I can’t explain my sudden attraction to knife fighting, not really. The fixation came upon me, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it. Knives! For Halloween, I figured I’d be a little scary and go into what it’s like to face down a deeply rooted fear.
Something I’ve learned from training in self-defense is that men, women, teenagers, and children are all there for slightly different reasons. Teenagers are usually just fascinated with something they think is cool. Children are usually wherever they are because their parents put them there. Many of my adult friends are studying Krav Maga because they’ve been physically attacked, sometimes several times. When a man has been attacked, his decision to study self-defense may seem self-explanatory. For instance, several of our students are ride-share drivers. I just talked to a guy who was mad-dogged by a drunk passenger who started punching him from the front seat. “What did you do, did you use an elbow strike?” I asked, naturally, and he nodded. Imagine fighting sideways from behind your steering wheel! The fight ended when he connected a palm strike to the attacker’s nose, sending him out the open door, and then drove to the nearest police station. The police found the guy trying to hide and arrested him. Nod, nod. Note: do not attack someone who is driving you; how dumb. In the world of men, there are many such dumb, drunk, violent mad dogs out there. They basically look for reasons to start fights as a sort of hobby. Casual, random violence and fist fights are a part of the male world, and it starts in early childhood, and it never really stops, even when you’re a middle-aged guy just trying to get through your workday. It’s different for women. Part of the reason it’s different for us is sheer size. I remind my male classmates that they probably don’t meet many dudes who are ten inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier, but for me it happens everywhere I go. In spite of this differential, martial arts is not a common practice for women; it seems... dangerous. For us. The other reason it’s different for us is pop culture. So many shows, whether drama, thriller, or cartoon, have someone attacking a woman who can’t fight back. Our job is to stand stock-still and scream. There have been more murders in fiction, television, and film than there ever were in the entire history of humankind. For some reason, pop culture seems to run on women’s terror. The ultimate terrifying image? To me, it’s the killer in a ski mask, holding a knife. That’s something true, by the way, if you’ve read about the Golden State Killer. Eff that guy. The truth about knives is that just because you get stabbed, does not mean you die. Another important truth about knives is that because they are considered to be objects of power, the person wielding it and waving it around probably has no real idea of how to fight with knives. My husband saw one at the end of a bar fight once. The guy whipped it out and showed it to everyone, right before running out the door and leaving. Like: “BOO!” If you haven’t listened to the podcast Dirty John yet, go off and do that. It’s good for the soul. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s relevant to this talk of knives. Where does serious knife-fighting happen? In prison, mostly. According to lore, someone can get shanked a couple dozen times and live through it. It’s actually fairly complicated to kill someone with a knife. I was riding the bus with a friend one day in high school, and a bare-chested man got on the bus with a knife wound in his sternum that was over an inch long. The red sides gaped open. Blood was running down his stomach. He looked madder than hell. He sat there, his shoulders heaving from rage, and rode through several stops until the hospital, which is where I had assumed his destination lay. He walked himself in, where I suppose that deep, long knife-wound to the torso was disinfected and stitched closed. I also saw a woman at the hospital one night, who had sliced her calf to the bone on a broken vase at her mom’s house. That cut was at least eight inches long, and it wasn’t even bleeding. She wasn’t considered an emergency, obviously, because we waited together for nearly an hour. See? Just because some sick individual with a ski mask and a knife might show up and menace you, does not automatically mean that he wins. He’s surely built up some highly detailed fantasy where he has all the power and you just stand there, screaming, until he does whatever he wants. We practice knife-fighting in our advanced class. I haven’t even learned all the knife disarms, but already I feel like a knife is just a weapon, not a magical artifact. You can bat the knife hand away. You can trigger-kick the knife out of someone’s hand. You can block the knife with your own knife, or any other instrument, such as a mop handle. You can press the knife hand against someone’s body, just as you can with a gun. If you learn the techniques and practice them, why, it’s not really more complicated than a dance move. It’s a thing that can be done. The important thing is to remove the mystique from what is an ordinary household object. Think of how many knives there are in your kitchen. Think of how many times you’ve used a knife to butter your toast or dice some onions. You have an instinctual familiarity with a knife as a household object. You understand its weight, its edges and points. You may in fact have a deeper familiarity with a knife as a tool than a sicko would. You think these mental cases spend a lot of time cooking for themselves? Fighting has taught me to value my natural physical advantages. I am small and lithe and agile. I excel at footwork. I’m very patient (and humble) about my limitations, meaning I have the focus for precision that larger people often lack. Where they can rely on power and strength, I am technical and disciplined. It also helps to know that no matter how big and strong someone is, his knees and elbows are not strong. No matter how large his frame, his blood vessels are similar to mine, and I know where they are. If someone attacks me, I am the one with the element of surprise. He thinks he’ll win. He thinks I’m an easy target. He thinks all that I will do is stand there and scream like a ninny. I have a right to defend myself. I don’t go around attacking people and I don’t deserve to be attacked by anyone else. More, I have a duty and responsibility to protect and defend others if I can. If someone attacks me, he’s probably attacked other people, and he’ll probably try to do it again after me. I must try my level best to incapacitate him, to get justice for his previous victims, to stop him from repeating himself, and also to save him from himself. Maybe he’s just damaged and he needs help, too. Or, at least he will if he tries to come after me. Halloween is the best time to talk about our mortality. In the past, I’ve talked about becoming a whole-body donor and about the importance of the advance care directive. This year I’m going to talk about what happens if you die without a will. Two-thirds of people do. It’s very high on the list of most commonly procrastinated tasks. Who wants to think about dying? Who cares what happens afterward? Rather than let that type of passivity run your life, take a day and make the arrangements properly. Then you can move forward and never think about it again.
Most people probably don’t need a will, not really. If you don’t own a house and/or you don’t have any kids, go in peace. Both of those conditions apply to me. I have an adult stepdaughter, sure, but she’s responsible for herself. If I go before my husband does, then all of my money and property become his. That’s how I’d want it. I don’t have life insurance because there would be no need to replace my income. I also don’t really own anything, not a car, not real estate, not expensive jewelry or furs or whatever. The only things I care about after I go are who would take care of my little parrot Noelle, and what happens to my blog when my domain name expires. People don’t think about that kind of thing often enough. Who takes your kitties? What if you’re just in the hospital for four days, does someone water your plants? When you die, everything becomes someone else’s problem. What exactly happens, though? Your mail continues to show up at your mailing address until someone notifies the post office and/or the senders that you are deceased. Your bills continue to accrue in your name. Someone has to call all of your utility providers and banks, one by one, and let them know you have passed on. They will wait a certain amount of time and then start calling again, wanting the estate to pay off all the account balances. This process will be ongoing long before the courts have made things official on their end. The hospital has to issue a death certificate. This can take weeks or months and is subject to mystifying delays. Then, if there is no will, someone has to be appointed as executor or personal representative. This is another process that takes an unfathomable amount of time. None of the bills of the estate can be settled until this is done. If there is a spouse, the estate goes to that person, even if you’ve separated and you hate each other, unless divorce papers were filed. EVEN THEN! If you had any insurance policies or old accounts with that person recorded as beneficiary, even from decades ago, that person gets your money. If there is no spouse but there are kids, they stand equal as next of kin. This can be complicated, because most likely they will start squabbling over who gets to make which decisions, what you supposedly said you wanted, and who gets what goodies. Your procrastinating on writing a will may be the single reason that all your kids stop being on speaking terms for the rest of their lives. If you have a house, and you also have unpaid bills, and not enough money in your accounts to pay them all, then the house must be sold. No matter who lives in it. In the meantime, if the mortgage doesn’t get paid, then the bank can move along toward foreclosure. Probate is not protective against foreclosure. What happens to your stuff? Someone has to go through it all and throw it away, donate it, sort it out to make sure it’s given to the “correct” recipient, sell it, or, most likely, pay for a storage unit and keep it all in boxes forever and ever. Precisely zero of my clutter clients have ever gotten rid of any of their grief boxes. They’ll save your old potholders, your jigsaw puzzles missing a piece, your dentures, all of it. I’ve seen hairbrushes saved for several years with the hair still in them. The more complicated your affairs, the more likely that at least one of your loved ones will never get past it. They’ll never move on. Your passing will be the wound that never heals. The more I work with clutter, the more of it I expel from my life. Every time I do a home visit, I come home and get rid of another bag of stuff. I’ve sworn off home visits entirely, but it seems impossible to quit for my inner circle. For myself, I can’t have it. We are given neither the day nor the hour, and I might leave this world this very afternoon. That’s why I’ve already put most of my affairs in order. I burned my old diaries, I scanned my photos, I filled out an advance care directive and had it witnessed, I made arrangements to be a whole body donor and I am constantly showing the card to people. It’s the orange thing in my wallet in front of my driver’s license. The toll-free number is on the emergency alert section of my phone. I don’t even have any house plants. One day, there will be the sad task of scraping away my few personal effects. I may pay someone to do it in advance. Throw away my toothpaste and my leftovers from the fridge and my socks and underwear. Hopefully the stuff I’ve left behind is the least of me. What we’re called upon to do in this world and this lifetime is to love one another. Love each other, that’s all. Mostly we should do this in the present moment, today, and today, and today again, because today is all we really have. Another way to love our loved ones is to straighten out our affairs as well as possible. The legacy we leave behind should be one of love, of unforgettable words of kindness, of great stories, of friendships that stood the test of time. Let what we leave behind be impossible to ever put in a box. ‘Refinance’ means different things depending on whom you talk to. There are two very different philosophies of home ownership and debt structuring. One leads in a surprising direction toward financial independence, and the other down the primrose path to, well, the primrose path never leads anywhere good. If you think you might ever refinance your home loan, take a moment to consider these two different strategies.
As a disclaimer, I’ve never refinanced a mortgage because I don’t own a house, never have, and possibly never will. That’s because I’m highly skeptical of conventional wisdom around these matters. Home ownership only makes sense if you know you’re going to own the house for at least five years, and that hasn’t been a viable option for me during my entire adult life. Not due to financial means, no, but rather to sound career strategy. My husband and I have done far better financially by being willing and able to change cities for job opportunities than we would have through appreciating real estate. This is why my opinion is interesting, because I don’t really have a dog in the fight. I look at real estate as a bystander. I first learned the term ‘refi’ at age eighteen, working my first legit office job in a mortgage bank. The way it was explained to me, people would refinance to get a better interest rate, and that would mean they could save thousands of dollars in interest over the life of the loan. Whoa, good idea, I thought. My parents had only bought a house three years earlier, and I didn’t know much about that sort of thing. I assumed that refinancing meant you either made the same monthly payment and paid your mortgage off a little early, or that you paid a little less each month. It never occurred to me that people would refinance their home loan as a way of dealing with their credit card debt, that they’d actually be willing to sign papers that made their house more expensive or extended their loan. Who would do that?? That didn’t even make sense. I didn’t have credit cards at that time, and wouldn’t for several years. My parents had only taken out a credit card to build credit history so they could qualify for a home loan. I had no idea that people - any people at all - were using consumer debt to finance lifestyle upgrades they couldn’t afford. It turns out that’s the standard way to do it. Use your home equity as a cash machine. Roll your credit card debt into this new loan every so often. Maybe even take out a HELOC (home equity line of credit) so you can borrow against your security, your most important asset, the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought. HUH? I’ve seen this happen several times. Someone starts out with an enviably low home loan and then refinances a couple-few times over the years. Suddenly the mortgage is double, triple, even quadruple where it was when it started. There’s another way to do it. It’s almost completely opposite the standard approach. That is to refinance for a lower interest rate, maybe even with HIGHER monthly payments, to shorten the length of the loan and pay it off as fast as possible. Race to the finish line. *MIND BLOWN* In the first, most common scenario, people are expanding their baseline lifestyles and expectations along with the supposed market value of their house. They progressively owe more and more while being less and less able to stomach even temporary cuts to what they have begun to see as necessities. On the hedonic treadmill, forever and always. In the second scenario, the rare few are looking ahead to what Future Self would like. They’re pacing themselves, occasionally making short-term sacrifices for long-term stability and comfort. They progressively owe LESS AND LESS. They place more value in the feeling of being free, of one day owing nothing to anyone. They can look ahead to a specific year when they’ll own their home free and clear. They know when they’ll reach the crossover point, when the income from their investments equals their current expenses. The “refinance to cover our debt” model has the Old Version of someone making higher mortgage payments to pay off the spending of the Young Version. Old Me has to work and work to pay extra because Young Me wanted to have more fun than I could afford. The “maybe retire early” model has Young Me working hard to make things cheaper for Old Me. In this version, Old Me doesn’t have to worry quite as much about being crushed by medical expenses just as I’m too old and ill to keep working. It’s also possible that a hale and hearty Old Me can use the extra money as a windfall for travel, a home remodel, or whatever. One major difference between the two is that the debt-rollercoaster version is default. It’s what happens with a lack of planning and foresight, and it’s also what happens when a couple has trouble negotiating with one another about money. The retire-early model absolutely requires both partners to come to terms with each other, to make agreements and keep them. You can only be that careful with large quantities of money over a decades-long time span if you have open channels of communication. In other words, it’s not for amateurs. This is part of why my husband and I are living in a studio apartment, why we own neither a house nor a car. We both agree that it’s worthwhile to downsize temporarily. We both have very specific financial goals on a specific timeline. We figured that we could handle living in a confined space for a year or two, and that later in life it would make a good story. Shared adversity can make your relationship stronger. It’s something to laugh about later. If we do ever buy a house, there are only a few circumstances in which I would think it was a good idea. 1. A ten-year or fifteen-year mortgage. 2. Buying a house with a granny unit, renting out the house, and living in the granny unit while our tenants pay off our mortgage. 3. Buying the house with cash and not carrying a mortgage at all. There are lots of ways to become home owners, and the standard-issue perpetual debt model is not the only way. I set aside the entire month of October to enjoy Halloween as much as possible. I’ve read some really great stuff that I thought I would share. What I’ve found has been that a lot of “scary” books are actually dark comedies, or humor written along horror themes. Still, the imagery can be too much for someone who is genuinely frightened by this material. For instance, someone might be fine with zombies, but get nightmares from a movie preview that includes a ghost, or afraid of werewolves but able to tolerate scenes about serial killers. My taste for necromancy, skulls, giant spiders, and the like might not be for everyone. Be forewarned. You know who you are.
Without further ado, here is my list, in no particular order. The Dresden Files. There are fifteen of these, written by Jim Butcher. I’m eking them out because I couldn’t bear burning through them all in a month and then having none left to read. Reader, I’m in love. HARRY DRESDEN! You thought one wizard named Harry would be enough for you, but you’re wrong. Contemporary fantasy meets detective noir. Johannes Cabal. Jonathan L. Howard has put out five of these, plus some short stories. I will not lie; these are the books I’m listening to when you hear me going around the house chortling to myself. Cabal SLAYS. John Dies at the End. This is a trilogy by David Wong, who also writes for the Cracked website. The second book is called This Book is Full of Spiders, and the third is What the Hell Did I Just Read. This guy is an absolutely brilliant writer and I continue to be super blown away by how hilarious he is. Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go. Dale E. Basye. This is a kid’s series, and it’s a total panic. Chock-full of egregious puns and gross-out imagery that will bring out your inner child. If you have kids, consider reading these books aloud with them. The Gates by John Connolly. This is a trilogy, another kid’s series about Hell that is funny, gross, with surprisingly deep moral moments. Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow. If you can find it, read it. It’s a long poem about urban werewolves and it’s freaking great. Barlow also wrote a novel, Baba Yaga, about witches in mid-twentieth-century Paris. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. The first two books of this trilogy are two of my favorites OF ALL TIME. I’ve read like four thousand books and I’m not joking. Hubby and I are huge fans, and we also dig the TV show, although it is like a parallel universe version of the books. Ghostly, by Audrey Niffenegger. Amazing. You may recall her from The Time Traveler’s Wife. Mr. Splitfoot, by Samantha Hunt. I wish I had written this. Basically anything by Grady Hendrix (too clever by half and actually scary) or Paul Tremblay, who does it right. Joe Hill, did I need to say Joe Hill? He’s Stephen King’s son and I think he *might* be the better writer of the two. All right, that’s enough for this year. I have a big stack of Halloween novels and movies to get through this week. Did... did you hear something just now? Breakups are sad. It wasn’t until the first time I broke up with someone that I understood it can be more painful than being on the receiving end. Then I started doing my clutter work, and I found a new level of sadness, which is when one person constantly thinks about breaking up, doesn’t do it, and the other person has no idea. I get random letters at least once a year from someone or other (who I barely know) who wants advice on whether to get a divorce. As a divorced person who remarried, this eats me up. I feel like almost all of these marriages have nothing wrong with them except that someone isn’t telling the whole truth.
Other times, I think the person who wants to leave is setting up not just heartbreak, but a bit of a disaster. Look, you loved each other once. Why was that? What were the qualities inside this person that originally attracted you? Are they still there? Have you actually said, in plain words, what’s bothering you? People tell me the truth about why they want a divorce. They can tell me because they see me as a sort of bartender. It’s far easier to say these things to an anonymous string of text than it is to say them face to face. It’s also easier to say to a stranger, or an acquaintance, than it is to a friend or family member. Or the actual person! What do they say? What are their real reasons? Something specific. Once it was... a stack. A stack of clutter consisting of books, magazines, mail, music CDs, computer disks, binders, folders, and random papers, this stack had been in a corner for over a year. Rather than mention it directly, this spouse and parent was ready to go to a lawyer and ask for a divorce over it. “It’s over a foot high!” I got a photo of it, as though I don’t know what clutter looks like. This stack represented a character flaw, a fundamental aesthetic difference, or from the stacker’s perspective, nothing at all. Once it was... a dish towel. A white decorative dish towel, it hung on the kitchen wall directly next to the garage door. “Somehow” it kept getting greasy black handprints on it. This dish towel, just like the stack of clutter in the previous example, became a symbol of supposedly irreconcilable differences. There are more examples. Often they are more complicated. Lengthy unemployment, significant weight gain, excessive spending, refusal to do an equal share of parenting or cooking or housework, constant gaming, refusal to get treatment for snoring or some other health problem. What they have in common, though, is that they are situational or behavioral. They are not character flaws or personality traits. They’re just actions, actions that are therefore up for negotiation and boundary-setting. At this point I should say that at least some of the time, the relationship is doomed to failure and maybe never should have been started. When this is the case, it’s better to break up sooner rather than later. You’re never doing anyone any favors by dragging it out. The only exception would be if you’re in danger of abdicating a responsibility and breaking a contract. You should probably break up if you have incompatible values or if you want fundamentally different things out of life. Also if there’s violence of any kind. If someone is being violent, then it’s not a relationship, it’s an association. Let’s imagine you’ve already said your say, clearly and unequivocally. “I’d like you to move this stack of stuff to your desk or your closet by the end of the week, please. It’s driving me crazy.” “Stop wiping axle grease on the kitchen towels. Get some shop rags.” The partner’s reply is contemptuous, defensive, hypercritical, belligerent, or otherwise a sign of being a bad roommate. You’ve tried and you’re done trying and you know it’s time to go. I didn’t see this option for myself in my first marriage; I didn’t see the divorce coming at all. I was blindsided. Due to my lack of preparation, I spent the next few years in absolute penury. It’s fair to say that it ruined my life. Granted, that was temporary. We never would have made it anyway. Splitting up allowed me to go back to school, get my degree, meet someone new, and eventually find a much greater happiness. The first year was freaking horrible, though. Do not underestimate how hard it can be, especially if you haven’t been on your own in a long time. Before you break up, get your ducks in a row. Do you have an emergency backup plan if things get weird? (My backup plan: a couple of secret stashes of cash, a large credit line, private accounts of hotel and airline points, a go bag, and martial arts training. I’d go out the window naked and run down the street barefoot if I had to, but I’d leave some marks first). Where are you going to go? Do you want to start over in a new city? Do you have some roommate options? Can you afford your own place? What are you going to do for money? Do you have ideas for a career upgrade? A lot of times, the one who is planning to leave is the higher earner anyway. Having your own money and your own sense of power and agency is really important to being a full partner in a relationship. You can stay when you know you can go, if that makes sense. My husband knows I’m with him because I want to be, because I like him, and because I like how he treats me. Why would either of us want anything else? There are some other things that need to be said about fantasy breakups. If there are things you want that you aren’t getting, do you need to leave the relationship to make them happen? Were you somehow hoping that a romantic partner would get them for you? (Domestic contentment, life satisfaction, feeling healed and loved and pretty, material comforts you could buy yourself?) Are there problems you’ll carry with you, even if you “start over” with someone new? Jealousy, resentment, being passive-aggressive, carrying consumer debt, poor communication and negotiation skills? The reason I generally advise people to stay and work it out is that you can’t just replace a long-term relationship. If you got where you are because you won’t speak up or advocate for yourself, then being with someone different won’t help. You might as well use this possibly-expiring partnership to test out some better communication skills. Pay down debt, sort out your clutter, and make some solid backup plans while you’re at it. Consolidate your position. Make sure that if you do choose to leave, you’re doing it from a considered place of power and using discernment before you make your move. You’d think sleep would be the easiest thing to coach. Free and it feels good, right? Better sleep can take your daily life from ‘miserable’ to ‘five-star resort’ in a remarkably short period of time. It doesn’t seem to have the air of preachiness that people detect in the areas of organization or weight loss. For whatever reason, though, people hang onto their poor sleep habits harder than anything else. It’s hard to get people to start taking sleep seriously.
The main reasons are obvious. Late at night is when we want to turn off the clock and indulge in all the habits we don’t want officially recorded. Late night is off the books, isn’t it? The other reason is that we want a part of our lives to ourselves, something that doesn’t belong to our employer. Pushing out bedtime means sleeping later, and sleeping later means coffee, and coffee often means treats. Why mess all that up by going to bed earlier like some smarmy goody two-shoes? At some point, in spite of all this, we decide that we’re sick of it and we’re done. Done. We need something better. The unrested life is simply not working. It’s time to start taking sleep seriously, like, immediately. This was me. My moment was the night I tried to shove my husband out of bed because there was “a robotic spider crawling down the ceiling” and I was prepared to let it eat me as long as he got away. Night terrors. I could live with restless leg syndrome, I could live with chronic insomnia, I could live with waking up throughout the night, I could live with grinding my teeth, I could live with occasional nightmares. Pavor nocturnus was my line. Not this. I was willing to read anything, listen to anyone, record everything, and literally try anything for weeks or months on end if I thought it had a slim chance of working. That’s the attitude it takes to fix a chronic sleep problem, because it’s not a “one and done” kind of a project. It’s a permanent lifestyle input. Why would you only want to sleep better for a couple of nights here and there? Another important thing to understand is the concept of the “aggregation of marginal gains.” This means that tiny incremental changes in multiple, different areas can add up to a noticeable improvement. It can also mean that doing only one thing won’t make much of a difference. An example of the aggregation of marginal gains would be trying to get to work earlier. You lay out your clothes the night before, buy a case of protein bars to keep in your car for a backup breakfast option, make sure to fill your gas tank in the evenings on the way home, pack your lunch while you’re cooking dinner, and streamline your makeup routine. Each of these saves you five minutes. Suddenly you’re ten minutes early instead of fifteen minutes late. Aggregation of marginal gains! This is all the stuff I really wish I knew when I first started my personal sleep research and experimentation journey. Of course, if I’d known all of this when I started, I probably wouldn’t realize how important it all was.
See that even a 1% improvement in each of these areas would be enough to get your total grade up? Try rating your sleep quality on a scale of 1-5, and track your personal adherence to these areas, also on a scale of 1-5. See if you can bump that up even a tiny bit on a consistent basis. Sleep is a complex system, poorly understood by medical science. That’s partly because we require superhuman acts of heroic self-mortification from our medical students. A doctor is the last person to ask about sleep, because so much deprivation is demanded of them that they can’t be much more than sardonic about it. Sometimes, the best we can do is to guess why we’ve tried so many things, only for sleep to elude us still. Other times, we know full well we’re doing it to ourselves. All it takes is the decision that that’s enough now. It’s time to start taking sleep seriously. Clothes piled on the bed, shoes kicked across the floor, already late for the event, and still you feel: I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR! Relatable? This is a very common issue. Uncertainty about what to wear on different occasions leads directly to accumulating more clothes, which only makes the situation more complicated next time. Let’s get into what we’re signaling with our wardrobes, and how we can feel more confident in our choices.
We’re most likely to get spun up about what to wear when we’re going to meet unfamiliar people, in an unfamiliar setting, and perhaps at an unfamiliar type of event. Why, though? If these are people we aren’t going to see often, a place we might never visit again, or a type of event we don’t usually attend, then why would it matter? We allow ourselves to fret about WHAT THEY’LL THINK (whoever ‘they’ are) because only after the event is over will we know how we fit in. I once attended an evening wedding in New York. It had ice sculptures. I dressed up, making my best effort in a floral-print linen sundress with sandals. As soon as I walked in, I understood that I’d gotten it wrong, because the other women were in evening looks with satin dresses and heels. I had no idea what a blowout was, nor was I wearing makeup. What happened? I shared a table with my date and a nice couple who kept us laughing all night. The bride and groom are still my close friends, and we’ve been on vacation together a couple times. (In fact even my date has been out to visit, because we’re still in touch). As far as I know, I never saw any of the other guests again. I walked away with a pretty clear image of how to dress for a formal evening occasion. I knew right away that I could have picked up an appropriate dress at Goodwill for $15, and nobody would have known. In fact, I can repeat a special-occasion outfit at multiple events, because my husband doesn’t care and nobody else will notice. The longer we take to get ready, the less satisfied we are with our appearance. That’s what research says, anyway. It makes sense to me. It takes me about ten minutes to “get ready” and leave the house, half an hour if I’m doing the full Las-Vegas-nights routine. If someone doesn’t like how I look, then great! Someone that shallow and superficial will stay clear of me, leaving me free to have interesting conversations with people who have their priorities straight. People value my company for my sense of humor, storytelling, and ability to be a good listener. None of those qualities has anything to do with physical appearance. On the contrary. If I looked too polished, maybe nobody would believe I could be a good listener or a funny storyteller. What are we signaling with our clothing choices? Friendly / aloof? Relaxed / fussy? Competent / wacky? Professional / casual? Married / single? Stressed / happy? It seems like one of the strongest style statements that many people make with their casual wardrobe is what type of music they’re into. Rocker, country, punk, skater, raver, goth, and I’m sure many others I’m too tragically unhip to recognize. We know who we are when we put on casual clothes. We’re only wearing the stuff we trust to fit and be comfortable. We’re signaling a bit about ourselves, enough that someone who’s into the same style might approach us and strike up a conversation. That’s how I met a guy at the cafe who was willing to answer a few questions about jiu jitsu for me - his t-shirt advertised it. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all what you wear on casual days; I’ve seen people out in public wearing everything from pajamas to bikinis to, a couple times, nothing at all. We feel more out of our depth when we’ve been invited to a wedding, party, or job interview, am I right? This is what people do to make their clothing choices more difficult. Keep everything, even when it doesn’t fit Keep everything, even though it NEVER fit and the tags are still on it Keep everything, no matter how old it is Keep everything, even if it’s stained or full of holes and the unworn clothes aren’t Keep everything, even if it’s scratchy or uncomfortable Keep everything, even if it doesn’t go with a single other item and there’s no way to wear it Keep shoes that cause blisters and actual bleeding Buy things because of their price, not how they fit or how they look Buy things out of obligation or guilt, not wanting to disappoint the sales clerk Decide on garments individually, not on how they play into the wardrobe as a whole Having hundreds of garments in every cut, style, color, and print, and several sizes, can only send inconsistent signals. Wearing clothes that don’t fit, or combining items that are too tight and too loose, doesn’t send a clear signal, except maybe [does not use a full-length mirror]. Limping from impractical shoes, tugging things into place over and over, makes people worry if you’re okay. Showing up late because of one too many head-to-toe outfit changes makes you look, at best, frazzled, and at worst, inconsiderate. All you really need is something clean and a warm smile. My entire wardrobe fits into two suitcases. This is because I only feel like I need a few changes of clothes for each of my different roles. Casual summer, casual winter. Business casual summer, business casual winter. Workout summer, workout winter. Camping clothes. A few cocktail dresses. Boom, done. When I get tired of something or it gets worn out, I replace it with something else. I had to replace my entire wardrobe when I reached my goal weight, and since I’ve settled into one clothing size, I’ve been able to figure out how a capsule wardrobe works. Every single thing I own: FITS TODAY Works with at least three other items Can be machine-washed and, mostly, machine-dried This is why I’m confident when I walk out the door. I’ve made my choices in advance, and I’m wearing things I’ve worn many times. I also choose where I go or don’t go, and it’s very rare that I would feel obligated to go somewhere where I wasn’t sure how I fit in. Mostly, I feel confident enough in my social skills (now) that people are a lot more likely to remember what I said than how I looked. I’m trying to send a few clear messages with my wardrobe OMG A GUY JUST LEANED OVER AND TOLD ME: “YOU LOOK GREAT” (I’m married, and not looking for male attention, but it was funny that it happened while I was writing about clothes and appearance). *ahem* I’m trying to send a few clear messages with my wardrobe, namely: Married, friendly, competent, smart, entrepreneurial. There are other signals I can’t do much about, such as: middle-aged, fit, Western, distractible, more eccentric than I wish I were. When I decide whether to buy new clothes, I can ask, Does this send the message I want to send? I look like myself, just like you probably look like yourself. (Unless you’re trapped in a work uniform). Sooner or later, the people around us will figure out what we’re like. Core personality shines through eventually. We should focus more on what kind of friendship we can offer and what roles we’d like to play in life, and less on WHAT THEY’LL THINK about how we look. I don’t invest in gold. This seems like such an obvious stance that it doesn’t bear mentioning, at least to me. I’ve started to realize, though, that it’s pretty heavily marketed, and that the marketing actually works on people. Might as well toss my opinion out there. All I wonder is whether it makes me contrarian or not.
Now, I don’t dislike gold as an element or anything. I’ve been wearing a(n ethically sourced) gold wedding ring on my hand for nine years and I’ve never taken it off. In that sense, I have more of a personal relationship with gold than with any other metal. I can also see the point of having my own personal gold brick, keeping it in my safe and occasionally opening the door to simply look at it. I mean, I wouldn’t turn one down. It’s more that I wouldn’t regard it as an “investment,” in that form or any other. I think there are smart, rich people out there making fat wads of cash off convincing other people to invest in gold. The same can be said about other things, like penny stocks or real estate, but those are targeted to, I think, different demographics. What’s the rationale behind this? There’s more than one, but let’s just go straight to the EOTWAWKI argument, shall we? (End Of The World As We Know It, which, one day maybe we’ll go deeper on this but technically it could indicate... an improvement!). It’s the Walking Dead future as opposed to the Star Trek future. “The grid” goes down, permanently, and we’re quickly plunged into an apocalyptic nightmare of anarchy and chaos, kind of like Black Friday but with more cannibalism. In this grim, nihilistic vision, people quit trusting currency, and suddenly gold becomes a more viable means of trade. Okay, so here is where I flag the operator and climb out of the roller coaster. I know too much about history and material culture to buy into this. I don’t disbelieve in the premise of a failed state, with anarchy, bread lines, and riots. That’s a fairly constant thesis topic in my field, after all. My posture is based on the idea that gold ain’t going to help in that scenario. What’s really going to be valuable in a state of total technological collapse? Trade, of course, will continue on forever, because it’s an innate part of how we understand the world. Even animals like crows and apes understand concepts of trade and fairness to an extent. The deal is that we want what is scarce, and in this dark version of the world, gold wouldn’t be all that scarce. It isn’t now, so why would it be in a world of fewer people and less or no law enforcement? What people would actually want: Coffee. Chocolate. Insulin. Tylenol. Antibiotics. Birth control. Batteries. Nicotine. Any other mind-altering drug that can’t be grown locally or produced in a camp kitchen. What’s gold going to do in a scenario where everyone has a pounding caffeine-withdrawal headache and there’s no coffee to be had? Gold is for trade, right? Why use anything at all for trade, unless there’s a trade good that you want but don’t have and can’t get unless you trade for it? Does that sound dumb? Hold on. We’re at Peak Stuff as a society, or at least we are here in the great old U. S. of A. Name me an article of clothing, camping gear, construction materials, medical supplies, or anything else you can’t find by the container-shipload. We have more of these material goods right now than we know what to do with, and that would be even more the case if there were some massive apocalyptic die-off. There’s an idea that comes up all the time in post-apocalyptic novels that people would quickly run out of clothes, and that has always seemed comical to me, because I’ve been in a lot of Goodwills. I don’t think we’d even really have to worry about food supplies for quite a long time, barring climate change effects, which only ever seem to bother us in our scary fiction. Anyway, let’s say we survive TEOTWAWKI and we need... a thing. A necessary object. Are we going to trade for it, are we going to loot it, do we probably already have five of them out in the garage, or do we understand that we need to learn a sustainable, long-term means of manufacture? Where does gold factor into this? Why would I use gold to buy something like, say, a pair of boots or a first aid kit, when I know where to find and scavenge them on my own? I don’t scoff at preparedness, not in the slightest. It seems to me that any pragmatic person would dedicate serious time and effort to building health and physical stamina, prioritizing dentistry, staying off medication, and learning first aid skills, tool skills, leadership and communication and negotiation skills, and of course self-defense skills. I was practicing guard escapes all last week. “All we’re missing is gravel!” Gold isn’t going to buy me the ability to get out of a chokehold, not in today’s society nor in one with zombies in it. Gold as a... market investment? Like, buying it and keeping it in your portfolio? Don’t make me laugh. If this vision of the world ever came to pass, how on earth would I mobilize and get anything out of my accounts? The preparedness mindset that imagines life-or-death fisticuffs with one’s next door neighbor surely has to adjust to the concept that one’s portfolio, home, job, status, and worldly goods have just become expendable or irrelevant. “If you would have bought gold in the Seventies, it would have barely kept up with inflation.” - My husband. The world is changing, and changing quickly. It’s changing in atrocious ways in some areas, and in fantastic, exciting ways in others. Undeniably, at least parts of it will be barely recognizable twenty years from now. In what way, though? Is total transformation always scary? Or how much of it is fiction, like most marketing materials? Let me get back to you after I finish gazing at my nice gold brick. Volcanic Momentum is the sort of motivational book that you don’t put back on the shelf when you’re done. You leave it out where you can see the cover, because just reading the words VOLCANIC MOMENTUM puts you in the right frame of mind. Jordan Ring has ‘it,’ ‘it’ being the mysterious factor that can transform a self-described overweight, broke gamer into a veritable productivity machine.
A lot of motivation and productivity books speak in the abstract. An example would be a single person giving parenting advice, or someone who has always been athletic offering diet advice. We believe Jordan when he talks about the “sugar dragon” or procrastination or wasting time because it’s clear he’s been there. He is us. The heart of Volcanic Momentum is its deep focus on meaning and purpose. Why are we doing what we are doing, and who are we doing it for? This is part of what makes the book stand out. That, and it somehow feels lived-in. Some of the productivity advice is a little quirky, like having whiteboards in the living room, but we can believe that it actually works. It would make a particularly great companion for an active journal-keeper, as it provides pages of excellent journal prompts. This book busted me up. There were several points where I snorted, laughed out loud, and at one point couldn’t stop giggling through two pages. Something to do with eating a pizza over the sink like a rat. Jordan Ring has a gift for highly relatable and somehow stealthy humor. Volcanic Momentum is approachable, surprisingly comprehensive for its length, and, best of all, really fun to read. Favorite quotes: What we do in this life really matters. There’s no harm in asking, other than hurt pride and a few wasted minutes. Admit that you are probably not living out your maximum potential right now. Everyone is called to do more than they already are. The Cabin bus from Santa Monica to San Francisco caught my attention before it even began operations. As a startup idea, I thought it was brilliant. All I needed was an excuse to visit someone in the Bay Area. Any opportunity to indulge my fixation on alternative travel would suffice.
The adventure began when I lucked into an empty berth with only a day’s notice. There wasn’t another available spot for ten days, so I used reward miles and booked a flight for the return trip. This sort of arrangement involves a certain amount of planning what to pack, in what sort of bag, because there are things that can be brought on a bus that can’t go through TSA, and also things that fit in a suitcase that you don’t necessarily want in your bed, especially a narrow one. This is foreshadowing. I took a Lyft from my home to the pickup location, which is scenic and convenient as can be. Unfortunately, when I got out, I wound up on the wrong side of the street, facing the wrong direction. All I could see were city buses. My driver took off. I checked the street address of the nearest building, realized I was in the wrong spot and had no data reception, and freaked out. Where am I?? Where is my bus?? Then I turned around and saw it parked a block away, the lights of the pier behind it. Derp. Onboarding couldn’t have been simpler. I walked up, showed the hostess my confirmation email, and left my bag with her. I stepped inside, climbed the stairs, and took an empty bunk at the back of the bus. Getting into the bunk proved a bit complicated, possibly the hardest part for people regardless of size. Slightly above waist height, I couldn’t just lie down or throw myself onto the bed. I had to hoist myself. I’m 5’4” so this would probably be harder for a shorter person. On the other hand, a taller person might have more trouble kneeling or crouching to get into the lower berths. My compact frame was definitely an asset when it came to spending eight hours in a confined space, a space I later jokingly referred to as a ‘ComfyCoffin.’ The bedding on these things is first-rate. Probably the most comfortable pillow I’ve ever used, I’m sorry I forgot to take a picture of the tag so I could order one for myself later. I also really loved the sheets and the duvet. I am a chilly sleeper, so I was a bit paranoid about being too cold. Not a problem. What was a problem was that it’s impossible to sit up in the berth. There’s nowhere to use a restroom or change clothes before boarding the bus (except at home, of course), and if I tried it again in future, I would definitely brush my teeth and all that before departure. One bus restroom for twenty-plus people isn’t really enough for everyone’s bedtime routine. It would have been nice to have a curtained changing room on board, or popped up on the sidewalk at the bus stop for that matter. I managed to wrestle myself out of my clothes and into my pajamas. I waited about forty minutes from departure for an opportunity to use the restroom before trying to sleep. The fact that I was able to sleep on this bus speaks volumes for its overall comfort. I have a major parasomnia disorder and sleep is what I do worst. Out of the eight-hour trip, I think I slept about six hours, which is amazing. I’ve slept worse in my own bed at home. I took 10 mg of melatonin, double my usual dose, but then I’ve done that at home too and it hasn’t always worked. The passengers were, as a rule, quiet and professional. The one exception was the gentleman who claimed the upper berth opposite mine. He coughed throughout the night, waking me up several times, and evidently also giving me his cold, because I wound up being really sick for over a week. Thanks, jerk. I don’t care WHAT is going on in your life, do not leave your house and cough on people when you are ill. We really need to get some sort of fishbowl for folks to wear on their heads. Especially when they are sleeping three feet away from someone else’s face. The disadvantage of arriving half an hour early is that you claim dibs first, and then later arrivals set up camp around you. If I’d heard coughing I would have known to go to the other end and stay away. Enough about that; back to the foreshadowing. Something funny happened. I was having a vivid dream about a horrid black millipede crawling on my foot. It felt like something was physically crawling on me and tickling me, and I woke up nearly screaming, shaking my foot. In the morning, guess what I saw? A weird little black beetle on the curtain, right next to my foot! It was easy to see what happened: my shoe bag with my boots on the left, leaning against my bare feet in the middle, with the curtain a couple of inches away on the right, making a direct path. Obviously I carried the creepy-crawly in on my own footwear. The moral of the story is to never bring your shoes into bed without thoroughly inspecting them first. That’s one of the major drawbacks of this form of transit. Anything you want with you while undressing, sleeping, or dressing is going to have to spend the night on the mattress with you. There are no shelves or cabinets, just a little mesh pocket. If I’d understood this better, I would have probably taken off my boots and changed into flip-flops outside when I handed over my suitcase. I packed a protein bar and a bottle of iced green tea for my breakfast. There are coffee and hot tea, for those who like them, but the bus doesn’t arrive all that near civilization and I like to eat the moment I wake up. That was 5:55 AM, incidentally, when the bus started to approach the city and the rhythm of the road changed. This gave me plenty of time to use the restroom before anyone else and then get dressed and packed before arrival. Overall, I liked this style of travel, and I’d do it again. I’d especially do it now that I know how nice the bedding is, how quiet it is, and how to organize my stuff and my routine for the most streamlined trip. I’d take some extra vitamin C for a couple of days ahead of time. (A wise precaution before traveling anywhere, by any means). I’m just not sure I’d take my husband, who is 6’2” and who I can’t really picture fitting into one of these bunks. Finally, there’s one area of life where it pays to be a short person. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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