Someday Syndrome

Expanding Tastes

As a child, I hated seafood. Put anything fishy in front of me and I would gag, flail my arms about and fall out of my chair in my efforts to get away from the atrocity placed before me. To this day, the memory of my mother's salmon cakes with undiluted Campbell's Tomato Soup sauce fills me with dread. Frozen fishsticks were bearable, but they were always ruined by the accompanying frozen peas and plain rice.

In my teens, I discovered jumbo shrimp sautéed in butter and garlic and baby shrimp on a fresh French stick with bechamel sauce and swiss cheese under the broiler. At university I added tuna melts and the occasional white fish in cream sauce. Lobster also became tolerable but only in small doses.

I never gave up trying to like more, however. Periodically I'd sample something fishy (like calamari or caviar) and give it a thumbs up (calamari) or thumbs down (caviar). With any thumbs down, I'd wait a year or so and try it again.

In France, I found out that I like most fish and almost all seafood (it's still a no for the caviar). The one thing I just could not do, however, was salmon. The fish oils in salmon would coat the inside of my mouth and stay there influencing the taste of everything else for days, despite repeated tooth-brushings and mouthwash rinses.

Imagine my trepidation, therefore, when Raul bought salmon steaks this past weekend. "Muy rico a la plancha," he promised me and Saturday night we plugged in the indoor grill and threw the salmon steaks on the sizzling hot surface. Immediately our small kitchen/living room filled with the most intense fish smell.

"Oh god!" I thought. "How the hell am I going to be able to eat this? I can barely breathe!"

So, did I eat it? Or did I gag up several euros' worth of high quality salmon? Come back tomorrow to find out...

Someday Lessons:

• Just because you don't like something today, that doesn't mean you won't ever like it.
• Nothing is absolute – stay open to change.

Chaos and Drama-Alex

Yesterday Unclutterer talked about chaos and creativity, mentioning how chaos can block creativity but at the same time creativity creates more chaos. I'm definitely one of those who enjoy chaos, especially in the creative environment, but I enjoy it because I create order and find patterns in the chaos.

In fact, I will often let my life go chaotic simply so that I can create order again. Living in order on a day to day basis bores me. I need excitement and a bit of drama in my life. Dishes and clothes strewn all over the house, followed by a frenzied organizing session is a much healthier way, I think, of creating that drama than say picking a fight with Raul (I'm sure he thinks so as well!). Conquering the chaos again and again also gives me boosts of confidence and satisfaction that a constant state of order does not.

Yesterday I indulged in another form of chaos-to-order excitement; I helped a friend reclaim a portion of his garden that had been neglected for 30 years. This type of excitement is based on the makeover madness of lifestyle television. Before and after! Big reveal! Pain and suffering during the process! (And in this case pain and suffering after due to gardening muscles I haven't used in a year.)

Someday Lessons:

• Not all chaos is bad – as long as you know how to harness it.
• If (like me) you enjoy extremes in life, find healthy (and productive) ways to express yourself.

Before (that's a mock-orange filled with ivy, bramble, jasmine and grass):


After (who knew there was a shed and a fence hiding under all that?):

Achieving an Abandoned Goal

In 2003 when I started my business, I also decided to change my body. I made it my goal to reach 17% body fat, the North American healthy percentage for adult males (in Europe it's lower). Using the US Government's waist-neck ratio charts, I sat at 24%. During my anti-yeast diet year, I lost 30 pounds but only 2% body fat. A year later, when my ex-boyfriend started doing WeightWatchers, I did it with him, only managing to lose 5 pounds and nothing off my waist or neck. Plus I was hungry all the time, so I abandoned the goal.

When I moved to France in 2006, I walked lots and lost more weight, but again not off my waist or neck. Then last spring I spent three months working outdoors and toned my body. I lost weight again, but who knows from where because I put it back on (and more!) during my two month stay in Canada last fall.

In February of this year I went back on the anti-yeast diet and then in April went on an anti-reflux diet (which I've bitched to you about many times). With this latest cleanse, I've slimmed out completely, finally reaching my 17% goal (as well as rediscovering my jawline).

My change in eating patterns had nothing to do with weight and I'd almost forgotten about this goal, but then I was cleaning up my computer and came across the body fat chart I'd saved as reference. Curiosity got the better of me so I took my measurements and discovered that I'd finally completed my goal.

Someday Lessons:

• Dreams may come true even after you've given up actively pursuing them.
• Although you may decide to put aside a goal, keep it in mind as the opportunity to achieve it might come up later.

Shoes in Drawers

Yesterday I finished organizing my wardrobe. I had more luck getting rid of t-shirts and jeans than dress shirts, but then again I've always had a thing for fancy shirts.

The drawers in the wardrobe are shallow – a good thing because I can't stack clothes too deeply – a bad thing because jeans and sweaters don't fit well and my shorts not at all. As well, I had extra shoes, and some papers at the bottom of the main part of the wardrobe that kept disorganizing themselves no matter what I did. I had planned on organizing the clothes on Tuesday but I had no idea what to do with the two spaces.

Then the next day on the bus to work, I changed my thinking and switched the two groups of things. My shoes, shorts and papers fit perfectly in the drawer while the pants and sweaters stack beautifully in the bottom part of the wardrobe.

If I hadn't been stuck in the mindset that shoes don't belong in drawers, then I'm sure the solution would have presented itself my sooner.

Someday Lessons:

• When you remove assumptions, many new possibilities will appear.
• What assumptions block you from making life easier?

A Visitor! (I think)

No update today because I found out my friend and traveling companion Cate is probably coming to visit the end of July - and will be here for my birthday!

Instead of writing a decent blog post, I spent the evening surfing the web wondering what we'll do when she's here.

See you all tomorrow!

Silliness for Its Own Sake

This morning I watched the season finale of Ugly Betty. I enjoyed it very much and wanted to share the experience but I was alone, so I went to read the forums on TelevisionWithoutPity where I found nothing but snarks!

The forum participants had judged the show on its literary and storytelling merits, mainly complaining about the show's use of TV cliché and one-dimensional characters. Some people even complained that the show had ventured too close to its telenovela roots.

Hello! The show is a comedic soap-opera! That's what I love about it – the complete implausibility of almost everything that happens!

This past winter I read Hemingway's Fiesta – actually I forced my way through it – because it's set in this area of Spain. Once I started examining the novel in detail, I understood why it's considered a piece of literary genius. I wouldn't however examine in any depth another recent read: Dragonskin Slippers by Jessica Day George which, thoroughly delightful from beginning to end, wouldn't stand up to the same scrutiny Hemingway requires.

Ugly Betty isn't Hemingway – it's a nice light summer on-the-beach read. And I prefer it that way.

Someday Lessons:

• Some things just need to be enjoyed, not analyzed.
• It's important to know when to turn the brain on or off.

The Power of Listening

Yesterday I had my appointment with the homeopath. On the surface, he did nothing different from the doctors I've seen here. I arrived, we talked, he gave me a prescription and told me to come back a month after I've finished the pills.

However, he listened to me. We spoke for almost an hour, quite leisurely and thoroughly about all aspects of my life, not just about the specific symptoms in my stomach. He asked questions and paid attention to the answers. He also appreciated it when I offered information that came into my head at a tangent. There was no line waiting, there was no pile of prescription forms waiting to be printed off. In fact there were no forms at all!

I don't blame the doctors I've seen. The fault lies in a system that has too many users and not enough funding. When I visit my doctor, I have a five or ten minute appointment and my doctor's primary objective always appears to stay as close to being on schedule as possible. This type of environment only encourages a lack of listening because everything needs to be solved in a matter of moments, invariably with some sort of drug.

When I start to take my homeopathic pills, I don't know if they will make me feel better or not, but in a way that doesn't really matter. I already feel better just knowing that someone really paid attention to what's going on in my body instead of throwing medication at symptoms and rushing me out the door.

Someday Lessons:

• Deep focused listening is a skill not many people practice.
• A really good listener has the power to heal.

Twenty Years of Alex

Yesterday I felt cranky and crampy, so the arrival in the mail of a disk containing a whole lot of photos from my dramatic youth perked me right up.

My oldest (she's only 40!) longest (she's kinda short actually) – the friend that I've had the longest (since I was six) scanned in all her photos from our wild rebellious youth and sent them to me. Since I'm still not totally up to snuff yet (but feeling much better thanks), I'll entertain you with a collage of photos from 15-20 and 24, 32 and 35.

Enjoy – feel free to point fingers and laugh!

Someday Lessons:

• Never take yourself too seriously.
• Don't look back at your past and say "I'm so embarrassed!" Instead say "What an experience!"

Click on the image to view it in a larger size.

Someone Else's Writing

Those of you who were here last summer will remember that my sister took over for me while I was on holiday. Now she has her own blog (sometimes shared with her boyfriend, man, spouse, significant other?).

Today she posted a great topic about marriage and about using life as a learning experience.

It's much better than anything I could come up with today, so go read it.

http://urbanpanther.blogspot.com/2008/04/mawage.html

Someday Lessons:

• Celebrate the successes of others as well as your own.
• When someone else says something really well, quote them - there's no need to come up with your own version.

A Cat in the Sun

I know I'm supposed to only use the bed for sleeping (and of course... no I won't say more - this is a family-friendly blog). Unfortunately, with my weird heartburn symptoms, I've pretty much lived in the bed for the past two weeks, which has played total havoc with my sleeping patterns.

I go to sleep not tired. I wake up in the middle of the night. I sometimes go sleep on our tiny sofa just for a change of scenery. And I always wake up stiff and exhausted.

Normally I refuse to nap during the day (to try to be more tired when I go to bed) but today I couldn't resist. The sun was shining for the first time in a while and there was some real heat in the air, so I took a towel and my MP3 player out to the terrace and napped in the sun for an hour.

I then went into work feeling rested plus I got a great start on my summer tan.

Someday Lessons:

• No cure is ever without its side effects.
• Sunshine makes me happy.