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Nice Excuse

My foray as a backup hand model got me to thinking…ok, that sounds much more glamorous than it really is…But anyway, knowing that I could be called upon to put my digits on display, I keep a nail file, cuticle pusher and bottle of lotion within reach at my desk. Usually this is one of the first areas of my body to get neglected when time is at a premium. But this little modeling gig gives me a great excuse to keep those extremeties in presentable shape.

This got me to thinking of good excuses to get anything done. Lose 12 lbs, pen a fashion article, increase the amount in your emergency stash or teach your baby the ABC’s. A great way to get any of this done is to think ahead to an event or deadline that you want to make. Plan a vacation and think about what you want to wear on that vacation. Then, keep that mental wardrobe in mind every time your butt plants itself on the couch. Reunions, vacations, momentous birthdays, and style trends you’re dying to try make wonderful excuses to get off the couch. Writing contests or publishing calendars make wonderful motivators to sit down and finally polish off that manuscript. Milestone calendars provide a great push to help get your child to learn his alphabet. A hosted party is enough to get anyone’s home in tip-top shape (or at least the debris out of sight).

These clean fingernails sure are inspiring!

Bravo Nike

Nike, of course, has it right. “Just do it.” Whoever came up with the slogan in that marketing office deserves some sort of all-star award for this all-encompassing idea. Every single effort we make in our lives boils down to this elemental statement.

Whenever I’m in the midst of a crisis, personal lapse, writer’s block, weight creep or any other stall on a personal end, I commit myself to researching the problem and developing a solution. I’m just very proactive like that. The trouble is, sometimes I know the answer, I just don’t act on it. I know exactly what will make my stress more manageable; I know exactly what to listen to when I need a creative jump-start; I know that tracking food always takes the weight off. Sometimes the ideas seem too simplistic to really work. Of course sitting out in nature dissipates stress, but sometimes I’m just too bummed to get out from under the covers when I’ve convinced myself nothing will work anyway. Now, I’m a pretty resourceful and self-motivated person in some areas, but sometimes it all boils down to just doing it.

I’ve always had an immense desire for change, a raging internal drive to take myself to the next level in my profession, hobbies and relationships. I take grueling effort to research, list, calculate and produce solutions for everyday problems. Perhaps a publishing prize would be within reach if I actually sat down to write. Perhaps my PR for running would get better if I stuck to a training plan and ate only Running World-worthy food.

It’s all a matter of just doing it.

You’ve Got Male

Will someone please explain to me the expectations of a man? Wow, loaded question. I have little understanding of that psyche that at once believes a woman should be the traditional nurturer and caretaker at the same time as she should also be the modern working woman. I enjoy my work and could never be a full-time, stay-at-home mom. That’s just me. However, after days filled with meetings, deadlines, sales tactics and problem-solving, I revel in the chance to head out the door to the arms of my babbling bundle. I do not, however, enjoy the thought of plundering through an overflowing sink, curing grime-tinted floors, and reviving carpet from cat puke. But somehow, those roles have been delegated to me.

I understand the deep-seated desire for the traditional home cooked meal and clean house. I too enjoy the aroma of simmering stew and all those other smells that enveloped the childhood home. I just don’t want to be the one who has to don the apron and create them. The magic disappears. The crumbs left over turn me into a grump and the dishes…oh, the dishes.

I have this theory that boys just don’t see things like crumbs on the carpet and dog spit on the walls, which gets them out of cleaning them up. They’ve been programmed to “miss” the growing piles of envelopes, dust bunnies and weeds. Am I the only one in this house who ever picks up around here? Picks up what, dear? Alas, I give up.

It seems that the expectations we have of women are soaring while the expectations we have of men remain largely the same. While I believe wholeheartedly in equality, it is now increasingly difficult for a woman to catch a break while men are resting their feet on our polished living room tables.

Don’t even get me started on the classic argument about how I work in an office and he works in a factory so therefore I should do more grunt work at home. Is my time put in worth nothing? Is kicking ass to put myself through college all on my own (and coming out with $0 debt, thank you very much) not enough to warrant me a little bit of respect and rest? Honey, you could’ve done what I did too and you wouldn’t be working in the factory today, now would you?

After all the child-rearing, grocery shopping, interior decorating, itinerary making, snot chasing, budget writing, order taking, nursery-rhyme singing and full-time working, the modern woman sometimes wants to feel taken care of, after so long bearing the responsibility of “caring-for.”

Breast Cancer Care Package

In an unfortunate turn of events, two of my dear friends are undergoing treatments for breast cancer at the exact same time. From an outsider’s point of view, it is difficult to know what to say, offer, or do in times like this. Some friends drop off the planet because they don’t know how to approach a sick person. I strive to not be one of those “friends”. I want to offer as much support as I can from my position. I’ve done some research and soul-searching and come up with a few ideas for care packages that I thought would come in handy for someone going through a double mastectomy or even any medical treatment:

1. Lipstick, perhaps along with a copy of “Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy.” I remember reading a clip from this book in a magazine, celebrating femininity and encouraging a sense of hope in anyone fighting this disease. Once a woman begins wearing lipstick again, she’s on the road to recovery.

2. Nail polish, neck scarf or bold jewelry. Same principles as above apply. A woman is a woman no matter if her breasts are attached or not. She can still celebrate her inner and outer beauty in other ways. Let your loved one know that her beauty and value as a woman is most definitely not attached to her chest.

3. Form pillow. Women going through painful treatments can use as much creature comforts and padding as you can give them.

4. Cashmere socks (or socks infused with aloe like I found). Keeps her extremities warm and pampered at the same time.

5. Handheld games, magazines, and other reading material. This sort of thing helps pass the time and entertain her when she’s in another waiting room or receiving treatments.

6. I found a book called something to the effect of “200 Foods That Will Save Your Life.” You have to be careful with this one. You don’t want to insult your dear friend or violate any diets her health care provider has recommended. But if she’s talking about overhauling her diet and lifestyle, something to help her along in the process is always appreciated. This book explained each superfood’s health benefits and provided a recipe for each.

7. Journal. Whether she wants to vent, hope, or write letters to her children, a journal provides a woman with a wonderful creative outlet.

8. Daily devotion book. You have to be careful with this one too because of varying religious beliefs, but if you know your friend’s beliefs, this sort of spiritual reassurance can help heal her soul and instill her with a sense of peace.

9. Comedic relief. A comic book, funny movie, or handcrafted book of goofy pictures helps revive joy in an otherwise morose circumstance. Laughter truly is medicine. I’ve even read studies about laughter and how it reduces pain and helps the healing process.

10. Hot/cold pack. I found a nice pack that can be both heated up and frozen for whatever sort of relief she needs.

11. If she’s up for it and you can manage it, one of the best things you can do is just to be there for her. Provide moral support during treatments, lighten her load, provide her and her family with dinner, or stop by and hold her hand for awhile. It’s always reassuring to know you have people who love you and want to take care of you.

12. A cancer buddy/weapon/curer. Find a trinket that reminds you of your friend. Maybe a healing stone, a plush stuffed lion or a fake sword that she can bring with her to the hospital. There should be some significance attached to the object of course, such as a “cancer weapon” sword, so that your friend is not only reminded of the love of her friends each time she sees it but also gives her courage in her fight.

13. False eyelashes and nails. Chemo treatments can leave a woman without eyelashes and healthy fingernails, and a woman always loves to feel gussied up and pampered.

14. Do a 5k in her name. Find a race in your area that benefits cancer research and scout out donations. Progressing the search for a cure has to be one of the most productive ways you can help your friend (and the rest of humanity that faces cancer risk).

Vintage Stealers

Does anyone else feel a little bit ripped off when people sell “handpicked vintage” items? I guess in a way, it makes a little bit of sense. The “pickers” find labels and styles that are highly saleable and buyers don’t have to do the dirty picking work. However, for people like me, with little cash to spare and a love of all things thrift, it seems like stealing to buy a $1.00 dress at the thrift store and turn around and sell it for $30.00 in a boutique. My potential to buy and recycle an old piece of clothing is now gone and I’m looking at price tags that rival brand new clothes with vintage-inspired designs.

I see this quite often now on ebay, Etsy, and those little vintage boutiques that are popping up everywhere. A vintage designer label or valuable antique is a whole different story–they deserve a little more respect and reverence. But cute handmade skirts, children’s storybooks and quirky glass cups, please don’t take them out of the reach of the rest of the recession-strapped population. We would love them!

How to be Popular

Remember those agonizing days growing up when you wanted so bad to be part of the “in-crowd” you practically researched how to be cool? It even physically hurts to write that. With my nerd flag flying high, I checked out books at the library with titles like “The Popularity Plan” and “How to be a Star.” The first was actually a novel, the second was a book about acting with pictures of Fred Savage on the front. Oh boy! Of course none of those ideas worked, and probably made me even more of the brunt of jokes than anything.

There was one summer when my biggest dreams came true and the popular girl invited my best friend and I to her house for a sleepover. Just us. Just the two girls that were endlessly mocked and outcast and left out. But, to our defense, we were also the two smart girls. Witty, observant, and persevering. Finally, it seemed as though our perseverance to be cool had paid off. We spent the entire summer with this girl. We would stay at each others’ houses for weeks at a time, go shopping together and explore local attractions. We practically studied this girl’s movements, clothing choices, and body language. We finally thought we would be actresses in our own movie where the unpopular get magically transformed into the most admired. Finally, all of our tireless work to become cool had paid off.

Once we went back to school in the fall though, the pressure of being friends with us was put to the test and ultimately the friendship went sour. Little things that we did at each others’ houses became ammunition for mockery. I once used the girl’s dandruff shampoo because that was all that was in her shower. So, the other kids tortured me for non-existent dandruff. I was shell-shocked. We thought we were bonding. We thought we were going to be cool kids. We thought we had finally elbowed our way to the top only to come crashing down further than we ever had before. Now our private secrets, something that were sacred and secret before, were now in the most vulnerable of positions.

I still have dreams every now and then about being the most hated girl in school. Sometimes it’s powerful enough to even put a damper on my adult self-esteem. And sometimes incidents at work or in my social life bring those feelings back up to the surface. It sort of brings fear for my son to the surface too, although I’m pretty sure Catholic school girls are much more cutthroat than public school boys.

Next year there will be a 10-year high school reunion. I’m not sure whether I will go or not, but I do know that I am very proud of how far I’ve come since those agonizing school daze…I mean days.

Come Fade Away With Me

Ever have one of those brilliant ideas that fade into vapor, never to be reached again? Oh, I just had one of those last night. I know, I know, I should always keep a pen and paper by my bedside. I think I had a dream where a story idea came to me, and I consciously remember thinking that I needed to remember the idea. I’m pretty sure I fell back asleep or never really fully roused myself to begin with, sending the idea back out into oblivion. Perhaps I can train myself in the art of lucid dreaming and attempt to retrieve this idea. Alas, I think it is gone.

This is one of three very memorable occasions upon which I have lost seemingly-significant ideas. One was driving in the car on my way home from work at midnight. I think I saw a shooting star and “just like that” the celestial sighting overshadowed the idea and when I went back into my mind to retrieve it, it was long gone.

The second instance was also in bed. I woke with a full set of lyrics and tune in my head. I had never really considered songwriting, but this song seemed, at least to my REM-induced head, complete. I remember getting up and writing one of the most important lines of the song on a piece of paper. To this day, I have no idea which piece of paper I used or where it ever ended up. Of course, by the time I woke the next morning the tune was also washed away. Even if I would’ve remembered it, I have absolutely no talent for translating tunes in my head into real music.

I need to think of some sort of strategy to harness those ideas so I won’t lose out on that Pulitzer. (Funny, those ideas probably weren’t that great to begin with, they just seemed crucial to remember after they were gone.) Either that, or I need to invent idea insurance.

Mining Happiness

Some of the best things in life right now:

1. Pink lemonade in spring
2. The warm crook of a baby’s neck
3. Those first days you can open your windows
4. An unexpected greeting card
5. Special occasions to dress up for
6. Songs that answer what you’ve been thinking
7. Purrs
8. A cute clutch
9. Anything with frosting
10. A fleeting whiff of hyacinth
11. Candid images
12. The first glimpse of spring flowers
13. Sitting with your knees to your chest with a friend
14. Clean sheets
15. Kitten heels
16. Church bells
17. An unsolicited hug
18. Early morning sunlight
19. Clean floors and bare feet
20. The sound of an acoustic guitar
21. A perfectly set table
22. Girl talk
23. Fresh chives from outside the back door
24. Watching the person in front of you breathe
25. A crisp, colorful magazine in the mailbox
27. Fresh-swabbed ears
28. A casual, swinging skirt
29. Travel plans
30. Fingernails all at the same length

A Broken Muse

My muse is broken. My muse comes in human form. My muse has left me due to distance, circumstance and irreconcilable differences, or something like that. No, my husband is not my muse, although that would be rather convenient, wouldn’t it?

This human had a way of bringing out the charisma, the passion, the impulsive spirit of my creative talents. She somehow vitalized me in a way that hasn’t been replicated before or since. It was nothing she really did or said, it was just her aura and her arousing spirit that somehow affected me to the soul, took my muse by hand, and opened her up to the sunlight.

I read a quote that had me thinking about that elusive muse. I get the Daily Om newsletter which had a quote today that struck me: “If you surround yourself with people who support you, keep a pen and paper handy, immerse yourself in culture, and brainstorm frequently, you will soon reconnect with your muse.” I love this idea! Immerse yourself in culture? It’s so true. Whenever I am surrounded by art and ideas, I myself start to bud new little ideas. Some of my best work was woven between the demands of full-time work, full-time college and other extra-curricular activities. All that responsibility is actually fuel. Stories seeped through the textbook chapters and the backs of all my notebooks were scribbled with snippets for songs, short stories and poems.

Surrounding yourself with people who support you is 100% essential as well. On the other hand, people who don’t support you will stifle the poo out of you. That’s one of the worst characteristics of a friend or family member, when they don’t support you, because there’s no excuse for stealing someone’s spirit.

So, as I go in search of a new muse, I will give these tactics a try. Perhaps I can take the proactive approach and create the muse with my own two hands, figuratively speaking. (I guess that means I should leave the cliches in the wind!)

As a side, I’m writing about chocolate before lunch–someone help me!

Class and Poise

I have been thinking more and more lately about what demonstrating a little bit of class does for your image. I’ve quoted Vonnegut before, but one of the lines from Slaughterhouse-Five that struck me the most was, when you stop taking care of yourself you die.

While I think it’s important not to judge a book by its cover, I also think that the way you appear has a lot to do with people’s perception of you anyway. When I was a teenager, I thought I’d get more attention by walking around with a grimace on my face while wearing unexpected clothing. Cuz that’s what teenagers do. I thought that if people were going to judge me by my outer appearance, then I didn’t need to be their friend.

Well, that didn’t work so much to my favor of course. It’s taken years of observing and growing up to understand that radiant smiles, classy understated clothes, polite “thank yous,” and clean fingernails work miracles for your image and identity. People that practice that are the ones who get the attention. All it takes is a little posture control, a little purpose in your step and an up-kept brow line to turn you from dowdy to wowwy, from a whisper to an exclamation. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the picture.

When you take notice of this principle of class and poise, you start to see it in progress everywhere you look. You read about it, picture it and see it taking place in person. There are some examples that stick plainly in my mind. I remember visiting a church where the preacher talked about being advised to leave his hands out of his pockets because holding your hands in your pockets gives off an air of apathy and sloppiness. I remember my grandma telling me about my uncle’s firm where they interview people over lunch and determine employability by the person’s table manners. I remember reading a small biography of Jackie O where I came across a passage about how her family made up their own family tree despite working class roots and simply believed themselves into their stature.

It takes mere seconds for people to judge you just by your body language. And for some good reason. If you care enough about yourself to wear crisp clothes and keep your hands moisturized, you’re probably a great job candidate who takes their job seriously. If you’re dishevelled, this might reflect upon your desirability as a roommate. I think you start to lose a little bit of yourself when you stop taking care of your body.

Now, I’m not talking about being some high maintenance superficial diva, I’m just talking about a little bit of poise and daily grooming. If you want to be successful, you have to look and feel the part. Or at least fake it till you make it. You might feel like an impostor inside, but if you pull your shoulders back, you’ll instantly feel a bit of heightened confidence and stature.