Remember, I Can See You

Gentle -- but important -- suggestions to men posting pictures in personal ads:

• Shave.  Make an effort to look decent.  Comb your hair.  If you look like a slob, then you're not going to get the responses you want.  Would you want to buy you if your photo is of you in craptacular jeans, an old t-shirt and a face that shows you haven't shaved in about five days?  Better yet -- would you hire yourself for a job?  No?  Well why would a put-together woman want to "hire" you?  The "looks don't matter" is partially true -- but when you look like you just rolled out of bed and  took the photo -- you're saying, "I'm not all that interested in this", and "I don't really give a crap."   There's not caring and not giving a shit.  Big difference, really.   
• Post a photo.  If you don't this leads us women to wonder -- what are you hiding?  What are you afraid we'll see?  I have a friend who always wonders, If he isn't posting a photo...what else is he hiding?  Marriage?  Every damn cellphone on the planet has a camera, and nearly all allow you to email a photo to yourself or someone you can then use.  And damn near everyone has an actual camera.  If you don't -- surely someone you know has one?  Yes?  And no, a damn Simpsonized or Family Guy-ized "photo" of yourself DOES NOT COUNT. 
  

• DON'T LIE.  Don't state in your profile that you're "athletic, fit, trim" when you're closer to the Michelin Man.
•  If I don't respond, don't keep emailing me.  It makes you sound desperate and like a complete jerk.
• Put some effort in your "personal essay" or whatever.  It's a given you like long walks on the beach, movies, dining, etc.  Tell me something that isn't standard personal ad schlock.  Throw in some personality.  Again -- you're selling yourself.  This is your resume.  Your cover letter.  Would you buy the bland, generically-advertised product, or would you lean towards the funny ad made with humor and creativity?
• Don't make a date with me and then tell me you've already chosen someone else.  
• Don't make a date with me, tell me you had an awesome time and the slink away.  Be a man.  Use those balls you're so proud of and just tell me, "Thanks, but no thanks."  Lying just makes you look like a douche bag.
• Don't take it personally if I'm not interested in you.  There's plenty of men out there who aren't interested in me, either.  
• DON'T LIE.  About anything.  Like -- you know.  Saying you're a certain age then meeting with me and it's obvious you're about 10 years beyond the photo you published.  
• DON'T LIE.  (I can't stress this enough).

Granted, I get it takes a big load of self-esteem to throw yourself out in the dating world, especially in the realm of serial blind dating through any one of the personal dating sites.  But it's extremely frustrating when the men on the sites come across as bland, bored / boring, slobs.  Women are visual creatures, men.  Weekend scruff and holey socks are okay -- but this is true window shopping.  Any window decorator will tell you it's how the merchandise is displayed that's going to pull the people into the store.  You are your own window-dresser.  Showcase yourself.

Showing that you care about how you look and make the effort to be at least a little creative in your ad shows that  you're actually interested.  It also doesn't mean you're being -- or I'm being -- shallow.  The book does get judged by the cover, I'm sorry.  Because it's what catches the reader's eye to actually pick it up and make them want to read further.   Yes, beauty is only skin deep...but actually shaving and wearing some nice clothes for your picture is worth the effort.

If you don't care -- fine.  But these complaints I'm listing here are what I hear nearly all of my single women friends state.  And I have a lot of single women friends.  So it's not just me.  If you want us to look a little further -- buy some new razors and some shaving cream and at least get rid of the scraggly scruff. There's an art to having it -- pick up a copy of GQ or Details.  You'll see that the men in there with scruff have done it in a very specific way...and they're also in nicer clothes.

Any marketing executive will tell you it's about the packaging.  You don't need to look like a metrosexual.  Just...clean yourself up a little.  Be creative.  Show me that you're actually interested in catching my eye.  Show me that you actually care about the fact you plunked down at least $100.

But if you can't, well -- best of luck to you.  I do hope you find someone.

Weighty Decision

I had a moment of clarity awhile ago.  None of my clothes fit me properly; I realized everything -- except for my stretchy t-shirts -- was too tight.  For awhile now, there have been certain (favorite!) skirts I couldn't wear, but it became such that everything was too small.  When your entire wardrobe -- including things that used to be loose -- makes you look and feel like a sausage being stuffed into a too-small casing, it's time to get serious about exercise.

I know I've talked before about how I've "finally" gotten back into a routine, but it wasn't something that would seem to stick.  There were a few important things I had to work through before I got serious about it again.  One was that I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue (I believe I've mentioned this), and so I was completely drained of all energy and felt exhausted most of the time, even if I tried gentler exercise like walks and yoga.

Another was that I had developed a very frenetic way of looking at exercise -- a very judgmental way.  I wasn't doing it for my health; instead, I was doing it because I was afraid to go back to where I was about ten years ago when I weighed 200 lbs.  Yes.  200 lbs.  This led me to a terrible situation of serious body dismorphia -- no matter what I weighed, I didn't feel like I looked any different.  When I was 200 I absolutely could not see the weight; I honestly could not see that I looked any different than when I weighed 135-142.  The only thing that got me to realize I was too heavy was the number on the scale.

But what happened was that when I did lose the weight and got back down to a much healthier number -- that same range -- I had a two-fold perception of not looking any different; what I mean is that I honestly couldn't see I'd lost weight.  It was like my two eyes were seeing two different images.  On one hand, I could tell I looked like I did before I put the weight on -- and the scale supported that -- but on the other, I still thought I looked "fat".

And so I began to work out harder and longer; a personal trainer and my doctor told me I was at a very healthy weight and BMI, but I absolutely, positively couldn't see it.  I wasn't seeing myself properly.  Part of me knew by my clothing sizes and the numbers on the scale and my BMI readings I looked great -- but I'd somehow fallen into a crack in my psyche that fostered a very distorted body image.  I knew that, too -- but I wasn't getting it.

I never got into a phase of developing an eating disorder, but the way I kept thinking about myself was just as bad.  I'm pretty certain that was a large factor that threw me into the adrenal fatigue (one of the main components of it is stress), which didn't get diagnosed until last year.  But I think it was my body's last defense, because it got me to stop exercising altogether.  Just prior to my stopping it, I was in the gym one day, using the treadmill, and I found myself locked into a terrible run of thoughts -- about myself, about the people around me...and I realized I hated the place.  And that I'd started to hate myself, in a way -- from the distorted image, for having the distorted image and for how judgmental I'd gotten of the people there and of myself.

That gave me a big moment of pause, and I realized I had to stop doing anything until I got that sorted out.  I suppose that was my moment of clarity.

Perhaps a year later or so, I got into yoga -- but I realized I had inserted the "healthy" version of exercise for what I'd been doing.  It was merely a substitution, because I'd begun to carry the same thoughts about myself; I kept thinking I looked terrible because I didn't look like the woman on my DVDs.  I knew, of course, that was a dumb way to look at it -- but it was there.  And so I put those away for awhile.  That was last year some time.

I knew once I got to a place where I could look at myself in a healthier way and not abuse the exercise and its benefits I would get back into a regular routine.  I spent a lot of time working on that  -- on how I saw myself, on recognizing my cues for slipping into that way of thinking, on how to take a proper, broad-spectrum way of viewing it all.  I had gradually put on about thirty pounds and wasn't happy with how I looked -- but I decided to use that to my advantage to start listening to how I was really talking to myself, what I was really saying and how it was affecting me.  Until I could accept myself for who I was and what I looked like without judgment, I was just going to remain in that crack in my psyche.  As a life coach, I talk to people all the time about how acceptance of what is means being able to then move forward and make changes...but it is a difficult thing to put into practice personally at times. 

Awhile back my doctor at Kaiser did make a comment that I was carrying more weight than I likely should, and I told him I knew I was and told him about where I'd found myself about all of that and what I was doing to get to a better way of looking at it all and he understood.  It was an important thing to do, he said, and was glad I had recognized that in myself and was doing something about it.

Sometime this past summer, a desire to get really focused again began to bubble to the surface, but I was cautious about it, making sure I was being very mindful of that desire and how to put it into motion.  And so I began working really hard on doing just what I talked about with people all day long -- that unconditional acceptance of myself, forgiveness for having had that way of thinking (and for the weight gain)...without that, without the self-compassion I was only going to move back into that way of thinking. 

Then something clicked about a month and a half ago; I began doing 30 minutes of yoga in the morning, then added on walking.  Then I realized that if I really wanted results, I'd have to get back to the gym.  But it would have to be in the morning; every single medical professional I'd been seeing (my Kaiser doctor, my acupuncturist, my naturopath, my doctor of Chinese medicine) were all in consensus that exercising in the evening was jacking up my system more than I realized, which was then interfering with my sleep.  I didn't think it was...but when everyone is telling you the same thing -- well...it's a good thing to listen to.

I've been naturally waking up around 5 already for whatever reason, and so I decided I could just use that to my advantage.  I started getting up in time to get to the gym by about 5:30, allowing me time for a good routine of cardio and weights, and time to eat something both beforehand and after, make something to take for a larger breakfast at work, and get cleaned up.  So far it's working out well.  I take Tuesdays and Fridays off; that way I have my old 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off routine that worked so well before; I opted for Fridays because I have to be at work by 7 am; Monday through Friday it's 8.

Plus I'm more open to trying some of the classes Bally offers -- like the spinning class.  No, I'm not sitting at a wheel making yarn; you sit on a specialized stationery bike and are led through different speeds, etc.  I've heard great things about it, so I figured, why not?  I also want to try the "Kwando Strike" class, which is based on kickboxing.  Both those classes piqued my interest when Bally introduced them, but that was also about the time my burnout was really starting to gain momentum.

This time around, too, I'm taking pictures of myself as I lose the weight.  I didn't that last time (I'm nowhere near needing to lose the same amount of weight as before), and I think that may have led to that dysmorphic way of looking at myself; I had no visual reference.  Yes, I kept logs of my weight, my waist and hip measurements and so on -- but there's nothing like photographic proof.

I pulled out some pictures of myself that were taken back when I was in great shape, and they were both inspiring and depressing.  Inspiring because I realized how great I looked then, and that I wanted to aim for that again -- and depressing for the same reason, because it showed just how much I'd put on...and how good I looked -- but didn't see it.  That's not going to happen this time. 

So, speaking of which, it's time for me to have some lunch and get to the gym.  And then maybe a nap.  It's certainly the weather for it; it's been consistently about 10-12 degrees lower than the predicted lows.  It was only supposed to get down to 22 (only!), but it was getting down to 9 and even 6 degrees; the high was supposed to then be in the mid-thirties, but it was only getting up to 29.  (I guess it's the global warming). I think Mom Nature somehow confused us with North Dakota...no snow though.  What was amusing was that I got an email at work from someone in Australia talking about how they were in the midst of a heat wave!  Ha!

Happy Christmakwanzannukah to everyone!

-- H

Insert Clever Title Here

Okay, so it's hard to be clever at 7:43 in the morning.  I'm up (since 6:30; I awoke at 4:33, but while that's a decent time on a weekday so I can get more things done in the morning, it wasn't a pleasant idea on a Saturday!), and I felt like writing something.  I guess I don't always have to be clever and witty!

I did, however, crash, last night.  I've been giving in and going to bed by about 7:45 or so this past week (I had to laugh when I thought about that yesterday -- when I was a little girl, my parents made me go to bed at 7:30 -- guess because they knew I'd sneak books or lie there off in my own little world of imagination...like I was during the day, for the most part...) and I got so mad.  I remember clearly, once, my mother saying, as I blubbered my way into my room, "Some day you're going to wish you could go to bed this early and you won't be able to!"

Oh, horrors!  Never!  Adults got to stay up as late as they wanted!  7:30?  Never!  I wanted to stay up until that magical hour of midnight, when dolls began to dance and the house came alive with ghosts and creatures from other realms!

Once...I did.  I awoke at just before midnight and got all excited.  I lay there, waiting for the hands on my little see-through alarm clock (it was made of clear plastic, so I could see all the gears and springs and doohickeys ticking away) to stand straight up at attention.  They did and --

Absolutely nothing happened.

I was so disappointed.  Another childhood dream dashed away...no singing Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.  No fairies coming out.  No gnomes and unicorns appearing in the yard below my window.  When I mentioned my disappointment to my parents (in my now-adult mind's eye looking back, I realize they had to bite back smiles), I was informed I had to be asleep in order for all of that to happen.  That was the magic of it all.

Lousy technicality!

So last night, I had my dinner and watched an episode of Perry Mason, then lay on the couch playing a game of solitaire on my iPhone.  I got very sleepy, and thought, "Oh...I'll just lie here and doze a bit."

And -- BAM!  Next thing I know, it was 8:45.  I'd been asleep for over an hour.  I guess those really early mornings are catching up to me, even though I haven't done that in a while.  I get up at 4:30 (well, the alarm goes off then, and I'm usually up by 4:45) so I have time to do everything I want to do, and still get to work on time.  Surprisingly, it's been very easy to get up then.

However, when I went back to sleep, I did have a very odd dream that I came home from work and not only discovered my apartment had changed into a college dorm room, but was still here in the same building, someone had left not only a Wii with the game Rock Band, but a full set of instruments...including an antique Marshall amp that had once been used by Buddy Holly.

Alllll rigghty, then, as Jim Carrey said in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

(No I am NOT thinking about getting a Wii, the game or the instruments...I have an iPhone to pay off and a new laptop to save up for.  While I do like this one as it's a big step up from what I have, it's literally falling apart...the little plasict bar on the front of the CD tray pops off every time I open it, and the two USB  ports on the right side quit working.  Additionally, I'm working on getting my emergency fund built back up.  So no, Andrew -- I'm not thinking about getting a Wii.  :-)  I wouldn't use it often enough.  I will cross over to the "Dark Side" only so far!)

There's one little app on my phone I really like -- best $0 I've ever spent! -- that's been very helpful for budget-minding.  You're supposed to be able back up all the transactions, but every time I try, I'm told the server is down or too busy.  So I decided to see if there was some help in the FAQ section of their help area of the app...and was delighted to see that it was very comprehensive.

All in Japanese.

Doomo-Arigato, app! 

Fall is here, and with it chilly nights I call "change-over" weather...it's too warm for full PJs and a comforter when you go to bed, but some point in the night it is, and then you get hot with the extra covers later.  It's also the kind of "umbrella and sunglasses" weather my father jokes about; we get that this time of year and in the Spring. 

Anyhoo -- I think that's all for now.  Not much else to report!

-- H

Report-o-Heather

What a gorgeous weekend.  Both days were that lovely, golden warm weather we get well into October.  Saturday I went for my acupuncture treatment, then out over to the other side of town to spend the afternoon and evening with my family.  It was a celebration for my brother's birthday the day before, and for Hanne passing the bar.  Andrew's college roommate and his girlfriend also came over; Dan has the ability to work from wherever he wants, so the two of them trekked out here to spend 4-5 months living out here, and then plan to head down to Northern CA; somewhere north of SanFran.  I think they're crazy for wanting to leave here -- but that area of California is absolutely gorgeous.  I miss it sometimes.

Work has been busier lately, which is nice.  It had gotten a tad slow there, for awhile, both for business, and, thusly emails or phones to answer.  We recently launched a new four-lesson coaching course to go with new purchases of our initial meditation program, and that's been very popular.  We rearranged our work schedule so that we're open from seven in the morning until six at night; I'm here (I'm on lunch at the moment!) from eight until four; I do like having more hours, but I'm usually dead and useless by four, anyway, so it's actually been nice getting off at that time.

It has taken some adjustment (having come to work at 8:30 for the last seven years), and, when I get home, I keep wanting to fall into the routine I had for arriving back around 5:30 -- like getting dinner together.  It's been nice to have the extra time for writing or whatnot. However, with the new schedule, I now have an hour of phones to do during the 12:30 - 1:30 lunch shift (mine is from 11:30 - 12:30), and I've actually liked taking more calls than I used to do.  Changes things up from doing emails and emails and more emails. 

I haven't been waking up as early as I was, but 4:30-ish seems to be what my body's settled into...at least for now.  That's okay with me; it gives me time to have a more leisurely morning before heading off to work.  Been having really odd dreams lately, too.  But I can't really recall them upon waking.
We did have kind of a wild and crazy summer -- long time to warm up, then BLAMMO right into a heat wave like we haven't had in 20 years (strange year for weather -- the blizzard back in Dec-Jan, then that weird heat...very annoying in a third-floor apartment!), and now we're into the Fall weather...but I find myself liking the change of seasons, even if we didn't have much of a summer.  I kind of go into a kind of mental hibernation mode that's nice.

Not much to report on the vegetable end; the heat wave zapped pretty much everything.  Next year I'm trying hanging tomatoes, however.  And it should be easier, given heat waves like that are very rare (I get the radiant heat from the blacktop and cars below me; one day, the worst of the heat days, I checked the thermometer, and it said it was 115 out there on my terrace.  Bleah.)

The other thing I've been doing lately is being much more mindful of how / what I eat.  I have generally good eating habits, but, upon taking a long hard look, I realized I'd slipped into some bad habits and was lacking in certain areas.  I've put on about 30ish pounds over the last year or so because of the decline in what / how I've been eating, as well as becoming more of a slug.  So with the newly-improved regime of better eating and a daily 30-minute practice of yoga, I think I'll be seeing improvements.  I've also been factoring in more walks.  I've also decided to let my body lose the weight as it needs to; my other attempts, I realized, were more about trying to coerce myself into doing better and losing the weight, and even coerce my body into losing.  Not the healthiest way to do it.

Well, that's all, folks, as Porky the Pig would say -- at least for now.

-- H

Is This Really the Future of the Self Family? Waking Up at Ungodly Hours?

The headline is from a reply my brother sent to me yesterday, upon his receipt of my "Happy Birthday!" post on his Facebook wall when he saw the timestamp. I'd been awake since 2:35 that morning.  My reply was "Could be...could very well be."

My dad and grandmother both have a tendency for waking up early in the morning -- and staying awake, usually -- and Andrew and I lately seem to both be waking up really early. My mother does the opposite -- she often doesn't go to bed until around 2:30 - 3:00 in the morning...sort of the opposite, but still similar.

I usually feel pretty rested. Yesterday I was kind of tired, but by Fridays I usually am, anyway. I can say that the fatigue I had, however, was far less than in other weeks and months, even after getting 8-9 hours of sleep. I'm a bit on the more-fatigued side this morning, but I'm wondering if that's more due to the fact I was wide awake at 4:35 (what is it with the :35 minute time with me?  3:35, 2:35, 4:35... or sometimes it's 3:23, 4:23, etc.  Maybe I should have a numerologist take a gander?  Ha!)

Anyway.  I am more tired than I was yesterday, but as I started to say, I wonder if it's more because I didn't just get up when I first awoke at 4:35; I opted to go back into a doze, and I fell into a round of vivid, thick-feeling over-sleep dreams.  I awoke at 5:23 -- there it is again -- and made myself get up.  But I did feel rather groggy and worn out as I do when I (make myself) sleep longer than my body indicates it wants.  I won't really be able to take a nap later, as I have a "human needlepoint" appointment (as Andrew calls my acupuncture appointments), and then I'm heading over to his and Hanne's (pronounced, as she says, "like banana) house for celebrations.  It was his 30th (eeek!) birthday yesterday, and she passed the bar exam with flying colors.  They also recently got engaged.  Yippee!

I am wondering if this new time thing is actually progress; while I'm crashing around 8:15 in the evening or so (I prefer to go to bed when I'm tired, and not stretch it out and go to bed at a time that "seems" better), it appears these earlier times (at least for now) is what my body wants...before I'd go to bed then and sleep until 5-6 (or even 7) in the morning and still wake up tired.  I was diagnosed last year with adrenal fatigue, which was the reason I was consistently tired, even with exercise (yoga, mostly -- or walks) and a good diet.  So between my nutritionist, my superb acupuncturist (LaNai Mackey; she works at the Kwan Yin Center if any of you local peeps would like to have an appointment; the fee is anything from $45 to, I think $75 -- meaning it's up to you what you want to pay from the low to high end) and my Kaiser doctor, I got that under control.  So...yeah.  I'd like to see this as progress.

I was so tired there for awhile I even dropped yoga out of my life.  I'd get home from work and want to just become a schlump of a potato on my couch.  But in recent months I've begun working on a new book, I've gotten back into my beloved yoga (as I did I really wondered why I quit, given how good it makes me feel!), and I really started taking a hard look at my died and realized I'd kind of fallen off the wagon; it was okay / decent...but it was lacking in some areas.  I also realized I really wanted to take better care of myself...had an epiphany that I hadn't wanted to for long months.  Or I hadn't cared.  Or both.

But I think I'm back up and running; though not literally.  My left knee would commit mutiny and throw me overboard if I did.  I'm just glad I'm feeling better! 

Maybe I could do some writing in the morning, too....oh.  That would be nice; especially with how quiet it is then.  Wowsers.  I see why it's recommended to do meditation or tai chi or qi gong and such at that hour.  It's like the whole world -- at least in your timezone -- is still and breathing more fully.

Okee dokee.  I think that's all for now; time to go switch my laundry.

-- H