friendship, humor, life lessons, love

Monday Morning

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This morning, one of our local weather forecasters said, “Today will be remembered for being very bright..”.  I found this very insulting to the other days of the week.  Certainly yesterday was exceptionally bright too.  And for all I know Tuesday will be just as intelligent.  Clearly this woman has a glaring bias (pun intended), and it concerns me that Tuesday through Sunday will remain forever undervalued and seen as somewhat dim.

In the climate workplace, I would say that the other days of the week have a credible claim of discrimination.

Ironically, the news stations here have decided that doppler radar images and assorted predictive computer applications really don’t serve the public as well as .. a window.  So now the forecasters have an outdoor set with lots of cameras, and they give the weather report from there.  “Look at the sun rise”, “It’s a cool morning – have the kids where a jacket if they’re waiting for the school bus”…I think I would like a job where I can stand outside and speak the obvious and/or provide a seven-day outlook with confidence –  and be wrong half the time.  How comforting to be able to shrug one’s shoulders and blame an unforeseen dip in the jet stream for any errors and remain employed.  I could do this job well.

Yet as Mondays go, this one is pretty spectacular.  Certainly far too cool and clear to be inside, so the Sirs and I are bracing for a serious nature walk.  I’ll be breathing deep and feeling the sun tickle my skin; the Sirs will be marking every tree as we go, crisscrossing their leashes around my legs with thoughtless abandon, oblivious to the beauty around them and the precarious position in which I am being placed.  I have no worries though, for I have been assured, that today is very bright.  With that kind of wisdom around me, I feel pretty sure I won’t fall over my feet.

 

 

anxiety, friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness, motivation

Make It Better

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I hesitated posting this because I know of no one who hasn’t read this before.  And yet it’s so perfectly accurate, that to ignore the message is to deny the peculiar juxtapositions in our lives today.  It is no less astonishing when one pauses to consider that we have constructed this catch-22.

Perhaps we would be well-served to step away from our lives every once in a while and define our perception of success.  Certainly for me, my kids have always been at the top of the list.  There have also been times when my well-being was at the very bottom, while I rode the wave of wanting more – more money, more responsibility, more stuff, more of everything that would furnish my life with the accoutrements of success.  I have never surfed in my life, but I was really quite good at riding that wave to the shore, and going out again.  I’ll take it further – I almost drowned once (my uncle fished me out of the ocean) and quickly developed a healthy love of the ocean – from its shallows.  Yet, any phobic reservations were ignored as I pursued the next big wave.

No one tells you that the ride is hardly exhilarating when you flop onto the sand,  remembering little of the thrill, your board damaged from the multiple rides.  No one suggests to you that you need far better balance to love the waves.  No one reminds you that a happy life begins with your approach – not to things – but to everyone else (including your own sweet self).  Take a few seconds and give it a thought or two.  When was the last time you made eye contact with a stranger and said “Good morning”?  Did you get outside on one of these magical,  clear, gorgeous days and notice that the air is gently circling your skin with a really loving touch?  Instead of a break from sitting in your desk chair, when was the last time you took a break just to get to know the person who sits in the office down the hall?  The cashier at the supermarket?  How often did you dance this week?  And if you found the time (and we all have the time) to do any of these, did you integrate that moment into your daily post mortem?

See?   Even the occasional monkey takes a minute to think about this sort of stuff.

I think there is a better way.  And it’s not particularly difficult, just a little more embracing of that which is around us.  Smile – fake it til you make it.  Donate five minutes of your day to grace – the silent thank you, the conversation with a stranger who is really not a stranger, because you see him/her all the time.  Laugh hard – make your tummy sore.  Remember to say ‘I love you” – and look that person in the eye when you say it.   Don’t wrap yourself so tight that you can’t move outside your head.  There’s more out there than your thoughts, your list of have to’s, your aggravations.  Find something you have never noticed before and marvel at how little we see when our eyes are wide open.  Learn that this day is yours to turn into something for which you can feel awesome.  And then do it.  Happy Thursday everyone…

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, motivation

These Are The Days

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My cousin’s daughter got married last night.  Gorgeous bride, handsome groom – they could be on the cover of any bridal magazine.  They glowed, as only newlyweds can glow – reflecting so much light that your eyes are magnetically drawn to them, as one looks to the stars on the clearest of nights.

Our family has shrunk remarkably – my cousins and I now represent the elders of this tribe.  How strange, as we compared ages and reminisced about how large those nominal differences in our ages once seemed.  We don’t speak of our parents, for none of us have them any longer.  Family events used to be full of grown ups – there were so many of them, and eight of us.  We don’t say anything because each of us is so acutely aware of the absences.  The counterpoint of love and loss is too exquisite.

We are wearing our seniority with limited gravitas.  Dancing with typical disinhibition, not giving a moment’s thought to any propriety associated with our status.  I killed it (and myself) in five-inch heels, caring little about the consequences (sounds like me in college actually).  Let’s not talk about my crooked shape today.  It was worth it.  We longed for the opportunity to forget that there were no parents watching us from the perimeter, nudging each other and marveling at our energy and rhythm.  My dad wasn’t there when the music moved into Motown; I longed to see my mom’s ‘dancing face’ (lips pursed seductively, eyes harmless yet flirtatiously looking directly at her partner).   I wore her bracelet because I knew she would want to be there.  The days of going from one table to another knowing that because you were one of the kids, you were met with the kind of familial adoration which may have little heft, yet envelops completely.  My aunt’s laugh – which would begin a chain reaction with her brothers both hiccupping and crying with delight.  Who knows what our children see when they watch us.  Fortunately they dance along.

Perhaps the bittersweet taste is more acute this time of year.  Tomorrow is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah – the beginning of a new year and the ten ‘Days of Awe’.  ‘On Rosh Hashanah it is written on Yom Kippur it is sealed’ – the fate of another year decided by the sincerity of one’s heart, the commitment to a life led with the best of intentions, the depth of one’s atonement for causing another person pain or sorrow.  I am not religious – and yet I believe deeply.  I attend services on the High Holy Days – am I trying to hedge my bets?  I don’t know.  But I remember leaning against my father’s shoulder and playing with the fringe of his prayer shawl, doing my best to behave so I could sit with the grown-ups when the kids’ service was over.  To sit with my two grown-ups.

And now that is me.  And I ask myself  if my words and my actions have been kind enough,  my generosity sufficiently reflective of that which is in my heart, beseeching  that my family be graced with a sweet, healthy year.  I take my role seriously in this regard – I’m not fist pumping to Marvin Gaye, not trying to prove to my body that it’s still too young to be anything other than spontaneous and flexible.  I am praying for continued life and that’s a pretty adult activity.  The responsibility of the senior members of the tribe to effect with concentrated sincerity and seriousness.  And the wind seems to sigh, knowing that this is the truest dance of all – one that we all move to regardless of our sense of rhythm.  To my friends and family, whom I love more deeply than any ocean and with width and breadth that spans farther than the sky – I wish you a year of joy and health, abundant laughter and sweetness – and love..always, love.

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, music

Finding Life

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Days

What are days for?

Days are where we live.

They come, they wake us

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

(By Philip Larkin)

I got a call from a recruiter this week – a C-level HR position in another global law firm.  We may speak tomorrow.  Whether or not we do is irrelevant.  What matters is why I even entertained the prospect at all.  And I realized it’s because I spent so long making a very comfortable living, I really didn’t know diddly about making my life (sorry for the cliché).  Thoughts about working represent the comfort zone and figuring how to find my best life is a far scarier proposition.  And I don’t do fear – I prefer to think of myself as naively intrepid.  And other than the first shock of the day when I see myself in the mirror, I try to avoid any other activities throughout the day which may inspire my flight or fight response.

And the bottom line is – running away from life by running to work isn’t an answer.  Too many people do it, and I used to gently suggest to them that their effectiveness was impacted when work became their refuge, instead of an end in and of itself.  Guilty as charged.

So what am I doing to inform this new narrative?

I started writing this blog with no idea as to its direction or purpose.  And though I’m still not sure of either, I am sure that it has brought me into the lives of some incredibly generous, talented, gorgeous people around the world.  I have found that there is so much that unites us, I’m continually amazed that there are so many divisions.  I delight in laughing out loud at phenomenal humor from people who are deft at taking themselves lightly, or shaking my head with wonder almost every morning at my pal David’s prolific (and occasionally neurotic) wisdom.  I wait for a word from Simon which always fills my heart, celebrate Rhonda’s life-out-loud voice and hold Lori’s words as close as one would a second skin.  Bonnie and I may live in different time zones but we’re on the same page (though hers is a younger, cooler page without question).  Maureen writes her messages with a gentle hand, and Christine and Tuck’s mama share the unbridled joys of parenting (with the occasional frustration thrown in to comfort those of us with wonderful, albeit imperfect progeny).  Some people grapple with physical challenges – some of which I personally share – and are not hesitating to dance through life.  Russ and Ivon and John and Shimon make me wish I was smarter.  Susan makes me pine to be able to write poetry – all my Dr. Seuss riffs notwithstanding. Keith inspires me to want to walk with a lighter footprint upon the earth.  I could go on and on and on and I mean no offense in omitting any names – I hope you know how incredible I think you are.  You are all a part of this life I’m building.

I’m in better shape than I’ve been in a while, and knock out 110 sit-ups at the gym (with a back support), do pull-ups, weight-lift and bike five miles in seventeen minutes.  May not sound like much to you, but I’m enjoying learning what my body can do.  I’ve taught myself how to knit (badly – but hey, I’m great at scarves), began teaching myself the piano and am reading as many books as I can that don’t have to do with leadership and management.  I stay in touch with those who fill my soul and have learned to let go of those who have no need of me and for whom I arguably have no need.  I still hate the phone.  I learned how to download videos from youtube.  I consult, though not as often as I might like (but then again, I am lousy at self-promotion and don’t imagine that changing).

I sing again – although when no one is home.

I’m still learning how to be the best mom to adults, how to be an in-law who’s never an out-law.  How to love so hard and not squeeze the life out of that love.  I’m learning how to sit outside and not feel that I have to get up and do something.   I dance like a madwoman in the kitchen – and I’m not  half bad.   I sat in Starbucks this morning and listened to an elderly woman talk at length about a friend in the hospital.  I have no idea what her name is, but we hugged each other good bye.  I’m learning how to breathe.  And as I write this, I realize that I am learning that this is how one goes about making a life.

And I feel pretty damned intrepid.

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

When Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

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Wednesdays are really unremarkable.  By definition they are just middling.  The middle of the week.  The day that carries the dubious distinction of being known as ‘hump day’, permanently stuck in the position of being neither here nor there – not being part of the beginning of the week or the end of the week.  Poor Wednesday – always in the middle of the hourglass.

Except when it is an extraordinary day.  Then Wednesday stands proudly on its own – capably bridging both sides of the week with chest extended, pride exploding from each of its hours.  What happened today?

Nothing really.  Nothing that I can articulate well, at least.  After the weekend storm, we’ve been gifted with a series of golden days.  Truly magnificently golden.  It almost hurts to stay inside.  The sky is bluer than blue, the air cool and clear…goosebumps in the pre-dawn hours and kisses on your skin in the afternoon.  The morning coffee smells better.  The quiet is more magical.  The Sirs can’t help but get their wiggles out because these are days meant for wiggling and giggling (ok, so maybe dogs don’t giggle in the way we do, but still..).  All one’s senses are commanded to be on high alert to absorb the sheer grace of these days.  Mercy – when the universe attempts to provide us with what we are craving – and succeeds on every level.

One remarkable (and completely tangential) note – Fellow blogger kizzylee.wordpress.com has published her first book of short stories.  Titled “Whisper, Whisper”, she writes of flights of fancy that make you shudder with the kind of fear that lives right below your sense of reality.  The irony of course is that there is nothing about her that would suggest that this would be her genre of choice.  An adoring mom of four fabulous children, running from pillar to post with perpetual good cheer and a smile that carries across the pond.  Perhaps a captivating tale with an ogre of sorts and a happy ending assured – I would have anticipated that.  The two sides of  kizzylee – both pretty remarkable.  How delighted I am for her – another reason to enjoy this day.  It’s news that affects me more than a new iPhone on the market – but hey, that’s just me.

And in the glow of this day, I smile more broadly at the joy around me and I say ‘thank you thank you thank you’.  My heart aches more acutely with the unfathomable tragic news from around the world, the vitriol that populates every channel on tv, every paper, even the language on Facebook as the elections approach in the States.  I hang my head and weep – this is not what these days are for, these should not be the takeaways when the stars wait expectantly each morning to see what choices we will make today and the sun insists on sending warmth onto our shoulders regardless of the impression we are making upon the earth (to say nothing of each other).

Today is extraordinary because in the absence of  in-your-face surprises, a butterfly hung out for a while on some mums and just let its wings spread and sighed.  I’m lucky.  We’re blessed.

 

 

Uncategorized
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This appeared on DavidKanigan.com and I am reblogging it because it should be read, integrated and remembered by everyone in my view. Often those who have ‘already made it’ forget that they still need to bring their moral compass and backbone to work. Bring something to the table that young people will want to emulate and strive to be. And encourage them to bring their A game – not because we did it when we were younger – but because we’re bringing it every day as well.

Live & Learn's avatarLive & Learn

John E. Smith @ strategiclearner is a frequent inspiration stop for me.  Here’s another one of John’s great shares.  Henry Rollins speaks to college students in this clip however I believe his remarks are inspirational to all of us.  He shares an important message that needs to be heard, shared and passed along. It’s worth 5 minutes of your time.  You’ll find the transcript below.

Transcript of Henry Rollins’ remarks:

Young person, you’ll find in your life that sometimes your great ambitions will be momentarily stymied, thwarted, marginalized by those who were perhaps luckier, come from money, where more doors opened, where college was a given–it was not a student loan; it was something that Dad paid for–to where an ease and confidence in life was almost a birthright, where for you it was a very hard climb.

You cannot let these people make you feel that you have in…

View original post 524 more words

anxiety, discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

How To Hold On And Still Let Go

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There’s a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver that I’d like to share with you – it’s title is “In Blackwater Woods”

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

 

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

 

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have learned

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

 

You must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal,

to hold it

 

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it,

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Fall is breathing its freshness into the air.  A time of transition – and I’ve never been good with transition.  Once I get to the other side of it, I’m fine – but the subtle and not-so-subtle angina of knowing things must change makes me jumpy.  And yet, fall is when kids go back to school, when the forgiving schedules of summer become more intractable, when we shift our sensibilities to what is yet to be.  I celebrate as my best childhood friend seeks to find her new rhythm now that her daughter has started a new career in a city far from home.  My friend D cries in her daughter’s room after she leaves for her freshman year of college (I totally get this – I slept in my son’s room for two weeks).   I sometimes still wonder where my place is in my own little family – as the boys have established their own married lives and I had to give them the room and space to go about their adult lives – and on a daily basis, their schedules and plans have nothing to do with me.

And all these children/adults are doing exactly what we have wished, dreamed and prayed for – they have become caring, responsible, decent people who are loving and loved.  People who are delighting in the lives they are making for themselves.  These are the times when I remember clearly the words of the rabbi at our wedding, reminding us that we are not lucky, we are blessed.  I think about that a lot.

I think about how I’ve yet to let go of my parents though they are no longer here.  In my heart, my friend Alex never hurt with such relentless despair that she would have to leave this life.  I hold on.

I hold on to being in my junior seniorhood and inwardly jump up and down when my trainer tells me that I can still rock ‘cute’.  Of course I’m paying him, I know that – but there are few adjectives for retired cheerleaders that aren’t totally nauseating (and I only did that for one semester in college).  I listen to a friend as she struggles through a huge life change and wrestles with the idea of letting go of that which is already gone.  And look forward to a wedding this coming weekend when two young people let go of their old lives to begin one together.

Perhaps the salvation is not in the letting go, perhaps it is in holding on loosely.  Not necessarily with the intent to try and reel the past back in, but to able to regard it as a touchstone from which to move forward.  To know that as life proceeds without our permission, that which we love with all our being still remain in some way ever-present.  Perhaps that is how we can move forward and embrace the transitions that leave us breathless.

 

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Thoughts For A Friday Afternoon

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I found this quote so reassuring and comforting and hopeful – what better mindset to have as we head into the weekend?  To know in the stillness – between one action and the next, that you can pause and consider all the love that conspired to bring you to this moment.  Hokey?  Okay.  But tell me who ever is genuinely loved too much?  And who doesn’t need to be reminded that no matter how snarky the mood, difficult a day or challenging a moment in time may be – you are part of a greater, loving whole?

So, back to your regularly scheduled chaos –  but hopefully with a moment to smile.  Happy weekend all..

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

DIFIK (Damned If I Know)

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I love the English language.  I love French too, but since I happen to know English better, it’s my favorite.  Reading it, writing it, speaking it – I’m a fan.  So many words, so many alternatives for expressing one’s thoughts, so much potential for discourse.  There are a lot of people who have read this blog, many of whom have commented (and who write their own blogs) with far greater eloquence than I will ever have.

Yet, I am feeling so alone.

I recently read that there are now more than 80 million who are texting regularly.  80 million people!!  Now, I am not a very good texter.  I don’t do conversation in short-hand, counting characters as I go.  It doesn’t come naturally to me, and in my little old-school brain, it bugs me that it comes so naturally to everybody else (or to 80 million people other than me – but that seems like a significant enough number that I can refer to them as the collective ‘everybody’).  Anyway, I just looked up ‘texting’ on Google – and printed off 40 pages of acronyms.  Forty pages of abbreviated ways that people can arguably communicate with each other.  Really?  This is communicating?  This is what you’re doing while you’re driving, rolling your shopping cart down the supermarket aisles, walking on the street – all in the name of staying in touch (and multi-tasking – or so you think)?

143; 459; 831; ILU; ILY all mean ‘I love you’.  1432 -‘I love you more’; IWALU – ‘I will always love you’; ILUAAF – ‘I love you as a friend’; LUL – ‘love you lots’ LYLB – ‘love you later bye’.  I could go on…I can’t even count the number of phrases with a certain epithet that rhymes with ‘truck’ – well I could, but there were just too many per page to sustain my interest.  ROFL – ‘rolling on the floor laughing’; ROTFL – ‘rolling on the floor laughing’; ROTFLMAO – ‘rolling on the floor laughing my ass off’…there’s also ROTGLMAO – ‘rolling on the ground laughing my ass off’.  I’m so glad that they’ve added enough options so that you can use different nouns.

There are some that are just plain stupid – AFJ – ‘April Fool’s Joke’ – how often do you need to use that expression to justify writing it in short-hand?  RLF – ‘real life friend’.  I don’t know how to say this gently, but if you have friends that exist only in your imagination – I understand – but perhaps it would help if you talked to someone about this FTF (face-to-face).

I am officially going anti-acronym.  I am guilty of writing ‘lol’, even ‘rofl’ and yes, ‘btw’ has come up in more than one message from yours truly. And reading this list has shown me that we are giving each other and the English language short shrift.  The other night Andy and I watched a family of four sit down at a restaurant, each completely immersed in his/her smartphone.  They didn’t say one word to each other.  They also ate with a fork in one hand, and kept texting with the other.  Ok, it’s not how I would define family fun time, but clearly I’m missing something.  I guess I haven’t gotten the 411 on the benefits of not speaking directly with each other, looking at someone’s face or enjoying the rhythmic dance of conversation.  It would seem that m.02 (my two cents if you can believe it) is really outdated and over-valued.  The joy of reading a descriptive sentence, the first class seat on a flight of imagination that is provided courtesy of language.  And talking?  I think it’s becoming passé, much like cursive.  Perhaps it will be taught as part of the history curriculum someday (which will be provided online and with all the appropriate abbreviations to accelerate course completion).

Sigh…I think my cool factor just went down about forty points.  But my cynicism quotient is definitely up.  We are short-circuiting our connections in the name of staying connected.  And I’m not down with that.  So I am SMH (shaking my head) sending you a 5FS4N (five finger salute for now – which I sure hope means ‘bye for now’) and committing to doing my part to keep written and oral communication alive and well.  🙂  Oh, that means I’m smiling – emoticons are ok right?

discretion, friendship, humor, life lessons, love, mindfulness

I Love Oreo Cookies

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Please note, I didn’t say I love Nabisco – I know nothing about the company, I concede that Oreo cookies are made of few natural ingredients and if consumed in massive quantities may erode one’s digestive track and certainly they can leave embarrassing clues on your teeth if you don’t wash them down with something.

I love Oreos because they don’t fall apart when you dunk them in milk.  Oreos are tough, even though the stuff in the middle always stays soft (but never so soft that it falls into your glass mid-dunk).   I carried two bags of Double Stuff Oreos in my suitcase when I flew to Riyadh, and not one broke  (another story for another day – it was for work, and yes, I looked more than a little ridiculous in an abaya which I kept tripping over because there was no opportunity to get a normally sized one adjusted for a short woman, and blond hair poking out of a hijab didn’t help me achieve anonymity).  That says less for my packing skills than it does for the cookies.  I’m tellin’ you – Oreos are the unsung heroes of Cookiedom.

And I stand (ok, sit) before you today – the metaphoric Oreo.  Yet somehow it doesn’t make me a hero among humankind, so please don’t view this as a flight of egoistic folly.

I’m a pretty tough cookie on the outside (get it? already the parallels begin to present themselves).  Retrospectively, it took a pretty tough exterior to pick up an almost two-year old and four-year old and leave a toxic situation and have no job, no support system in the area, and no idea what the tomorrows would hold.  What I had was an unbreakable belief that I was going to do right by my babies and figure the rest out later.  No heroics here, just survival.  And no perfect endings for there aren’t any – I made sure there was an account just to cover their therapy bills (I’m sorta kidding about this guys – there’s no account with some hidden cash in it).  And at night when they were asleep, I would sit in their room just to listen to them breathe, because it allowed me to be as vulnerable as they were.

There isn’t a lot of room for the creamy filling on-the-inside when you’re working in a mega-firm either.  There’s too much emphasis on the ‘mega’ and my office was the place where people came when they needed to emote, not for me to emote.  Compassionate?  You bet.  Concerned?  To a neurotic fault.  Invested?  To my toes.  But if there needed to be a hard-core, put-your-head-down-and-just-keep-going kinda gal – I was pretty damn good at that.  Fall apart?  Not in front of anyone – that wasn’t part of the equation.  Not because I am a woman, because law firms like the ‘play hurt persona’.  They like the exterior that won’t fall apart no matter the hours, disaffection or compromised values.

And there’s definitely a need to be Oreo-like if you don’t want people to see that you have a body that is constantly fighting with itself.  That’s just way too boring.

I will crack a joke (and they’re often quite good by the way), sound like Pollyanna, and never admit that I’ve lost the part of the sandwich that keeps the icing inside.  Yup. Love those Oreos..Someone recently wrote me and said “you know, this is a two-way deal – you can talk to me about what’s going on with you too”.  I love her dearly – and find the prospect of such disclosure so  hard.  I’m better in the other role, the ‘I want to see you happy role’.  And you know?  I’ve gotta get over this a bit – enough so that I develop enough affection for myself that I can be something other than perpetually ok.  And my hunch is you do too (admit it, you’re nodding aren’t you?)

For at the end of the day, I do break like everybody else.  I feel slights as much as the next person and though I rarely acknowledge it, can feel completely broken by another’s thoughtless action.  Perhaps it’s why I pursue kindness so passionately, maybe that’s why I rail against communication that can be obfuscated and misunderstood – because I don’t want there to be hurt – intentional or unintentional.  Petulant and childish – I know.  But maybe there is something to it.   I can be a tough cookie when it comes to dealing with the curve ball that can be thrown when one’s health is always compromised;  when a crisis arises, I want me there;  if someone needs another to have his/her back – turn around – I’m there.  I have to learn that sometimes it’s important to ask someone else to have mine.

So when all is said and done…and I occasionally look at the losses or the hurts, the foul plays and the cheap shots, the downs that have to accompany the many ups –  I realize that perhaps it’s time to develop an affection for another type of carb…I think at core, I am really…a Twinkie. And I think, I’m going to be ok with that, though I’ll probably have to go to the gym more often.