Hey Mom! Check out Liv!

My beautiful baby sister was on The Today Show this morning. Check out the clip.

Congrats Liv! You look just gorgeous!  And bit wry.   Perfect.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Boston Terrier in Obama Sweater!

We had three Boston Terriers while I was growing up - Ebenezer, Hester and Woody.    And this Boston Terrier is wearing the Obama dog sweater I sent to my dad for his dachshund Leopold to wear as he prances around on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Love this photo from the Obama campaign Flickr photo stream:

Who Is Your Favorite - Mom or Dad?

This video is amusing and well done.  Those Aussies!

How To Survive a Disaster or Terrorist Attack

I first listened to the interview with the author about this book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes--and Why by Amanda Ripley, on the Diane Rehm Show last Thursday.

The interview got into some interesting facets - such as differences between men and women and how those differences can cut different ways depending on the nature of the disaster. Women tend to worry more and therefore tend to evacuate earlier. This quality is helpful to surviving a flood. Men tend to believe they have control over their destiny (whether they actually do or not) and this quality propels them more readily to act in other, usually man made, circumstances (maybe I should say human made).

How to Survive a Disaster is an excerpt from that book, which was printed by Time in the magazine.

First:

disasters are part of the human condition. We are more or less vulnerable to them, depending where we live.

But survival is not just a product of luck. We can do far more than we think to improve our odds of preventing and surviving even the most horrendous of catastrophes. It's a matter of preparation--bolting down your water heater before an earthquake or actually reading the in-flight safety card before takeoff--but also of mental conditioning. Each of us has what I call a "disaster personality," a state of being that takes over in a crisis. It is at the core of who we are. The fact is, we can refine that personality and teach our brains to work more quickly, maybe even more wisely.

Best use of quote:

Of course, no one can promise a plan of escape. But that doesn't mean we should live in willful ignorance. As Hunter S. Thompson said, "Call on God, but row away from the rocks."

Flight or fight is a mis-perception. In fact, humans tend to freeze:

When disaster strikes, a troubling human response can inflate the death toll: people freeze up. They shut down, becoming suddenly limp and still...Contrary to popular expectations, this is what happens in many disasters. Crowds generally become quiet and docile. Panic is rare. The bigger problem is that people do too little, too slowly. They sometimes shut down completely, falling into a stupor.

Unless they have a child (another reason to have a child):

Later, when interviewed by the police, some survivors said they understood this behavior. At some point, they too had felt an overwhelming urge to stop moving. They only snapped out of the stupor, they said, by thinking of their loved ones, especially their children--a common thread in the stories of survivors of all kinds of disasters.

Why we freeze and how to prevent that from happening include drills and awareness:

Firefighters, police trainers--even stockbrokers--have told me similar stories of seeing people freeze under extreme stress. Animals go into the same state when they are trapped, evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. has found. Playing dead can discourage predators from attacking. In the case of the Estonia and other disasters, the freezing response may have been a natural and horrific mistake. Our brains search, under extreme stress, for an appropriate survival response and sometimes choose the wrong one, like deer that freeze in the headlights of a car.

But the more encouraging point is that the brain is plastic. It can be trained to respond more appropriately. Less fear makes paralysis less likely. A rat with damage to the amygdala, the primitive part of the brain that handles fear, will not freeze at all--even if it encounters a cat. If we can reduce our own fear even a little bit, we might be able to do better.

Fire drills, particularly if they are mandatory and unexpected, can dramatically reduce fear, should the worst come to pass. Just knowing where the stairs are gives your brain an advantage. Likewise, research into plane crashes has found that people who read the safety briefing cards are more likely to survive. These rituals that we consider an utter waste of time actually give our brains blueprints in the unlikely event that we need them.

And we often die in disasters how we live, in our social, expected roles:

the fire also complicated official expectations for crowd behavior: in the middle of a crisis, the basic tenets of civilization actually hold. People move in groups whenever possible. They tend to look out for one another, and they maintain hierarchies. "People die the same way they live," says disaster sociologist Lee Clarke, "with friends, loved ones and colleagues, in communities."

At the Beverly Hills, servers warned their tables to leave. Hostesses evacuated people that they had seated but bypassed other sections (that weren't "theirs"). Cooks and busboys, perhaps accustomed to physical work, rushed to fight the fire. In general, male employees were slightly more likely to help than female employees, maybe because society expects women to be saved and men to do the saving.

And then, there's Rick Rescorla. My mom read the biography of Rescorla, Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart's. If you don't know his story you should. He saved the employees of Morgan Stanley on 9/11 and died that day.

Here's a New Yorker profile that Stewart wrote in February 2002, a precursor to his biography of Rescorla; my mom and I both read and discussed it. He was quite a guy and lived in the town next to ours in New Jersey.

From Amanda Ripley in Time:

Rescorla felt it was foolish to rely on first responders to save his employees. His company was the largest tenant in the Trade Center, a village nestled in the clouds. Morgan Stanley's employees would need to take care of one another. He ordered them not to listen to any instructions from the Port Authority in a real emergency. In his eyes, it had lost all legitimacy after it failed to respond to his 1990 warnings. And so Rescorla started running the entire company through his own frequent, surprise fire drills. He trained employees to meet in the hallway between the stairwells and go down the stairs, two by two, to the 44th floor.

The radicalism of Rescorla's drills cannot be overstated. Remember, Morgan Stanley is an investment bank. Millionaire, high-performance bankers on the 73rd floor did not appreciate the interruption. Each drill, which pulled brokers off their phones and away from their computers, cost the company money. But Rescorla did it anyway. His military training had taught him a simple rule of human nature: the best way to get the brain to perform under extreme stress is to repeatedly run it through rehearsals beforehand.

The lesson and success of Rescorla has not been learned. Even after 9/11.

Rescorla taught Morgan Stanley employees to save themselves. It's a lesson that has become, somehow, rare and precious. When the tower collapsed, only 13 Morgan Stanley colleagues--including Rescorla and four of his security officers--were inside. The other 2,687 were safe.

And she points us to her web site for her book, "to learn more about survival skills in a disaster, go to www.TheUnthinkable.com"

Mad Men Profiled In NYTimes

The New York Times printed a terrific article yesterday. Mad Men Has Its Moment is a profile of Matthew Weiner and the show. My aunt gave me a heads up about the lengthy, yummy piece. Wonderful reminders of pitch perfect tone, awesome dialogue as well as background on the origins and production (like casting!).

First the facts:

“Mad Men,” about the world of advertising on Madison Avenue set in New York in the early 1960s, languished for years after being rejected by HBO and Showtime before the unlikely AMC (formerly known as American Movie Classics) took its maiden voyage into original-series programming and picked it up. The show had its premiere last summer and won instant critical acclaim, a Peabody Award and the Golden Globe Award for best drama. Its second season begins July 27; the DVD set of the first season goes on sale July 1.

Yes, I've pre-ordered the DVD.

Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner) is the creator and show-runner of “Mad Men,” which means the original idea was his: he wrote the pilot; he writes every episode of every show (along with four other people); he’s the executive producer who haggles for money...and he approves every actor, costume, hairstyle and prop...He is both ultimate authority and divine messenger, some peculiar hybrid of God and Edith Head.

That hybrid made me laugh out loud! Very evocative and funny, if you know of Edith Head and her personality.

The dashing mysterious leading man evokes the dashing mysterious leading man in my life...(though I think not Gregory Peck but rather Cary Grant in Hitchcock's Notorious, an international man of inscrutability).

That Sterling Cooper’s creative director, Don Draper, is played by Jon Hamm, a leading man in the Gregory Peck mold who manages to make his sometimes oblique and often heartless character into a sympathetic figure (and won a Golden Globe for best actor), eases the pain.

When contemplating a new account, Draper asks his boss, Roger Sterling, played with perfect cynical pitch by John Slattery, “What do women want?”

“Who cares?” is his answer.

When a Jewish department-store heiress comes to the agency in search of a fresh approach for her business, Sterling tries to find someone Jewish in the company to include in the meeting. “Have we ever hired any Jews?” he asks Draper. “Not on my watch,” Draper says, before adding, “You want me to run down to the deli and grab somebody?”

Some more of the fun....

Knowing that these unsuspecting sexists and bigots sit on the brink of their doom is all part of the fun. It is also perverse entertainment of a sort (Weiner calls it pornography) to watch them smoke like chimneys (including pregnant women), drink like extras from “The Lost Weekend” and eat steak, cheesecake and creamed corn without consequences. Or mostly. When Sterling is felled by a heart attack, he laments: “All these years I thought it would be the ulcer. Did everything they told me. Drank the cream. Ate the butter. And I get hit by a coronary.”

The writing is key, laugh out loud funny at times -

ANOTHER MAJOR pleasure of “Mad Men” is its writing, which is consistently adult and witty. When Roger Sterling takes Joan Holloway, the voluptuous redheaded secretary (played by Christina Hendricks in a turn that pays an affectionate homage to Helen Gurley Brown’s “Sex and the Single Girl”) to a hotel room for a midday tryst, he says of the room-service lunch: “Look, we’ve got oysters Rockefeller, beef Wellington, napoleons. If we leave this lunch alone it’ll take over Europe.”

The time warp fascinates, but I agree with this:

It’s the universality more than the period that’s the hook, of course. Absent the surgeon general’s warnings, statins and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, religion or sex), the people on this show struggle with the same backbiting co-workers, unhappy marriages and ongoing search for the meaning of life that we do now. We’d like to think that things were simpler then, but what’s hard now has always been hard.

More on Don Draper, the lead, by the terrific actor who plays him:

Jon Hamm’s assignment as Don is to locate the emotions in a man who spends his life denying them. “Don’s trying to be a better guy,” Hamm said. “He’s trying to get back to what it means to be a person in a family. He has a marriage he’s not that involved in, kids he’s not that involved in, a brother he wasn’t involved with at all. He realizes these things have consequences. He tries to make amends a day late and a dollar short. That’s his great tragedy. He wanted the image of the perfect family, so he married the beautiful model. He takes his cues from advertising, the Coke commercial with the two kids and the dog. And there’s no there there, and why is that? It’s a curious thing.”

Read the whole piece and be sure to tune in later this summer. I posted some clips just last week. The Wikipedia entry lists where the series can be seen around the world - Britain, Italy, Norway, New Zealand, Brazil......

FM & Sex

Here's another thing, to quote George Clooney, that just really depresses the shit out of you: Chronic Pain and Sex: a Couple's Gentle Battle with Fibromyalgia from ABC News. Just horrifying.

The husband says:

"You really have to focus on the non-physical aspects of love when you're in a relationship with a person in chronic pain," says her partner, Sam Chupp, 40. "You have to concentrate on the mental and spiritual bond in order to carry you through times she has a flare [the worst period of pain]."

Men like that are very rare. This couple became a couple 10 years ago and he's decided to stick to it. The better or worse part of the vows.

What it means:

Armistead does everything she can to feel good on their scheduled nights. She refrains from shopping or going to appointments on those days (that would make her too tired), and her teenage daughter (from a previous marriage) goes out with friends.

The challenging part is that even though they can schedule time for each other and stick to it, there's no way to schedule random flare-ups. The key, Chupp says, is not to set specific goals for the night.

"We just say we are going to enjoy each other, no matter what it turns out to be," he says. "Cuddling is a wonderful thing and can happen a lot more often than sex."

"I'll put it this way. Sometimes you want to share a big fancy dinner with her, but it turns out you just have to have a sandwich by yourself," he says.

Reading about this couple just depresses me. She has a daughter and obviously a very sensitive husband.

Not even this ending redeemed the horror of the rest:

"You have to scale back your expectations from high school —, but high school was never this good," he quips. "When you are in love with someone and she is in pain all the time, when she wants to have sex with you in spite of it, it means she really wants to have it. You feel chosen and special."

My Missed Vassar Reunion

My 20 year Vassar reunion was this past weekend. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but that didn't stop me from reminiscing.

I heard from many friends and I thought of all of those from those special years who are still in my life and well loved - Anita, Christina, Dan F., Emily, Jen, Liz, Luke, Mike G, Noelle.

And those not so much in my life as I would like, but are still there, known and loved - Anne, Alex, Bonnie, Bill G., Bill H., Dan S., Alex L., Dan B., Josh N., Greg, Caroline, Paul J., Doug, Anna, Marc, Scot O, Kristen, Vanessa, Lisa F., Scot S., Gisele, Matt B., Jeff, Mike K., Gokhan, Terry, Alex N., Jason, Martin, Andy, Catherine, Cindi, Wendy, Ken, Burke, Todd, Kimathi and Peter.

And recently I enjoyed a very well done online tour of the beautiful campus. And I saw some special personal pictures of campus on an iphone.

I used to tell people I decided to go to Vassar because of the tea, the parlors, and bathtubs (a dancer needs to soak). Secretly, it was also because a dearly loved fictional character went to Vassar (Carney from the Betsy-Tacy Series' Carney's House Party; out of print then, but reissued in 2000).

I loved so much, so well. Most of all, I had fun. More fun than a body should have, as I used to say.

I have a hand out from either my 10th or 15th, not sure which - I attended both, entitled Are You a Real Member of the Vassar Class of '88?

200 questions to answer to discern the answer and the scorecard is as follows:
150-200: BP
100-149: Mug Rat
50-99: Nerd
Less than 50 : You should have gone to Wesleyan

Some of my favorite questions:

1. I wanted to form an inter-mural sports team only because I thought up a good name with an obscene double meaning.
2. I went to Vassar because I'm a guy and thought I would be surrounded by easy women.
3. I used stolen bathroom tissues as napkins while eating Napoli's pizza.
4. I read the graffiti in the women's restroom in the Library, and I'm male.
5. I remember those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
6. I ignored those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
7. I defaced, damaged or destroyed those stupid signs they put up that told you to "Keep Off the Grass" in Latin.
8. I've been on the Main catwalks.
9. I've been on the roof of Rocky.
10. I've been on the roof of Walker
11. I've been on the roof of the Library tower.
12. I've been on the roof of Jewett Tower
13. I moved to Main just so I could go to the Retreat and check my mail without shoes and/or a jacket.
14. I know what "BP" stands for.
15. I was a BP
16. I denied being a BP
17. I denied being a BP, even though I was.
18. I engaged in long conversations trying to define what a "BP was.
19. I smoked clove cigarettes while at Vassar.
20. I only ate on the left side of the left.
21. I lived in Raymond and never went to ACDC in a group of less than 10.
22. I tried shouting from that "echo point" in front of Noyes.
23. I didn't hear an echo when I shouted from that echo point in front of Noyes.
24. I participated in Airband.
25. I've been in that weird basement-like room that was on the second floor of Blodgett above the arch.
26. I snuck into a filled movie through the basement of Blodgett.
27. I remember the time Ivor gave the pre-movie announcement in Blodgett in the nude.
28. Someone pulled cards for me at registration.
29. I pulled cards for someone at registration.
30. I remember that time when a guy climbed hand-over-hand on the sprinkler pipes above the heads of the crowd in order to get to the head of the line at registration.
31. I cheered for that guy.
32. I waited in the Mug line.
33. I waited in the Mug line for more than two hours.
34. I waited in the Mug line for more than two hour, but didn't go in.
35. I got into the Mug with someone's else's I.D.
36. I can't read my diploma.
37. I have to explain to prospective employers whey I have an "A.B." instead of a "B.A."

So perusing that list made me remember some other things...

1. I remember pulling up to Joceyln and that the soundtrack from the Big Chill was blaring from Marion's boom box.
   
2. I remember I forgot to ask my parents for money and my sisters ran back from main gate to give me some.
   
3. I remember Emily's 18th birthday and having a hard time getting past the tennis courts when trying to replenish the champagne on Raymond Avenue.
4. I remember making our Apple computers talk dirty and giggling because it sounded Swedish.
   
5. I remember the boat in Jocelyn.
6. I remember the coed bathrooms completely freaking out my father, and his mother.
   
7. I remember "backrubs"
8. I remember THE water bed.
   
9. I remember Mr. Egg on all our doors and then the mysterious Christmas ornament.
10. I remember my crazy freshman roommate.
    
11. I remember discussing Luther with Emily on the fire escape in Jewett.
12. I remember Bill D. serenading with his guitar
13. I remember dashing out of Jewett with Liz.
14. I remember dancing with Marc.
15. I remember Greg and mine combo birthday parties.
16. I remember being not legal, legal and then not legal, then legal for good with respect to drinking.
17. I remember lines at Pete's place
18. I remember watching Body Heat at Blodgett.
19. I remember watching Fatal Attraction at the Galleria (and Alex predicting the rabbit).
    
20. I remember recruiting the guys for the synchronized swimming team who came up with the "boat float" move.
21. I remember the boys from Laguna.
22. I remember sunbathing on Jocelyn's "beach" with the red phone strung out through the open window.
23. I remember Vuarnet sunglasses and Miami Vice jackets
    
24. I remember volleyball.
    
25. I remember Luke breaking his leg skiing.
26. I remember Evan's not so funny April Fool's Day joke.
27. I remember Evan's chicken stickers.
28. I remember Vanessa hiding in a closet.
29. I remember Wednesday nights, after soccer games.
30. I remember going to away soccer games when the team was in the finales.
31. I remember Chris getting a card, when he was a rabid fan.
32. I remember making up and serving "Cassandwiches" at the Retreat (turkey on the grill, with melted provolone cheese, cucumber, red onion and honey mustard on a toasted onion bagel).
33. I remember starting water fights while closing up the Retreat after I got soaked washing dishes (those darn bowls).
34. I remember feeling the grease on my skin after a shift in the Retreat.
    
35. I remember checking out the couples who came through together on Sunday afternoon and seeing who had hooked up.
36. I remember causing trouble by asking him as I rang the food up, Is this together?
37. I remember going to Mass on Sunday at 4 pm only so I could see my crush with his girlfriend.
38. I remember staking out an English History classmate's dorm room in Main because she'd taken out every single book on Lady Jane Grey from Thompson, effectively prevent me studying and writing on my chosen topic.
39. I remember our teacher told us we had to sort it out.
40. I remember she eventually caved.
41. I remember the masque balls.
42. I remember the 5:15 parties.
43. I remember Heaven and Hell
44. I remember the formal dance in December 1985.
45. I remember signing up for Italian because Latin was full (but I dropped it eventually).
46. I remember that girl who fell out of the third floor bathroom window in Jocelyn.
47. I remember the girl who fell from the catwalks.
48. I remember ringing the bell in Main.
49. I remember throwing the chairs into Sunset Lake in protest for our graduation being inside Walker on a perfectly sunny day.
50. I remember turning all the furniture over in Martin and Pete's TA and nearly peeing in my pants I was laughing so hard.
51. I remember Winter Weekend 1988.
    
52. I remember hiking around Lake Mohonk with Scott.
53. I remember countdown nights at Joe's (150, 100, 50, etc.).
54. I remember diving and rolling on that cruddy floor in order to sneak in, with Anne and Bonnie.
    
55. I remember shooting pool at McAuleys.
    
56. I remember the Aula opening.
57. I remember nearly getting caught with alcohol in the Aula and lucking out because I'd used an emptied bottle of apple juice, which vodka resembled when held above candlelight. Sheer luck, I could have easily had a cranberry juice bottle.
    
58. I remember modeling vintage clothes in a fashion show at the Aula - I wore a beautiful blue dress I still have - and being asked to NYC (but lets go do drugs first!)
    
59. I remember being in a wheelchair.
60. I remember being asked to borrow my wheelchair that Halloween so a group could tastelessly dress up as terrorists and Leon Klinghoffer, who'd been killed that month.
    
61. I remember being asked by people I didn't know for my painkillers.
62. I remember resting on the grass on my way back from dinner because I hadn't realized that ACDC was farther than 25 feet from my dorm room in Jocelyn.
63. I remember buying knee pads to protect my knees, because crawling was faster than that wheelchair or the crutches.
    
64. I remember Alex N. picking me up, expectedly, and carrying me to my room.
65. I remember Sweeney doing the same thing when I needed no such aid and scaring me.
    
66. I remember being given keys to the elevator in Main because I was in a wheelchair.
    
67. I remember how that access made it possible for me and 10 friend to cut the Mug line.
68. I remember getting caught by the manager of the Mug cutting the Mug line with the help of 10 necessary friends.
    
69. I remember after hours at the Mug.
70. I remember trying to down as many shots as Marion did in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    
71. I remember that gorgeous guy who changed my life trying to get me to down my first kamikaze shot without telling me first what was in it.
    
72. I remember Smavis (and I pretty sure I have the recipe somewhere! - does any one know it by heart - Scot?)
73. I remember when the Cafe opened.
    
74. I remember that snow day when Anita, Alex and I went drinking at Pete's before noon and I tied a cherry stem into a double knot in my mouth after Alex dared me, wining us all a free round for my achievement, and then going to ACDC and being confused by the fine spread of food (the CIA was cooking), stealing whole loaves of bread and then hearing about how I'd missed sledding on ACDC trays down path to the TH's because I'd passed out too early.
75. I remember Hurricane Gloria and how the school canceled classes and opened the Mug and we had over 12 straight hours of fun, while it only rained.
    
76. I remember the time I had tickets to the Cosby show and we got lost in Brooklyn and missed the show. Half of us stayed in NYC, and half returned to campus early
77. I remember an unhappy discovery upon my return.
78. I remember when a Vassar student's video made the final 10 for a Madonna video contest.
79. I remember the endless debate contest.
80. I remember that joyful Blues Band air band performance in the Villard Room.
81. I remember the poster up on the wall in my TA 19 with the funniest phrases and pithy remarks.
    
82. I remember climbing the trees in the center of the quad and scaring people as they walked underneath.
    
83. I remember when a strange Irishman walked naked through Jocelyn.
    
84. I remember the pine forest up there somewhere.
    
85. I remember hating T.S. Eliot's Wasteland because I didn't understand it and I had a rotten teacher.
    
86. I remember being scared of Prof. Day and his Greek class and having to memorize all those Greek islands.
87. I remember loving Shakespeare class. Professor Gifford. Wasn't that his name?
    
88. I remember doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with Annie during Intro to Art History senior year and not even having to buy it because that cute freshman always gave us his third section.
    

I did that list without opening my yearbooks or scrapbooks or files. Those of us who gathered the summer of 2006, the year we all turned 40, know how fastidiously and earnestly I collected mementos of that time. (I have my original packing list - red pumps, blue pumps, black pumps, cream pumps! - thanks Jen, yes it sounds like Dr. Suess!). I think I even have every Miscellany News too.

What do you remember? Go ahead and comment below. Perhaps we could get a fun discussion going here. I'd love to hear from you. (especially if you have the Smavi recipe).

If any of you are in DC, through DC, please stop by and I'll serve you some tea in my parlor. (No bathtub though!).

Post Modern Love

Wow, a soccer punch Modern Love column this week: Let's Not Get to Know Each Other Better.

The New York Times is running a series of winners from a contest. They're all from people 20 years younger than I, but I'm struck by how much resonated (resonates) with my own encounters with love.

College is much on my mind as this past weekend was my 20 year college reunion. And in reading these wistful pieces, I feel a bit sicken to think they have no idea that it's not likely to get any better...I know 40 year olds, 50 year olds who think casual is sexy and caring is creepy!

Here are some excerpts that jumped (emphasis added):

With so many avenues for communication, one might expect an onslaught of romantic soliloquies, but that isn’t the case. Casual is sexy. Caring is creepy. You don’t want to show your hand, and you certainly don’t want to fall in love. At least until you do, and by then it’s too late.

Planned romance is viewed as nothing more than ambition, so it’s important that things be allowed to happen naturally. Sex is great, and so are some relationships, but not to the point that they should be actively pursued.

And then these pithy, evocative observations

• the big wet kiss that changes everything and nothing.
• the perfect hookup, a pressure-free surprise. With a stranger, everything is new and acceptable. Her quirks are automatically endearing. This first encounter is the perfect place, but where does it lead? In the best case, nowhere at all.
• If it continues, you have an understanding, physical chemistry and great conversations. You meet two or three times a week for no-strings sex and long-winded philosophical talks.

Body and mind intercourse does not a relationship make. You'd think it would, but it doesn't seem to turn out that way.

Most importantly, you aren’t lonely. Maybe deep in the recesses of your mind you think about possibly loving this person. What’s the standard response? Nothing. If she asks, “How do you feel about me?” you answer from the heart: “I see you as an unexpected treat from the heavens. I don’t know how I deserve this.”

Your relationship is good. Your relationship is strong. But it isn’t a relationship, and that’s the key.

I laughed aloud at this. I learned a long time ago never to ask such questions because I got such elliptical answers. Or maybe because I never had the courage to ask ever, or ever again after such a response, while I would admire the cleverness.

The effect of a bookcase:

A friend of mine, a normal girl who is neither especially social nor aloof, engages in hookups unabashedly — she’s just doing what she wants and doesn’t regret or overthink it. Except for one time when she woke up in some guy’s embrace, got out of bed and noticed his bookshelf.

I’m not sure what it was about the contents that impressed or moved her; maybe the books suggested a gentle soul. All I know is what she told me: “I only felt bad after seeing his books.” The books had made him a real person, I guess, one she liked. Or pitied. Because then it was on to the next.

Yes, the disconnect has long existed. My generation had too many options. The generation of the 60s had too many options. The utter lack of protocol is systemic and problematic and has been true since the 60s busted it all up - another reason why I don't particularly appreciate that decade.

Maybe this disconnect has always existed. As one of my classmates, a genteel 60-year-old, said to me, “Every generation thinks they discovered sex.” Which might be true, but I’m not sure any previous generation has our plethora of options and utter lack of protocol. This may reflect how our media obsession has desensitized and hypersexualized us.

But I think it goes beyond that. Our short attention spans tend to be measured in nanoseconds. We float from room to room watching TV, surfing the Internet, playing Frisbee and finding satisfaction around every corner, if only for a moment.

Out of fear, we shrink ourselves. There have been many times I should have cried but stifled the tears. Instances where I should have said, “I love you” but made a joke instead. Once, a girl dumped me and it nearly ruined me. How bad was it? I ate nothing but Wendy’s for an entire week.

I’m fairly certain I could have saved the entire endeavor with a soul-baring soliloquy of what was true and what mattered to me, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I don’t know many who can.

We’ve grown up in an age of rampant divorce and the accompanying tumult. The idea that two people can be happy together, maturing alongside each other, seems as false as a fairy tale. So when a relationship ends, it isn’t seen as bad. It’s held as evidence that the relationship was never any good to begin with.

MAYBE it’s just that we have learned nothing can compare to the perfect moment of the unexpected hookup — wet lips on the beach, lying in the sand — and so we aim to accumulate as many as possible. Or maybe we’re simply too immature to commit. That has been the rap against guys forever, but now women think the same way. With the world (and the world of sex) at our fingertips, it’s difficult to choose, to settle, to compromise.

But I do occasionally wonder: If we can’t get past ourselves and learn to sacrifice to be with another, then what is in store? A generation of selfish go-getters fueled by nothing more than our own egos, forever seeking that rare dose of self-esteem? An era of loneliness filled with commercial wants and mate selection based on the shallowest of criteria?

Yeah, not much good is in store.

Falling in Love, Standing in Love and Solitude

I encountered recently two things on love on line that I think are worth sharing, now that love is on my mind after seeing Sex and the City.

First - is from Mark Vernon, whom I think is British. (hat tip Sullivan), who wrote:

to be able to be alone with yourself is a condition for the ability to love. If someone is attached to another person because they cannot stand on their own two feet, love may feel like a lifesaver, but the relationship is one of compromised love because it does not allow the other person to be themselves. To put it another way, if you are not capable of solitude, you might love to remove your loneliness, not to know another. Or you could say that the best relationships are about just being together, not doing stuff together. And being with someone requires you being able to be yourself.

John Bayley found a moving way of talking about it, when reflecting on how his love of Iris Murdoch took them 'closer and closer apart'. Or, if you are looking for a tip on how to find a partner, how about developing the capacity to enjoy spending a night in on your own!

Edward Gibbon, the historian, called solitude 'the school of genius.'

C.G. Jung advised people to have some time alone everyday for what he called 'active imagination', a time when you can let go.

William Wordsworth, in 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', talked of the 'bliss of solitude'. It develops the 'inward eye', for appreciating nature.

Of course, enforced solitude is a bad thing, even a form of torture. So be careful of too much solitude, and turning in on yourself. This is perhaps why religious hermits tend to live in clusters, 'alone together'; keeping their eyes looking out towards the community, as opposed to pure introspection, avoids madness.

Second, is a piece also from Mark Vernon (via Sullivan) about Fromm, whom I remember reading in college. It's a difficult work. This defines falling in love (as opposed to standing in love)

Fromm's classic, The Art of Loving, is full of arresting ideas, if a little dated now,..I particularly like the distinction he draws between falling in love and standing in love.

Falling in love is perhaps the default idea of love today. When two people meet they are, by definition, strangers. So when they suddenly feel close and the walls come down, it can be possibly the most exhilarating and exciting experience in life. It seems wonderful and miraculous, not least for someone who has for some time being looking for the right person. Sexual attraction is the physical expression of that.

However, this falling in love is not lasting, since it is premised on the meeting of strangers. Once you stop being strange with this new person, the feeling of falling for them, and its exhilaration, will stop too. The miracle seems to be over. The risk is that the old antagonisms, anxieties, disappointments and so on flood back in and kill the previous experience.

At the time of falling in love, this just seems impossible to think about. Indeed, the intensity of the experience of falling in love, of meeting someone, seems to be the very measure of that love’s worth, again especially if when set against the previous experience of loneliness. This sets up a paradox though. If the intensity of falling in love is not a measure of love but is a measure of the collapse of previous loneliness, then falling violently in love when you meet someone might actually be the worst experience to have. Because once it is over, and it will not last, normal life – normal love we might say – can come to seem so boring. The risk is that people become addicted to falling in love. They can’t hold down relationships.

Standing in love, though, is what happens when you can.

Here's more from Vernon on "standing in love" It's good and worth the click through. Maybe some bit for the writers of the next Sex and the City movie.

Half in Ten: Why My Mom Loved Edwards

My mom liked Edwards a lot. She appreciated his focus on poverty. My aunt, her sister, favors and admires Edwards too.

So of course I thought of both my mother and my aunt when Edwards launched his poverty campaign Half in Ten, the goal of which is to reduce poverty in the US by 50% in 10 years. Edwards is working with representatives of the community organizing group ACORN, the Center for American Progress, Coalition on Human Needs, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The goal of the campaign is to:

1. Elevate and sustain a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today
2. Build and strengthen an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility
3. Advance specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families

Peter Drier, over at The Huffington Post, notes the near entire media black out on the effort in his essay, Edwards Poverty Campaign Met With Media Blackout, which goes right to the campaign's first goal.

Drier relays some important facts that need highlighting:

Few media stories point out that among the world's affluent nations (primarily Canada, Japan, Australia, and the countries of Western Europe), the U.S. has the highest poverty rate (more than twice that of many European countries) and by far the widest gap between the rich and poor.

And my mother would have admired this:

When he announced his campaign for president, he did so in an impoverished area of New Orleans, a neighborhood hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. During his presidential campaign, which ended nearly four months ago, he tried to shine a spotlight on poverty. As one of the leading candidates for his party's nomination, Edwards was able in July to get reporters to follow him on a three-day, eight-state, 1,800-mile poverty tour that included stops in New Orleans, Kentucky, Mississippi, Cleveland and elsewhere.

Many of the stories that came out of that tour focused on the human side of poverty, and on the candidate's policy ideas. But others reflected journalistic cynicism, viewing Edwards' anti-poverty crusade as simply a political gambit to grab attention. They failed to mention that none of the eight states on Edwards' poverty tour were among the key early primary states that would make or break his bid for the White House.

So, it's with interest I saw this over at Talking Points Memo's Election Central: Edwards Secured Private Commitment From Obama That He'd Go On Poverty Tour as Nominee

"Edwards was trying to think of ways to specifically hold them accountable," said another former top Edwards adviser. "It's easy for a Democrat to say, `Sure, I'll make poverty central to my campaign.' A poverty tour was something he felt would be really powerful with the spotlight of the general election, and it was a tangible, real thing he could ask them to commit to."

(snip)

Another of the advisers said that Edwards had secured a commitment that he'd accompany the tour. "It was a specific number of days on the road together, putting poverty front and center -- it would be with him," this adviser said. "He got them both to agree to this. He was really excited."

Yes, their estimation seems warranted. This guy is committed. Such a tour with Obama could generate needed media attention.

Free Hugs Campaign

And this video of free hugs always makes me smile and even, sometimes, cry.

A Mom's Song to the William Tell Overture

Okay, let's start off the New Year with some funny, heartening videos.

First, my sister Eleanor first told me about this video months ago. And then a friend, Jen Donat, sent me the link just before Christmas.

It's about 3 minutes and really great. Check it out:

I was 16, going on 17

My big brother got a scanner for Christmas from his wife. And he's been entertaining me with photos of my past - from about 1982 and 1983, when I was 16 or 17. Here are just two.

The top one - is of my Grandfather with his dog, Lucky and my Dad, with our dog Montgomery. We had a lot of fun with those dogs.

And the bottom is a high school dance. My best friend (still is, and my oldest, I've known her since I was 9!), Chantal and I were invited to attend the prom at Christian Brothers Academy. I still remember the gold strappy shoes, my first "grown-up" shoes. My friends in college always were amazed that I'd arrived with out having ever kissed a boy. As you can see, my young virtue was pretty safe with these guys!

Thanks Matt!

The Feast of Holy Innocents

My heart is also heavy because today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the day Christians remember the babies King Herod killed in order to get rid of the new "King of the Jews" that had been prophesied. This very day would have been my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. My mother's absence is still breathtaking and acute.

I had also, once long ago, last summer, anticipated my own nuptials on this very day so there's that added sense of loss. I had wanted a Christmas wedding like hers. And I wanted to build a life with a man I felt so lucky to find despite my illness, whom I loved and who very nearly proposed one Saturday at lunch last July at Cafe Milano. But he did not love me enough and was not steady. I'm not yet at the point where I find that a relief. I feel want and defeated.

Surely, the rash I have on my arm, chest and face is not helping my sadness. It stings and throbs and has flattened me. The dermatologist this morning gave me something that seems finally to have helped the flare and red flaming pain. No known cause. She suggested a patch test once my skin calms down. Could be cause or exacerbated by stress. Funny@!

Sometimes I wished I lived in Wonderland.

"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carroll

Okay, I'm going to go off and try and believe in impossible things for at least 30 minutes.

What is the Wigilia - A Polish Christmas Eve

As my mother taught me, and her mother before her and my great-grandmother Monica Tillwack Bura taught her (we called our great-grandmother, Busha), I will host a Wigilia this evening.




Traditionally, the meal begins with the sighting of the first star. The Trifle dessert was in honor of the Syrian Christian whose Christmas was more English growing up. Besides George, my other guests included Ali, an Iranian whose mother was Christian and father Muslim; Maggie, a former Roman Catholic; and Juliana, a secular Australian, aggressively so. Made for quite a mix.

We had a lovely evening. Maggie made the mushroom soup and after some concern, the final mix enjoyed a multitude of flavors. The perogis from Sophie's Place in Baltimore was worth every minute of the hour on line. And my Christmas ham came out great - with pears and cranberries. I was a bit worried about that, as it was a new recipe and I had to make adjustments to the directions to accommodate time away from home to go to church. But my mom taught me her cooking instincts well. I also prepared the traditional cauliflower recipe and the cucumber salad.

And the evening favor's were in the mode of the city in which I live - a candy cane and an Obama bumper sticker!

Here's some more background on the Polish Wigilia that I shared with my guests.

The Wigilia (or Wilia)

- from the Latin word vigilare meaning "to watch" -

is the Polish meal on Christmas Eve.

Poles greet the evening with

such anticipation, such careful planning and such mystical symbolism,

that it is considered by many to be a greater holiday than Chrismas itself.

The meal is traditional and includes from the forest - mushrooms, wild berries and honey.

All await the the most significant moment of the entire Wigilia supper

- the breaking and sharing of the Oplatek.

Oplatek is taken from the Latin word Oblatum - meaning sacred bread.

In every house in Poland, family and friends break

the traditional wafer and exhange good wishes.

The Oplatek is a thin unleavened wafer, stamped with the figures of the

Holy Child, the Blessed Mary, the Holy Family or the Angels.

The Oplatek is known as the Bread of Love and wafers are sent to absent family members.

A small layer of hay is place under the tablecloth in memory of the Godchild

in the manager & to remind one and all of our humble beginnings.

Sweet Christmas hay, my Polish childhood knew,

You cradle in your tangled wisps the white

Unleaven bread and spread your fragrance through

the mystic silence of the sacred night...

While we remember how the Virgin smiled

Beside a hay filled manager on her child.

by Victoria Janda, Walls of Space 1945

"A Guest in the Home is God in the Home." - ancient Polish adage

What I'm Thankful For

Mostly people. I'm deeply grateful for these people in my life :

• Ali M. – for his generosity of spirit, his time and his care.
• Ali S. – for offering his knowledge and service free to help me get better.
• Ari – for helping me quickly with all my computer ails, doing so cheerfully and efficiently, and liking Obama too.
• Anita - for providing emotional support and information in my endeavor to have a child, and for memories.
• Barbara - her sense of humor, encouraging my writing, her companionship with this endeavor to write, her understanding.
• Cecilia - for making me laugh, her emotional support and trips to Cosco.
• Chantal – for her constant and unconditional support, our long friendship (31 years!), and her resilience which is an inspiration.
• Christina – for her knitting help, for her emotional support, laughter, intelligence.
• Christine – for her checking in on me, her notes, care, and our long conversations and making me laugh.
• Claudette - for always making me belly laugh, being artful, and her loving gift of art that hangs on my bedroom wall.
  
• Connan and Blake - for checking in on me, sharing my love of theater, and for memories.
• Corinne - for checking in on me, encouragement and love.
  
• Elizabeth - for her steadfast example of dealing with loss and challenges with wit and intelligence and generosity.
  
• Emily - for checking in on me, and for memories.
• Erik – for adding to my hip factor, and always calling me with loving messages.
• Francesca - for her encouragement, good sense, and humor
  
• Gabriel - for his constant encouragement to keep me social, for the birthday party he gave me this year, and for bringing me groceries.
• Jen - for encouraging my writing and providing excellent and enthusiastic feedback, and for memories.
• John - for deeming me hip enough to have him as a friend, for checking in, and his sense of humor.
• Juliana- for teaching me yoga and inspiring stability and bringing laughter to my life.
  
• Libby - for her like-minded politics, encouragement and moral support, and visits with lunch, for groceries.
• Maggie - her thoroughness and information about film, arts, books, her companionship on this journey of illness.
• Mercedes - for checking in on me, letting me know when a good film is on TCM, and for her emotional support.
• Monica – for reminding me in ways big and small of my mother, sending me articles, and many phone calls checking in on me, her companionship in and understanding of chronic illness which has been a comfort.
• Nickie – for making me laugh, for working my muscles, for welcoming me so warmly and sharing her family and home.
• Sara - for her information, encouragement and visits with lunch.
• Sally - for informing me about Crossings which gave me the best gift, the gift of a dream about my mother.
• Sheryl – for her professional encouragement, her self-reliance which inspires, and her companionship in dating a Brazilian.
• Shirley - for her love, support, making me dinner and bringing her beautiful kids by for a visit.
  
• For my writing group last summer and this spring - Bill, Matt, Sarah, Tom and Zach - for keeping my mind awake, encouragement, and being funny.
  
• And most of all - my yoga students: Aaron, Ali, Carole B., Carole G. Cissy, Ellen, Jan, Karen, Kate, Laura, Maria, Reid, Sylvia, Tamra and Libby and Sara too - for their patience during this year of mourning.
• My care givers - Abdul and Fatima, Kevin, Rebecca, Nickie, Juliana, Claire, Rosalba, Alan, Jennifer, Karen, Ali, Ali, Dorothy and David.
  
• I am also grateful for the joy of children, especially my nieces and nephews Isabelle, Lucas, Austin, Curtis, Jack, Andrew, Margot, Sabrina and Ava.
• I am very grateful for the financial support of my father.
  

Boy, that makes me feel pretty lucky. These months have been trying, and I am appreciative of these connections and relationships which have buoyed me in all sorts of ways.

A Woman Finds Home in Italy on Thanksgiving

A heart warming tale on Thanksgiving of a woman who traveled alone to Italy at the age of 41 (my age) to see the town where her grandparents were from. And her life changed.

Thank you Maggie for the heads up.

Sister Beatrice's 40th Birthday Party

So this photo was taken on Saturday night, September 8th just as Beatrice's 40th Birthday party was getting underway. Holding my father up would be (from left) Beatrice (40 next week); Eleanor (38 in 2 weeks); Matthew (47); Olivia (35) and me (41).

The party was outside and the air was very hot and humid. Her husband John did a wonderful job and even bought his first pair of designer jeans for the affair (a shopping expedition to the Short Hills mall that included their 4 children, such was the event). No children at the party, though Bea and John's kids were allowed up past their bedtime - until 10 pm. I've no doubt they'll remember the night the rest of their lives, as I still remember my father's 40th.

I'm going to begin again this blog. The site has since been bought by Google. And my mom died in November. Her diagnosis in February 2006 is the main reason I've halted. But I aim to begin again and to do more that just blah blah blah about my life. I hope to add in reviews, political stuff as the campaign gears up, and perhaps even some tales from the online dating front.

497 days until Bush is out. (January 20, 2009)