Diet Coke, Please!

We scoffed at the man carrying a diet coke on his tray.  “What’s the point? He has a chili dog and fries; a regular coke isn’t going to make much difference and it will taste so much better.”

The person behind us chimed in, “Maybe he likes the tastes.”

We couldn’t figure out if he was serious or playing along.

Now, I find myself in the same habit as this man at the front of the line at Pink’s ten or fifteen years ago.

I’m not sure when it happened, but diet Coke is a flavor I enjoy. Coke Zero tastes much like regular Coke, but I often forsake it in favor of diet Coke. The only times I choose regular Coke are when I’m in a foreign country that bottles its Cokes with real sugar in a glass bottle. Yum.

Why do I even choose a soda? Well, I enjoy it. I also figure that there is no need to do more damage than I’m already doing. I guess, I also figure if I’m going for the hamburger, I can go ahead and get a small order of fries instead of a regular soda and not add too many more calories. I know, I could save double the calories, if I drank water, or iced tea and skipped the fries altogether.

In any case, I’m now just like that guy, choosing a greasy meal and complementing it with diet Coke. I don’t care what they say. It’s at least 150 calories I’m saving, that’s a lot of minutes on the cardio machines, and yeah, I like the flavor.

Moments

This morning I realized we really are alone when it comes to ‘moments’.  Occasionally I share a moment with someone, but I doubt we see the moment the same way.

I spent this morning in melancholy because I’m bloated, wearing my laundry day pants, and my roots are showing. I went from station to station on the radio. I listened to a bit of talk and a bit of music before all the channels simultaneously went to commercial. Then, I turned on the CD. The next track happened to be from a CD with music from when I was dancing with a Bollywood troupe. One song, that I’ve always liked came on and took me right back to all the good moments this sound has been the sound track for, most recently, and most importantly my wedding day. I drove myself to the hair salon. It was raining softly. This song is about rain. It mimics the approach of a storm, and then swells into a deluge, and then it drops down back to silence. The music fills my heart. (That’s corny to say, but how else can I explain it?) The drums and voice and strings rise and fall and my emotions follow.

I sat in my car, parked in the garage at work until the song finishes. Then I realized this moment was alone. The moment it reminded me of was also alone. Would anyone understand it if I shared it? We spend so much time alone. How would my experiences be different if I spend my time in a crowded metropolis, commuting on a train or crowded bus? Would home be the refuge it is if it was one of many tiny apartments in a multi story building without an elevator? Would I be reliving my moment if my office was one of those open places where there aren’t even cubicle walls to separate me from my neighbor?

How different would things be for me if my community was not in an individualistic culture? Would I crave the company? Would I only see my moments with others in it? Would I long for ‘me’ time? Would my moment still feel like only I’ve experienced it? Are we alone in our moments, really?

A Comfortable Perch or Free Fall

When I was I was younger, before I had commitments and responsibilities, I could not imagine doing what didn’t interest me for very long. However, as an ‘adult’ it is so easy to fall into the trap a twenty-year-old looks on with disdain. It seems so easy from a young person’s perspective; you simply leave when things start being less than great. It seems so easy, but conformity breeds fear.

The longer I stay where I am, the harder it is to leave. The unknown is scarier when you are 40 than 20: What will I do? Where will I go? Will I be able to pay the bills? That must be why things are easier to learn at an earlier age. When we’re young it’s all possibilities. Learning new things is building up experiences. We’ve fallen and gotten up when we learned to walk, bike, and skate. Those are our reference points when we’re young. When we’re older, we’ve seen broken people. We’ve suffered heart ache. New is still exiting, but it’s also unknown and loaded with unknown possibilities for pain, including failure, heartache, or shame.

I wish leaving this comfortable position didn’t leave me feeling like I’m flying through the air frantically looking for a place to perch before gravity pulls me into a broken lump on the ground. There must be something in between a comfortable perch and free fall.

A Day in Creative Writting Class

As John finished his comments about William’s story, Mrs. Robinson turned her gaze to Marlene. She had just flipped the page of the newspaper that lay on her desk. William’s story lay on top.

“How’s that paper, Marlene?”

“Is that a subtle suggestion to get rid of it?”

“Not so subtle,” Mrs. Robinson said. “I didn’t read the paper when you were reading your story.”

Marlene closed the paper. “That’s true, but you were rummaging through your bag while I read and others texted,” after a beat, she continued, “However, I must apologize to William for this distraction. Your story was excellent. I enjoyed how you let us discover the main character and his descent from normalcy into homelessness…"

Being a Grown Up is Hard.

Life long habits are hard to overcome. I’ve never had to exercise a whole lot of discipline because what I wanted and needed to do always came so easily. As a kid, school was so natural. I did my homework in front of the TV. My parents didn’t demand a whole lot in terms of chores, so I never learned how to plan out my schedule. Further, I had a bunch of free time because I didn’t have many responsibilities. I never had to prioritize. These things have made my adult life one great challenge.

For a long time, I longed for the freedom of my childhood. I kept wishing to catch up on one last mountain of chores. Foolishly, I thought, that getting past the bump, would take me to that easy feeling again. However, whether I tamed that mountain of responsibilities or not, it wasn’t long before another burden came my way. Now, I’ve finally realized that I need to figure out how to prioritize all those things that come my way. Some, I’ll need to take care of immediately. Others will need to be added in after more pressing matters. There will be other things which will need to be ignored.

It’s hard to ignore those other things, though. Usually, those other things are interesting. Finding time to do those interesting things, while still meeting the demands of those things that must be done, will be the toughest part. Well, I can’t give them up entirely! These are things like hobbies, or things that help me grow as a person. However, I must meet the most important demands of my work and my personal relationships. I need to work, because I have bills. I need to maintain relationships, because it’s a need we all have. I also long to spend time with myself: to read, to learn, and to push my body.

I guess, reluctantly, the thing I must give up is TV. I’ve spent so much of my life in front of the tube, that it’s second nature. It’s easy to go to when I’m tired. But, I need to push myself sometimes. Instead of TV, I might need to do laundry, or pack my lunch, or clean out my car.

The first step is to realize you have a problem, they say. Now, the hard part, figuring out a strategy to get past the problem…

How to Breathe while Swimming.

The results for my online search for ‘how to swim’ were less than satisfactory. They detailed some of the mechanics of swimming. But, they failed to address the major concerns of a new swimmer. What I found yielded only the results of those that have swam so long, they have forgotten the fears of a new swimmer. Here is what I wish my search had told me:

1)      Wear goggles!

2)      Focus on balancing in the water.

a.       With each stroke, your body rotates around the axis of your spine

b.      Practice making long rhythmic strokes.

c.       Keep your head in the water

If you do the above, breathing will come easily. For me figuring out how to breathe without getting a lung full of water was my biggest concern. This problem took care of itself when I focused on the above. Because:

1)      Wearing goggles the first time was amazing. I could open my eyes underwater and see where I was going. Being able to see freed me of some of my fears of having my face underwater.

2)      In my research, I’ve found that swimming is balancing on the water. It’s important to dedicate the first few visits to the pool to figuring out how your body balances in the water. Luckily, my body fat is well distributed throughout my body. That makes it easier for me to float without much effort. Others aren’t so lucky.  The internet and swimming instruction DVDs devote some time to floating, and they are well worth looking for.

a.       Once I figured out how my body floats in the water, I was able to move through the water rotating my hips and shoulders along the axis of my spine with each stroke. This motion will make it easier to breath. It’s not just your head and neck that move when you get air. I didn’t realize this. I thought my belly would always be parallel to the bottom of the pool. This position, however, made it quite difficult for me to get air.

b.      In addition to the side to side body rotation, having a long stroke makes it easier when it comes time to breathe. With a long stroke, you body will shift a bit. It will balance in the direction of the outstretched arm and give your other side the lift necessary to get your gulp of air.

c.       Always keep the top of your head pointed in the direction of travel. This causes a depression in the water, so when you turn to breathe, you will do it easily without getting water up your nose. At first I was doing it all wrong. I was lifting my head too far out of the water. Ironically, this made it more likely that I would get water in my nose. Also, it will through your balance off.

Because of the above, it is important to spend some time in the pool working on your stroke in the shallow end of the pool. When it becomes familiar territory, then it’s time to work on the breathing. Until then, just stand when you need to, or rotate on your back to get some air. If you spend some time working on the stroke, the breath will come much easier. I’m living proof of this.

How to be a Responsible Adult

You go to college to prepare for your future. You get up; You go to work; You drink barrels of coffee. You see your coworkers for more hours a day than your own family. They ask you stuff; You ask them stuff. Both of you make stuff up in response. You talk about who got kicked off yesterday on Dancing with the Stars. Then, you go to lunch. Everyday, it’s a different restaurant. When you run out of new restaurants, you brown bag it and play ping-pong during lunch. Afterward you throw in a few hours of paper shuffling that satisfies the boss enough to give you your weekly pay. It’s just enough to keep your ex-wife living in the style she’s grown accustomed and you in your studio apartment. At the end of the day you get home exhausted; fit only to drink one or two beers in front of the friend that’s stuck around through thick and thin, TV. You watch Biggest Loser and take comfort that at least you’re not that fat. Finally, you go to bed. The next morning you get up and do it all again.