Why I ALWAYS Read Movie Reviews Before I See a Movie

I’ve been having a vocational war in my head today which has made it difficult to feel inspired or creative. Or wise. Or productive. I’m mostly just talking to myself a lot.

Facebook still won’t let go of the red cups and I am DONE with it so, for a few a days I’ll be on Twitter seeing what it has to offer my creative genius.

As it turns out, Twitter wants me to talk about the movie Goodfellas.

Apparently, some guy named Vincent Asaro was found not guilty of racketeering (don’t know what that is, but it’s something that mob guys are always on trial for) and extortion in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport. This heist is better known to movie fans as “the thing with those guys in that place”. It was what caused Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway, to lose his shit and start whackin’ people in the latter half of the movie.

I loving movie mob talk. It’s beautifully vague and captures the imagination.

It was a huge heist…something like $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels were just lifted from the airline’s cargo storage center. According to the U.S. Department of Justice it was the largest bank robbery in New York history. Except that they didn’t rob a bank, they got a key from some guy and just walked into an old airplane hangar and stole a bunch of cargo.

At least that’s how it played out in the movie and that’s good enough for me – for the purposes of this blog.  

SO there were…oh, I don’t know…about 100 tweets about his acquittal this afternoon and it got me thinking about the movie and how much I love it. If I’m flipping through channels and I stumble upon it, I always watch whatever is left.

But I didn’t always feel that way.

In 1990, I went to see it on opening night. I had just turned 17 and I could get into rated R movies without someone buying me a ticket. This was the first one I decided to go to all on my own.

Did I mention that I thought it was supposed to be a comedy? I don’t remember why I thought that. Maybe I thought because Joe Pesci was in it there would be humor? He was hilarious in Lethal Weapon 2. And that Ray Liotta guy, he was in Field of Dreams. He played Shoeless Joe Jackson, for crying out loud.

Obviously this was a feel-good comedy.  

Yes, a feel-good comedy provided you replace “feel-good” with “excessive” and “comedy” with “carnage”. Excessive carnage. Mayhem. Mob violence. I was in a fetal position before Henry Hill had even narrated himself into Ray Liotta. They beat up that mailman while young Henry looked on and about that time I looked at my friends like, “what is this crap?” They were fetal too.

And none of us were laughing.

I toyed with the idea of walking out, but then I would have looked like a kid which clearly I was not because I was now old enough to purchase my own ticket to a rated R movie. I had to sit there and tough it out. Peeking through my fingers – I readied and steadied myself for each bloody, gruesome scene. It was seriously the most violent movie I had ever seen up to that point.

Various scenes that caused me to cower in my seat:

When Henry beat up Karen’s neighbor with the butt of his pistol and then asked her to hide it in her parents’ garage.

• When Tommy stabbed that guy in the neck from the back seat of the car.
• When they killed Billy Batts and cut up his body with a big kitchen knife they borrowed from Tommy’s mother.
• When Tommy shot Spider in the foot because he messed up his drink during a poker game. What the hell was that?
• And then, because all of that stuff had happened unexpectedly before I could cover my eyes with my hands – I spent the entire scene where Jimmy is trying to guide Karen down a deserted alley to look at some dresses or fur coats or something…Whatever, I was ready because I knew at any moment, some big guy with an ice pick or a sword or a set of nunchucks was going to appear and take her out in some ridiculous bloodbath.

But that turned out to be the one time nothing happened.

I have never been so happy to see a movie’s protagonist get arrested. Once the FBI got involved, I was able to let my guard down and return to my normal upright position.

 

As we left the theatre, we all agreed it was too intense and we didn’t really like it. I pondered whether I would ever go see another movie – any movie – again. What if all rated R movies were just guns, chef’s knives, blood with a little cocaine thrown in for excitement?

And then the Oscars rolled around and Joe Pesci won a freakin’ Oscar. And it was nominated for 5 more. Oh and the Brits LOVED it – they gave them a whole bag of BAFTAs...FIVE. One for each dollar I spent on that 2 hours and 26 minutes of terror.

A couple of years later, I had the chance to watch it again (on VHS). I can’t remember why I agreed to it. Anyway, it was much easier the second time around – because this time there were no surprises. I knew that there was going to be a lot of blood and sudden death and mob guys getting mad about stuff that normal people aren’t bothered by. And that their anger would, of course, cause them to kill the person who angered them. Because that’s mob guy logic.

Maybe just knowing what I was about to watch and not expecting a light-hearted comedy was all it took for me to enjoy it. I actually appreciated the acting. I recognized the comic relief (the dinner conversation with Tommy’s mother? The hostess party with all the mob wives?) which was lost on me at 17. Oh…and I could follow the story the second time around. That was helpful.

I’m not sure I was even able to discern the plot the first time I saw it.  At 17 all I saw was guns and drugs and blood and cussing and then Henry Hill was standing in front of a tract house talking about being a shnuck. And then it was over.

The story is actually pretty interesting and well-told and I guess realistic. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the mob world to know if Mr. Scorsese took liberties.

Anyway, learning to deal with movie violence in context came with maturity – something I didn’t have at 17 – and it’s made me able to appreciate other good movies that happen to contain violence (Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan) but tell a really good story. The experience has also made me careful about what I let my kids watch. If the subject matter distracts them from enjoying (or even comprehending) the story, what good is it for them to watch it?

But back to Vincent Asaro…I wonder what will happen to him now that he’s been acquitted. He was supposedly the mastermind behind that Lufthansa heist in the first place. He can’t be tried again because of Double Jeopardy so he shouldn’t need to clean up any loose ends.

No ice picks in the back of any necks.

But Asaro’s probably pretty miffed with the 60+ people who testified against him – not to mention the two who cooperated with the FBI resulting in his indictment. If Billy Batts got whacked for laughing at Tommy Devito and Spider got shot in the foot for making him the wrong drink, I’m thinking that wearing a wire while you’re chatting with your mob-boss cousin and then ratting him out to the FBI will get you some sort of really creative death.

Maybe a wood chipper?

Different movie.

The Gravity-Defying Spin of the News Cycle

If it weren’t such a great way for me to keep up with friends who live far away, I would’ve quit Facebook yesterday for sure. For me, yesterday's FB experience was like riding on the Gravitron at the county fair.

But with a greater potential for blowing chunks.

You remember the Gravitron, don’t you? Lots of people call it the Vomitron and so I never had a desire to ride it. I wouldn’t even have this ride as a frame of reference if someone hadn’t “forced” me on it in junior high. See, I had an unfortunate Octopus (the ride, not the animal) experience one summer at Nags Head followed by an even more unfortunate Tilt-o-Whirl experience (see: projectile vomiting) just moments later. I don’t do spinning rides…whirling about is not fun for me. But the Gravitron is a little different.

There is spinning….progressively faster spinning until finally it reaches a velocity that cements you to your spot against the wall. So you can do things like try to lift your arm toward the center and have it forcefully sucked back to the wall – or into your neighbor’s face -- and you can scoot up the wall on your back defying gravity. When it reaches this speed, you are moving so fast that you don’t even notice that your spinning. I have to say that the middle part is totally worth the slight dizziness you experience as it picks up speed.

It is NOT worth the dizziness that it leaves you with as it slows down and you once again feel the spinning.

Thankfully, there was no reverse digestive incident with this ride – not for me anyway. That would have been an unforgettable junior high embarrassment (which I avoideded with the Tilt-o-Whirl episode because at the beach, I was anonymous.) But I did stagger kind of sideways off the ride which was pretty funny. And then I recovered and that was that.

Facebook was like the Gravitron yesterday. I woke up with chlorine lung and a smallish headache so it took me a while to get going. After making lunches and breakfasts and coffee, I sat down with my iPad and started skimming my newsfeed.

Lots of red cups, but I was too foggy to really read anything yet. Some stuff going on at the University of Missouri, posts about weekend football games, more red cups, more Missouri, some Mental Floss, some meme’s asking for people to chill out about red cups and racial strife on college campuses (because those are two issues of equal importance, apparently), then a few cryptic status updates about everyone being offended by things and the overabundance of outrage and the outrage over outrage. And as the “spinning” gained speed, it was nothing by red cups whizzing past my face.

Then suddenly, from out of nowhere, I had an overwhelming need for a cup of coffee. So I poured one.

And then I sat down to read what I had merely skimmed before. That’s when the gravitational pull of social media stupidity drew me into the wall. It was All. Day. Long. Posts about how stupid the ONE GUY who started all of this was…posts about what the real war on Christmas was…posts about how we shouldn’t be wasting our time worrying about coffee cup décor…memes with red cups that stated all of the above…posts about the ONE GUY who started it being on CNN and looking like a nimrod (which shouldn’t have been news because of course he’s a nimrod) and finally, my favorite, the one about Donald Trump calling for a boycott of Starbucks because apparently one nimrod deserves another. I had to READ that article to make sure it wasn’t satire because SURELY a person running for President of the United States could NOT BE SO RIDICULOUS. But it was real. And it seemed lost on him…as most reality seems to be…that he hosts a Starbucks in the Trump Tower.

This is when I almost vomited…two guys interested in NOTHING but their own relevance…and certainly not interested in how they achieve that relevance…bucking for dumbass of the year. And the ride started to slow down so I began to get dizzy again and suddenly it was urgent…

I’ve got to get off this Vomitron NOW.

This critical intersection of reality and media reality (not the same thing and when they collide it’s like mixing matter and anti-matter) made me seriously consider deactivating my account. I do not think I would enjoy annihilation -- what Egon Spengler believed would happen in Ghostbusters if you “crossed the streams.”

It would be bad.

As the Vomitron lost velocity, I began to focus on other things...to keep me from getting dizzy. Someone posted a beautiful picture of the Aurora Borealis. Then a picture of a newborn baby. I watched a video of a really sweet dog who has become a “mother” to three sweet abandoned kittens. And there was a story about the terminal cancer patient whose dying wish was to see the new Star Wars film and because Mark Hamill is on Twitter, it happened.

So social media isn’t a complete vortex of absurdity. There’s some good to be seen. And I wouldn’t have seen any of it if I hadn’t toughed it out through the fastest and craziest part of the ride followed by the mild dizziness and nausea that came with slowing down.

When I came to a rest, I staggered away from the experience in one piece and read a Mental Floss article which explained why we can feel people looking at us…and watched this video on how to make Barbacoa tacos for my family this week. 

Both of these are infinitely more satisfying and pertinent to my reality than the color of my coffee cup…or anyone’s opinion on what coffee cups should or should not look like…or anyone’s thoughts on why we shouldn’t have spent the last 24 hours obsessing over it.

Next time, though, I think I'll try to bypass the ride on the news cycle and go straight to the food. 

Mining the Silence for Gold

Do you know how hard it is to not look at a 47” HDTV when it is directly in front of you 15 feet away? It’s darn near impossible.

That is my plight these days.

We bought our house because of the open family room/kitchen/breakfast room but this room.

How great will it be that we can watch TV while we are in the kitchen making meals? we gushed about our new “family-friendly”space. We did not consider the impact that our freight-train-wannabe dishwasher would have on our ability to hear the television sometimes. And we certainly didn’t anticipate I would decide to give up television one day turning our family “room” into a family “battlefield”. During the last 9 days, our (not so) Great Room has become my least favorite thing about our house. The kitchen counter…the one where I do 90% of the food prep and cooking…faces our 47” television.

Why in the name of heaven do 47” televisions even exist?

I know…football. Whatever.

But we are going to have to come to some sort of understanding if all four of us are to survive the next 21 days. If they want me to cook their dinner, they will need to find some other form of entertainment besides the giant light box/sound maker that envelops the space where I work to feed them. Once I can move to another room, they can have at it -- as long as their homework is finished and they’re not watching Rated R movies.

They grunt and ask, “Like what?” I suggested cleaning their rooms, the toilets, reading a book, taking the dog for a walk. They looked at me like I’m crazy.

“Just don’t look up from the kitchen counter…you might cut your finger anyway.”

That’s the advice I was offered from one of my teenagers…you know…the ones whose praises I sang for you the other day?

Miscreants. Both of them.

Not really…but it does seem like a small concession to ensure that you have a healthy meal and that your dear mother doesn’t get a crick in her neck from craning it downward to avoid the TV. We’re going to have to work something out.

It’s also really quiet in my house. Because I had been using TV as background noise for my day, I was really careful last week not to just replace it with other noise…like Pandora or Spotify or iTunes. So essentially, my first two days looked like this:

Wake up

Morning kids are pretty quiet (except on occasion when one might wake up chattier than normal) and I’m usually out for my run before they wake up. The longer our runs have been, the less likely I am to make it home before they leave. And daughter is at swim practice at 5:00am three days a week anyhow.  So I have quiet early in the morning.

Leonard leaves for work around 8:30 and he mostly snoozes on the couch before getting ready for work. More quiet.

Then – for 2 days last week – it was pretty much silent from 8:30 am until 3:00 pm when everyone got home. And then it was like a SOUND TSUNAMI for which I was absolutely unprepared. Both kids wanted snacks, conversation, permission slips signed, a run-down of my day, a dinner menu, and something found (whatever they’ve lost) and they wanted it immediately and, for some reason, they want it loudly. Or maybe everything seemed louder after 6 ½ hours of silence.

Then, almost as quickly as it overcame me, the Tsunami of sound receded about 20 minutes later when they left for swim practice. Then I had 3 more hours of silence.

These are the things I’ve noticed about silence:

First of all, it’s not really silent.

Electricity buzzes – or rather, things that use electricity buzz. The laptop has a low hum to it. Fedex planes are landing at the airport…about every 3 minutes one flies over. Occasionally a car goes by and I can hear that it needs someone to investigate its muffler. The water in one of our toilets is running. There is a siren several blocks away. A dog barks nearby. The refrigerator makes a squeaking noise every so often. My stomach gurgles. The cat’s collar jingles as she darts across the upstairs hall for no reason. My joints crack when I change positions in the chair. The click of my laptop’s touchpad…or the mouse…and the keyboard.

Second of all, every sound (phone ringing, text dinging, app notification) is a startling interruption. This has taught me to use the do-not-disturb feature on my phone. Nothing of importance occurs from 9:00am – 12:00pm that needs my immediate attention. If there is an emergency with my kids, the school will call my husband and if he calls me, the phone rings because I allow it to. Everyone else’s agenda is not my problem.

Finally, there is a necessary transition that I have to go through to be ready to receive my family when they come through the door. This involves turning on music about 30 minutes before they arrive. It seems small, but it makes the sound tsunami far less shocking to me when I do this. And if they’re lucky, I’ll be dancing when they walk in the door and that will result in everyone laughing. Laughter neutralizes the acid from any negativity that people might be bringing with them. This is a positivity zone up in here.

Positivity with sarcasm sprinkled in for fun.

So far, I’m enjoying both the operatic score and the crystal clear libretto of my day. It’s not a masterpiece, but at least I can hear it. And the words I hear are all mine rather than Dick Wolf’s or whomever narrates House Hunters. It’s hard to hear your own composition when you allow others’ to play in the background all the time.

Einstein -- The Original Purveyor of BS

I seem to have replaced my old bedtime routine (falling asleep watching Friends) with a new involuntary practice of rethinking every single thought, word, decision, and action that comprised my day.

Every. Single. One.

Kind of makes me long for six whiny, self-absorbed, 20-something New Yorkers in my ear instead.

As of yet, it hasn’t caused me to lose much sleep. The physical exhaustion which has resulted from all of my running overcomes my brains attempts at restless anxiety or insomnia. But in the silence, stillness (which is still absent from my day because I putter and fidget a lot), and complete darkness of my bedroom there is nothing to distract from the musings of my mind. They’re not necessarily profound thoughts, but they are plentiful, disorganized, and, on occasion, alarming. They swirl around in my head so that they almost make me feel physically dizzy and then right as I think I’m going to puke or have a panic attack, I manage to hone in on one specific memory from the day and then I drift off to sleep pondering it. This whole process takes mere minutes, though it feels longer and can be intense. And when I wake up the following morning, I can’t remember what ended up in focus.

Until this morning.

Full disclosure: I wanted to remember it this morning because coupled with whatever thought it was that calmed last evening’s brainstorm, was an urgent need to write about it. That was a very inconvenient time to have that particular need. There was no notebook and pencil by my bed…no recording device…and a realization that if I got out of bed to retrieve either item, I might be forced to endure another swirling thought vortex. Instead I chose to stay put and hope that I could remember the next day. And with some effort I did.

This was the thought…

I have no tangible, saleable skills…no training in a trade or specific profession…that are of value in the American job market.

Ok...so..sweet dreams.

I have talents. I have a bachelor’s degree. I have job experience that is 1 inch deep and 1 mile wide through which I developed my abilities to work independently and in groups, to speak in public, to write persuasively, and to listen fastidiously. I have also cultivated some clerical skills that have served me well in volunteer positions and make me appear extremely capable and organized. On a higher level, I have learned the value of listening to a variety of viewpoints and considering their merits before establishing my own position…of identifying who the key players are in a given situation and bringing them to the table when something needs to get done…of placing myself in the right place at the right time to achieve an organizational or personal goal.

Basically, I am a master of bullshit. And there is no category for it on my resume.

I should have gone to law school. Or learned how to build furniture. Both of these are occupations that I considered at one time or another. I also wanted to be a professional camp counselor – I have some mad small group leadership skills.

So now I’m 42 with a communications degree and resume that is about 16 years old. And I keep reading these articles about the value of a liberal arts education and how we shouldn’t forsake these age-old disciplines in our pursuit of STEM education.  But lately I’m just not feeling it and I suspect employers aren't either.

If only I knew how to code…or be an accountant…or design eco-friendly housing developments.  Now those are some valuable skills.

And then I go back to the word value. Just looking at the dictionary definitions (that’s plural) hints at the complexity of discerning what and who has value and how we assign it as a culture.

It is a noun and verb and for me it is LOADED with baggage.

1.       I can have values -- my ethical code or moral compass.

2.       I can deem something of value – a colleague’s support or a saleable item.

3.       I can estimate a thing’s value – appraise its monetary cost or worth as currency on its own.

4.       I can value – an action word – any number of things, ideas, or people. I value friendship, independence, family, good health…the list goes on and on.

I can also value myself – we call that self-esteem.

The tension among these definitions is great and I am thankful that they weren’t part of the equation as I focused in on my lack of valuable skills last night. I’m pretty sure I’d still be awake.

For myself, I am confident in my values – in my ethical code and in the integrity with which I live it. I also endeavor to be respectful of other’s moral stances even when they differ from my own. These are both things at which I am not perfect but aim to improve upon each day.

I make value judgements with respect to people and things every day. That person is a hard worker…that dishwasher is worthless…my view of this morning’s sunset was priceless.

I value good conversation with dear friends over wine and food. I value the opportunity to train for a marathon. I value the existence of music and art and scientific discovery and historical reflection and self-examination and I really value the existence of words to express it all. This expression is what generates ideas, resolves conflict, and brings order to chaos. I value all of this so much that I ache when the world – myself included – doesn’t always recognize the significance of these things. That they are often deemed worthless in terms of economic value.

How do we live in a world that is, by human design, determined to place a value on everything about us (our bodily usefulness, our intellect, our skills and talents, our possessions) and not transfer that label of worthiness (a price tag) to who we are as people?

How do we reserve the essence of our being – our humanity – but still find some satisfaction in a vocational calling or simply a job that pays the bills (hopefully)?

In short, how can my mastery at the art and science of BS earn me a steady paycheck?

Questions like this are the reason I write and the reason that this TV-less existence is both illuminating and terrifying. There is a metaphorical abyss in which all of my most profound contemplations as well as my most self-absorbed preoccupations reside. Through the center there runs a ridge at the top of which is a narrow footpath. I’m just trying to walk a straight line between the two as the contents of both sides creep upward, threaten to knock me off my feet, and wash me into one chasm or the other. I think the distraction of television can acted as an antacid of sorts…regulating the acidic bubbles that give buoyancy to all the thoughts that inhabit my brain.

I’m going to need to find something else to replace the inanity of House Hunters or the mindless sequence of a procedural drama. I’m really looking for something on the healthy end of the spectrum (think running and praying…not drugs and alcohol) to calm the waters. Otherwise I’m going to end up with insomnia.

Maybe I’ll just stick with the writing. Is there are a job market for writers who also happen to have a masters "degree" in BS? If there is, please send word. 

In the meantime, I will try follow Einstein's advice:

Until I figure out how to do both. 

"Winter Training" Apparel for Us Regulars

I need to discuss email hour this morning. That’s what I like to call the time (which isn’t actually an hour) after I’ve had as much Facebook as I can stand but before I start the forward progression of my day. This “email hour” is mostly spent deleting promotional/marketing emails from which I can’t seem to unsubscribe and then scanning what’s left for shopping “opportunities” that interest me, news alerts that I might care about, and my daily “Kick in the Butt” from Runners’ World.

Two of those three are what I feel the need to address right now.

First, there was an email from a women’s athletic apparel company that I won’t name – not because I don’t like their clothes, but because I’m about to do this:

And ask the question….WHO WEARS THIS TO RUN?!

I live in Memphis. Today in Memphis…November 4, 2015…at 4:15 am when I woke up it was SIXTY-EIGHT degrees outside with something like 230% humidity. For those of you who live in a place with seasons, 68 degrees is precisely the temperature when humidity starts making things like running (or walking or breathing) challenging. So on a day like this, it’s hard to imagine needing layers to run which begs the question…why did I choose this email to open?

I was hoping it would spark some optimism about what I have to look forward to if winter decides to visit the Midsouth this year. It didn't spark anything like that, but it did inspire the following snark:

• On the coldest day of the year in Memphis, I might need to wear that for the first 2 minutes of any run. After that 2 minutes, I would have to start shedding clothes. And, though I didn’t have any hard evidence at the time, I suspected these weren’t priced for shedding along the streets and sidewalks.
• Are those running boots she’s wearing? If you need boots to exercise…maybe you should explore other fitness alternatives like the Nordic Combined or the Biathlon.
• If it’s so cold that you need two insulted, long-sleeved tops over a tank top and boots to be outside training, why don’t you have anything on your head? And do you not own a brush? If I ran like that with my hair in my face, it would end up in my eyes…in my mouth…possibly torn out at the roots if I got frustrated enough. Is your ponytail holder on its leg? I don’t understand your hair, sister.
• The jacket…the padded polar fleece layer on top of your “insulating” layer…do you send it to the dry cleaners after every run? Or do athletic apparel models not sweat when they are “training”? On the 4 days a year that I actually need to wear multiple layers for running, every single layer is sweaty when I’m through. It’s about the wicking. Most of these fabrics are designed to wick sweat away from your body and then it has to go somewhere. In my case it works it way outward until it seeps from the top layer – not that that top layer would last very long for me. I would be forced to shed that jacket (that I probably wouldn’t just drop on the ground) which means I would tie it around my waist producing a sweaty knot at my midsection. Either way…I’m not wearing it again without a thorough cleaning.

And then I went to the website to see – just for giggles – what it would cost to purchase this one training outfit that I could not shed on the road as my core temperature rose and that I could not wear multiple times without laundering it. The grand total? Five hundred thirty-one dollars + tax and shipping. Let me write that differently for you… $531 – minus the socks, the tank top, and the bra (which she probably doesn’t need like I do, but appears to be wearing nevertheless). 

Five hundred thirty-one dollars for a “winter training” outfit according to them. Training for what?! To run down to the Lottery Office when I win the Powerball? I don’t have a single outfit in my closet for which I paid – collectively -- $531. Just to put things in perspective, here are some other things that cost about $531 dollars – an XBOX one…1-3 car payments depending on your taste in vehicles…4 pairs of really good running shoes…10 tanks of gas for a large SUV…on month’s rent + utilities for my first apartment...the payment I will make to St. Jude if y'all don't donate to my hero's page. Like...NOW.

It seems a bit excessive to me. 

So after I had systematically dissected this outfit in my mind and metaphorically ripped it to shreds, I saved a screenshot for you and deleted the email before moving on to the next email which was the following Kick in the Butt:

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

– Jim Rohn

I can totally embrace and attest to these truths, but I noticed that he did forget the third pain that we all must endure….

The pain in the pocket of purchasing “winter training” apparel and the accompanying dry cleaning bills.

I’m going to give you some tips:

• Old long sleeved shirts are a really good top layer that you can shed as needed and then retrieve if you like (yet not feel sad if they are lost forever.)
• I am pretty sure that running boots are not a real thing…certainly not a thing you should pound the pavement in…they might lead to the pain of regret and disappointment because your fallen arches won’t allow you to run anymore. A good pair of running shoes and some Smart Wool socks (or whatever thick sock you prefer) should be sufficient and if they’re not, you should consider relocating from Northern Greenland – or buy a treadmill which would cost about the same amount as that outfit.
• If you really love that outfit and want to have it in your closet, then you should totally buy it for yourself as a reward for all the hard training you did in regular running shoes and old long-sleeved t-shirts. And then you can wear it about town after your run. You’ll be looking sharp and athletic and you can save on the dry cleaning bills. And you can wear it better simply by brushing your hair and buying a sturdier ponytail holder.

But I might suggest that before you put it on, you sport this around for as long as time permits

Because this look -- the authentic post-run fashion wear that I am sporting as we speak – makes all my clothes and shoes feel better.

Don’t be jealous ladies and gentlemen…I know it looks good in the picture, but I cropped out the old-lady chicken skin that has appeared from out of nowhere around my knees because…PRIDE. 

Calling BS on Some Stuff I Don't Like

10 Things Only Boy Mom’s Understand

8 Things Girl Mom’s Need to Know

Hang in There: 12 Ways to Survive Your Child’s Teenage Years

These are just a few of the RIDICULOUSLY-titled articles I’ve made up in my head just now. I’ve done so to demonstrate my disdain for blog posts that narrowly-define motherhood and enforce gender stereotypes, but they are similar to actual articles I’ve read and I’m just going to go on record saying I don’t like them.

I am – at this moment in my life – a mother in all of the above categories and if I’m to believe the tenets of the articles, all of the following is true:

• Boys eat dirt. They like things with wheels and games with balls. They smell bad, empty your refrigerator daily, and bring critters into your house.
• Girls decorate your house in glitter, cry a lot, are moody from birth, steal your shoes, and make you buy lots of clothes.
• Parents of teenagers need meds or therapy or both to survive.

I am here to call bullshit on all of it. The first two are nothing more than a modern-spin on Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails or Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice. I’d like to think we’ve come farther than that. The third stereotype is usually a result of adults forgetting what it’s like to be a teenager. Now…maybe it says something about me that I have no trouble remembering what that was like – maybe it says I act or think too much like a teenager now.

This I know...I have a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy and this has been my experience:

• Both kids ate dirt and in fact BOTH had to be told at least once not to lick the car.
• They both smell – in different ways and at different times – but they both take regular showers without anyone begging them to… Except when my daughter doesn’t wash her hair before a swim meet because it’s bad luck and makes her swim cap fall off. But that may be unique to us...
• They both eat shocking quantities of food because they are both growing and incredibly active.
• My daughter, when she was 6-years-old, donned a pair of gardening gloves to put a snake into a bucket…my son once freaked out because a ladybug was on him.
• Glitter is something that is frowned upon in my house and my daughter does not care. Glitter is for spirit posters and it is to be used outside the house.
• Both kids cry for undiscernible reasons and display moodiness at random times. Because…hormones. Duh.
• We all share shoes but the only one who steals them is the dog.
• Clothes are not a huge priority…both have their own style and ask for things periodically. Thanks to school uniforms the wardrobe arguments in our house are limited to social events and church.

In short…my kids don’t fall into these stereotypes and my guess is that they are not alone. But I get that this is now and always has been part of our culture – boys wear blue and like tractors, girls wear pink and like tea parties. Whatever, I don’t want to fight a culture war.

But I do have something to say about teenagers and my personal experience in raising some so far:

These are the good old days.

It’s troubling to me that the existing paradigm seems to be that only through the Grace of God will any of us parents live to tell the tale of our children’s teenage years. If I went into this believing that, I would probably see more bad than good.

Instead, let me tell you what I love about having teenagers and what you might have to look forward to:

• Teenagers have opinions and that leads to conversation. Conversation is language development and language is words and I LOVE WORDS. I guess that some of these conversations begin with whining, but I don’t speak “whine” so I just ignore it and it stops. They argue too – but I’m okay with that because they do so respectfully which means they’ll be able to do so in life and they have learned when it is appropriate to argue and when it is not. They have learned through practice and that is why it doesn’t bother me.
• We can all share clothes and – more importantly shoes. I can wear my daughter’s Uggs when my feet get cold and I can wear my son’s Adidas slides when my feet hurt after a long run. Now, it’s not a two-way street with my son (because I guess he hasn’t found a need for tall black boots or pink flip-flops) but it is with my daughter. She asks before borrowing and unless I’m wearing them myself I say yes. She knows that if they end up in the dog’s mouth (or otherwise lost or ruined) she will lose the privilege temporarily or forever depending on how new/expensive/loved said shoes were.
• They understand my emotions and my needs – because they have so many themselves. When I need to be alone, they let me.  When I am writing – they apologize before each of their many unnecessary interruptions. They support my running and my personal goals just like I support theirs. They are beginning to see me as a person and not just a glorified Sherpa who gave them life and keeps them fed.
• They laugh with me and with each other and while it’s not the frequent giggly laughter associated with their toddler years, it is every bit as satisfying – maybe more satisfying due to its rarity – maybe because we share similar senses of humor. The four of us laughing together is my nirvana.
• Contrary to what targeted marketing may ask you to believe, they smile easily really. I read an article today about how parents of toddlers should appreciate them because when your kids are teenagers you’ll miss their smiles. I wanted to ask the author, what she was doing to make her kids frown all the time. It reminded me of this commercial from a few years ago...this family was on vacation – at an amusement park or something -- and the mother was narrating the elusive search for her sullen teenage daughter’s smile (it was similar to what the narrator of a wildlife show might sound like while looking for a rare woodpecker in the forest). Anyway, it was a lame attempt to suggest that only a trip to this theme park was going to bring a smile to a teenager’s face. The truth is that I am frequently able to do this for free and without standing in a queue.
• They understand time and space. This is huge. That means they don’t ask “Are we there yet?” 15 minutes into a 10-hour drive to the beach – they can feel that it hasn’t been 10 hours yet and they can read the clock. It means they don’t try to stuff their security blanket down the toilet because they can just look and know that it doesn’t fit.  These are things I do not miss.
• They can (and often prefer to) entertain themselves. I think this may be one of the most satisfying things about watching my kids grow up. They are learning to enjoy their own company. They don’t need me to be the ringmaster of a circus to save them from boredom. Instances of them flopping onto the couch with a deep dissatisfied sigh are becoming less and less common.
• They are slowly becoming adults who will (hopefully) not need to live in our basement (which we do not have) and who enjoy our company without needing us. I don’t need to be needed – certainly not forever.

My point is this: whether we have boys or girls…regardless of what stage in their development we celebrate most…articles -- like the ones I'm talking about -- which purport to highlight something profound about parenting are actually deceptively shallow. They create anxiety that we’ve missed the best time of their lives, that we are missing out on a particular gender, that our kids who don’t fit into gender stereotypes aren’t normal, or that we aren’t going to survive the next phase of their reality.

And who the hell needs all that? I think the best we can remember with each day…each moment…is that THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

In terms of enjoying each stage of your child’s maturity, that means if things are not the way you wish they were, looking for the silver lining is a good way to pass the time while you’re waiting for the current phase to pass. And if you love things the way they are...live into that gratitude. Enjoy each day because things will be different soon and there's no way to know how any of you are going to manage that phase.

And if those articles make you think you need a girl when you have a house full of boys…or a boy when you’ve got a house full of girls…well, you’ll have to navigate that decision on your own.

But if it was me, I sure wouldn’t make that decision base on a blog post inspired by a centuries-old nursery rhyme.

New Month...New Challenge

Well…my second 30-day challenge was a bust. Of the thirty-ONE days in October there were approximately four (4) that I did 30 minutes of yoga as I had intended. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of days that I dropped into child’s pose after a challenging run and spent 10 minutes there. Legs up the wall? That’s BIG after a long run. In fact, most of my post-long run stretches are derived from yoga. So it’s not that I didn’t do any yoga over the last month, but I certainly didn’t practice yoga each day as I had intended.

Who knows, maybe I’ll try it again later.

I chalked this minor failure up to my belief that it is easier to subtract things than it is to add things – particularly if what one is adding requires time. That has to be scheduled…and I don't particularly like adding things to my schedule. This month’s challenge is going to put my belief to the test because I am once again subtracting. But it’s a doozy – at least for me.

My November is going to be TV FREE. And Day One -- yesterday -- was almost a failure. Do you know how hard it is to give up TV…in the South…on a weekend? I came downstairs – disoriented already from the time change – and sat down in the family room. Where the TV was already on because my son was watching "the pregame". Pregame is always longer than the game itself so on Sunday it starts at like 7:00am. In fact I've found that all time in the universe which isn't "game time" is actually just pregame or postgame. And they bleed into one another so really... 

Pregame is forever.

I sat there for a moment with my iPad until I remembered that it was November 1 at which point I covered my eyes (like the screen was going to burn my retina), bolted out of the chair, and ran into the other room. My family – concerned for my sanity, no doubt – followed and asked what was wrong. And when I told them, they looked as if their worst fears had been confirmed -- that I had, indeed, lost what was left of my mind. We watch a lot of TV and I’m sure they were thinking…what are you going to do, move to a hotel for the entire month?

I immediately began to doubt myself and started mentally thumbing through any alternative challenges I could substitute for this one. 

I have always watched TV – too much TV – and I’ve always wondered how much more I could have accomplished in the last 42 years if it weren’t for the boob tube. I don’t think all TV is bad…I never watch an episode of Frontline or Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown or ESPN’s 30 for 30 without marveling at the great storytelling and the power of TV to bring it into our living rooms. I also never watch an episode of Big Brother or The Regular Show without thinking, "I can actually hear myself getting dumber." The biggest problem for me is that I too frequently use TV as an escape or simply as background noise – where there is nothing of value absorbed.

Yesterday, my husband seemed frustrated with my choice of challenges for the month. It wasn’t that he was worried about being put out – or kept from watching TV (Read: football or basketball) –  he just didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do when the two rooms in our house where I spend the most time, are also the ones with the TVs. Honestly, I didn’t have an answer. And then he asked me this:

What are you hoping to accomplish?

It was a great question. I should have a reason, right? When I gave up sugar, it was about my mind and body health. When I added yoga (or intended to add yoga) it was about carving out time for quiet mindfulness that I hoped would bleed into my daily activities. What was my purpose in changing/creating this new habit?

As I considered an answer…for the first time…I found myself reflecting on how television is bound up in my daily routine – and so much of our family time. Some days, when my son comes downstairs in the morning, the first thing he does is turn on NBA TV or ESPN to find out what cataclysmic sports story developed overnight…or maybe he’s just checking scores. But it’s on – as early as 6:00am. When everyone gets home at night, the TV goes on almost immediately (if I haven’t had it on all day) and we watch it as we make dinner. Sometimes my kids do their homework at the kitchen table which is essentially in one big room with the kitchen and the family room – while the TV is on. When we sit down to eat, the TV is still on. When the kids do homework in their rooms, my husband and I watch TV together. When I go up to bed for the night, my son is often in my room watching Full House (I despise this show, but it’s our daily time together and so I tolerate it.) And when Audrey and I have girls’ night at home while the boys go to a Grizzlies game or a Tigers game, we watch Criminal Minds or Law & Order: SVU or House Hunters. And finally, at night, as I’ve mentioned before, I fall asleep watching Friends.

It is there in all its HD glory All. Day. Long.

Now...there’s always interaction. We talk about the characters, the stories, the issues that they depict in fictional and realistic ways. Our family interactions range from expressions of irritation about people who use paint color and outdated ceiling fans as deal-breakers in their housing search to lengthy conversations about Iran (which was the case when Parts Unknown did a show from that country.)  It’s not like we’re zombies staring at a screen or like Shel Silverstein’s Jimmy Jet and his TV Set.  But TV is knitted into our existence and I want to pull at that thread. I want to see what next 30 days will look like if I am forced (and by extension the entire family is forced) to do things a little differently.

That is essentially the answer I gave him. The other thing that will happen is that in the next 30 days, I’ll be able to discern what, if anything, I actually miss TV-wise. 

On the first day, I noticed some interesting things:

First: Because it was Sunday, and there was football on, there was no way for me to find space in the house where I couldn’t hear a TV. Our house isn’t that big. A couple of times, I made use of an underutilized space in our home and a set of earbuds and I watched a couple of TED Talks (that is NOT TV). Both times...my kids came to find me and both times…we talked. Apparently we need more space for non-TV-inspired conversation and yesterday afforded us multiple opportunities. I decided that sometimes – particularly when I’m not home alone – I’m going to have to just be satisfied with not having a television in my immediate line of sight. Good things can still come from that. 

Second: I am a robot about sitting down on the red chair and grabbing the remote control. It is almost involuntary. This is both fascinating and troubling. This voluntary habit that I’ve spent 42 years creating is so ingrained in me that the motions are as natural as walking and sitting. I don’t even have to think about it anymore…it just happens. I’ve stopped myself with my thumb hovering over the power button 3 times just this morning. This will be an actual challenge.

Third: When I went upstairs last night to have my usual pre-bedtime chat with my son, instead of watching Full House we just visited about stuff – all kinds of not-so-important stuff. I won’t lie…it was a little weird because there would be lulls in the conversation and he’d say, “So what else should we talk about?”  like we were trying to fill up a certain amount of time. But we kept at it and eventually the conversation turned to school. He remembered that he has to start his independent reading assignment this week. It’s a mystery and he chose Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.

It’s my favorite. He has all of November to read it. And it just so happens that I have some free time this November. What utterly perfect timing.

We decided that we will read it to each other – even though he is 13 and perfectly capable of reading it to himself. This is how we will finish up our evenings together. And then when we are finished with the book, we can watch the movie together – on December 1.

I drifted off to sleep last night (without Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, and Ross) thinking this is going to be an extremely liberating experience once I figure out how to spend all the extra time that I used to binge-watch HGTV during the day.

• Will my house be cleaner? This activity will be a last resort so not likely.
• Will I read more books? If I do this as a replacement for TV, maybe I can replace the reading challenge I had planned for later with another try at 30 days of yoga.
• What will I actually miss? Not Full House.
• Will I use TED Talks as a crutch? I won’t lie…probably some…at least at first.
• Will the absence of TV sounds which normally drown out the words words words in my head result in me being able to write something every day – even on the weekends? That would be great.

So many possibilities – I’m trembling with excitement. Or maybe that’s withdrawal.

Stay tuned.