And the Stories They Rode In On

About halfway through 2011, for reasons I can no longer clearly recall, I decided to keep track of the books I read on an annual basis.  So I tried to remember what I had already read in the opening months of the year and jotted them down.  Then I added the rest as they accrued.  I eventually learned about Goodreads and now I track my reads that way, too, though I still keep a Word document on my computer to which I dutifully add each completed volume and its author.

There is something about lists and tracking one's own activity that is very powerful.  For example, in theory I already know what I eat every day because I am the one shoveling it into my mouth.  If I were to actually write it down, however, and reduce it to documentation admissible in court, I would surely object to my own evidence and argue that hearsay must somehow have been involved.  I know I ate a handful of tortilla chips and a chocolate chip cookie when I got home from work, before then pouring myself a glass of wine and beginning to make dinner, but confronting this on paper just makes me look bad.  Of course, this is precisely why food journals are encouraged in many weight loss programs, but let's consider the context for a moment: I am a tried and tired middle-aged woman.  I am not in the market for ANYTHING that makes me look bad.

Not surprisingly, I have not adopted the habit of writing down what I eat.   I see nothing rewarding in engaging in guilt-induced self-flagellation that would surely only make me uptight and unhappy.  But list-making in the positive direction -- good deeds done, rather than sins committed -- now that's something much more palatable.

Several years ago I started tracking my workouts on MapMyRun and then last year the books I read.  It is amazing how engaged one can be in chasing one's own tail just by doing so in the form of a list.  It goes without saying, I hope, that I am not required to report any of this to anybody else.   It's just me keeping these lists and monitoring my progress, if any.  I am both parole officer and ex-con.  And yet, it works.  By tracking my workouts and watching the accumulation of hours spent and calories burned, I am motivated to exercise more often.  By tracking the books I read, I find myself more willing to pick up a book and resist the television.

In my limited experience, the most satisfying part of list keeping comes at the end of a measurement period -- the end of a month for workouts, or the end of the year in the case of my newly minted book list.  I then review the time period in question and see what I managed to accomplish.  This can generate its own internal momentum, where I suddenly rush to get items logged before the bell rings and I must put my pencil down, such as on my recent year-end vacation to Mexico during which I was reading like a fiend to get one last book in before 2011 was bolted shut and padlocked forever. 

So far, my list of books read is not particularly impressive.  It looks like this:

RP's List of Books Read (est. 2011)

2011

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall
See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, by Bob Mould
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
The Long Shining Waters, by Danielle Sosin
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by John Krakauer
The Long Run (Kindle Single), by Mishka Shubaly
Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea, by Jaimal Yogis
The Visible Man, by Chuck Klosterman
The Leftovers, by Tom Perotta


2012

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds, by Olivia Gentille
Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton
Growing Up Amish, A Memoir, by Ira Wagler

Compared to many people I know, my list is decidedly short of stature.  Still, it is a starting point.  A geographic marker.  A benchmark.  I have read hundreds perhaps thousands of books in my life, but I've never kept track of them.  Now, I will write them down, strive to lengthen the list year over year and have the chance to look back and see where I've been. 

Which is what I did recently with my nascent little book list.  I looked back over it and was struck by how many of the books on my list were either memoirs/personal histories or biographies.  At least 7 of the 15 listed to date, and that's not even counting the book in which I am currently embedded, Hitch-22 (A Memoir) by Christopher Hitchens.  I hadn't been aware that I was seeking out so many non-fictionalized accounts of life in the modern world.  I hadn't done so consciously, yet I was consistently gravitating towards the stories of life as experienced and recounted by others.

Up until my 2011 survey, I would have told you that I almost always go for fiction.  In fact, the more fictitious the better.  By this I mean that I have plumbed the depths and limits of the canyon under the bridge of my suspended disbelief and it is deep and wide.  I am not bothered by impossibility or farfetchedness.  If the universe ceases to behave in accordance with the immutable laws of physics I will likely be giddy with delight.  To wit: some of my favorite books of all time are Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.  If you are not familiar with these books I will first take a moment to weep for your gaping loss.  {Sob.}  I will then quickly move on to telling you that the series begins with a particularly lousy Thursday morning as experienced by our befuddled protagonist, Arthur Dent.  On this day, he finds himself lying down in the mud, in his bathrobe, in his front yard in order to dissuade the driver of a bulldozer from proceeding with tearing down his house.  After his startlingly calm and intelligent friend, Ford Prefect, arrives on the scene and convinces the driver of the bulldozer to take Arthur's place in the mud so that Ford can borrow Arthur for a few moments of critical conversation at the pub just down the block,  Arthur thinks his day might be looking up.  But then, with a seemingly celebratory pint in hand, he learns that Ford is actually a hitch-hiking alien from another part of the universe and that Earth is moments away from being blasted into smithereens by the Vogons as part of the equivalent of an intergalactic highway widening project.  Owing to his good fortune in having unwittingly befriended the only hitch-hiking alien on Earth, Arthur is soon safely stowed away on one of the Vogon blasting ships just as they are clearing out the inconsequential and irritatingly daft space detritus that is Earth.  And then the story really picks up.

(If you are not yet convinced of my historical appetite for literary silliness, I give you Exhibit B:  my once deep and abiding love of Tom Robbins' novels.  I rest my case and move for a directed verdict.)

After reminding myself of what types of writing I used to gravitate towards and noting how far away from this warm and familiar sun my apparently elliptical orbit has now taken me, I pondered the possibility that I had become interested in the real, concrete and gravity-ruled stories of others' lives because I am very aware of being decidedly in the middle of my own.  Aware that the beginning is over, the middle is in progress and that the end will one day come.  Accordingly, I find myself somewhat less interested in imagining the crazy, logic and physics-defying things that will surely never happen, than examining and considering the many, grittier, less shiny aspects of living that certainly will.  The human experience may not yet encompass the hilarity of intergalactic space travel (during which, you must not forget to bring your towel), but it is chock-full of nuance and emotion and the pain and joy that comes with experience and any kind of connectedness to others and the world we collectively inhabit.  Missives from the front lines of life are, therefore, suddenly more compelling to me.  I am thirsty for reports on the land ahead and for any advice or scraps of information about how others have navigated this terrain.  What were their joys, their pitfalls, their successes and failures -- their regrets?

***

Tina Fey's book was intriguing to me because I find her to be such a refreshing kind of celebrity, especially since I generally tend to dislike celebrity.  A lot.  The more you seek fame for the sake of being famous, the more I will tend to conclude that you are a vapid idiot not worth my time.  But Tina -- 'cause, you know, that's what I call her -- she seems different.  Better.  From what I can tell, she has managed to succeed not only in her field, but also in constructing a stable and well-engineered psyche  that is not in need of constant remodeling or redecorating with each new trend, nor at risk of collapse from huffing (and here I mean deliberately to reference both metaphorical Big Bad Wolves and Demi Moore).  She is smart and funny and has managed huge success in an industry known to be historically allergic to such women.  It seemed I wanted to know if there was some secret engine of abuse or hatred or family dysfunction that propelled her forward and I was very pleased to discover that, mostly, she is just normal smart and funny.  Not fucked-up and tormented smart and funny.  Somehow, I found that deeply gratifying and reassuring.  Maybe the future for women generally, and my daughters in particular, wouldn't require the tortured exaggeration of certain attributes and personality traits and the repression of others, often at great personal cost, to succeed in the big leagues.

Bob Mould, on the other hand, turned out to be quite the opposite kind of specimen.  I read his book, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, mostly because I am a big fan of his music.  Indeed, the title of this blog is a line from one of his songs.  Unlike Tina, Bob seems to have contracted every possible strain of fucked-up over the years and has paid dearly for it. And if you ask me, he still hasn't fully recovered.  Although we shouldn't need any more stories of abusive childhoods and drug addiction and denial of sexual identity to maintain our resolve against these social ills, his is yet another compelling account to add to the evidence sheet. 

Pat Tillman couldn't tell his own story.  As you may know, he was the former NFL linebacker who left a promising, lucrative and comparatively safe career in football in order to join the military and serve his nation after 9-11.  He was killed in Afghanistan by "friendly fire" in what can only be described as a horribly botched patrol that resulted from horribly botched military strategy and the illogic and irrationality that can exist in a "chain of command" environment.  That U.S. troops might be directly responsible for the deaths of other U.S. troops is awful, which is why it was determined at much higher levels that the true facts and circumstances of Tillman's death should be obscured and hidden.  The saddest part of this story isn't even the senselessness of his death and how it happened (although that is infuriating and heart wrenching), but that the handling of it was in such sharp contrast to the values Tillman embodied and for which he was willing to risk his life.  Tragedy happens.  We all know this.  But to bury tragedy in a shallow grave covered with the thin soil of short-sighted self-preservation and then preside over the body with a religious ceremony that the deceased specifically indicated he didn't want -- well, that just takes nausea and disgust and deceit and disrespect to a whole new level.  Pat's story is both inspiring because of the personal portrait of who Tillman was that emerges from Krakauer's thorough and considered research, and demoralizing for uncovering the persistent and intractable problem of narrow-minded group think.

Those are just the higher-profile memoirs/biographies on my list.  I haven't even told you about the even more fascinating lives of Phoebe Snetsinger (world-record holding bird watcher) and Gabrielle Hamilton, teenage runaway cum award-winning New York restauranteur and ridiculously talented writer.  But if you want to know the truth, these two are the best stories on the list and are nothing like what you think they will be.  Which, in a way, is the point.  It's the old "you can't judge a book by its cover" lessen that nevertheless bears repeating over and over again no matter how many covers you have tried to not judge in the past.

***

I don't have a nifty trick for linking all of these stories together, except to note that their disparity and individuality and uniqueness is precisely what I love about them and why I am currently so drawn to memoir and other non-fiction.  I love that the reality of human experience -- the common thread -- is simply that we are human.  There is no one thing that we all do or experience the same way or even agree upon, it seems.  And yet, we can recognize humanity in each other though it is manifested in an infinite variety of individual expressions and realities. 

Predictably, reading so many stories of the lives of others might lead one to consider what one's own story is.  If your life were reduced to a narrative, what kind would it be and how would it be told?  What would be the major themes and the minor plot lines?  What might the future, as yet unwritten chapters hold?  To what extent do you feel that you are in control of your story and able to shape its progression and denouement?  And to what extent is your story influenced or shaped by where you were born, who you were born to and your access to food, shelter, healthcare, education and employment?

If that is not enough to bog you down for a good long while, then let me add a few more existential rocks to your mental rucksack.  On a parallel track, one can also consider the fact that, unless you are a hermit who was born from the short-lived and unlikely romance between a rock and a lusty patch of soil one peculiar summer night long ago, you are also a player in someone else's story.  Perhaps many stories.  You are a son or daughter, sister or brother, wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, mother or father or just plain old friend, acquaintance, colleague, schoolmate or neighbor to someone else.  This means that in addition to contemplating your own personal narrative, you can also contemplate how you figure into, or out of, the narratives of others.

Here's what I'm driving at:  I am someone else's mother.  In fact, I am two someone else's mother.  The. Mother.  You know, the person that everyone loves to complain about and load with expectations and impossibly conflicting essential attributes.  The person who must be strong yet soft, loving yet fierce, understanding yet demanding, nurturing yet freeing, forgiving yet rule enforcing, not to mention endlessly patient, good at school projects and in possession of a blue ribbon, family heirloom recipe for some sort of pie or cookie or other beloved baked good.  The person described and discussed at length in every single one of the memoirs/biographies digested above.  In short, the person responsible for millions of jobs and a whole sub-economy in the field of psychotherapy. (On the upside, though, if my kids ever win an Oscar, tradition holds that I will be the first person recognized and thanked in their acceptance speech.  So it pretty much evens out in the end.)

Here, to your great relief and mine, I will stop and take a breath.  I'm not really about to go careening out of control all over the internet.  It just feels that way.

What I find gratifying about looking through literary peepholes into the lives of others, or thinking about the book that is my own life, or the thousands of dollars in future psychotherapy, the need for which will be my fault, is not that I come up with answers, but that I come away with questions.  Lots and lots of questions.  There is nothing so satisfying as a good question.  (Fine.  Maybe there are a few things as satisfying or even more satisfying than a good question, but for me, a good question is up there.)

So, I think about the world full of different stories and how my own has unfolded and may yet unfold and I ask myself questions.  As it happens, the questions eventually led me to make a list.  A "bucket" list, I hear it's called, which I understand to reference a list of things that I would like to do or experience or achieve in case I accidentally cause Mrs. O'Leary's cow to kick the bucket . . . er . .  . lantern over and set the barn and then the entire city of Chicago on fire, which would surely land me in jail for the rest of my days. 

Whatever. 

I made a list and I like to review it every now and then.  Because in this instance, waiting until the end of the measurement period to take stock of where I have been, trace the major themes of my story and what I've done or accomplished, will be too late. 

And also, it is amazing how engaged one can be in chasing one's own tale just by doing so in the form of a list.

Personal Best: Running to Empty

In the March 2012 edition of Runner's World Magazine there is a section, as there is every month, called "Personal Best."  In this issue, the first part of this section is subtitled, "The Warmup: Love Your Run."  The single-page feature gives tips on how not to get bored with running, addresses fueling during a run, and also includes responses to the question, "What do you love most about running?"  The overwhelming majority of respondents (64%) selected "how it makes me feel."  Just below this is the following quotation:

I think I get addicted to the feelings associated with the end of a long run.  I love feeling empty, clean, worn out, starving and sweat purged.  I love the good ache of muscles that have done me proud.

I read this at least a week ago when the issue arrived (and I will never understand why the March issue arrives at the beginning of February -- shouldn't that be the February issue?), but it has been following me around ever since.  Although I am not, and have never been, a hardcore runner, this statement captures exactly what I love about running, or any strenuous endeavor for that matter; the sensation of effort and sweat and exhaustion.  The sense that you have gathered what you have, in whatever amount that happens to be, and used it all up, or at least a good portion of it up.  Rather than feeling depleted or hollow, this sense of spent energy is strangely fulfilling, gratifying and uplifting.

No doubt the scientific explanation will involve endorphins and survival instincts ("RUN!!!!") and evolutionarily developed predispositions toward traveling long and far and enduring what other species cannot.  (For those of you who have not read Christopher McDougall's most excellent book, Born to Run, I urge you to do so.   It does not matter if the only running you do is to the grocery store in your car, you should read this book.  I loved it so much, I read it twice.  Consecutively.  I'm not kidding.)  But as much as I love science and what it can reveal to us, in this instance I am more interested in the individual, subjective experience than the names of the chemicals in my brain that are behind that experience.

So back to that empty, sweaty, wrung-out, tired and totally psyched, euphoric feeling you get at the end of a long run or bike ride (so I'm told) or hot yoga class; that good feeling of work and accomplishment and satisfaction.  It is for real.  Yet, if you're like me, you will nevertheless regularly attempt to avoid the very rewarding sensation that you know you like.  It goes like this:  you start out almost every time contemplating whether you are going to do anything at all.  You'd like to go for a run, but it is ______.  My fill-in-the-blank favorites are usually "cold" (less than 75 degrees), "not sunny", "dark", "really cold" (less than 60 degrees) or "really fucking cold" (less than 40 degrees).  I've also been known to assess how far I wanted to run (usually 4-5 miles) against how much time I have (not enough).  Never mind that I could just run 2-3 miles and be fine on the clock.  If I wanted to run 4-5 miles but don't quite have time, well, then, maybe today isn't the day for a run after all.

Once I have navigated the fun house mirrors and pits of quicksand that apparently account for most of the space inside my own head (at least that not already occupied by rogue hamsters), I usually manage to exit through the side door into the daylight of a decision to go running or go to hot yoga anyway.  And here's the thing:  I have never once regretted the decision to get off my ass and do something.  Not one single time.  I have never gone running and arrived back at my driveway panting and drenched and thought, "Shit!  What did I do that for?!"  And I have never gone to yoga and found myself soaked, emptied and rolling up my mat 60 or 90 minutes later muttering, "well, that was a total waste of time."  Yet the very next time I consider doing it again, I must still fight my way though the same internal maze of inertia and false logistical complications.  Evidently the evolutionarily validated impulse to conserve energy exists side-by-side with the reward systems for expending energy.  So our brains are effectively telling us, "don't do it, but if you do it you will be glad you did."  No wonder we get so flummoxed and contorted with political debates in an election year and can't seem to speak intelligently to each other.  We can barely understand what our own brains are telling us about whether we want to go running or not, and that doesn't usually involve any yelling.

Thankfully, I have discovered that there are other ways to approach or approximate the sense of release and emptied satisfaction of strenuous physical exertion that involve less self sabotage.  For me, taking-in live music is a legitimate alternative to running around outside until you drop.  And while I have a bias toward the visceral experience of being surrounded by people and sound while a band like Broken Bells or The National or Trampled by Turtles ignites the jets underneath First Avenue, and sends the whole place blasting off into another universe, I am not unfamiliar with Beethoven, Vaughan Williams or Verdi and the purging experiences they can unleash in an altogether different environment.  Somehow music, not just listening to music but experiencing music, is a good proxy for physical expenditure.  Perhaps it is the vicarious impact of being so close to those who are exerting great effort and pulling out all the stops, but I think it is possible that mind melding may be involved.  If you give your attention to the music and follow where it leads, you will find that the effort of concentration and emotional reaction is real and substantial.  Remember how Spock would get sometimes after a really intense mind meld with James T. Kirk or Dr. McCoy or some uncooperative alien?  He'd be all spent and collapsing and barely conscious?  Well, in my experience, music done right is a mind meld that can leave you slumped over against the walls of the Enterprise struggling to stay upright -- in the best possible way of course.

But even better than watching others expend themselves in the process of making music, is finding a good basement and a few gullible friends and making your own.  True, this approach does have the distinct disadvantage of much lower music quality, but the direct involvement in the process has a protective, insulating effect.  You are less likely to notice the diminished musicality because you are busy spending so much energy making the sounds that your effort is distracting you from.  But oh, does it feel good.  Singing is cathartic and satisfying and rejuvenating and wonderfully tiring.  It's why we sing in the shower, in our cars and when we're vacuuming the living room.  For most of us, it is not the singing that we're really afraid of, it is the risk of being heard by others.  Singing we know is good.

Performing, however, is a different matter.  It is complicated by judgment and approval and reaction.  Which is where the basement comes in.  If you have one, I highly recommend that you go sing in it.  Immediately.  Just go down there and pull the string for the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, pop an old cassette tape of some band you used to love in high school into the boom box you have on the shelf for when you are doing laundry and start belting it out.  O.k.  Fine.  Go back and close the door first, but then crank it up and belt it out.  You will not regret it.  Speaking with the voice of experience on these matters, I can tell you that once you get the hang of the basement by yourself, you can slowly step it up to more vigorous vocalizations in the shower and then in your car.  The car does present increased exposure as others may be able to see you singing as you whiz by, even if they can't hear you, but you will endure.  And then, eventually, you may graduate to singing while a few other people play instruments in someone else's basement and you will marvel at how far you have come and how rewarding all that hard work has been; and how good it makes you feel.

Which brings me back to 64% of surveyed runners and 4 out of 5 dentists.  One of the upsides of middle-age (and I haven't found all that many) is that by the time you stumble bleary-eyed and confused into your 40s wondering how you got there when you only looked away for a split-second, you have gotten to know yourself over the years.  In my case, this means that I am well aware of my own foibles and idiosyncrasies and well-honed ability to argue with myself and lose.  So I have learned to trick myself and game my own system.  How do I do this?  Easy.  Resistance to effort is greatest when it is right in front of you.  If the issue is whether I have to go running right now, well, then there are all kinds of factors and considerations that must be taken into account.  This is the same reasoning process my daughters use when they swear to me that they will (a) put away their clothes, (b) clean their room, or (c) do whatever else I am asking them to do in a minute.  The difference between now and a minute from now is huge.  Everyone knows this.  Because "now" means you have to do something, and "a minute from now" means you don't have to do anything just yet. So, here's what I do: I sign-up for races and other events in the future.  No need to do anything now, just agree to do something later.  (Interestingly, this is also how I got into trouble with the Columbia Record Club, but I digress.)  Of course, what I'm counting on is that my more rational, goal oriented brain will eventually kick-in and insist that I do some amount of preparation for said future event, because it is simply unacceptable not to.  And there you have it.  System gamed.

Applying this process, my calendar already reflects the following upcoming events:

Get Lucky 7k (St. Patrick's Day)
Warrior Dash (June 30)
Iron Girl Duathalon (September 23)

I am already registered (meaning I have paid actual money) for all of them.  Predictably, I panicked just yesterday when I realized that St. Patrick's day occurs in March, and that is next month.  Time to lace up.

But what I really want to do is one of the Ragnar Relay races.  If you are not familiar with this particular breed of racing, the Ragnar web site provides the following explanation:

Ragnar is the overnight running relay race that makes testing your limits a team sport. A team is made up of 6-12 individuals; each individual runs 3 legs. The legs of the race vary in difficulty and distance, from 3-8 miles, allowing elite and novice runners to run together. Over 2 days and 1 night, teams run across 200 miles of the country’s most scenic terrain. Pair that with crazy costumes, inside jokes, a great finish line party and unforgettable stories. Some call it a slumber party without sleep, pillows or deodorant. We call it Ragnar.

So in other words, you gather up a bunch of runners, a van or two and whatever else you need to cover 200 miles and you start running.  You don't stop until you hit the finish, meaning that there is running happening constantly by someone in your group for 36 hours or so.  So, if your stint rolls around at 3 a.m., you strap on some sort of headlamp, pop out of the van door, hit the pavement, and get moving.  When you're done, you get back in the van and wait around until it's your turn again.

I don't know why, but this is hugely appealing to me.  Sure, there is nothing stopping me from running around my own neighborhood at 3 a.m. and looking ridiculous this very night, but that wouldn't be quite the same.  I wouldn't get to hangout in a stinky van with stinky people while eating GORP and potato chips and wondering when I'll have a chance to pee.  It's all that added charm that I would be missing. The running is just a means to an end, the end being something less quantifiable than mileage logged.

But whether it is stinky vans or dank basements (no offense intended, Jim), I think what I'm really after with these experiences is something beyond olfactory stimulation.  What makes the "empty, clean, worn out" feelings associated with effort so satisfying is more than just endorphins (though don't ever underestimate the power of endorphins).  It is the knowledge that I showed-up;  that I registered for and participated in my own life, which is confirmed by the fact that my legs are tired or my heart aches or my head hurts (though that is sometimes related to the consumption of certain beverages); that the world has required something of me and I have given it.

So, if you know where I can get a few vans and  a half-dozen or so people who like to stew in their own sweat for a few days, skip sleep and run down a dark road in the middle of the night, let me know.  The Minnesota race is in August and I'd like to get that sucker on the calendar, because it is certain to make me feel good no matter what I tell myself when race day rolls around.

Vamos a la Playa: The Truth from Akumal, Mexico

Due to the quirkiness of the school calendar this year, my daughters' two-week winter break was scheduled from Monday, December 26 through Friday, January 7.  In the habit of always seizing any opportunity for travel and vacationing, my husband and I decided to follow the lead of my brother-in-law and his family and head south to Akumal, Mexico for the second week of the break in a bid to stockpile enough vitamin D in our systems to outlast the cold, dark Minnesota winter (although the early reports indicate, with some alarm, that winter is a no-show so far this year in Minnesota).

Akumal is south of Cancun in a coastal area known as the Riviera Maya:

It is sufficiently beyond the grasp and influence of Cancun and Cozumel such that it is still a quaint and small coastal town favored by hippies and scuba divers.  Even better, it is part of the former stomping grounds of the vast ancient Mayan civilization.

Staring at the bewitching blueness of the ocean, your thoughts begin to tumble and roll with the waves -- out and back and out again.  After many sun baked, beer soaked days of this, one eventually reaches a trance-like state in which certain profound truths reveal themselves with perfect clarity:

*****

Coffee is an essential and delightful morning beverage at any latitude.

*

It is possible to have beer and/or margaritas with both lunch and dinner.  Every day.  Also, so long as it is after you have had your coffee, it is perfectly fine to have a beer before you've consumed your first solid meal of the day.  In other words, there is nothing wrong with the 11 a.m., pre-lunch beer even if you never ate breakfast.

*

When on vacation in Mexico, a 44 year-old lawyer, wife and mother of two from suburban Minneapolis may begin to wear an anklet with shells woven into it and believe that it looks perfectly appropriate on her:

*

Attempting to paddle board for the first time in the ocean will ensure that the entire beach perceives you to be lacking in both common sense and coordination.  It is also an excellent way to get soaking wet if you’ve gotten bored with swimming.

*

Eating good food at a restaurant on the beach with sand beneath your feet and the ocean at your back is way better than eating good food indoors with your shoes on and no ocean.

*

Even if you are not a natural born shopper, it is easier to go shopping and buy things when the vibrantly colored currency you are using and the equally vibrantly colored wares you are buying seem totally detached from your more bland, northern understanding of commercial reality:

* 

It is important to remember that the Italian you learned in college is not the same as Spanish, so that when you order “pasta con burro solo” for your daughter, you will realize that you have just asked the waiter for “pasta with only burro” (as in the mule-like animal) when you meant to order  “pasta with only butter."

* 

It is not possible to be uptight or harbor uptight thoughts while sitting in one of these chairs on a patio by the ocean.  It is also not possible to provide effective parental oversight while sitting in one of these chairs on a patio by the ocean.  The beer in one's hand is absolutely secondary in this scenario:

*

There a are many more lizards in Mexico than is really necessary to create that air of the exotic:

*

Despite what your family will tell you, there is absolutely no requirement that you actually go into the ocean and swim around in it when you are on vacation in Mexico.  It does not matter how much money you spent on your tickets, or when the next chance will be to swim in the Caribbean Sea.  I have consulted the U.S. Department of  State web site and read all of the excess verbiage provided by the airlines, and there is absolutely no you-must-go-swimming-and-get-ridiculously-cold-and-wet required for re-entry into the United States.  Hold your ground on this one and do not be bullied by your seemingly well-meaning family members.  They are not the ones whose core body temperature will fall to a barely life-sustaining 65 degrees when you accede to their demands and plunge yourself into the frigid embrace of the sea.  When they say it is warm, they do not have the same understanding of "warm" that you do.

*

Nevertheless, when you go to Mexico, you should always pack the bikini that you are mostly (and rightly) afraid of (and therefore never wear), because (a) the people that came with you to Mexico are already stuck with you, and (b) you’re never going to see the rest of these people again, and if they can handle everything else strutting around the beach, they can handle you, no matter how pale and undisciplined your midsection may be.  It is irrelevant that you have no intention of swimming.  (There is no way in hell there will be a picture for this one.)

* 

Potable water is vastly under appreciated by Americans.  In Mexico, the best solution for susceptible gringos is known locally as "cerveza."

*

Although you have transported them thousands of miles, your children will behave the same south of the Mexican border as they do south of the Canadian border:

 

This is closely related to "always sit on the camera before you take a nap":

*

If you decide to speak to your family again after they have victimized you with unflattering photos that you feel compelled to include in your blog post in the name of journalistic integrity (as well as a self-imposed, mid-life vanity check), then vacation days and nights provide an opportunity to embrace your feminine side and do girly things, like smear green mud on your face and get henna tattoos:

 

*

The Mayans pretty much kicked ass back in their day.  I mean, even now, we're worried about the calculations they did predicting that the jig is up at the end of this year.  Plus, they had a really good eye for real estate.  If they had just remembered "buy low, sell high" and hadn't gotten all exploited and conquered and stuff, nearly 2500 years later with a little fixing-up, this place would be worth some serious pesos:

 * 

But perhaps the best truth of all is that the warm Mexican weather, even in December and January, ensures that I will only be cold about 10% of the time, a dramatic improvement from the norm of 80-90% of the time, so long as I can stay dry:

Adios.

The Visibility of Man

The title of this post is a combined reference to two very different works of fiction: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Chuck Klosterman's The Visible Man.  The former I read decades ago and remember only vaguely as the eye-opening story (at least for a white girl from the suburbs) of being black, and therefore metaphorically invisible, in racist mid-century America.  The latter I read about a month ago and remember somewhat less vaguely as the story of a rogue government scientist who absconds with top-secret cloaking technology that allows him to be literally invisible for long periods of time. 

Whereas Ellison's book means to spotlight larger societal values and norms (and dysfunctions) that can cause the lives of an entire population to go unseen, unrecognized and unacknowledged, Klosterman's book inverts the spyglass and looks inward to the private spaces each of us inhabits when we are alone.  Through a series of bizarre events that are recounted in a psychologist's office in Austin, Texas, Klosterman explores the idea of what a person might observe if he or she had the ability to peer into our private moments; to watch and observe people in their own homes and apartments, completely unnoticed.

The idea of invisibility and what you could do with it is a big one.  Once you load this thought into your brain and then launch it with the bizarrely compelling tales that Klosterman provides, it is nearly impossible not to hit the flashing, red "TURBO" button that your imagination has illuminated off to the side of the story and blast off into your own universe of "what if."  I mean, for some of us, this idea could take up hours, days, even weeks of time that is meant to be spent reading legal briefs or making dinner or sleeping.

In an election year, the temptation to drop-in on some of our notable presidential candidates, for example, would be irresistible.  One could imagine going to Rick Perry's campaign headquarters, say, and watching the staff watching him during a debate -- the head-slapping, strings of expletives and eye-rolling would have to be of rarely seen proportions, right?  Or to see his handlers readying him backstage, checking to be sure his shoes are tied and that his bus number is pinned inside his jacket.  Or what about hanging out with Michelle and Marcus Bachmann?  Her denial seems pretty firmly anchored from what I can tell, but you never know.  Maybe they pray away the gay together every night on bended knee in flannel jammies next to their respective twin beds.

And presidential politics is just the beginning.  I mean, a person with the power of invisibility could go to Twins' games for free, figure out which house in Palm Desert is Jerry Weintraub's without provoking a swarm of golf cart driving private security staff buzzing up the driveway, and really mess with Tim Tebow.  Such a person could also totally hangout backstage or even on stage at First Ave as much as they wanted.  He, or she, could see how Jeff Tweedy writes a song or Joan Didion writes a book or how Tina Fey writes a T.V. show. 

After a few weeks of pondering the possibilities, though, it seemed like eventually it wouldn't be all that much fun to just be an observer.  You could go to the Twins games, but you couldn't order a beer or yell at the ump for calling a ball a strike.  Plus, invading the privacy of others isn't really anything I've ever aspired to.  As much as it would be interesting to see and observe what is behind a few individual curtains for a short period of time, the real intrigue, I think, is the reality that there are such curtains.  That we all have some sort of barrier between our public and private selves.  For some it would appear to be a gauzy film of the sheerest variety with no desire to really conceal anything at all (e.g., Snooki), and for others it might be the thickest, darkest brocade behind which lies a version of the Berlin Wall complete with armed guards and fiercely gnashing canines ready to be released at the slightest fingering of the velvet (e.g., J.D. Salinger from 1965-2010).

Regardless of the nature and design of your particular curtain, I am fairly confident that, to some degree, we are all different when we are by ourselves.  That when alone and unobserved, some of us are crotch-scratching, nose-picking, gas-releasing, Hoarder's-watching freaks.  That we still experience some amount of personal invisibility in that we cannot really be ourselves except in solitude.  Or, stated differently, we cannot be some part of ourselves when we are with each other.

We have certainly come a long way from the world Ellison showed us in bridging the gap between private reality and public acceptability.  In large parts of this country, or at least the major metropolitan areas, one can be minority and/or female and/or LGBT and still find many types of gainful employment while sitting in any seat on the bus that takes you there.  But the hippie in me that wants to buy the world a Coke and keep it company was thinking that for as much progress as we have made in advancing the boundaries of tolerance and acceptance and visibility, there is still progress to be made even here in one of the freest of societies. 

So, with this idea of tolerance and acceptance in my head, I trotted off to yoga one recent evening.  A little bit of namaste can go a long way towards expanding my own capacity for patience and tolerance, I've found, at least when it comes to my own family, so what better place to go and contemplate personal visibility and invisibility.

I set up my mat in my usual spot, arranged the small towels the gym provides for mopping up sweat just so next to my water bottle, and stretched and readied myself for The Practice. Now, while I enjoy yoga a lot and attend yoga classes regularly, I feel compelled to explain that I do not really speak yoga or go all-in for some of the attendant aspects of yoga, like the business with the third eye and the various chakras.  I'm not dissing them, I'm just saying that I enjoy a good yoga class mostly for the exceptional physical and mental discipline it instills, not to mention the sweat and muscles it produces.  I like it and do my best to learn from it, but I have not adopted it wholesale as a personal philosophy or lifestyle.  In other words, I do not consider myself a yoga Nazi, but you may need to be the judge of that.

As I am waiting for class to begin I can't help but notice that a huge dude has set himself up near me.  He was huge in the sense of huge.  Just built on a different scale than most of us.  Thicker, taller, wider, huger.   A really thick-cut piece of bacon.  So fine, whatever.  I have nothing against dudes in yoga.  Not even fantastically huge dudes.  In fact, the yoga classes at my gym are often 30-40% men.  The workout is legit and the word is getting out.  Plus, the hot part has you sweating your face off.  It is not for sissies.

After noting his hugeness, I was all zen and acceptance.  "Good for you, huge dude," I thought to myself.  Because I like to think I know what it is like to be off type.  To show-up for something and not be in the physical form, or of the gender, that others might have been expecting.  So, "good for you, huge dude."

But then I noticed the unusually loud breathing and the tendency towards grunting when stretching.  Surely this would cease once class began.  It didn't.  In fact, as the class gained heat and momentum the grunting was audible across the room.  Even those of us who do our best to heed the instructor's urging to engage in ujjayi pranayama breathing (also know as "oceanic breath" or sometimes as Darth Vader breathing) could hear the sporadic grunting over the rolling waves of breath.  But still, I tried to quiet myself and remember, "good for you, huge dude."

Then, at some point in the middle of class, I became aware of some very bad air that seemed to have been leaked.  As no warning sound preceded the release, I cannot identify the perpetrator as either Huge Dude or Not Huge Dude.  But it was at that moment that I realized my desire to make room in public for other people's private selves had reached a very precipitous edge.

"People," I thought to myself, "this is not your own private yoga class!  You need to clench and hold that sh*t in.  That is what the sphincter is for and I will not be having bad air in my yoga class.  No matter how at peace you are with your body, I am not at peace with those aspects of your body."

I left class that day with a less idealized notion of what the world might be like if we were all as comfortable on the other side of our private curtains as we are behind them.  And it did not smell good.

So what I'm saying is, I fully respect and support your right to be a visible and recognized member of society no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation or love of the New York Yankees (though that last one is particularly difficult to abide).  I respect your right to scratch yourself and watch bad television in the privacy of your own home.  But when you show-up for yoga, just please rein it back in a little. 

Namaste.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.  ~Aldous Huxley

I know we have already passed the officially sanctioned time for annual thankfulness, but all that football and turkey drenched in gravy makes it kind of hard to concentrate and focus on the not taking things for granted part.  Sometimes it is better to wait until the din of Thanksgiving toasts and proclamations has died down before gently tinging one's blogging fork against the crystal goblet of the internet.  Also, I might have started drafting this before Thanksgiving, but only managed to finish it just now. 

In the spirit of not wanting to take things for granted, I decided to take stock of the bounty and good fortune I have in my life; the things without which my life would undoubtedly be very different, and not for the better.  I am, of course, grateful for my eyesight and hearing, though I have often wondered if my speaking voice is audible as my children never seem to hear it.  I am appreciative that I have a job, a healthy family and health insurance in case that changes.  It's also quite nice to have friends, take vacations, be literate, not be ashamed of my President and enjoy the benefits of Amazon Prime membership.  But when you peel it all away and really get down to it, there are some fundamental elements that are the bedrock of it all:

Comfortable shoes:  Think about it.  How miserable would your life be if your foundational footwear was faulty?  Pretty miserable.  Being a double-X, chromosomally speaking, I am indeed inclined toward the love of shoes, but I have never been able to sacrifice comfort for glamor or sex appeal.  While I confess to owning many more shoes than I have feet, they were all selected with comfort as the chief criterion.  Stated differently: Nothing in my closet is likely to also be found in Snooki's closet, which is a good thing because such a collision of cobbler matter and anti-matter would annihilate us all instantly.

But just because I don't own any eight inch Manolo Blahniks, doesn't mean I don't appreciate quality footwear.  To the contrary, I am a big fan of shoes.  I wear them every day.  My favorite shoes at the moment are My Adidas:

There's so much to love about these shoes it's hard to know where to begin.  Not only are they gray with the trademarked white stripes and accented with a hint of lime green (which happens to be one of my favorite colors), but they are lightweight, good for sporty activities and pretty much an all around kick-ass pair of shoes.  They are particularly good at standing for long periods of time at First Avenue and in running around the lakes and trails of Minneapolis.  If I could wear them to work every day, I would. 

My other favorite pair of shoes is this pair:

They are by Donald Pliner and they are exactly what a non-Adidas pair of shoes should be.  In the summer, I do wear them to work every day.  I'm not kidding.  Ask anyone in my office and they will tell you.  I don't care if it is socially inappropriate to wear the same shoes nearly every day for an entire season.  If you had these shoes and wore them you would understand and then it wouldn't be inappropriate anymore because we would rise up and revolt until the social appropriateness czar was toppled and flogged and then we would be free, and light and goodness and comfortable shoes would finally rain down on all of us.  I have lots of other pairs of shoes that I really like too, but in the event of a fire, these are the two pairs that I'm going to grab before we bolt for the neighbor's house.

Carbohydrates:   Bread and its brethren have been badly abused in these carnivorous, protein-centric times we live in.  But I am steadfast in my carbohydrate devotion.  I heart carbs deeply and refuse to repent.  I don't care if all of you Adkins-Zone-aholics out there are having seizures at the very thought of a life filled with flour, gluten and yeasty goodness.  I really don't.  You can have your protein-filled hunks of flesh without a bun and I will have mine on a nice, fluffy, lightly toasted kaiser roll.  Or maybe I'll have a baguette with cheese or a big bowl of cereal or pasta.  Someday, I might actually dedicate an entire blog post to my love of cereal and peanut butter & jelly on toast.  (I know you won't want to miss that so I'll be sure to alert you in advance.)  Sometimes, I go to my favorite bakery in Minneapolis, Rustica, and buy several loaves of different kinds of bread, plus cookies and pastries and other flour-based items that I haven't tried before.  Just because I can.  (Note: this is where the convenience of wearing my Adidas all the time comes in handy, so that I can put down the bag of baked goods and go for a run in order to justify consuming what I have just purchased.)  I have ordered bagels from New York and luxurious loaves from Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  And I have never regretted it.  Oh, and by the way, my cholesterol level is something like 163.  Bam!

That stuff outside the windows:  It's pretty simple, really.  Sun + trees + blue skies + lakes + mountains + running/biking/hiking/walking/canoeing/kayaking/skiing + sweat = happiness.  Also yoga, but I do that inside during the bitterly cold Minnesota winter so as not to go completely insane.  I have also determined over a statistically valid sample period that one of the primary reasons I have not yet set my daughters out on the curb with a sign that says "Free" is that the time that would be required to pack their things and make the sign is usually already blocked for some outdoor activity or another.  So, in other words, getting outside is not only good for you, it is good for the people who live with you, especially if "you" in this case really means me.

Alcohol:  You knew it was coming.  Yes, I regularly enjoy a nice "glass of grape", as Mr. Lyle Lovett would say.  Also beer.  And some gin.  The other ones I've mostly wrecked as a result of user error in the past.  And while I know alcohol is a serious subject, my aim is precisely to avoid seriousness and boredom and drudgery and that general feeling that you have been tightened one turn too many.  A touch of fermentation can make all the difference in your evening.  It is amazing, really, how much a glass of red wine can improve your outlook on pouring the box of Annie's mac 'n' cheese into the pot of boiling water for like the sixth-gazillionth time, or explaining to your 8 year-old that she really does need to take a shower this week, or strategically sliding across the hardwood floor in your socks in an effort to beat the dog to the fresh pile of cat barf that the cat's cacophonous contortions recently expelled on the living room rug.  With a glass of wine or two in your system, all of this becomes much more entertaining.  It is possible that as a side effect, you also become much more entertaining to those around you, but I have never concerned myself with this.  Plus, it is scientifically proven that it is good for you.  At least that's the part that I read.

First Avenue:  Do you enjoy being alive?  Me too.  One of the primary reasons I enjoy being alive is that I live in the city where First Avenue is located.  First Avenue is one of the best places I've ever found for re-affirming that being alive is a pretty good gig.  Because inside First Avenue one can order a beer, chat, dance, sing, order another beer, shove the huge drunk guy off into a different trajectory, holler and whistle, sing some more, watch the social phenomenon of band-crowd banter, order another beer, sing again, go to the bathroom, feel kinship with your fellow music lovers and somehow come away from it all simultaneously exhausted and fully re-charged.  Plus, it looks like this:

And sometimes, if you are lucky, you will see someone with a highly specialized ability to express themselves take the stage and pour it all out.  If you see it coming and manage to catch it, for a fleeting, phantom moment, you will feel all of it pass right through you, and it will make you feel good inside.

The Internets:  I know they've been around for a while, the internets, but I am still grateful for them.  Perhaps it is my lack of maturity or the ease with which I am impressed, but I still think it is pretty awesome that you can sit down on your couch, open up your MacBook and instantly become your own tour guide to nearly any virtual experience you can conceive of and reduce to search terms.  From ordering groceries for next day delivery at 10 p.m. (which I do often), to paying bills, to satisfying a late-night yearning for . . . one more viewing of that e-trade baby commercial, there is content for everyone:

(Thanks to this video, my children and I now regularly mimic the baby's defiance in our house.  One might hear the following from any one of us, "Apparently, farting at the dinner table like it's no big deal is frowned upon in this establishment!")

If it weren't for the world wide web, I wouldn't know how real it was getting in the Whole Foods Parking Lot, what the Crazy Nastyass Honeybadger's approach to life was (he doesn't give a shit, he's hungry) or how to make Frosty the Cheeseball Snowman if the need should ever arise for a wintry, sadistic, cheese-food appetizer.  I also wouldn't have learned what a "murmuration" was and been able to watch this breath taking force of nature with my own eyes at 1 a.m., while still under the covers:

If I am in the mood for news of world events, I can get it no matter what the time of day.  If I am feeling blue, I can peruse the offerings on iTunes for music that is appropriately themed or search YouTube for live performances by The Shins or Cat Power.  I can research a blog post or potential vacation destination or figure out what "schwa" is so that I can help my sixth grader with her language arts homework.  And where else can you get into a heated political debate with a person you don't know and have never met, but who you would probably be perfectly nice to if introduced at a cocktail party?

But really, the best part of the internet is the part where I get to read posts from and learn things about friends, acquaintances, colleagues and even complete strangers on Facebook and Twitter.  It turns out that you are an incredibly smart, interesting, funny, insightful and inspiring group (current field of Republican presidential candidates excepted).  The breadth and diversity of passions and vocations, the shared challenges of parenting, the travel photos and status updates provide glimpses of lives and realities that would otherwise be lost to geography.  Although I now live very far away from where I grew up, online we can build and share a common neighborhood.  I can connect and engage with long lost friends from high school and college or former colleagues flung far and wide no matter on which coast, in what city or in what time zone we may each reside. 

So while I like the internets and all they connect me to day and night, what I really like is you, especially the six of you who read this blog from time to time, whoever you are.

Sometimes I Hangout with Pete Sampras

This year we spent the Thanksgiving holiday with my family in Palm Desert, California.  Palm Desert is about 20 minutes East on Highway 111 from the much more famous desert resort city of Palm Springs.  My parents now spend about half the year out in the desert, having sold the house near Pasadena, that I grew up in, many years ago when retirement meant that proximity to downtown Los Angeles was no longer important.  The days in the desert, as you might expect, are hot and sunny, and the arid, mountainous scenery unexpectedly beautiful. 

Although the natural qualities of the underlying desert can still be found and enjoyed if you seek them out, most of the desert is now a strikingly unnatural and unreal place.  First, you are apt to notice the endless series of gated communities as you drive around, all wrapped in bougainvillea-covered walls, edged with bands of deep green grass, and shaded with exuberantly flowering trees and shrubs.  Sprinklers seem to be constantly sprinkling these lush inland islands, and water features often welcome you at the entrance.

History tells that, in the beginning, there were naturally occurring groves of palm trees near a few naturally occurring springs deep in the canyons long, long ago (hence the name "Palm Springs"), but I'm pretty sure that the modern re-imagining of the desert in the style of a Hawaiian island was trucked in.  If nothing else, it goes to show what a difference water and imported, high-quality topsoil can make when you're building on a solid foundation of sunshine and an absence of winter.

(One might wonder where all the water comes from and whether it is part of the massive siphoning from the Colorado River.  The good news, I suppose, is that most of the water comes from a large aquifer beneath the desert floor.  The Coachella Valley Water District manages the aquifer and also coordinates the acquisition and distribution of some water from the Colorado River that is used to irrigate the huge and growing area of desert agriculture further to the East.  There are reports, however, that areas of the desert are purportedly sinking due to the depletion of the water table faster than it is replenished.) 

Once you re-fasten your jaw from gawking at all of the engineered greenery, you are then likely to notice that you are cruising around on a Hollywood Stars grid of street names: Bob Hope, Fred Waring, Gene Autry, Gerald Ford, Dinah Shore and Frank Sinatra, to name just the ones I can recall off the top of my head. You can nearly visualize these stars driving around the desert in the golden age of Hollywood and enjoying all the modern-ness of their now iconic mid-century modern hideaways.

Eventually, after you have driven over and across a goodly number of famously named boulevards, one comes to the particular community in the foothills of the mountains off Highway 74 where my parents can be found.  It looks like this:

It is a gorgeous and serene setting, largely because this development attempted to incorporate more of the native desert plants and landscapes than many of the earlier-developed desert communities.

As you might expect, due to its proximity to Los Angeles, the desert is loaded with movie stars and other famous types, who also happen to be loaded (often in more ways than one).  Flipping through the membership book of my parents' place, one can see listings for residents such as Jim Colbert (pro-golfer), Michelle Wie (pro-golfer), Kurt Russell (actor), Jerry Weintraub (producer), and Pete and Bridget Sampras.   (If you don't know Pete, then I really can't help you.  Also, I know she goes by Bridget Wilson for purposes of her acting career, but I'm telling you, in the directory they are listed as "Pete and Bridget Sampras.") The directory, unfortunately, doesn’t tell you who lives where, so it is only by word of mouth or eyewitness reporting that one can link a particular house with a noteworthy owner.  (We never get any gawkers coming by my parents' house, so I'm pretty sure that my dad's career as a lawyer in Los Angeles and my mom's career as a travel agent have been successfully kept on the down-low.)

  

In addition to the stunningly well-curated surroundings, the membership itself is equally well clipped and coiffed.  At the small market/Starbucks outpost just off one of the golf courses (there are two courses) and down the street from my parents’ house (but still within the community), one encounters a small sampling of the residents during the ritual foraging for morning coffee.  I like to get up, throw on my sweatpants and sunglasses, and walk down the street each morning for the requisite dosage of Joe.  (My mother doesn’t believe in caffeine, so house guests are left to flounder without coffee unless they veer towards the Starbucks or otherwise take matters into their own hands.) 

Despite years of visiting, however, I am still startled every time by how much better the other coffee-seeking patrons seem to look and act than me.  The 60-something woman in front of me one day modeled a tidy workout ensemble and crisp, white baseball cap which served, in part, to secure her neat, blondish-gray ponytail while also shading her evenly tanned and blemish free visage.  (In contrast, I was sporting workout pants and a t-shirt from Target, with a non-matching hoody vest borrowed from my mother, because I didn’t really think through my wardrobe needs, and I don’t have a matching, designer track suit or a complete fitness wardrobe from lululemon in any event.)  Upon discrete further inspection, the woman’s face had less wrinkles than mine and her butt was decidedly tighter.  She was no better at ordering coffee than me, but still, there was intimidation in the air, even if amorphous and conjured by larger societal forces with origins well outside our private little coffee house.  She was perfectly polite, smiling and saying good morning to all.  She did absolutely nothing snotty or scornful and then was out the door, undoubtedly into the sunshine of a beautiful life.  For all I know, she reads Thomas Pynchon novels for fun, stays abreast of every issue of The Economist and is only relaxing in Palm Desert on a short, but much deserved, break from her exhausting charitable work assisting with the public health battle against cholera in Haiti.  I was nearly ready to surrender before I'd even made it home with my coffee.

And that’s the thing about these beautiful oases of wealth and privilege: they are weirdly unsettling in their outward perfection.  The streets are incredibly clean.  The yards are immaculately landscaped and maintained in accordance with the numerous restrictive covenants, and the residents are always pressed and cleaned.   The attendants and caddies smile and waive and even the one time (years ago) I was reminded that I needed a collared shirt for my golf-round, the reminder was gentle and discrete.  (Note: the collared shirt requirement at many golf courses is one of the reasons I’ve never been able to nurture any love for golf.  It is not a flattering style, if you ask me.  Also, if tennis – the favorite sport of the Queen of England, for goodness' sake ---  can get over itself and embrace Agassi’s hair and the Williams sisters' wardrobes, golf should be able to do the same.)   

I can't help but wonder, though, with all of the time and energy that is clearly directed towards various exteriors -- house, car, grounds and person -- can there be much time left for the less visible interior matters of the heart and mind?  

Good thing living in the Midwest keeps me balanced and grounded.

One of the things I credit for keeping me so centered and down to earth is running.  The pristine and usually empty private roadways bathed in desert sunlight make for an excellent and scenic jogging track. 

I need not navigate traffic, cross busy intersections, or fend off fierce packs of bicyclists fighting for the same skinny strip of shoulder.  Instead, I can trot leisurely down the middle of the street and wind my way around golf courses, water features and some very, very nice homes. 

The route I usually run when I’m visiting is an out-and-back route that zigs and zags around the grounds and crosses the community from one side to the other.  The last part of the route before the turnaround is a very steep hill that ends with a cul-de-sac that is home to a large water tank:  

It is important that when you run this route you go all the way up to the water tank and touch it.  Don’t ask me why; just accept that this is true.  Accordingly, no matter how much I am huffing and puffing and occasionally walking up the hill, I am not "there yet" and cannot turn around and begin the more pleasant downhill return until the water tower has been touched. 

(If you look closely, you can see the hand prints on the tank, which evidence two of my runs during this most recent visit.)

Whenever I run this route, I think about two things: (1) I must go all the way up the hill and touch the water tower or it doesn’t count, and (2) I wonder which house is Jerry Weintraub’s?  At some point, my parents mentioned that they thought Jerry’s house was somewhere along my route just before the water tank crescendo.  Ever since, a little home movie plays in my head as I near the final turn-off to the water tank.  It goes like this:

[Scene:  A middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brown hair, medium build and about 5’4” tall, wearing C9 by Champion shorts and tank top, black elastic headband, armband with iPod and some kickin’ Adidas sneaks, jogs gracefully and athletically down the middle of a beautiful yet empty street flanked by large houses and against a backdrop of rock-piled desert mountains.  She is mentally preparing herself for the punishing hill that looms just ahead, when she sees a man walking briskly down his driveway as she approaches and waiving her down.  The man is older, well tanned, and well dressed in Armani shorts and black t-shirt.  He is wearing sunglasses and has what looks like a glass of scotch on the rocks in one hand.]

Man:  Hey!  Hi there!  Yes, you jogging by.  Can I talk to you for a minute?

[Woman jogger removes her earbuds and slows to walk, while trying to catch her breath.]

Woman jogger:  What?  I’m sorry.  Are you talking to me?

Man:  Yes.  Hi.  I know this is a bit odd, but I’ve noticed you jogging by the past few days.

[Woman jogger works to catch her breath, looks at the man and feels as though she recognizes him, but she’s not quite sure.]

Woman jogger (slowly and somewhat skeptically): Yes.

Man:  Well . . . have you ever done any acting?

Woman jogger (confused and uncertain):  What?  You want to know if I’ve ever done any acting?

Man:  Yes.  You know . . .  Have you ever done any modeling or acting for hire, like in a play or a movie, for example?

Woman jogger:  No.  I have not done any modeling or acting, basically, ever.

Man:  Well.  Hmmm.  Its just that I’m in the movie business and I’m casting a new movie that stars a middle-aged woman in an intense action-thriller-romantic comedy, because there is HUGE demand for that kind of thing, and, well, you seem to be just the kind of woman I’m looking for.  You know, regular and ordinary and not all pouty-mouthed and artificially inflated and nearly dead, like Angelina Jolie. 

Woman jogger:  Huh.

Man:  I mean.  We’d need to get you out to the studio and do some screen testing and maybe read a few scenes, but I have a really good feeling about this.  The male lead will be a little younger.  Probably someone like Ryan Reynolds or Colin Farrell – do you like those guys?

Woman jogger:  Uh, yeah, I like those guys.

Man:  Because if you don’t like them we could certainly consider others.  Maybe, you know, someone like Ryan Gosling or Robert Pattinson. 

Woman jogger: The first Ryan and Colin seem fine, I guess.

Man: Great.  And, you know, we’d get you into hair and makeup while we’re at it, but really I don’t think we’ll need to do too much there.  The touch of gray in your hair is just perfect and you have just the right amount of fine lines around your eyes and the more plush physique is really trending up lately in our audience surveys.

Woman jogger:  O.k.  So, if I am following this correctly, and I am not at all certain that I am, you are basically asking me if I want to star in a movie that might also star either Ryan Reynolds or Colin Farrell.  Is that correct?

Man:  Yes!  Yes, that is exactly what I am proposing.  Because, again, you know, I’ve been watching you jog by my house and you just strike me as the perfect new leading lady.  My name is Jerry, by the way.  Nice to meet you.

*****

Really, the only problems I see with this scenario are twofold: (1) I really don’t know which house is Jerry’s, and (2) I don’t actually want to be in a movie.  Still, it seems like it would be nice to be asked, and maybe Jerry really is getting tired of all that Hollywood perfection.  It could happen.  You never know.

If I am being completely straightforward (and I never represented that I was or intended to be), then I would have to admit that the Jerry Weintraub fantasy is not the only fantasy loosed by proximity to celebrity.  The previously referenced Starbucks outpost is also the scene of my one and only encounter with Pete and Bridget Sampras.  The actual encounter occurred one March during a spring break trip to the desert a few years ago.  Not to let you down too abruptly, but the encounter really just amounted to Pete, Bridget and I all being in or around the coffee shop at the same time.  There was no conversation or acknowledgment of my existence, really, which is perfectly understandable.  I didn’t have a matching designer track suit back then either.

Still, sometimes when I am down at the tennis courts hitting a few balls, I prepare myself for the possibility that Pete Sampras might show up.  He might come down to workout with the ball machine or practice some serves, but then catch the action on our court out of the corner of his eye.  He might watch from behind the dark green mesh and observe the well-grooved forehands and backhands and find that he was curious about who was hitting these shots: 

[Scene:  A row of tennis courts next to a clubhouse in a private desert community several hours east of Los Angeles.  Pete Sampras, the seven time Wimbledon champion and winner of 14 Grand Slam singles titles, observes a few strangers casually hitting tennis balls as he approaches the courts.  In particular, he is impressed with the skill of the middle-aged woman.  During a break in the action, Pete walks over and strikes up a conversation.]

Pete:  Hi.  I was watching you hit.  You have nice form and really solid ground strokes.

Middle-aged woman tennis player:  Hi . . . err . . ..  uhhhh . . . .  Thanks.  [Gulp.] You have really nice ground strokes too.

[Middle-aged woman tennis player feels her face flush and mentally chastises herself for her stupid remark.]

Pete:  [Laughs.  Smiles.]  Thanks.

Middle-aged woman tennis player:  [ . . . . .]

Pete:  Did you play in college?

[Middle-aged woman tennis player clears her throat and looks down at the tennis court as if to affect a casual, relaxed air while trying to keep her heart from beating itself out of her chest and flopping onto the tennis court, creating a horrible and unseemly mess.]

Middle-aged woman tennis player: Yeah.

Pete:  Where did you play?

Middle-aged woman tennis player:  Um, well, I played D3.  Carleton College, actually.

[Pete nods knowingly, indicating that he is very familiar with this obscure but excellent tennis program out of Northfield, Minnesota.] 

Pete:  Cool.  So, did you play #1 singles?

[Middle-aged woman tennis player’s eyes bulge and her heart begins to race even faster than it was before.  “Deflect, deflect, deflect,” she thinks to herself, desperate to change the subject because, in fact, she did not play #1 singles.  She coughs and begins to choke. Then, pointing to her throat, she walks quickly to the water fountain and takes a long drink of water.  Eventually she comes up for air and notices the look of concern on Pete’s face.]

Middle-aged woman tennis player:  Sorry about that. [Laughs. Coughs one more time.]  Hey, I was wondering, how is Bridget’s film career going these days?

*****

Like I said, the desert is a pretty unreal place.  If you don't focus on what's real and true and important, you could really get out of whack in a hurry.