Bag Lady

Today, I read this article on Coach, who would like to remake themselves by offering a variety of products (specifically bags) ranging from low to high end. I've never really understood marketing strategy, and usually buy things that are sturdy, or have cartoon kitty cats on them. 

A chocolate bar with a cat on it!

Neatness was always more important than personal ‘flair,’ and probably to the dismay of many, find handbag shopping to be especially grating (on par with finding the right brand of toothpaste). Handbags, if you didn't know, are actually the vehicles for getting water and candy into movie theaters. They offer an acceptable location for credit cards, keys, and chapstick when your pockets are considered nonfunctional decorative. 

I’m a self-sufficient woman with needs. I get hungry, tired, food in my teeth, and bored while traversing the grocery store-club-work-airports. It’s not enough to skip through places like I did as a kid, especially when money exchange is necessary. A bag to carry everything reminds me of either being a grownup or being mortal, regardless of price. Why does a bag matter? I own half a dozen bags (or pocketbooks if you're from southern Virginia), and 100 plastic bags from various grocery stores, which also serve useful purposes. 

"Mine," said Zoe.

Let's talk about brand name. Sometimes a brand represents quality or another esoteric quality, like ethics. Evidently, the Gap was one of two apparel companies who received the Most Ethical Companies award in 2013. I’m all for pro choice consumerism, but if there was a Venn diagram of ethics, quality, and function, there’d be only a few options left. Let’s be honest, a bag is a bag. In spite of the economy's best efforts to drag us all down, there are some great options to store all your portable shit under $50 which don’t need to be divided by work/play/corresponding outfit categories.

I’m not in the appropriate social circle to declare that a specific brand matters beyond those criteria, and I’m not opposed to choosing a bag (or brand) based on what a person likes. I hope Coach turns luxe the way Amazon is gold standard for online shopping: good quality, what people want, and bigger picture considerations. My hopes are rarely good for a bottom line, and I suspect Coach with advertise its company as a high-end business, where its goods are only affordable to the rich. I don’t blame them. Sales don’t lie on who wants to buy a specific bag type.

As a side note, Mary Poppins’ bag was probably the coolest thing to happen to bags. I don’t need a hat stand or a potted plant, but who hasn't wished for an extra pair of shoes or a tape measure? I've carried both in my bag for work, and used them.

I was reading James Altucher’s book, Choose Yourself,  and he wrote that someone asked if he could teach a class. He immediately went into his ‘list mode,’ and tried to think of ten classes that he could teach. And he struggled. I was wondering if I could actually teach ten different topics. I’m not even sure if I know ten topics in depth enough to pass on any useful knowledge. I came up with six things that could potentially have a syllabus, or I could talk about it for an hour:

Research writing. I probably haven’t written as many papers as some people, but I still consider myself qualified enough to help someone make a good paper. What is good? Something that could get an idea across in a concise, clear way… aka somewhere in the A-B grade range.

Designing a garden. I recently designed plant arrangements for our double 3’ x 15’ front beds. It was a bit challenging because of the deer, and the shade, and figuring out what blooms most of the year.  It was a fun challenge, and I think if a class isn't in order, then I could make an app design on how to consider these factors.

Front yard beds at the Stewart Estate

Creating a piece of art for your living room. This class would mostly be about what things to consider if you are going to present your own art to people. It’s like a painting class, but also includes the context of a house, specifically, an area where there’s a lot of traffic.

Something I painted circa 2005

How to present yourself when you are afraid of public speaking. Maybe I’ll rename this to Public Speaking 101. I’m a whiz at providing helpful feedback (mostly because I am full of opinions), and also because I really want people to get better at something. When I was a technical trainer, I never thought to take any Toastmasters’ courses. I just practiced a whole lot (in the car, in the shower, etc.) so I could train myself out of the ‘um’s’ and fast talking.

Building your own computer. I built several, and my class would be a bit more useful than a Youtube video because I can explain it in terms a non-computery person would understand. There is a serious divide between people who like gadgets and electronic tools of all kinds, and those who don’t. I think a potential bridge involves analogies and humor.

My very first built desktop! I chose pink lights for the outside and blue LEDs for the inside.

Perfecting the chocolate chip cookie. This is my last idea, and I realized I started grasping at straws at this point because I already gave a presentation on this. In the summer of 2003, I baked no less than 1000 chocolate chip cookies because 1. They were cheap, and 2. They helped me get friends. It was fun to bake! Most importantly, I learned how to troubleshoot baking problems, such as flat cookies, and ‘cookie smoosh’ as well as what you can do with reject cookies (besides eat them straight). Here is my favorite recipe.

And this was my list. The next step might be to come up with topics that I would want to teach. What could I learn about and give back to someone else?

Incredible Luxuries: Poetry and Procrastination

I have a serious love-hate relationship with poetry. Like art, poetry can be unpleasing to multiple senses and emotions. Whenever I read someone else's poetry, I try to go in openminded, but the memories of particularly bad poetry conceive a reaction not unlike being in a crowded Walmart. 

People who encompass the intersection of good writing and expression are pre-approved (by me) to publish poetry. Wielding the written word awkwardly can leave the reader disjointed at best and contending with a visceral reaction at worst. It's apparent with pop songs and current marketing (i.e. modern poetry written for money) there is blatant avoidance of one or more of these attributes.* Since shit gets purchased all the time, my argument really has no gravity. No matter.

So that I'm not a complete jerkface, I offer some haikus I wrote in 2002 to justify the last ten minutes you spent reading this post. 

Procrastination.

Another late night for me.

The screen is my Light.

Theory is so good.

Predictions can come true with

probabilities.

You know what to do.

The problem is you're bored.

Stop wasting time!

*Taylor Swift's brand probably has this process down to a precise formula.

Self Help Flaws - Funeral Eulogies

Recently, I read an article on ThinkSimpleNow.com where the author found her life purpose by imagining her funeral eulogy. She was quite emotional, and realized that she was not going in the direction of where the eulogy she wanted was going.

I've always hated the question, "If you were at your funeral, what would you want people to say about you?"
Thoughts about your own mortality aside, this question is completely abstract and misleading. The real question under this question is, "What do you want to see yourself as?" "Who do you want to be?" There's no way to control what people really think of you, and it would be impolite to go into negative territory. I know this firsthand from going to my father's funeral. I didn't really know him too well, but I got the impression that he wasn't too influential on the community and that he didn't have anyone to vouch for him. So his funeral wasn't just bland, but the priest decided to take some religious leeway and turn my father's death into a lesson about fearing the Lord. Awkward.

I've been to other funerals that weren't so negative, but I don't remember a whole lot about them.

There are other issues I have with this question, which don't pertain to funerals in particular. In my life, I've transitioned friends, careers, and locations multiple times. Even with Facebook, I think my "close friend" network is about five people, and I'm not sure how long that will last. At the time of my funeral, I expect any eulogy to represent a snapshot of my life at that particular point, regardless of who I am today.

Happiness Research - Identifying Joy

Every so often, my path crosses with Oprah, specifically, her magazine, O. Last night my internet research on happiness came up with this article on her site. I read it because I am intensely curious about the questions relevant to navigating towards happiness. Is it a life purpose type of question? More dinners at the table with family?

There were two questions -
What brings you joy?
Does your life reflect what brings you happiness?

Let's get back to the basics. I haven't really considered there being a difference in Joy and Happiness, but a connotative nuance might be that happiness is a fleeting emotion. As in, you may or may not have control over it, but happiness could be induced with fun or rewarding activities. Joy, on the other hand, seems to be related to contentedness, which is sort of an emotional-spiritual-mental variable running in the background of life. In that sense, joy has more permanence than happiness, although both are worth increasing.

What I liked about this article was that it focused on things that you could be doing more or less of, which is somewhat controllable. I enjoy baking, so I could feasibly spend more time doing this than a time-wasting activity, like web-surfing.

Up until now, a lot of my happiness research has focused on way harder tasks, like practicing gratitude, increasing your self-esteem (can you just will this to happen?), and forgiving yourself (which seems worthy if I could figure out what this means). Don't get me wrong, I'm inspired to do all of those things, but I don't really understand how I would know my self-esteem is increased.


What brings me joy?

Feeling smart
Not fixating on anything, including joy
Making someone's day
Dancing
Laughing with Jason about things that don't matter
My nice, comfortable house
A creative outlet

That's it, although I have a weakness for 'free kitten' signs. I want to adopt all of those kittens so they'll have a safe and warm home. I don't feel the same way about puppies or ducklings for some reason, even though they are equally cute.

Things that don't bring me joy (that traditionally bring others a sense of joy or happiness):
Cooking for my family, or keeping up a nice house (outsourcing is amazing!)
Feeling connected through social websites
My degrees
My skillset, although I'm trying to change this so that I can feel smart.
My inner voice. It's actually a mime doing hand puppets and Pictionary.
Organized religion

The article says that you should spend 80% of your time doing things that bring you joy. The biggest switch in the last year has been to unfocus on accomplishment. I have a bad habit of putting up a posture that I need to get everything done in the world, or stick to a formula that most people use (school-job-family-kids-retirement). My emotional kryptonite is thinking that I should spend more time doing things that fall outside of this JoyList.

What I Learned from Going Pseudo-Vegetarian for a Month

At least once a year, I decide to revamp my life to be 'healthier.' I'm usually inspired by my own health, or seemingly, lack of control over it. If I take care of my body by feeding it the right foods, sleeping enough, and working out a few times a week, then I should be relatively free of pains and ills. But sometimes, this isn't enough, or I get wrapped around the axel about the "right" foods. Even unprocessed tomatoes have a cycle of being good or bad depending on the growing source, preparation, storage, etc.

So this past July, we purchased half a cow, which was raised on a farm somewhere in the county on grass and grain. For three months, I ate beef every other day. Who could deny that steaks and hamburger from a local cow taste 10 times better than what's at Walmart?

As it turns out, there is a health cost to eating that much meat. See, I wasn't just eating red meat 4-5 times a week, but all other sources of protein (and some veggies) in my diet were replaced with delicious sirloin or short ribs drizzled in a smoky BBQ sauce. My muscles after a workout had the most amazing rippling effect, which doesn't sound that attractive, but the novelty was cool. The problem was how I felt after eating red meat. Gradually my complete satisfaction with a porterhouse turned into being so zonked after a meal, I wanted a nap (or a good cry - low energy is my kryptonite).

I also noticed that my pee had a weird soap-foam look to it, which can mean too much protein being excreted.* I thought of all the health sites I read where too much protein can wreak havoc on your kidneys. I tend to panic in these situations, and I realized I wanted to do an immediate diet makeover.

So I'm giving myself until Thanksgiving to be a psuedo-vegetarian, getting protein from eggs, fish, and maybe chicken once a week.

A psychological bit about 'vegetarianism.' When I was growing up, all the vegetarians I knew were fat, probably because they ate french fries and cake every day (lots of it). Not pointing any fingers, mind you… When you're a kid, the only food you really can eat is whatever your parents buy. I'm sure they ate healthier foods at the dinner table. I certainly have found that eating unprocessed foods gives me a mental edge (and it helps the abs), so my plan was to substitute animal protein sources with vegetables, soups, nuts, yogurt (ugh), and non-tropical fruits like apples and avocados.

Vegan is extreme. It deviates too much from what I grew up with (and what my ancestors typically ate, which involved a lot of gravy and potatoes). Red meat was a staple in our house, so I don't know if I could ever go whole-hog into vegetarianism for more than a month. Also, soy just doesn't taste good, although I've eaten it off and on for at least a decade. I know people who go vegan for a bit, but it's a temporary switch. Eventually, their bodies need some vitamin or mineral that only can be obtained from eggs or something. Also, vegan, like any other strict diet, can be isolating. I'm still not aware of too many restaurants that cater to vegans.

In the last few weeks, I've learned quite a bit that is worth mentioning:

• My ripply muscles have become even more vascular (move over Madonna), and I enjoy the way I look just the same as when I was on my SuperProtein diet. I know vanity shouldn't be the first thing on the list, but I work hard to fight office-ass.
• My energy level was immensely higher, which I attribute to the extra vitamins and fewer calories. More food = sluggish in most cases. 
• Despite avoiding beans because I hate them, my insides have been rather musical.
• Supplementation becomes super important if you cut out meat. I freaked out about the bubble bath I saw in the toilet, so I went cold turkey on my vitamins. Three weeks in, I started waking up in the middle of the night because I had jerked myself awake. My hand would cramp for a second, I'd wake up for twenty minutes, only to wake up again to my leg twitchme out of my doze. After four or five episodes of this, I Googled "insomnia caused by twitching" and came up with magnesium deficiency being a possible cause.** After resuming a daily dose, the twitching subsided.
• I hate yogurt too. It's basically a novelty food with sucky commercials.
• Finally, I don't crave sweets as badly as I did a few months ago. This could be a placebo effect, or the fact that I changed jobs, not necessarily something I can attribute to less red meat. But it's an interesting observation, nonetheless.

Maybe this psuedo-vegetarian theme can continue for the next six months. I can't tell if my experience is temporary relief or if there are more diet changes I can make to feel amazing.
We'll see after the holiday season!

*I was diagnosed with acute interstitial cystitis about this time, which has no known cause.
**I'm not a doctor, and I don't necessarily recommend looking health issues up on Google. However, my mind is hungry, and if I don't figure out some potential leads for fixing an issue, I'll incessantly worry myself into a state. The power of observation has served me way better than any Google site, and sometimes, even doctor's advice.

How to Make this Work For You!

Recently, I was inspired to restart the blog. Since November is "Write a Novel Month," I wanted to do that (maybe I could make a gazillion dollars on Amazon!), but this wasn't meant to be this November. After 15,000 words, I lost steam. Honestly, I don't have the skills right now to write fiction for 40,000-50,000 words. I'm still learning the character development formula, and how to fit the story into a 3-month timeframe. Currently, my sweet spot for a 'write session' is more or less 750 words, which is more appropriate for a blog post. 

Do you care? Probably not about my novel. However, I am taking suggestions for things to write about on this blog. I've come up with some posts that I'd be interested to write about, such as:

1. Navigating Your Life
2. Top Performers
3. Happiness Research (and my addiction to being depressed)
4. Skin Research
5. Troubleshooting Insomnia
6. Falling from the Fail Tree
7. Expiration Date of Friends
8. Cutting out the Fat (i.e. useless things)
9. What I Learned from Not Completing a Novel
10. Things I'd Like To Do
11. The Void (of choosing to not have kids)
12. Learning How to Trust Yourself
13. Surprising Truths
14. How Paying Attention Can Be Your Most Important Asset
15. Ridiculous Desserts

I plan to go through them (and more), but I'm open to suggestions.