Giving up: Second Sunday of Lent

Day 5: Take 5 minutes of silence at noon. The challenge of this one was in distinguishing it from the rest of my day.

I live alone, work largely in solitude, have an office door I can and sometimes do close. I am often silent, and the people and things around me are not so noisy.

But at noon, I made sure my office door was closed, and I turned my back on both door and computer, and closed my eyes. I blocked out not only the literal noise, but some of the figurative noise: the fluorescent lights and the temptation to type or read, even the snowy view out my office window.

I thought about lots of things — about who, if anyone, was likely to come to my door anyway, about how my thumbs felt rubbing against each other, about romantic prospects and what the longest commute I've had feels like — and on and on.

A meditation teacher I had once told me not to worry about actually quieting your mind, but to observe what thoughts intrude on your observation of the moment. All the thoughts intruded this time, aside, I suppose, from the thumb thing.

Day 6: Look out the window until you find something of beauty you had not noticed before. Without my glasses on, the green sign for the drive-through window at the bank across the street from my chiropractor's office is almost magical.

Day 7: Give 5 items of clothing to Goodwill. OMG I tried.

So, here's the thing. There's no Goodwill anywhere near me. There is a Salvation Army, which is anti-gay, so I don't support them. There are some of those yellow Planet Aid boxes, but Planet Aid is shady and also arguably a cult. There are some worthy-cause thrift stores, but they are open inconvenient hours (while I'm at work).

And there is a Goodwill about an hour from where I live. So a friend and I drove down there with a big bag of clothes to donate. We checked the hours first, of course, and the Goodwill site claimed Goodwill was open until 9. It was not. It was in fact open until 6, as we discovered when we arrived at 8:30.

So we got a drink instead, which felt a little less Lent-y. I'll get the clothes to the St. James thrift shop at lunchtime one day this week.

Day 8: No bitching day. I'm writing this paragraph before this day happens, and before I write this part of the post, as a disclaimer: I have a real problem with the word "bitching" used this way. I do not think it is accidental that the word used to minimize people's complaints is a gendered one. We can have a big discussion of this in the comments if you want, but, lest I be dismissed as "bitching" on "No bitching day," I thought I should put it out there. That said, I will attempt to refrain from unnecessary complaining, and to evaluate what is unnecessary complaining. I assume that's the real spirit of this one. Yes, I see the irony of leading off with a complaint. Why do you think I wrote this paragraph in advance?

Also, in college, one of my favorite songs was Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good," largely because it contained one of my favorite lyrics: "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."

Also, a couple of Lents ago, I was given a purple wristband as a no-complaining device. The idea is that you wear it and switch wrists when you catch yourself complaining, until you can go all day without switching wrists at all. I wore it on Day 8 as an aid.

I caught myself probably complaining unnecessarily three times. The first two, I turned around quickly into a "look at the bright side" situation. The third was at almost 11 p.m., after I'd taken off the wristband, and I was in the middle of a large and inappropriate tirade regarding something that is none of my business before I caught myself, at which point I stopped, apologized to the person I was talking to (who was clearly uncomfortable), and felt icky about it. Still do, in a way I might not have if I hadn't been so focused on it.

Am I the only one who has to stop for a second to think about whether expressing any vaguely negative thought at all counts? I guess I am all for encouraging more positivity, and am glad I had to stop and think about it, but I'm a bigger fan of "It should be at least two out of three of: nice, honest, necessary," than I am of "No bitching." Was that right there "bitching"?

Day 9: Do someone else’s chore. Who is this "someone else" of whom you speak, who does chores? I did drop off a friend's electronics recycling for her, which saved her a few steps, and I made dinner for some friends. I hope that all counts.

Day 10: Buy a few $5 fast food gift cards to give to homeless people you encounter. On Day 10, I was in Portland, Maine, stage managing a play. It was fun, but busy, and I had no opportunity to go to a fast food restaurant or seek out homeless people. I'm also feeling a little morally conflicted about this one, for a couple of reasons. I'll think about it and make it up somehow.

Hail

Some of my strongest memories of going to men's professional football games in the D.C. area include going nuts trying to find something to wear that supported the team without being blatantly racist. (I also really liked Kenard Lang, for no particular reason, and have just learned that he is now a high school football coach, which I also like.)

(Don't get me started on the name of the women's team. Is "Divas" better or worse than "Liberty Belles"? Gross.)

But someone recently brought DCist's post on the subject of the men's team, which included local broadcaster Jim Vance's recent commentary. [Update: For me, the embedded video in the DCist story isn't loading today. If that's true for you, here's Vance's piece on YouTube.] And I can't imagine what it must be like for journalists who know better to write (or say) that word over and over again.

I didn't follow football much until I lived in D.C. and dated someone who loved it, and some of my closest friends are D.C. men's football fans. Heck, I'm a fan, inasmuch as someone who can't say the team's name can be.

But it sure is nice to live in a place where I don't have to see or hear that particular racist language and imagery dozens of times a day. Amazing, in fact.

So, Washington fans — what's the answer? There are those who think nothing will change until certain athletes take a stand — which ones? Who's beloved enough, who's a big enough draw? Do we need to get talking to the old guys, to Art Monk and Darrell Green? To old white guys, Joe Theismann and Riggo? Who's playing now who's Washington enough and impressive enough to get it done? Or do we need to appeal to sponsors, convince them to threaten to terminate those relationships?

Or do we just have to wait for Dan Snyder to get a soul?

Thoughts?

Your turn

Hey there; it's been a little while since we acknowledged how pathetic I am when sick.

So, so pathetic.

I mean, it starts out OK. I get a little sick and I do what I understand to be the smartest thing to do: I cave, immediately and completely. A few sniffles in and I am in bed, resting (OK, maybe "in bed" sometimes means "on the couch" and "resting" sometimes means "watching terrible, terrible TV") and pushing fluids. I do believe, in my heart of hearts, that that course of action results in less overall down time, and right now, in particular, I can afford no down time.

But quickly, it degenerates into the kind of whininess that I subject only the internet to, from a safe and germ-free distance. I'm siiiiiiiiiiiick, everybody. Entertaaaaaaaaaiiin me.

No, seriously. Please send me hilarious links from the internet.

Meanwhile, I will be eating my friend Dan's foolproof nip-it-in-the-bud cure:

1 can spinach, undrained
1 can lima beans, undrained
As much freshly ground black pepper as you can stand
Combine ingredients. Heat on stove until hot. Eat.

Yes, that is exactly as tasty as it sounds. But Dan swears by it, and I have the ingredients, so I'm doing it.

Dressed up

About a week ago, Genny came to do some wardrobe consulting with me.

And we did a little less consulting than we hoped (but not none; Genny does have some great advice), but a ton of organizing. I wished at the end we'd done before-and-after pics. Instead, I did this amazing series of after-and-after-and-after:

This is my closet after we were done. The picture is small and it's blurry, so maybe you can't tell that it's a total miracle, but it is. Over all the way to the left? Shirts, sorted by sleeve length. Then cardigan sweaters, roughly ditto. Then pants, skirts, dresses, jackets, suits... and they all fit. Every single garment in that closet, I can take out, put on, and have it look nice on me.

This is the bed in my guest room after we were done. I am not sure you get a great sense of the magnitude of this pile, but it is a twin bed entirely covered and stacked high with clothes I won't wear. Some don't fit, some aren't my style, some just have bad energy (scoff all you want, if I'm not wearing it, there's no reason for keeping it). It will all find its way to consignment stores or worthy charitable causes. This does not include the smaller but not insignificant pile of stuff I just threw in the trash.

This is perhaps the least recognizable picture of the three. It's my bedroom floor after we were done. It looks that way all over. Some of my readers have known me since I was a child, and they will agree: This has never, ever happened before. Ever.

Also: This is, so far, both totally sustainable and crazy time-saving. For more than a week, I have been meticulous about my clothes. And that appears to be contagious; the whole house is generally semi-tidy — and has been for a week.

Who the hell am I?

Beaten down

A few weeks ago, I unfriended someone for posting this to Facebook:

A$$-WHUPPINGS

are what you got from your parents back in the day, when you

did something wrong. You hated them for this & said you

would never raise you [sic] kids that way.

So, while you're a successful professional, your kids are little

$hits. Wonder why?

It may not surprise you that I disagree.

Does it surprise you that I see what I consider to be advocacy of child abuse on Facebook kind of regularly?

This is not "give 'em a quick swat on a diapered butt" stuff (which, p.s., I also disagree with, but differently). This is otherwise mild-mannered people who use words like "whupping" and "beating" as descriptions of ways that it is desirable to treat children.

The folks who make these posts often suggest that they know it's not politically correct, or that they think they'll get some backlash (hm. Meditate on that word for a minute.), but they present their view nonetheless as if they have some moral obligation to tell the world about the superiority of child-hitting.

I don't always unfriend the posters. Often, they have other redeeming qualities, and I think there's something to be said for keeping a variety of perspectives around me.

This particular offender, however, is someone I hardly know and don't care a whole lot about. She did recommend my current plow guy, which was nice of her, but I don't think that's sufficient to keep her in my life. She (like me) is not a parent, though she is a passionate animal rights advocate. I can't imagine she'd stay quiet if someone advocated beating a dog. Which, also, I have never seen anyone do on Facebook.

So... does this happen to the rest of you? Do you want to burst into tears when it does?

Giving Up: First Sunday of Lent

You would not believe the number of half-baked Lenten puns I had to dismiss for the title of this post. Maybe I'll try to work 'em in as we progress through the series.

Day 1: Pray for your enemies. I literally woke up thinking about this one, about two hours before I actually needed to be awake, so I lay in bed and thought about it.

Who, exactly, are my "enemies"? I thought immediately of one person who seems to be vying for the title, so I prayed for her, and then I was sort of stumped. I drifted in and out of sleep for a while, waking periodically to pray for people who'd irritated me recently, for things I didn't like, for myself (which is either very sad or very deep, or both, and I am still unclear which). The day before Day 1 (Day 0?) was a rough one, filled with frustrations, though ended with a really nice in-person conversation with a friend, and a couple of differently nice online chats with other friends. The roughness of the day before was still very fresh in my mind in those early morning hours, and my prayers were a little jumbled and desperate. I prayed for all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided Westboro Baptist "Church" was a reasonable enemy to pray for, and I prayed that they might find some peace in their hearts.

Then I spent the rest of the day thinking about it. Who are my enemies? For whom should I still pray? Anyone who gets in my way? Anyone who gets in my way on purpose?

I did not come to clear conclusions, but I did pray for a lot of people.

Also, thinking about who your enemies are is a weird way to spend a day.

Day 2: Don’t turn on the car radio. This was actually supposed to be Day 3's task, but it was impractical to "walk, carpool, bike or bus it" this particular day, so I swapped them around. The huge advantage to this is that I spent the day without all the sap or whininess of Valentine's Day — at least on the radio (Facebook is another story).

I had more than two hours of driving on windy country roads in the dark in silence — I felt inclined to turn on the radio several times, but managed not to succumb. Hey, alone in the wild.

Day 3: Walk, carpool, bike or bus it. I walked to work this Day 3 morning, and here's the thing: sidewalks in small-town New England a few days after a major snowstorm are sometimes snowy, which is good, because, traction. This particular morning? Slick, slick ice. I walked out for lunch on slightly less slick ice, and took advantage of the opportunity to catch a ride home with a friend I have not seen enough of lately.

Day 4: Give $20 to a non-profit of your choosing. I did. I spent the weekend with dear friends, and had a conversation that decided for me between two nonprofit concerns.

Is there harm in contributing to a worthy cause partly out of spite? Does it make a difference if I was going to give to one of these two organizations anyway, and just decided which one based on someone saying something that irritated me?

Aw, criminy. Of course there is. I'm off to give $20 to the other nonprofit, too.

Smudged

[Note: Sigh. Another communication fail. I wrote this yesterday, perhaps obviously, but forgot to post until now.]

I posted this to the CMC Facebook page the other day: House for All Sinners and Saints’ 40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent.

If you are someone who observes Lent, it is well worth a read, because it contains some neat ideas. If you are someone who does not and is inclined to think of Christians as kind of a bunch of hypocrites, I hope you'll take a look so you can see that some people are trying to walk the talk. If you are in any category of observance and find yourself getting vaguely and inexplicably annoyed when you hear people talking about giving up chocolate or red meat*, it's sort of an antidote to that, too. (My friend the Rev. Emily C. Heath wrote another great antidote, too.)

I liked the House for All Sinners and Saints idea enough that I'm going to do it, modifying as necessary, and I'll write about how it's going on Sundays. So that's coming up.

Communication's been hard for me lately, I think, which is to say, my computer at work is broken and also I keep having these complicated conversations. I owe several people very important notes or conversations. I also have four half-written blog posts in the drafts folder. I'm also not attempting to explain Lent or Ash Wednesday for those who might like or need explanations, because I feel confident you can find something on the internet that'll do better than I would.

But for a sec, let's talk. Whether you do Lent or not, when do you feel alone in the wilderness, and what are the connotations of that for you? When you need to refocus on what's important, how do you do that?



* I am in this category for no good reason whatever. If giving up chocolate works for you, you should do it. My reaction is as irrelevant as it is nonsensical.

The Moviewatcher's Guide to My Weekend

Sometimes, when I don't post for a while, it's because there's too little going on.

And sometimes, it's because there's too much.

This time, both. Sorry 'bout that.

But you may have heard there was a huge snowstorm up here. I have been mostly (though not entirely) homebound since Friday afternoon, and have taken advantage of the opportunity to do a little cleaning up and a lot of catching up on my Netflix queue. In lieu of a real post, then, some thoughts on the movies I've seen in the last few days.

Movies I do not recommend, especially if you're a woman in your 30s or 40s who lives alone and has an overactive imagination:

• Dreams of a Life (2011)

Movies I do recommend, especially if you are a queer woman who has suffered through a lot of horrible lesbian movies and just wants one sweet story that is not so terrible:

• Leading Ladies (2010)

Movies that I also watched, with a few words about each:

• Swimming with Sharks (1994) (People are complicated, and bosses are awful.)
• Heartburn (1986) (Wonderful cast. Virtually no plot.)
• The Man in the Net (1959)* (Kids help a fugitive, who is wanted for killing Morticia Addams.)
• Come Blow Your Horn (1963) (Womanizing never pays, except when it does.)
• Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)** (The title — and year — pretty much say it all.)
• Walking and Talking (1996) (Catherine Keener is pretty, but she and Anne Heche are both boring.)

Movie I will likely watch next, because when Netflix recommends something Korean, I tend to take it seriously:

• I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK (2006)

Movies I wanted to watch because someone mentioned it yesterday, but couldn't legally without paying Amazon for the privilege, and I didn't want to watch it that much:

• Overboard (1987)

Questions? Comments? What are you watching that I should add to the list?

* This one came closest of the also-rans to getting a recommendation from me. There was something just a little weird about both Alan Ladd and Morticia Jones — and maybe all the adult actors.

** Observe that this one did not make that first category. That is how awful-feeling Dreams of a Life was. It's not a bad documentary, I just wish I hadn't watched it. It's actually pretty good.