Cheater.

So today, I cheated.

Tomorrow marks eight weeks - two fucking months - of living grain- and refined-sugar- free.

And I have not cheated, not once. And if you don't know, I work in a literal candy store. Yes, it's a software firm, but it's all the tales you've heard about these insane, hedonistic, childlike Googlesque workplaces? They're true.

Snack plates are put out once or twice a day in the three most high-trafficked areas. Perhaps brie and summer sausage, perhaps guacamole and chips, perhaps almond mini croissants and a bowl of coconut whipped cream, perhaps peanut butter-filled celery sticks. And that's just those three areas. Then each kitchen (there are also three) is stocked: a cereal cabinet with 15+ kinds. A candy cabinet, a cracker drawer, all the bagels, bread, and muffins you could want (cinnamon raisin, plain, vegan, wheat, etc.). There is a sweets cabinet - Oreos, Petit Ecoliers, Nutter Butters. There are at least ten kinds of granola bars: Kind, Kashi, Nature Valley, PowerBar, Clif. There is, ok, a nod to health, with a fruit bowl. But there is a soda cooler, there is beer and wine, there is endless tea and coffee with your choice of soy, coconut, almond, regular, skim, whole and lactose free milk - half and half. (One guy eats two bowls of cereal a day, with half and half as the backdrop.)

This is meant for us to enjoy, every day, all day, for free, day in and day out. Since the second I have worked there. There is also at least one company lunch each week from the nearby food carts (variety makes it impossible to prepare your defenses against the deliciousness), and I've yet to work a week there when there is not also another pile of leftovers for lunch or at about 3 PM, everyone's best time to avoid high-cal snacks - it is often Voodoo Doughnuts, or Elephants Deli sandwiches, or Pizzicato pizza of six or seven varieties.

Oh, and we have a monthly food holiday - National Milkshake Day was one. Just come order up! The soda jerk is ready to help you out.

And so it is that in the face of this, I have not cheated once. Not one time. I have not eaten half a broken Chips Ahoy as I filled the cookie jar. I have not licked the spoon after slicing up chicken enchiladas. I have not had a Twizzler. Not a Dove chocolate square. Not the edge of a pizza slice. Not a quarter of a doughnut. And yet it's all staring me in the face, for the eight to ten hours a day, sometimes more, that I spend in the office.

But today, friends, I broke.

I came to work to help set up a breakfast buffet for visiting colleagues from the remote offices. French Toast. And pancakes. And look; I love pancakes like Phillip Seymour Hoffman loved speed balls. One is never, ever, ever enough. There were mountains of butter pats and maple syrup. But no, I set it up - and I walked away.

Then I attended a lunch event on behalf of the company. We were served a chicken sandwich on fluffy ciabatta. And if I can't get heroin but I can get oxycontin, to continue the inappropriate and gross metaphor, then bread is the very best next thing after a pancake.

But I didn't eat it. I ate the chicken out of the sandwich. I declined the basket of rolls (yes, rolls, with a sandwich, good sweet Jesus) and I declined the cookie assortment after that. It's true that I love cake more than cookies, but don't get me wrong - I love a cookie, even a bad one, too.

I made it back the office, still slightly hungry. I decided to heat up my almost-cooked-into-baby-food-texture carrots and a little beef short rib. And what is waiting in the kitchen?

A Thai buffet. With a giant hotel pan of fluffy, steamed white rice.

My doctor told me that if I'm melting down, and freaking out, the very best cheat on this diet is white rice. It has no nutrition - it has no fiber to feed the SIBO bacteria - and it goes right through you.

And willpower, as scientists are learning, is a muscle. Like any muscle, it can get fatigued. It needs rest to get strong again. I think - side note - this is why I am averaging 8.5 hours a night of sleep right now. I need to replenish the willpower reserves! And by the way, people with kids, plug your ears: that is 8.5 hours of sleep. I measure it with my UP band. I'm actually IN bed a good 9 hours or more. That's the pure, sweet sleep of someone not actively consuming peanut butter by the gallon, hoping to stop thinking about bread and pancakes.

So the willpower muscle was tapped out, and I added about a third of a cup of fluffy white rice to my dish. And Oh. My. Lordy. It tasted like sugar. No. It tasted like nectar. It was like some kind of divine manna. And I am talking white rice, I know. But it was almost funny, I almost laughed - how good it tasted.

And then, about twenty minutes later, I felt like I was on speed myself. I was hyper alert. Vigilantly awake. I was giddy, smiling. I had more energy than I have had in weeks. I was giggly, bright, amazed. What a world! What a day! What a gorgeous life! I'm going to the gym, to my crazy-tough fusion workout class!

Which I promptly did. And I set a new (self) pushup record, which my teacher noticed and was impressed by.

Powered by the blandest thing in the world. I may be a cheater, but I'm definitely a rice rocket today.

A Whole Lotta Nothin' Goin' On

I'm stuck in neutral over here - in the next couple days, I'll get the SIBO Test #2 results. As I've said, I'm certain it's not gone - but I'm dying to know what the reduction is. In half? Less? More? How much bacteria do we think is still in there, wreaking havoc?

But in the meantime, there's a whole lotta nothing going in, dietarily. I've admitted that almond flour and me don't get along. Things seem to be better with coconut flour, but I have more experimenting to do this week. It really is like the universe is trying to take away ALL my food joys. At least I still have peanut butter, and I'll be giving that up with cold, dead fingers, trust me.

I haven't added in many new foods; I'm still figuring out what amounts of the existing list of 25 or so are good, and which cause belly aches or bad poops. And it's getting depressing. I don't get to participate. At work, I ordered ice cream sandwiches - even gluten free ones, and vegan ones. But no makes a grain free, refined sugar free ice cream sandwich. I order lunch for the whole company every Friday, but I never get to eat it. I put out the snack jars a couple times a week, but there are no snacks for me. It's boring. It's isolating. It's frustrating and at some point, if I don't start getting healthier, the depression is going to outweigh the striving for health, and I'll go back to the SAD. (Standard American Diet.)

But know this, friends. Maranatha nut butters? They all contain cane sugar of some sort! Those little liars. Give me Justin's every day of the week.

Like a three day weekend… except nothing like it.

But, a three day review instead!

Tuesday: no new foods added. I made it through work only because of forward momentum. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and it was a 'hafta' be there day so once I got up, I was going. I fevered, sweated, panted and phlegm-couughed through the day.

Wednesday: I could only recognize what feeling like 50% was like today, in comparison to realizing yesterday was a 25% day. And best of all: avocado! And real sauerkraut! Both went great during the day, so I took the big leap and make pancakes.

These are not pancakes.

They are a puree of eggs, raw zucchini, and nut butter of your choice. (Respond to the next thing you're asked with, "Nut butter of my choice," and you will get a laugh.)

They LOOKED a lot like pancakes. They did not taste like pancakes. But they tasted a little like nut butter, and between that and avocado, my palate is doing cartwheels of joy at all these exciting flavors. I bet you never thought that avocado was sweet - but it is to me!

Thursday: Only new food added was a different type of nut butter. Cashew. What?! Have you had this? It tasted so sweet I couldn't finish the tablespoon. I know that sounds crazy. But it truly happened. And as I write this, I wouldn't quite call my health 75% - that would be a leap too optimistic for this couch-happy West-Wing watcher, but 55% - I'm solidly confident about that.

August 1: Last full day in Pommern.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

It's CTC day - and through Meggie's excellent manipulative conversation skill with Edward, she's gotten me out and about, assigned alone to the Clinic, and herself over to the primary school - where she has wanted to volunteer since we arrived. 

CTC means Counseling and Test Centres - the HIV/AIDS clinic that serves seven villages, including Pommern. My energy is too low to do justice in describing the inefficiency with which 62 AIDS patients were seen today, at this monthly clinic. It is actually every Thursday, but each patient is on a monthly rotation - first Thursday, second Thursday, etc. They get ARVs or other drugs. And it wasn't the plain, pitiable, understandable inefficiency of no shelves, drawers, computerized lists of patients, or drug inventory. It went far beyond that and I want to do it justice when I have the patience to walk through it in each excruciating detail. 

After a long morning of work, and a late lunch, Meggie and I said our goodbyes to the tech and athletics team at the secondary school, who made Zumba possible, Adrian and Flavian. And then to Nurse Patricia. Meggie's totally hellish morning in the primary school has moved her to an interesting place - from guilt or pity to frustration that people are not helping themselves. I remember my brother being there, then in another phase of compassion, and finally he moved into a sort of Zen acceptance. Acceptance by attrition, maybe!

To try to do this description justice... first you have to imagine a cold morning, and the cement clinic. People "line up" to be "checked in". I use quotes because they sort of stand or sit around, near the door to the children's ward - no kids here today, so apparently it will be the CTC clinic. Every person has already waited outside on the far side of the clinic - the shaded, coldest area - to be tested (I can't see this happening; is it a blood test? A weight on the scale? Something else?) and given a number on a scrap of paper. Then they mill over to the yard in the sunshine, in front of the children's ward, where I sit at a table with another huge bound book in front of me. 

The nurses bark, "Next! Next!" and snap fingers at each patient to hand over their CTC card. They shuffle in, sit down, hand the nurse their card and slip of paper. (Or they don't, appearing as if they've never done this before. The nurse snaps for the scrap of paper, then, too.) A CTC card is a battered piece of card stock bearing their name, village, CTC number (it's a national registry) and instructions on when their clinic meets (what week of the month, what location).

This second line I'm helping with is to create a hard copy record of who showed up today, and whether they'll be getting ARVs or not. So I write their CTC number down, reading it from the card, and then the nurse tells me their village and their age, to fill in the next two lines. The age is asked for (why is it not on the CTC card!?) and if the person does not know, it is guessed at. Then their mystery number is written down and by science I don't understand, I'm told whether to check "ARV" or "No ARV" on the sheet of paper. 

The person is sent out, back into the yard, to mill around in a large group. No order is kept. 

We get through all 62, recorded in the book - the youngest patient is 9, the oldest is 72 - and most are female. The average patient is a woman in her 30s or 40s.

The young man diagnosed on Monday, in front of me and Meggie? He was in the line.

Then, everyone - the nurses, me, all the CTC patients - are herded to the very front part of the clinic yard. We spread out on the ground and on the few benches, sitting just in front of all the junk that's been mysterious to me since we arrived (rusted bed frames, broken old-fashioned wheelchairs, rotted boards, smashed bookshelves), not just for the content, but also because I look at it every day and wonder, in a village with so little, what is the social contract that prevents any item from being stolen? These are not useful wheelchairs or good boards - but surely someone could repurpose them and get great value. However, that sort of theft seems to be neither considered nor allowed; the village rules are clear and illustrated to me, if definitely unspoken.

What we attend, I start to understand, is a lecture on the importance of treating HIV and AIDS. Taking medicine, getting partners and family members tested, and then the longest segment on how it is possible to give birth AND breastfeed, without passing the disease to the baby. There is a young mother, who has AIDS, nursing her baby, and she seems to be telling everyone the baby is regularly tested but is negative, since she is taking her drugs and taking care of herself (she mimes eating food). The lecturers are Nurse Nema and Doctor Elton - and it's not fair that I am hard on Dr. Elton; I mean, yes, he's a dentist, and so that's an easy thing to point at and tease - but he's probably had enough clinical experience to push himself right into internal medicine, right?! 

The lecture is about 30 minutes long - and I'm glad for a seated break, I won't lie. Plus the sunshine warming me a little; it is another cold morning (though the sun is back out today, after being hidden by clouds and drizzle for both days I was home sick). 

Then, all the patients form another half-assed line, and I go back into the children's ward with the nurses. We sit at a table with boxes of drugs, and each person comes in with an old pill bottle. They show the kind they've been taking for a month, and are given a new bottle of the same kind. They also might have a scrap of paper with other prescriptions written on them - usually antibiotics, ibuprofen. 

The people getting ARVs are shit out of luck today; there are none. I'm told the government didn't supply them. No nurse appears to explain whether they should come back next week, out of their usual rotation, or what they should do for a month, being out of pills and all. In my head, I'm screaming, "Of course there is a contingent of Africans who think AIDS drugs don't work and that Americans and Brits are just poisoning their minds! The drugs DON'T work if you don't take them properly!"

A couple people don't have their old pill bottles anymore. We spend 15 or 20 minutes trying to decide what to do. We have to give them what they are used to taking - how can we possibly know if they don't have the old bottle, nor can remember? (There are two choices, friends, of pills to take. Two.)

Nurse Patricia leaves for 20 minutes by my count, with no reason, and comes back so we can pick up again with distributing. While she was out, the other nurses chatted on their phones. The line just stopped outside our door. Meggie said later she saw Patricia having a Coke and a snack at the little coke stand. 

These other drugs are available, for those not getting ARVs - getting what I think is a simpler protease inhibitor combination pill. And hey, they don't send the CTC ARV patients away empty handed... they all get vitamin B12 pills! That'll cure your AIDS.

Charting & Pill Dispensing:

I stay at the Clinic until about 1:30 PM. So in 5 hours, we've made people line up three times. Once to get their number determining ARVs or no. Another time to get registered at attending the clinic, in the big useless book. Then they attend a lecture - and all I can think is, is this something required by USAID or the Tanzanian government, and is the same lecture every week? - and we've made them line up AGAIN to get handed the right pills. When I leave, 9 of the 62 have their pills. It takes until about 4 PM to get all 62 through the lines and process here.

It appears as if this is the first time such a clinic has happened - and we know that's not true. We know this happens Every Single Thursday. 

Why line up three times? Why not see one patient at a time? Why not have pills counted out in a 30-day's supply, instead of waiting to count them out for each person? Why ask their age each time - why not ask them to be ready to supply it? Why record the check-in process in one large useless book, and then record who gets what drugs in a SECOND large useless book? 

And the best part? The second book records only what was prescribed. ARVs? Check. They were prescribed. The fact that they're not fucking available is not recorded anywhere. Check the books, and all looks well. This is Tanzania. 

So - I'm writing this so long after the actual day, I know I've forgotten some details of all the other tiny inefficiencies I witnessed. And as frustrating as it was - and, oh, lordy, it was! - in the middle of it, I sat there, patiently, for hours, waiting for bursts of activity, waiting to be told to record certain data, and generally not trying or wanting to tell anyone what to do. I just took it all in, and with the exception on the one mental scream above, I felt useful in recording the data - because it was something. It was freeing up a nurse's set of hands to actually chat with patients, and touch their shoulders, and look into their eyes. But for me to not want to tell someone what to do, how to do it faster, better, more efficiently... well, that's basically an African miracle! 

Just Pictures.

Oh, we'll get to the sickness story! But a few photos I forgot to post first. Below, with Emmanuel in the safari jeep - only 18! But so mature and thoughtful, and how I hope he does get to South Africa to train to be a chef, and make his dreams come true.

Where there's no copyright, there's Obama everywhere. Yes we can chew strawberry gum, my friends! 

Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Women carrying the stuff of life - water, food, and firewood.

And an amazing baobab:

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 4.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

The feeling of being in the right place, at the right time, lasts all day. There were two more working events. First, a clothes-sizing and second, the latrine again. The clothes-sizing was for the 13 orphans at the other primary school (not the one near the mission house, where our fellow volunteers have been working).

I have visceral trouble, coming from the land of 25-cent BINS at Goodwill and corner sidewalk FREE BOXes and even piles of clothes strewn near homeless encampments, with this first task. How can I understand the importance of two pieces of clothing per child? We're told many of these orphans have one single outfit. These orphans live with grandparents or aunts, and a shirt might be 1,000Tsh, Edward says. It might take a month to save that up, after buying food and cooking oil and fuel and matches and salt.

So Meggie, Marie and I slapdash our way through the kid's clothes Marie tossed in a suitcase back in New York (and some very small adult clothes chipped in from the rest of us).

We hold things up to each child, lined up by size, erring on the side of "too big" so they can grow into it. I'm able to give one of the big girls, maybe 12 or 13, a training bra - a thin, grey, shelf bra, a castoff of the girls in our volunteer family, and as much as she'll let herself express emotion, her eyes light up at it.

This is also the nicer part of Pommern, I'm shocked to discover. The school grounds are really quite pretty, the homes are neater, all the grounds are kept up, fences are more common. The school was built by the Roman Catholics, and there's a big difference between it (below, in the background) and the buildings built by Global Volunteers. Interesting to find out we're in the poorer section of a poor village. And I resist making jokes about things Catholics build versus things Lutherans build.

(After giving away clothes:)

For some reason, I like the picture below of us talking after giving away the clothes; it shows the intensity of conversation among volunteers the whole two weeks. Experiencing, analyzing, discussing, stretching - a lot. Beyond comfort. 

And I wrap up the day's work with a couple hours back on the latrine - and how much progress we've made! I also find out that Thomas and Moses call me The Commander. They're busted by a bilingual person who tells me this at the construction site, and I turn to them in mock insult, eyes wide and mouth open in shock. Then I laugh and they laugh, and Moses says, "Commander njema!" But our bilingual companion says, "Oh no, not true! When you walked up they said, 'Oh no! The Commander is back and now we'll die!" And here I thought I was working slow and matching their pace. Apparently, as my pal at home Mikey says, I've been mushing their butts uphill! 

As we're wrapping up, as the mortar is running out, around 4 PM, I start to feel - a little  - off. 

I walk slowly back to the mission house alone. I hope it's that I didn't drink very much today, or that I pounded my lunch of peanut-butter-sauce-with-local-cabbage over noodles (yes, it was that weird). Maybe it's the smell of the latrine, especially pungent today. 

I come home. I pound some water. I take a half-bag-shower and then absolutely MUST lie down. I'll feel better if I just rest through this terrible weighted feeling.

I get up a couple hours later for dinner, which I don't really want to do. I take only a slice of papaya - papaya!  Good for the digestion, too, right?! And I heat up a cup of the powdered chicken noodle soup I brought from home. The packing list recommended soup packets for "homesick tastebuds" and though I was sure that would never be me, I said to John, "If someone gets sick, wouldn't it be nice to give them chicken noodle soup? I'm bringing four of these."

I have to leave dinner early and lie down.

And at 7 PM, it begins. Truly violent vomiting and top-of-the-line diarrhea.

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 1.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

If there was only one day to journal about in Africa, this would be it, hands down. I'm writing late on the 30th and you'll see why. This is going to stretch over a few blog posts, partly to prevent an epically long post that only my parents would fully read! Meggie and I were assigned to the clinic today - the first volunteers, yet again, to take on an assignment. Somebody sure trusts us.

After Dr. Elton, a dentist and also the presiding medical officer in the village (actually, in the whole area - this clinic serves seven villages and he's in charge) introduced us to the three nurses - Nema, Patricia and Farajah - I learned from my past eagerness in the secondary school, and instead sat on the bench to wait for an assignment. When Patricia began to mop, Meggie and I jumped up to do it for her. Something we can do!

I mopped the laboratory, the children's ward, the IUD insertion and sterilization room, and the delivery room. (Sterilizing of materials, not people. As far as I could tell.) It was amazing that last week, on our first day, during the brief clinic tour as part of village orientation, I was horrified at the filthy conditions. Too-small sheets on rusted frame beds with mattresses about 2 inches thick. Peeling paint. Pitted cement floors, windows so covered in red Pommern dust you can't see outside. A stained, torn and dirty curtain over the window, if you're lucky. Chipped metal bedpans back from well into the last century. Side tables with the tops smashed in but nothing to replace them, chairs missing armrests. But then...

This is where your baby is weighed and checked, immediately after delivery:

Ladies room...

'

Inside the men's ward...

Need an IUD? There are instructions on the wall, so don't worry. And this is the room speculums are sterilized in too (in something that looks a lot like the cooking pots, to be honest). But it smells like the Piniest Pine Sol ever.

For the gents...

This pretty room is the maternity ward, where you'll labor and recover (though to deliver, you'll be moved - only two beds, not four, in there.

Ladies' ward...

Meggie making beds.

... after I straightened everything to my beloved right angles, and tucked in corners, and mopped it carefully with the most intense-smelling disinfectant yet (and that's saying something!), I look around and think, hey! This is pretty clean! It looks decent! Ah, satisfaction.

Just like coming through Iringa Town the second time yesterday, after being in mud-hut rural villages, I thought, yeah, this is pretty modern. Fairly organized. I'd rather live here than in a hut, I see why people come to live in towns and cities. I would too.

If in only a week my perspective can shift that much, what will a second week bring? And how those Peace Corps or State Department folks must feel after two or three years away? Unimaginable. Though I can try. What else is being a writer about?

July 24: a post script.

Not as-written in my journal... but context for what happens next.

As part of last night's mental machinations, Meggie helped us make a plan for tomorrow. Why do we need a plan? Because we're going back - back to Mr. Msugu's classroom. At dinner, after we shared our roses and our thorns, we got our assignments for the next day. We go back to class together, then Meggie meets with the P.E. teacher to plan that day and all next week's afternoon classes; I'll go to meet with the school secretary/headmaster's assistant. In the afternoon, Meggie will run the P.E. classes and I'll go back to working on the septic tank. Other volunteers will be in various primary school classes, the kindergarten, with the secondary school librarian, or with scary and cranky Academic Office Mistress Madame Sbarra.

So we talk through it. We talk through our mistakes of the day, and plan how to avoid making them again. We don't want to continue undermining Mr. M by letting him have us teach; we need to empower him by observing how he teaches, but saying we want to learn his style of teaching now that he saw our American style of teaching. I tell Meggie I don't know if I can even tell him this; I tell her that reentering the classroom might be all I have within me and verbally setting a boundary may be beyond me at this point. She says she's able to do the heavy lifting for us tomorrow, and I am grateful. Armed with a plan, and a possible apology to Mr. M for not taking the time to assess the level of his students and sit back in the classroom, I am able to fall asleep.

Midpoint

Here we are, just past the midpoint of the year. How are your resolutions going? Oh, I'm sorry - is that you, cackling with laughter? To be fair, we ARE closer to making new 2014 resolutions than we are to maintaining 2013 resolutions.

But at this halfway point in a year where I chose grounding as the word to guide me, I'm reflecting on what I've done this year - you know, instead of staying grounded.

• I switched jobs, from the federal government to start-up high-tech software - and immediately had to ask for time off for a 4-day trip and then a 20-day trip later in the year.
• I prepared to go on said 20-day service trip (including buying insanely long airfare (27 hours +) and raised funds from friends and family for the volunteer portion) to a hemisphere I've never been to, a continent I've never been to, where a language I have not really even heard is spoken, where I'll clearly be a differently-skin-toned foreigner visible to all, and in a truly developing country (which I have never been to).
• I chopped all my hair off. 
• I went backpacking (i.e., overnight into the woods with no outhouse or car nearby in case of emergency) for the first time ever.*
• I bought a fancy bike and started riding in the city, including commuting to work and riding home at 1 in the morning (hands-down best time to ride, it turns out!). 
• Then I rode in Portland's famous World Naked Bike Ride and was a topless (but helmeted) and whooping rider with 8,000 new naked friends at 10 PM on a seven-mile route through Portland where literally thousands of clothed people stood along the route and saw me.
• I quit Facebook, and then rejoined it to help with fundraising... and I (say) I'm committed to quitting it for good when the trip is done, photos are posted, and thank you's are completed.

I'll be going to Zurich for the first time too - only my second country in Europe - and I'll be staying in my own home for all of Thanksgiving and all of Christmas, which is (amazingly) also a first since leaving home at 18! 

But while none of this is outwardly grounding, or appears to be, I'm looking back at how I intended to use the word grounding - and all of these actions are right in line. 

I was (am) aiming to be more open, more connected, more in-awe of life and less concerned with plans, shoulds, perfection, coordinating, creating orderliness and having control. This has been, hands down, the most out-of-control six months I've had in years - but it's a self-propelled bit of disarray. I am choosing it, every day. 

I find myself pushed to a different kind of limit so far this year, and just beyond that limit, I sense this loving circle, a caring safety net, that's going to envelop me as I get to the place I want to be. I'm a bit off balance right now - going a little fast, a little hard, doing a little too much... but it feels less like bad habits, as it has in the past, and more like part of a larger plan that ends with a better understanding of what grounded really means for me - and how I'm going to do the work to stay there, where it - and I - evolve rather than stay static, or cling to a thousand shoulds.

*Stay tuned for the review of this new experience!

Quit slouching! Part Two.

A few days after the eye-opening video experience (below), I attended two work events, in rooms full of tall men.

That is to say... I read once there is a high correlation between very financially successful men and height. At both these events, filled to the brim with lawyers, bankers, financial planners, CEOs turned consultants, some who's who of Portland (including those that actually live in Vancouver because it is cheaper), there were A Lot of Tall Men.

And the truth is, no one like to schmooze. No likes small talk. No likes, as we say back in politics, to work the room. (If you really do love it, well, ok: I believe you; you're just not of the race that knows Joseph, and alas, I am).

But there can be a little thrill, a little fun, in playing the game of Schmooze. It's like acting in a play, and there's a little fun (and a little terror) in that!

So in this room of Very Tall Men, and then again a couple nights later in another room of Very Tall Men, I chuckled to myself quite a bit. Playing the part, working the room, pretending not to be shy - it is so much easier when A, you stand up straight, and B, you have tall people to look in the eye and project confidence to. Score a second lesson for the week - it is time to quit the slouching.

And will lesson three be about The Chop? (As in - the hair. Chop. Is it? Isn't it? Being cut off to a tiny, tiny, boy-like length? I'm undecided. Still.)

Quit slouching! Part One.

At work recently, I had the opportunity to view myself speaking in front of (most of) the company about an hour after I'd done the speaking.

When the memory is that fresh, watching a video is incredibly powerful.

I've always liked public speaking... the baby of the family often does. I mean, hey, we never got the gavel growing up! So to command attention and be able to say your say - it is enjoyable, it is fun, and I've never been too afraid of it.

That said, I am also new to this job and company. And I don't want to be a pushy know-it-all, so in my head, I was speaking in a consciously unintimidating way. I was casual, I was calm, I was asking for people's attention but not demanding it. I had something to say, but I wanted to invite you in, too, to ask questions and feel comfortable, not dominated by a gaudy speaker.

Well. Well well well.

One hour later, I watched the video with this experience-memory vivid in my mind. And lo and behold, no amount of "projecting casualness" is going to come from this woman. I am, to the slight disappointment of that gendered-shy-feminine-fragile piece of my Self, undeniably authoritative. No amount of tucking my chin down, no amount of peeking out the tops of my eyes, no amount of shrugging or smiling is going to convince anyone I'm not in charge. I clearly am, on that video, and frankly, I'd be all those other things I'm going for - likable, affable, funny, charming - if I just listened to my mother and grandmothers, and "Stood Up Straight!"

If I threw my shoulders back,  lifted my chin, and really spoke - I could actually be great at this public speaking thing, and not just decent. Whether or not this qualifies as a realization, or as a blog-worthy piece of self-awareness is up to you. But before you weigh in, try it. Record yourself in front of an audience and then watch it just as soon as you've had a little snack and a walk around the block. You might be shocked at what you find!

Discovery

You know those cookies they serve on Delta flights? Biscoff? Two oval biscuits wrapped in red cellophane - a sort of spicy gingerbread graham cracker? I love them. I really love them. I have always loved them since my first Delta flight at age 7, and even today my dear sweet husband, who only flies Delta for business, brings them home for me from his travels.

Well, while there are loads of things I can - and need to - tell you about the new job, including the five million things I've learned about video transcoding and the overwhelming pace and drive that everyone there has - I must first tell you that Biscoff comes AS A SPREAD. IN A JAR. At sweet, spreadable room temperature.

It is the peanut butter version of Biscoff cookies. And it sits about 25 feet from me, in the common kitchen (1 of 2), that is stocked every week with tons of free food (both are), for all staff members.

I basically have an endless supply of Biscoff. This is quite the discovery. And quite the motivator - hello, 3 PM Treat!

Dinner of Champions. Or newbies.

Day three at a new job... where, incidentally, I feel like I skipped right from 8th grade to college over the weekend... and what's for dinner? Oatmeal and fruit salad. Heck, it's a feat to not succumb to takeout!

You don't know you.

Are you familiar with the drunk friend, who has had two cocktails too many, and is full of enough piss and vinegar to get annoyed with you when you try to tell them something you've observed?

"Pshhhh, you don't know me. Nobody knows me..." they say, stumbling around the edge of the bar, headed for the bathroom.

(I actually know someone whose nickname-when-drunk is "You Don't Know Me Jay".)

Well since my last post I've been in the long process of interviewing for, and then accepting, a new job - plus putting in notice at my current job and attempting to wrap up a role there that has expanded over the last 3+ years into something wonderful - but something uniquely my own - and thus not easy to train someone new for, especially on paper in the one grand exit memo I'm writing.

In this nerve-wracking time - as any time of change and transition is sure to be - I've learned a few interesting things. The first is the title of this post, said by (whom else?!) my husband, King of Hitting The Nail on the Head.

So as I waited for a call back, or an email, I was in a twirl of panic about my ability... my likability, my career flexibility, my skill portability... when John said, "You have all that stuff down pat. They'll see it, even if you're not sure of it right now. You even said you walked in there confident and relaxed and only got nervous after the interview, when you realized you really DID want the job. You're not worried about this. Right now? You don't even know you."

With a wink, he was totally right.

In what ways don't you know you? What do you tell yourself, about yourself, that the outside world consistently contradicts? Are you too shy, too lazy, too unable to create an original joke? But then people invite you to parties and leave you alone, merely introduced to someone new, or your home and hearth is squared away as can be, or people belly-laugh at things you say at work rather often?

If we could choose (and of course we can) to stop believing that little nitpicky voice, what things would we know (or not know!) about ourselves, and be delighted to begin acting upon? We might find a new job, at the very least.

It's (d)Evolved to This

My day job, increasingly, causes me to be less and less interested in political conversations. Now that we are a bit over one month out from Election Day 2012, this is what passes for a political conversation in my house:

Me: But at least I get to see Gloria Steinem speak! I think everyone should see her once. It's something I'm glad to check off the life list.

John: How come?

Me: Because she is one of the mothers of feminism! She was there! She, like, helped start it!

John: I think feminism is a failed experiment. Like California.

*cue laughter*

*cue gratitude for a witty joke rather than any attempt at a serious discussion of 

feminist history in the U.S. over the last 40 years*

Common

The common denominator among all the jobs I've had and enjoyed is that they put me on the inside. Inside someone else's family as a nanny - inside the life of a new mom, mess and joy at the same time. Inside the restaurant, where I see how the menu is prepped, how the food is cooked, how the decisions are made about what you're going to eat tonight and how I'm going to talk you into it. Inside the show and how it is put on from script to production - and all the near-miss arguments that also meant you got a refunded ticket and no performance tonight. Inside the headline, knowing the real story, and behind the law that fails to pass - or the one that does, barely.

Last night, at the Florence + The Machine concert, John and I got rail... meaning, we were leaning against the front metal rail that keeps the audience separated from the performers... and at one point during the opening band, we looked back to see how the crowd was expanding. In a curtain gap far off stage right was Florence herself, with a white scarf over her head and blue jeans on, sweetly and lonesomely dancing to the music of The Walkmen. I was reminded, with a pang, that no matter how close you are to the concert, unless you're Tony Hawk (who was seated on stage), you're never on the inside - not really. She came out later barefoot with her hair in a polished-but-sloppy bun and an amazing navy blue chiffon dress, ready to perform and connect. But I liked seeing her without her makeup, spinning around and looking down at the ground, bopping around to the new music.


(P.S. It was a great show, start to finish - from the parking to the lines, from the crowd to the staff to the opening band, from the weather to the setlist, and most especially, from Florence's engagement with us viewers and the backup singers that brought the house down. Plus everyone jumping up and down at the band's request, screaming, "Shake it off, shake it off! Shake it off, shake it off! It's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off!")

20, 19, 18, 17...

I tip 20% without thinking. It is my standard. I may even tell you I think it should be your standard. In fact, I typically round up, so that depending on the size of the bill, I usually end up tipping 21% to 25%.

This is why I am truly sad, and sorry to relate, that as the years away from waiting tables increase, I find myself stopping to consider this tipping practice.

It's lame to bitch about bad service. It's for cheap bastards, it's for old people, it's for judgmental office automatons who have never worked a double shift on cement floors on Mardi Gras in a New Orleans themed restaurant. I don't like the idea of joining the leagues of these types of assholes.

So am I becoming an old curmudgeon who yells at the kids on my lawn? Or is it that I keep running into bad, bad, BAD service?

This past week: brunch in a very un-busy place where 25 minutes passed without a server checking in with me. And I define "checking in" as including a slow walk-by, where I can choose (or not) to seek eye contact. If I don't make it or don't need you, that's OK; you've checked in. You've made yourself available. The 25 minutes of side work you just did about 15 yards away was the 25 minutes in which I decided I needed neither dessert NOR another drink (both of which I would have ordered) and asked for my check instead.

On which I rounded down, to 17.02% as a tip. I felt awful about it.

But I didn't feel awful enough to not do it.

So should I tell servers to watch out? The times they are a-changin'? Or was this a one-time-super-cranky-weekend kind of thing?

Sick day.

For most of my working life (from my first job at 15 until age 28) I was not the beneficiary of paid sick days - nor of any other employment benefit like health care, life insurance, vacation time, retirement savings, etc. For a little over two years, I have had the option of all of the above and today, I went home sick.

But, oh, how quickly we adjust to a new reality! What have I spent some of today doing? I was worried about the work going undone, the emails going unreturned, the lack of hard deadline for my return - will I be better tonight? In the morning? Will I have this cold as bad as John has had it, which has knocked him over for a week? I have been checking my BlackBerry, thinking of little things and sending an email or two to the co-workers I just left hours ago, and obsessing about one piece of casework in particular - where I can't save a life by being at work, but I can be the best listener they have right now, and that has some serious value.

But what I haven't done today is stop and be grateful that I am getting paid right now. My paycheck won't be less for having to miss work today - so I don't have to cut a few dollars from the budget to compensate, as I did for so long - and since I'm not at a super-small business*, I don't have to worry about retribution, lost hours, or a lost job, for not showing up. I don't have to lie about annoying allergies when I really have a head cold, and I get to hope that my 3-hour-nap and chicken noodle soup and tea and salt water gargles and Neti Pot will end up making me well sooner - which is what sick time is truly all about.

So before I let the last two years of safety net whitewash over the previous 13, I'm taking a moment to feel grateful while the tea water boils. Again.

* Not all very small businesses would engage in such practices. But some would, and do - and did in my working life. If they're not required to abide by FMLA or other labor laws, they definitely don't, for reasons both sensible - and evil.

Keepin' it real.

As an employee of your federal government, I have joined a gym in the federal building for said employees. It's about as low-fi as they come, in a basement, and I'm happy to have an affordable gym option.

There are poster boards with how to sign up for a workout buddy, what classes you might want to take, goals to track with little silver star stickers, like lifting the most weight in your age group, as well as food advice/tips/recipes, motivational sayings and a gym member of the month feature.

But you gotta love the honesty. One of this month's health tips, along with "Take the Stairs!" and "Eat One More Vegetable Today!" is "Drink Less Alcohol!"

Less, my friends. Less. We live in the real world, after all.

Boys will be Boys

Not everything in the world is gendered, or has to be, but honestly, only two boys (under the age of 25) would take a brand new coffee pot out of the box, a gift to all office workers here in our humble digs, and make coffee in it.

No rinsing of the carafe, no test run through with hot water, no cleaning at all. Box. Open. Coffee. Made.

This is not a surprise, however, because I had the foresight to ask if they'd washed it, and the predictable "no" that followed prompted me to skip coffee this morning at work.

And then, one boy said to me, not three minutes later, "Well now it tastes different! It tastes weird to me! Should I throw it out?"