As a child, I watched a lot of television. Television of all sorts - afternoon talk shows (that Donahue where they showed the footage of the facelift has grossed me out into growing old gracefully, or at least in fear of a canula under my facial skin), traditional sit-coms (to this day I can't help but quote the Cosby Show - yes, I am a dork), late night fare (SNL in the vintage Mike Meyers years, the Johnny Carson-Jay Leno hand off and the Letterman re-birth on CBS), the racy prime-time (e.g. LA Law - setting unrealistic expectations for all - my mother thinking that as a lawyer I would have more chance to be in the court room, me thinking I would have a hell of a lot more sex), along with a smattering of Days of Our Lives here and a trashy TV docudrama there ("Death of Cheerleader" anyone?).

All this television watching and I think I turned out okay.

Emotionally prescient - no.

But reasonably smart - yes.

Able to hold her own in any random Jeopardy-style trivia contest - What is "Hell yeah!"? (To this day, I am unable to answer a trivia question in any other form other than a question. Of course, this also comes from the girl with painfully obvious unfulfilled spelling bee aspirations, A-S-P-I-R-A-T-I-O-N-S, aspirations.)

So I have issues with folks who think that television is completely useless and must be excised from childhood entirely for their children to even remotely be worthwhile human beings. I read an essay by Don DeLillo in the New Yorker a while ago (it was a few months ago, but the magazine was what was on-hand at the gym, so it was circe 2003) it was titled "That Day in Rome: Of Movies and Memory," which appeared in The New Yorker, October 20, 2003, and, as I cannot find the exact text right now, please forgive my paraphrasing of a most excellent quote from Mr. DeLillo. He called movies (and I will broaden the statement to include television) to be society's "tacitly accepted shared history." And it is true, it gives us all a starting point, young and old, tall and short, red or blue, pro- or anti- SpongeBob.

So, despite the somewhat dirty feeling I get after watching certain reality shows or any MTV marathon, hats off to TeeVee. Mmmm, brain candy.

In that spirit, I have noticed as of late that my life is in fact, a curious amalgamation of all of the media in which I indulge. In no certain order, please find a smattering of the TV shows and movies that reflect my life:

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: Today at work, they announced they have set up two different offices with sample individual office floor plans for the new building we are moving to this summer. I went to peer at said sample offices, they were bright, shiny, new and posed. With pictures of fake relatives and a consciously askew pencil and pad on the desk. All that was missing was a fake turkey. Clearly, it is true, as I suspected all along, my firm is in fact Arrested Development. I work in a model home.

JEOPARDY: Other than the completely appropos nature of the title of this show, and that every time I fuck up in life, the patented Alex Trebek "Ooooh, I'm sorry" really just about sums up how much of a dumb ass I tend to feel like, the earnest competitive dorkiness of this show (Knowing the answers means nothing, those are gimmes - literally. Knowing the question is everything, and in the end, who is to really say what is right. See Cliff Claven: "Who are 3 people who have never been in my kitchen?") and the fun snooty psuedo-intellectualism (Favorite Final Jeopardy Answer: Who is the only Cardinal to be honored in the Yankee Stadium Legends Park? Question: Who is Pope John Paul II (before he was pope) - pretty snarky, eh? Fantastic) that goes with it, really speak to me.

ALLY MCBEAL: To begin with, I hated this show. I still hate this show. I always thought it was stupid and over the top and I couldn't stand Ally and her above the navel skirts. Unrealistic. Unrealistic. Unrealistic. However, it dawns on me. May have hated show because it hits close to home. I have a tendency to fall. I am ridiculous. I am single. I have contemplated and induged in medication, and then decided that my me was compromised by it. Did I mention, I fall. I do not wear short skirts to work, but have been accused of doing so (apparently some find my calves offensive). I have been in love or lust with several co-workers over the years. Never a married one, but they do tend to get married after they meet me. Oh and I fall. So yeah - my life is generally unrealistic too. Just in denial of it.

THE APPRENTICE: Corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley in 2001. "You're Fired!" (Insert handmovement and boss with bad hair here.)

SURVIVOR: Litigation attorney in San Francisco in 2005. And then there were two. Not forced to eat rats, but must drink out of styrofoam cups. The two of us left in my class up here are hoping there is a million bucks at the end of this. Somehow, I think this hope may be stretching the analogy a bit.

A FEW GOOD MEN: "You want to know the truth?" My truth: I have my very own personal military industrial complex. Pathological really. Often, played out in a legal setting. Mmmm, JAG. Mmmm, uniforms. Mmmm, Navy and/or Marines. I apparently have JAG-dar....

BRIDGET JONES: More falling. More singleton-ness. Yep, that's me. More drinking to excess and worrying about weight. Check. Absolutely in love with (1) tall men, (2) bad men, and (3) the idea of "To Bridget, just as she is." Keeping diary; Incessantly typing on Blog - whatever. Looking for someone to love the spastic me.

OPRAH: Deepak Ch-Oprah and her self help regimes, fun with celebs, love of giving presents, and attempts to be deep. Per-fect! In addition, it ties in with a nice trivia show parody on SNL (Jerry Seinfeld the host): Question - "Oprah: What's the Deal With Her?" Answer: "She's fat, she's thin, she's fat, she's thin. Why doesn't she just pick a body and go with it?"

ANGEL/BUFFY: Through the modern day miracle that they call syndication, I am actually a late adopter of these two shows, well, mostly just Angel. Sometimes Buffy (not so much a Sarah Michelle Gellar fan). And my life is not so haunted by literal demons, and have not seen a vampire, to my knowledge, as of late. But... these characters are all troubled. They are all trying. They desperately want to be good, to be moral, to be right. But they mess up. And to be good is not easy. It is not always clear how to do so. It is also not necessarily fun or the least painful way to go. To be good, to do what is right, involves sacrifice. And so there is pain, there is angst. It must be dealt with. But in the end it is all for the greater good. You are always "becoming" - fighting the demons and the Big Bad - and "becoming" good, atoning for the bad. Hoping to forgive though you can't forget. Throw in the preternaturally smart self-referential dialogue, that the embodiment of who they are fighting is a law firm (Wolfram & Hart) which ultimately they accept a deal from in order to try to do good from inside the bowels of the beast, so to speak, and the perks are good, plus the fact that David Boreanaz is totally hot, and well, you have definite goodness.

S.A.T.C.: Come on, you just knew I was going to have to throw it in here. I know it is almost cliched to reference Sex And the City as a personal cutural touchstone, but, hell, doesn't make it any less true. Funny how one's perspective changes. Sat down and watched the whole first season (thank you blessing o' DVD rentals) shortly after the breakup of my Olympic length relationship. All of 25 and oh-so-brand-spankin' new to the world of the single adult female. Found myself profoundly sad by how these women lived their lives, seemingly wanting to jump from man to man, bed to bed. Little did I realize that later seasons of their lives, as well as mine, would reveal a method to their, and my, our collective madness. Searching for Mr. Right. Searching for the right me to meet Mr. Right. Butting up against obstacles, including emotionally retarded men and hordes of married friends along the way. Granted I still believe the female friendships to be an idealization, more fantasy than any of the sexual trysts on the show, if only because of the time they all had for one another (especially Miranda - no way she made partner at an NYC law firm hanging around at that coffee shop so much) and the fact that there were four of them who were single all at once. What saved them for me was their portrayal as bobbing along in the inevitable sea o' marrieds, who find you inexplicable defective because you are not a "we." The "Shoe-shame" episode epitomizes it all. Redeeming to anyone chastised by procreating married friend about one's lifestyle: "If you don't watch out, you will be 40 and still single and alone." The nice thing would be to blame it on the hormones or a poor choice of wording, but we all know better. In addition, as an appropos ending to my paean, here are two choice quotes from the final episode (both Carrie Bradshawisms):

• I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love.
• Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY: Done the "in-love with my best friend thing" many times over. Also done the "hooked up with my best friend thing." Haven't ever had the "end up with my best friend because he realizes he can't live without me thing." Somehow they always realize that they can live without me. Wonder why? However, have had the following conversation with someone:

Harry Burns: You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally Albright: Is one of us supposed to be a DOG in this scenario?
Harry Burns: Yes.
Sally Albright: Who is the dog?
Harry Burns: You are.
Sally Albright: I am? I am the dog? I am the dog?

Yes, I apparently was the dog in my situation too, or in this case it was a muddled analogy between pizza and chicken breast. I was the pizza. Cold comfort for someone with small boobs and perpetual lactose intolerance. Actually, in describing my version of the conversation above to my sister, it was brought to my attention that it in fact was not even an accurate rip-off of WHMS, that in fact, it was a cheap amalgamation of WHMS and My Best Friend's Wedding (see below)....

MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING: And thus, the relevant quotation here is, as follows:

Julianne Potter: Crème
brûlée can never be Jell-O. YOU could never be Jell-O.

Kimmy Wallace: I HAVE to be
Jell-O!

Julianne Potter: You're
never gonna be Jell-O!

Actually, I guess this movie hits the mark moreso than WHMS because in the end the girl does not get her best friend. He does not choose her. He marries someone else. My affection does tend to act as a marriage aphrodesiac on men - it compels them to marry others. Really. It is pretty amazing how that works. I can think of at least 3 people this applies to off of the top of my head.

George Downes: Michael's
chasing Kimmy?

Julianne Potter: Yes!

George Downes: You're
chasing Michael?

Julianne Potter: YES!

George Downes: Who's chasing
you... nobody, get it?

FIELD OF DREAMS: I have seen this move 47 times. I love it more each time I see it. It relates to my life if only that it reflects (1) my sappy love for baseball and the sentimentality that surrounds it, and (2) my devoted OCD (which really is charming, I promise) about things that I love. If I love you, I will love you forever. Undoubtedly. Without question. To the edge of the sky. To the depths of the sea. And back. Always.

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive
at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their aces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

The best (and only) accurate portrayal of life beyond Harvard that I have ever read - written and presented by one, Mr. Conan O'Brien (or as, I think they still call him, "our David Letterman"), at the 2000 Class Day for Harvard Commencement. In a confession of my extreme dorkiness, reading this speech back in 2000, moved me so much I actually sent a letter to Conan O'Brien telling him so. Okay, good thing we are in cybersapce so you can't pelt me with tomatoes. In any event, read on, please. It is long, but it's funny. And insightful - for everyone, really:

I'D LIKE TO BEGIN by thanking the class marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000. So I was reluctant to show up. I'm going to start before I really begin by announcing my one goal this afternoon. I want to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement speaker, moral philosopher and economist Amartya Sen. That's the job. Must get more laughs than seminal wage-price theoretician. By the way, enjoy that. Bring a calculator. It's going to be a nerd fest.
Students of the Harvard class of 2000, 15 years ago I sat where you sit now. And I thought exactly what you are now thinking. What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? Still have 24 hours. Roommate's mom very hot. Swear she's checking me out. There was that Rob Lowe movie. Being here today, on a sincere note, is very special for me. I do miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square. Let me tell you, you don't know this, Harvard Square is extremely unique. Nowhere else in the world will you find a man wearing a turban and a Red Sox jacket working in a lesbian bookstore. I'm just glad my dad's working.
It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because -- this is true -- when I graduated I wanted very badly to be a Class Day speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So if you'll indulge me I'd like to read a portion of that speech. This is the actual speech from 15 years ago. "Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic A-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold. I believe that one day a simple governor from a small southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority. I believe that justice will prevail and one day the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule. I believe that one day a high-speed network of interconnected computers will spring up worldwide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chitchat and pornography. And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network seen by millions of people at night which I will use to reenact crimes and and help catch at-large criminals." Then I had a section on the death of Wall Street, but you don't need to hear about that. The point is that although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a demigod if you will, and potential husband material, I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived at Holworthy Hall as a student much like you. I was, without exaggeration -- this is true -- the ugliest picture in the freshman facebook. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was for their records, so I jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue shot. To make matters worse, when the facebook came out, they put my picture right next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was expected to join the class of '85, but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of Dynasty. Folks, my photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident.
You see, in those days, I was 6 feet 4 inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. True. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model, and according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

AFTER FRESHMAN YEAR, I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he would have shot himself a year earlier. Saved us a lot of trouble.
1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old! You realize what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean really badly. Like no contest at all. If anyone here has a time machine, seriously, I will kick your seven-year-old butt right now.
A lot has happened in 15 years though. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated in 1985, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around the TV set and watched the Cosby Show on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called Cosby on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver's-side air bags. But if you had told us that one day there would be passenger-side air bags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.
Of course I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day, the anxiety. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard grad school, a plum job in your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job at your father's firm. Let me assure you that the knowledge you gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America -- you know, the guy -- will be with you for the rest of your life.

THERE'S ALSO SADNESS TODAY. A feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard fundraising committee will be on your ass until the day you die. This is true. I know for a fact that right now a member of the alumni association is at the Mount Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he has a brass toe ring and they aim to get it. These people just raised $2.5 billion and they only got through the Bs in the alumni directory. Here's basically how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're tired and most vulnerable, and a voice asks you for money. Knowing -- you've read in the paper -- that they just raised $2.5 billion, you ask, "What do you need it for?" There is a long pause, and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." (Sinister laugh).
Let me see -- by your applause -- Who here wrote a thesis? That's nice. A lot of hard work went into that thesis. And no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis -- this is true, I don't lie -- "Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner." Let's just say that during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years after graduation I wanted to show it to everyone, and so I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car, so that I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over.
What else can you expect in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain. Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In those situations, the correct response to, "Where did you go to school?" is "School? I never had much in the way of book learnin' and such." And then get in your BMW and get the hell out of there. Go. You see, kids, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction, and it's "And you went to Harvard?" Ask at the hardware store how the jumper cables work, and hear "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants, and it's "And you went to Harvard?" Get your head stuck in your niece's doll house 'cause you want to see what it's like to be a giant, and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard?"
So you really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell it simply, I'm going to tell it honestly, because, first of all, I think my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's such a cool, amazing rush to be in front of 6,000 people and just talk about yourself. It's just great. It's so cool. And I can take my time.

YOU SEE, KIDS, after graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles. I got a three-week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380-a-month apartment, a terrible dump, and I bought a 1977 Isuzu Opal, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that technically it's not a car. Quick tip, graduates -- no four-cylinder used vehicle should have a racing stripe.
So I worked on that show for about a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me that they were letting me go. I was fired. I hadn't saved any money. So I tried to get another job in television as best I could and couldn't find one. So with nowhere else to turn -- true story -- I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure that they knew I had been to Harvard, that I had written this thesis, and that I expected the very best treatment. And so the next day I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather.
When you have a Harvard degree, and you are working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose graduate school. You see their faces everywhere -- in coffee cups, in fish tanks, you think you're going crazy, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man in good conscience would ever wear.
I tried a lot of things during this period. Acting in corporate infomercials. Serving drinks in a nonequity theater. I even took a job entertaining at a seven year-old's birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox network as a writer and performer for a brainy show called the "Wilton North Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when four weeks later news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into spontaneous applause. Eventually, though, I got a big break. I had submitted along with my writing partner a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live, and after a year and a half they read it, and they gave us a two-week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons, and I felt, hey, this is success, I'm successful now. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom. When the network decided to make it, feeling good, I left Saturday Night Live.
This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened. When the pilot aired, it was the second-lowest-rated television show of all time. It is actually tied with a test pattern they show up in Nova Scotia.

SO I WAS 28 and, once again, no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and I had no idea what I was going to do next. And that is when the Simpsons saved my life. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a monorail or Homer going to college. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use -- writing dialogue for a man who is so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good. And then an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way, a chance to audition for host of the new "Late Night" show. I took the opportunity very seriously, but at the time -- I have to be honest -- I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot, so I couldn't fear losing a great job that I could never hope to have. And I think that actually that attitude made the difference. I will never forget being in the Simpsons recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a firelane. But a week later I got another call and got the job. So this, finally, was undeniably it. The truly life-altering break that I had always dreamed of. And so I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building the show over the summer. I gathered the talent, figured out the sensibility, found Max, found Andy, found my people. We debuted on September 13, 1993, and I was really happy, really happy, with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment, that I had put my very best foot forward.
And this was what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post. "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He is one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late Show with Conan O'Brien become the late Late Show, and may the host return to whence he came." There's more, but it gets kind of mean.
Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive, and, to be honest with you, it hurt like you would not believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success. I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good. I've looked bad. I've been praised. And I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.

I'VE DWELLED ON MY FAILURES TODAY because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed, your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it. I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of the Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So that's what I wish for all of you -- the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.
If you'll indulge me for just a second, I'd like to read a little something from just this year. "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the late-night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard, and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possibly the greatest host ever."
Ladies and gentlemen, class of 2000, I wrote that this morning. As proof that when all else fails, you always have delusion. I will go now to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought. If you can laugh at yourself, loud and hard, every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.

Now this is one of the dorkier things I have seen lately.

Just goes to show everyone is desperate for the answer, so desperate in fact that they apparently will look to a lawyer, and a lawyer from Harvard no less, for said answers. Though given the fact that Dr. Phil is a best selling author many times over, I guess I can't say I am surprised. But I can stand up for my fellow compatriots in the self-actualization struggle, and try to save you your hard earned $19.95 before you one-click your way to enlightenment here:

Lord knows I want answers, but I am beyond certain they are not here. Just to get it out of the way, and in the interest of full disclaimers (or as full a disclaimer as you are going to get from someone who does not share her name with you on this forum), there are a number of similarities between the author of the book we are discussing and myself. Are my words that follow the result of healthy skepticism or jaundiced eye? Or worse, jealousy? Realistically, all of them inform my opinion. I have long been saying that people are so desperate for answers (myself included) that if you re-packaged any late night conversation with a friend, likely five or six cocktails in, in a nice pretty package, it would sell like hotcakes. We all know the universal truths. We hold them within ourselves. We just need to locate them and then act upon them. No book, DVD, seminar etc. is going to give you the will to implement the changes you need to make. You just need to do that for yourself. The book, DVD, seminar is at best a catalyst, and, at worst, a waste of money but which happened, due to increased afficiency of UPS and/or Fed Ex to have arrived at your doorstep and in your life when you were finally ready to take those steps forward. In the end, it doesn't matter. You made your changes. The authors got their $19.95. We get to see Dr. Phil and Tony Robbins on the multiple channels at any hour of the day. I decry the book we discuss now, just because (1) it really is nothing other than common sense, (2) the author puts herself forth as an expert on everything, when in reality, a little examination reveals that her background doesn't really give her any more insight than you or I, and (3) check out the link to the author's "Institute" on her website. Come on, that smacks of narcissism and completely disingenuous efforts at legitimizing her own theories. Please note, most think tanks are named after the wealthy donors who make the work of the truly bright minds possible on a fiscal level. Any "insitute" named for the bright mind at its center is pretty much either a front for money and/or a cult. Either way, not good.

But she is also a lawyer who managed to get out of the lawyer-cesspool of inertia-mire (even if it is through completely disingenuous meand). And to that end, I will be forever jealous.

As such, I commence:

This author's expertise is based solely on the fact that she is a lawyer and a Harvard alumnus.

First, I can tell you from personal experience that lawyers are some of the most poorly adjusted folks roaming the planet out there. People fancy them sharks, but really on the inside (and many on the outside) are strictly-Eeyore through and through. A group of more emotionally retarded and answer-seeking souls you will never meet. Keep in mind, this is a whole profession of people who studied for years and spent an inordinate amount of money, so that they could work tirelessly till retirement, just because they "couldn't find anything better to do" with whatever liberal arts degree they graduated with (and they all graduated with liberal arts degrees because, rule #1 is that lawyers hate numbers) and/or they needed to make mom and dad happy. So this is a group of pleasers, in a service industry that pays them based on their proven inability to draw boudnaries and say no, and who can hide from any of their problems by saying "I have to go into the office." Clearly, this is a group which is poised to improve the mental health of those around them.

Second, to discuss how ill adjusted Harvard students (graduate or undergraduate, or, any unfortunate combination of the two) are is almost redundant. Having spent four years in the ivory tower - either blaring "Hahvahd" as their main title, or trying desperately to make it an oral footnote - and the rest of their lives to that point, avoiding reality as they either worked their asses off to get there or as they were being told that as John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt the Fourth, he would, as all Jingleheimershmidtzes before him, would be attending Harvard. Now run along now and pack for boarding school and don't bother Mummy any further. Clearly, either of these types are people who have everything going for them and what they don't have they can gain access to easily, but the great unifier in fair Cambridge is the student body's general lack of a clue.

I mean, these are people who find the old, dare I say, adage, "You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much." Funny. Ummm, yeah, no. Then again, the band also sings the fight song in Latin. Somehow, "10,000 Men of Harvard" just doesn't sound better in a dead language. Of course, it is not like there is anyone at the football games, so I suppose they can sing just about anything they pleased. Personally, if they must run with the Latin thing, I would be more interested in seeing it creatively applied to modern pop music. It might take on a certain irony that might redeem the "smaht kids" no matter what is going on on the grid iron. Though, as noted before, no one is watching. Britney Spears in Latin. You can't tell me you wouldn't just love to hear Non puella, nondum mulier ("Not a girl, not yet a woman"). Rocking good times. Class of '32 might even be able to stand for a rousing rendition of Ico me tibi unus iterum ("Hit me baby one more time") and subsequently pull off a jubilant ways. Assuming their arthritis meds have kicked in and no one trips on the full length fur coats.

You look like... a perfect fit,
For a girl in need... of a tourniquet.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

'Cause I can tell... you know what it's like.
A long farewell... of the hunger strike.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

You struck me dumb, Like radium
Like Peter Pan, or Superman,
You have come... to save me.
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
But the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

Come on and save me...
Why don't you save me?
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who could never love anyone.

http://www.lyricsondemand.com/a/aimeemannlyrics/savemelyrics.html

Help.

Ugh. I feel so vile.

Fleshy and doughy. Exploding forth. Wearing 6 extra layers of myself.

I feel so uncomfortable. I don't know how to make myself feel better. I can go the gym. I will go to the gym, but the effects right now aren't enough. I can't do enough at one time to make this go away.

I need to layer days of self control on one another to crack through this. To make a change.

But every day, I fall. Seems that I am just to weak to avoid the incredibly fleeting relief (I can't even call it a pleasure) of jamming food in my face. Just the act of eating is of such releif. Just putting things in my mouth.

How much of a loser do you have to be to live for the millisecond of comfort involved in ingesting and chewing. Well, chewing is on a a good day. Typically it is gulping.

My own gluttony disgusts me beyond words.

I disgust me beyond words.

Really, it has been years since I have felt this painfully gross. How did I let this happen? I knew the medicine would do this to me. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. Seriously, how did I let this happen.

I was revolting enough as it was before this.

The situation now verges on hopeless.

How do I stop the landslide? Why can't I compel myself to find some sort of strength, some sort of will?

Maybe I need an explanation for why I am alone. I need to physically manifest on the outside to the rest of the world a clear message of how disgusting I am on the inside.

I have a flabby, misshapen soul. The rest of the world may as well know. So why not have a flabby misshapen body.

Guess I wasted the 2 years of attractiveness on assholes who hated me anyway. Oh well.

Even assholes want someone who is pretty inside and outside. They use and discard those that are lacking.

There are the "keepers" and there are the "disposables."

I am disposable. In the quiet moments, I almost started to believe that this wasn't true. That I had something to offer.

But it is. And it is to be accepted. If I stop fighting it, life might get a little easier. Enjoy what I get, expect little.

When you are disgusting through and through, be happy for what little you get. It is more than you deserve.

I have always gotten more than I deserved and been fundamentally ungrateful for it.

The time of reckoning is upon me.

Looking for continuity. Keep getting false starts and abrupt stops.

I have, like 12 drafts saved to this blog. I keep starting and stopping entries. Trying to write things down before they slip away. But in some ways, I feel like trying to recapture the details of an idea 12 days, 7 lattes, and 96 billed hours later, sort of dampens the spontaneity and the authentic nature of whatever idea I had been trying to convey.

I am left there - standing, helpless and alone - with an idea, an unorganized, messy and jumbled pile of adjectives, and a quesy feeling that all there is to be had in quagmire is artifice. And, of course, we cannot have artifice. As I am, of course, an artist. Or rather, an artiste. Oh please.

I am just a girl (not standing here with a boy telling him I love him), but rather just a girl standing and struggling and hoping to make it through.

I have a slough of issues (and I expect that to be a revelation after 8 months of the rants here) and I muddle through. Looking for the ability to genuinely strut through my life, but would definitely settle for carefree ambling. Either is an appealing option.

For now, I have sort of hit a wall. Not literally, though that has happened to me. Well, I have hit a sidewalk and ended up with five stitches on my chin, and scratches on my iPod. I have hit a wall in terms of my progress. Sort of.

My grandmother's funeral last weekend was full of revelations. It almost ridiculous in its self-help, OMG- I am self actualizing before my own eyes kind of qualities. The weekend should have been about her. About 82 years of life come to an end, but in the end it was really so much more about everyone else. For as many issues as I had with my grandmother (and there were many), she was accomplished. Well, about as accomplished as I think a human being can be. Her stat line impressive: 5 kids, 17 grandkids, 14 great-grandchildren. A houseful of people. Literally. We were all tripping over one another at the wake (though I hesitate to call it that, too austere a term to describe any Mexican family get together gathering). Distilled to its most basic elements, it was a life well lived. A guaranteed immortality, of sorts. My grandmother was neither this philosophical nor prescient though. She never was willing to see what she had accomplished. She spent a lot of time tearing down and manipulating the proverbial fruit of her loins. She was afraid of death to the very end, her heart must have been infinitely heavy with regret. That, I believe, to be more tragic than her death itself. Her passing was such that she had time to assess. It did not happen in an instant. It took four months. And yet, she never did. Bitter to the very end. Sad. I harbored a lot of anger towards her for the way she treated my mother - shut her out for years, turned her sisters against her, and manipulated her to feel guilty and responsible for it all, always. I always hated her for that. And yet, I didn't. Every time, I saw her, I felt sad for her. Her health was in dire straits. It was heartbreaking, but not so much for the health issues, but because she did so little about it, because, as became increasingly clear, she reveled in the attention and the ammunition that the ill health gave her. She could twist pity and sympathy into instrument of blunt power. She was 4'11' and could make you feel tiny. All because of choices she made for herself, for which you were not responsible, and yet, you felt you had been left holding the bag.

As she had passed, I had no further opposrtunity to even consider saying this to my grandmother, so I said it to my mom. I wanted to level with her. I wanted her to know why I wasn't as broken up about the whole thing as I thought I should be. That I felt guilty about it. Of course I did. In some ways, I think my grandmother would have been pleased about that. She would prefer that to my being genuinely devastated. At least it would provide her greater satisfaction.

In any event, I told my mom. And, surprisingly enough, just in telling my mom. I felt better. My mom said I should have told my grandmother. I countered that there was no point, she wouldn't change. My mom quietly noted, that it wasn't about my grandmother changing, it was about me doing so. That just to say it would loosen and lift the feelings away, and let me experience all of the gamut of emotions I had. Anger wouldn't predominate and psuh everything else out. I could have allowed myself to feel all of the bittersweet - in its many falvors and textures - through and through.

She was right. But just in having told my mom, I got some of that. I found that my mother had made her peace, had accepted her mother would never change. Had said what she needed to say and felt better for it, regardless of whether an apology was forthcoming (it wasn't).

And there is the lesson I need to learn about people: I should say things and do things just because I think I need to say or do them. Because that is what I think is right - for me and for others. Whether it is or not, ultimately does not matter. I just need to try and then to do. And, most imporantly, not expect a response or some kind of action in return.

Sometimes there will be a responsive action or some kind of reply, but I cannot count on that. I also can't count on it being what I wanted to hear or see. I cannot control people. I need to my own actions to be enough. Evertyhing else is just icing. I have to bake the proverbial cake.

Problem identified. Implementation: Easier said than done.

[Discuss brothers, large through small]

All of this being said, and all of these realizations made, and yet I am not feeling markedly better.

In fact, right now, my body image tortures me on a daily basis. Hour by hour, minute by minute, I sit here loathing myself. I want to hide under the covers, not get out of bed, because then no one (neither I nor anyone else) needs to see the hideousness of my body.

I feel wretched.

Is it right? No. Is it wrong? Probably. Can I stop? No. Do I want to? Not the way I should.

I went off the medication. It fucked up my metabolism.

Of course, having done so, I am now I am stuck with fucked up metabolism, and, fucked up world view.

Fantastic.

But I had to do something. I had to stem the tide. For whatever the medicine was doing for making me feel "evened out" it was not doing anything to control how obsessively and progressively awful I was continuing to feel about my appearance.

Yes, I am vain. I am totally vain. If I were truly a good person, I would not care at all what I looked about. I would care only about being a worthy, warm, genuine human being. I wouldn't give a second thought to how my jeans fit.

Newsflash: I am not a good person. I am not a bad person either. I am well-meaning (I think, though then again, you know what they say about the pavement to the road to hell...) Anyway, I am totally shallow and caught up in what I look like. I have gotten dependent on my proxy to self confidence. My body, in the last couple of years, at least became a life raft to being comfortable with walking into a room.

I am so afraid that is going to change.

Utterly paralyzed with fear about it.

And it makes me think: Everyone says, and I have believed, for so long, that one of the central issues in my life was this unrealistic expectation I have about being perfect. That in truth, no one is perfect and no one expects me to to be perfect but me. But is that really true? What people in my life, in varying forms over the years, have told me is that they want me to accept myself to love myself. Damnit, that may, in fact, be harder than being perfect. Not only do you have to like what you see in the mirror and the voice you hear in your head, but you have to like whatever they are, no matter how they compare with the outside expectation of society.

I am a size 22 and I am totally irritating with a super nasal voice and an unending whine, but I love me. And I don't care that the rest of society finds all of those things utterly repulsive.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Seems to me that is just as lofty a goal as "perfect" - quantitatively different perhaps, but qualitively book-ends of the same idea.

Damnit, I think too much. Make my life too complicated.

Seriously, how can my life be so complicated when I have absolutely nothing going on? Seriously.

Work is work. I have no love life at all. No currents, no prospects. Hell, I don't even have anyone actively shunning me right now. Well, there might be some latent shunning on several fronts, but nothing really worth noting. No exciting events coming up. No desire to plan anything because I don't want to be seen. I am ashamed of my own visage. Ick.

Need to re-focus and re-calibrate.

Deep breath.

Okay.

Wait.

Another deep breath.

Just need to be satisfied in being alive. Today is a new day, and I am not afflicted with disease, poverty or neglect. No one I care about in life suffers from any of these things either. It is not raining. The sun is out. The sky is blue.

Life is.

Deep breath. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out.

Running list: Coming Signs of the Apocalypse.

(1) The Election of the Governator: Ah-nuld. Seriously.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3173276.stm; http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov_homepage.jsp

(2) The Curse Reversed: The Red Sox Win the World Series 2004
Now that New Englanders are out of things to complain about, what will they do? Maybe they will take up the great Purple State debate (see #6 below)
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/10/28/yes/;
http://www.redsoxconnection.com/wristband.html; http://www.redsoxconnection.com/soxmastercard.wmv; http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/fallclassic/columns/story?id=1907279

(3) "The Apprentice: The Musical" - Music and lyrics by Mark Burnett (yes, that same Mark Burnett that taught viewers the world over the pleasure of watching 7 stinky people trapped on an remote island - with a multitude of film crews - eating rats and liking it).
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15735,00.html?tnews;
http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/the_apprentice_3/2005_Jan_18_musical

(4) Britney Federline & Her Manifesto: Who knew we all could have saved the 4 years and the 6 figures spent on college, and just invested $8.95 on some stationery instead. No cool sweatshirt for Mom & Dad though.
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15164,00.html

(5) These People are World Famous (and I can't even get a date?):
Oh Ashlee, Hillary, Lindsay, Paris, Mary-Kate, Ashley (another one), Jimmy and William. You only begin to scratch the surface. Which is probably good, because one of you would likely spring a leak.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/06/entertainment/main665240.shtml;
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/10/26/131706.php;
http://www.who2.com/parishilton.html;
http://archive.salon.com/sex/feature/2003/11/12/paris/index_np.html;
http://www.methodshop.com/movies/articles/paris/index.shtml;
http://drunkreport.com/reports/duff_vs_lohan.htm;
http://www.williamhung.net/;
http://www.marykateandashley.com/
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E23149%257E2504807,00.html
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/CastGuide/showid-4287/The_Real_World/

(6) Red State, Blue State: Queer Eye for the Purple (Yellow, or CGI) Guy
Conservatives Have Too Much Time on Their Hands, But Then Again, So Do Liberals. All of them are watching entirely too much children's entertainment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20sponge.html?8hpib;
http://www.americanwasteland.com/tinkywinky.html;
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/televangelists/jerry-falwell/;
http://www.au.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr010=9fpbdna771.app7b&abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=6222&news_iv_ctrl=1483;

My grandmother is dying.

It is nearly time. And no one is ready.

Everyone knew it has been coming. The family - immediate and extended - has been girded for the news since Halloween of last year.

A prolonged vigil.

A death march.

A panoramic portrait of static suffering. Grief of children - now adults - but nevertheless afraid of what life means once one loses one's only remaining living parent.

Every generation before - gone.

They are all that remain. They become the standard bearers. They alone.

No one to love them. No one to blame them. No one to care for them. No one to argue with them. Not like their mother. Never like their mother.

Aggravation of that familiar kind will never be known again. All of a sudden, the lack of occasion to raise an eyebrow or roll one's eyes, is acutely missed. It will never come again. Not like that.

There will never be an occasion when everyone is there again. Ever.

The children have no mother. As middle age edges towards retirement and twilight years of their own, that truth still remains. They are children with no mother.

They have children of their own. Some closer to her than others. Most dutiful. Some errant. They are family. They have lined up to say goodbye. But they don't hold the vigil. Not in the same way. Even in the wake of the sadness of slowly lapping wave, the rising tide of death impending, moved as they may be, the children of the children will not feel the same way. Not shed the inconsolable tears. They are not motherless. Not yet. They will not know yet. Not for many years - if they are lucky. Grandmother. Abuelita. These are terms that will still resonate for them, in other grandparents still living. In the concept of grandparents passing that has been ever-present in their lives, as it is in the lives of the young.

The changing of the guard like clockwork expected; the lapse of generations once and twice removed routine; these are the luxuries of the young. The children of the children who will not be motherless. Who will not be grandmotherless. Who have a spare. Who have an expectation of losing the old. Knowing their elder elders to be nothing if not evaescent and fleeting in their lives. They are moved, but they can see the light to going on. They can see it already, even while the children themselves are trapped in the thick veiled fog of their grief. The fog that will not survive. The fog which cloaks them ever closer as the days grow shorter for her as she struggles for breath and the hold tightly to the mortal coil she never wanted to give up, would never speak of giving up, refuses to give up. In an absurdly cruel and ironic twist of fate, this observance of her pain, of holding her hand, of knowing the inevitable that is not allowed to be spoken in her presence, even now when she cannot understand - the days of the children have grown ever longer.

They don't want her to go. The longer days should be a gift. And yet, they must let her go. She suffers. They suffer watching her. The long days are torturous gifts of time. A tiny drop of water dropped in metronomic precision upon each of their foreheads, continually, unstoppable, unforgivably - boring a hole directly into their skulls. Boring into the very core of their being.

How could they wish her gone though? They can't ever. To carry the pain is what must be done. And yet, she suffers. But the words sound hollow and callous: "It is her time. She is better off. There needs to be an end to her suffering."

An end to her suffering or an end to theirs?

There needs to be movement, progression, for everyone. Passages and transitions must occur. It is the purgatory of the living which tortures those of tender heart and filial love.

The children love their mother. They must let her go.

The mother loves the children. She must let go of her fear. She has always feared this tipping point. She would never speak of it. No preparations made. No planning done. No pragmatism, because denial is the safest thing. There is comfort in imposed ignorance. Ostriches stick their heads in the sand because they are afraid and they know no other way to comfort themselves than to avert their eyes from that which afears them. They do not take the fear on head long.

The mother does not fear death. She fears death without resolution. Perhaps she was never possessed of enough courage to find the words for resolution. Or perhaps she avoided resolution as a talisman against death. Either way, it is too late for her. She will not have resolution of all of the loose and frayed ends of the past. All there is now is the very present. There are no words. There are only tears. But in the pain in which they are shed, their source is one of love. There is love. Nothing but love. She can take comfort in the love. The unconditional love, which possesses unspoken forgiveness.

All the pettiness - remembered, forgiven, cherished.

Some of the children's children carry memories of the anger. Once again, feeding the luxury of their being once-removed from the situation.

But the children. The children. There is nothing but love.

Abuelita, they love you. You will be safe. You will not be alone. It will be okay. Promise. It will. You will be warm and safe and taken care of. You will always be loved. Forever and ever. Unconditionally. Remembered and cherished and loved. You have achieved it all. A warm beautiful place to call home in the hearts of the children - the children of the children and the children thereafter. The vigilant, the dutiful, and even the errant. They all love you.

Te quieren mucho. Todos nosotros te queremos mucho. Estoy enojada contigo, pero no es importante ahora. Te amo Abuelita.

No tienes miedo, Abuelita. No tienes miedo.

I like this.

How I Learned To Pitch

A Seattle Mariners coach teaches
me to throw a change-up, and much more.

By Eric Liu

To deceive, a change-up has to be thrown as forcefully as a fastball Bryan Price of
the Seattle Mariners is one of the most esteemed pitching coaches in the major
leagues, and one of the youngest. Only 42, he's been named Baseball Weekly's
Pitching Coach of the Year and is increasingly described as manager material. On
a recent afternoon I met up with Bryan at the sports complex outside Phoenix,
Ariz., where the Mariners hold spring training. His job was to teach me to throw
a change-up. My job, I thought, was simply not to embarrass myself. Only by
accident would I discover something else in the course of our workout.
What makes a great pitching coach? Part of it, of course, is having an eye for tiny
mechanical adjustments in a pitcher's delivery. Today's pitchers are the latest
in a long line of men who've taken the mound as professionals, and nearly every
motion they make is inherited, the accreted sum of many generations of
incremental tinkering. When you see someone come along like Orlando "El Duque"
Hernandez, the fabled Cuban defector and onetime Yankee whose knee-to-nose leg
kick strained the groins of people watching him, you realize how conservative an
institution pitching usually is. El Duque is the exception that proves the
rule.

Pitching demands adherence to a rigorous and unchanging set of
physical rules. But it is only the physical conclusion to a process that unfolds
mostly inside someone's head. And so a teacher of pitching is ever operating on
two levels, a surface curriculum about how to pitch and a curriculum beneath
about how to be. Failure, in many ways, is the default setting in baseball. A
pitcher can be on a roll and cruising through a game, but he is always just one
bad pitch, or one fielding mistake, away from a meltdown. The thing Bryan Price
teaches is not how to win all the time. What he teaches is how to right yourself
when you falter or fail.

When we met, I'd proposed that Bryan teach me a curveball. But he
suggested the change-up instead, because it would be easier on my elbow and
because mastering a change is the first step in separating mere throwers from
pitchers with craft. A change-up looks to the batter like a fastball and is
thrown with all the force and conviction of a fastball. But because of the
unorthodox grip—imagine making an "OK" sign and wrapping it around a ball—the
pitch comes out of the hand more slowly. That slight difference and deception is
enough to upset the batter's timing and balance, tricking him into swinging too
early.

The timing of this lesson, it turns out, was rather apt. All my
life, I've been the equivalent of a fastball pitcher—trying to use blazing speed
and brute force to wow the people I face. Lately I've been realizing that it
would help if I knew how to change speeds from time to time, to be less
predictable.
We got to work. My first few attempts at a change-up were
wobbly. I had no control, no feel for the pitch in my fingertips. Worse, I began
to think about how I had no feel. I began to think how ridiculous I must look, a
clueless amateur. Bryan could see a dozen things wrong with my delivery: arm
slot too low, hips not turned enough, follow-through too unbalanced, and on and
on. But he chose to home in on one thing only: "Keep your head quiet," he
said.
This meant making sure I held my head steady and square as I pitched,
so my eyes would remain fixed on the target. It also meant not overloading my
brain with anxiety and data. A quiet head in the psychological sense is hard to
achieve. Bryan got me there by emphasizing a quiet head in the physical sense.
By worrying only about keeping my gaze steady and my skull centered, I stopped
overthinking.
Sometimes Bryan will do what he calls "dry work" with a
pitcher. He'll remove the ball altogether and simply work on the component
motions of the delivery. Remove the ball: It's a powerful idea, because the ball
is the source of the self-doubt and negative judgment. If you always practice
with the ball, you will measure success only externally—by where the ball ends
up. If you do dry work without the ball, you learn how to measure success by how
intrinsically balanced your movements are. You learn how to listen to your body,
and you learn to "self-coach," as Bryan puts it: Diagnose the tiny flaw in your
delivery, and then fix it.


Keeping a quiet head is the hardest partOn this day, Bryan didn't do dry work with me, but he did a different kind of bait
and switch. After a few dozen pitches, my change-up was getting somewhat better
but it was still very inconsistent. So Bryan asked me to start throwing straight
four-seam fastballs. The good news here was I threw my fastball to the same spot
consistently. The bad news was that the spot was where a right-handed hitter's
face would be. I could feel the spiral of criticism start again. Why do I keep
throwing it there? Why? Can't I get out of this rut?
Just then, Bryan abruptly asked me to throw a change-up. I did, and to my surprise, I nailed it.
It was the same change-up, same grip and delivery, as before. But the context
was different. Now I was thinking of the change-up as an antidote to my wayward
fastball. And now I was able to reel off three, then four, then five perfect
change-ups, down and over the plate with perfectly deceptive presentation.
It struck me only later what Bryan Price had done. He'd used the fastball interlude
as a distraction and had gotten me back onto my original objective—throwing a
good change. Like any good teacher, Bryan is a master of misdirection: working
on a fastball to improve a change-up, using dry work without a ball to sharpen
performance with a ball, and talking about how to keep a quiet head when, in
fact, we were talking about how to keep a quiet mind.
The goal for a pitching coach, ultimately, is to turn his pitchers into self-coaches. After
all, there are only so many times in a game when the coach can walk out to the
mound and point out a problem or suggest a solution. What Bryan Price did that
afternoon was give me a taste of how I could become a self-coach. And though I
am not likely to step on a major league mound any time soon, the lesson is going
to stay with me for a long time.

http://www.slate.com/id/2112258/

Anything that makes baseball sound like the poetry it is, while also
simultaneously revealing what should be widely known, but isn't - that it in
fact holds all of the answers to a life well lived - is definitely a winning
piece of writing with me.

Don't think too much.

Mix it up.

Don't be the ball. Be yourself.

Just don't dwell.

If you
comfortably fit in your own skin, you have command.

You can make the
ball dance. You can make it do anything.

While life has you perpetually
dancing on the lip of the volcano - always an unknowing misstep away from
disaster - there is always, even if you slip down towards chaos, the possibility
of greatness around every corner.

Baseball is a game that deals in
realities. It considers human frailties, and its expectations are adjusted
accordingly. Baseball is that understanding parent. It loves you the way you
are. It doesn't command perfection. It never has. If it did, there would be no
heroes. The threshold for amazing in baseball doesn't even require you to get it
right half the time. Hitters are exceptional for launching a ball that actually
drops one-third of the time. Plus, they can still get credit in other ways for
hitting a ball that is caught and ultimately counts as an out ("Just move the
runner over, baby!" "Sac Fly! Sac Fly!"). Pitchers are impressive if they manage
to give one run up every three innings - for every 2 innings of success, one
inning of failure is not a problem. Hell, a Cy Youg season is winning only 2/3
of one's games.

Problems in baseball arise in a player's own head. They
overthink it and their mojo is gone. Their own overblown expectations are what
lead them to failure. They are what prompt cheap shots like the infamous A-Rod
karate chop, or the inane Kevin Brown punching the wall incident, or the likes
of Bonds, Giambi, Sosa and co. to indulge in chemical enhancements. Baseball
didn't put that on them. Those expectations of superhuman feats of strength
being a necessity upon themselves? The players done brought them on themselves.
And really, that is what is so crushingly disappointing about the whole BALCO
scandal and its fall out for baseball - its utter senselessness. There is no
need to live up to expectations that were not there. Baseball's celebrates the
greatness inherent in mere men. All that which may be achieved in spite of human frailty. That is what captures the child's imagination; what makes
the lifeling fan marvel long after the last out of the season has been made.
What makes baseball poetry.

Chemical achievement rings hollow in the
sweet spot. Gladiators of laughably epic proportions have no place here. Those
of superhuman semblance need not apply. There is a ball field for all of you,
and for the bloodlust and GI Joe fantasies you inspire. But it isn't diamond
shaped. It does not carry the gleam of the prism of dreams.

Character,
not caricature. It may not have always been true of America's pastime; in fact,
it likely never has been true of all of its participants. But it has always been
an aspiration: of commonality, of longevity, of achievement, of joy. Whether the
Game actually achieved any or all of those thing, then, now, always or just for
a bit; those are the things the Game has always wanted for itself. What we have
wanted from it. How those that love to play and those that love to watch them
play, and how they all love to dream, have always wanted from it. They have
stumbled, as we stumble. But the game goes on. Through generations. All of us
together, the players, the fans, all a beautifully knotted and complex family
tree.

In my life, as silly as it may sound, I have had very few rushes
of affection greater than those triggered by hearing a baseball player extol his
love for the game; about the fact that he gets to live out every little kid's
(and most grown ups) fantasy every day when he goes to work. 162 days a year,
superstar or journeyman, your job, your life, is literally the stuff that dreams
are made of.

It is particularly moving when it is a young player at the
dawn of his career, where there is nothing but the long highway of possibility
stretched out before him, professing such prescience. One way or another, you
know a veteran has learned his appreciation of the warm glow of the Game. The
aches and pain and continuing accumulation of off-season past, have taught him
the humility and the
awareness for the Game's beauty and
resilience. But the young one - you know he is just a gamer. He is excited.
He has realized the depth and the eternal nature of his love affair and its
energy will feed him from now until the last days of his life. He will not miss
out. He is the luckiest of them
all.

Baseball has always been exceptional because it is the great
equalizer. There is something profoundly moving in the fact that David Wells is
a damn good baseball player. The man is 42 and pushing 260 pounds and, let's
face it, looks like he would be much more confortable in a wayward biker bar or
seedy bowling alley, rather than any kind of a ball field. And yet, he is a
baseball player. He is an athlete. He is a grizzled competitor. And for all the
disparaging remarks that are made about his physique, there is a respect and
recognition of his inner competitor.

I have always taken it as a basic premise of my life that - other than Hitler, John Wilkes Booth and Satan - the person I am most unforgiving of is myself.

I wear this both as a badge of honor - a source of pride - and a talisman - against the barbs and harms inherent in the opinions of others ("Why would they possibly say anything bad about me that will hurt me, when I could and often do, say worse about myself?")

Somehow it never occurred to me that just being a good person would prevent people from saying bad things about me. And even if it didn't, anyone who did say these allegedly bad things would have nothing to back up such statements, thus rendering them ineffective rants, at least to anyone who really matters.

But I guess the problem has always been that if such a "bad thing" statement was ever made, it doesn't matter to me that no one believes it, or even that no one I care about believes it... all that mattered was, if uttered, I would believe it. I believe anything bad about myself. Always have, and, though the thought frightens me, always will.

All of that being said, the premise of my life is a lie.

I am hard on myself. I am, perhaps, harder on myself than others, but, it has increasingly come to my attention that it is not by much.

I am critical. I am difficult. And I hold grudges like nobody's business.

Say something or do something that I take the wrong way, and it will be a long, long, long time before things are ever normal between us again. Of course, you may never know this. Because I can't and won't talk about my feelings. Not in a way that could potentially upset you. My anger and hysteria I can deal with. Can't control it, but can deal with. Your potential anger/disapproval/disenchantment with me - no way. It will drive me screaming into the streets if I thought you were upset with me.

So I don't tell you what is bothering me. So it festers. It wears. It itches. It galls. So I have to discuss it. But no, not with you because, as I said before, you might get angry with me. Or worse, you might think I was crazy. Not that you didn't before, but I am always wary of making that one false move that breaks the proverbial camel's back and erases all doubt. (How is that for some rather ineffective haphazard slapdash metaphor mixing?)

So this discussion must be had. So I talk. I rant. I cry. I gossip. I over-analyze the subject. With anyone that will listen. I tell the story. I need affirmation of my anger, indignancy, my right to hurt feelings. Without the affirmation, my feelings have no worth. I also, at some level, need the sympathy. So I frame the story. I do. Subconsciously. Maybe a bit consciously. So it is dramatic, it has flourishes. It shows you are wrong, wrong, wrong.

In effect, I bad mouth you. Over and over. Till I feel better.

But the thing is... I don't feel better. Ever. Instead, I just feel guilty. Because whatever you did that I thought was so horrible, is nowhere near the heinousness of my gossiping and complaining about you to others. I feel worse. And yet, I can't stop. So I do it, more and more. Till I feel so bad that things, in this dispute you didn't know we were having, are resolved between us because my subsequent sins of gossip and pettiness now far exceed your perceived wrongs.

You are better, I am worse. Things are now, once again, as it should be.

Damn, that's not good. Not good at all. In fact, it is, dare I say, bad.

Wow.

I need to have an argument with someone.

I have never done it.

A lawyer who has never made an argument. That's rich. Though I guess not so far off for a junior associate.

Well, I am a mid-level now. Time to move past my Daniel Kaffee phase of life and face things.

If something upsets me, I need to say so, and it needs no other validation other than the fact that it upset me.

Do I really believe that? No. But I need to try.

This is why I was so angry at the ex-BF for so long. He never argued with me. Ever. Well, not that I ever wanted to argue with him. But after four years, there was never an argument, even on the day we broke up, and I accused him of extreme neglect of my heart with which I had entrusted him. No argument. Nothing. Just a weird pod-person-like 24 hour period after the fact when we sat together in his house trying to do normal things and pretend like it wasn't all over.

No argument. Months of anger. Spilled over the year mark actually. Starting to wash away only recently.

Never argued with my family because I would never win. Who can win with people who don't listen and whose arguments are never dictated by logic? And yet, they still argue with one another all the time. Why? I always just thought they couldn't help it. That it was a biological imperative of sorts. And, truth be told, it more than likely is. However, I think it also has a cathartic value to them. As it does for everyone. I have never had this catharsis, as I have never had an argument.

Seriously. That is weird.

27 years.

No argument.

Wow.

There are people I feel anger towards now. However, none of them are socially appropriate for me to vent my anger at. Additionally, even if I did, none of those particular parties would care. Even if they did, the issues I have with them are of such a far removed vintage that to bring them up now looks like I am consciously picking a fight (which I guess I would be) rather than just responding with my feelings in the moment, and thus, likely, would result in anger (well justified) coming from the other side for my out-of-left-field orneriness.

Oh man,

I have a way to go.

I need to speed up this growing up/finding myself/getting on the right path thing, because I need to get the hell out of my job, and soon.

Not a particularly horrible time at the means-to-a-paycheck central, but I am getting pretty damn sick of it. I have overstayed my welcome and the thought of staying a whole other year, though it would be the prudent thing to do, seems utterly unbearable. I need to take some time and I need to take it soon, but it does not appear that I could even be able to think about it till March.

Personally, I don't know if I will make it that long.

Wonder why I feel so desperate? It is not desperate the way I used to feel. Like desperate-hopeless. It is much more of a desperate-antsy, I suppose.

Well, either way, it is desperate nonetheless.

Ugh.

I feel icky today.

I feel tired. I feel bloated. I feel ill at ease.

Not sure why?

No physiological reason I am aware of that I should.

I think I am allergic to my job. This is better than being allergic to my life, but still, cold comfort, since I must make myself present at said job on most days.

Unfortunately, I also have a sneaking suspicion that I am just allergic to work. That just will not do.

I have to work. I have to be able to support myself. Ugh - the need to support oneself.

The job also has not been pressing of late. Hardly. In fact, the pressure has diminished so much lately that my motivation (and ultimate follow through) to get into the office every morning diminish further and further. Somehow I manage it, but not without a lot of mental wrestling and cajoling to get myself there.

Feel like that last guest at a party. I know it is time to leave. The hosts are playing nice and not telling me to go. They are chatty and focusing as best they can at the late hour. But I know. I know it is time to go. Where is my cab already? Everyone is looking at their watches at one point or another. Should I call again?

However, in my metaphorical scenario is different from my life/search for purpose-driven employment in that: (1) I have the number to the cab company, (2) if I didn't I could call 411 and they could give me numerous numbers to numerous cab companies (though they would then connect me directly, so I, without aid of pen and paper, would not be able to call again without incurring the $1.49 charge or whatever it is), (3) worse comes to worse, I could call someone to come get me, and (4) (and this is the most important difference) I would know where I was going. I could tell the cab to take me to a particular destination. Take me to the corner of [______] and [_______]. Take me to that place that is not the Marina. Take me home.

Is that it? Am I search for "home"? It is yet another word that I have attempted to define within the confines of this blog and have been unable to do so in a way that would resonate any further than some platitude that should be stuck on a limited edition plate issued by the Franklin Mint or perhaps just a Linens n' Things dish towel.

I know home is not just a physical place because I have lived places that were not "home." Home is not just a metaphorical place either because otherwise you would only get yearnings to be with certain people or to have certain feelings and not to be a certain location - which while many times is the case, is not always the case.

Home is something built. Developed. Evolved.

I think.

But then, how do you explain the "Start Spreading the News" phenomena: That moment when you step off the plane, and wander past baggage claim, rubbing sleep from your eyes, trying to figure out what method of public transportation will get you to where you are going (though ultimately you know you will spring for a cab) as you foray out into the confines of a new city, and the moment the fresh air hits you (be it a cold blast, a light warm breeze, a torrential rain, or overwhelming humidity) as you stand at the busy airport sidewalk, you know. You just know. You feel it through and through. This is my town. I can be home here. I will always feel the familiar here. This place will always be a part of me. It always has been.

Chicago did that for me. Wherever I go from here, whenever I go back, whenever I return, for however long, it always comforts and reassures. Every landing at O'Hare a familial bearhug. The solace of deep running bloodlines and history evoking a sunny warmth even on the most arctic of February-days. Odd, however, given there are no actual long running family ties to the area. I did not grow up there. I spent three years there. Not all that long in the span of my slightly over a quarter century life. Even more odd as it felt that way the first time I got off the plane in Chicago when I arrived to live there. Absolutely odd in that it struck me even deeper the very first time I even ventured to the Second City, for a two day visit my senior year in college.

Then again, maybe I was just struck by the stark contrast to what I felt, or did not feel about my college town. Boston never inspired any love from me. On the other hand, neither did it inspire loathing. There was nothing there but indifference. I always just felt my relationship with Beantown to be one of convenience. It worked out for both of us, but then after four years we went our separate ways. This could explain why six years have gone by and I have not been back to see her. It also certainly explains the inner-surprise I registered during the journey of the Red Sox to the World Series victory this year when people would ask me who I was rooting for. I, like many out here on the left coast, was rooting for the Sox, but because of the sentimentality and beauty that the story would evoke, and, well, because it would finally shut up those oh-so-smug fans of the Evil Empire. But most, upon hearing who I was rooting for, said, of course, that makes sense, because you went to school in Boston. Every time I heard this comment, my id did a little double take. Reasonable explanation. I let people carry on in pleasantness of having seemingly made an unprompted connection between the threads of my life. But they were disparate threads and really not connected at all. The city of Boston and I never entered into the relationship of passion (or even on of easy going affection) necessary for me to have sustained an interest in the Red Sox over all these years. Truth of the matter is, I have greater affinity for New York City (where I spent a summer). And this may be what fuels my intense hatred for the Yankees.

New York City intrigued me, with its hard edges, and its moving parts. And the underlying, dscernible yet indecipherable magic that keeps it in constant locomotion. Its matrix always changing so that my daily walk from mid-town all the way downtown was never the same. Each say a new journey, each stroll a new adventure. I never looked up and never went underground (gawking at skyscrapers and poring over subway maps being two dead giveaways of tourist-dom - though I suppose my summer sweaters and anti-fashion savvy were probably just as glaring at the time), but I never missed out. Looking straight ahead in the City that Never Sleeps provided an endless visual repast. Despite the dispmayed looks it garnered from my friends when I told them about it, the walk always seemed too short.

I always like to say that I have recently entered my Forrest Gump phase of life, but I guess that is not true. I have always been a bit Gump-ish. Growing up in the 'burbs bought me plenty of time in a mini-van, but it never allowed me to explore true neighborhoods up close and in person.

Guess I have been missing that all my life. Now I take it up in earnest. It started in New York. It was certainly true in Chicago. Now, I love to walk through San Francisco. I love to walk home. I will walk pretty much anywhere around here if given the opportunity. Hills are no obstacle to me - on the contrary they provide better views and greater opportunity for exercise - it is only time that defeats me. I don't always have the time to walk from here to there, as I would like. Doing the "to and fro" thing by foot is a time consuming process.

I suppose this is why I could never live in L.A. or in Miami or any other place where driving is mandatory, and walking is considered a waste of time. Not that walking doesn't get you looks in San Francisco, but it is do-able, and not wholly without precedent.

I have been making a concerted effort to write about other things that occur to me besides my generalized angst and any and frustrations I have with my lovelife (using the term very loosely).

Questionable as my recent entries may have made these efforts look, they are without question sincere.

However....

Much like the "no offense" and "I hope you don't take this the wrong way," I am going to use those first couple of qualifying sentences to go the other way.

Yes, we are going back to talking about me and my life and its goals for now.

Unlike the topics upon which I can lament, complain, or self-deprecatingly riff, I am actually rather uncomfortable with this one.

I don't like to talk about my goals, because on a fundamental level, I don't know how. I, of the robust vocabulary and the 10 minute explanations for inane questions like "What are you doing for lunch today?", don't have the capacity, the words to articulate my goals.

Then again, that last description makes it sound as if my personal goals are an abstraction to which I merely need to find a cogent shape. That's not quite accurate. Honestly, I really have no idea at all what I want to do with myself.

I have a number of metaphysical goals, of which I am quite certain: I want to be happy; I want to love and be loved; I want to worry less; I want to act more; I want to live without fear and without regret; I want to appreciate all of the blessings that make up my life; I want to contribute meaningfully to the world around me; I want to leave this world - be it in a small or large way - better than how I left it.

I also have some simpler daily-life type goals: I want to be a neater person; I want to get a good night's sleep on a regular basis; I want to be more organized; I want to pay off my loans; I want to master my finances; I want to always be in the process of learning something new; I want to cook more often; I want be able to plan my weekends without asterisks or qualifications; I want to smile more, grumble less.

All of this is well and good, but how it will make my loan payments, sign my rent check, and put food in my mouth, I am not entirely sure.

I never had to have an articulated life goal before. My life, to this point, always just had natural life goals which conveniently popped up every few years. They were expected, they were safe. It was all part of the track. Finish high school. Apply to college. Take on a couple of internships. Take the LSAT. Apply to law school. Graduate from law school. Pass the bar. Work at a big firm. And now, if I want to move on, then what?

There are still some fairly easy options out there: Move to another big firm (though why one would do this is beyond me; The only thing worse than the evil you know is the evil you don't; Then again, stupid is as stupid does); Move to a smaller firm (once again, the evil you don't know problem; coupled with less hours, though not that many less, less amenities, less perks and, likely, less pay); Move to the government (as a lawyer)(less hours; less support and less pay; Mountains of bureaucracy).

I've said it before, I will say it again: No matter what capacity you are doing it in, the practice of law sucks. Time is your commodity and you are paid to worry. Pretty much a shorthand recipe for taking years off of your life at an ever escalating pace.

They say everyone has their price. I denied it. But, clearly, mine is spelled out in those four numbers on my paychekc every two weeks. For what other reason would one keep doing a job that you are ever more convinced slowly deadens your soul more and more each day, and which ultimately will cause you to collapse (and probably pathologically wonder to whom you could bill the time spent in the emergency toom).

Do this job too long - in any capacity - and it changes you. As many issues as I may have with myself, I am unwilling to make those changes. What frightens me most is that my unwillingness to make such changes ultimately will count for nothing in the face of the inertia of remaining in this job for much longer. If the inertia overtakes you, the seeping of the changes into your very core are invitable. Drama queen as I may be, I do not exaggerate here. There is a dull glassy eyed look taken on by many senior associates and partners of too many compromises made, too many opportunities of life missed, which pervades the halls of my workplace and haunts me long after I leave here at night.

I cannot continue to work in a place that thrives on continual and unfettered anxiety, for if that is what is required, I am capable of doing it. However, at what price? As I concluded in a recent disclussion with a friend, the difficulty in being a lawyer is that try as you might, there is no predictability. You cannot govern your schedule. You are paid to deal with client emergencies. Emergencies (both real and imagined) have no timetable. As such, even in the calm times, you are in a constant state of anxious anticipation. They say that the highest percentage of heart attacks occur on Sunday nights because people harbor so much anxiety about going back to work the next day. Basically, being a lawyer is like living your life out as one perpertual Sunday night.

No way to live.

So, the only thing that is really clear at this point is that I cannot be a lawyer. When I shuffle off of this BigLaw coil, I am going to have to hang up my lawyer hat for good.

After I passed the bar, my mother told me that whatever I chose to do in life, I would now always "be" a lawyer.

Fair enough.

I may always be a lawyer, but I do not have to like it.