The Strangest Souvenir Ever and What I learned on a Wenatchee Bike Trip

I hate recycling.

Ok, that's a bit rough and not entirely true. But I do find it to be a pain in the ass, especially when the rules change and at work you recycle one way and at home it's another and now we have to add a new compost container and listen to radio shows about how couples are fighting over new recycling rules and waa waa waa.

So here's the funny thing. Last week I was wondering what could possibly get me thinking more positively about recycling. Because it is for a very good cause, even if I'm occasionally suspicious about where everything ends up. The end-goal is to save Mother Earth and all that fine stuff.

So on this note of wondering how I can have a better recyling frame-of-mind: Whamo! I run right into my answer.

Tonya Berg! This weekend Tonya and I went to Wenatchee to ride our bikes with a group of fun bike crazies. And there's no one else I can have as much fun riding and complaining and laughing about it with than Tonya.

OK, a quick run-down on Ms. Berg: She's a healthcare professional, a Masters swimmer and mean breaststroker; she loves to watch TV a lot and does so guiltlessly. She drinks buttermilk before bed, is a huge Cougs fan and shops the sales racks like a champ. And she drinks a few Diet Cokes during the day ("as good as water!" she likes to say).

But here's a quintessential Tonya experience: If you're out and about walking with her and there's a little bit of trash here and there, she'll daintily bend over and pick it up and walk it to the closest trash bin--without saying a word. There is no "What's wrong with people" or "Jesus Christ goddamm SOBs...." She just quiety picks up whatever is in her way and puts it in the garbage and nothing changes about her body language or movement or dialogue, not a trace of resentment. As simple as that.

So on that note, there's this. It's Sunday morning and Tonya and I are packing up our things, while our third roomie, Jan is preparing for another day of intense cycling. I see Tonya rustling through the trash and pulling out the few cans and bottles in there. She says a few words to tell us casually she'll take them home and recycle them. !!!???

I must've said something because she then told us about the souvenirs she brought back from her trip to Tahiti a year or so back. She brought back all the plastic Coke bottles she drank while there--to recycle. In a giant suitcase.

"I smooshed them all down really well," she explained--as though that would make any difference. "Well, they don't really recycle there, they have to ship it all out," she added, as if that would explain things. And anyone who knows Tonya knows she likes to down a few bottles of Diet Coke per day. She brought home more than a few, that's for sure.

So, with that news downloaded I watch her pack about five bottles and cans into a plastic bag and haul it out to the car with her 17 other overnight bags. Just like that. There's no righteousness, no prostletyzing, nuthin'. It's a very remarkable attitude. She's a remarkable and strange and funny and unique person, our Tonya. But she also lives her life by example, and never once have I see her force her beliefs or ways upon someone else.

All day today I've wanted to pick up the phone and call Jan and say "Can you believe what Tonya did with those plastic Coke bottles?" Then I want to call and email all our mutual friends and say, "Did you know Tonya brought back many many plastic bottles of Diet Coke from Tahiti?"

Instead, I'll just write it here and proclaim Ms. Tonya Berg the Patron Saint of Recycling and other good deeds.

And maybe a few recycling cranks like me won't bitch so much while making way for more bins and containers.

Patron Saint Tonya poses at a gas station break for Coke and beef jerkey. The number on her bike hemlet is from Ironman Canada 2005. Her training regime is also what makes Tonya unique. It goes something like this: "Ah, once around the lake is enough riding." "Oh, a few times around Greenlake is enough running." "Man I could use a red beer!"

Modest Proposal: A fun(ny) "I don't like" club of sorts

Do you remember the French movie Diva that made a bit of a cult splash in the early '80s? It was an atmospheric thriller that featured a French kid motoring around on his scooter chasing after an older-woman crush and there are thugs and a magical man in a white suit and a singer who does this operatic solo at the end of the film that blows everyone away.

Anyway, one of the thugs is a short bald guy in sunglasses. He doesn't say much but when he does it's usually a one-liner that goes: "Je n'aim pas [quelque chose]. In other words, "I don't like [something]."

He said it in a nasal monotone. Some activity would be going around and when he was on the screen there was a bit of tension because he was up to no good and there would be a space of silence in the movie and then the bald thug would say: "Je n'aime pas _______."

And for some reason all these years later I still think about this guy. I think about him when I am hit with a sudden wave of not liking something or someone or a situation and I have a sudden urge to declare: "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur."

"L'ascenseur" is french for elevator. This particular line comes from a scene when thug and partner were going up in an industrial elevator and it's silent until the nay-sayer delares "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur." Just deadpan like that and at this point the viewer comes to expect it. It's the tiniest bit of comic relief (French style).

I don't know why this is the one line I remember of all his "Je n'aime pas's" because I have one hell of a time pronouncing "l'ascenseur." And lately I've really been wanting to say it.

For example the other day I was somewhere with a friend and something happened that was distasteful to me and I wanted to turn to my friend and say "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur." And you know, this friend may even have gotten it too. I don't know -- am I too in my own world to think someone would have picked up on my reference? Would you have?

So what's the point exactly?

I sorta like this line as a trope or a language play or metaphor thingy -- a stand-in for saying "I don't like him/her/that/me/the weather/this particular moment." It makes the downerism funny and it lets me have my "no" moment with a good laugh and move on.

And if someone else would get it, wouldn't it be great?

Could you imagine being somewhere, a meeting or a party and just not digging something and declaring: "Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur" -- and having ONE person who got it?

If someone reading this would like to be part of the "l'ascenseur" club please let me know. I may just start practicing my pronounciation and start throwing it out there and see who gets it.

Yes! I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Someone will think I'm strange? Oh, like that's never happened.

"Je n'aime pas l'ascenseur!"

When you stop saying Hello and other Friendship Over moments

So here's the set-up:

There's a man I see at Starbucks. Some years ago we had conversations, we said hello, we talked about writing. We were friendly. Now, some years later I noticed something. We don't say hello anymore. We don't even acknowledge each other, really.

And I have to say, I'm totally okay with it. Maybe I even initiated it. But it makes me wonder:

When do you stop acknowledging someone -- when do you stop saying hello?

With this particular gentleman I have to confess there was a turning point for me. And it's based in some judgment. One day, in the years when we were talking, I was in graduate school and writing a lot and happy to talk to anyone who would A) distract me from said work and B) would just talk to me. Ok, it was a bit of a lonely phase.

So he finds out I'm a writer and I coach writers and give workshops and he tells me (all together now) "I've always wanted to write a book."

I have to say something here. Whenever people proclaim a desire to write a book -- and I really do love writing -- my reaction is: Well if you can help it, why would you want to? In other words, if you're cruising along in life perfectly content not writing, why force the issue?

But when I hear anyone share a dream to write I get right in there and step into this advice-giving "helpful" stance. But then he said something that made me never want to talk to him again.

What he said was that he wanted to write his novel in a month. He just wanted to get it over with.

That was like the scratch on the record, one of those moments -- admit it, you have them too! -- when it's game over.

To explain: I am not interested in conversations that are focused on the end-product. I am a process junky. I like delving into the juicy process, the curiosity and mystery of what is found there, sharing the struggles of commiting to the artistry of creating something really delicious and generous and good. That's what I like.

Once I grasped that all this writer wanted was an end-prouduct my desire to talk to him pretty much vanished.

It's rather conditional isn't it? Oh well. Maybe it's just a value separation.

But seriously. Admit it. It' shappened to you, too. You meet someone and everything's cooking along just fine and then they tell you something that rests on an aesthetic principle or value level that you just can't deal with. For example, they voted along a party line you detest or they absolutely do not like the artist/writer/musician that makes life worth living for you. Or they think the fruit you find the most delicious and perfect and sensual (say, a mango) is disgusting. Do you ever visualize pulling a lever that opens a trap door that they fall down and out of sight, forever?

Nick Hornby wrote about this in "High Fidelity." His narrator, who was looking for the perfect mate, said something along the lines of, "It's not who you are, it's what you like." My cousin Jane read this years ago and said to me, This is the male version of you. She was right, but that was the male version of me. I've lightened up a lot, really! But it's still there.

I have to admit, if someone were to tell me, "I think the second movement of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto is total shit," Oh man. Would the relationship be tested.

So what am I trying to say?

I'm not saying as much as I'm noticing--and copping to--a couple of things.

I notice that there are neighborhood folks who at some point I--we, together, in a silent pact--slowly stopped acknowledging each other with a Hello or even a head tip. What's happening there?

Then there's this related situation: In which you recognize someone and you notice them recognizing you and neither of you is sure whether to acknowledge each other's recognition or ignore it. So you may enter this silent agreement of simultaneous ignoring/avoidance. I find that so interesting and funny.

Maybe next time I will try stepping out of myself and say a nice big juicy Hello to one of these maybe-acquaintances. Even to the lame writer guy because really, maybe he wrote the book and maybe he's got a reading at Barnes & Noble next week and that's more than I can say.

As for judging people on their music tastes and other things like that. That's another posting. But somehow it sneaked in here. Because that one guy I stopped saying hello to didn't share my aesthetic values, or work ethic, or art apprecation, I dunno what you cal lit. And sometimes when people don't share my aesthetic it's hard for me to accept them into my world.

Isn't that close-minded? Oh well. And what if I just said, So what. You can't be friends with everyone!

One last story-lette: Years ago I told my Dad that a man I was dating wouldn't go to the opera with me (which I don't go to much anymore and can't blame him). My dad's immediate reaction was, "Dump him." See where I come from? But when I think back on it now it makes me laugh and I feel so incredibly fond of my Dad for that.

But moving forward, I'm going to play with the idea of making better eye contacting and stepping into recognizing people and saying Hello to as many people as I can. And even the "lame writer guy."

Because, what's the worst thing that can happen?

What kick-ass quality do you want MORE of?

Since Monday is almost over and I have yet to post anything, how about three fruitful-juicy questions?

OK, so they're three categories of questions that can get you in a state of being where you want to be. Ready?

1) What quality would you like to have more of in your life?
(Write this down--this could include courage, peace, curiosity, fun, creativity, wisdom, patience... you get the drill.)

2) Think of a time in your life, even if it was just a sliver of a second sometime in your past where you experienced this state in a way you'd like to embody it now.
What does it feel like, how do you look, who are you being? Take a bit of time to really get into it and tap into the feeling.

Or, try: What vibration do you feel in your body? This one really worked on me earlier. I was working with the quality of unconditional love which, well, I only sort of believe in and it was a rather strange overwhelming buzz. Not bad, it just showed me that there was something possible here that I am ordinarily not open to.

3) Now shift scenes. You are fully living in this quality (totally peaceful, courageous, patient, whatever). And you are walking down a street -- a neutral street, any street. How do you walk, how does your body move? What do you notice about your gait, youR hand movements, your eyes, your mouth, your smile? Concentrate on yourself, not your environment.

See if you can really lock into witnessing yourself embodying this desired quality as you walk down a street.

Now, are you willing to play around a bit? (Quickly run out and hug a tree if it gets you into the mood or do a cartwheel or something).

Ok, so how about taking it one little step further?

Call up this image of you walking in this fully embodied quality -- at its full potential -- for 21 days in a row. Make sure you view yourself at a distance -- an out of body POV.

Guess what? I haven't done it before either but I'm going to give it a try. I've heard that some people put up 21 stickies someplace with the quality written on it and take one down every day. I may just try to imagine/visualize my scene in those first few waking minutes in bed since I've been arriving into the day feeling full of "no" lately.

What have I got to lose? Maybe a layer of defensiveness, or a bit of the grouch -- and oh man could I live with that.

Happy, playful week ahead.

To Have New Experiences You Have to Say "Yes"

God I hate saying yes sometimes.

No comes much easier. And it's often the first step to get to a yes.

Sometimes it's: Ok, yes! Well, no actually. Maybe. Okay (groan) ... yes already!

And I'm really a very positive person! Look at the exclamation marks here!

So here's the story in a nutshell and I hope it helps someone because last night was a process of opening up and realizing how a small cascade of Yeses will give me opportunity to start to achieve a 2009 goal: To have new experiences.

The Yeses

For starters I accepted my friend Carrie's inviation to go to Elliot Bay Books to hear author Franz Wisner talk about his book, "How the World Makes Love." There's a subtitle I didn't include but in a nutshell, Wisner has profited by being abandoned at the alter some years ago -- I say "profited" because it led to a couple of successful books that jumped off the experience. Which is great.

This particular book is a memoir based on his travels around the world with his brother, and looking at how different countries love, court and have sex. Cool huh?

Anyway, so there I was, having said one "Yes" to Carrie's invitation when normally I like to stay home at night. I really thought that was my last "yes" of the day, too. I really just wanted to get home and go to bed. I was tired. (Poor me!)

I have to share an ongoing dialogue string that is constantly with me these days as I'm on a swimming rampage. It goes like this: "Will I get to bed early enough to get up in the morning for swimming?"

Yes, it's true. My internal beddie-bye compass is my morning swimming. I don't know why but I am willing to go through my day a bit weary and fuzzy because I get up at 5:30 am to go and kick ass with my posse of fast swimmers because for some reason right now I want to be a fast and graceful and artistic swimmer. I know, my eyes roll a bit too.

Back to the reading. As I sat there this eiphany came to me:

I decided that I am always going to buy a book at any author reading I wind up at -- I want to support writers and the indie bookstores they read at. Now, that's not so big a shift except for, I don't always buy the book. I usually hightail it out of there right after the applause so I can get in bed for .... swimming! And also, I just like to get into bed early. I just like bed.

And, I might add, when I'm salary-challenged as I am now, I can turn into a real cheapskate.

But sitting in that reading and looking at all the books on the walls and watching the reader work so hard to share his story with us and thinking What if someday that could be me I had this shift. I will always, no matter how "broke" buy the book of an author and stand in the line to have have him/her sign it at the end.

So I shelled out $27 for a hardback that I already had at home from the library and here's what happened.

I engaged in a conversation with the writer! It was fun! We laughed! He told me I should be a writer! My friend and I laughed even more! We talked about writing and being vulnerable and letting it all hang out there (which this writer does in his book big-time). My energy rose. I was not thinking about swimming or how tired I had been and getting to bed.

And then I was invited to join author and posse down the street for drinks. I smiled and said Cool, sure, thanks. Then I said, Well, no actually but you can email me for any further virtual socializing.

Right.

This is what I'm used to doing. Going home. My body is in the habit of standing up and walking to the car and driving home. And so that's what my body wanted to do. But something else in me was open to .... not going home. My two friends had to get home but they encouraged me to go, and then they said, "You can write about it in your blog." That was a good ploy.

And a little voice said, If you want new experiences, you have to start saying "Yes" to things like this. What's going to be new and different in the stinkin' pool tomorrow? Enough already!

So I went and part of me felt knock-kneed and nerdy and another part said, Hey, we're cool. What's the worst that can happen? Other than missing swimming I couldn't think of anything.

I sat in a corner with some very nice women and in about ten minutes we were talking about literay erotica, porn, "Juggs," the Amsterdam Sex Museum and what the showgirls in Thailand can do with a ping-pong ball. Then the writer Franz came to sit with us and we talked about love, relationships, writing and what Oprah is really like off-camera and then I went home. And I felt energetic and happy and fulfilled.

I have to confess throughout the night there was my gollum voice whispering, "Master Bad, she will not have enough sleeping hours to swim. master bad."
And there was that "Master good" voice saying, Let go of it, swimming is not going anywhere. Have fun being here, somewhere new.

Oof! I broke through a tiny habitual threshold of a certain kind of no, with a series of Yeses. To count 'em up again:

There was 1) Saying Yes to a reading that I knew nothing about (thanks Carrie!). 2) Saying Yes to supporting writers and bookstores and always buying the book and getting it signed even if it's about kitty litter boxes. 3) And then saying Yes to the invitation I like least -- meeting up at a fancy hotel bar where I feel so out of place I thought the maitre d' was going to show me the way out. And having conversations with new people I had never before met.

And you know what? If felt good to show up and support a kind, funny writer who is writing about love in a vulnerable way and promoting Americans to get out and travel the world. It felt good to get out of my own cocoon of Tatyana-ness and swimming. Jeez.

Today I slept in until 8am. I woke up thinking about Yeses. In that spaces of Yeses I was able to show up and provide a fantastic coaching session to an amazing person who is also writer.

And I have something to write about for my blog.

Lesson learned: When you want new experiences, you have to say Yes, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Especially when it feels uncomfortable.

Go ahead, say Yes to somehting new (a safe thing--not the stranger with a pitchfork jumping out of the bushes and asking if the Little Girl likes candy). See what happens.

Can 15 Minutes Save a Gym Membership?

Everyone who hates their gym raise their hands.

Everyone who has a membership but doesn't go "enough" raise their hands.

Mine went up 1.5 times. I don't hate my gym but wouldn't life be great without the pressure of going to the gym?

Although I can't give it up. This I learned over the fall and winter months.

Here's why I need my gym

To keep my body strong -- especially my hamstrings, quad and core -- so I can run and swim and (believe it or not) sit without feeling large amounts of pain.

To stave off injuries.

And to have moments of pumping iron and feeling bad-ass. (Just don't look at the small weight amounts).

To keep my small living space my sanctuary and not a dumbell holder and mini weight room.

And now ... the gym problem

My gym is super convenient and still I don't go. It doesn't help I have an active swimming and running and, er, resting schedule but still ....

Didn't I say I learned my lesson (for the second meaningful time I might add) that strength training does my body good?

And even though I asked myself if I wanted to quit my gym, I said no.

And even though I had a tiny goal of going to the gym only 2x a week, I didn't go.

So here's the new gym relationship shift

My gym is no longer a place to go for intense hour-long workouts of heave-ho'ing and sweating and then enjoying the soreness a day or two after. This is why I hardly go in the first place because I want my legs fresh enough for a good run and my arms strong enough for a hard swim.

Instead, my gym is now the place for 15 - 20 minute drop-ins: even if it's a set of core work. Or, today I stopped in after a run for about 25 minutes and did some squats (miracle workers), some shoulder work and core work and high tailed it out.

My gym is now the tune-up place for quick drop-ins. If that means going in in jeans and a t-shirt (and dress code allows it) then so be it.

Goal? I wanted to start with 3x a week. But since today was my first time in two weeks I'm going to take a day number off the table. That just doesn't work.

New goal: Just 15 - 20 minute micro tune-up drop-ins. No big-ass powerful sessions that keep me from running the next day. Just maintenance and playing around.

This is me shifting my gym relationship and fitting in with swimming, running.

This is me trying to support my body to be strong and healthy and injury free.

Long live the gym! Long live strength training! Long live quickies!

Let's see how it goes .... and if I can sustain this through the warmer months. If they ever come.

Long live the gym!

Photo: My niece Taya and me a couple years ago, at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Thanksgiving Ladies' Invitational.

How Fuzzy Brain Is Good for Writing

(Note, even though the date says April 10, the date posted is April 13)

Who says funcitoning on half a brain doesn't have merit?

That's the talk of the day. Read on, please. I'm pulling an Instant Message transcript straight from a conversation I had with my friend I'll call "Pam."

Topic: Thinking and writing from the fuzzy space in your brain.

The Deal: "Pam" had just returned from vacation and had post-holiday fuzzy-brain and wanted to snap out of it to be productive, especially for a writing session we were going to have later on.

I was trying to convince her that a case of fuzzy brain could be a good thing for generating ideas and doing the actual writing work.

PAM: My brain feels a little more engaged today. I've had such fuzzy brain.

ME: Well, there is value in that fuzzy brain you know.

PAM: Now I'm curious ... what's your thinking?

ME: Well, I think when we don't put a lot of focus on our very sharp and ready brain, there's a lot of movement going on in that foggy space. Sort of like chilling out and trusting what comes to the top. Or another example: like how we take a shower and get a good idea--could that happen because in the shower we put no pressure on ourselves to come up with any idea in the first place? And showers are hubs of fuzzy brain.

PAM: OK ... that makes sense ... relaxing your brain so stuff will bubble up on its own.

ME: I like that ... have you ever noticed that sometimes when you write and you aren't "into it" you do a better job because you're detached from it?

I have a story about this -- I'll tell you during our writing session today.*

PAM: I need a forcing habit, seriously, which seems to run counter to what you said above.

ME: OK. Today we can also set up a structure by which you can crank out the stuff you want to.

PAM: It's that journalist on a deadline mentality.

ME: I think ALL structures have their place. What might hold people back is when they define themselves by saying, "Well, I'm in THIS PLACE [fuzzy brain] so I can't work very well" ... and what if THIS PLACE offers just a different POV ...

[some time passes with no typing]

ME: I love the cow on your IM picture.

*The story. Some of the best, most lasting writing advice came from a Poli-Sci prof when I was an undergrad at the U of Washington in the Paleolithic era. He was preparing us to write a paper, and said. "Listen, don't fret it! Write the paper when you're really tired." And he left it at that. I didn't get it--I thought maybe he was some kind of stoner-teacher. But that weekend I went on a trip to the East coast and wrote the paper falling asleep from jet lag and waiting in offices for interviews. I hardly even remember writing the damn thing -- and I didn't have time to fret or do much re-reading. While I was a good writer, I wasn't adept at writing about Poli-Sci stuff (I forgot what the paper was about in less than a week after writing it). But using his technique of being super tired, I got an A along with comments on how well-thought out the paper was. Huh?

Ok, the point isn't to endorse writing onlky when you're narcoleptically tired. But how about from a frame of mind that is relaxed and at ease and chilled and even a bit fuzzy and in no mood for life?

Try it! Detachment can be a wonderful thing. Have fun.