Are we there yet, and how do we know?

As W.C. Fields once wisely noted, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.” (W.C. Fields also once said “Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler.” But I am digressing.)

This day I find myself struggling with the definition of “success” in a recent endeavor of mine. What do you do when you are receiving directly contradictory indicators of progress – which data do you believe?

As the thousand of my readers know, one reason I began “this blog thing” at the end of last year was because I wanted to hold my very large feet to the fire in terms of accountability for my new “health plan,” also known as the “losing a bunch of weight before we embark on Vegas for my baby-daddy’s wedding so I can wear a really sexy dress and also not be embarrassed by the pool in my bathing suit” plan. Of course, the diet blog quickly devolved into a cooking blog, and after that, a general sort of ranting space. Sorry about that.

However, despite the fact that I don’t write about it very often, I have continued my efforts to slim down, and in fact I have begun to notice that my clothes are really getting big. I also see that I was not actually born with two chins, as one of them has recently disappeared. Finally, several people have remarked on my new appearance, and I am not just talking about Tom who has to compliment me three times daily or he doesn’t get a cookie.

And yet, I haven’t lost that much weight, pound-wise. That has been driving me crazy. My conscious decision was to only step on the scale once per week, so that I didn’t get more wacky about it than I should. Two pounds per week, I estimated, would be a good weight loss rate. Given that goal, by now I should have lost around 25 pounds. I haven’t. Therefore, success/progress indicator #1 tells me what I am doing isn’t working.

But wait! How to explain the loose clothes, the reduction by half of chin inventory, the warm words of encouragement from my secretary, the butcher, and my ex-husband (“you look better than you used to, good for you!”)? I know something is happening to my body, but the pounds lost on the scale don’t seem to capture the degree of change I have seen.

Therefore, I made an appointment to be measured by a charming little device called “The Bod Pod.”

"I am so very happy to be here!"














The Bod Pod looks like a giant navy bean that happens to have a window. Most navy beans don’t have windows, so that is somewhat unsettling. It works in a very complicated way which you wouldn’t understand unless you are at the right end of the intelligence spectrum (see earlier blog re: worst date ever http://postdarwinianhubris.blogspot.com/2010/01/great-first-date-profoundly-bad-third.html, but needless to say, it is supposed to be the most accurate measurement of body composition out there.

So this morning I kissed my husband and son farewell and headed to the gym for the Moment of Truth. The man administering the test was very nice but annoyingly fit. His muscles had muscles, and he looked like the kind of guy that bikes everywhere, even on vacation. By that I don't mean he goes on vacation and gets on a bike when he gets there, I mean he picks a location and sets out on his Schwinn to get there.

After I sat in the giant bean for the test, he quizzed me as I put my shoes back on (no shoes in the Bod Pod! Ever!).

“So, what do you think your number is?” he asked.

“I don’t know, 50%,” I laughed, wanting him to know that I know that I am not as hot as he is and also showcasing my hilarious rapier wit in a self-deprecating fashion.

“Come on, really,” he said, “you look very fit.”  I think he said "fit."  He may have said "fat." 

Well, as it turns out I am 23% body fat as of today. For women and giraffes, that’s a pretty decent number. My ultimate goal is 19% by the middle of summer, but I am feeling pretty happy about where I am. The only reason I am even publishing this here is because I have scheduled another Bod Pod appointment for May 7, right before the Vegas debacle. I hope that by posting today's results on my blog, and by promising additional data on a specified date in the future, I will be motivated to continue making progress. Fear of looking like an idiot who can’t follow through is a wonderful motivator, after all!

This is what 23% looks like on me.  On my Vespa.  With my kid.













Coming back to my original question: how do we measure progress? My weight in and of itself would not impress anyone as being low by any means, but my body fat percentage and the fact that all my clothes are too big indicate that I am moving towards achieving my goal, albeit somewhat slowly.

This seemingly incongruent set of data has taught me a valuable lesson today. There are many traditional indicators of success: when gauging someone’s career achievements, for example, we may look at their salary, level within a company, and whether or not they have a wide degree of visibility in their industry. But the truth is, unless they are happy with the person they have to gaze at every morning in the mirror, all of that other stuff doesn’t really matter.

The same goes for weight, obviously, as many of us are hung up on a certain number that we envision as our ideal weight. The fact is I am never going to weigh 125 pounds – not without a good deal of cancer running amok in my body or the loss of at least one major limb. I am throwing away the scale and focusing on what I see in the mirror and that, my friends, will get me where I want to be.

Where do you want to be, and how are you tallying your progress in life?

Deep questions from a super-duper deep woman,

Robin

PS: Margot's first look at horses from our trip to Gearhart with the Pinkertons.  She measures success by how many times she gets love and affection in a day.  Sounds like a pretty decent achievement barometer, if you think about it...

Schadenfreude Love Song

As Homer Simpson once said, “Those Germans have a word for everything.” Today I find myself pondering the word “Schadenfreude,” which does not really have an English counterpart. Schadenfreude (it is always capitalized when used in German) can be defined as the “malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.”

By the way, the transposed variant "Freudenschade" was apparently created to mean sadness one feels at another's success, although there is no such word in German. In America we would just call Freudenschade what Fox news felt collectively when Barack “Hussein” Obama was elected.

The dictionary explains Schadenfreude with a quote from historian Peter Gay, who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin as he watched the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics.  When reflecting on those feelings he experienced as the Germans suffered humiliating losses, Mr. Gay quite correctly and honestly observed that Schadenfreude “can be one of the great joys of life.”

Who can blame Mr. Gay for celebrating in losses suffered by such a vile and ferocious oppressor? The Nazis were really, really mean. As a Jewish child in Nazi Germany, Mr. Gay probably had good reason to wish a painful and drawn-out death on anyone associated with the German regime, so taking pleasure in the government’s embarrassment over simple athletic competition is not only to be expected, but shows a certain amount of restraint.

That being said, if you ask a group of people if they have ever experienced Schadenfreude, I would bet that many of them would deny it. What a petty and ugly emotion to admit to, right? It makes one look small and mean and a little bit unbalanced. And so I come to you now with a confession – a horrible admission about myself that I am writing down only because I know almost nobody reads my blog:

I have Schadenfreude. I have it BIGTIME. If it were a medical condition I would be hospitalized right now and probably being read my last rites.

Oh, they don’t read last rites to atheists? Damn.

Anyway, there is someone in this country who is a very, very VERY bad person. This person (hereinafter referred to as BDL) has spent many years making a fortune off the misfortune of others (new term: Schadenfreconomics).  BDL goes to great lengths to be as malicious, nasty and disagreeable as possible to anyone considered to be on the other side of an issue. BDL is the type of person who sees a fly buzzing around in your house and goes after it with a chainsaw. By the time BDL is done, the fly may be gone and it may not be, but everything in your home is destroyed and needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, you can’t afford to replace these things because BDL charged you $200,000 to trash your Asian-inspired furniture and family photos in the process of going after the fly. You never asked BDL to kill the fly, perhaps you just mentioned it was annoying and you’d like to figure out a way to get it out of the house. Now the place is a mess and you’ve got a big bill to pay.

Note that I wrote “your” home and not BDL’s, because our friend would never do anything contrary to his or her own benefit. BDL’s house is quite large, beautiful, and not at all trashed.

Back to Schadenfreude: it has recently come to light that BDL is going through some very tough times right now. Very serious times, in fact, and if I imagine myself in the same situation, I am overcome with fear and dread and all sorts of bad feelings that could possibly lead to a panic attack. But I am not facing that scenario – BDL is. And as my shrink would surely ask me if I had the presence of mind to get the counseling I so clearly need: “how does that make you feel?”

The ugly, small, petty rotten truth is: happy.

There.

I admit it.

It makes me happy that someone who has for decades delighted in creating misery for others is now miserable.  This is something different from the merely observational sin of Schadenfreude which goes even further to include creating the misery itself and then delighting in it.  For this offense we will hereby coin the term “SadoSchadenfreude,” all rights reserved thank you very much.

BDL is not only a SadoSchadenfreudian (SadoSchadenfreudist?), but also one who along with Glenn Beck practices Morose Delectation on a regular basis, which is the habit of dwelling with enjoyment on evil thoughts. It troubles me that I share any characteristic with BDL besides the fact that we are both (allegedly) carbon-based life forms, but apparently I do. I’d like to be more like a Buddhist experiencing “Mudita,” which is the opposite of Schadenfreude and means celebrating in the happiness of another. On second thought, I do that – a lot. So I guess I’ve got my darkness and light, my yin and my yang, my devil on the shoulder/angel on the shoulder just like a lot of other people.

The Book of Proverbs mentions an emotion similar to that now described by the word Schadenfreude: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him." (Proverbs 24:17–18, King James Version).

So I guess if I asked myself WWJOAOCFTMF (What Would Jesus Or Any Other Christian For That Matter Feel?) at worst perhaps I could just feel some sort of benign ambivalence when I hear that someone really awful is suffering. And so I add yet another goal for myself for 2010: do not delight in the misfortune of another just because they may be a monumental and unmitigated asshole.

Readers (both of you!), I would be so grateful for your comments if you would like to share any of your experiences with Schadenfreude, which really should be included in the list of emotions along with sadness, joy, anger, need for compliments on new jeans, etc.

Confessionally yours,

RD

Appearances can be deceiving

I have to admit that from time to time, meaning every day, I stop by various gossip websites and check in on the lives of the rich and famous celebrities who enjoy either an elevated status in America or a degree of infamy. The past few days have provided me with an extraordinary amount of insight into just how screwed up this world is. For example:


Kirstie Alley, a rabid Scientologist who has achieved the ultimate status of “clear” (she can control things with her mind and she is generally superior to everyone else except my dog) has launched a weight-loss program, despite the fact that it appears from recent photographs and interviews that she lacks the, er, credentials to give weight loss advice.

She is getting an enormous (wink, wink) amount of press this week as she promotes her weight loss “elixir,” which is basically some vitamins, a website, and a weight tracker. Genius. The word on the street (10th and Salmon, to be specific) is that the company is a front for Scientology and that profits will be split between Ms. Alley and the cult, I mean, church.

Here’s the thing: according to Scientology, a person who reaches the high levels within the church that Kirstie Alley has reached (“Clear” and above) “has achieved the extremely high state of being able to be at cause knowingly and at will over mental matter, energy, space and time as regards the first Dynamic (survival as self)." To put it less ambiguously, because like everything else ever written by L. Ron Hubbard that was written really badly, a Clear is supposed to be free of the "reactive mind" (similar to Freud's "unconscious mind"), and is theoretically responding to stimuli only by conscious control.

Don’t get me wrong, that all sounds great, really wonderful! But if that is true, why can’t Kirstie put down the burrito and jog around the block a few times? A Clear is supposedly capable of moving inanimate objects with the power of their brain alone…so why can’t they move their body away from the table?

In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I find it profoundly unfair that simply because she was on a hit television show last century, this woman who has gained and lost the same 90 pounds about twelve times should be in a position to make money off that fact. I have recently dropped 13 pounds by working my tail off in the gym and monitoring my food intake carefully. Where’s my book deal? Where’s my reality show? Why can’t I go on Oprah? I think Oprah would like me, and then we’d go out to lunch and become friends and she’d introduce me to her best friend Gayle who is TOTALLY NOT her lesbian lover and then she’d give me some of her money and I wouldn’t have to blog for cash anymore.

Oh wait, I don’t make money here. Nevermind.

OK, the other story that REALLY irked me was the GQ interview of Rielle Hunter, Johnny Edward’s mistress and baby-momma who took her pants off for a photo shoot and was subsequently infuriated when the magazine printed the photos. Because she thought they were head shots. No, really. Behold:

I especially like the really sexy pose with Kermit and Dora (watch our Kermit, Miss Piggy is going to be pissed!). I wonder what was going on in the photographer’s mind at the time. Who was the intended audience for these photos? I don’t want to sound reactionary and un-arty-like, but it seems to me that these photos might appeal to a pedophile who doesn’t want to get caught looking at actual child pornography. In a way, posing this fame-hungry DPPNF (democrat potential presidential nominee fucker) seductively with children’s toys is prurient. At the very least, it’s just bad photography, which anyone can tell you is abhorrent. Since I forced you to look at those hideous shots, I will attempt to reverse the damage to your eyeballs by presenting you with this:

This is of course Tom and Margot, the day we brought her home to complete our family of four kids, one ex-husband, one future fiancé of one ex-husband, and a tangential relationship with a very large cat named Audrey. Pictures of handsome men and adorable puppies never fail to bring a smile to my face. Tom, if you are reading this, by “handsome men,” I obviously mean “handsome men to whom I am (currently) married.”

I digress. The interview itself reads like a transcript of an overheard conversation in a girl’s high school locker room. Ordinarily I would provide a link to the article, but in this case the content is so toxic and gag-inducing that I cannot be held responsible for any of you clicking through to it from here. However, one thing that really shone through in this piece is the fact that John Edwards and Rielle Hunter are truly meant for each other, so if communicating that was the writer’s intent, I suppose she achieved her goal. Still, that GQ commissioned this trashy interview and these awkward attempted soft-kiddy-porn photos is really disappointing. I’d cancel my subscription if I had one, but I don’t because I am not a gay 25 year old male. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Finally, I was saddened to hear today that Sandra Bullock’s husband has been caught with his hand in the naughty cookie jar, and the actress has pulled out of public appearances and gone underground, which in Hollywood-speak means she is not currently standing in front of a camera talking about herself or her latest project, rehab stint, or the Dalai Lama. The scoundrel, aptly named Jesse James (because he’s a relationship outlaw, get it?), has apparently been “making the beast with two backs” (good one, Shakespeare) while his wife has been out of town filming. Here is a photo of Sandra and her I assume soon-to-be ex-husband at the Oscars:

Don’t they look happy? She is glowing and beaming, looking at him as if he had just given birth to a solid gold baby. And SHE’S the one who won the damned Oscar! They have only been married four years and if the allegations are true, he’s been cheating for at least a year. On her. With this:

What hit me about this story today was the profound disparity that can exist between the projected life and the real one. The average American who has heard about Sandra Bullock, especially in the past few weeks, probably thinks she has a damned near-perfect life. She’s talented, her latest movie is a hit, she won the Oscar, she’s rich, she’s beautiful, blah blah blah. The list of things for which we can all envy Sandy Bullock seems to be infinite. And yet, when you peel back the layers of the onion a bit, she’s got problems just like the rest of us. Big ones.

How many other people are out there, seeming to have it all and at the same time really struggling? How many out there are an active participant in the marketing of their life as one series of wonderful and life-affirming incidents after another? What percentage of us draft our own false narrative and transmit it via our facial expressions, choice of car, club membership, and boasting of our long and happy marriages that resemble nothing more than a false storefront on a movie set?

There are many famous examples illustrating the hypocrisy of perfection: L. Ron Hubbard railed against anti-depressants but died with them in his body; Tiger Woods portrays the loving husband and father for commercial gain but really he’s a manwhore; Ted Haggard preaches against homosexuality even after being found with a penis in his mouth.  Then again, these false portrayals are all around us. Phoniness is overwhelmingly annoying to me, as well as to Holden Caulfield, but I guess it is too much to ask that we all tell the truth. One of my new goals in life is to project an accurate portrayal of who I am and what I am about.


But of course that’s easy for me, because my life is perfect. Can’t you tell?

I'm sorry

Dear Blog (and of course, Dear Readers):

I know I have neglected you.  There are countless numbers of reasons: work, family, "life issues" (also known as discovering more gray hairs and as a result having to schedule additional therapy).  The truth is, while my lack of writing has been a result of all those things and more, that is no excuse.  It is an explanation, but not an excuse.  Therefore, I am here to apologize to you and to promise to make amends. 

In the past month, much has happened that has been exciting and challenging.  My job has taken on additional dimensions and I am having the time of my life, while earning money at the same time.  That just doesn't seem possible, but it's happening, and I for one (well, not really for one, because Tom is also thrilled, probably because he gets more presents now) am really happy about it.  It is hard to describe what a sense of peace that can bring someone - I actually enjoy going to work every day.  Who'da thunk it?

I have also been kicking some major patooty on my health plan (see first blog entry noting blog theme, which I quickly abandoned) and have lost 12 pounds.  Therefore, instead of writing pithy blog entries over the past four weeks, I have been focusing on my appearance and obsessing over the amount of exercise I get (a lot) and the amount of food I eat (not much) which is of course totally shallow and meaningless and ridiculous.

Still, my skinny jeans are loose.  Ha!

This is me.  Really! 

What motivated me to write today was an experience I had with a total stranger that reminded me that we live in a world with really wonderful people in it, despite the existence of That Certain Divorce Lawyer Who Shall Not be Named.  Today we discuss Ruth, who I may also refer to as "Angel Ruth," "Nice Lady," or "She Who Rocks."

Yesterday I was negotiating online (or so I thought!) with two companies to secure a rental home in Las Vegas.  Both companies were willing to come down in their price, this being a really yucky recession and all, but one in particular really let me hammer them down.  Pretty quickly, in fact, I had them accepting about 50% of their regular rental fee.  While Angel Ruth (the woman I negotiated with on the other property) was exceptionally nice and very responsive, she just couldn't match the deal that I got from "David."  I have written "David" in quotes as a subtle form of foreshadowing which you should have picked up on if you have any experience with my writing "style."  No, that wasn't foreshadowing.  Get with the program.

To make a long story even longer, as I was bidding adieu to She Who Rocks and thanking her for her time, she cautioned me to check into the rental I had selected.  She provided me with links to the Secretary of State office in Nevada as well as some helpful hints for verifying that a property is a legitimate rental. 

"Pee shaw!" I laughed.  "Smart girl lawyers like me don't have to worry about being scammed!"  But something was nagging at me, my spidey sense was tingling, and I decided to check it out.  I won't go into the details since they are numerous and lengthy, but "David" was a dreaded Internet Scammer!  He may not have been pushing a Nigerian objective or promising me easy money, but he was almost sucessful in tricking me into sending him a large amount of ducats to rent a house that is not only NOT the house he advertised and not owned by him, but which also basically does not exist.

After I figured out the scam with a little help from my nosey sister Melinda (thanks, sis!) I called Ruth to let her know how much she had helped me.  Unfortunately, I got her voice mail so I just hung up and wrote her an email.  She then passed along my story to her supervisor and we had a great talk on the phone.  I plan to rent their property instead, and to write about my experience so they can warn other would-be travelers.

Anyway, not to sound too negative, but there are some really awful people in this world, and sometimes if you are anything like me, you may feel like you bump into more than your fair share of them.  However, I have got to believe that there are more people like Ruth out there: people who don't need to help others but they do anyway.  So today I salute nice people everywhere, and hope to become more like them every day.  Sometimes it can be a struggle to avoid snark and be gracious, or to go out of your way to do a favor for someone, but the resulting good feelings pay the bill for restraint and inconvenience.

Peace, out.

PS: I promise to write more in the coming weeks and to be exceptionally engaging.  Keep my feet to the fire and show me you are out there reading by contributing comments - please!