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I ate brussel sprouts last night.

Those who know me well are, at this moment, checking the url to make sure they are, indeed, reading the blog of Jenné Beecher Fromm.  For that statement, that single statement is as shocking to them as if your rabbi posted on his blog, "I had a pork chop soufflé for dinner."

When I was a year or so old, I got very sick – not due to brussel sprouts but due to my kidneys.  It’s a long story which I don’t tell well and when I try to get details from my mother the conversation inevitably turns into a lecture as to why I shouldn’t take ibuprofen and why I have to make sure to watch how much vigorous sex I’m having because it can cause cystitis and that can lead to a kidney infection and since I only have one functioning kidney left blah blah blah

And that’s where I phase out of the conversation … you would too upon hearing your mother say “vigorous sex”.

So the story of what exactly went wrong and when and what it meant and how scary it was for everyone won’t be retold here.  I will say, however that I cannot be blamed for my poor eating habits and dislike of vegetables in adulthood because of that incident.  It turns out I was right at the age when all sorts of foods are tried out on kids and they learn to like certain foods and since I was so deathly ill at this ripe old age of one, I never learned to like much of anything food related.

Except ice cream
And fruit
And I’ve always been keen on chicken.  Meat too.  And pasta – although that came later.

I didn’t eat pizza until I was a senior in college.
I didn’t eat rice until I was 22
I didn’t eat cheese, for heaven’s sake, until that famed pizza my senior year of college.
I finally gave in to potatoes when I was in my twenties and sometime in the last 3 years I’ve begun eating squash and onions.  Not together. 

To say I’m a bit of a picky eater … well kids, that’s an understatement.  And a bit like saying Marshall Applewhite was a bit of a strange duck.

Mmmm….. duck.

I’ve tried very hard and very deliberately to expand my palate and I must say I’ve done a fair job of it.  In all areas.  Except one.

I hate vegetables.

Now here is where you say, ALL vegetables?
And I say, Pretty much.
And you say, What about CORN?
And I say, Yes, I’ll eat corn.
And you say, Well, CORN is a vegetable!
And I say, Okay, I hate all vegetables except corn.
And then you, thank goodness, shut up.

I’ve had the conversation more than once.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to eat veggies, I have.  I try quite often.  In fact, whenever I am somewhere and someone says, unprompted, “Man, these are good (insert veggie here)s!” I always ask to try a bite.  This has never gone well and once went badly enough that I had to excuse myself from the table, the dinner, the restaurant and was found later in a fetal position in the middle of my bed. 

Man, I really do NOT LIKE asparagus. 

But still I try in hopes that one day I will either find a vegetable I can tolerate or discover that magically my taste buds have gotten together and decided enough with all of this, let’s give the poor girl a break and not go into death spasms every time a green thing comes through those gates.

I’ve often thought that the only way to acquire a taste for the whole category is to find some sort of transition veggie.  A bridge of sorts.  Kind of like in college when I thought I should be drinking coffee so I bought that crap that comes in a can and tastes like hot chocolate … the one where you can have international moments.  I figure if I could find a veggie that is sort of half vegetable and half oh I don’t know, vodka or chick-fil-a, then I could do it. 

So you can understand how incredibly incredible it is for me to have eaten brussel sprouts.  I mean, have you seen a brussel sprout?  It couldn’t be MORE of a vegetable if it tried! It’s green.  And leafy.  And not small.  Those dudes were the size of a large egg. And it has a stem of sorts.  It should be the picture in the dictionary beside the word VEGETABLE.  It should win the contest for the most vegeabley of the vegetables.  It should wear a sash and a tiara as far as I’m concerned.  Who would every think that I would eat THOSE?  But ate them I did.  I steamed up those suckers, then ran them around a pan with some olive oil and fresh garlic and I’ll be darn tootin (more about that later) if I didn’t eat brussel sprouts.

Two of them.

I know.  It isn’t a lot.  And truth be told, I only got the last one down by pretending I was a giant who had stumbled into a village and was eating whole heads of lettuce out of their teeny tiny garden. But who cares.  Yesterday I ate brussel sprouts.


Now about that gas …

WALK WALK WALK WALK WALK

Well the intense training for The Breast Cancer 3 Day season has started.  I’ve been piddling around with walking for a few weeks … a few miles here, a few miles there, back and forth to the kitchen counter to grab some reese’s peanut butter eggs, etc.  But this week I hit that mother hard.

HOLLIE was in town for a few days and to celebrate we walked nine miles on Thursday.  And six on Friday - which was going to be twelve but when a second blister popped up ON TOP OF THE FIRST BLISTER on my ring toe, we called it quits-a-roo. I can’t describe how different it is walking with someone than walking alone.  When I walk alone, I have a variety of distraction techniques.  Sometimes I listen to music, sometime I call my mother, and sometimes I just walk in silence and think about the next talk I have or how I can grow my business or titles for my books that I haven’t written.  Lately I've taken to downloading audio books onto my iPod and I walk around listening to Dean Koontz.  Who rocks words extremely hard.  This latest novel I'm listening to, The Good Guy, is quite suspenseful and I can only imagine how fun it is for the people who pass me on my route to see me suddenly throw my hands over my mouth as my eyes grow wide and I shout, “NO!” and “OHMYGOODNESS!” and “AH! INEVERSAWTHATCOMING!” 

During the 12 walks that made up the 3 Day season last year I walked with a lot of people.  It’s part of my job, you know.  And I did love that part.  I enjoyed walking with and talking to other walkers.  I enjoyed hearing their stories of why they walk.  I enjoyed giving them encouragement when they needed it and, frankly, taking some myself when I needed it.  These people are amazing.  Open and honest.  Gentle.  Funny.  Willing to lend a hand, an ear, willing to share their feelings deeply.  But as much as they share and give and as vulnerable as they are across those 60 miles, they are still strangers to me.  Less so after we’ve seen and poked at each other’s blisters, but strangers still.

Walking with HOLLIE is completely different than that.  I won’t say the nine miles on Thursday (and the six on Friday) flew by but I will say I would do them all over again, daily, if I could have that kind of quality time with my friend.  We hit every topic imaginable.  We talked about sex education (our apologies to the family at 68th and Penn who heard HOLLIE shout the word clitoris loud enough to shake windows).  We talked about high school track.  We talked about weddings, divorces, family issues – oh dear did we talk about family issues!  We talked about spinach and politics and the Body exhibit at Union Station.  We discussed our independence, mini-coopers, vests, and shoe choices.  We talked about small businesses, taxes, banking and what the earth would look like if people suddenly disappeared.  And, certainly, we talked about boys.  Because after all, we are girls.

Even with all that talking, there would inevitably be pauses in the conversation.  When things would get quiet, we would continue walking and enjoy the silence for a few steps … and then one of us would say, “Isn’t it nice to not have to talk all the time?” and the other would say “You know I have something to say about that…” and we’d have a nice long conversation about how we don’t need to have nice long conversations. 

I LEARN ... JUST NOT QUICKLY

Now hold your horses.  I’m okay.  Before everyone (Mom) goes freaking out about my overwhelmed post please understand that I am a woman of extremes and what is true one day isn’t necessarily true the next day and this reality is just delightful for The Hub.  It’s like living with a puppy … that occasionally eats little children.

Today is another day.  And with another day comes different feelings.  The overwhelms are still hanging around but they are somewhat embarrassed for being so showy and attention-seeking yesterday.  Today they are minding their own business quietly sorting socks in the corner of my mind. Hmm humm.  Nothing to see here.  On your way now.

And all of this reminds me of a story.  (Really?  Something reminded you of a story?  Gee, today IS different).

A week or so ago I was tucking The Kid into bed when she began to tell me about some goings on at school. Slightly tormented, she shared in great detail who and how and what happened. I won’t post the details here because I haven’t asked for permission but I will say I was hoping the typical school-aged girl-on-girl meanness wouldn’t start until much, much later.   I'm shocked nearly daily at how different school is for The Kid than it was for me.  When I was 9, I was still hugging my teachers hello and goodbye and barely able to recite the alphabet.  At the same age, The Kid uses War and Peace as a discussion starter and is part of a social circle so complicated I feel like I’m neck-deep in a game of dungeons and dragons … with lip gloss.

Anyway, as she shared what she was feeling and why she was feeling it, it struck me what a difference a day makes.  I knew in my heart and soul that things would look different in the morning.  I knew the next day at school would be better.  I knew … KNEW … the trials of Monday were just that – Monday’s.  Tuesday would be different.  But how to tell her?  How to validate what she was feeling and still give her a ray of hope?  How to listen and convey a complete and total understanding and not downplay while somehow also communicating that hey, kiddo, things aren’t so bad, you’ll see.  It’s impossible.  So I reached way back into my memory and channeled my grandmother and said,

“I know you don’t believe me right now, but things always look better in the morning.”  Then I kissed the top of her head that was buried in my chest, and added, “And if they don’t … well, we can handle that too.”

It wasn’t much.  But it was all I had.

I got a phone call the next day.  With delight The Kid told me what a great day she’d had at school.  She shared no details but just said, “You were right as usual!” and I quietly said a prayer of thanks to my grandmother, my God, whomever, for bailing me out once again. For giving me whatever bit of wisdom I needed in the moment to comfort a sad little girl.  For showing me that despite a 30 year span, That Kid and I really aren’t all that different.

Things really do look better in the morning. 

THOUGHTS ON BEING OVERWHELMED

It doesn’t happen often – my overwhelmedness.  At least I don’t think it happens often.  And I should know.  After all, I’m the one in my skin feeling overwhelmed.  I’m sure there are many, many people who could claim that oh really? you don’t think you get overwhelmed often? because I have 157 emails right here in my archives with OVERWHELMED! as the subject line … and they are all from you. from February.

Ahh February.  That was a good month.

So I should clarify ... THAT kind of overwhelmed … the run-of-the-mill overwhelmed, is not the same kind of overwhelmed that I’m currently feeling. AND it’s not really fair to call the run-of-the-mill overwhelmed the same thing as over-the-top overwhelmed.  I mean yes, they are both from the root word “overwhelm” but they mean two totally different things and can have two totally different meanings – one benign, one somewhat scary.  Like the word prick.  Or jock.  Or democrat  … you see what I’m saying there.

I should, I suppose, answer the typical questions that come up from the well-meaning folk around me when I feel this way.  The folks who, to their credit, do their best to “fix it” without having to listen one more minute to me talking about how overwhelmed I am.  The answers are …

1) No, I’m not on my period
2) Yes, I’ve eaten today
3) No, it wasn’t exclusively brownie batter

So the usual suspects have been rounded up and acquitted.  And yet.  I’m overwhelmed.  Still.

When I feel like this the very idea of trying to figure out why I feel like this is enough to send me over the edge.  Any right minded person in my life looks at me and says, “What’s making you feel so overwhelmed?” and I usually will rattle off a few examples. But this whole process is just exhausting and while I’m explaining why I’m overwhelmed, I’m sitting there going Oh holy hell! No wonder I’m so overwhelmed … this is all so … overwhelming!!

It’s like I’m trying to untangling my bra from being wrapped up and over and around the agitator in the middle of the washing machine.  It’s impossible to know how it got this tangled and doubly impossible to see how it will ever come loose.  I’m left more confused than when I started trying to unconfused things. 

Once, a number of years ago, my sister and I were doing the books for a company we both worked with.  My sister has only taken one accounting class of any type in her whole long-columned life and therefore she was only the supervisor of this project whereas I was the actual bookkeeper.  The problem here is that I never took any accounting courses. Ever.  And also, I stopped balancing my checkbook in 1991.  But didn’t realize until 1993.  Add to this lovely mix the company was ever so complicated with multiple divisions buying and selling to each other and these transactions never taking place in the real world but just on paper and then throw in a boss who was as organized as a catfight and a system that was one day ahead of the abacus….but just one day – a short, winter, Icelandic only 2 hours of daylight day – at that.  Put all that together and then release spitting llamas into the office where we worked and you’ll start to get a picture of what it was like to do this job.

At some point in all this mess my sister and I were sitting facing each other across a fabricated desktop and I was desperately trying to explain to her why the books weren’t coming out exactly right.  We’d had the same problem (in the same amount) the month before and thought we’d fixed it.  We also had the same problem (in the same amount) the month before that and thought we’d fixed it then too.  But here it was again and after sitting with it for a while, consulting an accounting for dummies book, doing some yoga and contacting my warrior accounting spirit in a sweat lodge, I’d had an epiphany.  So very carefully and very deliberately, I sat and explained to my sister what was wrong and how we got there.

“You see,” I said, “It’s like this …Let’s say you sold me 2 paperclips,” I pulled two paperclips from the fabricated desk drawer and handed them to her … I waited … “Sell them to me!” I said and she said,  “OH!” and then handed me the two paperclips.  I wrote this transaction down onto a yellow sticky note.  “Okay, now, it turns out that I don’t need two of them, right?”  and I wait for her to respond.  “Uh huh” she says. But not convincingly, so I say “Stay with me!” and I write our next transaction on the same sticky note “I don’t need two so I send one back” I hand her one paper clip back.  “Right.” she says.  “Then,” I say, “you buy 3 bic pens from me and pay me in part with the refund from the paperclips!”  I write all of this in actual numbers on the sticky note.  “But!” I call out, “But! The bic pens aren’t good, SO!!!....” and she chimes in , “Yes! So! The paperclips don’t matter at all! And the Bics are what we are talking about! I got it!!!” she cries.  “Good explanation!” she adds and begins to work out the actual sales in the books.  But I haven’t moved.  I’m just staring at her.  And she looks at me and says, “What?” and I furrow my brow and say …

“I don’t get it.”

I thought of that story today when I was trying to explain all of this to The Hub who, mercifully, did NOT try to fix anything.  He did, however, let me know that this whole paperclip story is very confusing.  And I’m all like, “You think it is confusing to hear it? You should be inside my head trying to tell it!”  And at the risk of being put on everyone's high-alert list, I'm still telling it.  Because even if it is confusing, I do think there is a good point in there somewhere. 

I’ll let you know if I figure out what it is.

I CONSIDER MY LIFE IMPROVED BECAUSE OF THIS VIDEO MOVIE. THANKS SHARON AND FRED!

YOU DON'T CALL, YOU DON'T WRITE ...

Oh I know!  I was wondering what happened to me too! 

I’ll spare you all the typical blogger confession, “Sorry I haven’t posted in sooo long, but ….” and just say that I’m back now no thanks to a number of clutterous, sometimes annoying, sometimes scary and worrisome things that have come up that have kept me from posting for a little while.  You know how tricky life can be, what with interrupting us all the time with the unplanned.

Often when I don’t post, I’m still writing.  In fact, I’ve found there is usually some sort of relationship between the amount I’m posting and the amount I’m writing uh, non-postual thoughts.  If, for example, my friends are receiving long drawn out emails full of insights, stories, recipes that use avocado and tales of trips to Chick-fil-a then my posting here slows.  Or if I’m rat-tat-tatting in my journal or in one of oh about 87 books I’ve started and never finished then my posts here tend to be a little less regular and a lot less meaty.  Or even if I’m busy work-wise composing proposals and powerpoints and handouts then my blog grinds to a halt.  It’s almost like I only have a certain number of thoughts or words a day to use and once they are used up – in any form – then that’s it.  Hang the closed sign out.  I’m headed home where I’ll just sit idly and watch the latest episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Which reminds me of a theory I used to have that we are all only allotted a certain number of words total in our lifetime and once they are used up, we die.  But that’s been disproven by so many drunk businessmen in airport pubs that rightfully should keel over into their pretzels half-way through their third beer and 12th story that I don’t pay any more attention to that theory than I do to the raw or undercooked food warning at the bottom of the barroom menu. 

Anyway ... During this latest eclipse of the blog, however, I haven’t been writing while I’ve been not writing.  Which makes me feel less, slug-like, thought-less, thought-VOID.  And thus, I’ve lost my voice … my rhythm, my style and I’m back to using words like thus.

I’m back to writing as a means to stimulate writing.

I truly miss writing when I don’t do it.  I miss the way my brain strings together thoughts.  I miss the actual act of sitting in front of the screen and making words appear to the tune of ratatattatt of my keyboard.  When The Hub and I are in the office together, he always asks for me to put on some music (the stereo is closer to my desk than his) and I always do.  I’ve noticed, however that when I’m alone the music of my fingers on the keys is enough to settle me.  I don’t need lyrics and melody.  I just need movement. 

Speaking of movement.  I’m constipated.  Not in the traditional way. But in the I-have-too-many-thoughts-inside-my-brain-and-they-can’t-get-out way.  Someone once told me that the best way to write when you feel this way is to create a bullet point list of ideas.  Not to worry about if they string together or not – just write them down.  Which I’ve tried and it only ends up veering so far off the original idea of clearing my mind that I can’t even recognize the reason for starting and only increases my anxiety.  It’s sort of like when I do a trial run through of an upcoming keynote address or speech of some sort and I start off practicing and I end up doing the dishes never sure how I transitioned from one to the other.  So I’ve forgone the bullet point list idea and will instead see if I can zero in on one single topic or thought about which to write.

I’m overwhelmed.