This Sugar Thing

My goal is not to eliminate all sugar from my diet; only the most sugar-laden substances.  (Eliminating all sugar from the typical Western diet is virtually impossible.)  All the foods I listed yesterday have to be off the list for the time being.

I'll still have toast with jam from time to time, or an apple or a banana or blueberries.  I'll still eat some pre-cooked meals (Amy's cheese tamale verde is a favorite) that have up to 10 grams of sugar.  Any meal that comes with more than 10 grams of sugar, though, is off-limits.  

Just twelve hours into this, however, I've already messed up twice.  I ate half an apricot-rasberry cookie early this morning--completely forgetting about my diet; but I remembered a second later and threw the rest of it away.  Later, however, I ate one and a half Pepperidge Farm Bourdeaux cookies...on purpose.  Okay, that's just 5 grams of sugar, total...but still.  How could I be so weak after just twelve hours?  

I'm that addicted, I guess.  

Goodbye Sugar

My last hurrah with sugar for at least six months, if not longer:  A chocolate Powerbar, Gatorade, chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, chocolate with hazelnuts, Pepperidge Farm apricot-rasberry cookies.  All consumed today (the last item, the chocolate, just a few seconds ago).

Yes, way too much...but I had to go out in style.

No more sugary foods for the next six months at least.

The Mommy Function

Was sick last night and today--just a cold; but I had a miserable night; for some reason, was freezing cold at the start of the evening, and piled on the blankets, then woke up sweating; ended up getting very little sleep and had a splitting headache.

Went through the motions of cleaning and cooking and grocery shopping today, but none of it with much energy.  Did my daily exercises, did the laundry...flopped on the couch for an hour in the middle of the day watching talk show television excerpts (mostly Ricky Gervais on Jimmy Fallon) while my husband and son visited the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier in Alameda.  All in all, it was a decent day, and I'm not really all that sick, a mild cough, not even much congestion...but feel terrible, somehow, mentally/emotionally.  Very low energy and grumpy as hell.  

On days like these the "Mommy Function"--the caring, nurturing, worker-bee parts of my personality--is on a very low setting.  I still offer my son his breakfast and snacks, get his dinner on the table, listen (half-heartedly) to his pronouncements about a new warplane video game he wants to create, or look at what he's trying to do on Club Penguin...but deep down I just want to forget about everyone, soak in a bubble bath, then immerse myself in a stupid book or movie.  

And right now, I just want to sleep and forget about this sad sack of a day.

School as Poison

My son's school is not bad at all...but it suffers from the same problem of all "good schools" across America:  the element of surprise is almost absent.

Predictability can be a fine thing for young children--as long as it's not over-prescribed.  When it is, like all good medicines, it changes into a kind of poison.  That's true for adults as well, but it's especially true for kids, who desire new experiences and adventure as fervently as they desire pasta and cookies.

I am reminded of this every time my son laughs in a surprised way--which almost never happens at school.  It happened this evening when he was watching a "Magic School Bus" episode about digestion.  Ms. Frizzle's class went for a "field trip" inside a boy's digestive system.  It was hilarious to see the tiny school bus rocking back and forth on the boy's tongue, along with bits of cheese doodles and olive, or to see teeth as big as boulders crashing down as the boy masticated.  My son was entranced, and tickled to his core.

He is getting so much of value from his school; he's learning a lot about teamwork, how to be a friend, and how to work independently and take care of his own things (well, most of the time). And his teacher is one of the most caring and considerate souls I've ever met.

But what he might be losing underneath the flood of worksheets, and the grinding routine of his high-powered public school's curriculum--adventures, surprise, fun--those missing elements are hugely important in a child's life...there's no getting around it.  I'm not saying that this school is poisonous or that it's merely stamping out worker-drones...but sometimes I know, from the look on my son's face when I volunteer in class, that he's extremely bored...and that surprise and excitement are almost never part of his school day.

The Caine Mutiny

The three of us watched "The Caine Mutiny" yesterday and today (in two installments to accommodate my son's bedtime, and his attention span).  Of course, my son enjoyed the details of Navy life, and the short battle, and the typhoon; he left to play a video game once the courtroom scenes got underway.

My only memory of the movie, which I watched as a young adult, was Humphrey Bogart cracking up in the courtroom, pulling out those little metal balls, putting his paranoia on full display...the most famous scene.  I was surprised at how well-done the entire movie is from start to finish, how well-written and well-acted.  Van Johnson is perhaps the biggest surprise; his character serves as the fulcrum of the entire drama, and he handles the role beautifully.  

It deepened my appreciation of the armed forces to watch this again.  They deal with a lot more besides the stress of battle.  There's the stress of boredom, of strange environments, of superiors who are slightly (or more than slightly) cracked, in one way or another.  Add to that a war, or bad weather, and it's one hell of a mess.

This has nothing to do with my son, my writing or my little exercising/dieting triumphs, but...I feel pretty bad, suddenly, that I've never donated to an armed services support group.  Even if I don't agree with a fair number of the missions they undertake.  They are putting their lives on the line, and often, living in horrible circumstances while doing so.

On this Thanksgiving Day--time to rectify this and find a good group that needs my support.

The Ultimate Feast

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, my son was on vacation, and extremely happy about that.  We actually managed to read three books together; he also played with a math app on the iPad, and did some Tynker programming on the computer.  The rest of the time he did little or nothing--with a big grin on his face.

He loves his down time, and I don't blame him.  He often comes to tell me stories he's just made up about his favorite characters from books, iPad apps or video games...I know there's a whole universe being dreamed up in his head when he's just sitting there, staring into space.  So I try to give him plenty of time to do that.  (I know that I've also been saying he's spends too much time on the iPad and computer...well, that's true as well; but I've just signed him up for two after-school classes and there will be a third one soon, which should help with that particular problem.)

I managed to clean up two more stories.  I realize that I've been whining an awful lot lately about how the stories aren't done, I'm so behind, etc. etc....who cares?  I'm getting it done, and it just takes time--a little more time than I thought it would, but that's okay.  I've got sixty more stories to plow through.  If it takes fifty more days, that's not the end of the world.  (Though I hope I can get it done in two weeks.)

Also ran--not at a blistering pace by any means; but the remarkable thing is, suddenly I'm running four or five miles and feeling good the whole time.  A huge change from the beginning of the summer.  I don't have the well-toned quads of the truly dedicated distance runner...but who cares about that, either.

Also today, indulged in my ultimate guilty pleasures--nachos, a margarita, and chocolate.  I've been dreaming about a meal like that since before the triathlon; glad that it finally happened...now that that's done, I'll try to get a little serious about improving my diet.

Disappointment

I haven't been lazy these past few weeks since the triathlon; I've exercised every day, even vigorously at times.  But my body is saying, "It's cold; let's add some fat layers."  Or at least that's what it feels like.  Hopped on the scale today and saw that my weight has gone up by at least a couple pounds in the last four or five days.  I know that I was abnormally skinny during the period right before and right after the triathlon.  But for heaven's sakes--I don't want to shoot past my pre-pregnancy weight, after all the effort it took to shed those four or five pounds.

I haven't been lazy about the editing either; yet I'm still only on story number forty-seven.  Still have sixty-two left to look at.  Am getting tired of the whole process.  There's no way I'm going to finish by the end of this month.

Eat Some Sugar and Relax

It will be tough to break my sugar habit.  I understand intellectually why it's necessary--I'm a slave to cookies, chocolate, and cake; it's rare that a day goes by without the consumption of at least one of these items.

And the reason for this is pretty simple:  I associate the consumption of a sugary food with all of life's high or low moments.  A bad day?  Eat something sweet, and the world isn't such a gloomy place.  A great day?  Eat some chocolate to celebrate!  And it goes beyond that...put a piece of cake in front of me and I feel like I can relax, whether I'm having a bad day or a good one.

Sugar has served me well in the high moments, in the low moments, and in just about every moment in between...except that it could be killing me slowly.  Various studies have shown a relationship between sugar and almost every horrible disease there is.

It'll be tough, but not impossible, to break this habit, if I find other, better ways to relax, to celebrate, and to get over the rough patches.

I probably need to drink more tea, for one thing--and maybe take up a few new hobbies to get myself out of the old "eat some sugar and feel better" mindset.  Anything:  knitting, solitaire, baking bread, making birdhouses. Why not?  Whatever it takes to break this habit for good.

Not So Hot

I must have irritated my husband today when he suggested taking our son to the beach and I kept repeating that it was a crazy idea, it was too cold, etc.  Our son loves to jump in the waves, on any beach, at any time of the year.

The water, even with El Nino warming it, was fifty-eight degrees today in the Half Moon Bay area.  (I looked it up.)  Luckily the air temperature wasn't bad, in the high sixties or even low seventies...but I was still worried.  In the end, though, they went, and our son had a terrific time for an hour in those frigid waters...my husband reported that people stared at the little boy in astonishment.  "The only people in the water were the surfers, and him," he said.  And the little guy came home still bouncing with energy.  

While they were gone I devoted myself to cleaning the house and buying Christmas gifts online.  Got bogged down in the latter task for about two hours, so didn't get far with the cleaning/tidying project; still have piles and piles of paperwork to sort through upstairs.  Have to get it done by the end of the year.

If that makes me sound like a neat freak--I'm definitely not.  I've had too much junk lying around in the upstairs bedrooms for months now.  

Made absolutely no progress with the writing today, needless to say.  

Was feeling massively discouraged this afternoon, about the writing, mostly; just had a feeling that it was all worthless, no one was going to read anything I wrote, I might as well throw in the towel as a writer, etc...went for a long jog, over five miles, which was surprisingly easy.  These days my body seems to have more confidence in me than my brain does.  

Getting It Done

Spent about four hours polishing/rewriting stories today.  It has been months, maybe years, since I've spent that much time writing/editing on a Saturday...I usually have way too much to do with/for my family on any given Saturday to carve out even two hours for writing.  But my husband took our son hiking for a couple hours, and when they got home, they did a video game together and I kept right on going for another hour and a half.

I always feel guilty when I let my son play video games on the iPad or on the computer for more than an hour.  He loves it, of course...that's usually what he's doing, any time I'm not there to coax him to read a book or do some math or writing or an art project.

Some parents don't allow any video-game playing during the week; our son is spending up to three hours on the iPad or the computer these days--almost every day.  It's gone way too far.  Maybe we'll have to cut it down to about one hour a day, Monday through Thursday, then two hours a day on the weekend...even that liberal amount would be a tragedy for him, but I think it's high time we established that rule--and got him going with extracurricular activities at the same time (I'd held back on those because the start of the school year, and the instigation of homework, is usually stressful for him...but we're way past the start of the school year, and he has very little homework).

Mainly what I want for him, is to start using his "Getting It Done" muscle--I want him to start setting difficult goals for himself and achieving them.

On that subject:  I've reached the final edit of #37; one-third done.  If I can muscle through 9 stories a day, I could be done by the end of the month.  

Metaphor Frenzy

It seems to me that many new fiction writers these days are participating in a sort of metaphor frenzy; every paragraph (or even, every other sentence) has to include at least one stunning metaphor or they feel they're not doing their job as writers.  And even when they restrain themselves and just shoot for, oh, a pretty-good metaphor every page or so, many contemporary writers' metaphors feel overwrought, forced, like the kind of thing you'd use if you're trying too hard to impress your creative writing instructor, not a literary device that helps build a story or a particular character.

It might be original to say, "a tree branch shaped like a stork," and it might be related in some way to the main character's desolate childhood in a coastal town in northern Maine.  But don't just fling metaphors and similes around all over the place...use them sparingly, then weave them skillfully into  the fabric of the story, so they're not just sticking up, calling attention to themselves, like colorful bits of yarn sticking straight out of a sweater.

I attribute the current metaphor frenzy to the popularity of writing workshops and creative writing MFA programs, as well as the lack of good judgment in literary reviews and in publishing houses.  This metaphor frenzy needs to die down.  I'm not calling for a Hemingway-esque return to simplicity (actually Hemingway does use metaphors, contrary to popular belief, and he uses them well).  I'm calling for a return to intelligent writing.

Can good writing be learned in writing workshops and MFA programs?  The jury is still out on that.

Eric Clarkson

Finishing my first sprint triathlon was a big deal for absolutely no one but myself.  But for me, it was huge, because it proved that my knee was doing much better, and could carry me through more than one hour of physical stress without suffering any ill effects.  I can't help but feel good about how far I've come since May 30th of this year, when I was doing absolutely no regular exercise, and still feeling so much knee pain that every trip up and down the stairs of our house made me wince, and I avoided running and hiking altogether.  And I feel immense gratitude that my body has made it through these five months of gradually more intense training, and I can now run five miles or more without noticing pain (other than occasional minor twinges).

I might pursue this crazy sport for a couple more years.  But whatever I do with it--I have this new body, and a new, rejuvenated outlook for all the other pursuits in my life.  The value of that is truly beyond measure.

While I was preparing for my first triathlon, one triathlete's blog in particular held my interest because of its modest, thoughtful tone.  Some triathletes are obviously blogging just to celebrate themselves, the great times they are achieving in races, how tough they are, and so on.  Eric Clarkson writes with obvious love for the sport and with immense gratitude for the experience itself, and his fellow triathletes--not with his ego front and center.  

I learned a lot about how to approach races, and life, from reading his blog, and for that, I am grateful to him.  He announced in his blog recently that he's retiring as a professional triathlete.  I wish him the best; he's only in his mid-thirties so whatever he takes up, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about him soon.

Hot

I recently started reading Mark Hertsgaard's book, Hot: The Next Fifty Years on Earth, which is so frightening and depressing I can hardly keep going with it...but like Bill McKibben's Eaarth, it also seems like the only book I should be reading at the moment.

Why aren't we all campaigning for intelligent climate legislation?  Why haven't I joined the Citizen's Climate Lobby yet?  Why, for the sake of my six-year-old son, aren't I doing more about climate change?  

Because I feel powerless?  

That's not a good enough reason.  

Stop Everything

My son has come down with what looks and acts very much like norovirus.  He threw up four times in the last two and a half hours.  Right now he's doing better.

Norovirus is such a horrible illness.  It takes over, completely, like someone coming into your life and saying, "Stop everything!  I'm in control now."  You feel like throwing up fifty percent of the time for several hours, or even, for a couple days.  You feel so wiped out you can hardly move from your bed, except to hurl yourself into the bathroom, then...hurl.  Then you feel better, but extremely tired and it's hard to eat much--and anyway, you aren't supposed to go anywhere for another 48 hours after you stop throwing up because just a few cells of the virus are enough to make others violently ill.

I read that they were on the trail of a vaccine in 2012...haven't heard what the latest developments are, but I know that several million people in this country will be standing up and cheering when they actually come up with something for this horrible beast of a sickness.

I think I have a pretty good chance of getting it since it's highly contagious and I'm not exactly avoiding my son right now.  I'm being very careful, using a bleach/water solution to clean any surface that might have been touched by the virus, washing his bedding and clothes, and mine, with bleach; but that's no guarantee.

[Evening update:  my son threw up four more times, but it tapered off at around 3 p.m.  Seems like it wasn't as violent an attack as the previous time he had it, for which I'm very grateful.]

Sugarholic

The good thing about doing a triathlon is that it's made me ambitious to improve my life in other ways.

I think I need to lick this sugar habit I've had practically all my life.  I need to cut out all those cookies, cakes, chocolate bars, etc. etc. etc. that I indulge in all the time.

I'm going to start this at the end of the month...partly because it's the six-month anniversary of when I started exercising daily, May 30th.  It will be an easy date to remember.

As of November 30th--no foods that have more sugar than a croissant or 6 ounces of a typical fruit smoothie, or toast with a thin layer of jam.  No more cookies, cakes, ice cream, and so forth, for at least a year.  After that, only on special occasions--once a month at the most.

I did this once before, about ten years ago.  And the funny thing was, once I got going with it, it wasn't all that hard.  It just became a habit like any other.

I have to hope that it will be as easy a transition this time.  Anyway, I know it's one I desperately need to make.

Tragedies Big and Small

There are the immense tragedies, like the bomb attacks in Beirut and Paris...then there are the smaller-scale tragedies--like what happened to this mom in New York:

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/a-baby-dies-at-day-care-and-a-mother-asks-why-she-had-to-leave-him-so-soon/?mtrref=parenting.blogs.nytimes.com

Both tragedies are linked to societal problems so overwhelming that we feel powerless to solve them.  And both problems have to do with people feeling threatened.  The mom felt that she would not be able to get another job if she did not keep this one; and perhaps she chose an unlicensed facility (the article does not make this clear), for financial/locational reasons.  Whatever the details of her decision are, the fact remains that she felt backed into a corner--something a lot of new moms are feeling in our economy.

We must make quality, licensed childcare available to all children under the age of 3 years old, shut down all unlicensed facilities, and make maternity leave available to mothers--at larger companies at least--until their babies are at least 6 months old.  This maternity leave could be unpaid after six weeks; a majority of moms would jump at the chance to be with their babies full-time for at least that long.

How are the terrorists backed into a corner?  I feel no sympathy for these large-scale thugs.  At the same time, we have to understand the appeal of joining the Islamic State for many young immigrant men in France and other parts of the world.  As Peter Neumann discussed on NPR today, we have to understand how isolated the immigrant communities are in France--how impoverished and distanced from mainstream French society.  Young men in these communities feel useless, rejected by French society, without a future...then they look at the "heroes" in Syria and think, why not?  Because that's what testosterone-fueled, despairing young men tend to think a lot of the time--young men without hope and without a lot of prefrontal cortex development, and with just the right amount of indoctrination.

As for the problem in Syria, we are not going to solve it simply by dropping bombs.  We will create many more jihadists if that's our only solution.  We need to know what we're going to do next if we succeed at eliminating the Islamic State as a political entity and a fighting force, because something else will pop up in its place if we don't have a really good plan (and work very closely with our Middle Eastern allies)...we've already been playing whack-a-mole in the region for decades; it doesn't work very well.

Disoriented

I don't have much to say tonight.  Stayed up too late last night reading accounts of the horror in Paris...my thoughts keep returning to the simple fact that these were people relaxing at the end of the work week, going to a soccer match, gathering for quiet meals or for a concert by a seventies blues-rock band (not a death-metal band, the name was some kind of strange joke).  They were just relaxing, bothering no one.

Anyone can relate, in any city; we all do these kinds of things.  Thus the attacks are all the more chilling.

But even if they are chilling--we cannot simply recoil in horror.  First, we must go out and celebrate our lives, every day, on restaurant terraces and in concert halls and soccer stadiums.  The terrorists are like bullies everywhere--they thrive on attention, on alarm, on sensationalistic stories about them.  They do not thrive if people are simply enjoying their lives.

I still feel disoriented about what happened yesterday, in spite of my remarks here...not just disoriented, I feel sick about it.

But life goes on.

Rue de Charonne

Horrible news from Paris today.  I lived for about three months on the Rue de Lappe, just a stone's throw from the small bar/cafe where one of the attacks occurred, La Belle Equipe on the Rue de Charonne.  I remember walking almost daily from the Bastille metro station to my little room on the Rue de Lappe; I always took the Rue de Charonne to get to my street, and both of those streets together form a vivid image in my mind:  Rue de Charonne was the more sophisticated street, with its more expensive (yet still modest) restaurants, but there was something intimate and old-Parisian about both locales, while both were also lively and bustling and full of young hip artist-types looking to make things happen in one of the most colorful cities on the planet.

Rue de Charonne...I remember one of the first times I ventured into one of its little bar/cafes to have something simple and cheap for lunch, probably a sandwich and an espresso.  I was drawn in by the clientele, French for the most part, laughing and lively, not a single tourist in their midst, or so it seemed when I glanced inside. The Rue de Charonne wasn't far from the Place de la Bastille, yet it felt like the part of Paris that wasn't putting on a show for tourists, that was effortlessly sophisticated yet casual, both intellectual and working-class (bobo, I guess the term is--"bohemian bourgeois"), and enjoying itself immensely.  I was intimidated yet fascinated; I ate and drank and read my book and surreptitiously snuck glances at everyone.

And today, nineteen people were slaughtered at one of those bars on the Rue de Charonne, as well as at six other locations in Paris.

I am a bit too sad to write any more about this tonight.

Marginal

It's weird to lead a housewifely existence, then leap into an activity like the triathlon.  Weird, but in a good way.  It's also weird to leap into creative writing after a long day of errands and domestic chores; but it's also deeply satisfying.  I'm leading a marginal, uneventful existence but because of that, because I'm close to the margins, it's easy to leap into completely uncharted territory.

This might be the answer to the dilemma I'm facing in one of my stories.  I'm once again stuck on one particular story, in which the central character completely up-ends his life for a seemingly trivial reason.

Maybe he's lived on the margins for so long, the only thing left for him is to take one step even further out.

No Heat, No Light

I've read more than fifty pages of Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (as mentioned somewhere else, I usually give a novel fifty pages no matter how bad it is...)

I just don't get it; the book was on the New York Times Book Review's top ten list for 2014, and many critics use words like "luminous" and "gripping" and "heartbreaking" to describe it.  Oh, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.

There are so many metaphors, or groups of metaphors, that strive to be poetic but are just--empty.  "Rumors circulate through the Paris museum, moving fast, as quick and brightly colored as scarves." (page 50)  Rumors can be quick and brightly colored (exaggerated, colorful) but why "scarves"?  It just falls flat.  "Out of the loudspeakers all around Zollverein, the staccato voice of the Reich grows like some imperturbable tree; its subjects lean toward its branches as if toward the lips of God." (page 63) The Reich is a tree and then its branches are the lips of God...the tree metaphor was a good one, so why throw lips into it?  I love absudist/surrealist imagery as much as the next person--probably more than the next person.  But I don't want to get stuck on the Dali-esque image of lips on a tree here, in this novel.  And the author obviously didn't intend for that to happen...it's just clumsy writing.

Doerr uses the word "purl" on page 60 ("All summer the smells of nettles and daisies and rainwater purl through the gardens") and again on page 69 ("Rainwater purls from cloud to roof to eave").  I had to look it up.  "Purl" can mean, to knit with a particular kind of stitch, the purl stitch, but it can also mean, to move in eddies and swirls.  Okay, nice word; I like it in the first sentence; but when it comes back just nine pages later, it doesn't make a lot of sense--does rain really "swirl" from cloud to roof to eave?--and because "purl" already calls so much attention to itself, why did he have to use it again?

But beyond these clumsy moments, and there are many, many similar ones, I keep waiting for real characters to emerge from Doerr's swirling phrases (his purling phrases), his endless descriptions of minute phenomena...the two central characters have little or no life to them.  I don't feel that I've even begun to know them; one is blind, the other fixes radios.  War is descending on both of them so I am supposed to feel bad for them, but as of page 70 they are still puppets, in service of Doerr's poetic flights of fancy; they are not people experiencing a war.  They are not even people experiencing a life.

I don't like to write this; I don't like negative reviews.  Life it too short to focus on the negative.  I feel compelled to do it this one time, because it's such an amazingly popular book and people seem to be deeply moved by it.  Why are these kinds of books held up, more and more, as the gold standard of contemporary fiction?  I just don't understand.

Undoubtedly, many Americans wish to understand World War II and the other horrific events of the twentieth century better than they do now (myself included).  The popularity of this book perhaps reflects this desire...but in my view, the convoluted language of the book takes us further away from World War II, not closer to it.  We get lost in Doerr's overheated phrases and overworked images.

My sad conclusion about this book's popularity is that people want very badly to believe it's a profound book, and indeed it has all the earmarks of profundity:  weighty subject, tragic characters in a tragic situation, philosophical observations and vaguely poetic images...

Enough already.  It's cold, it's late, I need to sleep...since the weekend it's gotten steadily colder, and tonight is perhaps the coldest it's been since early last spring.  Tomorrow I finally have another four hours or so to myself...let's see if I'm capable of producing something that isn't overheated and overworked.

Art and the Hi-tech Boy

Volunteered today for an art-and-music lesson in my son's class, taught by volunteer parents.  It's a once-a-month lesson, and the music portion is extremely limited and not terribly interesting; but the art project (pasting different colored bits of paper to a template based on four characters from "The Nutcracker," including a ballerina, the Mouse King and the Nutcracker himself) proved to be very enjoyable for the students, and taught them something about how creative they could be with texture and color--all within a forty-minute art session.  It was a pleasure to watch them work.  Some were methodical and exacting with their paper and color placement, others (like my son) were more slapdash about it, but managed to be creative in their own way.

My big fear with these art projects is that my son (with his great interest in computers and complete lack of interest in drawing, writing and other fine-motor activities) will not hold his own.  To my surprise and delight, he did fine.  I hovered over him a bit, worried that if he didn't get his template and bits of paper early, he wouldn't be able to complete the project as successfully as the others...I shouldn't have worried so much.  His paper placement was among the least careful of all the students; his ballerina was a bit on the Cubist side of things; but it was still a ballerina in the end, with a variety of well-chosen colors.  

Then he came home and spent about four hours doing simple programming exercises, making a helicopter drone fly in various directions while directing a ball below it to roll through an obstacle course.   He keeps talking about designing his own video game; this has been his big dream for at least three months.  He goes into great detail when he describes the features he wants his game to have.

Dare I say it?  Perhaps his work with computers and iPads has actually stimulated and encouraged his artistic growth.  

How do children become more creative?  That's the basic question perhaps...and I'm pretty sure the Internet generation will find new ways to answer it.  

Geared Up

It's a bit hard to downshift, so to speak, after the triathlon.  My mind is still wrapped around the event.  On the other hand...just going for a leisurely walk today, I felt terrific--still a bit sore from the event on Saturday, but nothing intolerable.

Got back (finally) to the work on the short-short stories today, and it felt great to return to that.  

The next few weeks will be dismal in terms of the amount of time I'll have for any of my projects...Veteran's Day is a holiday, plus there's another early dismissal day tomorrow (and I'm volunteering for most of the morning); then the following week is parent-teacher conference week (which means my son is out of school at 11:30, much earlier than usual), and then it's Thanksgiving week (my son is out of school for three days that week).

I wanted to send out all the short-shorts by my 51st birthday...that's probably not going to happen. Maybe by December 10th.

Definitely by December 10th.

Post-Triathlon

The race results were posted this afternoon...not going to say what my specific time was (to maintain privacy, and because it seems silly to focus on that).  Slower on the bike than expected, by about two minutes (forgot to start my stopwatch at the beginning of the bike ride, which in hindsight was a big mistake), and my swim was about two minutes slower than it usually is.  But that's okay.  I raced pretty well; there's room for growth.  I wasn't in it for the competition with others as much as, to meet the fitness goal I'd set for myself.  That goal was accomplished.

Started the post-race celebration this morning by buying kouign amanns (a very sweet and buttery French pastry) for my husband and myself, and a chocolate truffle for my son.  Plus a cappuccino.   The celebration will continue all week--with different treats each day.   Why not?  I don't become a 50-year-old triathlete every day. 

But now it's time to stop yapping about this and move on to more interesting topics.

Triathlon...or Rock and Roll

Did the sprint triathlon today, my first...kind of neutral about the whole experience.  Not terrible; not glorious either.

The open-water swim was the hardest part.  The water was colder than I expected; it had cooled down a lot since my practice swim in that same part of San Francisco Bay a few weeks ago.  I had a little trouble breathing, it was so cold.  Also, the waves were whipped up by a brisk breeze.  And the water is so murky, the only way to make sure you're going in the right direction is to lift your head way out of the water, above the waves--it forced me to do the breast stroke for a few seconds more than once. It's nearly impossible to see anything out there, including the other human beings in the water; I bumped into swimmers (lightly) a few times.  As a result of all these complications, my best swimming form was just not there during most of the swim, and my time was pretty slow.

The bike and run portions were without mishaps for the most part, except for the fact that my feet were so cold I couldn't feel the front part of them during the first fifteen minutes of the run.  It was like running on stumps.   Needless to say, I didn't have my best form during the run, either.

It took several seconds longer than it should have to get my bike shoes on because of the snug fit of the shoes I'd just bought--wasn't used to them.  Also, I missed the metal grips in the pedal the first time I mounted my bike.  A rookie mistake, which cost another eight seconds or so.  And lacing up the running shoes really does take an extra ten seconds at least...all those things add up.

However, and this is the best part: I felt amazingly good during the last half of the bike portion and for almost the entire run portion.  It was some sort of endorphin blast, allowing me to go fast at the end of the bike ride, and during the last part of the run.  This caught me by surprise.  Does it mean that I didn't push hard enough in the middle part of both races?  Perhaps.  At any rate, it felt wonderful.

My son and husband were a fantastic support team, getting up at 5:20 and getting out the door without hesitation or grumbling.  (I won't subject them to that again; if there is another triathlon in my future, I'll buy a bike rack and get there by myself.)

And now it's done, thank goodness...did I enjoy it?  Would I want to do it again?

I still think that triathlons are very expensive, white-upper-middle-class-oriented affairs, and there's too much danger involved in the bike part of the race.  Those two factors, and the unpleasantness of being very cold at the start of the race--oh, and the pointlessness of making the transitions an actual part of the race--are not attractive aspects of the sport for me.

On the plus side:  I still love those three activities--biking, running, swimming.  A lot.  The triathlon hasn't spoiled that for me.

So I will probably do a few more, then stop...and take up the electric bass.

Day Before

About ten different things to do right now (in the next two hours, before my son gets out of school--Fridays are early-release days) so I'll be brief.

Tomorrow morning at this time I'll be in pain...no other way to put it.  But maybe there will be some sort of endorphin-fueled rush involved as well...tomorrow at around 10:30 I'll be finishing up (hopefully) my first sprint triathlon.  Hope to do it in one hour fifteen minutes or less.  But I'll try to be happy with any time whatsoever--any proof that I did it.  I'm going to try to remember Joe Friel's advice for first-time triathlon racers:  "Your only goal is to finish with a smile."

My son has been playing an iPad game involving the characters from the "Minions" movie; I've heard the music from that game a thousand times, so that's the (crazy, manic) music that will probably be playing in my head for at least part of the race.  Not entirely inappropriate.  All of us triathletes are minions for the American semi-elitist, upper-middle-class lifestyle...in that respect I'm not taking this race all that seriously.

I just want to get out of it with my body and sanity intact, and a smile on my face.

(And finish in less than 1:15.)

This Is What Raw Feels Like

Just realized why I'm feeling so weird right now...

I'm doing two or three things at the same time that make me feel raw and vulnerable in various, quite different ways.  I'm about to do a triathlon, and I'm about to send out my stories.  And, my profile is rising at my son's school due to various volunteering responsibilities.  All of that combined leaves me feeling more raw and exposed than I've felt in a long time.

With the triathlon--I feel physically vulnerable.  The swim in the frigid, murky, at least semi-polluted waters of San Francisco Bay; and the bike ride, pedaling fast down a narrow road with several hundred other bikers--then the run when I'm already bone-tired, and could possibly mess up my knee more severely than it was already messed up this past winter and spring.

With the stories:  what if a whole cadre of critics and casual readers line up against me, saying the stories are worthless?  They could crush my career before it even gets started.

A lot of people won't like my work; I can accept that.  But what if...what if no one does?

"What if?" is easily one of the most depressing questions in the world.  I shouldn't ask it.

The best approach in these situations is--handle it gracefully, but don't take any of it too seriously.

Today at the second "mom's coffee" with a group of four moms from my son's school, all of us doing that outrageous thing--relaxing and having coffee together on a Thursday morning--a mom spoke of her nervousness about attending a PTA meeting.  It would be her first meeting, and she felt like the parents who were already attending were such a tight-knit group.  "I feel like I won't know anyone." I promised to go with her (I'd been thinking of attending my first PTA meeting anyway).  I really appreciated her honesty about being nervous.  And that's what started me thinking about my own feelings of nervousness and vulnerability.

Writing a story, any story, is such a naked thing.  Yes, it's not like playing the piano or stand-up comedy--you're not actually physically there--yet your story is standing up there, your characters.  And your brain is being judged.

"Stay in the moment" is what all the triathlon coaches seem to advise about running the actual race.  Don't project ahead and imagine worst-case scenarios.  That probably holds true for any of the moments of our lives when we're feeling vulnerable.   Stay in the moment.  Yes, my stories will be judged, yes I might fail in the triathlon, yes I might mess up when speaking in front of the school. That's life.  I should listen and learn, and not take any of it too seriously.

Two More Days

It's 10 p.m. and I should be sleeping...the triathlon is in a little over 48 hours.

Did a short and mildly intense workout, following Joe Friel's advice...went out on my bike for 20 minutes (with 90-second race-pace intervals), then jogged for 10 (with similar bursts).  "Tapering," it's called.  A bug hit my face during the bike ride, just above my mouth; it really smacked into my face.  Biking is weird in that sense.  You never know what is going to happen and it usually happens at pretty high speeds.  It's not really a sport for sane people.

I am still not quite myself (see post from a couple days ago), but I also feel stupid talking about it.  I'm not looking forward to the triathlon, mostly because of the logistical complications, but also because of the one hour and twenty minutes of physical pain...But I'm trying not to think about that.

I'm trying to tell myself:  no matter what happens, feel good that you're at this point in your physical fitness.  That's what counts.

Toxic algae blooms in the Bay...shark sitings...

I'm trying not to think, period.

Hope #2

To return to the topic of hope--the story about the black man in jail isn't first rate, I realize that.  At the same time, for some reason, I have to put it out there.  For the simple reason that it's a story that needs to be told.  And I have to tell it as a white suburban mom, without any hip-hop stylings, because that's who I am.  This man is losing hope; here's what he grabs onto:  one happy memory, then another.  And one person in his life who made a difference--the only one.  Grabbing onto those tenuous threads, he weaves a rope, the only rope he's got, and he starts climbing.

"Only connect," E.M. Forster said.  But sometimes we have to connect to ourselves first.

Down

A bit down today...

It might have been the intense one-hour workout yesterday; also, last week was a whirlwind.  And I'm biting my nails about this Saturday (the triathlon).  And, I feel as if the stories are not good, most of them...

And on top of all that, these problems sound so trivial.

You know you're depressed when you start getting depressed about the quality of your depression.

Hope

I rewrote the story that was giving me problems--tweaked it more than rewrote it; the bones of it were okay, I think; I just removed some of the excess verbiage.

The main thing that bothers me about the story is not so much, at this point, the central character--I think he's okay (not great, just okay).  It's the overall subject matter:  the story looks at a black man suffering in jail, and what he does to lift himself up.  Do I have any right to discuss that topic?  It's so far from my daily life.  Also, isn't that a stereotype?  If I'm going to write about a black man, why does he have to be in jail?

But the problem is...the stereotype is also a truth, and it's a truth that a lot of white people want to ignore..."maybe if we don't look at it the problem will just go away."  But we can't just ignore the fact that a lot of injustices have been committed against black people, and especially black men, in the name of "criminal justice."  And those injustices have been committed by white people, at least 99 percent of the time.

I still don't know if I have a right, though, to tell the story about a black man in jail.  I do know that I wanted to write the story because of the black children I worked with at an elementary school in San Francisco.  They were wonderful kids, bursting with life and enthusiasm.  I was there (as a teaching assistant) about thirty years ago.  I often wonder what they are doing now.  I wonder how many of the boys made it into successful careers, good family lives. Some of them were the children of drug addicts or prostitutes.  They started with the deck heavily stacked against them. So the chances are pretty good that some of them just didn't make it.

I wanted to imagine one of them in jail, making a decision right there, at the worst moment of his life, to turn everything around...I know that sounds Pollyanna-ish.  Or just impossible.  But hopefully the story will reach someone, some day, who is actually suffering in jail--a good person who has given up.

Our country is so hard on children who are poor, black or Hispanic (or American Indian or south Asian) and living in a horrible neighborhood.  Part of me still lives with those children at that ugly, windswept elementary school in San Francisco's Ingleside District. Part of me still wants to protect them.  Or at least offer them some kind of hope.