Nobody Knows Anything

We’ve been living in the rental house for a year now (yeah, the remodel will be done any minute now), so it’s probably time to check out how our experiment of dumping a cable connection is going.

Answer: it’s going really well. We’re not going back.

Turns out that we’re not alone, of course: a lot of people are saying farewell to cable.

Pre-move, we had DSL via Speakeasy for $145 a month, plus DirectTV for $95 a month, plus Netflix for $23 ($263 a month). We had lots of premium channels (HBO, Showtime), and we didn’t buy movies. We sometimes bought stuff via iTunes, for when our system broke down or recorded a poor copy of something.

When we moved, we cancelled Speakeasy (they couldn’t get us the speed we wanted) and picked up Comcast cable internet ($63…and roughly the same speed we had before *headdesk*). And we either watched shows via iTunes, Netflix DVDs, or Netflix on Demand. The kids in particular have taken to Netflix on Demand like a duck to your Sunday picnic. Over the past year we’ve spent $1453 on the iTunes TV store (wow, that looks amazing to write out like that), or $120 a month. Plus $23 for Netflix.

Which means we’re spending roughly $203 a month now. For shows without commercials, often in higher quality than the broadcast versions.

I think I’m going to change our Netflix subscription to be the one DVD + On Demand stuff, which is something like $10 a month.

True, we don’t get sports or 24 hour news stations, but we don’t care. We don’t have the movie channels (if we really need a movie, we’ll rent it from iTunes or wait for the DVD). Our house is right near the Santa Cruz mountains, which interfere with all broadcast stations, or I would get an antenna to cover local channels.

We recently had a small vacation and while staying in the hotel sacked out in bed to watch Food Network (oh, Bobby Flay, my daughter has missed you). Used to be we were annoyed by regular TV because we couldn’t pause or fast-forward over commercials, like we could with TiVo. Now we’ve found regular TV practically unwatchable. I don’t miss it at ALL.

Comcast keeps offering us deals where we can get a faster internet connection if we also pick up a cable subscription, and the combo will cost less than it’s costing now. Darin keeps responding, “How much for just the faster internet?”

Unless one of the kids suddenly develops a need to watch sports, we’re not going back.

When we got invited up to Tahoe for winter break, Darin ended up not being able to take the time off, so I took the kids up alone. I sent him a message: “Spring break is April 12 through April 16. Take the days off now.” He immediately filed for vacation, and we talked about perhaps going to Disney World. Extravagant, yes, but we haven’t taken a long vacation for a while. So our plans was: We would leave on the weekend, spend the week in Orlando, fly home the following weekend, using two days for travel.

Then Darin said, “Oh, um, there’s a WebKit conference on Monday and Tuesday of that week.”

Anaheim it is, then.

We decided to drive down late Tuesday night (after Darin’s conference let out) and then spend several days puttering around Disneyland and California Adventure. We took the kids here two years ago, and we figured they’d enjoy it even more this time. I really think they did. They still enjoy being there (some of their friends are already bored with it), and they were willing to try new stuff now.

Some random observations from this visit, in no particular order:

Disneyland

• My 10-year-old daughter enjoys going on rollercoaster rides as much as or more than my 10-year-old self did. Of course, one problem is: I am no longer 10-years-old, and they are not nearly as much fun. I still go on them with her though.
• Sophia would go on Space Mountain non-stop, if given the choice and the ability. I’m assuming that on our next visit to a Magic Kingdom she will have both, as she will be old enough to skedaddle and do whatever the hell she likes, parents or no parents.
• My 7-almost-8-year-old son would like all rollercoasters to cease existence as of right now, thankyouverymuch. So I don’t think his older sister will be dragging him along with her in the future.
• Captain EO is hilarious, and not in a good way. It is SO Eighties that at one point a monster morphs into a dancer with a gelled-up pouf and the audience laughed. We finally see the evil queen morph into Anjelica Huston…and immediately Michael Jackson’s head fills the frame, as though we can’t possibly focus on someone else for even a second. And the song redefines forgettable.
• Sophia said, “I couldn’t tell if Captain EO was a boy or a girl.” So many things I left unsaid at that point.
• Darin managed to deduce that the voice of the pilot for Star Tours is Paul Reubens, and the Internet backs him up. Therefore this information is TRUE.
• The kids cannot get enough of Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Some things never change. It is still funny to hear the voice of Tony the Tiger in both places.
• My kids have no idea who Tony the Tiger is. Go me!
• Two years ago, at the Haunted Mansion, Simon looked at the paintings in the spooky hallway (the ones that change from things like a beautiful lady to a cat lady when the lighting flashes) and said, “Projection.” In his 5-year-old voice, with a little boy lisp, it came out, “Pwojeckshun,” and it was hilarious. He is, of course, right. Which is kind of amazing for a 5-year-old in the first place.
• The part of the Haunted Mansion that features married couples where apparently the wives murdered the husbands: guys, violence isn’t any funnier directed toward men. In fact, it’s DISTURBING. (Oh, I see from Wikipedia I was right: I didn’t remember this bit from my childhood, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention two years ago, and it is in fact new.)
• Also a big fave: It’s a Small World! The classics, they never stop. Kind of hilarious that a bunch of dolls singing the same song over and over again would be so attractive, but it really is.

California Adventure

• Soarin’ Over California at California Adventure should be titled, “Stuff you will never have in Kansas, no matter how much Amazon Prime you have.” If you’re visiting California Adventure run, do not walk, to this attraction first.
• The Aladdin stage show is really good. I was expecting some kind of halfassed song and dance thing with a fog machine, and it’s practically a Broadway musical with special effects.
• The “Turtle Talk with Crush!” animation show is hilarious. There’s a large screen, and Crush from “Finding Nemo” swims by to talk to everyone. Then he picks out people in the audience to talk to and ask questions of. The animation is seamless—I have no idea how Crush moves and appears to be looking at various people—and the actor doing it was very talented.
• Lots of vegetarian options for meals here, btw. (Dunno about vegan, but vegetarian definitely.) Also: lots of places to get an alcoholic drink, in case you can’t get through your day without a cocktail. So if you’re finishing your day at Disneyland, bummed that for another year running you haven’t gotten into Club 33 and you really need to tie one on, hie thee across the plaza to California Adventure and drink up.

Other

• I know it’s beaten into them. I know they’re trained to do this and it’s a manipulation technique and I’m being played. But oh my GOD was every single staff member I dealt with at our hotel wonderful and cheerful. Before the trip I called to tell them that we were going to be arriving hella late, and the young man I talked to was just so happy to answer my questions and put lots of notes about my requests in my file! And every time I called the front desk the operators were so thrilled to be helping me! The technique seriously works: I felt really good about staying there! I can think of so many businesses that could take a fucking page from the Disney indoctrination technique.
• The Grand Californian (where we stayed) is really a good hotel. (Well, except for the toilet in our room, which kept malfunctioning. But I assume that wasn’t a feature.) The design is great, the distance to the parks and to Downtown Disney is excellent, and the way that so many rooms have a queen plus bunk beds just screams, “We know who our clientele are and what they want!”
• We were in the park early one morning and I saw a Disney cast member (not “employee”! that’s “cast member” to you!) walking by in costume holding a Starbucks cup. If she’d been texting on an iPhone she could have hit the Corporate Hegemony Trifecta.
• If you live in Southern California and are like, “WTF? Darin and Diane didn’t let us know they were coming?” please to take comfort in the fact that we didn’t tell anyone. We spent the entire time just as a foursome, and it worked out really, really well (better than I expected, if I may be so honest). We spent all day every day together, except for when one of us took the kids to the pool and the other one stayed in the room.
• The Napa Rose restaurant is really good. Ate there twice. I recommend the starters over the entrees, but then again, I was completely full on two starters.
• The Steakhouse 55 restaurant at the Disneyland Hotel is okay. I think the praise it’s gotten is a little overblown, or maybe people are just so happy to find a place that’s halfway decent around here.
• The Blue Bayou at Pirates was pretty good, though expensive. You have to ask to sit by the bayou though! Epic fail on our part.
• Man, has the Disneyland Hotel changed since the first time I stayed there. The first time, when I flew out from the East Coast with my family (I was probably…8?), there was one hotel. The second time, when I was 10 or 11, there were two hotels and a big lagoon where we had paddle boats. Now it’s a gigantic conference center with three towers and no paddle boats. Plus all of these other hotels (including the Grand Californian, where we stayed.) And Downtown Disney. And…well, it’s just quite impressive what they’ve done with the place.

And now the question I’ll leave you with: after you visit all of the continents (including Antartica) in It’s A Small World, you visit an area where we get a repeat of a number of the dolls…only this time, everyone’s wearing all white. Does the last section represent the Afterlife?

There’s a forum I hang out on—yes, Otto, the-forum-that-shall-not-be-named—and there’s one section that’s basically about people asking for life advice. Many of those asking questions are younger, usually in their early twenties. I find myself giving a lot of advice, from the perspective of my advanced years. I can boil most of my advice down to one phrase. It’s applicable to almost every situation, and it’s applicable to thee and to me.

And that advice is: STOP THE DRAMA.

Stop the histrionics. Stop seeking approval or acceptance or admiration by dialing all of your emotions and experiences up to 11. Start looking at your life as though you have a modicum of control over it, because you DO. You CAN choose how you respond to things, both emotionally and physically. You are the one who will decide what you do right now.

Having drama in your life is having heightened emotions. It’s about how something sounds rather than the truth of what is.

A lot of us, particularly when we’re younger, are addicted to the dramatics of a situation. We confuse feeling emotion about a situation—“He done me wrong!” “She talked about me behind my back!” “She stole my shoes!”—for the relative importance of the situation. We run to our friends and want their commiseration or even their admiration for how totally crazy our lives are.

We all have the friends who have crazy crap happen to them left and right, and we think, “How come their lives are so much more dramatic than mine is?” Because they’re CHOOSING to be that way. It makes them feel alive, like they’re the star of their own story. When in reality…they’re allowing themselves to be buffeted by external events. Past the age of 25, it’s not cute any more. Get a grip on reality, accept that you’re in charge, and act accordingly.

When I was in college, I got involved with this guy I’ve charitably described as a “sociopath.” Using words like that is being dramatic about it. At the time I got a lot of mileage out of feeling used and abused, out of the drama of how he was going to treat me this week, out of the choices of how I was going to live my life because of this one guy. I made him the bad guy and me the victim.

Whereas if I were going to cut the drama and really engage in what what happening, I would allow myself to feel sad that I had spent so much time with this guy, I would feel compassion for myself that I allowed him to make me feel like dirt, and I would say, “You know, I don’t need this kind of person in my life.” No late-night crying with friends, no histrionics. Move on. I would take control and realize that it really is better to be alone than in bad company, and then I would see that I had opened up space in my life to have better company.

Take this test: Pick a situation you feel highly emotional about right now and you want to call all of your friends about. Here’s what I want you to tell your friend: “Okay, I’m going to tell you about something that happened. Here’s what I want you to do: nothing. Don’t respond in any way. Don’t agree with me, don’t comment on what this other person did, just listen to me.”

If your reaction to that scenario is, “Why would I tell someone about this if they weren’t going to side with me and tell me that I’m the victim here?” then you’re still caught up in the drama.

Here’s another test: do you use exaggerated comparatives to describe your situation? That is, is it the “worst” thing he’s done, the “scariest” thing that’s ever happened, the “best” relationship you can imagine having, so you have to hold on to it, at all costs?

(A friend–who lived a fairly dramatic life himself–once coined, “It was the WORST thing that’s EVER happened to ANYONE in the history of Western Civilization!” He was kidding. I think.)

If you’re using these kinds of terms to describe the situation, you’re being dramatic. You’re more involved with having a good story than you are with what’s actually going on.

STOP. Take a few minutes to sit quietly. Relate the facts of the situation: not “My boyfriend humiliated me in front of every single important person in my life!” but “Bob said some really mean things about me in front of lots of my friends.” Then ask yourself how you truly feel about this situation, here and now, not acting out in front of anyone. Now ask, What are you going to do about it?

There is nothing wrong with feeling emotion about a situation. If your friends from college turn out to be bad, unstable roommates (as happened to me), feel sad because your friendship wasn’t what it was…and then make plans to move elsewhere. No need for drama. Take control.

And looking back at it… I’m sure I was no prize as a roommate either.

The more you harness your own energy and spend it on the important stuff in your life rather than making every little upset its own vortex, the easier it gets, and the more powerful you get. If someone tries to drag you into their drama, you say, “This is not for me,” and you leave them to it.

It can be scary though. If you give up having drama in your life and choose to face your emotions and your reactions head on, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to be the one in charge. You have no one to blame, because if a friend goes nutso on you, you can’t run around and say, “Gaaaaah! What do I do?” You can’t have screaming arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong. You get to decide how you’re going to handle it, without making a good story out of it.

You’re also going to lose friends. Friends who put up with your dramatics so they can touch the electric wire of crazy emotions. Friends who are used to dumping their drama on you. Once you start responding to their stories with, “Wow, you seem really upset about that. What are you going to do about it?” you’ve just punctured their drama. You’re not their audience any more. They’re going to go elsewhere.

Trust me. Finding other adults who can deal with their own emotions and lives like, well, adults, is a real treat.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

I Googled this quotation to make sure I had it right, and I discovered a translation even more interesting underneath the popular understanding.

Although this is the popular form of this quotation, a more correct translation from the original Chinese would be “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lau Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness. Another potential phrasing would be “Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.” [note by Michael Moncur, September 01, 2004]

In other words: Begin where you are. Get the feet moving.

I did, in fact, make my goal of running 1000 miles in 2009. In fact, I made it to 1001.5, as the running watch flies. It was not easy, because while I was way ahead of the game by the end of June (when I ran the marathon), I slacked off immediately thereafter. By October, I realized I was well behind where I needed to be to get to 1000. I really had to start ramping up the mileage in November, which wasn’t easy, given that we were spending a week in Michigan, and I had to do 120 miles in December. The most I’d run all year was 130, and that was when I was training for a marathon.

(As it turned out, I could have run in Michigan: while it was colder than it was here, it wasn’t that much colder than the coldest days I’ve run in this area. No snow, only a little rain. Lesson #1: bring your damn running stuff with you.)

I ran the 120 miles in December, even though I had to give up weight training to do it. I’ve definitely found that once I get to about 90 miles for the month, doing any other sort of exercise along with the running becomes impossible. I keep expecting my body is going to adjust upwards, but no: over 90, and running is all you get.

The question becomes, of course: Why on Earth did I pursue this goal?

And the answer is: To see if I could do it.

When I signed up for the challenge (at 3fatchicks.com, best site on the Web for weight loss support!), I thought, This is insane. Then I thought: I wonder how far I’ll get. The idea attracted me strongly, so I put “Run 1000 miles” on my list of goals for the year, and every time I went running I added the total to a spreadsheet I’d made to keep track. Once I made it a goal, I think my mind started figuring out how I could do it.

I’ve found that making a list of 10 goals for the year is really valuable, if I really sit down and think about what I want to accomplish. Not what I think I should do, but what I want to do. The process outlined in Your Best Year Ever! by Jinny Ditzler has helped me a lot to make goal lists for the year. Making lists of goals I should do is a complete waste of time, and I’ve never made a New Year’s Resolution in my life. But seriously considering things I would like to accomplish during a year, writing it down, and posting it somewhere where I can see: that has been a powerful and useful practice, one I highly recommend.

(Another recommendation for a yearly practice I highly encourage: finding your Word of the Year, which I got from Christine Kane. It really sets your mood for the whole year, particularly if you keep reminding yourself of it at various times. It’s a shorthand way of reminding yourself what kind of experience you want to have, without beating yourself over the head about doing this, that, or the other.)

Doing 1000 miles reminded me that I can take a crazy, outsized goal and actually achieve it. That when I think of something I want to do and immediately react with, “Oh no, I could never do that,” I can remind myself, “You did one thousand miles, babe. You can do this.”

One really important part of making 1000 miles was that I told myself I could do it, over and over again, reminding myself of the goal, seeing myself finishing. It was a goal far outside my comfort zone—I run somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes a mile, depending on terrain and my exhaustion level, so 1000 miles is a hell of time investment, not to mention the physical costs. And yet it was really exhilarating (even while it was exhausting) to keep racking up the miles.

(By the way, if at any time my body had hurt (beyond the simple aches of making it move), I would have stopped. These people who run through crippling pain? I am not that person.)

I’m not sure I would even think about doing it again, except my running bud Nina wants to run 1000 miles this year, and I am duty-bound to get her there! I don’t know if it can really count as a yearly goal this time around though.

I’ve started working on a couple of side projects—one of them that I’m willing to share with the world right now is Let The Freak Flag Fly, a blog dedicated to people being who they gotta be. I find stories about people who find out who they really are and live large as a result to be very inspiring, mostly as I am trying to find my own identity for this period in my life.

If you have any suggestions for topics or want to suggest URLs or even want to write an entry about how you let the freak flag fly, please drop me a line at diane -at- let-the-freak-flag-fly-.-com (please to remove all dashes and spaces and replace the at with an at-sign…you know the drill).

I mentioned in a previous entry that I would put an update here on how my meditation practice was going. I have continued to meditate about five days out of seven, usually twenty minutes at a time, but a few times doing thirty. I do the usual shtick: I sit on a zafu cushion, close my eyes, listen to a calming background noise via the Brain Wave app on my iPhone, and try to think of nothing until the program turns off. I have three ways of doing this:

1) Breathe in for a count of four, and then breathe out for a count of four.

2) Do a chakra meditation. I can’t remember where I read about this, but you imagine light (or energy, or the universe, or whatever) pouring into your body, and it lights up your first chakra, which is red and sits at the root of your spine, then the second chakra, which is orange and is roughly where your internal genitals are, then the third… There are seven spots, not hard to learn them, and they follow the colors of the rainbow.

3) Do a verbal chant, such as “Ooooooommmmmm” on the out breath.

Why do I do these funky (and quite frankly, extremely Californian) meditations?

Because they allow me to empty my mind and only focus on that one thing. It’s almost impossible for my mind to wander if I’m fixated on visualizing lights of various colors lighting up through my body. I don’t actually feel any different when I visualize an area lighting up with energy, but I sure can’t think about anything else. (I have a very strong visualization muscle–I really “see” things when I imagine.) And if I spend time focusing on my body, I will relax the various areas as I go through them.

With the “Om” I don’t believe it’s really the sound from the birth of the universe, or whatever it’s supposed to be. (Sorry: am card-carrying atheist.) Chanting that sound just massages my body from the inside, being both soothing and tingly at the same time. Seriously, take a moment right now (possibly in your bathroom or your closet or something where no one will hear you) and say “Oooooommmmmm” a couple of times, really letting it reverberate through you. Doesn’t that feel wonderful? Now imagine it saying it for twenty minutes straight. You’ll feel like you got a tummy massage.

Our brains don’t want to calm down. Meditation is you learning how to take control of your mind. When your mind wanders onto thoughts of what you should be doing or your shopping list, a great technique to deal with it is just say “Thoughts, thoughts” and dismiss them. Or, if like me, your mind wanders to fantasies about what you should have said to the rude salesclerk or what life would be like living in a fabulous Paris apartment, say “Fantasy, fantasy” and get back to the whole breath-counting thing. I can fantasize any time (and if you know me, you know I probably am). There’s plenty of time during the day to fantasize about my Parisian castle while standing in line at a store to buy that thing I didn’t buy from the rude salesclerk.

What’s the point of all this sitting in place and counting breaths and quieting the mind?

I have no idea.

But it feels awesome.

On days when I don’t meditate, I can feel it. I start feeling antsy. I crave those minutes of just sitting there and doing nothing.

I don’t think it’s improved me as a person yet: I haven’t had any spiritual experiences, I haven’t heard a small internal voice telling me what I should do with my life, and I’m not noticeably calmer during the day (I think). But that twenty or thirty minutes of sitting with myself has really helped me say, “You know, taking a little time just for myself and quieting my mind is worthwhile.”

So, of late I’ve become a big proselytizer for taking up a meditation practice. I guess I should put up some links here for places you can check out for more info, but frankly, all you need is ten minutes and a willingness to give it a shot. Honestly, it’s really as wonderful as all the propaganda has made it out to be.

Yoga sutra number 33, as discovered in Neal Pollack’s essay on being happy for friends’ success instead of envious:

In daily life we see people around who are happier than we are, people who are less happy. Some may be doing praiseworthy things and others causing problems. Whatever may be our usual attitude toward such people and their actions, if we can be pleased with others who are happier than ourselves, compassionate toward those who are unhappy, joyful with those doing praiseworthy things, and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil.

I love this. If I had already dug the printer out of the garage, I would print this and hang it on the wall.

We made a couple of changes to our life when we moved out of our house and into this rental house. For one thing, we moved from a 2800 square foot house without a garage to a 2200 sq. ft. house with a garage, so we took a hard look at many of the things we owned and either said, “Bye,” or “Into a box in the garage you go.” (All of our books? Packed away. ALL. Except the kids’, who have been insistent that their books needed to be liberated, and so they were.)

Another thing was that we got rid of was the satellite TV.

And despite going with Comcast for our internet connection, we didn’t pick up cable. We have no direct connection to the wide world of television out there. I suppose we might be able to get “over the air” broadcasts (are those still happening even?), but we haven’t tried.

One night back at our house I found Darin in the TV room watching some movie and I asked what it was. “I don’t even know,” he said. “It was just on.”

“That is a silly reason to watch something.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Did we need all of these movie channels? We rarely watched stuff off of them. Did we need the 100s of basic cable channels? Not much. We thought about how we were spending $90 a month on satellite—that’s $1080 a year!—on stuff we just never watched.

And things we did want to watch… Well, there was always iTunes. We’d gotten into the habit last year of just buying “Lost” on iTunes every week, because for some reason the ABC-HD feed in our area kept messing up the transmission. Or our satellite dish was pointed the wrong way, but only on Wednesday nights.

$1080 divided by $30 (avg. cost of iTunes subscription?) equals 36 shows a year. I would be amazed if all of us watched 36 separate series a year. Here’s what I’ll be watching:

• Lost: Final season. SOB.
• Dollhouse: The name “Joss Whedon” buys a lot. The logic gaps are sometimes infuriating and Eliza Dushku is not exactly right for this material. But it’s okay.
• Community: So far this has been hilarious. “Sharks, pencils, and Ben Affleck.” Good times.
• The Simpsons: Yes. Still.
• 30 Rock: When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s not, it’s still okay.
• Chuck: Of course! Even if it’s on NBC!
• Dexter: A little Michael C. Hall covers up many storytelling weaknesses.

Darin also watches Mad Men (which I personally can’t stand), The Office, and Big Bang Theory (which I’ve enjoyed the few times I’ve seen, but I have a hard time loving sitcoms, despite having three of them in my above list).

I want to watch National Parks (which Nina said KQED is streaming? Let’s get that computer hooked up to the TV, people just discovered iTunes is carrying this one!).

We find series, by the way, following the advice of our most trusted TV critics: Alan Sepinwall (who as every “Chuck” fan knows, is DA MAN) and Ken Tucker (whose in-print stuff for EW is better than his blog, but never mind that). See? Critics are worthwhile, people.

So far it’s worked out great: we have stuff on the Apple TV we want to watch, we can store the old shows (or watch them on the computer, or on our iPhones, or whatever without too much hassle), and we don’t have the lure of just anything being on. Darin has been reading The Lord of the Rings to the kids, and as soon as they finished “The Fellowship of the Ring” we rented the movie. Simple.

What we’re missing out on: Food Network shows. My daughter misses her daily dose of Bobby Flay. Perhaps Food Network will figure out a way to deal with this.

Even if we do end up paying more than $1080 a year—I’m going to try to mark the various series subscriptions in Quicken to keep track of how much we end up spending—on the whole this system is a much better TV experience than watching cable/satellite. No commercials to fast-forward through! No endless promos for other shows! No teasers ruining the entire show before we see it!

Now if Darin would just hook up our DVD player so I could restart the Netflix subscription, that’d be good. Of course, what he really wants to do is get a PS3 “so we can watch Blu-ray disks.” Uh huh. I am the kind of “stupid wife” who “believes that.” My friend Otto also recommends hooking up a Mac mini, so as to use Hulu on the TV. But we don’t have a Mac mini. Maybe the kids will sacrifice their iMac for the cause…. HAHAHAHA. Just kidding.

Since sitting in front of the TV and just watching what’s on is not my idea of a good time, this setup is working perfectly for me. If I want to sit around and stare at a screen for hours to waste time…I’ll use my iPhone to play games, thanks.

We also gave up our home phone in the move. Yes, it’s true: Darin and I no longer share a phone. But everyone knows that to contact him you call his cell phone, and having the answering machine at home mostly served as a vehicle for frustration for me (since he never listened to messages). Now I get everything on my phone and it’s much easier for me to stay on top of calls I need to return and messages I need to deal with.

Dang. We really are living in the future.

My descent into touchy-feeliness continues unabated.

First, I gave up gossip because I realized it was making me feel icky—knowing those things about people does not improve my appreciation of their talents, ever; in fact, it can only lessen it. I’m at a point in my life where it’s easier to feel compassion for the mistakes people have made with their lives. Snark is both too easy and leaves me feeling foul inside.

No. Really.

I’m still me, people. Just a me determined to excise snark and sarcasm from my vocabulary. It’s a constant process—now when I let loose at someone and snark I know it’s about me, not about them. Most of the time, when someone says something I find stupid or hurtful, I tell myself, “That is not about whatever they are talking about, that is about them, and that is something they need to deal with.” It makes dealing with the world much, much easier.

I’m also doing meditation and and I’m keeping a gratitude journal. And as with most things, there are iPhone apps for that, and having an app makes things just that much more fun.

I was sold on trying meditation again by The Happiness Hypothesis. I’ve tried meditation at various times in my life and always failed miserably—I’d either fall asleep during (possibly, the “lying on the floor” position was not my best choice) or forget to do it. I do well with guided meditations, but that doesn’t seem to be the same thing as garden-variety sit-down-and-shut-up meditation at all. Guided meditation tends to put me “out” much the same way hypnosis does: I wake up at the end of the session feeling pretty good, but with no memory of what happened or what Nigerian scam I’ve agreed to.

What I do now is take 10-20 minutes a day to meditate. I sit on the floor, legs crossed Indian-style, back straight. Sitting this way turns out to be way more painful than it was when I was in kindergarten because I’m so much less flexible, and suddenly the reason that meditation and yoga are so tightly interlinked becomes extremely clear. I put my hands on my lap, palms up, and I try to breathe in on a count of four and out on a count of four.

I also put on my headphones and listen to the Brain Wave app from Banzai Labs, which is a binaural beats generator. It has 20 different programs—”Positive Mood Boost,” “Lucid Dreaming,” and “Meditation” are three—but mostly what I’m aware of is the sound of “pink noise.” I thought it was “white noise” but “pink noise” is apparently totally different. It provides just enough cover to help me tune out the outside world, and if the binaural beats are helping me meditate, so much the better.

So far my meditation practice usually goes like this:

One, two…my hips are really tight and my nose itches. I need to get a meditation pillow to sit on. Focus! Breathe in: One, two, three…I’ll do a body check and breathe relaxation into the tense parts of my body. Mostly I’m thinking about things itching. Breathe out: One, two… I wonder if I ran the dishwasher last night. I will push that thought away for right now. Breathe in: One, two… Does this get easier with practice? Practicing, there’s a good idea. Breathe out: One, two, three, four… Hey, I got to four that time! Next stop, enlightenment! Wait, what’s this about the dishwasher? Breathe in: One, two… now my foot itches.

I haven’t had any amazing things happen as a result of doing some meditation: no spiritual experiences, no suddenly becoming psychic (as apparently happened to one woman, who then ran out and wrote a book on meditation, which I happened to read some time ago). My big goal right now is to get to a whole count of four in and out before my mind wanders. This will most likely occur sometime in my next incarnation. But that’s really okay: learning to quiet my mind, if only for a count of two, is pretty good. It’s amazing how loud my mental radio is playing ALL THE TIME.

(I also use Brain Wave on the “Creativity Boost” setting when writing. Does it make me more creative? Who cares? The pink noise drowns out the rest of the world.)

I also read in a number of places about “gratitude journals,” which are journals you write in every day about the good things in your life. (Apparently Oprah talks about these; she was not one of my inspirations for doing this. This is not a judgment, just a statement of fact.) All you have to do is write down five things you appreciate every day! How hard could that be?

To encourage me to do it, I use the Gratitude! app from the Happy Tapper. Look at the icon: Doesn’t that make you smile? That’s just cute. Seriously: Good job, app icon designer.

The Gratitude! app gives you a page per day to write down 5 (or 10, or whatever) things per day that you are grateful for, plus rate your day from one to five stars, plus stick a picture on the page. For one thing, this app reminds me to take pictures of stuff with my iPhone so I will have a picture for my day’s entry, and since I’ve begun using it I’ve never had a less-than-three-star day. I have to report that, as with meditation, I haven’t had any of the marvelous mystical things that people report happening when they start using a gratitude journal, but I don’t care: it’s just nice to remind myself every day that things are good and honestly I have lots to be happy about.

I’m not too proud to admit that “high-quality chocolate” has made the list more than once. Because some days, I really am all about appreciating the chocolate.

Several very large, very polite men from Jack Trux Moving are taking everything out of my current house and loading it on to a couple of trucks, which will then take it all to the new house, where we will live where the current house gets demolished inside and rebuilt. This is a very exciting, very nerve-wracking process. Nonetheless, Darin and I manage to be quite cheery about it. I don’t know whether this is optimism, stupidity, or just simple naivete. Seems to have worked out okay so far.

Darin took the kids to see Ponyo, in order to get them out of the house for this part. I have chosen to remain behind, both to answer questions (since I’ve already decided where everything’s going in the new house and the floor plan exists only in my head) and to do laundry. Because like death and taxes, there is always laundry.

I have new goals in life:

• To have laundry minions, who will just take care of the laundry for me, dammit, day in and day out. I know laundry isn’t the greatest trauma in the world, but it’s such a pain in the ass.
• Next year, I want to do the world’s most perfect move: walk out the door of one place, walk in the door of the next. No movers, no boxes, no unpacking, no tsuris. All new stuff waiting for us at the end; leave the doors open on the old place for looters, et al. Darin has said that if I can figure out how to do it for our move back to this house, he is all for it.

I didn’t say they were important goals.

I’ve been hanging out a lot at my favorite fashion forum, only not in the fashion areas, but in the chat-about-life areas. Many (though by no means all) of the posters on the forum are young women in their early 20s, and God help me, I want to shake them so badly. I know, there are certain truths you can only learn for yourself, and people can tell you this stuff over and over and you won’t grok it until you get it for yourself.

But if I could get a few things through to these women (and, by extension, to 20-year-old me), I would say:

• You are all you have. Anything more than that you have access to (family, friends, money, living situation): awesome. But in the end, you are all you got. Act accordingly and treat yourself like the special, important person you are.

  Important corollary: you are all you need, too. Which is convenient and cuts down on the number of things you need to stuff in your bags.

• Not everybody’s going to like you. There’s no magic formula of niceness or agreeability that will make you popular. In fact, the popular people are the ones with strong convictions, who go ahead and do what they want no matter what you think.

  The trick is, You have to actually not care what other people think about every damn thing you do. Conveniently, this turns out to be much, much easier than we were led to believe as children.

• Don’t wait. Ever. For anything or anyone. You don’t get extra points for being the patient, uncomplaining one. In fact, you’re probably going to get stepped on for your troubles. The person you are waiting for is not going to wake up one day and go, “Oh gosh, that person who’s just been so accommodating—she’s the one!” Your boss is not going to say, “Hmmm, who’s the best worker, the one who never says anything or the one who tells me in detail about their weekly accomplishments and is vocal about taking on new responsibilities?” The whole Discovering-Cinderella shtick wasn’t true back then and it ain’t true now.

  When I was investigating agents to query, I was amazed at the number of people who focused on the one agent they wanted and they were just going to wait forever for the response from that person. My advice was always: Move on. If they want you, they’ll get back to you. In the meantime, check out who else is out there. Which brings me to…

• Make them (boy, job, whatever) reject you. Don’t decide ahead of time you’re not going to get it. Ask for it, and make them say No. Yes, rejection hurts. So, somebody doesn’t like you. Here’s your mantra: NEXT. That one didn’t work out? NEXT.

  A young woman I know got a callback for a role in a Harry Potter film…and decided she wasn’t going to get it, so she didn’t even go. I want to shake her! But what’s done is done. And I’m not so sure that the universe is going to make that offer too many more times. (Yes, I’m anthropomorphizing the universe. You’d be surprised how well that actually works.)

• Just say what you want. No demands, no threats. It’s a simple formula: “I want such-and-so, and I will not accept anything less.” If you get something less, honor your commitment to yourself and leave. That’s it. This bargaining skill works with everything: lovers, jobs, children.

  For example, many people have noted that we have good communication skills with our kids: we tell them what we expect of them, and we tell them what’s going to happen if they don’t live up to it. This doesn’t stop me from yelling…but generally the yelling happens when I wasn’t clear enough before hand, so: my bad. (And when I get a hold of myself, I apologize to the kids for my behavior.)

• The guy he is right now is the guy he’s going to be forever, unless he decides to change. Deal with the person in front of you, not the person you want him to be.

  If I read one more goddamn romance (or bulletin board thread) where the object is to transform the bad boy through the magic of the (patient, understanding, loitering) woman’s love, I’m going to vomit. Remember that line from As Good As It Gets where Jack Nicholson says, “You make me want to be a better man”? The only response to that is, “Then go ahead and work on that, and right now I’m going to go out and find someone who’s already there.”

• It really is better to be alone than in bad company. The nice thing is, there are so many good people out there to be with!
• Stop worrying so damn much about how you look. You’re never going to look prettier than you do right now. And pretty/fashionable/anorexic has nothing to do with how attractive you are or how much you get laid. We have all known size Whatever women who could attract anyone they want, because they like themselves no matter what. Is it more fun to be with someone who likes herself, or one who’s criticizing herself all the time?
• Yes, if you stand up for yourself and what you want, you’re probably going to lose some friends. Conveniently, this will weed out which of your friends aren’t really your friends, which we can only regard as a BONUS!

Mind you, I’ve learned every single one of these the hard way, and many of them I have to keep telling myself, over and over, day in and day out. But when I’m using them, I feel so much more powerful and in control and every day life is just so much more enjoyable!

You know, I haven’t done this for a while, and confession is always good for the soul. And now…10 Short Shameful Confessions (with a bonus confession!)*.

* Now edited to include more shame.

1. I don’t actually think that many things are awesome. I say “Awesome” because it’s expected, but most of the time I’m really “Meh.”

2. I don’t check my site stats or how many people are following me on Twitter or anything like that. I feel as though I’ve missed the purpose of the internet not caring, or I should get really into it and try to really attract a following or something. Perhaps I don’t care as a way of pre-emptively dealing with failure at not being a top blogger?

3. I set up Google alerts to send me mentions of when my name or Darin’s is mentioned anywhere, and now I’m just annoyed when I actually receive the alert emails. I am too lazy to discontinue them.

4. I have ever only seen one episode of “American Idol,” and that was from the first season. I don’t understand the continual AI hysteria and feel like I am watching a mind-control experiment on the general population. I secretly think the people who watch AI would be better served by finding another hobby.

5. Entertainment Weekly is the only thing standing between me and complete and total cultural ignorance. I sound like I know so much more than I do, and it’s only because of EW.

6. I’m sad we don’t go to ComicCon any more. It does sound like it’s become a complete and total circus now (which is hilarious, given what a circus we thought it was 10 years ago). At the size it is now, it wouldn’t be fun, it would be wall-to-wall work, so why do I care?

7. I have become completely and totally bored with gossip, whether about people I know or celebrities. Especially celebrities: yes, they’re deeply fucked up people, but speaking badly about them doesn’t make me feel better. And if there’s some topic concerning a friend I could gossip about, I think I’d rather discuss the matter with the friend than someone else. The worst part about this: I find myself being mildly judgmental about other people who gossip, and that’s perhaps worse than the original gossiping. So I have to stop that.

8. There is, in fact, only one celebrity on the planet I want to meet, and I have it on very good authority that I don’t really want to meet this person (as is usually true for the celebrities you admire or lust after or whatever—trust me, for the most part you don’t want to meet them). So I’m cool with it…but still, I feel kind of stupid for actually wanting to meet a celebrity.

9. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started coveting a Mercedes SL. The second I did, I began to see them everywhere (which isn’t hard, given that much of the Silicon Valley looks like downtown Düsseldorf). You might have to know me in person to know how unlikely it is that I would covet not only a car, but a wildly impractical car (for both my everyday life and my values). I’m understanding midlife crises a whole bunch better now. I am also hoping the phase passes.

10. I switched from ice cream to soymilk ice creams and coconut milk ice creams. I made a whole lot of drama in my head about my great sacrifice and I don’t miss the real stuff at all.

11. Secretly, I feel I deserve some sort of prize for this.