(Please don't die.)

BMG's surgery is tomorrow. I don't want him to die.

If I'm blessed and he doesn't die, I also want him to be completely cured of what ails him.

That is all.

Woof woof!

If I were a dog I think I'd be a Tibetan Spaniel. Or maybe a pug. I may just be saying that because I love pugs, but maybe I love pugs because I could be one. The American Kennel Club describes pugs as "multim in parvo" which means "a lot of dog in a small space." That COULD describe me. Look at this cute dog. They are longer than they are tall, have fluffy chests and bottoms, and described as intelligent and aloof. I COULD be a Tibetan Spaniel.

I've been thinking about this because I've had a body image breakthrough.

I haven't done any interviews, but I'm pretty sure that greyhounds don't ever wish they were chihuahuas. Because that would never happen. A greyhound is a greyhound and a chihuahua is a chihuahua. Period. They are both dogs, but their bodies are constrained by their breeds. Dogs can't change their diet, exercise more, or have a procedure done to become a different breed.

I think there should be different breeds of the human species. If there were I think it would help people like me, people who struggle with trying to make their bodies look like something they are not, understand that there is a limited range within which their bodies can change. That's not to say that a person can't be more or less healthy within her breed, but an apple shaped woman will never look like Kate Moss, and a woman of short stature will never look like Charlize Theron.

Unbeknownst to my parents, my experience of my childhood cultivated in me what I once thought was an inherent and permanent hatred of my body. In the beauty of my middle age I know this isn't the case. But it sure is easy to slip back into the old patterns of self-loathing.

I'm buoyed by the notion that I'm the human equivalent of a Tibetan Spaniel. Now when I see a person whose hair or abs or nose I covet, I assign them a breed. And when I do this I tell myself that I admire the breed, but I'm a Tibetan Spaniel and I'll always be a Tibetan Spaniel.

It helps.

*****
What dog breed would you be if you were a dog? Visit the American Kennel Club website to learn more about dog breeds, and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Diving Down a Ladder

I'm swimming with people who are as familiar to me as my closest friends, but are in fact known to me only through work. We are swimming in a pond in the high desert of Utah or Colorado. Red mud as dry as stone surrounds the base of the natural pool and the water is warm. The area is deserted and our cries of delight echo off canyon walls that surround our swimming hole. One of the women in the crowd enters an opening in a nearby cliff wall, and emerges from a cave one story up and perhaps 15 feet from the edge of the pond. Unfurling a brilliant royal shawl she yells, "We need more purple!" and prepares to dive from the cave into the pool.

Sensing danger I yell, "I can do a back flip!" And I do a back flip in the water, elegantly arcing my back and dipping my body back into the water. The force of my reverse dive is tremendous and I feel my self continue to sink towards the bottom of the pond. I keep sinking. And sinking. I start to panic. "Does this pool have no bottom? Oh my god what if I just keep going? Will I reverse course and begin to float back to the top before I run out of air?" I try to physically alter my path but the momentum of dive forces me to keep moving downward rather than upwards. I am frantic and try to soothe myself by saying, "No one has ever dived forever. You will eventually slow down. When you do you can get to the top. You will be fine."

*****

This is the second anxiety dream I've had in the last week that involves a panicked response to diving into what is, unknown to me, a bottomless pool in a desert.  It is a beautifully transparent anxiety dream, so transparent that it delights me. It also takes place in a location I consider to be a peaceful and tranquil space, the high desert of the Western U.S. I love that my subconscious is thoughtful enough to transport my sleepy manifestations of stress to a place that soothes me, to a place that compels me to slow down. And, if that weren't enough, a part of my who is witnessing the panic has the presence to use words to help me calm down, to recognize my own power, and simply say "You will be fine."

This new dream is a sign of growth. My anxiety dreams USED to involve climbing up and down wooden ladders. Any kind of ladder. I remember a long ago dream about climbing rigging on the exterior surface of a submarine in the dark. There was another than involved racing back and forth across a hotel atrium and six story glass windows, and eventually climbing to the top of one and not being able to get down. I was often with strangers in strange places taking unexplainable actions - all fraught with fear of falling, fear of what I would find when I finished my steps down or trip up the ladder.

*****

What do you dream of when your psyche needs to be rid of negative energy?

#Fail (or my 2012 flower buying adventure), by Clownface

For sentimental reasons, BMG and I decided to send flowers to his mother for Valentine's Day this year. (We picked out the flowers BMG's dad gave to his mother last Valentine's Day, which was their last Valentine's Day before he died.)

I gullibly decided to take advantage of the WBUR offer to make a donation in exchange for having Winston's long stemmed roses sent to BMG's mom. I haven't donated to this public radio station in a while, so it seemed like a win-win.

After four failed attempts to make a donation through the radio station I quit. Instead I ordered flowers through my credit card shopping portal. 1/2 the price, and zero the hassle.

Here's how it went.

Try #1 - Thursday night, on my computer at home
I enter my "MIL's" address into their portal to validate it - a required step in the donation process. Alas, I make a mistake (unbeknownst to me) and they won't validate the address. Although I am given the option of proceeding anyway, I am afraid the flowers wouldn't get to their final destination so I abandon the process.

Try #2 - Friday night, using 3G in a restaurant bar
I pull up the radio station's web address on my iPhone, using the Safari browser/app. I am directed to their news portal immediately. No obvious link to their "Support us" portal on the mobile site. At the bottom of the page, in tiny print, I find "Switch to full site" link. So I switch to the full site. I find a "Support us" button and am redirected to a portal where there is no option to order flowers through the radio station. I abandon the process.

Try #3 - Saturday morning, using my wireless iPad at home
I click on the radio station's app on my iPad. I click the "Support Us" button and am redirected to a page promoting their Fall 2011 pledge drive. I abandon the process.

At this point I remember the radio station send me appeal letters to the home I share with my boyfriend of five years, addressed to me and my ex-boyfriend. Afraid, through the power of databases, that the flowers sent through the radio station to BMG's mom might come "from Clownface and her ex-boyfriend" I decide to call the radio station to make the pledge/place the order. "If I talk to a person I can make sure my name is changed in the database," thinks I.

Try #4 - Saturday morning, using a telephone
After nosing around the public radio stations website, I find a phone number (again, small print). I call. The phone room is noisy and the person who answers has an accent indicating she may not speak English as her first language.

She asks for my name.

I say it.

"Would you like to spell that for me?"

"No, but I imagine YOU would like me to spell it for YOU."

I spell my first name - eight letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. Two errors (25%). I correct them.

I spell my last name - six letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. One error (18%). I correct them.

Realizing this interaction may not have the desired results of efficiently placing the most correct donation/pledge, I abandon the process.

And then I visit my credit card's shopping portal. In under 10 minutes I browse several arrangements, choose two dozen pink roses, and complete the order online. The cost is 1/2 of what the radio station donation would have been, I get an extra benefit on my credit card, and I feel good about the gift for BMG's mom.

Sorry public radio. Sorry philanthropy. Your ability to meet my needs using four available technologies all failed.

This is why you're fat dot com

If I weren't on Weight Watchers AND if BMG weren't home I just might drink the leftover Hollandaise sauce I made for our breakfast of Eggs Benedict.

"I have a question for all you parents..."

"Other parents: how did you handle yada yada, if/when it occurred?"

If your friends are anything like my friends this is a question you've seen a gazillion times on Facebook.

And...I find it annoying.

Why?

Not because parents are asking for help. Goodness knows we can all use more help with nearly everything we do. And I have great admiration for the work parents do - work they do with inconsistent role models, no instruction manuals, no training. Nope, that's not it.

This is annoying because it presumes that those of us who haven't gone the parenting route don't have any experience that might inform their question.

Let me make myself clear.

• I'm trained in social work and public health. I spent four years studying and doing work in the field of mental illness, infectious disease management, human behavior change, and human and organizational development.
• I am a sexuality educator who has been trusted by complete strangers to help their pre-teens as they navigate the world of sexual and gender identity, sexual expression, and love of self and other.
• I worked in public education for nearly six years. In my work I regularly talked with families about their hopes and dreams for their children's education and aspirations. I also talked with teens about their experience of school and their aspirations. I was a generalist and was required to know the current trends and literature about the PK-12 educational process, special education, school choice, art and music education, recess and school lunch politics, PTA/PTO organizing, the college prep process, etc.
• Prior to this job I worked for nearly four years for a nonprofit that helped people of tremendous wealth come to terms with their financial circumstances. Many of these people were parents who sought to find ways to help their children have balanced and generous lives because of their circumstances. In my work I listened to them and directed them to resources to help them realize this dream.
• And now? Now I work for a nonprofit that helps parents of young children develop, practice and maintain habits of reading together as part of healthy individual and family development.
• I am an auntie to six little people on my side, and six on BMG's side - now ages two through 16. I've observed five siblings and their five partners parent twelve children. I've listened to each one work their way through the "disposable versus cloth" diaper debate, home school versus public versus independent debate, you name it, I've heard it. 
• I also offer my own unique and supportive relationship to each of my nieces and nephews, as well as (although to a lesser extent) the children of my friends.

My point? I know a shit ton about kids, families and parenting. I don't know any of this from the experience of being a parent, but it doesn't make my knowledge and opinions any less valid.

And, because I don't have kids, it is highly likely I have more time. Time to read your questions and thoughtfully respond.

And, because you are my friend and you have kids, I understand that much of you life centers around your children and your ever evolving role as a parent. Being excluded when you pose your Facebook questions just to other parents doesn't inspire me to learn more about the person you are as a parent.

So, when people direct Facebook questions about their parenting journeys exclusively to parents they are discounting all the experience people like me - who aren't parents - can bring to question with which they are grappling.

Dear friends. Keep asking questions. And please don't exclude me. I want to be involved in your life and I just may have a perspective that helps.

INTP (or why I try to avoid medium-sized chit chat parties I'm not being paid to attend)

I was reminded today that few things make me more uncomfortable than a medium sized party where I know only the hosts.

A medium-sized party is not small enough to lend itself to deep conversation, nor is it large enough to comfortably abstain from interaction while merely observing the crowd. At a medium sized party most people already know one another fairly well; there are fewer tagalongs who are socially unanchored than there might be at a larger party and the setting isn't intimate enough to make it easy for a new person to insert her/himself into a pre-existing conversation.

The wizards at Myers-Brigg Type Indicator recently reminded me that I'm both Introverted (I) and Intuitive (N) (I'm also a T and  P). This means I am most gregarious in situations where I know the people well or where I know what to expect from the conversation. In other situations, I'm extremely shy. 

So the medium sized party this afternoon? Where I (essentially) knew only the hosts and BMG? Where I perceive most guests were parents (where I am not)? Within five minutes of being there (and two minutes after anxiously slugging down a can of seltzer), I knew I needed to leave.

So I did.

Many people are shocked when they learn I'm introverted. "But you are so good with people!" they exclaim. I am what my friend Rita once referred to as a "socially adept introvert." A potentially uncomfortable social event where the immediate purpose is clear to me is a challenge I can rise to. Like the office cocktail party where I'm meeting new donors? Obviously no problem. And the networking event BMG asks me to attend to help him chat up a new client? Being an "INTP" means I'm a unique and original thinker; being charming and interesting can come quite naturally. And in these situations, where I overcome my natural inclination to be introverted? I nearly always have fun and meet people I hope to know for life.

But today's party, where there was no obvious role I needed to play or purpose to my being there? I couldn't do it. As I politely fled I felt guilty, felt like I had let BMG down, and that I was being rude to the hosts. But, I also remembered that when I turned 40 I vowed to take more control of my life, to stop doing things I didn't have to do that didn't make my heart go pitter pat, and to be unapologetic about it. 

So I left.

It doesn't mean I don't love the hosts, or wouldn't enjoy the company of any of the people there. It just means that size party with that many people I didn't know was not an environment where I could be my best. And I prefer, when I have the choice, to choose environments where I can be as close to my best as possible.

So, if you want to spend time with me, consider inviting me to a dinner party with eight people, or a drink after work, or a Sunday afternoon coffee date. If you invite me to go on a pub crawl with 40 of your closest friends, don't be surprised if I say no. But I will say no with grace, and suggest an alternative activity for you and I to do together that speaks to my INTP self and to our friendship.