energy on the doing. Which means that I rarely have any energy left to adequately clean up after myself. Needless to say, that does not make for a tidy life.

Sometimes I’ll bundle up whatever I’ve been working on and shove it into a drawer or pile it on my worktable, and later regret that I didn’t take the time and care to put things away properly. Or I’ll spend an hour cleaning out and reorganizing my art supplies, but then will come across something that just doesn’t fit into my scheme. If my energy engine has run out of gas, I’ll just toss that outlier in there somewhere, thus compromising my rare attempt to straighten things up.

The worktable in my studio is anything but. It’s actually a work storage table. All of my projects seem to end up there, waiting for me to take the next step. It’s a heap of stuff that ranges from little plastic animals to sand dollars, fabric, hot glue sticks, corks, and frames. I walk by the door, see the disarray and quickly glance away. I work on my dining room table instead; because it’s front and center in my house, I tend to keep it clean. When I’ve exhausted myself making boxes on the dining room table, I gather everything up and—you guessed it—dump it on my worktable upstairs.

I have friends who are total neatniks. Their houses are clutter-free, their workbenches and desks clean and organized, so that when they next go to fix a chair leg or write the next chapter in their novel, they start with a clean slate. In some ways, I envy them. I’d love to have all of my stuff properly organized and put away, with some rational system for finding it when I’m ready to work with it. On the other hand, the amount of time they spend cleaning up is time they aren’t spending making things. I'd rather make things.

Yes, yes, I know—in the long run, the neatniks are probably far more productive than I am. And they probably have fewer self-made disasters, where the pile of stuff on my worktable falls to the floor as I try to add just one more thing to the pile, or when I get hot glue all over my kitchen counter because I just had to put a piece together in the kitchen.

But their work is tighter, too. As beautiful and inspired as it may be, their process feels constrained to me, with nothing unplanned, with little or no opportunity for the happy accident. It’s like skiers who ski a slope with a plan in mind, mapping their course out before starting down, versus those of us who ski in the moment, with the attitude that we’ll handle whatever comes. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t, but there's always the possibility that it will be the best run we ever had.

There are times when I wish I were more like the neatniks and the planners. But mostly not. Much as I'd love to have my house and worktable orderly when I walk in the door, I love the fact that I am never really done with the doing. May it always be so.

Birthday Present

2009-10-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today. Conservatives are either aghast or dismissive: "He hasn't done anything!" That depends on what "doing" something means. He's certainly done what Mr. Bush could never do: use his intellect and diplomacy to earn the respect--albeit in some quarters, the grudging respect--of the international community. The guy is stuck with two wars, an offshore prison full of terrorism suspects, a financial/economic crisis, and political opponents who are arrogant, cynical, and absurdly petty. And he still manages to do his job with grace, humor, and good will. That really drives his detractors nuts; they just can't get to him. He's a class act. And they, by and large, are not.

Hearing about the Nobel award along with a great ride this morning on the Wolfman made for a darned nice birthday. If the Sox manage to win Game 2, that will be the icing on the cake.

The End of an Era

2009-09-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

The phrase "statesmanly conduct" came to mind recently, most notably because of the lack of it in the current brouhaha over health care. I looked up the word "statesman" and a few others that seemed relevant:

statesman: a person who exhibits great wisdom and ability in directing the affairs of a government or in dealing with important public issues.

statesmanship: the ability, qualifications, or practice of a statesman; wisdom and skill in the management of public affairs.

respect: to hold in esteem or honor; to show regard or consideration for

It becomes more and more evident to me that the art of statesmanship in the Congress may well have died with Teddy Kennedy. Teddy was not perfect; he was quite fallible and made some very public mistakes. But one thing that characterized his work in the Senate was his statesmanship: he could disagree with someone about an issue, but he was never disrespectful. He might challenge a colleague in debate, but as far as I know, he didn't resort to disparaging their character, their heritage, or their love of this country.

He collaborated, negotiated, cajoled, pushed, pulled, and, above all, he persisted. According to other members of the Senate who spoke after his passing, Teddy didn't sink to the level of open contempt, arrogance, and disrespect that seems to characterize the behavior of many of the people's representatives in Washington these days.

* * *

I looked up a few other words, too:

disrespect: lack of respect; discourtesy; rudeness; to regard or treat without respect; regard or treat with contempt or rudeness

play politics: to engage in political intrigue, take advantage of a political situation or issue, resort to partisan politics, etc.; exploit a political system or political relationships; to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way

As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, you'd better buckle your seatbelts, folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Cut the crap, already.

2009-09-10T04:49:00.000-07:00

I missed Obama's speech last night, as I was at Fenway Park, watching the Red Sox beat the Orioles. But on the train home, I read the speech in its entirety, and I think it was a damned good speech.

A few things have come to mind over the past couple of weeks:

When the Republicans as a group say no to everything the president proposes, that's not leadership, it's politics. What we need now is leadership. Politics is crap.

When the Democrats dig their heels in so hard that they can't even compromise with other Democratic representatives, people who share some of the same foundational beliefs, that's not leadership. It's a logjam. And it's crap.

Conservatives have become masters at creating pejorative terms for everything they disagree with--"death tax," "death panels," "partial birth abortion." These terms are not only misleading, they're also guaranteed to terrify people who are all too willing to distrust their government (except, of course, their representative in Congress and the pundits who stoke their biggest fears). It's marketing, not policy, and it's very effective. And it's also crap.

Mr. Obama is trying to govern, and is trying to lead--by example--the Congress to behave like rational adults and do their jobs. Do the real work, not the grandstanding, dig-your-heels-in activity that passes for "serving the people." Saying no to everything is not a job, it's a credo. It only serves to maintain the status quo. And it's crap.

Mutual respect and decorum are sorely lacking. In fact, the only person in this whole debate who has been respectful to everyone involved is Mr. Obama. The people who disrupted the town hall meetings, the congressman who yelled out "Liar!" during the speech last night, the snotty and self-righteous pundits--nothing in their behavior comes close to matching the measured dialogue and respectful manner with which Mr. Obama has met his critics and addressed the country.

The guy is a class act. If only the other people involved in this debate could follow his lead and work towards reasonable compromise to solve an incredibly difficult problem. But they don't. And they won't. And that, my friends, is also crap.

A Culture of Ignorance

2009-08-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Watching the congressional health care scrum and ensuing “town hall meetings,” I find myself wondering whatever happened to the art of critical thinking. The near-decade of politicians on the right pandering to the lowest common denominator—devaluing intellectuals, rigorous education, and what used to pass for common sense—has created a weird cult-like segment of the population that is easily led by falsehoods and fear.

When people aren’t doing their own thinking, it’s easy to prey on their ignorance of the issues. It’s a piece of cake to get them to see themselves as victims of an enormous and complicated system they don’t and can't understand.

Does anyone really believe that any part of the various proposed health care policies include a “death panel?” And how can people not see that, in effect, that is how our current system works, with insurance companies deciding who gets coverage and treatment and who doesn’t? I watch people ranting on TV and wonder, “Who are these people?” They seem like agitated and terrified creatures from some alternate universe.

Our culture has encouraged people to become passive observers who believe what they are told by people who cast every issue as a binary choice: right or wrong. Our people, it would seem, no longer are taught how to do the real work of independently assessing information, determining by their own investigation and standards what’s true or false, and then acting on it in a rational manner.

Instead, many people appear to have no filters; they drink in what they’re told. They sit back and let ever-more-shrill politicians, zealots, and pundits tell them what they should think, largely based on what they should fear. Fear-mongering is like fast food for the brain: it’s easy to incite and triggers adrenalin, providing an immediate emotional payoff (Kapow!). It is far less exciting to take the time to study, assess, and come to one’s own conclusion about complex, often hard-to-understand issues (Yawn).

When there is true critical thinking, it is difficult to get a group of informed and intelligent people to come to agreement on most issues. How then can the Republicans walk in lock step on nearly every issue? How is it that they manage to represent everything in binary black-and-white/right-and-wrong terms? The answer is that people want assurance and clarity from their leaders. It makes folks feel safe--they know where the boundaries are. The problem is that most issues that our government has to grapple with are not black-and-white, with clearly defined edges, and there are few, if any, set-in-stone yes/no answers. That’s one reason why the Democrats are always in such disarray—between a tradition of independent thinking and a culture of political ambition, it’s pretty hard to get those ducks in a row.

It will take a huge shift to overcome the culture of ignorance we’ve created. I can only hope that Mr. Obama can somehow find a way to overcome the overwhelming resistance to thinking for oneself. And the rest of us might want to consider our role in this, too.

About Michael Vick

2009-07-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

I see that Michael Vick has been "conditionally" reinstated by the NFL, opening the way for him to play pro football again. In today's NY Times:

“I’m a believer personally that if somebody recognizes either mistakes in judgment or things, they can do better going forward, that the general public will recognize that and give people an opportunity to prove themselves,” Goodell said. “I’m trying to give Michael the opportunity to prove himself to play in the N.F.L. again. It’s in his hands now.”

Vick didn't just bankroll a dogfighting ring, he also participated in killing dogs by electrocuting them. It wasn't just a "mistake in judgment," and it wasn't because he was involved with what people are now calling "bad influences." I have not heard one word from him about any reluctance he may have had about maiming and killing the dogs he treated so cruelly. This is not about judgment, it's about character. A guy who intentionally tortures and kills animals for pleasure and/or profit doesn't need to prove himself to play in the NFL. He needs to prove himself to the rest of us.

He's supposedly going to do some work with the Humane Society, which is a step in the right direction, but I'd be far more impressed if he gave up professional football entirely and devoted himself to animal welfare projects. The guy could raise a lot of money that would help abused animals, and would change a lot of people's minds--and hearts--in the process.

The Beat Goes On

2009-07-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

As I’ve ridden various horses over the past few years, I’ve discovered that every horse has his own rhythm, and that that rhythm can be translated into song. For example, I used to ride a big draft-cross named Kit Kat. When we were trotting around the indoor arena one day, I realized that his trot was exactly the beat and rhythm of “Ruby Tuesday” by the Rolling Stones. So he’d trot and I’d sing. I tried other songs with him, but Kit Kat's song was “Ruby Tuesday” and nothing else would do.

When I was riding Loki, a wonderful Welsh pony (a horse, really, as he was about 15.2), I discovered that the rhythm of his walk was “California Girls” by the Beach Boys. We had a long walk from the barn to the fields where we rode, and one day I realized that I was hearing “California Girls” in my head as Loki walked along. And so that became his song.

To help keep Wolfie’s rhythm consistent in the indoor this winter and to make sure I was breathing properly, I sang “Row Your Boat” out loud all the time when we were in there alone. (It’s a great song for timing your approach to jumps, among other things.) But it felt generic and never really fit him very well. But a couple of days ago, I was riding Wolfie alone in the outdoor arena, and started singing a Bonnie Raitt song, “Wherever You May Be.” It fits the rhythm of his walk perfectly. Don't know how he feels about it, but I spent the morning outdoors with him today, singing out loud.

Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

I remember going over to a friend’s house to watch the premiere of the Thriller video on MTV. I was in grad school in Rochester, and my classmate was one of the only people I knew who had cable. The video was weird, and very cool. We were entranced; none of us had ever seen anything like it. Night of the Living Dead meets MTV.

As his star rose and fell, his appearance, which was perfectly normal when he started out, became increasingly bizarre. From the first nose job, when he emerged looking more like Diana Ross than Diana Ross herself, to the many botched cosmetic surgeries that followed, his outer self seemed to be an accurate representation of the damaged soul within. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to watch him navigate the next 30 years, and how that journey would have manifested itself on his face.

Although I was never a huge fan, there are a few songs that stand out—Beat It, Billie Jean, Man in the Mirror, Ain’t No Sunshine, Human Nature, Black and White, among others. And I will never forget his appearance at Motown’s 25th anniversary celebration in 1984—amazing, wonderful, incredibly hip, completely electrifying. It still is.

The Slump

2009-06-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

Imagine being David Ortiz. You're in a slump, can't hit the ball, leaving men on base inning after inning. Your struggle is intensely public: sportswriters everywhere are writing your career obit and wondering about past steroid use, and fans are looking grim and sad every time you trudge back to the dugout after yet another out. There's nowhere to hide; you're failing and everyone knows it.

And then, just like in the movies, you start hitting again. Your batting average, which was .143 for the month of May, rises to .308 for the month of June. You hit 5 home runs over 35 at-bats in 3 weeks, a gigantic improvement over May, when you hit your first home run in 149 at-bats. The sportswriters are tentative about declaring the slump over, the fans are ecstatic. And you are nearly the old Big Papi again, at least for now. Although it is an incredible relief to be hitting again, it must also feel like every trip to the plate is putting everything on the line in a very different way than in seasons past.

Nothing and no one lasts forever. Even the indomitable Papelbon is not having 3-and-out innings these days. For Sox fans, it's a reminder of what it was always like to root for the Sox, walking that tightrope between hope and despair. For several years, Big Papi and Papelbon were dead certs. And although it's more anxiety-producing now to watch them both, it's also more interesting, and, when they overcome their difficulties, it's way more thrilling. As cool as it was to watch Papelbon's fastball blow across homeplate, there's now the intrigue and drama of not knowing what will happen. How could anyone not love this game?

"Horse Sense"

2009-06-06T05:24:00.000-07:00

In today's NY Times, Sean Clancy says this about horses:

"Horses are just like people; there are smart ones, dumb ones, miserable ones, honest ones, simple ones, cheats, freaks, leaders and laggards. They have good days, bad days and plenty of average days. They can be brilliant one minute, horrible the next. They can remember something that happened a year ago and forget what they learned yesterday. They’ll walk placidly into a metal starting gate that clangs and rings when the doors open, and then be scared of a bucket that wasn’t there yesterday."

He nailed it. Wolfie can walk quietly along the side of a road with cars whizzing past (some way too fast and way too close for safety), but if there is a piece of bark on the ground, he'll snort and shy away from it as if it was going to eat him. Their wiring is unique: by spending a lot of time with a horse, you can learn a lot about how he thinks, but you'll never be able to predict with absolute certainty what he'll do in any situation.

* * *

I hope the Belmont goes well today: no injuries, no horses being put down on the track. I don't care who wins; as exciting as a horse race can be, I will wait to watch it until the race is over and I know everyone is alright.

Get this guy some baggy shorts and a metal detector.

2009-06-02T04:29:00.000-07:00

Why can't Dick Cheney disappear like a good Veep, and just play golf?

Instead of going on political talk shows to condemn Mr. Obama, and trying to whip up fear and loathing by speaking poison at right-wing venues, why can't the former Vice President use his intelligence and influence to do something positive for the country and the world? He could be working to eliminate world hunger, building houses for the poor, or establishing a foundation that helps third world countries develop green practices and economies.

Failing that, he could just sit down and shut up.

Instead he continues to engage in a battle that no one else is fighting, defending the insanity of the last administration, with Cassandra-like warnings about the terrorist attacks to come. There is little doubt in my mind that there will be terrorist attacks in the future, but they will have far more to do with what Bush/Cheney did than anything else. Undermining the current administration is a self-serving, cynical ploy, right out of the far right's playbook.

If a country's general character and state of mind can be seen in the general character and state of mind of its leaders, the Bush era created a United States that was increasingly paranoid, defensive, suspicious, angry, fearful, petulant, domineering, and, ultimately, weak. And no matter how things went, the future always looked scary and dark. To them, it still does.

If we extend that thought to Obama, the United States is now engaged, open to new ideas, measured, thoughtful, hopeful, articulate (haven't heard anyone say "nu-cu-lar" since Sarah Palin left the stage), and working towards a future that looks brighter—and possible.

Are they doing everything right? Of course not. No one could. But I'd rather be wrong with Obama's approach and policies than "right" with Darth Vader and his loyal sidekick, W. The "force" Star Wars referred to was not the kind of force Dick Cheney has always championed. And he and his ilk (and they are ilk) will never, ever understand that.

Clarity

2009-05-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

I have an on-again, off-again relationship with clarity: I aim for it in most things, but there are times when too much clarity makes me feel claustrophobic, as it forces me to eliminate options that I am not quite ready to discard.

* * *

Many years ago, O’Reilly Media founder and CEO Tim O’Reilly wrote a memo to the company’s managers about our role. One of things he wanted was for managers to “tolerate ambiguity, resolve ambiguity, and create ambiguity.” We all laughed when we read it, but in many ways it has been a key element in the continued success of the company. As the company has matured, we’ve managed to strike a manageable balance between encouraging a certain amount of ambiguity even as we continually strive for something that passes for clarity. It is not always easy to make the necessary choices.

* * *

There are people who would like to eradicate ambiguity entirely; they want to make a list, nail things down, get closure and be done with it. That’s a good way to approach cleaning one’s house: finally decide what to do with that old side table of Aunt Tillie’s that you’ve been tripping over in the basement for years. But it’s not a viable approach for the world that lies beyond your direct control, i.e., most of life.

I have a colleague at O’Reilly who is quite determined in her quest to resolve ambiguity, whether it’s getting clear about roles, goals, or marketing messages. But the thing that makes her unusual—and quite effective—is that her driving desire for clarity doesn’t override her willingness and ability to change course quickly when the situation changes. She doesn’t hang onto what was and try to force the situation back into that state; she lets go and begins from where things are now. And that makes her an excellent problem-solver, because she is always solving the problem as it is now, not as it was a week ago, a day ago, or, far too often, just a few hours ago.

* * *

Ambiguity is a deal-breaker for most horses—they either look to their rider for leadership or they figure they’re on their own. To them, clarity is leadership. It lets them know what’s expected and what’s permissible in any given situation, and makes them feel safe. If you watch horses interact with each other out in the paddock, you see that they have very distinct ways of establishing hierarchies and setting boundaries. This is what “horse whisperers” have learned, and it is how they work what seems to be magic.

I try to be as clear and consistent as I can with Wolfie. Any indecision on my part leads to indecision (and an open door for unwanted behavior) on his. Sometimes it's hard to do. One has to let go of self-doubt and strive for consistency. I can't think: "I must be doing something wrong, since he's not doing what I am asking him to do." The truth is that if I always use the same cues and have the same expectations of him, every time, eventually we'll come to understand each other. Or at least he'll come to understand me.

Favorite Food Combos

2009-05-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

I was having a root beer today as I was driving through Essex and remembered going to the A&W stand when I was a kid. Root beer and a hot dog with mustard and sweet relish. Yum. Every time I have a root beer, I can almost taste the hot dog. Every time I have a hot dog, I wish I had a root beer to go along with it.

So, of course that got me thinking about food combos that I love.

A hot dog with mustard and sweet relish, with root beer. The A&W classic.
Tuna fish sandwich on toast, with chocolate milk. Not great for dipping—tuna is kinda oily.
Peanut butter and jelly on rye bread, with chocolate milk. Excellent for dipping.
Hamburger with mayo and cherry tomatoes on a sesame bun, with a chocolate milkshake (what we call a frappe in these parts).
Bologna and chocolate milk powder. Take a slice of bologna and put a teaspoon of Nestle’s Quik on it. Spread it around a bit, then fold the bologna into quarters and enjoy. Gross, but the choc milk powder takes the greasy edge off the bologna—the main thing is to remember not to inhale as you take a bite or you’ll choke to death on the choc milk powder. I came up with this when faced with what seemed like an endless sequence of bologna sandwiches in my lunchbox.
Turkey (sliced very thin) with mayo on white bread, with a bottle of Dr. Pepper. In high school, Susie Hertlein and I used to skip out to lunch in Susie's blue Mustang to a place called “Serendipity.” We got these sandwiches and the Dr. P there: the best high school lunch ever. We told our teachers that we were selling ads for the school newspaper.
Oreos and milk. I’m not a “taker-aparter”—I put an entire Oreo in my mouth and then have a swig of milk and wait until the Oreo gets soft enough to smoosh with my tongue. Yummy. And only 50 calories per Oreo, but of course I never eat just one.
Bananas with sour cream. One of my favorite desserts from my childhood, always with lots of sugar on top.
Butter and sugar on white bread. The worst of everything. Depending on how much sugar you use, this can be a very gritty, very sweet treat.
Pickled herring and beer. Liked pickled herring even before I spent time in Denmark. Liked it even better when I was old enough to drink beer with it. And Danish schnapps.

Demon Alcohol

2009-05-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

So, it seems that I can no longer drink alcohol. Or at least, not much. When I imbibe, headaches ensue frequently enough that I've come to understand that I need to avoid alcohol most of the time. A pity, because it's nearly summer and I love a cold gin and tonic on a hot summer evening.

It's been interesting to watch myself as I reach this conclusion. It's certainly not what I want to do. But the headache response is severe enough that it has made taking the risk and drinking a G&T or a glass of red wine--before I even get the headache--far less enjoyable than it used to be.

I hate things like this that narrow the range of what I can do. Does this really mean that I won't be able to drink alcoholic beverages for the rest of my life? It's not that I'm a big drinker; I'm definitely extremely moderate in that area (I eat way more chocolate and sugar--which may be the next to go, I'm afraid). But I really enjoy a glass of wine now and again, and I already miss everything about it, from the ritual of pulling the cork to admiring the color of the wine in my glass to the smooth finish of a good red wine.

Maybe, just maybe, this too shall pass.

A perfect Saturday afternoon

2009-04-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sunshine, temps in the 80s. I'm out in my yard, with the windows open and the radio on (speakers facing out as I weed the driveway), listening to the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway.

Even better: Varitek hits a grand slam in the 4th.

Afflictions

2009-04-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

We’ve all got something—a disease, a condition, an emotional upset, financial difficulties, an ailment of some kind. And we all have our ways of managing that thing that is poisoning our lives, from advanced medical therapies to whining out loud to friends and family (and anyone else who will listen) to just suffering in silence, hoping that things will improve.

When I was younger, when things seemed bleak I used to wish I could just go to sleep for a few months, until whatever was troubling me was past. I remember reading a fairy tale about a princess who went to sleep when she was eight years old and woke up when she was twelve—the first thing she did was run to the piano and play a tune she had learned while she was asleep, when she also developed fluency in several languages. She slept through the entire learning process. If only we could do that (selectively of course, as I love the process of learning new things), so we could get through hard times more easily.

Since I can’t just take a really long nap, I have come to accept these principles for getting through difficult times, no matter the cause of the hardship:

Recovery has no set timetable. It takes as much time as it takes. Make no apologies.
Even though other people may think that it’s time for you to move on, until you’re ready to or your condition has improved, you can’t. So don’t worry about what other people think (although you might consider taking pity on your closest friends and bring the whining down a bit—it’s hard for them to keep biting their tongues).
Try not to let things fester: this goes for infected cuts and old resentments.
If there is help available, take advantage of it.
If you’ve done everything you can think of to remedy the problem and nothing is working, just stop. Rest. Try to be patient.
Sometimes you have to fully surrender to a problem before it can be resolved. That doesn’t mean giving up, it means accepting that what is, is.
Get clear on the true definition of the problem. Sometimes you think you’re struggling with one thing then it turns out, when you really examine it, that it’s about something else entirely.
Manage the symptoms, treat the disease.
Sometimes the answer is “better living through chemistry.” This applies to cancer drugs, antidepressants, HRT, acne lotion, foot fungus powder, and wart remover, among other things. No shame in that.
It’s not your fault. No doubt you are doing your best to overcome the problem.
Don’t be ashamed. True, someone else might manage the situation more efficiently, more privately, with less sturm und drang. But they’re not walking in your shoes, living your life, managing your demons. No one from the outside can accurately assess and understand what is going on inside you—and besides, it’s really none of their business.
Avoid people who are openly unsupportive or critical of the way you’re handling things. They will only make you feel worse about everything, including yourself.
You probably can’t think your way out. Most of the time the only way out is through, so do your level best to suck it up and soldier on.
And this too shall pass.

Mating Season

2009-04-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to find two dozen turkeys in my driveway. The scene looked like a funky singles bar—the male turkeys were all strutting around, fanning their tails and doing the “Look at me, Turkey Girl” routine, and the female turkeys were ignoring them. The flock strolled slowly down the driveway as they did their mating dance.

It made me laugh, and then I remembered the turkeys that hung around my backyard most of last summer. There was a female turkey and 12 babies. She was an patient, vigilant mother; she kept a close eye on her brood as they wandered around the property, nibbling on bugs they found in the grass. Sometimes she would settle herself on the lawn and rest, with all of the chicks hidden under her wings.

As the weeks went by, there were fewer and fewer chicks; the coyotes had moved in. First there were 12, then 10, then 9, then 6, then 5, then 4, and finally, the last time I saw them, there were just three young turkeys left, wandering in the grass under their mother’s watchful eye.

Danny

2009-03-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

I just found out that my former horse, Danny, was put down today. He had not been doing well for the past four or five days, and was found in his stall this morning, bloody and battered and so agitated that he very nearly kicked down his stall door. There was nothing that could be done to relieve his very evident discomfort, and so he was gently helped across the threshold.

. . .

Danny was always a teenage boy in a horse suit. Impetuous, opinionated, mischievious. He saw himself as the king of the barn and expected others to treat him that way, and, by and large, they did. He loved to be the center of attention—he'd nip my arm sometimes if I wasn't paying enough attention to him. People either loved him or wanted nothing to do with him. (My first vet didn’t like him very much. I can’t blame her: he bit her on the thigh the first time she treated him.)

He was always amped up when I rode him. His gaits were nothing to crow about, but he loved to jump, and would sail over oxers, getting more excited with every pass. He never strolled along quietly when we were out on the trails or at the beach. Everyone else would be having a quiet ride, and Danny would be jigging along, excited to be out, demanding to go first. Although he sometimes drove me crazy, he also made me laugh, and he gave me back my love of riding.

In his older years, Danny lived at my friend Ray's barn in Groton, where he became a lesson horse. It was the perfect job for him—he loved people and attention, and the kids loved him. Ray gave him a good home, and was right there with him in his final hours.

. . .

The sweetest memory I have of Danny is on a warm spring day several years ago when I was boarding him in Concord. We’d gone for a ride, and afterwards I turned him out in the paddock. He was standing by the fence, enjoying the warm sunshine, and I stroked his muzzle until he fell asleep.

About Passion

2009-03-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

Spent a couple of days at Foo East, an invitation-only event in Cambridge, hosted by O'Reilly Media (my employer) and Microsoft. The companies provided the facilities and the food; the 140+ attendees created the schedule and the sessions, which ranged from discussions on the future of journalism to a compelling demo of a new online information resource to making bath bombs (bath fizzies, essentially), and lots, lots more.

Now, I am not fond of being in the midst of a large group of people. I find it hard to connect with anyone in that atmosphere. I imagine that if the attendees and topics had been more closely related to design, visual art, and literature, I would have found a toehold somewhere. Instead, while everyone else at Foo East was making new connections and talking animatedly about new technologies and potentialities, I found myself reduced to serial "Wow, that's great onion dip" moments. By the end of the second day, I was sitting alone at the edge of the crowd, exhausted, patting a very friendly dog someone had brought along. What a relief!

While I patted the dog, I listened to the conversations around me and watched people interact. What struck me about this group of Very Smart People was not their superior intelligence or some of their "look at me" personal styles. It was their passion, which illuminated everything they turned their attention to. It didn't matter what they were talking about—what was compelling was their absolute belief in and commitment to whatever it was they were championing. They leaned into their conversations, their voices full and confident as they spoke, their expressions rapt as they listened to each other. The huge space was bright with their energy.

Driving home, I thought about the things I'm passionate about. They tend to be private pursuits these days, although I'll argue the merits of the Oxford comma with great intensity, with anyone, anytime.

I was once immensely passionate about everything I did. The flame doesn't burn nearly as bright these days. Not sure if that's a phase or a permanent change. Time will tell.

-

Traveling Light(ly)

2009-03-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

When packing for a trip, I always try to travel light. I hate to check bags when I fly, so I have perfected packing for a week-long trip in a carry-on bag. Someone once advised me to take half as many clothes and twice as much money as I think I’ll need. Good advice, if you can follow it (harder to do if you’re taking ski clothes and equipment, though).

On the plane last Tuesday, it occurred to me that traveling light is a great metaphor for how to live:

Don’t carry too much baggage. Dress in layers. Be prepared for both good and bad weather. Look ahead, but don’t try to nail down every single detail of your trip. Don’t carry what you don’t need. Be flexible. Bring an extra pair of socks. Take advantage of unexpected opportunities that come your way. Manage unfortunate events. Carry your own bags. Ask for help when you need it. Leave a place in the same (or better) condition than you found it. Sleep when you need to. Learn to read a map. Dance when you feel like it. Ask for directions when you feel hopelessly lost. Eat well. Keep your eyes and ears open. Wear comfortable shoes.

Take your time. Enjoy the journey.

Gravity

2009-03-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

As they say, gravity isn't just a good idea, it's the law. This week, as I've been vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I've been thinking a lot about gravity. Skiing is all about gravity. Until you learn to trust gravity, you will never ski well. You can't fight it, because you can't win.

Watching people learn to ski is essentially watching them learning to surrender to the physics of the activity. It's not easy to let go of your usual sense of control, especially when you're faced with a steep pitch and fast skis. But let go you must. After all, it's the law.

Decisions, Decisions

2009-03-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

There are many choices to make in this life. You can only control your part of those choices—sometimes your part is 50% (relationships), sometimes it’s closer to 100% (say, deciding what to do with your time, assuming you can afford to do what you want—if not, the percentage drops), and other times, it’s completely out of your control and you just have to ride it out (hurricanes, nuclear war).

In many cases, the choice is clear: you know what you should do, and you do it. The “should” comes from somewhere within, from the polestar that seems to live inside each of us. Sometimes the choice we make is not the one we want to make, but it feels like the one we must make.

My polestar may not always know what the right choice is, but it sure as hell knows when I’m headed off-track. At various times in my life, I’ve tried like crazy to resist that knowing, but in the end I have had to give in to it, because more often than not it has been dead-on accurate. I don’t know exactly what the force is, where it comes from, nor why it pulls me with such conviction this way or that at any given time. But pull it does, outlasting all of my resistance until I surrender. I literally trust it with my life.

Even when the right choice is not the one I would prefer, accepting the choice I must make feels solid, like I’m coming home.

….

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the dream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a stream…

Pulchritude

2009-02-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a friend the other day about the inevitable changes in our appearance as we age. These changes were once very gradual—in my thirties and forties, I noticed the beginnings of a few smallish wrinkles, the slight shifting of mass from here to there, a few strands of gray in my hair. These days, the changes come more quickly, and seem more dramatic. Suddenly I understand that this is the process by which people get old.

In an attempt to come to some peace with the changes looking back at me from the mirror, I’ve been thinking a lot about why it is so hard to just let the process happen. Time and hard use leave their marks, and many of us are desperate to obliterate the evidence: anti-aging is a billion-dollar industry, from plastic surgery to the Olay Regenerist lotion you can find at any CVS.

We’re desperate to look young, to counter sagging skin, wrinkles, and the dreaded middle-aged spread. It has occurred to me that the emphasis our celebrity culture puts on youthful appearance is like admiring fast food. What we’re focused on, as we age, is the packaging.

…

It is what it is. All of the experiences we’ve had that have engraved themselves on our bodies have also engraved themselves on our souls. Those experiences have deepened and enriched our relationships, our creativity, our work—everything that makes up a life lived. It’s so easy to accept that deeper, inward part of getting older. And such a pity that in our culture we haven’t yet figured out how to see the outward-facing changes as equally beautiful.

Happiness

2009-01-31T14:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's a hot pizza, fresh from the oven. Or a beautiful, sunny day spent with friends. A warm bath. Hugging someone you care about. Laughter shared with friends. Coming home. Getting off the ski lift at the top of the mountain on a powder-perfect day. Dancing in the kitchen. A crisp, tart apple.

A dog that wags its tail when it sees you. Buttered toast. An old pair of jeans that fit like nothing else you own. A book you can't put down. The previews before the feature movie. A cat in your lap. Root beer popsicles. Coming out of Penn Station onto 7th Avenue. Sitting on the porch during a thunderstorm. Sleeping late. Getting up early. Pinot noir. Stacking firewood. Fresh salad. Getting snowed in. Pinky-red tulips.

Slippers. Flannel sheets. Dinner out. Dinner in. A freshly mowed lawn. Cranberry-orange relish. Smooth stones. Finding $20 in your coat pocket. Dawn. Singing to the radio when you're alone in your car. Fresh linens. A good sharp kitchen knife. Wearing socks in bed. Chickadees. Coleman Valley Road. Cleaning stalls. Hot chocolate.

Longer days. Shorter nights. A freshly mopped kitchen floor. The smell of baking bread. Fancy, imported soap. Fine old furniture. Red foxes. Gin and tonic with lime.

Two eggs, over easy. Warm socks. Leftover birthday cake.

New Day

2009-01-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

It is a season of changes.

Longer days, shorter nights. A new administration, arriving in the midst of chaos, with high ambition and even higher hopes. A layoff and reorg at my day job (which is fast becoming my only job, as resources diminish and my responsibilities increase). Friends in transition from marital harmony to marital discord, and—hopefully--from illness to health.

Change has no intention, it just is. The judgments about change are our own: sometimes we are fearful about what lies ahead, sad at leaving behind things as they were, or confused when we don’t know which decision is the right one to make. On the other hand, change also makes the moon rise and the sun set. It makes our gardens and our children grow. And it brings us all the opportunity to let go of what what was, to make things better in our lives and in the world.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep."

-- Rumi, translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks

We all drank the Kool-Aid.

2009-01-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

I used to live in a house that was 150 years old. When I moved in, one of the issues was closet space: the closets, such as they were, were tiny. In the middle of the 19th century, working class people didn’t have a lot of clothes. They had clothes for work and clothes for church, and that was it. If they were lucky, they had more than one or two pairs of shoes.

My closet today is huge by those standards, and full of sweaters, slacks, dresses, shoes. I haven’t worn some of those clothes for years. Most days, if I’m not in my riding gear, I wear a pair of my favorite jeans and a t-shirt (summer) or turtleneck (winter). There are a couple of fleece jackets I like to wear on cold days. Most of the other stuff in the closet sits idle, brought out for the occasional wedding, funeral, or night out.

When I go to a shopping mall, I’m amazed at all of the crap people sell that other people buy. Who needs all of this stuff? They say our economy is suffering right now because many of us are cutting way back on our spending. What that really means is that we’re buying only what we need—and most of us already have much more than we need, or want.

How did we all get here, with our houses full of clothes we don’t wear, dishes we don’t use, books we don’t read (or won’t read again), vases, candlesticks, old cassette tapes, mismatched pots and pans, and lots of plastic: bottles, storage containers, bags, toys, unused kitchen utensils, etc.? When you stop to think about it—and look at all that you own, right now—it’s overwhelming. And appalling.

How did we acquire all of this stuff? Why did we want it? Why do we keep it?

(Imagine that we all buy only what we truly need. Could our economy survive? Could we?)

Youth is Wasted on the Young

2009-01-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, and no.

Wolfie

2008-12-29T21:53:00.001-08:00

I was thinking the other day that my horse has come into my life for a reason. I don't know what the reason is, at least not yet, but I do believe that his presence here isn't random.

And then I thought, "Maybe I've come into his life for a reason, too. "

I suddenly realized that where I once saw Wolfie as the superior half of our partnership--the more perfect being who was here to help me--I now see, in a way that I had not understood until now, that I am also here to help him. Not just to feed him and make sure his stall is clean and he gets plenty of time outdoors. It goes so much deeper than that.

(People who don't believe that animals have souls couldn't be more mistaken.)

Fear

2008-12-24T18:02:00.000-08:00

I realized today that fear is just worrying about something that hasn't happened yet--something that may never happen.

The more you believe that something bad will happen ("I will slip and fall" "My horse will spook and I'll get hurt" "This will be too difficult and I will fail"), the more likely it is that that will indeed happen. You use up valuable energy by worrying about the thing that hasn't happened yet, instead of being in the moment and using that energy to support yourself as you negotiate the situation.

You can handle whatever comes. You may not handle it gracefully, nor perhaps as well as you might like, but you can walk across the ice without falling, and ride through whatever your horse may or may not do.

You're just that good.

Timeliness

2008-12-20T16:09:00.001-08:00

Is being on time a virtue? I'd like to think so, but I'm the only one I know who's always on time. I'm well-brought-up, and have always thought that it's somewhat disrespectful to be late. I plan ahead. I don't keep other people waiting. And I spend a lot of time waiting for other people to get wherever it is they have said they'll be at an appointed hour.

What makes everyone think it's alright to be 10 or 15 or 20 minutes late, everywhere they go?

Storm Warning

2008-12-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

The first real snowstorm of the season is on its way, just in time to make that whole "White Christmas" thing a possibility this year. I'm feeling a tad bah-humbug these days, so the prospect of a good storm seems just the ticket.

The bah-humbug thing is not really holiday-related; I'm just tired of the status quo and haven't figured out yet what I need/want to do to change things up. Mostly I want to figure out how to get out of my own way, how to let go of what I no longer want or need to make room for what will come next. Something always comes along, eventually or abruptly--it might knock the door down and wreak havoc in my life or perhaps it will tiptoe in, take a seat, and wait until I notice that it has indeed arrived.

Deep Background

2008-12-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

Today I was looking at some old photos on Facebook, posted by a high school classmate of mine, Jeff Lusenhop. He got his high school graduation photos digitized and had posted a few.

Scarily bad 1971 clothes and hairstyles on people I haven't thought about for many years. I immediately recognized Sheri and Teri, the identical, incredibly nice, cheerleading twins, in matching white dresses, leggy and tanned as they always were (and shall be forever, in my memory).

Then suddenly, there's my dad, looking relaxed and happy, smiling and looking down at his camera as he walks through the crowd. An amazing coincidence--he's just background noise in Jeff's graduation photos, some stranger who wandered into their family's photo album.

It is lovely to see him; he was younger at that moment than I am now, in the middle of his life on a beautiful, celebratory summer day in downtown Dayton. I realize once again how much I miss him, and am once again grateful for how much of him lives on in me: my love of words, my work ethic, and, I confess, my penchant for a good argument.

(Thanks to Jeff Lusenhop for posting this photo.)

First Snow

2008-12-06T12:32:00.001-08:00

I'm waiting for the first snow of the season--they've promised us at least a dusting in the next 24 hours. Got a last pre-snow ride in with Wolfie today as the sky turned that leaden, nearly colorless shade that signals snow on its way.

Unlike many people around here, I like snow, gentle and magical or wild and dangerous. Nothing like a lazy afternoon with big snowflakes coming down, a fire in the grate, and a good book. And I love blizzards, with their impending-doom, natural-disaster edge--Laura Ingalls Wilder's family hunkering down on the Plains, their house half-buried in snow, a howling maelstrom just outside the door.

* * *

I remember several years ago going to Gordon and JoeAnn's out on Eastern Point during a blizzard to watch a Patriots game. My car got stuck in the deep snowdrifts that had accumulated on the road to their house, so I wound up staying overnight. In the morning, we had breakfast in the kitchen of their old farmhouse before I set out alone, making my way home on borrowed skis.

Shooting Stars

2008-12-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

Late last night, as I returned home from an evening out, I glanced up at the sky hoping to see once again the rare alignment of Jupiter and Venus that has been visible for the past few evenings. Instead, I saw a shooting star, its long tail bright and clean against the darkness of the night sky.

I love seeing shooting stars; they're so random, and, in my life, so rare. It always feels like a gift, as if the universe is telling me, "Yes, we're here. Take heart; this is for you."

A Nice Girl from Ohio

2008-12-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school, there was a joke about the difference between a nice girl and a good girl. A nice girl goes out on a date, comes home, and goes to bed. A good girl goes out on a date, goes to bed, and comes home.

Turns out that I'm a nice girl from Ohio after all. I floss. I tell the truth. I don't litter. And I don't do the "friends with benefits" thing.

Many people do; opportunities abound. Hey, why not? Just because there's no one on the scene whom I'm in love with, why not take friends up on their offers and interest? Time is passing, and I'm not getting any younger.

But, it seems, I am getting smarter about myself--I'm the one who wakes up with me in the morning and faces myself in the bathroom mirror. And I don't like how it feels to be treated as a convenient option. I want the real thing: love, passion, trust, partnership, constancy, true intimacy. Anything less just highlights what sometimes appears to be the great distance from here to there.

Nothing less will do.

I am not a wuss.

2008-11-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

Private guilt. Why the hell do we do it to ourselves? Feeling guilty about something that no one else notices or cares about, something that doesn't really matter, something that isn't even wrong. But the judges in our heads are fixated on it, and let us know, all day long.

Here's what I'm talking about:
When I don't take my horse out on a beautiful chilly day--partly because it's a bit chilly and partly because there's no one to ride with--I feel guilty.

It's not the cold that keeps me from riding, it's riding alone. My horse is very cautious when we're by ourselves; he's always surveying the area around us to be sure there are no predators lying in wait. Sometimes he shies at inanimate objects, sometimes he bolts a few steps when he thinks something is sneaking up behind us. Once in a while, he suddenly turns on the afterburners--and you wouldn't believe the thrust those rear engines have. Depending on where we are, it's either just annoying or downright dangerous, say, if we're on the sidewalk next to a busy road, on our way to the barn next door.

Even though I haven't fallen off (yet) and have ridden fairly well through everything he's done thus far, some days I just don't have the emotional fortitude to face it. So I find excuses to avoid riding. And then the judge in my head says, "You wuss. If you really knew how to ride, you'd just tough it out. Everyone knows you're a wuss. Wussy, wussy, wussy. "

Now here's the thing. No one cares whether I ride or not. Certainly Wolfie doesn't--he'd rather hang out in the paddock with his buddy than ride around in circles or go out on the trails. As for other riders, I'm sure the people I ride with wish I'd stop talking about this issue, but whether I ride or not is completely irrelevant to them. It just doesn't matter one way or the other.

But I care. I see it as some kind of foundational character weakness. Yet, if I look at the bigger picture, the fact that I ride at all is a pretty good testament to my courage. Horses are big and powerful. Their reactions to the unexpected can be extremely dangerous. People die riding horses. Think Christopher Reeve.

So, am I really a wuss? I suppose it depends on one's perspective. But I know I'm a fool if I listen to the voice in my head that says so. And I'd rather be a wuss than a fool.

For women only...

2008-11-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

(Guys don't believe that women behave this way, but we all know the truth--they do, and it's getting worse and worse. I just can't stand it anymore. )

Ladies! Stop peeing all over toilet seats!

1. It's pointless--there are more germs/bacteria on the handle of the bathroom door and the stall than there are on the toilet seat. Your butt is one of the parts of your body least likely to be anywhere near your mouth, which is where the whole germ thing is really an issue. Keep the toilet seat dry, and remember to wash your hands.

2. It's not only inconsiderate, it's disrespectful--would you want your mom or your grandmother or your near-sighted best friend (or anyone) to sit in someone else's urine? No? Well then, CUT IT OUT. My 86-year-old mom can't balance herself 3 inches above the toilet seat so as to avoid sitting in that mess, and she can't see all that well. Think of her next time you pee all over the place. Someday that will be you--I guarantee it.

3. It's just plain gross--if you wouldn't pee all over the seat in your own bathroom, then don't pee all over the seat in the restrooms at movie theaters, restaurants, the DMV, the airport, or ANYWHERE ELSE.

4. It's skanky. Don't be skanky. Nobody likes a skank, especially an extremely entitled, selfish skank.

And if you should happen to find yourself in a bathroom stall where someone else has left the seat a mess, take a minute and clean it up, don't just pee on top of where the last idiot did. Pitch in, do the next woman who uses that toilet a break, and leave it cleaner than you found it. And then wash your hands with soap and hot water and give yourself a pat on the back. Good girl!

"Don't pee on the seat. Leave it dry and neat."

(BTW, I'm not the first person to blog about this--nor will I be the last, I fear. Tango Diva has written very articulately about this issue.)

'Nuff said.

Last Lines

2008-11-12T06:59:00.000-08:00

I love last lines. I've written a lot of poems that essentially were created just for a last line that came into my head. There's nothing like a line that provides both closure and open-endedness.

Whenever Verlyn Klinkenborg writes an essay for the NY Times, I'm totally captivated. He's an amazing writer--the writer I wish I could be. His short pieces are structured to take the reader on a brief sojourn into whatever he's thinking about--life in the country, culture, politics--and the last line of every piece is a like a lid that fits perfectly on a hand-thrown pot.

Read Klinkenborg's columns

Election

2008-11-04T12:42:00.000-08:00

It's election day, and it looks like my team will win. I am greatly relieved and also a bit concerned.

I remember when Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976. I voted for him, with gusto, just as I had voted for McGovern in '72. Election night, Carter's victory was such a relief after Nixon and Ford! Ultimately, of course, it didn't turn out to be all that we had hoped for--between the economic woes and the Iran hostage situation, it was a hell of a time. Still, that moment in time when Carter was declared the victor felt damned good.

8 years ago, I was in California on business on election day. I went to bed thinking that Gore had probably won, and woke up to find that nothing about the election was clear. That lack of clarity went on for 3 weeks, with hanging chads and the über-bitchy Florida Secretary of State, until the Supreme Court decided the whole election for us, and not, in my opinion, in our favor. The past 8 years have been an ongoing nightmare with Bush and Cheney: the amazingly appalling choices they made have done more damage than any of us could have imagined.

I don't envy Mr. Obama the many tasks that lie ahead. But I'm hopeful, which feels a bit strange after a very long period of hopelessness and haplessness. God bless us, everyone.

Great Football Names

2008-11-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I listed some of my favorite baseball names. Last night, watching the Pats get beaten by the Colts, I started thinking about great football names. Here are a few:

Brett Favre (partially because no one who's not heard it can pronounce it properly the first time around, something that was noted in "Something About Mary")

Drew Bledsoe (the Nancy Kerrigan of quarterbacks, but still, it's a melodious football name)

Warren Moon

Kordell Stewart

Franco Harris

Tiki Barber

Lynn Swann

Jerry Rice

George Blanda

Some new additions, 11/24/08:

Ellis Hobbs

Ty Law

Lawyer Malloy

(I know, I know, too many current and former NE Patriots, but what can you do?)

Under the Weather

2008-10-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning, and although I'm supposed to be in Sebastopol, California, attending an important company meeting, I'm sitting here in my kitchen in West Gloucester, in my bathrobe.

I'm sick: I have had a bad cold for the past week. I spend my days coughing my lungs out about every 3 minutes or so and trying to outsmart a headache that advances and recedes, depending on the drugs I throw its way. I'm pretty sure that there's nothing a doctor could do for me--this is just one of those colds that hangs on until you stop doing all the things you normally do, and just rest.

Rest. Not a term I'm all that familiar with, certainly not something I'm particularly capable of. I never stop moving, never stop thinking, never stop running from this activity to that responsibility. Between work, maintaining a house and a yard, taking care of my animals, keeping in touch with family and friends, and making art, there's never a break. Mostly that's alright, except when I get sick and the only way back to health is to rest.

My former therapist once gave me an assignment: she told me that I had to do nothing for an entire day. No work, no grocery shopping, nothing but relaxing, breathing, looking out the window, maybe going for a walk. It was excruciating. Like a drunk with the DTs, I was twitching both mentally and physically. For me, sitting still just to sit still is nearly impossible: forget yoga (although I am guessing that yoga would help).

To rest when I have so much I want to do, have to do, is to destroy the village to save it. Not doing anything in order to get well so I'm still able to do everything.

I hate it. But I'll do it. What other choice do I have?

Duck Hunting Season

2008-10-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

It's duck hunting season. I live in a house that overlooks a huge salt marsh that leads into the Annisquam River. Every year around this time, hunters make floating blinds out in the river and blast away at the ducks.

This morning I woke up to the sound of shotguns across the marsh. The sound always depresses me; I'll never understand how anyone can get any joy or satisfaction from blowing birds out of the sky or killing animals in the woods. Just because we can, should we? Especially in this day and age, when meat is so readily available, and relatively cheap.

I get the whole thing about the circle of life--I do. But I can't kill animals. Won't, in fact, not even the mice who live in my garden shed. And I do eat meat. Yes, that makes me some kind of hypocrite, but I just can't abide the suffering of any animal. Unlike us, they have no choice about what they do, and little choice about what we make them do. It is up to us to treat them well.

I can only hope that the hunters this season have either terrible aim, missing their prey completely, or else dead-on aim that makes the killing process as quick and painless as possible.

Sic transit gloria mundi, ducks.

Time: what a concept. Wish I'd invented it.

2008-10-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Time is such an amazingly fluid thing.

For instance, how long, really, is an hour? When I'm at the dentist (as I was yesterday), an hour is A WHOLE FRIGGING HOUR. But when I'm focused on a knotty design problem, that same hour could be just an instant; I look up and it's been three hours or five or six since I last checked the time.

Where does that time go? If you don't pay attention to every moment, do you lose something valuable? Time zips by; time drags. Yet it's all divided into the same units of measure: each second lasts just as long as the next and the next and the one after that.

But it sure doesn't feel that way.

It is what it is.

2008-10-13T04:48:00.001-07:00

It's my new mantra. "It is what it is." Instead of fighting against some apparently immoveable obstacle or situation, accept it for what it is.

And then figure out what to do next.

It's not about you.

2008-10-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

I have observed that there is at least one thing that cats and horses have in common: they think it's about them, all the time.

When the doorbell rings, Roxy scoots down to the basement, to the darkest corner of a storage closet. If the doorbell even rings on TV, she's gone. When the ice maker in my freezer tosses another load of cubes into the bin, Roxy heads for the hills. If I am wrestling a garbage bag into the kitchen trash can, she's outtathere. She's absolutely convinced that something terrible is going to happen to her.

My horse, Wolfie, while somewhat less of a nervous Nellie, is also sure that he's a target. Horses are flight animals: they run away from predators. So, the log across the path that wasn't there yesterday, the fake brick wall in the arena that's in a new location, the leafy branch that fell next to the trail--all of these things give him pause. If the menace is behind him, he bolts a few steps. If it's next to him, he jumps sideways. If it's in front of him, he stops in his tracks, front legs splayed, head held either very high (if the apparent troll is a distance away) or very low (if it's right in front of him, on the ground). As he gets more confident, he's less and less nervous, but his response to any new situation is viewed through that filter.

. . .

There have been so many times when I've been fearful or angry or hurt because I interpreted whatever was going on around me as being about me. I spent what must have been a decade in therapy railing about work until one day I realized that the dysfunction had little to do with me. It was what it was, and I just happened to be there--participating and, no doubt, contributing to it--but it wasn't about me, really, at all. Once I realized that, I found that I was no longer so angry and defensive at work. It wasn't all about me = it wasn't all my fault.

. . .

Years ago, I owned a Thoroughbred horse named Danny. He was big, opinionated, and a little hot, but seemed unflappable, and I trusted him the way I had trusted my childhood horse, who always took care of me no matter what we came across. One day, for no apparent reason, Danny spooked and bolted in the outdoor arena, and I fell off.

It was illuminating: I felt betrayed, because I somehow believed that he had intentionally done it to me. Some weeks later, I consulted an animal communicator (yes, I know, I know), and asked her to tell him that he had scared me when he bolted, and that I didn't like it. When she asked him about the incident, he said that he'd seen something at the edge of the arena out of the corner of his eye and it spooked him.

And then he said, "You know, it's not always about you."

Birthday.

2008-10-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

A friend once suggested that the best way to spend one's birthday is to have your version of an ideal day, doing whatever it is you really love to do, not necessarily what everyone thinks you ought to do on your birthday.

And that is what I did. It was a beautiful fall day spent picking apples, stacking firewood, wading at the beach, and cantering Wolfie across a still-green field near the barn.

(A side note: one of my favorite books is Birthday by Dorothea Tanner, the wife of Max Ernst. Highly recommended.)

Stacking Firewood

2008-10-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

For the first time, this winter I am going to try to heat my house with wood. I have been stacking firewood--a lot of firewood--this fall. There's something about the process that feels elemental: just think how long human beings have been collecting, splitting, storing, and using firewood. The patient energy of trees is turned into heat and light at the darkest time of the year.

When I was a teenager, I used to help my dad split wood. I loved the sound of the sledgehammer hitting the iron wedge, the ever-so-satisfying crack of a log as it split in two, and then sitting before the fire on winter evenings, remembering the beautiful fall days we spent splitting and stacking the wood.

These days I only split a few logs by hand, just to get oversized pieces small enough to fit into my stove. But I still insist on stacking it all myself, even as my back objects. And this winter, what I will remember is how much joy I found, today, in this simple chore.

Nuke-U-Lar

2008-10-03T04:48:00.001-07:00

For God's sake, why can't politicians learn how to speak English?

In addition to the completely backwards and incorrect sentence construction she seems to favor, Sarah Palin sounds like she's channeling W. every time she mispronounces "nuclear." For someone who is supposed to be an expert on energy issues (expertise which I sincerely doubt has any relevance to those of us in the lower 48), it would seem that learning to pronounce that one word properly would be a snap.

Alas, that is not so for Ms. Palin. If, by some unfortunate series of events, this woman ever comes to be our president, we'll have to listen to that word being mispronounced--again--for years to come. God help us all.

Too many cooks make bad soup.

2008-10-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

Companies often try to create a culture of inclusion as they wrestle with various decisions. While I am a fan of getting input from people who have a stake in whatever is being decided, I am usually a bigger fan of just making the damned decision and getting on with it. Coming to complete agreement isn't always necessary, depending on the decision being made; in some cases, getting bogged down in process is worse than making a so-so decision and carrying it out well. Stuff gets done and the world doesn't come to an end. (Unless, of course, the issue is deregulation on Wall Street--we all know what happens then. But that may be because the wrong cooks were in the kitchen in the first place. Their cooks. Not ours.)

The Insanity Quadrant

2008-09-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine at Digital Equipment Corp. showed me this little diagram many years ago. It's handy little tool, especially at those times when you find yourself wondering what the hell you're doing and why.

Judge not, lest ye be judged...

2008-09-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

It only took me fifty years to figure out that it was far better for me to be my most compassionate friend instead of my harshest judge.

Great Baseball Names

2008-09-26T08:10:00.001-07:00

For years, I have been collecting what I consider to be great baseball names. There's a certain rhythm to some, others are just plain classics, like Babe Ruth. Here are few of my favorites:

Davey Concepcion

Johnny Bench

Vida Blue

Thurman Munson

Vada Pinson

Rod Carew

Minnie Minoso

Carlton Fisk

Ferguson Jenkins

Butch Hobson

Dennis Eckersley

Clay Buchholz

Mariano Rivera

There are many others. There are different categories of names: the stolid, straightforward "Pete Rose;" the almost musical "Mariano Rivera;" the alliteritive "Minnie Minoso." There are some very old fashioned-sounding names, like "Carlton Fisk," "Catfish Hunter," and "Thurman Munson." And the poetic: "Vida Blue."

Now there is a crop of new players, with interesting and unusual names that I can't yet categorize, like Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia. The sounds of their names are still new to my ear, and haven't settled in yet.

Give yourself permission.

2008-09-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

To learn. To think. To do nothing. To make things--and no, they don't have to be useful things. Make whatever you want. Do whatever you want. If you don't know what you want to do, just do something, anything, that isn't what you normally do. Not work. Not make-work. Not your laundry.

Learn how to play. Alone. With others. And stop worrying about outcomes. Just play, as often as you can.