Stupid Anxiety

Ahh, anxiety. Like Gilligan to my Skipper, it's an annoying sidekick I just can't stand. It's probably better than being Sean Hannity's conjoined twin, but that's about it. And, like a woman on Montel who "loves too much" I can't seem to stay away from it's abusive company for long. Coming from a long line of chronic worriers, anxiety is a bit of a birthright in my family. While some children are born with silver spoons in their mouths, in my family it's Tums. My insanity has reached the point where if I find myself not worrying about life, I become fearful that if I don't start worrying I'll somehow jinx things. So I start to worry because I'm not worrying; which is messed up with a capital F. Oh, and could you please pass the Xanax? Thanks.

I tell you that as a prelude that might explain the completely unreasonable reaction I had to a television commercial recently. It's a Michelin commercial where the Michelin Man is out looking for his dog in a terrible storm. He's visibly worried, the stress showing on his big dumb tire face. The car he's driving is swerving to miss downed trees and power lines. He stops the car and finds his stupid little tire dog who, without a care in the world, comes running and jumps in the Michelin Man's arms. Now there are some legitimate reasons to hate this commercial. First of all why is the Michelin Man driving a car? Isn't he made of a bunch of tires stacked together? Couldn't he just roll? Secondly if he is ,in fact, made of tires then why is he white? If this country is ready to strongly consider a black man for President ("yes we can!"), then is it not also time to demand a realistic (read: black) Michelin Man?

But it's not these things that make me react so strongly to this commercial. It's the fact that while the Michelin Man is so concerned with his pet's well-being, his beef-witted pet is soooo dog-gone (thank you Sarah Palin) care free, you betcha! I mean here's this poor guy who's already got things stacked against him. He's not the best looking fella you'll ever meet. He's got a little more sidewall showing than he used to and now he's gotta risk life and tread and be worried silly about this dog who doesn't even care?

But of course I know the real problem (stupid self-awareness); I'm so frickin envious of that little cur of a CGI tire mutt that I truly wish him ill will. I'm jealous of people that go through life care free. What I need to do is respect that steel-belted canine for what he's accomplished, follow his example, and strive to do so myself. It's time for me to "let go, and let dog."

Let the Games . . . End

Like most American families, mine was glued to the television for the Beijing Olympics. It was special for us, because even though we are all proud Americans, only two of us were born in the USA. My daughters, Molly (8) and Abby (6) were born in China and each lived there until they were eight months old and we were able to adopt them and bring them home. Fortunately, we avoided any intra-family, international incidents as we really were united in our support of the USA athletes. The girls and their mother liked Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, almost as much as I loved the rain-drenched women's beach volleyball final (hooray for white outfits!).

But just as the games themselves were not without controversy, neither was our viewing of them. As we watched the womens' gymnastics floor exercise, I mentioned that I thought one of the Chinese gymnasts was really cute. Molly looked up at me and said, “What do you mean she's cute, Daddy? How can you tell? They all look exactly alike.” First of all, I'm not the most PC cracker in the box, but I'm pretty sure that's something you're not supposed to say. Secondly, its just not true. If it were, the Chinese wouldn't have Milli Vanilli-ed the “not-so-cute” seven-year-old singer in the opening ceremony. Bottom line though, I had a situation that needed to be dealt with. Fortunately there are times in parenting when your kids say or do something that demands a response and you somehow know exactly how to handle it. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

"Uh, Gee, Molly. You really shouldn't . . . um, I mean that's not . . . oh boy." Molly just looked at me and laughed as my tongue fumbled at words as if they were batons in a USA 4 x 100 qualifying heat. That's when Abby decided to step in. "No Daddy. She's right. Look at the girl on TV now, she looks exactly like me." It wasn't the save I was looking for, but it did give me a legitimate reason to stop my ridiculous attempt at a reprimand long enough to glance at the TV. The girl was Chinese, but she didn't look like Abby. Sure, they appeared to be the same age, but that's where the similarity ended. "No, she doesn't look like you." Cool, I actually completed a sentence. Unfazed, Abby continued to look at the TV and said, "Well you're wrong; she really does." Meanwhile, Molly was still cackling at my discomfort. I then spouted off a little trite drivel about racial equality and sensitivity. Then I think I finished with some quote from "Blazing Saddles."

So after my less-than-gold-medal performance, I'm back in training; hoping to better handle whatever inappropriate comments my daughters are sure to make about Canadians in 2010.

The Big Four Ohhhhhhhh!

Here’s a partial list of who turns 40 this year: Will Smith, Mary Lou Retton, Owen Wilson, Gary Coleman, Ashley Judd, me, Parker Posey, Sammy Sosa, the cubicle, Naomi Watts, and Daniel Craig. Of those listed, can you guess which two have never detached from the corporate teet? Hmmm . . .

Surprisingly, for someone who usually mainlines anxiety like I do, turning 40 hasn’t been too troubling. Sure, there’s been some nagging internal dialog along the lines of “why haven’t I done anything with my talents; has anyone ever done less with less than me?” But that’s been relatively and thankfully infrequent. That is, it was relatively infrequent until I found out that the cubicle, like me, was conceived during the summer of love. I can only guess from an unholy union between a checker board and total despair. Yes, the middle-class, modern-day version of the gilded cage is exactly as old as I am.

To understand why this finding has some stank on it; we have to go back a few years. I’m in the third grade and our class is taking a field trip at Hallmark Cards (one of the first companies to adopt the cubicle). I remember leaving Kaleidoscope, and then going on a tour of the workspace. The juxtaposition between the two was stunning, even to a kid like me who wasn't aware of much beyond The Superfriends. Kaleidoscope was all about expressing your creativity. There was art everywhere, bright colors, crayons, paper, glue sticks, the works. It was pulpy and beautiful. Then we went into the employee workspace and I saw nothing but antiseptic, neutral colors and a field of cubicles. It was as sterile as I ended up being. The weird part was, that when I saw the cubes I was immediately repulsed. I remember stopping, looking, and vowing, “I will never work in a place like this!” Apparently, my resolve is not quite that of the iron variety (is there such a thing as "yogurt resolve?") because we fast forward 32 years and I find myself occupying one of roughly 14,000 cubicles in a huge corporate campus. It’s not the cubicle that bugs me so much. I really don’t have to spend too much time in it. What bothers me is the fact that I made a promise to myself and didn't keep it. Here's a list of some other promises I made myself but didn't keep:

• Washboard abs
• Millionaire by 30
• Living in the mountains
• Creation of a flying suit capable of repelling bullets
• Playing for the Chiefs

Ok, some of these may seem far-fetched. But not working in a cubicle is pretty doable; at least a little more so than say, making a bullet-proof flying suit. In any case, I think 40 is a good time to start keeping promises to myself. I'll keep you updated on my cubicle progress, but for now I'm off to the gym to wail on my abs.

Dave's Basement

Five chicks. I could have spent the night with five chicks. But let’s face it, my ability to handle five women, in the cool way, petered out about the time I quit wearing tight-rolled jeans. And anyway, this night was not about being with five gals in a cool way. Two of them were eight years old, two were six, and one looked to be 29 (you’re welcome, dear). Both of my daughters were having friends over to spend the night, and the wife was looking forward to doing makeovers and performing “shows” with these four little bundles of energy and estrogen.

Now to be honest, I’m not the manliest guy you’ll ever meet. To prove my point (as if that’s necessary), I’m wearing a pink gingham shirt while I write this. And yes, I know what “gingham” means. But it was on sale at J. Crew. Originally 69 bucks and I got it for $17! Besides, I hear pink is in for guys now, right? . . . Well anyway, I’ve been around long enough to know that given enough time, energy + estrogen = emotion; and I feared that the laughter, tears, singing, fighting and whatever else happens when girls get together would be too much for me. I also knew I didn’t want to get pulled into a tense game of telephone, or end up with my bra in the freezer. So I hung with the gaggle for just a little bit, jumped with the younger four on the trampoline, and then motored off to my good friend Dave’s house, fueled by over-priced gasoline and unspent testosterone.

You know the old joke about how when boys are born they fight like crazy to get out of a woman’s nether regions, and then spend the rest of their lives fighting to get back in? Well, it’s true; in more ways than one. Often it’s purely about making naughty-time; but occasionally it’s metaphorical, it’s about finding a womb-like retreat where you can hide from reality awhile. For me, Dave’s basement is just that kind of refuge. It supplies all the comfort and security of a real womb, with much less stickiness. Plus, it has TV! I go over there once every couple of months and we sit on his insanely comfortable couch, crack hilarious jokes, and watch something funny (this particular night it was episodes 7-12 of Flight of the Conchords ; and Brian even came over to watch with us, cool!). Dave also has a seemingly endless supply of Miller Lite (always cans, very manly), and a conveniently placed bathroom, mere steps from the couch. The only thing better would be a tap right above your head and a catheter. I don’t hunt, I don’t play organized sports, and I don’t work on cars. But Dave’s basement is a safe harbor of guy-time that provides a needed break from a home-life full of flowers and feminine hygiene products.

Of course, you can’t be in uterine forever. And soon enough, I headed out and went back home to find all five ladies sacked-out. The house was a war zone. Carnage strewn about the living room told a tale of makeovers, musical numbers, and munchies. As I got into bed I thought, “I’m glad they’ve had fun, and I’m thrilled that I missed it.” Thanks, Dave!

Working Hard for the Money . . .

Last night while putting one of the daughters to bed I tried something new. Instead of just rattling off the standard “I love you and I’m proud of you,” I let her know something tangible that I really was proud of. So I said, “I love you and I’m proud of how hard you work at gymnastics and at school.” I did this because she does work hard; and because I read in a book that it’s a good thing to do. She replied with a genuine “Thank you, Daddy!” (Wow, this book crap really works!); and then followed up with, “Daddy, is there anything that you ever work hard at?”

Body Blow! Body Blow! Knock Him Out!

Jimminy Christmas, I just got cold-cocked. It would be cool if somehow my work ethic made the question ironic rather than legitimate. It’s not that I’m a total slacker. I show up for work and tend to get decent performance reviews. In college I tended to show up for class and I got good grades. But with me it’s always the game of “what’s the smallest amount of work I can do and still get a respectable result.” I have two college degrees thanks, in large part, to Cliff’s Notes and my ability to make friends with grad assistants. In truth, this has carried me through a lot. Be friendly and funny and you can pretty much coast (except when it comes to making time with the ladies, not much luck there. Do they make a Cliff’s Notes version of how to do that?).

But here’s the problem, the really interesting people in life aren't the ones that “coast.” It’s those who work hard to be at the top of their game and still seem "balanced" that I admire. I want to be that kind of person. I want to show amazing commitment and tenacity. I want to dive into something whole-assed for once. I once heard someone quote Dan Millman as saying that "discipline leads to excellence, and excellence leads to freedom" (although my attempts to find the exact quote on the Google turned up fruitless, so it may have just been from an old Ziggy cartoon). Discipline, excellence, and freedom. The last two sound freaking awesome! The first one sounds suspiciously like work.

I'll Stop the World and Melt with Me

It happened. At some point when I wasn’t looking, Youth skipped town without paying the rent; now she’s probably shacked up with some Gen Y’er who has tattoos and plays the guitar. And here I am left to fret over aching joints, and both the frequency and quality of my bowel movements. Such are the joys of aging.

But not all is bad about moving into mid-life. As my body has lost some of its elasticity I’ve been drawn to yoga to help keep the joints mobile and the muscles pliable; and it's been quite a gift. My preference is to attend a class so the instructor can show me how to get the poses correct. However, family and work sometimes dictate that I can’t make a class. For those times, I purchased a DVD to practice at home. Now to say I enjoy Yoga would be a bit of a stretch (Ha! Stretch. Get it?). For me, it’s kind of like eating broccoli. I don’t hate it, but I really only do it because I know it’s good for me. There is one part of yoga, though, that I absolutely love. And that is Savasana. This is the time at the end of the session where you lie in Corpse Pose and just relax. Each session on the DVD ends with a different Savasana where the instructor takes you through a guided meditation of sorts. My favorite one involves imagining that your body is like ice or butter. You start with your toes and imagine them melting into little pools. You then move to your feet, up your legs, through the torso, the arms and finally the head. As you go through the body you imagine the sun melting it away to nothing. This relaxes me like no other meditation I’ve tried. By the time I get to my head I’m usually completely relaxed. This is an uncommon state for me. I come from a long line of anxious insomniacs (Some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths; in my family we’re born with Tums and Xanax in ours). But all of that flies out the window when I do this particular Savasana. What hit me the other night as I practiced this meditation was that while my body was relaxed to point where it almost didn’t exist to me, my consciousness was still there and aware.

This made me think of the suggestion of many ancient traditions to “die before you die;” put another way, to realize that you are “in this world, but not of it.” It's the perceived pressures of this world that cause my anxiety: bills, relationships, poor quality bowel movements, whatever. But when I realize that everything I can see and touch is temporary; and when I choose to believe that my connection to Spirit lives beyond this temporary world, I’m able to simply observe without worry or judgment. The moments that this happens are fleeting, but they’re there. It’s interesting to me that they happen when I just lie there and “do nothing” (as many popular new age guru-types tell us to do). But to get to the “do nothing” part, I have to get the kinks worked out to the point that I can relax. This requires that I “work hard” (as many popular self-betterment motivator-types tell us to do). As one of my yoga instructors said about a particular pose, “to get this right, you must find the balance between effort and surrender.” If you ask me, that’s good advice for just about anything.

Sugar and Spice, and No she Di-ent!

My career in organized basketball ended after 6th grade. The Blackburn Elementary Bobcats had completed a strong season, making it to the playoffs. My contribution was exactly two points: a single basket shot in a meaningless, mid-season game. I have no idea if it was a beautiful shot, as my eyes were closed when I launched it. I do know my Raggedy Andy arms flailed as I pushed it up from somewhere behind the free throw line; and I know the shot was fueled entirely by the fear of getting creamed by the lumbering forward clumsily approaching my starboard side. Now Wayne Gretzy says you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And while that's true, I can honestly say that I was the only Bobcat to make 100% of the shots I did take that season. I finished with a 1.000 field goal percentage. If I wanted to step out at the top of my game, that was the time. So I left the hardwood (still clinging, to this day, to my infrequent ability to score) and moved on to other pursuits.

Fast forward nearly 30 years and I'm enjoying a blissful Sunday afternoon with the family. 80 degrees, no humidity, sunny skies. The eight year old (Molly) wants to play basketball with me. "Sure, why not. It'll be fun," I say. Molly's a gymnast, and a good one. She's built for the gym: short, compact, powerful, and did I mention, short? Not to be a height-ist, but she is not the typical size of someone I'd expect to excel at hoops. Plus, she's never played on a team before. All these factors led me to believe one thing: it was my time to shine!

For disclosure's sake, we were playing on a nine-foot goal using a junior size ball. We started with a simple game that she came up with. The winner would be the first person to make 20 jump shots from wherever they wanted on the court: easy enough. So we started out and for the first few shots I'm taking it easy, not really caring if I make it or not. Molly, on the other hand, is like some kind of possessed savant. She's making shot after ego-crushing shot from all over the court. It's like I'm raising a female Pistol Pete (feel free to insert a more timely analogy here; I'm not too up on current b-ball stars). When the score hits something like eight to two, I figure it's time to really try. . . and I can't make a basket to save my life. Meanwhile, she continues to pile it on. All of a sudden the tune of "Sweet Georgia Brown" starts playing in my head as a film-worthy montage of my athletic ineptitude plays out in real life. Now I love my children and I want them to do well in life; certainly much better than I've done--but I don't want my eight-year-old to beat me at basketball! C'mon!

As she continued to beat me loudly, I went into a self-pity induced trance. It didn't last long, though, as a metaphoric glass of cold water hit my face in form of Molly trash-talking me. Yes, my sweet little girl whose diapers I changed and spit-up I cleaned, was now spitting hyperbole suggesting I should be wearing a diaper. "Oh, my what kind of a man are you letting a little girl beat you?" "Wow, it must stink to be a 40-year-old getting beaten by your eight-year-old daughter!" Well, I may be 40, bald, and largely unsuccessful, but I've still got my pride! My wounded ego led me to "the zone," and I brought the rain. Swish after sweet, sweet swish I was closing the gap. This was all out of love for her, too. She had to learn that you don't grab a tiger by the tail (even if that tiger drives a four-door sedan, works in a cubicle, and now has "issues" after eating spicy food).

When I drew within two, at 15 to 17 and sensed I was going pull this thing out (In your face, daughter!) I let go with some trash talk of my own--an admittedly pathetic, "oh, you are so going down!" Molly then sized me up, and quickly replied, "yeah, right. Down the toilet, just like your career." The fatal blow was struck and we both knew it. I cracked up (keeping the tears on the inside so they can become heart disease later) and she summarily sank her last three shots. The day belonged to Molly and I was a fool to think I could overcome fate, or my absent skills. As it turned out Molly was handing out two things that day, lollipops and butt-whoopins. And sadly, she was all out of lollipops.