The real status: the one I don't put on FB

I don't think I've ever been so tired in all my life. I wake up every morning, marveling at how tired I am, and just dragging my ass to the coffee pot for sustenance. And this coming from a Morning Person. What up? Part of me worries that I am depressed or that I'm feeling my age or something. Another part of me resists the temptation to pop a pill to just get through the day and the frustrations of a job that has passed its shelf-life for me. Then there's the stress of Joe's business in this economy and keeping everything afloat and covering the tuition and never feeling like I have a moment to do nothing. Except when I'm at yoga. That's when I feel some space and the support of my friends. I can ride on that high for a few days, then invariably will crash out (generally in the morning, when the energy is low). The mania of swinging between these extremes is exhausting too, so I'm looking for a middle path. But the serious and true exhaustion and anxiety of this economic time is real and deep for us. I alternate between ignoring the anxiety or being possessed by the anxiety - I know there is a better way. And if I weren't so dang tired, I could probably access that better way!

And shit, I forgot to mention the whole issue of my sister's possible cancer diagnosis and shortened life expectancy. Right, there's also that.

So for me, this Christmas feels like the hardest one I've ever had. I am so looking forward to some total, 100% down-time this weekend to think and feel without running around and doing and fixing and leading... I truly want some Xmas spirit. Santa, help me out here!

The Great Big Glittering Party

My sister Carla is in the intensive care unit, has been since last Wednesday night when she blacked out after getting out of her car. She'd been having, apparently, severe headaches for about 7-8 weeks. These were not ordinary headaches by any stretch of the imagination, though I suppose if you'd never had a migraine, you might think that's what they were about. But no, these would come out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, and come on blindingly strong. To the point where she'd be awakened from her sleep by the pain, then have to feel her way along the hallway walls to the bathroom, too dizzy to stand on her own, fumbling for ineffectual tylenol. They were working with her doctors to figure out what it was. Then the black-out came and she wound up in the emergency room.

Where they did a battery of neurological tests and discovered the headaches were caused by a back-up of cerebrospinal fluid in her skull caused in turn by an obstruction at her brain stem, a mass of something. Two days ago they installed a drain on the right side of her skull to relieve the pressure of the backed-up fluid. They're testing the fluid to see what it might contain that could indicate what is happening in there.

All of the possibilities are bad. They've mentioned multiple sclerosis, lymphoma, glioma. The glioma is what they keep coming back to. Of course, I've googled and read everything I could find about glioma - none of it is good. All of it is bleak.

After a few hours at the hospital Friday afternoon with my dad, keeping Carla company, doing what we could to keep her spirits up, I found myself out with friends at a club, listening to music and dazzled by the sparkle of the holiday decor and the conviviality of everyone in attendance. And it struck me, as the music washed over me, as I leaned into the sound of everyone singing lyrics they knew by heart, their voices louder than the singer's on stage, that life is a glittering amazing party that we are so privileged to attend. It's so easy to forget how remarkable is the body we walk around in, how sweet the friendships and food and colors and everything else. And it breaks my heart, absolutely and utterly, that my baby sister might have to leave this party early.

Carlita's prognosis, at least right now, is bad. Because it's the weekend, we are in a holding pattern. And in the absence of information, she is terrified, and we all breathe, trying to go moment to moment until we know something for sure. And when we know something for sure, we will keep breathing, moment to moment, figuring out this new situation as we go.

Meanwhile, the party is still going on and we are all of us, even Carla, still there. Every breath, be grateful.

Talking 'bout my generation: OBAMA!

As my old friend Scott wrote on my Facebook, "we were born for this" -- the "this" being this historic moment of electing Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States of America.

And how true it is! He is our age after all, those of us turning 46 and 47 this year and next, product of the same time, the same late 60s/early 70s melting pot of music and neighborhoods, the same post-Civil Rights era feeling of one-ness. How well I remember walking with my parents for civil rights, protesting in the streets as a child, holding up handmade signs for peace, for farmworker protection. What a triumphant moment it is now, to see the impact of the people on the office of the Presidency. A proud moment, too.

And I can't stop thinking, either, about television's contribution to this moment. From "The West Wing" to President Palmer on "24," we have been laying the groundwork for this new era in the public imagination for some time, building the hope for a government we can believe in, for leadership that truly inspires and connects.

President-elect Obama is so right: "This is our moment." Let's seize it, people, our time to re-make the country as we know it should be.

Happiness: the name of the game

After a really amazing weekend -- attended the OYou! event in San Francisco with my best friends, spent the night, hung out more on Sunday, I feel a little bit dizzy with all of the possibilities, with the feeling that something BIG is coming, a really big change that we all need and that we're all a part of creating. All of the old forms no longer serve, it's a new time calling for new ways. I've been feeling a little bit crazy from this feeling, honestly, but also overjoyed.

I started reading "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar yesterday. I can't remember exactly what drove me to Amazon to search for this title, but anyway, there it was in the mailbox yesterday, Used: Like New, with some yellow highlighting throughout.

I've long thought that happiness was the whole point of everything, that it's the state that we are all striving for all of the time. In my youth (!) I think that there was a romantic obsession with melancholy, with misery that demonstrated how smart you were. Only stupid people were happy. And who the hell wants to be stupid. I don't know exactly where I learned that, but I clearly am not the only one. I still know some people clinging to that old way.

Probably my weekend really helped prepare me to read this book "Happier." I felt like I was on vacation, even though I was in my hometown, 20 miles from my present home, in the same city where I spend 5 days a week. The difference was that I was completely engrossed in activities with people I love, for long stretches of time, with no obligations to be anywhere or please anyone but ourselves. No too-heavy thought of the future, just the sweet Indian Summer air and the company of friends. And a Sunday morning, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying my dreams and listening to my friends' breathing. Motionless, thought-full.

So I'm really working on it now, being happier. As Aristotle apparently said, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." It's now my whole aim, stay tuned for details.

The worst product ever...

Before our three-week vacation, as I ticked down my (obsessive) prep list, I picked up a new mascara at Long's. I wanted to replace the expensive Dr. Hauschka's mascara I had been using, which was not tested on animals and did not contain cancer-causing chemicals, but which had the unfortunate regular tendency of turning me into Alice Cooper. Figuring I'd just buy something, whatever, hoping it wasn't too poisonous, I managed to buy the worst product ever manufactured: Cover Girl Marathon Waterproof Mascara Hydrofuge.

OK, so the Cover Girl mascara didn't give me Alice Cooper stripes down my face (not a good look at my age) if I so much as teared up over something. But amazingly I managed to swing from one extreme - a gloppy mascara that wouldn't stay on - to the other - a mascara that wouldn't come off. The Cover Girl mascara stayed on my lashes, no kidding, for a week. No amount of make-up remover would get it off. In a panic , I asked my esthetician for help. She soaked my lashes with four different products, then painstakingly cleaned each individual eyelash (or so it felt) before the stuff was off me. I think it took her 40 minutes in total to get me free of the hydrofuge...

Of course, I had to look the mascara up. Cover Girl Marathon is not specifically listed in the Skindeep Safe Cosmetics Database, but every other Cover Girl mascara in the database ranks a 7 out of 10 for toxicity (the one exception is a 5, moderate hazard). I'm not even sure if it's right to put something this toxic in the trash - should I try taking it to the local household hazardous waste drop-off point?

I should really know better than to just grab something off the shelf, but it still pisses me off that I have to worry about cancer-causation when I'm just trying to doll up my eyes. And of course, I should be able to figure out - duh - that if something is waterproof and called "Marathon," it's gotta be chemicals, and probably nasty ones, that make it so.

And "hydrofuge"? A zoological term, mostly, referring to structures on animals that shed water. Whatever...

Now my eyes are au naturel for a few days, while I let my lashes recover from their recent armature. If anybody has a suggestion of a good product which won't kill me, I'd love to hear it!

Genius pastime for a 4-hour train ride...

While we were on vacation, Joe and I got to talking about geography, pretty natural given that on a single bike ride, he and his buddies went from Italy to Switzerland and back again. We wondered how many countries we could name, and how many there actually are in the world.

Given who and how we are, we turned this into a game and challenged our friends Alicia and Paul, as we were travelling by train from Milan to Rome (about 4 1/2 hours), to list as many countries as we could. And of course, since I never travel without a notebook and multiple writing implements, I was able to equip our little foursome with all requisite supplies. Pencils and pens in hand, we set to work, first individually, then by couple, compiling and de-duping our lists. This exercise was completely engrossing, probably much to the amusement of our fellow passengers, and genuinely kept us thinking, whispering, chattering and laughing for hours.

Finally we alternated reading a country from our lists, cancelled out the ones we had in common, and got points for countries that the other team neglected to list. Like so:



Completely low-tech, completely fun.

The final tally? Alicia and Paul came up with 19 that we didn't have on our list, and we had 36 they didn't have. We continued our fun by discussing our varying strategies for moving up, down, and across the globe. Alicia drew highly inaccurate maps, while I think I benefited from years of work in international development (former USSR and Southeast Asia), and from an obsession with diving (Caribbean, South Pacific).

But all 4 of us missed a lot and fell FAR short of the 193 or 245 countries/entities (depends) that Wiki lists. Our ignorance was generally pretty gaping when it came to Africa and the Middle East, but that's pretty easily remedied with an atlas and some time now that we know about it.

For a complete list of countries, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries. But if you want to take on the geeky challenge that we so enjoyed, you might want to wait to check it out. So much fun!

The Six Books I Read on Vacation

One of the great things about long plane rides and vacations is how many books I can go through. The only negative, really, is that I generally buy more while on the road, resulting in an even heavier suitcase. Flipside: I love searching for books while abroad. It's definitely one of the highlights for me to find something great to read in a special, Euro- or other edition. Yes, more literary gluttony.

So, the 6 titles I ate while on the road, all 6 of which are at right in my 2008 Books list:

- Namako by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Ok, I admit that I bought this book at snooty Book Passage because I liked the physical book itself. Nice heavy handcut pages and a lovely cover. I enjoyed the story, was thoroughly transported. Enjoyed the inclusion of a lot of Japanese words.

- You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem. Lethem is one of my favorites ever since Scott gave me Fortress of Solitude a few years ago. Adore him. This book was a quick read, engrossing, finished it on the train back from Venice. Light fare.

- Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. I've read this book multiple times since I first ate it as a teenager, poolside, during one of our weeks-long family sojourns at my beloved Grover Hot Springs. Since I've renewed my commitment to sci-fi/fantasy, I decided to re-read. The story holds up to time and age, and I particularly appreciate the element of balance and responsibility that binds the wizards in the story.

- The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson. Winterson is a gem. There were many passages that I starred and made notes about in the front and back of the book, just delighted with her language, driven to tears by some of her imagery. The end fell apart a little for me, but a highly recommended read. Extremely creative, multiple story lines looping through each other.

- The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. Also a quick read, I appreciated the form of the story, and loved the perspective.

- Run by Ann Patchett. Patchett has been a favorite ever since Bel Canto, which riveted me. I've also read Magician's Assistant, and think she's great. Run is a delightful book, made me cry literally buckets - such a moving creation!

Fabulous!