FACE COVID (By Dr. Russ Harris)

My Mom sent me this and I liked it so I decided to share it here.

‘FACE COVID’ 

How to respond effectively to the Corona crisis 

by Dr Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap 

‘FACE COVID’ is a set of practical steps for responding effectively to the Corona crisis, using the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Here’s a quick summary of the key steps, and we’ll explore them all in more depth:

F = Focus on what’s in your control
A = Acknowledge your thoughts & feelings 

C = Come back into your body

E = Engage in what you’re doing
C = Committed action

O = Opening up
V = Values
I =  Identify resources
D = Disinfect & distance

Let’s now explore these, one by one

F = Focus on what’s in your control

The Corona crisis can affect us in many different ways: physically, emotionally, economically, socially, and psychologically. All of us are (or soon will be) dealing with the very real challenges of widespread serious illness and the inabilities of healthcare systems to cope with it, social and community disruption, economic fallout and financial problems, obstacles and interruptions to many aspects of life ... and the list goes on.

And when we are facing a crisis of any sort, fear and anxiety are inevitable; they are normal, natural responses to challenging situations infused with danger and uncertainty. It’s all too easy to get lost in worrying and ruminating about all sorts of things that are out of your control: what might happen in the future; how the virus might affect you or your loved ones or your community or your country or the world – and what will happen then - and so on. And while it’s completely natural for us to get lost in such worries, it’s not useful or helpful. Indeed the more we focus on what’s not in our control, the more hopeless or anxious we’re likely to feel.

So the single most useful thing anyone can do in any type of crisis – Corona-related or otherwise - is to: focus on what’s in your control.

You can’t control what happens in the future. You can’t control Corona virus itself or the world economy or how your government manages this whole sordid mess. And you can’t magically control your feelings, eliminating all that perfectly natural fear and anxiety. But you can control what you do - here and now. And that matters.

Because what you do - here and now - can make a huge difference to yourself, and anyone living with you, and a significant difference to the community around you.

The reality is, we all have far more control over our behavior, than we do over our thoughts and feelings. So our number one aim is to take control of our behavior - right here and now - to respond effectively to this crisis.

This involves both dealing with our inner world – all our difficult thoughts and feelings - and our outer world – all the real problems we are facing. How do we do this? Well, when a big storm blows up, the boats in the harbor drop anchor – because if they don’t, they’ll get swept out to sea. And of course, dropping anchor doesn’t make the storm go away (anchors can’t control the weather) - but it can hold a boat steady in the harbor, until the storm passes in its own good time.

Similarly, in an ongoing crisis, we’re all going to experience ‘emotional storms’: unhelpful thoughts spinning inside our head, and painful feelings whirling around our body. And if we’re swept away by that storm inside us, there’s nothing effective we can do. So the first practical step is to ‘drop anchor’, using the simple ACE formula:

A = Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings 

C = Come back into your body
E = Engage in what you’re doing

Let’s explore these one by one:

A = Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings

Silently and kindly acknowledge whatever is ‘showing up’ inside you: thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, sensation, urges. Take the stance of a curious scientist, observing what’s going on in your inner world. And while continuing to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, also ....

C = Come back into your body

Come back into and connect with your physical body. Find your own way of doing this. You could try some or all of the following, or find your own methods:

• Slowly pushing your feet hard into the floor.
• Slowly straightening up your back and spine; if sitting, sitting upright and forward in your chair.
• Slowly pressing your fingertips together
• Slowly stretching your arms or neck, shrugging your shoulders. 

• Slowly breathing

Note: you are not trying to turn away from, escape, avoid or distract yourself from what is happening in your inner world. The aim is to remain aware of your thoughts and feelings, continue to acknowledge their presence .... and at the same time, come back into and connect with your body, and actively move it. Why? So you can gain as much control as possible over your physical actions, even though you can’t control your feelings. (Remember, F = Focus on what’s in your control) And as you acknowledge your thoughts & feelings, and come back into your body, also ....

E = Engage in what you’re doing

Get a sense of where you are and refocus your attention on the activity you are doing.
Find your own way of doing this. You could try some or all of the following suggestions, or find your own methods:

• Look around the room and notice 5 things you can see.
• Notice 3 or 4 things you can hear.
• Notice what you can smell or taste or sense in your nose and mouth
• Notice what you are doing
• End the exercise by giving your full attention to the task or activity at hand. (And if you don’t have any meaningful activity to do, see the next 3 steps.)

Ideally, run through the ACE cycle slowly 3 or 4 times, to turn it into a 2- 3 minute exercise.

If you wish, to help you get the hang of this, you can download some free audio recordings of ‘dropping anchor’ exercises, varying from 1 minute to 11 minutes in length. You can listen to these and use them as a guide to help you develop this skill. You can download or stream them from the left hand box on this webpage:

NOTE: please don’t skip the A of ACE; it’s so important to keep acknowledging the thoughts and feelings present, especially if they are difficult or uncomfortable. If you skip the A, this exercise will turn into a distraction technique – which it’s not supposed to be.

Dropping anchor is a very useful skill. You can use it for handling difficult thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, urges and sensations more effectively; switching off auto-pilot and engaging in life; grounding and steadying yourself in difficult situations; disrupting rumination, obsessing and worrying; and focusing your attention on the task or activity you are doing. The better you anchor yourself in the here and now, the more control you have over your actions – which makes it a lot easier to do the next steps: COVID

C = Committed Action

Committed action means effective action, guided by your core values; action you take because it’s truly important to you; action you take even if it brings up difficult thoughts and feelings. Once you have dropped anchor, using the ACE formula, you will have a lot of control over your actions – so this makes it easier to do the things that truly matter.
Now obviously that includes all those protective measures against Corona – frequent hand-washing, social distancing, and so on. But in addition to those fundamentals of effective action, consider:

What are simple ways to look after yourself, those you live with, and those you can realistically help? What kind, caring, supportive deeds you can do?
Can you say some kind words to someone in distress – in person or via a phone call or text message?

Can you help someone out with a task or a chore, or cook a meal or play a game with a young child?

Can you comfort and soothe someone who is sick? Or in the most serious of cases, nurse them and access whatever medical assistance is available?

And if you’re spending a lot more time at home, through self-isolation or forced quarantine, or social distancing, what are the most effective ways to spend that time?
You may want to consider physical exercise to stay fit, cooking (as) healthy food (as possible, given restrictions), and doing meaningful activities by yourself or with others.

And if you’re familiar with acceptance and commitment therapy or other mindfulness-based approaches, how can you actively practice some of those mindfulness skills?

Repeatedly throughout the day, ask yourself ‘What can I do right now - no matter how small it may be - that improves life for myself or others I live with, or people in my community?’ And whatever the answer is – do it, and engage in it fully.

O = Opening up

Opening up means making room for difficult feelings and being kind to yourself. Difficult feelings are guaranteed to keep on showing up as this crisis unfolds: fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, guilt, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and many more.

We can’t stop them from arising; they’re normal reactions. But we can open up and make room for them: acknowledge they are normal, allow them to be there (even though they hurt), and treat ourselves kindly.

Remember, self-kindness is essential if you want to cope well with this crisis – especially if you are in a caregiver role. If you’ve ever flown on a plane, you’ve heard this message: ‘In event of an emergency, put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.’ Well, self- kindness is your own oxygen mask; if you need to look after others, you’ll do it a whole lot better if you’re also taking good care of yourself.

So ask yourself, ‘If someone I loved was going through this experience, feeling what I am feeling – if I wanted to be kind and caring towards them, how would I treat them? How would I behave towards them? What might I say or do?’ Then try treating yourself the same way.

V = Values

Committed action should be guided by your core values: What do you want to stand for in the face of this crisis? What sort of person do you want to be, as you go through this? How do you want to treat yourself and others?

Your values might include love, respect, humor, patience, courage, honesty, caring, openness, kindness .... or numerous others. Look for ways to ‘sprinkle’ these values into your day. Let them guide and motivate your committed action.

Of course, as this crisis unfolds, there will be all sorts of obstacles in your life; goals you can’t achieve, things you can’t do, problems for which there are no simple solutions. But you can still live your values in a myriad of different ways, even in the face of all those challenges. Especially come back to your values of kindness and caring. Consider:

What are kind, caring ways you can treat yourself as you go through this?
What are kind words you can say to yourself, kind deeds you can do for yourself?
What are kind ways you can treat others who are suffering?
What are kind, caring ways of contributing to the wellbeing of your community?
What can you say and do that will enable you to look back in years to come and feel proud of your response?

I = Identify resources

Identify resources for help, assistance, support, and advice. This includes friends, family, neighbors, health professionals, emergency services. And make sure you know the emergency helpline phone numbers, including psychological help if required.
Also reach out to your social networks. And if you are able to offer support to others, let them know; you can be a resource for other people, just as they can for you.

One very important aspect of this process involves finding a reliable and trustworthy source of information for updates on the crisis and guidelines for responding to it. The World Health Organization website is the leading source of such information:

Also check the website of your country’s government health department.
Use this information to develop your own resources: action plans to protect yourself and others, and to prepare in advance for quarantine or emergency.

D = Disinfect & distance physically

I’m sure you already know this, but it’s worth repeating: disinfect your hands regularly and practice as much social distancing as realistically possible, for the greater good of your community. And remember, we’re talking about physical distancing – not cutting off emotionally. (If you aren’t quite sure about what this means, read this. This is an important aspect of committed action, so align it deeply with your values; recognize that these are truly caring actions.

In Summary

So again and again and again, as problems pile up in the world around you, and emotional storms rage in the world within you, come back to the steps of FACE COVID:

F = Focus on what’s in your control
A = Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings 

C = Come back into your body
E = Engage in what you’re doing

C = Committed action
O = Opening up
V = Values
I =  Identify resources
D = Disinfect & distance

Well, I do hope there’s something useful in here for you; and feel free to share this with others if you think they may find it helpful. These are crazy, difficult, scary times, so please do treat yourself kindly. And remember the words of Winston Churchill: ‘When you’re going through hell, keep going’.

All the best, Cheers, Russ Harris

© Russ Harris, 2020 www.TheHappinessTrap.com www.ImLearningACT.com

Fucked Beyond Imagination: Continuing to Resist Trump's Autocratic Kleptocracy is Our Civic Mission for 2018

"It's important not to let them change your values, your morals, your individuality. Authoritarianism isn't just a matter of external control; it's most insidious aspect is what it does to you inside."

—Sarah Kendzior, PhD

I’ve been reading Dr. Sarah Kendzior’s scholarship on authoritarian states for a couple of years now. It's grim, and, in my opinion, required reading right now. I keep returning, again and again, to this article she wrote in the Dutch outlet The Correspondent just nine days after Trump was elected to the United States Presidency with the undisputed help of a hostile foreign power. 

I recommend that you read the whole thing for yourself, but Trump's weekend Twitter attacks on the F.B.I. brought me back to Dr. Kendizor's article yet again. 

Trump spent the morning setting up his own Justice Department for a takedown. He is rightly feeling and fearing the noose tightening around the neck of his corrupt administration. He is cornered, and he knows it. He isn't above the law, unless and until he upends the law. And like any cornered animal, he is going to lash out and attempt to destroy any threat to his presidency. 

This is F.B.I. alright. Fucked Beyond Imagination. 

Not since Watergate have we seen an executive so hell bent on upending democratic norms in service of his own long-game con and bottomless greed. But this time it's much worse because we have a complicit Congress enabling a bumbling fascist's worst impulses. 

This is Sarah Kendzior's advice, and it sets forth a civic mission for living under metastasizing authoritarianism. Here are her suggestions, and I for one plan to honor every one of them in 2018. 

This is my one and only New Year's resolution: To keep writing the resistance and to keep defending, protecting, and building the vision of a true constitutional democracy that so many of my fellow American citizens have been killed and maimed to defend. 

Here are Dr. Kendzior's words of advice, verbatim, from the above-linked article:

1. Write about who you are, what you have experienced, and what you have endured.

2. Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children.

3. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.

4. Write your biography, write down your memories. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget.

5. Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.

6. Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them.

7. Though our speech is often challenged, we can still speak. We can debate each other and come up with ways to improve our country. We can scream at each other and mock each other and tell each other our political choices are terrible. You will miss those days, they may end soon.

8. Authoritarianism is not merely a matter of state control, it is something that eats away at who you are. It makes you afraid, and fear can make you cruel.

9. It compels you to conform and to comply and accept things that you would never accept, to do things you never thought you would do.

10. You do it because everyone else is doing it, because the institutions you trust are doing it and telling you to do it, because you are afraid of what will happen if you do not do it, and because the voice in your head crying out that something is wrong grows fainter and fainter until it dies.

11. That voice is your conscience, your morals, your individuality. No one can take that from you unless you let them. 

12. They can take everything from you in material terms – your house, your job, your ability to speak and move freely. 

13. They cannot take away who you truly are. They can never truly know you, and that is your power.

14. But to protect and wield this power, you need to know yourself – right now, before their methods permeate, before you accept the obscene and unthinkable as normal.

15.  But most of all, never lose sight of who you are and what you value. 

16. If you find yourself doing something that feels questionable or wrong a few months or years from now, find that essay you wrote on who you are and read it. Ask if that version of yourself would have done the same thing.

17. And if the answer is no? Don’t do it.

Following Dr. Kendizor's advice is my New Year's resolution. Consider making it yours as well.

Meditations on a Ceramic Pear

It sounds like the title of an essay by Sartre, poorly-translated from the French. Really it's just the right way to describe the poignant mix of sadness, nostalgia, and fear I feel whenever I return to my childhood bedroom--and this ceramic pear is like a physical embodiment of it. 

The room is a time capsule, not out of sentimentality on the part of the people who live here. To the contrary, it's my parents' disinterest in 42 years worth of detritus squatting in their apartment that has frozen this space in the condition I left it, when I left it forever, at age 17.

My parents' inertia enables an annual nostalgia trip though. The clay pear is one of many dated objects in here: the Cabbage Patch doll I coveted more than anything in my seven years of life; a three-ring binder from a high school English class, complete with notes and grades; a cactus that not just endures--but thrives--on continued neglect. I envy the cactus for its stoic self-sufficiency and protective shell, which is always the moment I reach over and pick up the pear. 

I turn the smooth glazed object over and over in my hand while zoning out on it. I can remember making it (or if not it specifically, maybe one of its clay produce brethren). How careful I was to render each fruit and vegetable as realistically as I could. How frustrated I was that my fourth grade hands wouldn't do the bidding of my artistic vision. How satisfied I was to see the colors of my sculptures transform from a dull matte paint to a shiny glaze, displayed on butcher paper alongside a hundred others, in the noisy hallway outside Ms. Tucci's art class.

And a certain nihilism sets in. 

What was the point of making this, I ask myself? What's the point of any of this shit? It will just become dust, quite literally, along with everything else in here. Along with my parents, along with me, along with this apartment, this building, this city, and everyone and everything I and every single one of us has ever known. 

But wait! 

First I must engage with it--and all the other things like it--in some sort of self-sabotaging perversion of Marie Kondo's "sparking joy" craze, the end result of which is the same amount of stuff and twice as much angst.

Which is when I tell myself it's not really about the pear. It never was. It's never about the thing it seems to be about. It's about the process that went into creating the pear, the simple memory it holds, the record of a moment and a feeling. Data, stored somewhere in each of our beleaguered mental hard drives, ready to be accessed on command.

We make stuff like this, in part, because we want things to last forever. We know a real pear can't last forever, so we try to make a simulacrum that will last longer. But what are we really trying to preserve? Moments, feelings, memories of people. None of which lasts longer than produce, not in the grand scheme of the universe, anyway.

That doesn't mean the pear serves no purpose, though. In fact, it serves a very distinct purpose: to remind me that time marches on whether I want it to or not. That it's unhealthy and futile to live my life in retrospect. That we all make choices. Choices which, for better or worse, we cannot unmake, and which mean that certain paths are foreclosed to us forever. 

And, most of all, that it is okay.

We're Just Trying to Take You to a Fucking Water Park (9:30 a.m.)

Do you even understand that? Do you? Do you even get that we are just trying to take you to a FUCKING WATER PARK?!

No, no of course you don't, because you live in Alaska, and your frame of reference is limited. 

So you don't realize that the more you fight over brushing your teeth with the sparkly toothpaste versus the strawberry kind, the fewer precious moments we'll have to spend somewhere that I SWEAR will be really fucking fun for you, and the source of many wonderful goddamned memories for years to come!

Your parents are about to spend too many dollars to endure traffic, hot concrete, endless pools full of 85 degree pee-pee water, and hordes of disgusting strangers whose elaborate tattoos, piercings, stretch marks, man boobs, back hair, and moles we will become all too intimately familar with while standing in a snaking line to climb into a giant rubber donut and slide down a plastic tube full of gushing luke-warm water.

Again I ask: Do you not get how FUN THIS WILL BE FOR YOU?! 

Why are you making it so hard for me to help you have fun? You're acting like one of those stores or restaurants in Juneau where you practically have to beg the people who work there (if you can find them) to help you spend money in their establishment. 

Similarly, I am trying to help you have fun at a place that literally exists for that sole purpose, and you won't put on shoes to go there.

Do you ALSO not get that you will be permitted to eat shit like corn dogs and cotton candy and Dippin' Dots ice cream, that repellent confection resembling the tiny styrofoam balls inside an exploded beanbag, but which is actually allegedly edible and only available at water parks, stadiums, and zoos for some reason? 

That's right. DIPPIN' FUCKING DOTS.

What more do I have to do to make you kids get ready to go to a FUCKING WATER PARK?!

GAH!

Shit My Kids Fought About This Weekend: A Highlight Reel

It always seems like just when I'm supposed to be having the most fun and making the best memories with my kids, reality intervenes to ensure that we all hate each other's guts by the end of the day. 

And welp, today was no different.

Earnest, Good Clean American Fun things like the Fourth of July inevitably turn into a hangry low blood sugar fest for me and a gross junk food bonanza for my kids. The diligence with which those two pursue and protect their burgers and peanut butter cups makes me all the angrier, because they act wholly incapable of taking the same serious and committed stewardship of literally ANYTHING else they own.

I admit I made several tactical errors, mainly driving to a parade when I usually walk, and I paid for it with EXTENSIVE whining from two children who live in a town where the worst traffic jam on the city's 60 miles of pavement is typically all of five minutes long.

Plus, none of us were well-resourced to deal with tension and conflict given the ridiculous arguments that preceded a level of parade traffic that made me want to abandon my car in the middle of the road World War-Z style. Here are the highlights:

1. Robin v. Stellar Jay:

Isaac: Look, a stellar jay is on our deck!

Paige: That's a robin. Its belly is red and stellar jays are blue.

Isaac: No it was a stellar jay, I saw it.

Paige: No you didn't, ISAAC.

Isaac: YES I DID!

Paige: NO YOU DIDN'T!

Isaac: YES I DIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDD! (wailing)

2. Paralysis 

Isaac: (jumps on Paige's back)

Paige: OW ISAAC DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD PARALYZE SOMEONE WHEN YOU DO THAT? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? IT MEANS YOU CAN'T WALK ANYMORE FOREVER!!

Isaac: No it doesn't.

Paige: YES IT DOOEEEES! (wailing)

3. The Squid in Finding Dory

Isaac: The squid in Finding Dory hurt Nemo.

Paige: No ISAAC, that was an OCTOPUS.

Isaac: NO, the purple squid at the BEGINNING. 

Paige: I KNOW, that was an octopus and it didn't hurt Nemo.

Isaac: NO I'M TALKING ABOUT THE SQUIIIIIIID!!!! (wailing).

Granted, this was nothing next to the domestic dispute I just witnessed between a 14 year-old girl and her approximately 30 year-old father over Chernobyl orange nacho "Que Bueno" brand cheese sauce from Costco (a.k.a. "the good stuff"). That argument involved a stream of profanity and required police intervention. 

So far, I've managed to avoid the latter.

F.A.Q. on O.H.M.

Some of you have asked about my process for writing and running O.H.M., so I'm answering those FAQs here:

1. Where do you get your ideas?

I get most of my ideas from five sources: (1) observations in my daily life as a parent and from my own childhood; (2) life in Alaska; (3) current events; (4) requests and suggestions from friends/family; and (5) general issues I’m dealing with. I have a list of ideas that I keep on my iPhone, and I just jot them down whenever I think of one, including in the middle of the night. Then I mine the list for inspiration later.

2. How do you write so much so fast?

I touch-type and I often partially dictate my posts into my iPhone after my kids go to bed at night, or while they’re distracted playing with friends. Even if I don’t feel like writing, I make myself write every single day, at least once a day. I don’t care if anyone reads it or not, but it’s therapeutic for me to do it, and after a year and a half of O.H.M. it’s become a habit.

3. Do you think about when to post?

I don’t really think about when to post, although I’ve noticed that I get more reads when I publish posts at certain times of day. I often write several posts in advance when I have big chunks of uninterrupted time at home, and then just push them out at random times when I think of it. I could definitely be more strategic about this if I thought about it more.

4.  Do you think about how to publicize your blog?

I definitely want people to read O.H.M., and I consciously use social media to encouarge that. That's why I created a separate Facebook page for the blog and joined Twitter. I always want people to share my blog posts, because of course I get an ego boost from the blog getting shares and attention. I probably care too much about that, but not enough to pay money to sponsor the blog on Facebook or anything like that. Ultimately O.H.M. is just a hobby, and the main reasons I keep doing it are because: (a) it’s fun for me; and (b) I know that the people who read it really enjoy it. I think about my audience a lot while I’m writing: what they will connect with, what will resonate with them, etc. That’s really what I care about the most.

5. Why don’t you advertise?

Choosing not to advertise on O.H.M. was never really a conscious choice or a self-righteous matter of principle. It just wasn’t something I’d ever really considered. I doubt I have enough readers to make advertising worthwhile, and I think most advertising is stupid and horrible and caters to all kinds of things I openly question. So I sort of like that my blog is bare-bones and ad-free.

6. What do you think of Blogger as a platform?

If I could do it over again, I probably wouldn’t use Blogger as a platform, only because it’s kind of cheesy, like AOL or Hotmail or something. Its spell check sucks, and it screams “amateur." But that’s what I am. So I’m okay with it. I'm hoping Blogger will become retro cool, like a mullet.

7. Are you worried your blog is too revelatory or inappropriate?

No, I’m not worried about that. I actually have a lot of boundaries, in that I don’t (for example) ever blog or even mention anyone else by name without their permission. I don't talk about anything I do at work, anything about the details of my marriage, etc. So I'm actually silent on many topics out of respect for other people’s boundaries. But I know that the second I stop making O.H.M. a real, honest, and raw reflection of my own thoughts and feelings, it stops being authentic. Then it just becomes another curated piece of internet bullshit that can’t be trusted, and I don't want that to happen. So I always try to be blunt and honest, even when that bluntness and honesty is a little uncomfortable for me and sometimes my readers.

8. How has your approach and process of writing blog posts changed over time?

I've gotten a lot faster and more adept at figuring out what will work as an idea and what will fall flat. I have a shrinking number of posts to write, for example, from my childhood, because I only have so many memories that are going to make interesting blog posts. So the source material tends to shift a bit. Also, I've gotten increasingly bold and brave about saying exactly what I think in a very truthful manner. I've asked myself "what's gonna happen?," and discover that I actually care a lot less about "what's gonna happen" than I do about just saying what I want to say, and/or what I think needs to be said.

9. How much traffic does the blog get?

Probably a few hundred reads per post, on average. Sometimes a post will really explode into the several thousands or beyond, but that's not super common.

10. Did you just write this blog post in 23 minutes while eating supermarket sushi?

Yes.

The Baby Journal Fail

"Write it down!," the journal screams urgently. "Memories are all that's left." Really? That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?  Regardless, the "Mother's Journal" in the photo below is one of literally dozens of similar journals I've come to possess in the past decade, and none of them--not ONE--documents a single moment past either of my children's infancy.

Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly masochistic (i.e. frequently), I like to imagine conversations between my kids and their future therapists in young adulthood. And because I'm a narcissist, these imagined conversations are always about me.

"I don't understand it," they'll say hopelessly, tears welling in their eyes. "She was writing ALL the time. She wrote a million embarrassing things about us on her stupid blog and all over Facebook and Twitter. And when she wasn't doing that, she was coloring like a six year-old in "adult" coloring books. [Here they will make air quotes with their fingers]. And when she wasn't doing THAT, she was dicking around on her iPhone. She couldn't have kept ONE journal? I mean . . . it'd be one thing if she was actually spending TIME with us, but she WASN'T! I'm NEVER doing this to my kids."

The therapist will sit there with her blinky, therapist poker-face. She'll cross her legs and fold her hands in her lap, leaning forward just a little. A fish tank will burble quietly behind her, a few brightly-colored fish swimming in lazy circles among the plastic rocks and coral. She'll offer a box of tissues and ask earnestly, "Why do YOU think she didn't keep a journal?"

And of course they won't have an answer, which is why I'm providing one now.

My kids are now five and eight, and to say I'm behind on journaling their childhood milestones is a profound understatement. I was doing great at first. When Paige was born, I wrote down every little detail from the moment she came home until about ten months, when I somehow lost the will to journal, along with other, arguably more essential activities of daily living such as regular showers and shaving my legs.

You can see this from the paper record. The first few months of her life are chronicled in excruciating detail: "Nursed for 20 minutes on the right side today," or "Six weeks: first smile!," or, "Rice cereal! First solid food!" And a photo, carefully selected from an online library, printed on photo stock, cut to size, and lovingly affixed with double-sided tape to a pre-drawn box positioned on the page at an angle and meant to look whimsical.

By the time Isaac came along three years later, I was over it. I maybe wrote down his first word, but I couldn't tell you where if my life depended on it. I suppose I could doctor, fabricate, and back-date a couple of journals like those crooked cops on Making a Murderer, but somehow that seems even worse?

"Why aren't there more pictures of ME, Mommy?" he asked pathetically one day while studying photos of baby Paige crammed along the frame of a mirror on my bedroom wall. 

"Because Mommy kind of lost track of space and time once Paige started walking, honey. I'm sorry about that. Let's print some photos of you this weekend."  

Of course we never do, and again my mind wanders to the therapist's office. I'm not even sure I have all of their school photos, as I seem to have lost some of those as well.

I guess in the grand scheme of things, failure to keep a journal isn't the worst parental crime. Certainly it's not inconsistent with the adequate parent theory, which holds that kids will basically turn out OK if you don't actively traumatize them by beating them with belt buckles and leaving them alone for weeks at a time in a crack house to fend for themselves. Yes, I know. It's just a "theory."

But although I view my failure to journal as a fail, I don't consider it to be a big one. We're all of us fuck-ups from the start, aren't we?  In that vein, I'll leave you with my favorite poem about parenting, called This Be the Verse, written in 1971 by the British poet and novelist Philip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

O.H.M. Weekend Parenting Quiz

1. Your kids wake up at 5:30 a.m. and ask you to get up to play with them and make them breakfast. You:

(a) Hop out of bed and immediately and cheerfully oblige.
(b) Mumble that it's 5:30 a.m. and tell them to go watch TV and eat cereal by themselves.
(c) Roll over and proceed to sleep for three more hours in blissful ignorance of what they're doing in the next room.
(d) Both (b) and (c).

2. Your kids have a screaming fight over toy cars in which your 5 year-old son announces to his 8 year-old sister (who has just scratched his neck) that "this hurts me more than it hurts you." You:

(a) Intervene by parenting with love and logic.
(b) Intervene using 1-2-3 Magic.
(c) Laugh and let them claw each other to pieces while surreptitiously and selfishly assembling the Lego Heartlake Grand Hotel that's supposed to be reserved for your 8 year-old to work on.
(d) Walk out of the room and pretend this isn't happening.

3. It's finally snowing enough to go skiing. You:

(a) Are totally prepared, load up all the gear, and drive to the hill while singing songs in the car.
(b) Are totally unprepared and make them go sledding on the half-inch of snow in the driveway.
(c) Make 16 cups of coffee and dump 4 oz of Bailey's Carolyn's in the first cup.
(d) Both (b) and (c).

4. Your 5 year-old son refuses to wear underpants, saying he's going to "free-ball it." How do you respond?

(a) You laugh and post the quote on Facebook.
(b) You kindly ask him to wear underpants.
(c) You tell him he's going to get shit streaks in his pants and he should care about that.
(d) Both (a) and (c).

5. You look at the clock and it's 12:00 noon. What do you say to yourself?

(a) "My, my! Time sure flies when you're having fun!"
(b) "Wow, it's noon already?"
(c) "I cherish these moments."
(d) "How can it only be noon? What the fuck am I going to do with them for the rest of the day?"

6. Your kids and their friend want to go to open swim at the pool in an hour. What do you do?

(a) Pack their swim bag and say you can't wait to go.
(b) Hide in your bedroom and read about Justin Bieber on Twitter.
(c) Fantasize about being done with open swim before it even starts.
(d) Both (b) and (c).

7. Your 5 year-old spills a giant mug of hot chocolate all over the kitchen counter because he was screwing around with a spoon for no reason. How do you handle it?

(a) Scream "DUDE!!! WHAT THE FUCKOVER!??!"
(b) Guide him gently over to the spill and help him clean it up.
(c) Sigh and watch him throw himself on the floor in an epic tantrum.
(d) Both (a) and (c).

8.  You get "dressed" for the day. What are you wearing?

(a) Actual pajamas.
(b) Black fleece pants and a sweatshirt.
(c) Jeans and a nice top with scarf.
(d) No bra.

9. It's now 1:00 p.m. What are you most looking forward to for the rest of the day?

(a) Cherishing the next seven hours making memories with your children.
(b) Feeling guilty for insufficient weekend cherishing and memory-making.
(c) Counting the moments until they're in bed and you can get a mighty buzz on.
(d) Both (b) and (c).

10. You and your kids are doing Hanukkah presentations for their classrooms. What happens next?

(a) You make zero latkes and do zero planning, delegating the entire thing to their father.
(b) You snicker under your breath as your 5 year-old son explains the story of Hanukkah by asking four Christian kids sitting in a circle, "Does anyone know what MURDER means?"
(c) You eat as many latkes as possible, as quickly as possible, thus jeopardizing the latke supply for all the children.
(d) All of the above.

It's Actually Amazing How Bad I Still Am at Fishing

 

You would think a decade of living in Alaska would have taught me a thing or two, but you'd be dead wrong.

Like a foreigner who stubbornly refuses to learn the language, I've spent the better part of ten years in denial about mastering something as basic as how to cast a fishing rod. I'm seriously almost not even sure that the words "cast a fishing rod" actually belong together in a sentence in that order. 

That's why "Family Fishing Day" at a local park put the fear of God in me. Only one person in our family knows how to fish with anything approaching proficiency, and that person was helping someone move this morning. So it fell to me on this occasion to make memories, and making memories is not my strong suit.

See, I didn't grow up chasing crawdads down at old Pappy Van Winkle's creek or whatever it is kids do in Norman Rockwell's Real America. In NYC, the closest I ever got to fishing was running after the Good Humor ice cream truck and handing the old man driver guy a dollar bill for the blue and green shark pop (and sometimes the Super Mario Brothers head with a pink bubble gum ball for Mario's nose).

Without sounding too doom-and-gloom, I tried to warn my kids that our fishing expedition was destined for failure by managing their expectations. "Mommy is really bad at fishing you guys," I said gravely. "We're probably not going to catch anything." (I was comforted by the knowledge that even people who know how to fish also often don't catch anything).

My kids were not dissuaded. Not in the slightest.

We got to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game tent, where volunteers were distributing fishing rods and little cups of tiny shrimp for bait. I reluctantly gathered the requisite supplies and headed to a corner of beach I'd staked out.

My first concern (as usual) was myself. Specifically, I was afraid of looking stupid. So I tried to place our little trio strategically: close enough to where I could observe presumably more competent parents, and far enough away to avoid being caught doing just that.

"Where's the hook?" is a question that silently entered my mind. Oh there it is. The skills I had acquired during the handful of times I'd used a fishing rod were really being brought to bear now. 

I managed to get both kids' hooks baited and the damn things in the water. They only became hopelessly tangled on one out of every three casts, and no one lost an eye. Granted, we caught precisely zero fish, were standing three inches from shore, and my hands smelled like shrimp cocktail you might get on an airplane. But we were perfectly happy doing all of this for the better part of an hour.

Afterwards, we took advantage of Family Fishing Day's free snacks. Because if it's one lesson I want to teach my kids, it's to always grab free food where you can get it, whether you're hungry or not. We ate our goldfish crackers with pretzel stick fishing rod and peanut butter bait, and then migrated to the nearby playground.

I was sitting on the bench when a stranger approached me. "I'm a big fan of your blog," she said. "I started reading it through Conor." Ah, CDATPOS. The gift that keeps on giving! We introduced ourselves and I found her later on Facebook. "Thanks for reading the blog," I wrote. "Thank you for reminding me that just because I don't spring out of bed at 5:00 a.m. singing 'I Feel Pretty' and itching to make a four-course breakfast doesn't mean I'm a crappy parent!"

Oh there are so, SO many of those reminders that I can and will continue to provide. And my decade-in-the-making fishing fail is only the most recent.

 

The Carnival Enthusiasm Gap

Metaphorically and generally speaking, you could drive a tractor trailer between a child and an adult's respective levels of enthusiasm for a traveling carnival.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how much are you dreading this?," I asked Geoff under my breath. "8," he replied. "Yeah, me too. Maybe even 8.5."

We were in the car, en route to the carnival that had set up shop for the month on a vast stretch of asphalt parking lot abutting one of Juneau's two quasi-abandoned 1970's shopping malls. 

The kids were literally bouncing up and down with excitement in the backseat, and it was blazing hot outside. If I hadn't spent the morning walking in nature with a good friend, I would definitely have leapt from the moving vehicle to escape my fate. 

I felt my breakfast repeat on me a little as I watched a half-dozen rickety metal rides hurling people around in circles and spied--out of the corner of my eye--a piece of dog/possibly human shit with a cigarette buried in it. 

At that moment, a large-ish man ambled past wearing a red T-shirt with white lettering that read: "I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll take a look." I felt a flashing surge of relief that one of my kids can't read yet and the other can't read well or fast enough to have asked me to interpret that particular sartorial choice.

Paige and Isaac had been clamoring to go to the "CARNIVALCARNIVALCARNIVALCARNIVALCARNIVAL" for the better part of three weeks, and we'd waited until literally the last possible afternoon of the last possible day to take them there. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. It's just that our expectations were low, and the kids' were high, and somehow all of us left feeling that our expectations were exceeded.

We were immediately divested of $40, which lasted for four rides. Then we paid another $40 for a couple of plastic shell games and two ice cream cones. "Bend over and grab 'em," Geoff mumbled as he dispensed bill after bill in service of "making memories" for our kids. 

The people operating the rides had a look about them. A look familiar to anyone who has been to a traveling carnival. A look that says silently (often between very few teeth): "You would be wise not to put your child's life in my hands." 

So it was against my better judgment that I let my kids go on something called "The Himalaya" and something else called "The Tornado," which at least Isaac was probably too short to ride. (Needless to say, the enforcement was lax). 

I also went on one of the rides, but it was a boring spinning plastic apple that somehow still made me want to vomit. The guy running it seemed especially frightening in his apparent ineptitude, but the thing was close enough to the ground and moved slowly enough that I felt I could take able command of the apple in an emergency.

On our way out, I ran into another mother I know. She had her three children and her husband in tow. We locked eyes and didn't have to say a single word. "I know," I said, touching her sympathetically on the shoulder and handing her three stray ride tickets that were insufficient to get our kids on one last ride. "I'm going to write 'The Carnival Enthusiasm Gap' as soon as I get home."

And so I did.

 

Geoff and the kids getting shellacked at the bottle ring toss.

I Briefly Considered Spending Thousands of Dollars to See Taylor Swift Perform Live in Seattle

I have openly admitted on this blog that I love Taylor Swift songs with a passion that is disturbing and wrong. This morning while driving to work, I took that passion one step over the line by briefly considering spending thousands of dollars to see Taylor Swift perform live in Seattle.

"Shake it Off" came on the radio, and my neurotransmitters released a quick burst of serotonin as I realized the last three minutes of my drive would be spent caterwauling along to T. Swizzle while banging my hands up and down on the steering wheel and gesticulating wildly inside the confines of my car. As I did this, I imagined watching T. Swizz live in concert and hatched a diabolical plan re: how I could blame and frame my seven year-old daughter for the trip.

See, it wasn't my idea: it was Paige's.

We were driving in the car two or three days ago (the only place we listen to Taylor Swift, somehow), when our local Top 40 radio station advertised a contest: "You and a friend could win an all-expenses paid trip to Seattle to see Taylor Swift at Century Link Field on her 1989 World Tour on August 8--ON US!"

"PLEEEEEEEEASE CAN WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOMMY?!" Paige wailed plaintively from the backseat of our filthy Honda Pilot. Not unless we win the contest, I told her, as I decided then and there that I was not about to drop thousands of dollars on airfare, hotel, and concert tickets just to stand in the middle of 50,000 screaming tweens while a teeny-bopper pop sensation pranced around a stage in go-go boots, a glittery halter top, and a head-mic with carefully-timed pyrotechnics blasting off all around her.

But wait a minute! This was EXACTLY what I wanted to do, and HAD to do.

Knowing we would never win the radio contest, I did some quick math in my head and began mentally moving cash around from bank account to bank account. I had myself going on stubhub.com, kayak.com, hotwire.com, my online bank accounts, and all the other dot coms, a thorough vetting of which would take me and Paige straight to Seattle to see Taylor Swift at Century Link Field on August 8!

The second I got to a computer, I set about this task with diligence. It's all for Paige. We are making memories. It's mother-daughter bonding. She will remember this forever! 

Get real. 

My attempts at mother-daughter bonding inevitably turn to fighting, and I am inept at making memories, as I have also previously admitted right here on this blog. I am also a complete and total narcissist and Paige's enjoyment of this concert would be a collateral benefit. The main purpose, as usual, was me. And fuck me running if I wasn't going to put a T. Swizzle concert on my bucket list and cross it off all in the same day!

Upon looking at my calendar in Outlook, though, I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved to find that our family would be out of town on August 8 (not in Seattle), and therefore physically (if not financially) unable to see Taylor Swift live at Century Link Field.

Sadly, making this memory for Paige would have to await T. Swizz's next world tour and, quite possibly, a substantial raise.

Swipe/Delete

Memory is a curious thing; specifically what we remember, what we forget, and what we simply mange to repress deep in our subconscious. It makes it difficult to suss out fact from fiction, truth from imagination, and to know what did or didn't happen in the past.

That's why I didn't quite know what to make of the following reminiscence, related to me by a childhood friend with whom I'd worked as a summer camp counselor at a sleep-away camp in New Hampshire. Here's what happened, in her words:

"It was my camper who was blossoming early and cried every night and peed her bed. She had diarrea'd (sic.) in her pants and your face was right up in it as we crawled thru 1/2 mile of underground rock somewhere."

She was telling me (via text) about a trip we'd taken with our campers through a cave system in the late 1990's. Apparently, one of the campers had shat her pants, and since we were all in a single-file line in a cave system, my face was in her ass for half a mile in the bowels of the earth with no way out.

I vaguely recalled the caves, and taking campers there. I also recalled crawling through the caves in a line. But the rest was a blank. How could I possibly have forgotten having my face in a "blossoming" girl's diarrhea pants for half a mile of underground spelunking? Especially since I have so many (SO many) memories related to shit, both mine and other people's? How is it that my mind repressed this particular graphic memory? Maybe it was my friend who was mis-remembering, but the sheer specificity made me doubt it.

It must be some neurological version of swipe/delete. You only have so many gigabytes of storage in your brain. As the years go by, your mind must have a process by which it decides what to remember and what to forget by swiping and deleting old memories and making room for new ones. 

In this case, my face buried in a pre-pubescent, crying girl's diarrhea pants didn't make the cut. But why did some of the other things from that summer make the cut, then? Like eating two plastic bowls full of soggy, gross Life cereal every morning and seething for seven weeks as the guy I loved decided to shack up with my co-counselor? I can remember vividly the sheepish look on both their faces as I stormed past, glaring at them on the porch of our bunkhouse, but I can't remember having my head halfway up an ass full of diarrhea? None of it matters anymore, so why don't I just forget it all? God knows I could use the bandwidth.

I kind of feel like Hollywood should make another version of Total Recall about this phenomenon, called Swipe/Delete. Somewhat ironically, the only thing I remember about Total Recall is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it and there's a little alien named Kuato who was stuck to his stomach and looked EXACTLY like Paige as a baby.

Now. Why won't my brain swipe and delete that?

I'm Sorry, But The Ivy League Secretly Deserves the Major Side-Eye, and Here's Why

Regular readers of O.H.M. know that I like to tell it like it is. They also know that my favorite target of mockery and truth-telling is myself.

Occasionally, however, certain things (e.g. bad movies and wine tasting) deserve some shade, too. In other words, there are a few other things that secretly deserve to be told like they are. One of those things, in my opinion, is The Ivy League.

In my last post, I threw a bit of shade in the general direction of my alma mater, Brown University, which prompted some thinking and self-reflection. I recently attended my 15th year college reunion and was happy to see many old friends. But mostly, being in Providence brought back depressing memories of what were certainly not the “best years of my life,” as I’d been promised by every single adult I met. Every time I heard that, I’d think to myself, “Wow. Really? If these are the best years of my life, I need to grab a friend, jump in a convertible, and drive off the nearest cliff like Susan Sarandon and Gena Davis in Thelma and Louise.”

Don't misunderstand: I’m grateful for the opportunity to attend a school like Brown and I'm definitely grateful for the friends I made there, without whom my life wouldn't be the same. But I think it's possible to be grateful for one's education and the opportunities it has afforded while simultaneously recognizing and acknowledging that there is a huge element of complete and total elitist bullshit to that whole tray of enchiladas. In other words, you can acknowledge that you were lucky to have access to something special while also pointing out all the things that are extremely fucked up about that thing and the system it reflects and perpetuates.

Every other article in The New York Times is about how competitive these schools are and how you need to put your child in Mandarin immersion preschool by 18 months if you have any hope of their success in life. Well, I'd rather risk my kids being rejected from Yale if it means they get to play outside and draw pictures of fairies and dragons a little bit longer, instead of being prepped for conscription into academic and corporate warfare like some sort of upper-class, robot child-soldier.

Worse than anything that happens at the schools themselves, however, are these alumni “clubs” like The Harvard Club or The Princeton Club of New York, where my husband worked in his first job out of college, and where his boss made him an unwitting drug mule by asking him to deliver and retrieve sealed packages to some bar in Hell’s Kitchen called “Wanda’s Full Moon Saloon.” She (his boss, not Wanda) was ultimately arrested in a drug bust at The Princeton Club. Stay classy, Princeton!

It’s obvious that the main purpose of these “clubs” is to assemble in the same mahogany-paneled room a critical mass of rich people who are supposed to help you move up in the world by getting you the right jobs and making you the right connections and generally positioning your lips to kiss the right asses at the right time.

But like anything that's over-hyped, all of these schools and their networks trade on their reputation and labels more than anyone wants to admit. The unpleasant reality is that these are some of the country's oldest institutions, born in the cradle of America's ignominious history of racism, antisemitism, and other hallmarks of bigotry and elitism (real elitism, not Sarah Palin's definition of "elitism"). 

Every admissions office and board of trustees would like to make believe none of it ever happened, but all the old dynamics are secretly very much alive and well, if only implicitly now, as opposed to explicitly and officially sanctioned, as they once were.

I still remember the day I got into Brown, early decision. Oh boy. I was really proud of myself, let me tell you! I was walking around on Cloud Nine all day long. I called my boyfriend and my grandfather and everyone I could think of. My family was proud of me, too. I felt smart and cool because this vaunted institution had validated my entire existence.

Of course I want my kids to feel those same feelings of validation in their lives someday, but not for the same reasons. I want them to feel validated because they are self-motivated and internally driven. My wish for them is that they never allow any outside force--including a college admissions letter--to get the last word on their self-worth.

Because that, my friends, deserves the O.H.M. side-eye more than just about anything I can think of.