The Gurly Life

"Other"

Yesterday I had an interesting experience. Someone asked me about lunch plans, and I ended up explaining that I will not be spending any money eating out this month because I’m taking a writing class at Stanford, which takes up the better part of my discretionary income for the month. His reaction was, to say the least, odd. Not entirely unexpected, but odd.

He rolled his eyes and started mocking me in a sing-song voice, something like “Ooh, the poor little girl she has to not eat out for a month because she’s taking a fancy class at STANFORD. I feel so bad for you, having to sacrifice so much.” And then he concluded with a scornful “You are so spoiled, I can’t believe it!”

Frankly, I was speechless. I had not indicated that not eating out was in any way a sacrifice. I was merely explaining why, so it was odd that he went down this tangent. Plus, spoiled would suggest that someone gave me this as a gift just because I'm so fabulous, but I'm paying for it out of my own pocket, with money I earned. How that makes me spoiled is puzzling, but whatever. I was reminded to how much scorn the “educated elite” are subject. I use quotation marks because I’m not so sure that being educated puts me in the elite class, but for the sake of this post, let’s assume that that is the case.

What I wanted to say, but refrained from doing so, was that if he wanted to have a better life or didn’t want to have to spend all his money on his wife and children, he should have gone to law school, gotten a lucrative job, and made different choices instead of pouring his distaste on me. But for diplomatic reasons, I did not. Note that I mentioned that his reaction was not surprising – this is not the first time he has made snarky comments about who he thinks I am. At this point, the next time he goes down that road, I will say something blunt and revoke his teasing privileges. Life is too short to put up with people’s regurgitations of inferiority. Of course, that will likely be followed by a conversation, initiated by me, of course, about how that particular kind of snarkiness is not constructive.

What this also reminded me is that several years ago there was a morning radio host on 98.7, Jamie something, who was loud and irritating and who despised anyone who was remotely educated or sophisticated, including her surgeon husband, lumping us all into a category of stuck-up assholes. Needless to say, said surgeon dumped her ignorant ass.

What is corrosive about this kind of attitude is not so much the specific prejudice, but the prejudice in general. It is yet another way in which people create separation from each other, “other” being the operative word. As soon as I am different from you in some way, I am “other.” I am no longer one of “us,” I cannot be trusted, and I am the fair target of ridicule and disgust. As soon as I am “other,” you no longer need to bother to listen to anything I say, or know who I really am. Everything I do or say is either interpreted to align with your view of me as “stuck-up snob,” “Jew,” “Muslim,” conservative” etc., or it simply does not register.

All of this reflection had an interesting side effect. I got re-inspired by my life all over again. I mean, really, even my worst days are better than most people’s best, and I have been lucky in just about every aspect of my life, even the ones that don’t work. I mean, how fortunate am I to have a career I love, good friends, a great family, cats (my goodness, the luck!), an amazing education, and the privilege to be able to take a writing class at Stanford just because I want to. That is pretty damn awesome.

Do the kids know about The Breakfast Club?

I just saw an ad for JC Penney, a department store, that was a re-enactment of some scenes from the classic John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club. The theme song for this film, Don't You (Forget About Me), by Simple Minds, still plays on the radio on a regular basis.

Does this movie still speak to teens the way it spoke to us, 22 years ago? I guess it must, otherwise they wouldn't have used it for a going-back-to-school ad. It's cool to be able to say that we were actually in high school when the movie came out.

The '80's were awesome.

Being ok with oneself is simple, but not always easy

Or, Duh! part 2. If you don't feel like reviewing the Duh! post, I'll summarize: it really doesn't matter how I think I am, or how I think people perceive me, or how I think I should be. I'm ok how I am, and all there is to be is authentic. This was something I saw around the area of men and relationships. It reminds me, by the way, that especially as women we are incredibly quick to compromise what's important to us, even hide or suppress essential parts of who we are, to please men. Let me be the first to say that this does not work. Ok, perhaps I'm not the first to say it.

Anywho.

I had promised that I would blog more about some of the recent breakthroughs that I've had, so here is a big one.

I will make a long story short: I finally got that I am who I am and that's just fine. It's quite simple, but the difference between generating myself and being run by all the neurotic survival mechanisms is quite profound. I'm still the same person, and yet not at all. My whole life, on some level I have not been ok how I am. I've always wanted to be taller, thinner, prettier, funnier, softer, sexier, sharper, nicer, more athletic, you name it, at some point I've been unaccepting of myself on some level. This has become less of an issue as I've gotten older, and certainly since Landmakr. But now the issue is moot.

This is how it happened. Recently I was at a friend's house, we were mocking parts of the introduction to the Landmark Forum, and I realized how much work I think leading an introduction is. When I looked deeper, I saw that the reason it occurs as so much work is because I had it that I have to be perky and smiley. Well, you may not have noticed this, but I'm not perky and smiley as a rule. I've had it that the guests I lead to are ok just how they are, but that I'm not. That's weird. So I invented the possibility of being self-expressed. Well, more like Self-expressed. Anyway, now it takes me about an hour to prep for an introduction, versus several hours.

Like many possibilities, I invented it for one area of my life and it affected the rest of my life. More of that another post, this possiblity is only about a month old, and it's still unfolding.

Already beginning to reap the benefits of yoga

As you are no doubt aware, as avid followers of this blog and all things Elena, I have turned to yoga to replace, in part, my running practice. I have also gone back to eating like I was while running (minus the huge amounts of protein, which I do not need unless I'm running regularly).

While my mom was here and cooking for me I was eating perfectly, but I was wiped out by recovering from surgery, so even though her food helped the healing process tremendously, I had yet to experience excellent food at the same time as lack of recovery from surgery. I've also been sleeping more overall than I was prior to surgery.

In the last few days I've had a great sense of well being, I feel rested and strong and whole. I don't think it's just the food and the yoga, there are some other things I've seen recently that have gotten me to this place, and I'll blog about them over the next couple of days, but they certainly are contributing.

My reasons are better than your reasons

No, this is not a follow up on My servants are better than your servants.

Sometimes, as I browse profiles on Match, somebody says something so ridiculous that I give in to the urge to email them and ask them about it. One guy has an entire paragraph about how he doesn't understand why women want tall guys. Here's what he writes, and he's clearly irritated about this whole thing:

I've read a number of profiles. Someone please tell me what it is about a man's height that can ruin everything for a woman. I'm 5'9", which used to be the average height of an American male. It's now 5'8", which means I'm taller than average... Nonetheless, I've read women's profiles who are looking for all of the things that strike a chord with me, great sense of humor, dog lover, creative, driven, good potential parent, but it all boils down to height - she wants a man who is 6'4", but she's only 5'2". I don't understand.

So, here was my question to him:

I read in your profile that you wonder why women are looking for tall men, and it makes no sense to you. However, you have an age range that is lower than your age, and you have certain body type requirements. Please understand, I don't think there is anything wrong with either of those things, but how is it different than women wanting a tall guy? Most men want a slender or athletic/toned woman. Most women are neither slender nor athletic/toned.

His response:

It's not an unfair question.

There are two parts to a truthful answer. First, I'm not looking for anything that I'm not, where appearances are concerned. Should an overweight person expect to attract someone else who is 'athletic and toned'? I don't think so. I wouldn't.

Where age is concerned, the matter is regrettably different for men and women. I want to have a couple of children, yet I don't expect to marry a woman less than two years after first meeting/dating her. That means if I met a woman aged 39 today, got married two years later, and we decided to enjoy being married for a couple of years before having our first child, she would be 43 before we began trying to have a kid.

There are practical matters concerning both a woman's and child's health later in life that become exponentially risky as a woman enters her 40's. No one likes to hear it, but it's the truth. A friend of mine and his wife rolled the dice on having a second child. His wife was 43 at the time of birth. Sadly, their child was born with severe mental disabilities. Having a child is somewhat of a selfish choice to make to begin with; to make that choice with the additional risk to its health is not something I'm interested in.

Lastly, I think you have to consider the extreme differences I mean to point out where height is concerned. A 5'2" woman who says she wants a real man so long as he is 6'2", has no idea what a real man is.

Eh-hem. I think at this point, my women readers will have their hackles up. I say, don't waste your energy because I've already done it. I love how some people are just awful and then give you a rationalization like they're totally justified to simply dismiss people, but then get all upset when they themselves are treated that way. At the risk of wasting time and energy, I sent a last response. If he writes back, I will not answer further, I think I've taken up enough time for the day.

I understand everything you say, and I don't disagree, except for the fact that children can be adopted just as they can be given birth to. This of course may not be something you'd be open to, in which case the age thing is a possible issue. But what your answer makes me think is that your criteria are just as personal, and therefore valid, as the criteria for women who want to be with tall men.
 
You could also say that a man who says he wants a real woman, so long as she's younger than 37, has no idea what a real woman is, or a real mother for that matter.
 
My point is not that your justifications are not valid, because they are. They are perfectly reasonable and valid. You choose who you want based on what you believe, think, and prioritize, and very importantly, what you find attractive. If a woman is not attracted to fat guys, you would not have an issue with that (unless you were fat) I would imagine, it would make sense to you. Height is no different. Hair is no different. My point is that it is as absurd to be miffed that a woman won't date you b/c of your height as it is absurd for a woman to be miffed that you won't date her because of her age or her size. You want what you want, and she wants what she wants. And if a woman is going to miss out on you because you're not tall enough, too bad, she's not the right girl for you anyway, right?
 
Anyway, best of luck to you also, don't settle for anything less than what you want, but consider being a little forgiving to those who don't see you as the man that you are because, after all, there are many who you do not see as the women that they are.

The point, gentle readers, in case you missed it, is not that he is wrong in wanting what he wants. We may not agree with him and think he's a dumbass, but that's neither our problem nor the point. It makes no sense to be angry that others judge you (and by you I mean the rhetorical you) based on their personal criteria, when you yourself judge people based on your own, often not very noble, personal criteria. Put another way: get off your high horse, you're just as shallow as everyone else -- own it.

This is also a reminder for me when I get upset if some guy doesn't like me because I'm short, tall, old(er), fat, thin, a brunette, too smart, not smart enough, etc. etc. etc. It just highlights how absurd it all is. We each have criteria that are rational and reasonable to us, sometimes they're deal breakers, and they are all more or less ridiculous and totally valid. Take, for example, my clean mouth obsession. It's absurd, and yet there is no way on god's green earth that I can get past it. Some people will totally agree with me, and some will be like, what? The good personality, communication skills, being responsible, etc, all the good stuff, is useless if the guy has ass breath, so who are we kidding?

Therefore: I declare July 2008 "shallow, less-than-noble, pick the mate you want" month!

Geee-NIUS!

As some of you may know, July 11 is my 40th birthday. I've been meaning to do something celebratory, but just haven't been motivated to do it. Not because I don't want to, not at all, I do, but because I am still enjoying just being healthy after all that hip stuff and I just don't feel the need to celebrate further. The thought of putting something together just wears me out a little. Especially since my favorite thing to do on my birthday, other than do my own thing, is to have a small number of people to hang out with.

Today I was talking to my friend (and new colleague) Jamaar, who is celebrating his 30th year. You got it: his 30th year, not his 30th birthday. That gave me a great idea: celebrate my birthday how I want to, and then over the next year do a series of other things with friends, all in celebration of my 40th year. I'm thinking of a monthly potluck, a Hawaii trip, a NY trip, and goodness knows what else.

So that's what I'm going to do - on July 11 begins a year long celebration. Now to organize.

Gas prices are affecting my lifestyle

Has anyone else had to make any adjustments due to the rising prices of gas and pretty much everything else? I certainly have. In the last 30 days or so I have spent over $200 in gas alone. The next 30 days is looking like maybe $300 or more. Fortunately, I get my Prius back from the shop next week. In a regular small car, my monthly gas bill right now would be $300-$400. With the Prius, it'll be half that.

Someone I know was looking to buy one, and apparently they are in higher demand than ever (well, duh! 50mpg), and are selling well above sticker price. A car that I purchased in early March for $24,500 is now going for $30,000.

On Monday I went grocery shopping and spent $108 on groceries. Eouch.

Well, lots of little extras are falling by the wayside, like eating out. The $200 or so I was spending a month to eat out with friends will not be spent to buy groceries, and my friends can come have dinner chez moi.

Whose life is this, anyway?

It is Tuesday before my trip, while working at home and trying to get as much done before my trip as possible before leaving, and I get up off the couch to ask my mom if she can fix us something to eat; only to immediately realize that my mom is in Italy.

All of a sudden, I am sad that my mom and dad are not there. It’s not the first time I experience this, but it is the first time that I am so surprised and disappointed in the moment that I realize my mom isn’t there. And then, faster than I can do anything about it, I am looking at my whole life as an objective, assessing stranger, an out-of-life experience, if you will, and I think “This is not my life. I don’t know whose life this is, but it’s not my life."

That is new. I have, like most people, always wanted things that I didn’t have, or off-handedly wished I was rich, or tall, or both, but in my adult life I don’t remember thinking and being that I am not living my life but some other random person’s. What I am suddenly present to is how little I am a conscious architect of my life. I really get at an experiential level that my life has turned out exactly the way I said it would. As a kid, I could never imagine myself being married with a family and a house with a white picket fence, and that is exactly what is so. I could not imagine doing a crap job as an assistant somewhere, and I have a career as an attorney. I could not imagine being fat for the rest of my life, and I lost weight and am not fat. All the circumstances and ways of being that I imagined for myself have come to pass. Or not come to pass, if that is what I imagined.

I can now literally see the architecture of my life, as if my mind’s eye developed X-ray capability. I can see the piping, and the electrical, and the foundation, all of it. I can see how I put it together, and how intentional I was about it all, even if not conscious about most of it. At first, this was a shock. I have been saying this thing about human beings having the lives they deserve for a while, but did not get it at this level until a few days ago.

It sounds mean, doesn’t it? Dispassionate, cruel, detached, the kind of thing conservatives say about the homeless as they vote to cut funding for programs to aid them. But what I mean is a little different. I am not an advocate of slashing social services with the lame argument that, if they’re less fortunate, that’ what they really want and they deserve it. I am actually all for social services, I think anyone who wishes to pull themselves out of any situation should have all the support the community can give them. I strongly believe the privileged should be responsible for providing the less fortunate with what they need to live lives that are more than just about how to pay for next month’s rent and holding a dead-end job at Burger King until retirement, if they so choose. I mean, if you figured out how to do well, why not share it with those who have not? But I digress.

What I mean has to do with being 100% responsible for how my life has turned out; brutally, inexcusably responsible. Like there is no one else who runs my life but me. Like the circumstances of my life are the way they are because this is how I designed the whole thing. Now I know there are lots of circumstances that just are, random things that happen here and there, like the car accident or the hip problem. But they are, when looked at in the grand scheme of things, minor bumps. The most apt metaphor I can come up with is that I pick the road and the destination. I pick where I go, and how to get there. On the way, there will be traffic, the occasional pothole, I might take a wrong turn somewhere and have to get back on the main road, I might get a flat tire or run out of gas; but I’m the one who picks the road and maps out the trip, books the bed and breakfasts and the local diners, marks the gas stations on the map, etc It is Tuesday before my trip, and I suddenly realize that I’m on the 10 heading east and half way to New Orleans, and I’m getting frustrated that I’m not approaching Las Vegas fast enough.

This is a problem, because Las Vegas ain’t happening, and that’s where I say I want to go. Don’t take this literally, I’m not interested in moving to Vegas, I couldn't care less about Vegas. The point is that it is absurd to put myself on a very clear path to something and then complain that I am not getting closer to something else that is in another direction altogether. At first this realization is not good news. Not good news at all. I make myself wrong and decide that I’m doomed. You know, the usual drama.

But the question that bubbles to the surface is what do I want my life to look like?

The answer comes about as fast as I can ask the question, and frankly surprises me a little. The answer is that if I had the life that I want for myself, I’d be living very comfortably in New York City, with an awesome husband who makes a ton of money, working part time as an attorney and part time as a writer, and raising kids. Cool kids, the kind that will grow up to be leaders and make a difference. I think that has always been there, but I’ve never had the courage to articulate it all at once, so specifically. I know I’ve said bits of it, but not the whole picture. It is one of those things that has always been there but it has been buried and unspoken all this time. Unspoken because I don’t know that I can do it. I don’t know if I have the guts to take it on, and I don’t know if I have what it takes to get it. In fact, I fear I don’t, on both counts. The fear is not just fear of failure, it is also fear of looking bad and disappointing. What if I can’t do it? What if all those people who think I can do anything are wrong and then I end up with egg on my face? I have a rep to protect, here.

Worse, what if I leap, and no net appears? [To be continued...]

The day after

Amusingly enough, I have more visible injuries from falling on the steps in the theater than from the car accident. Actually, far as I can tell, I have no injuries from the accident. But I do have rugburn on my elbow and a bruise on my knee from falling down. Like I said yesterday, pffft. My friend Erik says I need to come up with a better story for the injuries, especially the rugburn.

Last night I had a little anxiety from the accident, and couldn't fall asleep till 1am. Then I woke up at 6:30, and didn't even really enjoy my pancakes. It was so hot, I could barely eat. Today I was really tired. But I got to see my friend Mari, who was in town for 24 hours for the UCLA reunion I did not attend. It sounds like there were lots of people there that I haven't spoken to in 5 years, and don't necessarily even care to. I'm sure it would have been nice to see them, but whatever. Mari was the one person I really wanted to see, and I got to hang with her and Julissa this morning. Julissa is another law school buddy.

This afternoon I went to Izabelle and Ryan's baby shower. By then I was so tired I couldn't see straight, so I mostly sat around being awkward. We played a couple of games, one of which involved decorating little white onesies. Here's mine:

Not too bad, though I say so myself. Perhaps my calling is in a line of baby clothes. Then again, this is maybe "not too bad" when viewed in the context that most of my artistic endeavors look like little piles of vomit.

I left during the opening of the gifts. It looked it was going to take a while, there were many lovely gifts. I love Izabelle and Ryan, but I just hit the wall and had to go home and nap.

New shoes

New shoes, originally uploaded by The Gerli Life.

Today I bought new running shoes. And because gym work wrecks running shoes, I also got some cross-trainers. The running shoes are on the right, with the orange trim. The cross-trainers actually look like space booties when they're on.

I went to a place called The Starting Line, in Marina Del Rey. If you're interested in not injuring yourself when you run, this is the place to go for your shoes. I have a number of friends who do triathlons or ironman races, and they will only buy shoes at this place. They put you on a treadmill to watch you walk and run and fit you with the right shoes. Last spring or summer (can't remember which) I bought shoes there and started wearing those instead of heels or work shoes. I was still running a little bit, though less and less, but just switching shoes really contributed to my hip pain improving.

So this morning Pixie and I left at 9am to get there at opening time, 10am. I got there a little early, got myself a decaf low fat latte at a local cafe (The Cow), eschewing Starsucks, and hovered by the door nonchalantly, when what I wanted to do was claw at the door to let me in.

I think the guy who sold me these liked me, and not because he spent an hour with me getting the shoes just right, that's simply good customer service. I prattled on about my hip surgery, this that and the other, chatted with a woman named George who's friends with Billy Crystal, loudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen that I do not recommend hip surgery if you can avoid it, and really didn't worry too much about scaring him off because, well, I was just buying shoes, who cares what the guy thinks, right? I'm a customer, I get to be all crazy and prattly if I want to.

He told me he lives in LA, near West Hollywood (almost my side of town, for the out-of-towners), and often runs errands in Hollywood so if I need shoes I can call him and he can bring them to me. This is where I started to think he was interested, because, come on! Excellent customer service is one thing, but bringing a bunch of shoes across town so a customer doesn't have to drive to you is, I think, above and beyond. He told me all about the trails going up to the observatory and where it's good to run and good to hike, gave me all kinds of excellent advice, took me outside to watch me run in 2 different kinds of shoes on the pavement rather than the treadmill, and so on.

As an aside, it felt AWESOME to run, even if it was only half a block.

He also told me that on Wednesday afternoons at 5:30 there's a group of people, including lawyers, who go for a run along the beach (the store is in Marina Del Rey, about a block from the beach), and that on Thursdays at 6pm there's a group that gathers at the shoe store and goes for a run. Then he told me how far it is to run from the beach there to Santa Monica pier, or to the pier south of there. He got as far as he could without actually saying please come out for a run with us.

Seeing as I'm not a complete idiot, it occurred to me that there really wasn't much more that he could do, so I helped him out a bit. I told him if he's ever going for a run or hike in Griffith Park (up the street from me) or thereabouts, he should give me a call. Obviously I gave him my number. It's a perfectly legitimate thing to offer, I think, after all that information he gave me.

He walked me out and as he's handing me my little bag with the shoes and a running magazine, he said he'd give me a call and we'd go for a hike in Griffith Park. I of course smiled and said that would be great.

He seems nice, not unattractive, and a calm individual who knows a lot about something I love: running. I think going on a hike would be fun. If he ever does call, I'll let you know, of course -- after all, when do I keep anything to myself?