Legally Happy

Get it while you can. Tylenol not only dulls physical pain, but takes the stings out of social rejection, too. Study results indicate acetaminophen goes straight to the neural center controlling physical pain and emotional distress. If you find yourself feeling those existential blues, take two Tylenol.

Drinking and acetaminophen don't mix. Too much even without alcohol can lead to an overdose.  Hundreds die each year from too much acetaminophen. If two tablets don't  perk you up and the existential downer lingers, you may have to make a change in the people with whom you associate.

Depression can "rub off" on others. Recent studies show that cognitive vulnerability is contagious. If your friends respond with pessimism, angst, and a mood slump to less than perfect situations, you may find yourself needing to take two Tylenol to lift your spirits.

Life With a View

In the fictionalized account of JFK's assassination, one of Stephen King's characters says, "Life turns on a dime. Sometimes towards us, but more often it spins away, flirting and flashing as it goes: so long, honey, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?" Not many people embrace the kind of change described in that line. Some people avoid change at any cost. I live somewhere in between the two, ordinarily waiting for change to come to me, which happens more often than not. This time I chose change on my own. One week later, I have no regrets.

My reasons for leaving (what to some would appear) a good job made sense to me, though articulating the rationale for others has not been easy. Maybe the main motivation came from my gut--an intuitive knowing that life needed to turn. So I tossed the coin and let it turn.

Several articles written about knowing when to change jobs helped me discern whether my gut reaction had value. The best one lists six reasons to quit a job, all of which were a near perfect fit:

• You dread going to work in the morning.
• You truly dislike the type of work you're doing.
• You can't shake the feeling that you just don't fit in at the company.
• You are getting passed over for promotions.
• The work has become so routine you could do it in your sleep.
• You have serious concerns about the financial stability of your organization.

Two other articles had more than a few statements that rang true for my experience. Every friend I have knew I wanted to leave and probably wondered when I would stop complaining and jump. They all seemed to know better than I knew what a poor fit the job had become.

I have the dime in hand and have taken a good long look at the other side of change. Not bad. The journey of life often goes uphill, requiring more than a dime's worth of effort and risk. At the top of the hill I don't expect to see anything except a new view, another hill, maybe a ravine to cross or a steep cliff, and many more hills to climb. The last hill was good while it lasted. And the view from the top? It's worth a million!

[Photos: Vancouver] 




 

If It Feels Good, Must Be Dopamine

Did they spend a lot of money on this study to find this out?
And who gets to participate in these studies?

"If you take just a sip of beer, and moments later—before you’ve had close to enough alcohol to get intoxicated, perhaps even before the beer has hit your stomach—feel a distinctly pleasurable sensation, it might not be strictly due to subtle aromas that result from the beverage’s blend of malt, hops and yeast. The cause of your pleasure might be due to tangible changes in your brain chemistry—specifically, a surge in levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine."

Do they know about other things leading to surges in dopamine? Will there be more studies? They could just pay me to tell them how to increase the dopamine and pleasure in life.

Or they could just guess, like this: "The researchers believe this could be a clue as to why some people are predisposed towards alcoholism—and why it’s more difficult for them stay on the wagon if they’re trying to quit." Yes, a clue!

FEELING GOOD

the journey has begun
it's the first weekend
of the rest of my life
and all the people who want to tell me
who i'm supposed to be
have been left behind

a new dawn
a new day

and i'm feelin' good

do you know how i feel?
 sing along

http://www.storypeople.com/storypeople/WebStory.do?action=product&storyID=1476&productCategoryID=1000

On the First Day

on the first day
of the rest of my life
i did not take out the trash

instead
i had a second latte





the first day 12 April 13

Do you have a doppleganger? I met mine when we lived in Indiana. People stopped me in stores to talk about upcoming dinners, meetings, our children. Except.... I had no idea who they were. Soon I learned that they had  mistaken me for Gayle, a woman who looked enough like me to confuse just about everyone. Since I was new in town, I suppose it is more correct to say that I looked like her. We moved from Indiana in 1996 and I have not seen Gayle since then. I wonder if, as we've aged, we still look alike.

Mirror Art

Self-portrait on bathroom mirror

Self-portrait on mirror

Watercolor markers make great art on bathroom mirrors. And as long as the art holds up (steamy showers don't help) the mirror doesn't have to be cleaned.

Photo is care of urbanfig.com --where you can find out more than enough about organic food

I first heard about Bento lunches on NPR. That's where I hear about everything because I'm a faithful (addicted) listener. Japanese children enjoy lunch at school because their mothers make itzy-cute lunches with creativity only surpassed by the nutritional value. When my children were little--and the Rolling Stones were young--we made banana faces on pancakes with strawberry red hair and raisin noses. We decorated bologna with shredded cheese for hair and olives for a nose. We had books on "Feed Your Kids Right" that told us kids will eat things that are cute. In my house, that worked for awhile. Eventually, cute wore off and the oldest daughter regressed into a picky eater snubbing her 8-yr-old nose at vegetables, which lasted until she was in high school and became a dedicated vegetarian, dedicated to saving cows, pigs, and chickens. Urbanfig's photo of uber-cute food design tells me that I didn't try hard enough. Now that I have grandsons, I have another chance. I'm going for the pirate ship!

Lessons from the Lounge Lizard

Drama in nature can be shocking. Life moves from one day to the next, daring us to rest in complacency. We presume to plan our hours, manage and control our time, weighing our options. Even when we swim upstream overcoming obstacles at every turn, we rarely notice the signs that could tell us of a far greater power at work in the world. In one split second, life changes. 

Nature teaches us about natural consequences. I shot this accidental video in Sanur, Bali (Indonesia). The sound track came later, back home. This hungry  poolside lounge "lizard" has an attitude about life. Some days I'm the fish, some days I'm the lizard. It's all about attitude. In this case, BALI-tude!

Jobs on jobs...

 I think Steve Jobs was onto something here:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” 


Not easy advise to follow.

Sarah's Steps to Running Away With Your Dream

While there isn't much I could find about Sarah Alderson on the web, like a Wikipedia page (but I bet there will be one soon), she does write quite a bit about herself. She's a writer, so she's allowed to do that one supposes. Now that Sarah has chucked the non-profit job and traveled the globe, written a few novels, sold the screen rights, and settled in Bali, she believes I can do the same. Sarah believes you can do the same, too.

On her blog, she tells us how. If anyone else gave me these suggestions for following my dream (which doesn't have to include Bali), I'd be tempted to say something cheeky, like "Riiiiiiight, and you would know!" But she actually did it so I think she just might know.

If you don't like four letter words that start with the letter which makes the same sound  "ph" makes, as in philosophy, you might not like Sarah's advise. Joseph Campbell gives similar advise using a word that starts with the same letter,  "Follow your bliss." That's his philosophy. If Sarah's (FIP) Philosophy rubs against your grain, substitute Campbell's and continue reading what she has to say.

I don't think I'm ready to pack, yet. But my non-profit job may be up for grabs soon.

Half Way Around the World And Back

I spent two days half way around the world all by myself. Okay, I was at the Bali Hyatt Resort, but it's a foreign country and no one knew where I was. Even if I'd gotten a text asking me, as I'm not great at directions or geography, they wouldn't have found me had I tried to tell them. The other 8 days, I spent with my husband on a wonderful adventure in Bali.

That's me, roasting the coffee beans for Luwak coffee. I later drank the coffee. Not very exciting, except that this coffee comes from cat poo. Read about it here. The taste is good, but we didn't bring any home.

I'm busily working on making YouTube videos of the trip. And more will be posted on our Where In The World blog, when all the photos have been downloaded and my journal entries are typed up. In addition to Civet poo poo, we'll have stories about the volcano, the elephants, the monkeys, the taxi drivers, and walking on the bottom of the sea.

Always good to come home. Sleep in a bed without mosquito netting or mosquito coils burning in the room. And make coffee from Trader Joe's just the way I like it.

Who DOES This?

Just when I've stepped one toe, okay maybe my whole foot, into the pool of "Wallowing in Self-Pity" holding onto my Pity Pony so it doesn't get too wet to be of much value when I need it to show off at my Pity Party, I read about this woman, of whom I can find only this one blurb about her on the World-Wide-Web where nothing is hidden, and JUST as I'm poised to lift my other foot off of the shaking ground that threatens to swallow me whole unless I find some purpose to life...Yes, JUST then I read about a woman not too old, but not too young, who lives this life:
"Having spent most of her life in London, our guest blogger Sarah Alderson quit her job in the non-profit sector in 2009 and took off on a round-the-world trip with her husband and princess-obsessed daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home. After several months in India, Singapore, Australia, and the US, they settled in Bali where Sarah now spends her days writing by the pool and drinking lots of coconuts. She finished her first novel Hunting Lila (now in the early stages of film development) just before they left the UK, wrote the sequel on the beach in India, and had signed a two book deal with Simon & Schuster by the time they reached Bali. A third book, Fated, about a teenage demon slayer, which was written during their stay in California, was published in January 2012 by Simon Pulse (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). Sarah is currently working on several screenplays as well as two further young adult novels - both thrillers - which are scheduled for release by Simon & Schuster in 2013.'

 I just dove right into the pool of walling in self-pity head first. She's like a real-life fictional character. Who gets to have a life like this? Go ahead depress yourself, read all about her and look upon her smiling face here. I mean Bali!! Seriously? And to think she left the not-for-profit world just to live in Bali and write books.

In case you want to visit her in Bali, check out the travel tips.

Peek a View

I don't live in Manhattan, NY. Not moving there probably ever in my lifetime. Dream of living a life that includes a posh condo in Manhattan. No reality. Won't even live in a posh condo in St. Louis.

Imagine.

Play the game. Pick a posh condo in any New York, NY, neighborhood.

Grandma's Playlist

New studies on the relation of memory and music show critical reasons to let your children know what music lives in your soul.

“A new documentary, Alive Inside, follows the ‘awakening’ that occurs when people suffering from memory loss and Alzheimer’s are given music they have a strong emotional connection to — often, music they grew up with.” Another fascinating movie on how music restores memory is The Music Never Stopped.

Silence, confusion, and the non-responsive behavior of elderly patients in nursing homes changes to positive and engaged when the music that lives in their soul is played for them. “The music worked like a jolt of electricity for patients, transporting them back in time and even allowing them to speak animatedly after the music was turned off.”

So, I thought I better check to see if my children, and my husband, could identify the music that rocks my soul and ignites my spirit. They were a bit shy of the mark, truth be told. The oldest one came through best, naming my first album as an important selection. 

When I was 8, my dad brought home a free album he picked up at a store opening. It was Dylan’s Greatest Hits album, the one with the Milton Glaser poster inside. I barely knew what an album was much less what a Bob Dylan  song was at the time. But I played that album over and over and over until I could sing every song. I liked Dylan instantly.When I was considerably older, I learned to play the songs on the guitar and understood more the significance of the lyrics.

I still have the album cover. The poster and album disappeared when a kleptomaniac in my college sorority house decided she needed it more than I did. 

My oldest daughter also scored points by naming Eric Clapton as one of my favorite artists, if not THE favorite. I missed his early career, including Cream, and only paid attention near the end of The Dominoes and after he'd kicked his heroine addiction in 1973.

The youngest daughter took a shot with the Beatles—assuming, I suppose, that everyone of  a certain age likes the Beatles. And then she suggested Beach Boys. I had no older siblings and was just a few years too young to have really grown up with either of these bands rooted in my soul. Music that engages from the deep memory level is more than just period music.

I told them not to worry, I’m putting a playlist together called, “When I have Alzheimer’s.” If you think you might grow old, say past 75, you better start working on your playlist. Who's on your playlist?

On Writing

An author from Kentucky, Mr. James Still, once told me if I wanted to be a writer I would be better off spending time writing than going to writers' groups and classes. Still was about 83 at the time. Maybe he thought time was too precious to waste. A feeling I have stronger now, more and more as I grow older.

A contemporary writer I have been interested in lately, one I'll probably never meet, is Paulo Cuelho, a Brazilian. His stories fascinate me and his writing inspires me. Cuelho has begun a VLOG (video blogg) on writing--or at least his writing process. In addition to being a great writer, Cuelho is great communicator. He's interested in using all forms of technology to provide people the opportunity to read his books and to share his ideas.

I have not followed Mr. Still's advise very well in my life. Sometimes I write. Most of the time I think about writing, letting work and other responsibilities get in the way. The same with drawing and painting. Someone asked me yesterday if I had a passion for the work that I do. Sadly, I had to say no. I have a competency for the work I do, and most of the time I like what I do. Maybe I even have a gift for it, but no passion. If I quit tomorrow, the work would be done by another who may even be more competent than I am at getting the work done. Maybe someone who is passionate about the work. The pay will be the same for both of us.

Cuelho's vlog reminds me of what my passion means. Mr. Still probably would say I 'd be better of writing instead of viewing a vlog on writing. I'm watching them anyway.

Becoming Bohemian

From an article in Art in America on Joan Mitchell:
"...and Mitchell grew up rich. Yet as a young woman in New York, she donned worn-out clothes. . . and tried with limited success to keep her wealth a secret from her Abstract Expressionist peers. In spirit at least, she held fast to the romantic ideal of the penniless bohemian."

Faux Bohemian. Complexity in the costuming of the authentic self.
Image and book info.

Doodle Me Smarter

Meetings can make us feel trapped. Especially meetings that last longer than one hour. One way I've found to make meetings, any meeting, more interesting is to look at the various individuals in the room and place the top rim of my glasses (presuming, of course, that you wear glasses--of any kind*) in the middle of the face. The dimensions of the face become distorted. I've lengthened and shortened the faces of the most powerful person in the room in one glance. I've erased his nose, shrunken his ears, and basically made the very best caricatures without using a pencil. Sometimes the effect makes me giggle which can be embarrassing.

Another time-passing tool I like to use in meetings actually involves the pencil or pen, glasses are optional. I like the pencil because it allows more freedom of form in drawing actual caricatures of the people speaking. After the first 15 minutes, I start with the person who has had the most to say. As long as his mouth or hers is moving, I'm looking at them anyway, and my pencil sketches the main features.

Not that the finished product is in any way a keenly drawn portrait. It's not. But I'm usually able to capture the significant features. Nearly anyone looking on to my notebook can discern the figure in the margin to be the person in the room talking, and talking, and talking. Later, when I review my notes, I have found my drawings to be reminders of who said what, and the details they've shared come pouring back in my memory.

I use the same two tools during lectures. Some of the best lectures are made even more interesting, from a personal level, and the really worst of all lectures are definitely made more tolerable. Unfortunately, it also makes them memorable.

Doodling is one of the best ways to help the brain retain incoming information. it's true--as in proven. If you like to doodle, but you don't like the sneers from those who think you are not paying attention, check out Sunni Brown's TED lecture.

And if you find yourself on the TED webpages unable to stop watching and listening to the "ideas worth sharing" pick up a pencil and doodle away.

*Note: if you don't wear glass, by some weak reading glasses and bring them along to your next meeting. You've got some serious head shrinking to do.

Can't Ask Alice

Alice sits with my mother at every meal. They live in a nursing home and only see one another at meal times in the dining room. My mother is non-ambulatory, using a wheelchair all day every day. Alice can still walk on her own and lives in a "secured" wing for people who have Alzheimer's and tend to wander if not kept under close guard. Each day Alice's daughter, Dorothy (names changed for confidentiality), visits for lunch and sits with the two elderly women, helping them order their meals, use utensils, and keep up a conversation.

My mother's been in the hospital for a week. The change in environment has caused her to be confused, even more so than the rampant infection that sent her to the hospital. Confusion, anger, and depression occur regularly with dementia. Nurses and family members learn to repeat directions and stories over and over and over before the point finally hits the mark. In my mother's case, her difficulties in hearing increase the number of times and volume one has to tell her even the simplest of things.

"I wonder where Alice and Doris are today," she asked me when I visited at lunchtime on her first day back from the hospital.

My first thought was to fudge the truth a little, tell her Alice had the flu or a cold. Like the old joke about telling the family their cat died, I'd start with "Alice is on the roof."

Knowing I'd have to tell her eventually, I said plainly, "Alice died last night."

Now, my mother, whose memory is not very keen on the best of days, hadn't seen Alice or Doris in a week. During that week, she's been in every state of mind except lucid. I wasn't even sure she really remembered Alice.

"She's where?" My mother asked.

"She died," pause, "last night," I said right up next to her ear, so the other residents dining at the table might not overhear. I wasn't sure the staff told residents when another resident passed away. Seems reasonable that they would tell them, but with HIPPA who knows what's private and what's not.

"He died?" was her response.

Momentarily confused myself, I changed the subject and asked her if she was going to drink her juice. Maybe she didn't remember Alice. Still I thought it was an odd response. The woman to her right was having difficulty with her wheelchair, and I offered to help her. Meanwhile, my mother was trying to fish out the details of the death from my husband who had to shout "Alice died. Not Dorothy's dad. It's Alice. She died." At which point my mother turned to me with a look of horror and said, "Alice died!!"

Now everyone knows, I thought. Like a punch line to the jokes we often tell her, I figured they would all forget within minutes and we'd play this scene over at every meal for weeks until their shorter than short term memory let go of Alice.

I suppose there's a certain grace in having dementia as we age. The people we've met along the pathways of our life's journey step off the path when their time comes, and all we see is the vista before our eyes at that moment. We can't mourn or even miss someone we don't remember. At the same time, dementia brings with it delusions and visions of people who passed away long ago making them ever present before us. Conjured up at will to keep us company.

Alice left her friends on the path and began another journey. She stepped off the path the way we would all likely prefer it--fall asleep, "To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life." Alice slipped off without pain, without an ambulance ride, without hospice help for family, without a chance to say goodbye.

My mother will continue to ask about her, probably remembering the answer as soon the question leaves her lips. I'd always thought of Alice as an angel. A gift of a friend to eat meals with, so that my mother always saw a familiar friendly face at the table. And I think it was the same for Alice. I won't see Alice anymore. But in my mother's dementia, I wonder if Alice will visit from time to time. I hope so.

***Photo taken today by an angel that visits my mother! (Matt 25:35-40)

"Let my doin' catch up to my knowin'"

Streetbooks provides people who "live outside" have a chance to read books. Without an address it is difficult to get a library card.

Watch a short film on Streetbooks here.