Tedx Manoa

So, Shani and I went to the Tedx Manoa conference this past Friday which was held at UH Manoa.  It's a shame more of our classmates and friends couldn't make it, we remarked, especially with three of our Kamehameha 94 graduates were speakers.  I was also interested to hear 'Umi Perkins speak because he happens to be my Political Science teacher, and I was hoping to meet him.  That landed up not happening, though, because I hadn't even realized it was him.  His picture on our class website didn't quite match up with the guy I saw speak.

Anyway, this is going to be a quick blog, but I just wanted to touch on some points.  Each speaker had something I could relate to or something I could take away with me, whether or not the subject at hand was of any interest to me or whether or not I necessarily viewed the subject matter from the same or similar perspective.  You'll see when the videos are eventually posted that most of the presenters were enigmatic... all were passionate.

Brandy McDougall was beautiful, her dulcet voice highlighting the haunting melodies of her poetry.  Perhaps I wax dramatic, and perhaps it's because she's a classmate whose laughter I specifically remember from English class, but it doesn't make it less true.  You'll see.  It was lovely.  Aaron Sala, yet another classmate, presented us with the lesson that I most related to and took the most from.  And it wasn't just the relatable Karate Kid summary.  Mele and Maile Meyers imparted upon me, albeit unintentionally I'd wager, the second most relatable lesson for me, and it was about forgiveness.  It wasn't even part of their larger purpose, I think, but the word jumped out at me and wouldn't let go.  It still hasn't.

But that's it in a nutshell.  There's more I can add about how I feel when I attend these kinds of events, but I'll save that for another blog or another time.

Not Like House

"Are you claustrophobic?" I heard 3 different people ask me yesterday.  How do you answer that if it's never really been tested?  So I answered them all with a no, but grinned and admitted, "But I don't really know."  Because that's the truth.  And even with that pinch of wariness, I was not prepared at all for the confining pressure of the MRI machine.

As soon as I started moving head-first into the machine, even wearing the TV goggles and headphones (and earplugs), I instantly felt a surge of panic.  I could still see a bit around the goggles and the "ceiling" of the tube was visible.  I ignored it as much as I could and focused instead on The Great Food Truck Race which was playing on Food Network.  After a minute or two of calming myself down, after just passing the desperately thinking that I couldn't do it part, the TV goggles went blank.  If you think that was better than not having anything over my eyes at all, you're wrong.  I was plunged into a semi-darkness that I couldn't escape by simply opening my eyes.  But even still, I told myself I could do it and luckily after a few dark minutes the visuals came back on.

What you've seen on episodes of House or ER is nothing like real life.  I've seen nearly every episode of House and whenever someone is having an MRI, you never get the feeling that it's really LOUD.  Because it is.  Really.  Loud.  Even with the earplugs and TV audio being piped in through the headphones, it was almost painful.  And stifling.  I'd heard that the noise could shake the bed, but I didn't feel much of that going on.  My friend told me earlier in the day that the MRI machine at Queens didn't have the TV option, and I don't know how those people get through it.  I'm glad my brain wasn't being scanned.

It also gets really hot fairly quickly.  The technician warned me about this and had covered me only with a light sheet.  She said if it got uncomfortable I could press the button and she'd come and pull the sheet off.  But I dared not move to press the button.  No matter how sweaty I got, no matter how nauseous it was making me (I hadn't eaten dinner for fear that I'd have to poop while on the table!), I would not move.  I don't know if I could bear to touch the ceiling with my hand.  All illusions of being in a wide open room would be crushed and the reality of being pent up would instantly be solidified.  I could not bear that so I didn't move.

But just as I was thinking "I got this," it was over.  The first part, anyway.  She pulled me out.  I got to stand up, change positions... and then she reinserted me and that feeling of dread, of "Don't put me back in there" crept up.  Fortunately, they were only scanning my knee and my head didnt' need to be inside the machine.  It was totally bearable and much less warm.  I'd made it.  Not surprisingly, of course, but your mind, I don't know.  It can be tough.

I'm glad it's over with, and I realize as I'm writing this that I sound like a panty.  But I want to tell you that I drew strength from those of you who mentioned enduring this before.  I thought, "If you can do it, so can I."  I didn't move, I didn't scream, but it certainly seemed appealing.  And now that I've been through it, I can say that I guess I'm not claustrophobic.  Just not with any real certainty.

Do Your Homework!

I own a car that is nearly 20 years old, and while it's perfect for our in-town living, it's absolutely no good for distance trips, especially if hills and/or speed is involved (my top speed is about 40, MAYBE).  So, whenever we have to go places that are outside Honolulu city limits, we call upon our relatives for a ride, usually my dad or younger brother, and they pretty much always come through for us.  But our family's annual camping trip is one of those times when a ride is pretty non-existent.  Between the number of people in our family and all the things (especially large things like tarps and coolers) we have to take, there's not a whole lot of room for four more people.  Last year, getting to camp was easy, but getting home proved to be quite awkward.

We solved that problem this year by renting a car.  I went through Travelocity-- a company I have always used and liked-- and got a good deal on a car with Budget.  My first mistake was not reading the fine print.  I can't say that if I had I wouldn't have rented the car, but the fine print might have changed my mind or would have at least prepared me for the butt-reaming I was to receive later.

Problem 1: Customer service was terrible.  You need to know, though, that when I called them up, picked up the car, and then later returned it, I dealt with the same guy so anyone else in that company might have been nicer.  But I had called because I didn't know where they were located in Waikiki (in the Hyatt, fyi) and between grunts I gathered what information I needed from his barely audible monosyllabic responses.  When I got there, I had to wait at least 15 minutes because braddah must have been on a smoke break or something because the doors were locked and there wasn't a sign or anything.  Which leads me to

Problem 2: The fine Budget associate didn't relay to me that he was putting a hold on my checking account so I also didn't know the amount of funds I was losing access to.  Not once in the few minutes I was in the office did he explain to me that he was placing a hold on my account for the amount of the rental PLUS an extra $200.  And I read my agreement.  It doesn't say it there, either.  When we got back from camp today something told me I'd better check my account and I tell you now I was surprised to see my account in the NEGATIVE and by an amount that was just utterly ridiculous.  I had to run to the branch at Safeway and get it sorted out.

Problem 3: Budget does not accept cash.  Did you hear that?  They don't.  At least, that's what Mr. Friendly told me.  Something to do with terrorist currency which is legal tender, but unusable here.  Whatever.  Fine.  No cash.  But it wasn't posted in the store that I could see, nor was it anywhere on Travelocity's website or Budget's.  Want to know why?  Because according to the Customer Care section of their website, "Can I pay with cash? Answer:  Yes. When you return your car, you may pay for your final rental costs with cash, credit or debit card."  Isn't that something?  Isn't that just something.  

It boils my blood.  At the time, really, I thought it was funny that he thought he was schooling me when in reality, I was asking all those questions to just so he could be held accountable for it.  I wanted to know why, when I asked if I could pay cash, he said no.  And he didn't even SAY no, he said, "You can pay with a cash card."  I'm going to write to Budget, of course, and express to them my extreme disappointment.  Because even if the guy was right to deny me the opportunity to pay with cash because of the reasons he stated, they need to change their website immediately to reflect that policy.  It's misleading, right?  Unless that's the intention.

Anyway, I didn't think that I'd need to do a BBB lookup on Budget because car rentals in my neck of the woods is so common.  And I've rented cars before.  It's my fault that I didn't read the fine print (where it tells me of the $200 hold), and I could have opened my mouth and asked about the kind of holds or charges I'd incur simply by picking up the rental, but I think they have a responsibility to inform their customers about what they're doing.  Also, can anyone please corroborate the guy's story about terrorist cash being unusable?  And does anyone know about Budget not accepting cash?  I've read about how renting a car from Budget without a credit or debit card at all (and paying cash) requires the renter to pre-qualify weeks in advance, whatever that means.  

Whatever the answers, though, you can bet I'm not gonna rent from them again.

About Reading

I've been in a reading rut, and being stubborn doesn't help.  The obvious step would be for me to continue on to the next Repairman Jack book, but I want to go back to my comfortable and familiar fantasy fiction.  And it's not like I'm not spoiled for choice.  I have a ton of ebooks and paperbacks from which to choose, and I feel like my heart and mind are truly open to experiencing any sub-genre, but I have yet to find the right fit.  Here are a few reasons why I'm having such difficulty.

1.  I don't LOVE urban fantasy fiction.  I have read most of Laurell K Hamilton's books, as well as Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison, and Vicki S Pettersson.  I don't prefer this form of fantasy because it usually isn't fantastical enough.  Cell phones, computers, the internet?  These hold no real magical curiosities for me.  Give me high fantasy, especially those with horses and swords and impenetrable keeps, wizards and witches, maybe a prophecy or two and a destiny fulfilled-- dragons are a huge plus, too!

2.  I don't love vampires or werewolves.  Again, I've read many of these-- Anne Rice, anyone?  Anita Blake?  But no.  I've read so many books in which vampires behave in a variety of ways and live by a variety of codes, I'm tired of it.  Boring.  See #1 for a list of characters I DO like in books.

3.  The aspect of stylized or flowery language bugs me, especially since it never ends for as long as you're reading the book.  It's distracting and weird.  It is so distracting and weird that this is one instance where I will not finish a book nor will I revisit it in the future.  At least, it hasn't happened yet.  I don't like it when characters are named things like Stands Alone or Rough Paw, nor do I like when fictional place names too closely resemble actual place names for no good reason (Kristin Cashore, I'm looking at you).  It is also hugely overwhelming when an author drops so many weird names on one page that you can't remember them let alone figure out whether or not those names belong to people or places.  Again, Kristin Cashore, I'm looking at you.

I began reading Cecelia Dart-Thornton's The Iron Tree the other day, but gave up after the first 20 pages or so because her characters used such formal speech and it felt stifling and stiff.  I'm really disappointed by this because I was so looking forward to reading this series.  The book I'm currently trying to get into just bombarded me TWICE with a bunch of odd-sounding names that I have no hope of remembering anytime soon.  It's like when someone continually name-drops and expects you to not only know who he's talking about, but show appropriate reverence as well.  I'm about to give up.

What DO I like, you wonder?

1.  Characters who behave within the scope of their personalities.
2.  Magic that has a clear, SIMPLE set of rules. What kind of magic is it and who can wield it?  What are the boundaries?
3.  Strong female characters.  I like strong male characters, but I think those are more common than the female variety so don't really bear mentioning.
4.  Conflict.  If it's the kind of book where people will die, then shouldn't some of the favorite main characters die as well?  I mean, the main characters shouldn't be saved from conflict just because they are favored.

My favorite fantasy authors?  So glad you asked.  I'll give you my top two.

1.  Brandon Sanderson does an excellent job of creating worlds and the magic within them.  Try reading the Mistborn series. Not your typical magic.  He was also the one asked to finish off Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series since that author passed away from illness before it could be finished.  The Wheel of Time series is also an awesome piece of writing if you've the time to read it.

2.  Diana Pharaoh Francis.  She does some urban fantasy, too, which I've really liked.  Such an awesome writer with complex characters and plot lines.

So, right now there are books out by both of these authors that I have not yet read because I feel to do them justice I have to go back to re-read the previous books in the series.  I'm just not feeling that lately.  I just don't know what it is.  Any suggestions?

Paving Paradise

We don't live in a big house or a particularly nice house or a new house or a well-maintained house, but we love this place.  We love that we can grow a garden and have pets and house all our bicycles.  We love that there's enough street parking and enough space to have our family and friends over for bbqs.  We can have our nieces and nephew over to ride bikes outside and play the piano in the carport.  I love when any one of my brothers and sisters drop by and we sit in the lane and talk story.  For some reason, they like to do that.  For some reason, despite our rundown old home, people feel comfortable enough here to let it hang out.

Shelley and I had a discussion recently on one of those late afternoons she dropped by with her kids in which she mentioned how much she liked sitting out in the lane but couldn't pin point why.  I said it was the green.  While our yards weren't taken care of very well, we still had beautiful plumeria trees, ti leaf, grass/weeds, ilima plants that grew wild and willy-nilly.  We can see the sunset over Waikiki.  We don't hear cars driving by, buses don't pump exhaust into our windows.  Our neighbors are loud and friendly or quiet and friendly who love the kids and love Kapahulu.

And now our paradise has been violated with chainsaws and hoes.  All the plumeria trees are gone, the hibiscus bush is gone, the other unnamed tree that was in front of our bedroom window is gone.  We knew it was coming, we weren't sure of the exact date, but we didn't know it was going to be today.  And when we turned into our driveway after a long, gorgeous day at the beach, we were stunned by the stark ugliness that had been left behind after the trees had all been massacred.  They now lie in a horrific pile of chopped up pieces in the open yard across from our house as if the owners who ordered this hack job were taunting us or warning us.

We loved these trees.  We mourn them.  We have all shed tears over their imminent loss and now continue to accept their absence.  Their torture.  I'm glad we weren't here to see and hear it happen.  I'm sure if we had been here, I would have had to chain Charlie down to prevent him from attacking every man out there with a heavy, blunt object.  I am unable to talk about this, but am compelled to write it.  I miss my tree, and I hate that the owners are going to cement everything.  All this green gone.  All the natural beauty, even in its sometimes non-beautiful state, gone!  Our hearts have been ripped from our chests.  Noah says with tears in his eyes, "I wouldn't pay them another cent!"

Our neighbors ventured outside just after we got home from the beach.  We all looked at these gaping holes in our gardens and we struggled with the new holes in our lives.  The lot of us, shaking our heads, staring at stumps, talking about shade and sunlight and water hoses when what's really on our minds is, "How can anyone do this to us?  How could this have happened?"  We feel helpless and powerless and heartbroken.  I take solace in the collective mourning, and it's a tragedy the owners don't see what they're doing.  Cement is easier to maintain and you don't have to worry about it falling on your roof in a hurricane.  But it doesn't provide shade or oxygen or natural beauty, and it's not bringing any of us happiness.  I cannot express to you the depth of our grief over the loss of this tree, our friend.

Hands All Over

I've been trying for a long time to write this blog about the power of touch, but finding a starting place is hard because there's just so many ideas in my mind. And talking about it, for once, seems to be easier than writing it out mostly because I can talk about it a little and then return to the subject a few days later with the same person and it seems much less disjointed and maybe more epiphanic.  Kind of like a reef where you see some parts above the water but can't see all the good shizz underneath... with the visible parts being the epiphanies and the underwater reef being all that time between, of course.

Anyway, by wonderful serendipity, Charlie and I were placed strategically to be offered free 50-minute Swedish massages by a profession-in-training.  Profession masseuse, by the way, not the other kind you might find in Waikiki or in Wahiawa.  It was glorious and the first I'd ever received other than a shiatsu Charlie bought for me in 2005 when I was getting all these headaches.  I thought it would be weird being mostly nude and having a stranger rub her oiled hands all over the parts of skin normally reserved for sunscreen applications by my husband, but it wasn't.  And you can go to this link to read about the benefits of Swedish massage, but the really wonderful thing that day was that it happened at all.

Charlie and I had to go separately, obviously, because she couldn't possibly massage the both of us at the same time with any degree of efficiency or accuracy, so afterwards it was only natural that we compare notes.  Did you feel strange?  Did you fall asleep?  What did you do when you had to roll onto your back and risk actual eye contact with the masseuse?  Did she say anything to you?  As it turns out, both times we saw her, she complimented me-- the first time she marveled at the smoothness of my skin ("You must drink a lot of water!"), the second time, the bulk of my leg muscles ("You must walk a lot.").  She complimented Charlie less which, of course, I revel in.  We mused what it could mean (nothing, probably), but then I hit upon it!  Her touch nourishes my body, her compliments feed my spirit.  I'm sure it's nothing so deep as that, just her remarking on an observation, but it's a pretty thought that I'm sticking to.

The other thing has nothing really to do with the massage, and is way more complex to write about.  I can fumble for words if I were talking to you and it wouldn't seem very odd, just a little annoying.  I can't ramble in writing and hope you get my meaning.  I also don't want to get new-agey on you, which is likely since to me this is all kind of abstract.

Bare hands on skin is so soothing and reassuring and uplifting and comforting.  When my husband runs his hand on my back, for example, it is a loving gesture and I feel loved.  I feel cherished and close to him.  And then it finally hit me at the age of 36:  I think I've learned what intimacy is (it doesn't just mean sex, you know) and I've decided that it's integral to my life.   This lesson, while it may have been something you learned long ago, is a new revelation to me and it is life-changing.  It makes me reassess my priorities and my responses and my usual behaviors.  Changing my bad habits to invite in more love seems worthwhile to me.

But our masseuse taught me that sensuality isn't only about sex, either.  Her touch is intimate and relaxing and is geared expressly for my enjoyment.  She's not trying to please me sexually, and there's nothing at all erotic about the massage, but it is physically pleasing.  Her hands are gentle and firm as she coaxes my muscles to relax and everything about the situation is orchestrated for the same purpose. From the dim lighting to the soft instrumental music to the cool temperature and warm sheets, the message is clear: Kanani, we want you to trust us so we can help improve your quality of life.  And it is intimate and close and you feel vulnerable, but if you're lucky, you'll also feel confident in your decision to put your trust into your masseuse or masseur, and your life will be better for it.

So I guess it's kind of just a vocabulary lesson in which I've learned to expand my understanding of a couple of common words.  What's intimacy?  What's sensuality?  And it's also another example of how life-long learning can truly improve your life, even if you're not looking for it (though it might help to be open to it).

The Passion Prescription

A couple weeks ago I had time to kill at Barnes & Noble and found myself in the relationships section.  I wasn't there to look at the sex books, I actually wanted to flip through the self-help stuff-- you know, how to have a fantastic marriage, how not to scream, that sort of thing.  But then as my eyes scoured the shelves, I began this internal conversation with myself.  I said to my brain, "I'm an adult.  I can look at these sex books!  Why should I be shame?"  But the first book I flipped through had me blushing (figuratively, anyway), and I put the book back as quickly as possibly without actually looking like it had embarrassed me in any way.

When I got home, I requested a few of the relationship books I'd seen at the bookstore, and remembered Dr. Laura Berman.  You've seen her EVERYWHERE, haven't you?  All over TV and all over Oprah.  I requested everything our library had, and the first book that I read was The Passion Prescription.  It is such an awesome book and I highly recommend to anyone with even a remote interest in the female body, sex, and/or relationships.  When I've seen Dr. Berman speaking on TV, she approaches the topic of sex as she would if she were talking about reading the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel or buying groceries for a special dinner, which is to say she talks about sexuality as if there were nothing to be ashamed of.  As if there was absolutely nothing wrong with talking about and exploring your sexuality.  When you read this book, you get the same feeling.

I've read a lot of sex books in my life because the topic interests me.  I don't get off to them, in case you were wondering, but I subscribe to what Dr. Berman talks about: sexuality is one part of our overall identity, one part of complete wellness, and I would be remiss to ignore it.  In this book, she not only addresses sex itself, but also reviews anatomy and health.  And the thing that I like best is that at the root of everything, before you do anything else, she advises women to get to know their bodies, including their genitals.  Sounds pervy, right?  The way I said that.  But what I get out of it, aside from the obvious literal benefits, is that women should empower themselves, should get to know themselves. That it doesn't matter what you look like or what size you are or whether or not you currently have a partner.  This is a matter that you can take into your own hands NOW.

Dr. Berman's no-shame way of discussing numerous aspects of sexuality is refreshing and doesn't come off sounding condescending or clinical or disgusting.  She writes with such compassion and understanding that you can't help but open yourself up to her expertise (I've read a bunch of sex books and many try to pull off that same trick...unsuccessfully).  Dr. Berman discusses issues that may affect sex such as medications and/or diet, talks about the benefits of regular sexual activity on a woman's relationships and overall health, reviews basic female anatomy, and offers advice on how to spice up and supplement activity.

I love this book.  I think it's a great conversation starter for couples and a great paradigm challenger for women.

My Personal Challenge

You may or not have noticed that I haven't been posting as much crap on Facebook as I used to.  And if you had noticed, you probably didn't really care enough to wonder why or if it was intentional.  Fortunately for you, here's the answer:  it IS intentional!

I've been talking a bit with friends and family about how I don't watch much TV anymore, even for having subscriptions to Hulu+ and Netflix.  The only show I've kept up with is New Girl because that shit's just too effin' funny and it only requires my attention for less than 30 minutes a week.  But anyway, before I got rid of our DVR and hi def cable, I was totally afraid of being without.  How would I catch my shows?  The reality shows I liked, like SYTYCD, weren't found on Netflix OR Hulu+!  Neither was CSI Vegas!  Noooo!

But I learned to live without it.  It wasn't even hard.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I don't miss any of it.  I can watch New Girl over and over on Hulu+ and then whatever random crap on Netflix, and I'm okay.

So it got me thinking.  What about my computer?  Would this work for that, too?  So I posed this challenge to myself about a week ago: use the computer as little as possible.  I didn't even tell anyone about it because I wasn't sure that I could even do it, and I really didn't need the embarrassment.  Now, during the last week or so of school I had to do a crapload of emailing as my room parent duties required it of me, but that wasn't fun stuff, anyway.  But what would count as using/not using my computer?

Blogging, for one, is always allowed.  For any reason and at any time for as long as it takes to compose something.  It's a totally cathartic thing for me and highly necessary.  Library usage, too.  Requesting, renewing, and keeping track of materials is a total must since we can have over 100 items out at any given time, and those fines add up FAST.  But everything else is non-essential and could be avoided whenever possible.  It is totally convenient to open my laptop to Google crap, and I still do, but constantly checking my Facebook is SO unnecessary.  Checking Imdb for an actor's name can be put off until I don't care anymore.  And not spending money out of my checking account means that I don't have to constantly check that anymore, too.  It also helps to be a member of Mint.com and they let me know when my balance gets low.

How's it been going?  Not too badly, and it's actually pretty easy to do without.  I get bored sometimes, but having put the laptop on the side also made me realize that it wasn't really very entertaining in the first place.  I check email and Facebook and Goodreads.  That's about it.  Not very exciting.  But like giving up smoking, giving up one habit kind of inspires you to fill that time more productively.  So the idea is that instead of Facebooking or Googling a million meaningless shit all the time, I would not just read more or play more, I would dedicate more of my attention to everything else I did.  I would try to be more present in the conversations I had or immerse myself in the movies or programs I watched.

It's only been about a week into my little experiment, but I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  It's really the perfect time to do it since it's summer and I have the time and inclination to do more fun shit that doesn't involve sitting at home on my computer or spending an hour at starbucks every morning before work starts.   I hope you all have as exciting a summer as I'm hoping to have!

Play By Play

I don't usually do one of those kinds of play-by-play blogs in which I bore my audience with my daily routine, but I've just had such a totally awesome weekend, I have to share.  You can bear with me or choose not to read, this one's for me.  For posterity.

The weekend extraordinaire began on Friday when Charlie got home from work and we went out on a lunch date.  We ventured outside our usual Kapahulu domain and made the drive to downtown.  After settling on JJ Dolan's, we sat at the bar, holding hands and talking about random topics-- dancing, the kids, the menu.  And then Richard sat next to me.  Dick appeared to be a man in his late 50s, clad in aloha shirt, bearded, and already intoxicated.  Not sloppy drunk, but inebriated enough to look it, he ordered a Bud Lite that, now that I think of it, I never saw him touch.  He regaled us with his pizza knowledge-- hailing for New York, he said JJ's had the best pizza outside of his hometown.  Dick proceeded to dominate the conversation for the rest of the date, which I tolerated because he wasn't at all belligerent, but mostly seemed lonely and hungry for human connection.  It was lesson learned, however: when on a date, sit at a table!  It wasn't a total loss, though, as we walked through downtown, finished our lunch in the Kumu Kahua Theatre courtyard, and talked about the architecture around us.

That night we walked over to Sheldyn's preschool graduation.  The whole time we were there I kept thinking about when we were there last at Lucy's graduation.  How the banner now read "Class of 2012" and when Lucy made that walk the sign said "2008" and Sheldyn was just a little toddler of a girl.  It makes me happy to be able to participate in these special occasions with my nieces and nephews because it makes me feel closer to them.  It makes me thankful for my life the way it is-- living in Hawai'i and knowing it could all be so very different.

The next day we attended yet another graduation ceremony, this one for my baby sister, Liane.  I was 14 years old when she was born, and when I first moved out into my first apartment, she used to come over and play video games and eat all my snack food.  She used to call me and talk to me about episodes of Blue's Clues, and I would take her swimming at the pool.  And here she was, receiving her undergraduate degree at UH.  If you looked in yesterday's Star-Advertiser, you might have seen her picture, holding up the "Happy Birthday, Mom" sign.  Shelley and I sat with our families up in the nosebleeds in Stan Sheriff, getting all teary-eyed with the thought of our baby sister growing up.

Saturday night we went to Rumours Nightclub to celebrate mom's birthday.  The last time I remember going out all together like this, I was a parent of one child and my youngest brother wasn't even 21 yet. I got just the right amount of drunk to have fun and danced the night away with my dear husband as my partner.  Now, if any of you know me, you know that dancing with a partner is a very rare event in my life. For most of my dancing in public life I've partnered no one save maybe Kafrin, Jenn, or Shani, and we have been ridiculed by the men asking us to dance for turning down their gracious offers.  I have never been interested in dancing with anyone for a variety of reasons, chief among them are that they inevitably turn into something I'm not interested in (grind session, anyone?) or my dancing turns out to be an unpleasant surprise to my partner/my partner's style turns out to be a complete disappointment to me.  I love to dance and the last thing I want to think about is having to pretend to be into the dancing styles of my partner.  But with the chemistry that already exists between me and Charlie, because of the sense of security afforded by our relationship, we were the perfect partners for the evening.  At least I thought so.  It was beautiful and magical and we both couldn't help but notice that everyone in the club was jealous of our skills.

And despite not going to sleep until after 2:30am, Charlie was up before 7am to make my Mother's Day breakfast.  He made a huge feast of pancakes, rice, eggs, Spam, and portuguese sausage, and while I waited for it to be ready, I read (and re-read) the cards they each picked out for me.  The fact that each card I received so well represented the giver touched my heart.  I usually don't care too much for store-bought greeting cards, but I think these were the best gifts I've ever gotten (beating out the nook, even). When we were done eating, we went down to Kapiolani Park and happened to find great parking in an ideal location.  I sat around (bum knee) and enjoyed watching them run up the trees, tumble in the grass, and toss a ball or hacky sack between the three of them until we crossed the street and went swimming.  What a gorgeous day!

This whole weekend was such a battery charger for me, infusing my spirit with laughter and love.  I felt like a queen.  And after having to endure so many weeks of doing doing doing, there was finally time to reconnect with my husband.  What I hadn't realized, either, was that in addition to missing that kind of quality time with Charlie, we also hadn't spent much time with my family like we usually do.  No weekend BBQs or impromptu dinners lately despite the multitude of last minute "Hey, can you watch my kids for a few minutes" days.  (And with that in mind, my glorious weekend actually began on Thursday night when dad, Jonah, and Shelley came over for dinner and we talked and ate together and Charlie and I sang together over the piano.)  With summer right around the corner, I'm excited to see what's coming up :D

You Can't Force Someone to...

1.  Accept a gift you're offering.

2.  Love you.

3.  Give up bad habits and adopt healthy ones.

4.  Provide comfort.

5.  See things the way you do.

6.  Value the same things you value.

7.  Recognize you're right (especially when you are).

8.  Show compassion.

9.  Apologize.

10.  Appreciate you.

How to Relate

I just randomly opened up Deepak Chopra's "The Book of Secrets" to this page, and thought it was beautiful.  It spoke directly to my heart and what I've gone through lately, and precisely addressed my own fears about my pain.  He has identified the very fears I have when I think about telling people around me about how I feel or what I'm experiencing.  It also helps me to see with clarity what I can do for others.

How to Relate When Someone Else Is in Pain

I have sympathy for you.  I know what you're going through.

You don't have to feel a certain way just to make me happy.

I will help you get through this. 

You don't have to be afraid that you are driving me away.

I don't expect you to be perfect.  You aren't letting me down.

This pain you're going through isn't the real you.

You can have the space you need, but I won't let you be alone.

I will be as real with you as I can be.

I won't be afraid of you, even though you may be afraid of your pain.

I will do all I can to show you that life is still good and joy still possible.

I can't take your pain on as my responsibility.

I won't let you hold on to your pain -- we are here to get through this.

I will take your healing as seriously as my own well-being.

Peace and Joy

A running theme in Stephen King's book 11/22/63 is that the past harmonizes.  You'll have to read it if you want to know what that means exactly because I won't go into it here.  My point is simply that life harmonizes and I've seen the truth of it recently while doing my own soul-searching.

Jonah came over late Sunday afternoon.  The sun was already setting, it was getting chilly, and Shelley and her kids were loading themselves into their car to head home.  Later when it was just me and Jonah, we started to talk about trials, surprised that while our current issues were exact opposites, we were basically facing the same beast.  He spoke of that day's church service and how it was about exactly what we were discussing.  They read from the book of James and talked about facing your trials with joy in your heart.  Intrigued, I pressed for more information.  How is this possible?  How can we do this?  

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  While we were outside, standing around Shelley's car, we started singing old Sunday School songs.  For my younger siblings, these songs are hard to listen to (let alone sing) because they bring back painful memories of a difficult time in our lives.  But they do the opposite for me.  They remind me of a difficult and painful time, certainly, but I was older than they and I was already looking for a way to cope.  I sought and found solace in the Bible, in prayer, and in the fellowship  found at church.  Because my life was in flux at that time, the only constant was church.

So, I'm thinking of these songs on my way home from work yesterday, thinking of the conversation I had with Jonah about finding joy, and I started singing.  "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...." There's a verse in that song that says, "I've got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart," which, not shocking, I used to sing as a child with zero understanding.  I never gave it any thought to it before, but I understand now.  To some extent, anyway.  

Growth can be painful.  Understanding can be painful, too.  But stubborn Kanani always tries to squeeze a square peg where a square peg should be instead of realizing that all it needs is a gentle push.  And as I sat on the toilet when I got home from work yesterday, I thought, "These episodes are getting more and more painful."  Why?  I posit that my psyche, my body, my brain are all telling me that we're getting too old for this shit.  They're telling me that we've been through this before, when are you going to learn, Kanani?  When are you going to stop forgetting?  (And while I think it's ever helpful and heart-warming and reassuring to receive reminders from other people, the light shines from inside, right?)  They're telling me to be the flower.  To rest my mind, to find peace instead of answers.  To seek out joy rather than trouble.  They're saying

ENOUGH.  STOP FORGETTING.  REMEMBER!

Static

Life gets busy and, I think, most times it goes unnoticed.  I mean, we're all accustomed to the daily grind and so what's one more thing?  Get up, drop off the kids (figuratively and literally), go to work, work, pick up kids, homework, baths, dinner, bedtime.  Repeat.  Sometimes there are dance classes or sports practices, meetings, swimming lessons, trips to the market, or doctor visits mixed in, which can make the day/week/month seem even longer.  But because this model is pretty much the standard for many of us, the things we might lose sometimes go unnoticed and unmourned.  And then it hits you and you can't believe what you took for granted.

Because everything's alright until it isn't, and the isn't can (and usually does) come without warning.

My house falls prey to this, too.  There's always so much going on between the four of us that all it takes is for one hair to fall out of place and disaster strikes.  Okay, maybe not DISASTER, but certainly frustration.  It's just a matter of running out of steam, usually.

And then we have a day like yesterday where nothing stood in our way of being together and having fun. We had no class to make, no party to attend, no appointment to meet and so we played.  Without rushing. It was like a mini vacation the way we squeezed it all in.  The way we had time to smile at each other, to talk to each other, to shoot zombies together, to roller skate in the park or sleep in the shade together.  In the usual course of a day, I forget how relaxing and fulfilling a day like that can be.  And not just a day like that, but even MOMENTS like that.  Just those few minutes that Lucy and I talk about being animals in the forest while looking for mongoose in the grass, for example.  Or Noah and I getting a chance to talk about the books we're reading.  Or being able to embrace my husband for more than the 10 seconds we take to say goodbye in the morning.  Sitting on the wall at Diamond Head, knees propped up between your arms, watching the surf roll in and remembering the importance and necessity of silence.

I look forward to summer-- to the long days at the beach, to camping at Bellows with my entire family, to working only half a day and spending the rest of it with my kids and Charlie.  And I can't wait to see more of you, too, at the zoo, aquarium, or park :).  Here's to hoping we all get more time to be with those we love without all the static of responsibility.

The Sweet Wound

For Sappho, it is the "sweet wound" that makes possible the soul's awakening. To love is to feel that opening. it is to hold the wound always open.

That's a passage I read in an issue of Parabola magazine back in 2004, an issue that focused on friendship.  That winter issue was so powerful for me, chock full of empowering and uplifting messages, giving me lots to reflect on.  

This passage, however, I think is one of the more powerful pieces for me because it resonates so completely with who I am.  As Emerson says, it is "native of the same celestial latitude" and "repeats in its own all my experience."  This is one of many ways that I experience love, this is how it can feel to me.  It can be painful and interminably so.  But to close the door on that pain, to medicate it and suture the wound would be to close my heart to love.  It would be a hardening of the heart that would only close me off to the source.  And while it hurts, while I anguish, while it sometimes feel like the very fabric of my being is unravelling in every direction, I have to continually choose to keep my heart open to it. 

I've read somewhere that the ultimate nature of effort is to allow something to happen.  This is completely at odds with who I am and the way I function.  I want to move and do when what I need is to sit and meditate.  I am impulsive and brash and passionate and dramatic.  I see weakness where tenderness and vulnerability reside within me, and shy away from embracing those aspects of my personality for fear of being thought of as weak or stupid.  John Keats says, "It seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the bee ... let us open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive..."

It seems impossible to me that I should forever be the flower, but it also seems important that I learn to be the flower at least some of the time.  I can't help but feel that it's imperative to embrace that sweet wound, to make room for it in my house, and welcome it as openly as I welcome my many blessings.  That when the occasion pops up that it should burst wide open, that I listen for the lessons that invariably ensue.  That instead of screaming out in pain like a child waking from a nightmare, that I calmly tend the wound-- to inspect it and then provide whatever care it requires.

What a hard lesson to learn, and what a hard practice to perpetuate.  To accept that life will inevitably hurt you sometimes and to remember that the pain is necessary to teach us the lessons we might otherwise never learn.  That we can't always (and shouldn't always) sever the pain and simply and mindlessly medicate until we feel nothing.  To train ourselves to temper our instincts with understanding.  To learn that sometimes keeping that wound open might mean someone will betray the trust we give and hurt us even further. But that's just the chance we take when we decide to open ourselves to love and life-- it's a choice we make that when we welcome in the light, we also must let in the dark.  And it's how we decide to deal with both that determines how we grow or heal and enjoy life.

Alan Watts writes, "A mind which will not melt-- with sorrow or love-- is a mind which will all too easily break."  I think he's onto something there...

Michelle

Today is the birthday of a childhood friend.  She would have been 37 had she not passed away in March. I haven't gone to her facebook page in a few weeks, but I went today and was met with a ton of birthday greetings for our friend who died too early.  One day she was at Kawaii Con, the next her husband posts the news of her passing.  Life changes on a dime.

In the days leading up to her death, she posts on her facebook her love for her daughter.  She is happy because she is close to her and loves her and has great communication with her.  She says she will continue her medical treatments and continue living because she loves her daughter.  It is heartbreaking.  It is gut-wrenching.  I want to hold her hand and give her daughter a hug.

And today of all days it serves as reminder that this day is a gift and the love I have in my life is a gift.  That I should return it to the world with intent.  I am blessed.

Proud Mama

Even as I've come to hate standardized testing, I have to say that I'm so proud of my little girl for not only passing the grade 3 HSA reading test, but for scoring in the "exceeds" range.  This is pretty monumental for her for several reasons.

1.  Lucy did pretty poorly the first time she took the HSA test last month.  Like really poorly.  So poorly, in fact, that I wondered if she would even pass it this year.

2.  Lucy wanted to take contemporary dance lessons (in addition to hula), but I thought we should wait until after third quarter because I was pretty disappointed in her second quarter report card.  Even knowing that her report card greatly differed from her ability, it still said she wasn't doing her best work.  She and Charlie, however, convinced me that Lucy should take the dance lessons because she would work hard to improve her grades.

3.  I don't like the Accelerated Reading program and don't force my kids to participate.  They read every day, and I use the AR reading levels to help guide me when I go pick out books for Lucy at the library, but reading should be FUN!  And the more they read for fun, I posit, the better they'll get at reading.  That being said, I haven't really pushed Lucy to read more chapter books because she doesn't finish them.  It's not that they're too hard, it's that they're too boring.  She loses interest and moves on.  How can I fault her for this when adults do it ALL the time!?  But I told her we were going to start moving on toward longer and more difficult books, and we did.

So, all this is the long way about saying that Lucy totally earned this really great HSA score, and if you haven't guessed, she improved her grades as well.  She's been reading different books and, of her own accord, pulls out the Usborne math dictionary (which is a totally great resource, btw) when she has trouble with her math homework.  I cannot express how proud of her I am!  She set some goals and accomplished them.  True, she hasn't yet passed the math (missed passing by one measly point), but I'm confident that she'll nail it next month on her third and final try.

My little girl is growing up, folks, and it's bittersweet.

Different Paths

I read an article in which a mother talked about raising her children to hold the same values that she possessed.  To this end, they volunteered together, recycled and gardened together, and she limited (if not altogether banned) things like tv, video games, and outright banned gun play.  Not REAL guns, of course, but water guns, toy guns, fingers in the shape of guns, etc.  But her kids, the author recounted, weren't excited about volunteering, wanted to eat the kinds of things their friends ate, and eventually wanted to play shooter video games.  When her teenage son broached the subject of the gun games, he told her (and I'm totally using my own words here), "You brought us up to recognize the dangers of real guns and I know the difference between real violence and video game violence."  This was a paradigm breakthrough for her, she reported, because she realized that there really were different paths to the same places.

If you looked through my Easter photos that I posted on my wall on Facebook, you've seen the picture of my 12 year-old son, Noah, jumping into the pool with his grandma and cousin.  His pose as he's jumping into the air is not very masculine.  My son is being funny.  He is trying to make people laugh.  Some might look at the picture (and the repeated silly behavior) to be indicative of aberrant boy behavior-- like he's some kind of sissy.  But what I love about my family and friends is that this silly kind of behavior is not only NOT seen in that light, no one thinks less of him for it.  No one's telling Noah he has to stop acting like that-- making girly poses and ugly faces when a camera is pointed at him.  Friends and family know that Noah likes to make weird noises and poses and faces, he likes to make strange, disjointed comments, and he likes to gross people out with jokes about poop and farts.

And yet it's only occurred to me recently that in this way, we're all teaching him tolerance and acceptance.  All these people that surround my son are teaching him without actually coming right out and saying it that it's okay to be who you are.  It's okay to be weird and silly and sometimes scream like a girl or make ugly faces into the camera.  They're telling him without saying a word that you don't have to take yourself so seriously, you don't have to Look Good in pictures, and you can laugh at yourself.  No one's giving him long speeches about the virtues of humility or tolerance (although it does come up every so often), and it isn't something any of us are really even conscious of, I think.  Creating this environment where my kids can be who they want to be and feel safe to try new things has just HAPPENED.

So while I know that this is also true for bad habits (what bad things are we inadvertently encouraging?),  I'm going to keep this positive.  I mean, our broadest goals as parents is to raise happy, compassionate, and productive adults, right?  And we do things to nurture our values in our offspring in hopes that they will be those adults we're hoping for.  We teach them manners, we take them to church, we enroll them in group sports.  We teach them to share, have good hygiene, and eat good foods.  We DO in hopes that they'll be the kind of adults that we like.  It's easy to forget that many of the lessons we teach are tacit... implied... taught in our actions, smiles, and responses to danger or conflict or good fortune.  And it's good to remind ourselves to trust in our kids as they grow-- and to remember that there are different paths to the same place.  I like to think that I'm a good person, that Charlie's a good person, that my parents are good people... but we didn't all make the same choices along the way to being good people, you know?  And we still wouldn't.  It doesn't diminish our goodness that we took differing paths to get there, and I have to believe that it won't diminish who my children grow up to be, either.

The New Tipper

Was trying like the dickens to remember exactly what PMRC stood for in my teens, and I think it was the Parent Music Resource Center (I totally didn't cheat and came up with that from memory).  I have no trouble remembering that Tipper Gore was at the forefront of the group who rallied to get music labeled and censored.  Following in the super-cool footsteps of my older cousin, Jenn, I often doodled the big no circle around bold PMRC letters, showing the world just what I thought of it telling me what I could and could not listen to.  I wrote and delivered many a speech in high school speech classes speaking of the dangers of censorship.  I believed even if I didn't quite understand.

And here I am, trying to make the internet a safe place for my kids to venture into.  Looking for recommendations for sites I should block and those we should support, unsure if the work I'm putting into it will be worth it in the end.  Because, really, how often will they go onto the computer without us knowing when they're almost never at home alone in the first place.  And the computer is in our bedroom.

Do I feel like a hypocrite?  Not at all.  It may sound contradictory to my usually live-and-let-live-inclined nature, but I believe in boundaries.  Just as we have deemed most rated R movies inappropriate viewing material for our kids, so are many websites that promote nudity, sexuality, and excessive violence.  And I can make these decisions for my kids because I know them.  I'm not making these choices for someone else's kids or for ALL kids--  I'm no Tipper Gore.  But it makes me feel all mixed up about ratings systems in general because as a parent, I like to have some idea about what my kids are consuming-- I just don't like how other people abuse those systems for their own greedy agendas.

Anyway, have you gone through this already?  Do you have any tips for me?  Oh, and just for the record, the kids always had access to the internet, but because it was usually on one of our laptops, we were always looming nearby, and access was really only on a need-to basis.  Please feel free to share any anecdotes or bits of advice if you have any.  Have a blessed week, everyone!

The Hunger Games

It's taken me a while to kind of put my thoughts in order after both reading the book and watching the movie.  I had to watch the movie to finally realize what was niggling at the back of my mind about the book and why I thoroughly enjoyed the former but not the latter.  The Hunger Games as a movie was not bad, but it lacked the emotional depth the book had in spades.  I'll explain.

At nearly 2 and a half hours, the movie is already bulky.  It stays fairly true to the original plot, straying only at some very small places.  With so much story to tell, there's not a whole lot of character development, and this story is all about the characters.  If you don't care about the characters, how can you care about what happens to them?  How can you understand why some things happen the way they do?   

As for the book, I kept waiting for things to happen that didn't.  I waited for Katniss to become more than she was, and I suppose she did ultimately change (which you would never know, really, if you read the next 2 books).  But what the movie revealed to me about the book was that it wasn't what happened that endeared me to it, but the emotional depth.  It was the pain, despair, and horrible circumstances under which they had to act that made the book compelling.  It was Katniss' confusion and her eventual defiance.  It was Peeta's unfaltering goodness, his obvious kindness and strength of character.  It was Katniss' unexpected bonding with Rue that made it all the more emotionally crushing when Rue finally met her end.  All of these elements were missing from the movie.

Admittedly, the limitations of film almost always make an adaptation inferior to its written counterpart.  How can you convey thought, and even if you did, how do you write it in without it coming out a little bit silly (like Dune, for example)?  But I felt that The Hunger Games as a movie focused so much on the action and staying true to the original text that it lost the soul of the thing.  And I'd heard the haunting soundtrack for the movie before I'd seen it, and I thought it successfully took me to that place of despair and darkness, and I expected the movie to take me there as well.

There were a few small things I didn't like about the movie, but I won't go into them here.  It's not to say that I didn't like the movie or that it was bad.  As book adaptations go, this one wasn't terrible. Nowhere near the horribleness of Eragon!  Maybe if I saw it again, trying hard to see it as just a movie and not as a book, I might find it more enjoyable.  Anyway, let me know what you thought of either or both.  It's very likely you saw something I did not.

Vent Sesh

Lucy caught a mild cold this past weekend, probably due to Shayne and Maia being all drippy-nosed, too.  Lucy spends a lot of time with her cousins over the weekend at Aunty Shelley's house or at grandma's.  So, when she woke up this morning, we took her temperature, and when there was no fever, I gave her the choice to stay home or go to school.  I know you don't have to have a fever to feel too sick to go to school, after all, and would rather she spend time at home resting and getting better than go to school and make it all worse.  I told her she could stay home and rest or she could go to school with the option to go to the health room if she felt sick.  She chose to go to school.

And as soon as she walked into her classroom, she told her teacher she was sick so she might have to go to the health room later and that she had a "small fever".  Teacher says, "You shouldn't be here if you have a fever," and sends Lucy to the health room.  Health aid confirms Lucy doesn't have a fever, but Lucy tells her she doesn't think she can finish the day at school.  Health aid calls me and I talk to Lucy and determine that she's okay and that I don't have to take her home.  She puts the aid back on and yet the aid still kind of insists that Lucy should go home.  So I pick her up.  I'm irritated and take it out on Lucy on the way home from school.  I'm not getting paid today because I'm not working because Lucy lied about having a fever and because the school employees don't know her well enough to gauge how she's REALLY feeling.

This is really why I'm angry right now.  I'm angry with Lucy for lying-- she KNEW she didn't have a fever because both Charlie and I told her that 96.8 did not a fever make.  She knew it and lied anyway.  But what I do know for certain is that 1. if Lori was still our health aid, she would never have forced me to take home my daughter because my daughter said "I can't do it."  2.  If Tracie were still her teacher, she would have understood what Lucy was doing and why I didn't keep her home.  I feel like I was manipulated into taking Lucy home from school and that my choice to send her to school was flippantly made.  Because even when I explained what happened to the health aid, she still looked at me like I was stupid and mean for having sent my sick child to school.  The very school at which I work, mind you.

It's been such a crappy-ass school year for Lucy and she doesn't even realize it, and I think it's been so unfair to her and her classmates.  Their teacher left just after the first quarter for personal reasons (family  emergency type stuff), had a long string of subs second quarter, and now have a different teacher, new to the school, to finish out the school year.  This, their first HSA-taking year (and believe me, HSA is a whole 'nother blog).  So, after beginning the year one way, then having no real structure for a quarter, and then now having to start all over again, I think Lucy and her classmates are at a distinct disadvantage so late into the year.  I had hoped she would have stayed in school today not because I didn't want to stay home from work, but because I know she could use all the classroom instruction she can get.

Just as the work is starting to really get hard, her teacher is still working on getting to know the kids as well as getting used to curriculum and school politics (and policies).  She drastically changed the routine, diverging from what was agreed upon by the grade level, which totally threw the kids off.  Many of them did poorly on their spelling tests, for example, because she changed so much of it without a heads up to even the parents.  I couldn't help Lucy figure out what was expected of her because even I didn't know.

Which is why I've also been doing some reading by the author Alfie Kohn.  He's written many articles and books about the many wonders of progressive education and outlines the failure of the current educational system.  He writes about how standardized tests measure the wrong things and how students aren't being taught for the simple value of learning, but to become better workers as adults.  Very interesting stuff.  Stuff I'd already kind of agreed with (like standardized tests), but never did much research on.  It makes me want to be a better parent, really.

I'm now feeling better about what happened today so I'm going to stop writing, but if you have any thoughts about our educational system, I'd love to hear them whether or not they echo my own ideas.

For Reals, Though

I'm not a feminist.  I'm a woman, I support women, I like women, and I like being a woman, but I don't go out and participate in feminist causes.  I don't think the bra was invented to squash (both literally and figuratively) a woman's sexuality or sexual identity, and I like not having hairy armpits.  I think it also bears mentioning that I'm not a super hippie, either.  While I support efforts to recycle and like to eat local, organic produce, while I use reusable shopping bags at the market and frequently shop at rummage sales and Goodwill, I don't buy my tampons at the health food store, I don't really like supporting Whole Foods (who I think of as kind of the WalMart of health food stores), and I actually use products made in China.  Let it be known that I am moderately crunchy and a woman who supports women.

That being said, ladies, we gotta stop hating each other.  We have to stop saying we deserve to be beaten and raped and demeaned.  We have to stop giving our support to the abusers, cushioning their egos from criticism, when in fact it isn't okay to not just hit women, but it's not okay to hit anyone!  So maybe a lady was arguing with her man and got lippy-- does she deserve to be punched in the face?  If she gets niele and snoops on his phone, does it mean he can kick her in the stomach?  If a woman is wearing revealing clothing, does that mean she's asking to be raped?

And writing this all down now isn't my attempt to change your mind or spur you into action.  It's just me venting.  It's my response to all the hype out there about Chris Brown and Rihanna and all the people who seem to think that those of us who are still not convinced Brown should have been asked to perform twice at the Grammys (let alone receive a standing ovation) should just "get over it" already because that is such ancient history.  This is not the opinion of a woman with a political agenda or an all-natural woman who thinks we are all One (although I do in fact believe that, it isn't necessarily the genesis of my opinion) and that a woman's body is a temple that should be revered.  No.  I just happen to think we're destroying ourselves and failing to see the bigger picture.  I think when we hate on each other, we're slowly killing our own potential and spoiling our own unique pulchritude.  We begin to limit what we ourselves can do.  We were created to create, after all, but spend so much of our time trying to bring down other women.  Why?  To validate ourselves and our choices?  Imagine if we all helped to lay a fertile ground in which we could all flourish?  What kind of world would it be then?

But at this point, I'd really just settle for reading a lot less "she deserved it" and "it's so 2009."  Chris Brown has yet to seem sincerely remorseful and until then, I can't believe he's actually changed.  I know of many people who have changed their lives after having made poor choices in the past, and I know people who have made great choices despite shitty childhoods and limited options.  Maybe if so many people weren't trying so hard to make someone like Chris Brown feel okay about what he did, he might actually try facing his shit and dealing with it.  I mean, I think by coddling him, the public is also selling him short, telling him that's the best he can be, when I think it's clear that he can be so much more.  Look at it more in the light of helping him become a better man rather than continuing to tear him down.  He deserves happiness, too.

Futility

My friend Meredith wrote a blog a couple days ago, asking her readers for their thoughts on wearing makeup.  Not surprisingly, my first impulse was to respond immediately.  I have lots of thoughts on the matter!  I know what I think about it right here and now!  But contrary to my natural behavior, I waited and used these last few days to further ruminate.  Is my opinion the same as it was 20 years ago?  I wanted to think on it.

Here are the questions she posed (and, yes, I cut and pasted them from her blog):

-Is makeup a big deal to you?
-What do think when you see a woman wearing a lot of makeup? Wearing no makeup?
-Do you feel different when you are wearing makeup v. not wearing makeup?
-What would be harder for you: taking a pic without makeup, first thing in the morning, or taking a pic of your belly, with no flexing or sucking in?


1.  Make up has never been a big deal to me.  I've worn it out in public exactly 5 times: 4 proms and 1 wedding.  I don't even wear chapstick unless it's absolutely necessary. We have no makeup in the house (unless you count nail polish, and if you do, none of it's mine), and if you gave some to me or Lucy, it would probably find itself in the garbage can in short time.  


It's not that I don't see any value in cosmetics-- a well made-up woman or man can look stunning under the right circumstances-- and like any good accessory, makeup can lend character to those who wear it.  (And this is a new development in my general paradigm.  It's one of those instances where I'm pleased that Charlie and I don't always agree with each other on issues because he helps me see things in new ways.) Whether used deftly as a beauty tool or as an egregious mistake, its application has the potential to speak volumes about its wearer... and sometimes the message is contrary to the one intended.  Which leads me to number


2.  I really wish women didn't wear makeup because it's so unnecessary, but I know it can be fun to use it in such a way that you can be someone else completely.  I understand how makeup can be a catalyst for positive change in attitude and in life.  But you gotta understand that when you wear enough to weigh your head down and permanently alter your posture, you're sending a message to the world, and it isn't necessarily, "Look how beautiful I am."  Wearing a lot of makeup can inspire pity in both men and women because, like it or not, it's often quite telling about your self-esteem. There must be some mathematical model somewhere that illustrates the inverse proportion between the amount of makeup applied and levels of self-esteem.  Granted, this is not always the case.  It might not even SOMETIMES be the case.  But if I'm being honest, there it is.  On the other hand, there are women who lord it over others, wearing it like a badge of honor, proving just how crunchy they are by the amount of cosmetics they DON'T use.  "I'm so super-crunchy, I don't even use soap!"  


3 & 4.  I feel utterly ridiculous when wearing makeup.  Where most women feel more beautiful or sassy, I think the cosmetics only enhance (exacerbate?) my features as they would a clown.  It feels a lot like covering up bad body odor with perfume-- a sad lesson in futility.  That being said, it would be a lot easier for me to take a picture sans makeup than to take a picture of my unfettered belly.  I may be virtually at ease with my sorry complexion, but I'm at war with my girth.  We are not at peace.

Beige

I've been making my way through Jennifer Fallon's Tide Lord series for the last month, and I'm so over it.  Which is why I'm in the middle of book THREE.

I can't let it go!  The last truly terrible series I read was Elizabeth Haydon's Symphony of Ages series.  If you asked me why, I wouldn't be able to pin point exact reasons because I flew as fast as I could through the first three books, and it was a while ago that I read them.  What stands out most in my mind, however, is a very long sequence in which the main protagonists crawl through tunnels in the earth for days if not weeks.  Do you know how tedious that gets as a written story?  Do you know how BORING that is?  Three characters crawling through the earth for weeks on end.  No other characters, no change of scenery.  Very boring.  Not very dynamic.

I have yet to find anything like that in the Fallon series, but it's about as un-dynamic as Haydon's.  My biggest complaint isn't the pace of the plot, but the lack of real conflict and the utter predictability of the storyline.  Fallon uses the same trick to reveal her surprises which, as you can imagine, becomes less and less surprising with each reveal.  Don't put your hand in that hole, there's a scorpion that's going to bite you!  And again!  Oh, and again!  The transparency of the series, so far, is made all the more obvious by the flimsiness of the plot itself.  Half the protagonists are trying to figure out what the other half is planning, but so far we've learned nothing new in three books!

Shani and I went to see some supremely crappy action movie within the last year or so (at my request), during which I'd fallen asleep, but we'd only paid a dollar for the dubious pleasure and hopefully I didn't snore too loudly.  It was probably the second or third in a string of crap-ass movies I'd chosen and should put to rest any questions one might have about how much Shani loves me.  Anyway, this movie emphatically displayed for the better part of 90 minutes just how put-me-to-sleep boring an action movie could be.

This is how I feel about the Tide Lord series.  The characters are ever-moving and never-changing, and there are no surprises, no disappointments, not drawn-out tension to later bless you with the sudden clarity of mind that release brings.  In two and a half books, I have yet to feel the bitterness of heartache or the sweetness of romance.  I have not mourned the loss of any character-- indeed, only one protagonist has perished thus far, and a minor one at that.  It's all very beige.

And still I read.

Fly, Oh My

I want to preface this blog with the following: I don't like to hate on other women.  I think we should support each other, empower each other, and work together.  That being typed, I'm now about to criticize a famous-ish woman, okay?  Think less of me if you will, but read on first.  Oh, and I know some of you are going to think that I need to lighten up about this, and rest assured that it's not keeping me up at night and I'm not planning any protests.  Like a good hypocrite, I listen to this song, I know the chorus.  I just don't put it on my kids' iPods or listen to it around them.  Anyway, to the blog...

You may not know this, but singer Keri Hilson has a song called Pretty Girl Rock, and while I love the empowering theme that "I know that I'm pretty", finding validation within rather than from without, I don't like the idea that the power in the song comes hand in hand with not only the judgment of other women, but their abasement as well.  If you'd like to look for yourself, you can read the lyrics here.  Why wasn't she satisfied with being pretty?  Why she gotta hate like that?  In my estimation, she went from her self-professed 10 to maybe a 5 because she's bragging about how she made my man look at her and made him mad because she's cuter than I am.  With songs like these, we do the work for all those nice folks who say women are less than human.  They don't have to write campaign slogans or catchy tunes, popular recording artists will do the job for them!  And get paid by US, the suckers.

In the music video, Miss Hilson pays respect to other "pretty" girls who have come before her like the girls in TLC, Diana Ross, and Donna Summer.  According to this article in Yahoo, Hilson claims that this song is, indeed, for everyone.  It's supposed to empower all women, but I just don't buy that because the same song also encourages them to brag that they're prettier than other women, especially the ones with their men drooling all over the other girl walking by.  Every woman should feel sexy and sassy and strong and shouldn't even be thinking about impressing another woman's man!  As if THAT'S the proper or adequate measure of just how pretty (or valuable) you really are.

I can do the pretty girl rock, and I don't feel the need to be prettier than all of you.  And even if I were, I wouldn't have to throw it in your faces ;-).

Weight Gained

My body and I have had a very long if unfair battle with each other, and I've always suspected that it knew more than I.  For most of this battle, I wrestled with my body to become something it wasn't at that time, which was usually thinner.  I can think of at least 5 reasons off the top of my head why I haven't been entirely comfortable and therefore quite unhappy with my body, and many of them are bullshit.  Mind games, self-esteem issues, peer pressure, mainstream media-- all have had a hand in my messed up idea of what I look like, what I should look like, and what I should want to look like.  Even when I can also identify my fairer attributes, it seems small and petty.

It's only been in recent years that I've decided that it's not enough to lose weight to fit some social ideal, I needed a reason.  I had to start liking myself one way or another, and it occurred to me that perhaps I might still not be satisfied if and when I lost all the unwanted weight.  It isn't the weight, is what I'm saying, it's me.

I am my worst critic, it's true.  My own worst thoughts needed only a few harsh words peppered over the years from people around me and a teenage obsession with Vogue magazine to really blossom into the truly horrid image I have of my body.  Even as I shun what TV and magazines try to tell me I should strive to be, I measure myself by those same outrageous standards.  For example, I love my husband for all the atypical things he is, and especially because I have a penchant for tall, skinny, white guys who like to read.  I never think he's less than perfect because he doesn't fit the stereotypical male archetype, and yet I feel I should fit the female archetype to be pleasing to look at or be with.

Even though I know it's bullshit, I still strive to fulfill it.  How fucked up is that?

And as I wage war with caloric intake, I believe I should love myself, overweight body and all.  I recognize that I should not ascribe more meaning to my weight than necessary-- that my self image should not be so heavily linked to what I look like or how fat I think I am.  I am not worth more skinny than fat!  But it's not even the issue and I have to start all over again.

When I was showering tonight, I started thinking about when I started to really put on the pounds.  Since Charlie's moved to Hawaii, I've packed on a ridiculous amount of weight, but it's not his fault and I've been as happy with him as I've ever been in my life.  It then occurred to me that maybe I was looking at the weight gain from the wrong perspective (which wouldn't be the first time).  I've gained weight, yes, but what else have I gained and what does it mean that I've put on pounds?  The physical weight that I've gained is indicative of and also reflects the joy I've gained.  The experiences I've gained.  The memories and meals shared with those I love and who love me.

It's also inconsequential!

I hate that I care what people think.  I hate that it matters to me that if I'm fat, people will think I'm lazy or too poor or too wealthy or too stupid to know when to stop eating.  Because in that moment, it doesn't matter to me, but later on when I'm trying on swimsuits for the upcoming warm season, it does.  I feel all those accusations staring back at me as I criticize myself in the stark department store mirrors (which aren't entirely honest in the first place), glumly noting every imperfection made even more noticeable by the ill-fitting bathing suit.  To me, being fat not only means I'm fat, it means I'm ugly, too.

But it might matter, as I endeavor to be at peace with myself, to remember the other weight that I've gained.  The experience, the laughter, the memories, and the joy.  I long to be healthier as I long to be happier and more content, but that's what I want my journey to be about.  I suspect that if I can separate my desire to be healthy (less heavy, say) from the weight of my own self-worth, I can find happiness within myself.  I can finally and truly believe that the outward beauty of my body has very little to do with the value of my character and the worthiness of my soul.