Otherwise entitled How Rock ‘n’ Roll Saved My Life, or At Least Made a Super Sucky Week Less Sucky.
It was seven solid days of wall-to-wall #CharlotteMoments. Friends, whom I was counting on, let me down. Technology went kaflooey, giving every indication my machines had become inhabited by demonic pucks. With a major proposal hanging in the balance, each printer in the house, of which there are half a dozen, decided they would latch onto the wireless signal at the same time, therefore rendering printing impossible. Six wireless printers all said, “printer in use,” and yet, not one would print.
Ever seen the Seinfeld episode (there is one for every situation in life) where, depending on the lighting, Jerry’s girlfriend either looks pretty or completely hideous, like a monster? This was my experience as we shot the video portion of my “major proposal.” Unfortunately, the result was the latter, and I look like a cross between Sasquatch and the original black and white Frankenstein, complete with the black lines under my eyes and odd protrusions poking out of my neck region. It goes by kind of quickly in the video—a tender mercy—but there is a hump on my back, as well. The purpose of the video, I believe, is to show my potential employers that I am not a drooling Neanderthal. My video achieved perfect oppositeness.
Like the wretched smatch of beetle dung or milk that has turned, my entire week was sour, bitter, and in dire need of a palette cleanser—a minty sorbet to take away the putrid, and leave my spiritual taste buds open to something good again. And then, on E Street, it happened.
The Stones said ‘it’s only rock ‘n’ roll.’ On Thursday night, when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band hit the stage at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, it wasn’t only rock ‘n’ roll, it was a miracle.
I was 17 again. It’s not as though the years just melted away, fading gently into the night. It was more like they were sandblasted. The excitement that rises up from deep in your soul when you just know something utterly wonderful is about to happen overtook every fiber in my being, and I danced like life would only ever be good, summer would last forever, and rock ‘n’ roll would always be this glorious.
Everyone who writes about a Springsteen show mentions a “revival meeting” quality, calling out the Boss for his preacher-like monologues and innate ability to get “the flock” whipped into a religious-like fervor.
I like to think of the three and a half hours as an ablution during which this man and his music breathed life back into my weary heart, and literally revived me. By the time the show was over I was restored in every way. The suckiness of the week had disappeared, vaporized by something really loud and really powerful: the majesty, the mystery, the ministry of rock ‘n’ roll.
My 89-year old mom went to the show with me, and although she brought earplugs, she never put them in. Her only regret was that the Boss didn’t pull her up on stage during Dancing in the Dark. The bottomless well of good will and vitality never runs dry on E Street. Thanks, Bruce. Rock on.
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1. I can’t remember when they said I was past the contagious stage.
2. That is not a flashlight.
3. You found it. You hold it.
4. It’s only toxic if it’s exposed to oxyge…who opened this?
5. Don’t worry. They don’t have a clear shot from there.
6. My bed is crawling with them.
7. As long as you keep the pin in, we’re good.
8. (Wait for it…)
Many years ago, when I was in Atlanta working on a TV commercial, my crew and the people from the advertising agency were staying at a hotel with the biggest elevator I had ever seen. It easily held 100 people.
One day I was crammed in the elevator with 99 other people, including a British advertising executive. Standing in the middle, smooshed between passengers, you could hear a pin drop. Apparently there is some sort of ‘giant elevator decorum’ wherein people basically hold their collective breath and remain mute when packed into a colossal box hurtling toward the ground, hundreds of feet per second.
The ad exec, whom we shall call John Constable, and who spoke with a crisp upper crust English accent, stood behind me. He cleared his throat, and said quite distinctly, “Pamela, dear.”
98 people craned around to look at me, suddenly aware that I was Pamela, dear, and whatever the proper Englishman had to say must be very important, because that sort of accent just oozes credibility, like Helen Mirren, or the BBC.
“Yes?” I replied, slightly concerned. (What on earth couldn’t wait another 20 floors until we were at the fifth floor, where we were to disembark and meet the rest of our team, and could have a conversation like normal people rather than articulate sardines?)
Mr. Constable had a keen sense of timing. “How’d that abortion work out?” he asked.
The elevator seemed to decelerate at that point, doing less hurtling and more standing still. About half the people had turned to look at me, waiting for some sort of reply. My armpits were burning up, and the blood had drained from my extremities and internal organs, gushing to my face, which bore an expression that said, “I got nothin’.” I couldn’t breathe.
Ding. The doors opened on the fifth floor. Grinning, John slipped through the crowd like an eel, stepped out of the elevator, and walked away.
I croaked out something that was meant to resemble “excuse me, pardon me,” but it came out, “eheheh, pppppuh,” as I maneuvered like a sloth in Velveeta to the front of the car.
Some folks looked at me with pity, others glared, as though I were Kanye, and they, Taylor Swift. My eyes were cast downward. It was all I could do to get off the elevator without spontaneously combusting.
20+ years later, I still don’t have a good retort, but I lie in wait for John Constable to cross my path again. Disguised as a potted plant, or perhaps a nun (Oh, how the English love a good nun costume!), I shall wait until we are in a packed elevator, quiet and solemn as a church, and from the back, when he least expects it, I shall ask Mr. Constable whether he has stopped beating his wife.
Check out Pam’s podcast on Authors Talk About It. (It’s one of her finest!)
Click here to listen to Pam’s hilarious new essay in her Public Radio series “Wisconsin Tough.”
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1. Having a Macy’s coupon applicable to something you actually want to buy.
Perfume? Only an idiot would think you could use a coupon for that. Joe’s jeans? Idiot 2.0. Make-up, Michael Kors anything, the one bra that fits perfectly, or the gloves your mom wants for her birthday? No, nada, nyet and nein.
Macy’s will take the coupon in the swimsuit department. In January. (Wisconsin stores only.)
2. Having your hair look crappy before going to the salon, so that you feel good about getting it cut.
The exact opposite of this is The Law of Inverse Coiffure (also known as a Charlotte Moment), and is explained in greater detail, thusly:
“The attractiveness of a coif in the moments immediately leading up to a styling appointment is inversely proportional to the hideousness of one’s hair the day following the appointment, and which lasts until the moments immediately preceding the next styling appointment, when the hair exhibits coiffure excellency for a period of time not to exceed two hours.”
This is based on the same principal as “Toast must fall peanut butter side down on a filthy floor.” Note: butter, Nutella or any thick sticky substance may be substituted for peanut butter, but the floor will be filthy no matter what.
3. That your boyfriend will give you a second chance.
You will be in a restaurant in New York City, and you will tell your bf, “Hey, look. Yoko Ono is at the next table,” only to have the bf suggest that you put on your glasses. The woman at the next table is in fact Asian, but is not in fact, Yoko Ono.
When 10 seconds later, Yoko Ono actually appears outside the window, right behind your boyfriend’s head, the bf flat out refuses to look, vowing, “I’m not falling for that again.” While the bf sits steadfastly facing forward, just 2’ away, Yoko laughs with her friends, swings a little kid by the arms, and eventually notices you staring at her with your mouth open. She smiles and blows you a kiss.
At the exact moment as you return the kiss, your bf finally turns around, but Mrs. Lennon has walked away. This is the Law of Inverse Ono.
4. That on the very day you are late for every single appointment, harried and frantic, someone at the grocery store, anyone, will recognize that you only have two items, and they will let you go to the front of a check-out line.
One evening in Los Angeles, I was late for a dinner party after an entire day of disasters, unforeseen traumas, an LAPD SWAT team in my driveway, and, as it was the day after a salon appointment, my hair looked like crap.
I grabbed two bottles of wine at Whole Foods, only to find long lines at every single checkout, with the exception of one counter where a lady had just pulled up with two overflowing carts, and three children in tow. Perfect.
I asked if I might, since I was dreadfully late to an event, just squeak past her with my two little bottles of wine. Cash transaction. Quick quick quick like bunny. What could go wrong? Sweet mother of Zeus, she went berserk.
“Who do you think you are, some childless princess, and the world owes you everything just because you wear high heels and drink wine?! Do you not see that I have screaming children (FYI they weren’t screaming until she unleashed her anti-princess-in-high-heels tirade) and a shit ton of perishables? How selfish are you people?!” Then she flapped her arms.
I don’t remember what happened next, except that I know molten lava formed in my inner ears and flowed down into my armpits.
(Now, when I am at the market and have a lot of groceries to check out, I scan the area to see if there is anyone with a couple of items, looking anxious and sheepish, and I insist that they go ahead of me. I believe that some day, in some city, in some grocery store, someone will return the favor.)
5. Having visited the gym, shower and salon on the same day as you run into your ex.
Even if you are the one who ended it, and you did it as humanely as humanly possible, who doesn’t want to look like a million bucks when you bump into an ex? That is truly in my book of things to good to be true, because what is more likely to happen is an event filed under “The Immutable Law of Catastrophe.”
This is the scenario in which you hadn’t been to the gym that day, or in the entire month leading up to it, your last hair appointment was the day before (crap hair), and two home invasion suspects had hopped your fence, tossed a firearm into your pool, and were refusing to “come out with your hands up” when the police surrounded your Sherman Oaks home.
In this situation, you are denied access to your abode for a duration of 4.25 hours, during which time you might have showered, put on clean clothes, make-up and possibly even done something with your hair. Instead, in The Law of Immutable Catastrophe, you will be allowed into your house with only enough time to let the dogs out, exchange smelly sneakers for high heels, then turn around and head to a dinner party for which you are already late.
You will pass a Whole Foods, and think, “I should bring something to the dinner.” You’ll swing into the parking lot, dodge the people trying to get you to sign a “Rename Uranus Now” petition, race into the store, grab two bottles of cabernet, and freak out when you see each checkout line is at least 20 minutes long.
Then, under a pot light in the ceiling that has created a halo over the head of a female figure with two heaping carts of groceries, and three little cherubs in tow, you see that perhaps the first and only good thing to happen all day…is about to happen.
Not only does the good thing not happen, but your armpits go on fire when the crazy lady starts screaming at you, causing you to sweat through a T-shirt you suddenly realize you slept in the night before.
You don’t know how you got there, but you find yourself in the parking lot with a security guard chasing you down because you ran out without paying for the wine. The Rename Uranus people look away, you are so disgusting.
You’re sweaty and stained, with bad hair, a red face and possibly wearing handcuffs when your ex rolls up and parks right beside you.
If I were he, this would be filed under, “Bwaaaaaaahahahaha.”
Click here to listen to Pam’s hilarious new essay in her Public Radio series “Wisconsin Tough.”
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A guest blog.
There are two holidays I used to have a love/hate relationship with: New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. This was when I was younger, and there was an expectation that the events of both nights would go down in history, respectively, as THE MOST FUN EVER and THE MOST ROMANTIC EVER.
Now I’m pretty meh toward both. This is a function of having lived through years of disappointment every December 31st and February 14th since the time I was twelve, and did not get a “Be My Valentine” card from Jeff Sordman—the only boy in school I liked. He gave a Valentine to Suzie Schnitzer instead. I sensed he was barking up the wrong tree with her, which I came to understand a few years later, when in college, Schnitzer came out. (How’d that work out for you, Jeffie?)
I can’t even count the New Year’s Eves that went down in flames, and not in a good way. After about five or six years of disastrous New Year’s Eves, I started to notice a pattern. In the days leading up to the “big night,” the guy’s ardor would begin to cool. 10x a day phone calls dwindled to one or two texts that mainly consisted of “TTYL.”
If I am honest, I knew even then my new dress, shoes and perfume would not find me at midnight on December 31st, dancing in the moonlight with my love, exchanging bodily fluids by 12:15A. I felt it in my gut, but told myself the clothes and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely spritzed liberally on my neck were irresistible, and who on earth would break up with a person the day of New Year’s Eve? I don’t want to sound too pathetic, so let’s just say their numbers are in double digits.
People have suggested that guys do this as a slick way of being cheap, but I don’t think that’s it. Why would anyone throw out a perfectly good girlfriend just to save a couple hundred bucks? Which brings us to Valentine’s Day. Take the exact same scenario as New Year’s Eve, add lingerie, and boom.
“I think we both know this isn’t going anywhere,” he would begin, and I would think, Oh hell, yes it is. It is going to dinner and then…
And again, people tell me that getting broken up with on February 13th is a maneuver devised to save the cost of flowers, chocolate and dinner. Never mind we’ve spent twice that on Victoria’s Secret and bikini wax.
The reason guys choke, I believe, is that there is too much pressure to be “in love” on these holidays. And I don’t mean in love, like with Manolo Blahnik or Scarlett Johansson. I mean in love with…gulp…each other. Seriously, there is only one conclusion a person can draw from a heart-filled, Cupidly jubilee that encourages people to wear insufficient undergarments and skyscraper high heels. It is that big pizza pie called amore.
Guys are scared to even say the words I love you, yet on this particular day they’re supposed to express it with chocolate, flowers and Cruel Intentions by Kilian. (I’m just sayin’, you know, in case someone did want to say the “L” word with fragrance.)
This Valentine’s Day I have outsmarted the goddesses of doom, as I have three guys that I am dating, one of whom is sure to step up and make this a nice, no pressure, chill V-day.
There’s my go-to weasel (did I say that out loud?) Joey—he’s broke, slightly dim and always on the make, but sexy as hell. I recently met a nice plastic surgeon, Dr. Dirk Belmont, and he has taken a shining to me. As he is a physician, I am fairly certain he knows his way around a girl’s heart.
And lastly, Kwan. This guy. (Cue eye roll.) He shows up with Chinese food I didn’t even order, then he babbles about good luck and bad luck and mandarin ducks that are supposed to represent boom-shaka-laka. I don’t know what to make of him, but eggrolls are an excellent choice for any special occasion.
Anyway, I think we should all just relax on Valentine’s Day. Don’t expect proclamations of love or bejeweled underpants and we are good to go. That is my story and I am sticking to it.
Wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day!
Click here to listen to Pam’s hilarious new essay in her Public Radio series “Wisconsin Tough.”
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Winter Preparedness Goes Awry for Girl Learning to Ski
by Pam Ferderbar
From the essay series Wisconsin Tough for Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television
One chubby kid, a roll of duct tape and a blind school. What could go wrong? CLICK HERE
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Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of articles on this subject, and I am amazed that anyone at all feels the need to itemize, explain, elucidate and otherwise point out how rich people are different from people who are not rich. For one thing, and it seems rather obvious, rich people have more money. This is usually evident in the following ways:
Transportation
Footwear
Space tourism
I couldn’t help but notice there is a dearth of reading material entitled, “How the Poor Are Different from Other People.” I think that is because far more people associate themselves with being poor than consider themselves rich, and if you’re looking at the other side of the tracks you want to at least see a Maybach parked in the driveway, or the Christian Louboutin deliveryman offloading boxes of red-soled stilettoes at the back door.
No one is clamoring to hear how difficult it is to make ends meet—pay the rent or mortgage, finance the kid’s braces, or set money aside for college, weddings or the family vacay to Wally World. And to be honest, these are not really the concerns of “the poor.”
The poor have much smaller fish to fry, if they have anything to eat at all. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, whether you will have a roof over your head next month, or you rely on charity for winter shoes without holes in the soles, then the idea that the rich live differently from “the rest of us” takes on less significance than the possibility of life on Mars. It’s the here and now – right here, right now—that commands your full attention just so you might survive another day.
I’ll admit there’s a certain appeal to comparing myself—my “poor” self, to someone who is rich—rich by popular culture/reality TV standards. But when I feel a twinge of longing for a stadium-sized closet filled with designer clothes and accessories, a seat on a Gulfstream G650, or to own a private island, I experience a slightly stronger pang of guilt over the fact that I must force myself to feel hungry on occasion in an effort to lose belly fat, and even then I usually give up and tuck into a fully stocked pantry for some abundantly satisfying snack, such as Popchips sea salt potato chips or Trader Joe’s organic popcorn with olive oil. I’m fairly certain actual poor people do not have pantries.
We’ve all heard about trophy wife bonuses, safe rooms, mega super yachts and the hunting of endangered animals, but to a lot of people, buying a Starbucks latte might as well be a $180,000,000 Picasso. Perspective is everything. A person needs a glass before they can answer whether theirs is half empty or half full.
US Weekly has a section devoted to the similarities between the rich and famous, and you and me; Stars! They’re Just Like Us!
“They Share Gum! Courtside!!!”
Perhaps Channing Tatum and his wifey can afford $2500-$7000 each for courtside Lakers tickets, or maybe they were a gift. Either way, most people can’t spend in excess of $5,000 on date night ($6,000 if you count nachos and beer at the Staples Center).
Just like us? Not. So. Much.
As one would expect, I have a theory about our cultural desire to compare the way we fare to how “the other half” lives, which everyone knows is actually 49% less than an actual half. We can’t bear the thought of so many people having less than what they need to survive that we numb ourselves to the inequities by pretending we are hard-done-by ourselves. If having a $35,000 Birkin bag means a person is rich, than by comparison I am poor, and if I am poor, with my pantry and warm bed and winter boots, then poor people are doing just fine. But in our heart of hearts, no amount of Botox, Birkin or Beverly Hills is going to convince us that’s true.
Maybe once a month, instead of buying a $5 magazine that tells us how similar we are to the rich and famous, we could drop a few bucks into the poor box at church, or at Goodwill, Purple Heart or the local food pantry, and try to soften the line between us, and the truly less fortunate. CharityWatch.Org
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A leading financial magazine recently published a list of the 10 mistakes smart people never make twice. Here’s a link to that list.
Here’s a list of 5 mistakes that cockeyed optimists often make more than twice.
1. Believing people can change. (Better known as ‘The belief you can change a person.’)
You can change a diaper, or retool your face, but in terms of getting someone to alter their basic being through sheer force of will and desire, nuh uh. Never going to happen. Of course people can change, but they will never change the way you wish they would, or in all likelihood, at any time during your lifespan. Yet I have clung to that tiny ort of hope like hair on a biscuit.
I like to think of myself as a potentialist, or in other words, an idiot. I can spot an infinitesimal molecule of possibility in an otherwise soulless human who possesses no apparent redeeming value, and inflate that itty bitty subatomic particle of virtue into a full blown mushroom cloud of Nobel-worthy promise. Over and over, too. I have done this with employees, people whom I would call friends, loony neighbors, unbalanced coworkers, and mostly menfolk.
I’d think to myself, “He would be perfect if he were just different.” And then I would wait eight or nine years before determining the times were not a’changin’.
2. Persevering (or as Einstein might call it, the definition of cray cray).
Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result is not the same as thinking you will chip away obstacles until everything breaks free and victory is yours. The thing is, while you’re toiling and chipping like a demented woodchuck, someone else has gone ‘round the back of your obstacle house, let themselves in, and snatched victory off the kitchen table of life.
My people are Eastern European peasant stock—the sort who believed you just never ever gave up. I was taught to stick with it, keep your nose to the grindstone, move that salt, push the big rock up the hill!
I was taught these lessons by a people who left behind brutal, harsh, unforgiving winters of unimaginable suffering, and moved to Wisconsin when Florida and all the southern states were an option. The Ferderbars; three-peating mistakes since the 19th century.
3. Trying to make other people happy.
Don’t wait for an unhappy person to bludgeon you with a ball pean hammer, while shouting, “You can keep trying all you like with the compliments and love and positive reinforcement and groceries that you pay for, but you will never ever in a million gazillion years make me happy” because no self-respecting happiness vampire will ever say those words aloud. What he or she will do is encourage you to keep trying, and suck every drop of joy out of your life in the process.
Ever notice how happy folks seem to attract good luck, while bitter, angry unhappy humans are like flypaper for misfortunes, calamities…and cockeyed optimists? After years of making the same mistake over and over, I’ve developed a little tool for myself when I suspect I’m being courted by a happiness leech. I find a lovely flower or majestic red sunset to point out, and I say breathlessly, “Look at that! Just look.” The instant they turn, I run away. It’s a simple, yet effective way of keeping your sanity and soul intact.
4. Finding the good in others, also known as “bad boy disorder” and “she’s got a screw loose syndrome.”
I didn’t realize until recently that men had their own version of bad boy disorder: a man is attracted to a woman who seems to have it all together, only to discover, shortly after the relationship commences, that said female is batshit crazy, at which point the man keeps thinking about the beginning, when the woman seemed normal, and he erroneously figures the bats-in-the-belfry are merely a blip, perhaps hormonal. By then it is too late to escape unscathed.
We women know crazy doesn’t ever improve with age. If anything it is shockingly perfected as time marches on. And men know that bad boys will only break our hearts.
Upon meeting the man who would shortly thereafter become my second husband, my dear friend Mary Knox-Sitley said, “He is the most inappropriate man in Los Angeles.”
“Where do I sign up?!” I asked excitedly. I made the exact same mistake many years earlier, electing to marry the most inappropriate man in Milwaukee, certainly a lesser distinction, but at the time every bit as alluring.
So what? you might think. You divorced. No harm no foul, and all you were doing was trying to find the good in someone. But this is a cautionary tale. Because I elected to “find the good” in someone who hadn’t taken any interest in developing the good within himself, I missed what might have been my one opportunity for real happiness.
5. Thinking you’ll always have a second chance.
You won’t.
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#1 Own It.
Many years ago I worked for an advertising agency as a freelance producer of TV commercials. A young executive who was an employee of the company made a clerical error that would cost the agency tens of thousands of dollars. When I told her we had a rather large issue to rectify, she looked at me with big dumb cow eyes (behind which lurked the sinister innards of a politician or axe murderer), and she asked, “Who should we blame?” (I knew the ‘we” was rhetorical, and I would be thrown under the bus forthwith.)
Owning it is not nearly as scary as it sounds. The trick is in pre-emptively owning it. The minute your stomach goes queasy, you throw up a little in your mouth, and in my case, the armpits heat to the temperature of molten lava, I know I’ve got to act fast, getting out in front of the screw-up. When you fess up to a flub straight away, one of two things will happen with your client or boss.
1. A normal, decent person will be impressed that you had the balls to come forward, and he will help you figure it out. Or…
2. He will go ballistic, cuss and embarrass the living bejesus out of you. It may take a few minutes, possibly years to get over an such an ordeal, but you will eventually realize that any person who lambastes you when you’re taking ownership of a mistake is a bombastic jerk, and anyone who witnesses the outburst will recognize it, too.
Sometimes we aren’t aware we’ve made a mistake until someone else points it out, in which case getting out in front of it isn’t an option. In this scenario the best bet is to remain calm, bear in mind that on the day you die, this boo-boo will be the farthest thing from your mind as you list your regrets in life (didn’t love enough, didn’t swim enough, didn’t eat enough chocolate, never made it to the Galapagos), and you can use the experience as a way to elevate yourself as a professional, and a human being.
#2 Fix It.
The second half of a sentence, which begins, “I have made a terrible mistake,” should be, “I will do everything humanly possible to fix it.” If you do not know how to fix it, be unpretentious and genuine in asking for assistance. “I messed up and I don’t know how to make it right. Can you please help me?”
Unless you’ve been a complete jackass, your coworkers and others will pity you, and it will make them happy (feel superior) to lend a hand. Plus helping you puts a nice deposit in their goodwill savings account. If, however, it has been your habit to be an insufferable asshat then you will not get support when you need it most. You will instead find people fighting over your parking spot.
Once a person has signed on to help you they are invested in the outcome, and you are both less likely to fail. Enlist your whole team and failure is almost not an option at all. It may take a village to raise a child, but a team of coworkers pulling together to find a solution can lift your sagging self-esteem (nobody feels good about herself after falling flat on her face), and you are showing your superiors that you have what it takes to manage people and solve problems.
When you ask for help you must realize you are now a passenger and are no longer behind the wheel. You drove the car into a ditch and have effectively handed the keys over to someone sober. Nobody likes a backseat driver, so keep your mouth shut, your eyes open and pay for the gas.
If the people who’ve come to your aid ask for your input, perhaps along the lines of “what the f*ck were you thinking?” remain humbly gracious. You have to take your lumps. But, you can engender feelings of good will by asking, “What would you have done?” Sweet mother of God do not disagree or argue with them no matter how ridiculous they sound. Listen. Nod agreeably. Right now you need all the friends you can get.
#3 Let it go.
For many people this is the hardest thing to do. We obsess. We rehash. We relive the horror and the shame. Does it change anything to do so? Nope. Does it prevent you from making further mistakes? Uh uh. Beating yourself up has zero positive effect.
I’m not a cockeyed optimist who tapes Post-its to the mirror saying I’m good enough! I’m smart enough! But there is one quirky little trick I’ve found that helps me let go of the inadequate and unproductive feelings I harbor after I’ve made a big blunder. Once I’ve acknowledged my misstep and done my utmost to make it right, I write the screw up on a piece of paper and then set it on fire. (Be sure to do this in the sink, bathtub or outdoor area away from any dry foliage or you might add arson to your list of lapses.)
As corny as it seems, the act of destroying that thing that was an embarrassment reminds me to focus on the here and now, and drives home the point that the past is transient, gone, behind me. Poof. Like smoke. The important thing is what lies ahead, and the grace, and ashes, with which we face the new day.
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The other day my pops read an article about why highly intelligent people sometimes opt to hide their intelligence, and he asked what I thought. I stared at him for a moment, poured myself a coffee, ate half a yogurt and forgot the question.
I did a little research and here’s what I’ve learned:
1. In a competitive situation it is often better to have your opponents underestimate you, which is especially useful if they are already likely to underestimate you for other reasons, such as being young, small, female or inordinately beautiful.
My editor is young, small, female and highly intelligent; on top of which she’s also gorgeous, so I know people underestimate the daylights out of her, which is as big a mistake as thinking the badger with foam dripping from its maw is smiling at you when you reach into its den to pat it on the head. The minute you think you’ve outwitted Samantha, and re-inserted some of the brilliant lines she has edited out of your book, you have effectively reached into its wee house and taunted the cute little badger (which btw is in the same family as the weasel and the wolverine), and you will draw back a bloody stump.
Samantha and the equally underestimated badger use their considerable skills to protect their young, and bend authors to their will. The badger and editor will one day rule the world. Mark my words.
2. When dealing with an intellectually challenged authority figure it is often better to play dumb.
If you’ve ever had to deal with a teacher, boss or policeman who was an idiot, you don’t need to be Einstein to grasp this concept. It is never wise to point out the mistakes or shortcomings of an imbecile who holds your fate in his hands. Grossly stupid people tend to be proportionately petty and spiteful. Although it seems to go against the very laws of nature, it is impossible to outwit a moron, so another strategy must be employed in an effort to maintain order in the universe.
You may not be able to outwit him, but you can thwart a simpleton by carrying out his bad orders in a completely literal way. Next time your boss chews you out in front of the entire office and threatens to terminate you if you don’t get your ass in gear and “light a fire under the sales department,” well. Just make sure the sprinklers are working, then sit back in your cube with your umbrella, and let it rain.
3. Hiding your smarts is excellent camouflage.
“The nail that sticks up gets hammered.” (Japanese proverb)
Tall poppy syndrome is a pejorative term used to describe a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticized because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers. (Wikipedia)
Budweiser syndrome is an accurate term used to describe a uniquely American phenomenon in which undistinguished and largely uneducated people wish to elect equally unremarkable officials with whom they would feel comfortable having a beer rather than choosing leaders who are really smart. (Pammy)
Throughout history there have been many instances where it would have been advantageous for the brainiac to keep her IQ on the DL. I’m guessing there were some mad smart gals in Salem back in 1692, working at the sackcloth shoppe, doing math in their heads and people were like, “No man can add that fast! She’s a witch! Throw her in the lake with a rock tied around her neck!”
Nowadays, at least here in the U.S., we extol wealth and excess, but only if it is achieved through hard work, the lottery or leaked sex tapes. Don’t go acting all Mensa when your stock splits and you’ve become a Fortune 100 company. Just tell people you’ve worked, like, really hard to get where you are. And then pretend to cry.
No one has ever been thrown into a lake with a rock tied around her neck because she was rich and stupid…pity.
4. Playing dumb is an excellent ploy for finding out how much or how little other people actually know, and is an excellent way to gauge character and communication skills.
It’s the old “give ’em enough rope and they’ll hang themselves” strategy. I know a little something about writing, but I sit quietly by when some blustering Barnard announces he is a wordsmith. (I’ve yet to meet an actual writer who refers to her or himself as a wordsmith.) Another clue that I am not dealing with an actual wordsmith is the person’s inability to speak with proper grammar, and their rampant use of malaprops.
You soon learn that the only things the gasbag writes are text messages and poorly crafted emails–and that he lies about where he went to school pacifically because, for all intensive purposes, Harvard isn’t all its cramped up to be.
5. Clever cluelessness can get you out of extra work.
Want to avoid extra assignments? Don’t wear your brains on your sleeve. Practice saying “I don’t know anything about that” while blinking as if you feel a stye coming on. If forced to undertake the task anyway because they think you’re really smart and just playing possum to avoid work, fail in such a breathtaking way as to ensure you will never be asked to do anything extra ever again.
In 1999, a couple of smartypants at Lockheed Martin were tasked with building yet another satellite for NASA. I’m not sure, but I think they were overdue for a vacay, and had had enough of hearing, “But you guys are so smart. Come on. Just one more.”
“Fine,” they said tersely in unison, and proceeded to build the satellite using the English system of measurement rather than the metric, which is what NASA uses. The use of two different measurement systems prevented the spacecraft’s navigation coordinates from being transferred from a spacecraft team in Denver to a lab in California. The orbiter was then lost in space.
Even I know that science uses the metric system for measuring stuff, so what kind of rocket scientists would build a $165.6 million Mars orbiter using the English system of measurement? I’ll tell you. Two guys who said enough is enough with the ‘just one more’ crap.
“Who’s smart now?” were their final words before departing for Aruba.
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Truth be told, I just don’t like New Year’s resolutions. They’re a lot like New Year’s Eve expectations—rarely met, usually disappointing and sometimes resulting in divorce.
(I’ve heard there is a tribe in the Amazon that celebrates December 31st with music, dancing and unjacked food prices. Everyone is happy, the giant ants are served hot and crispy—by pleasant waiters—and no one gets drunk and has sex with his ex-wife in the coatroom.)
A recent University of Scranton study (fyi I get all my intel out of this thriving Pennsylvania metropolis) found that only 8% of Americans will keep their New Year’s resolutions, and, spoiler alert—losing weight was the number one resolution. I may not have nailed the 8% figure exactly, but for less money than the Scranton study cost I could have told you the same thing. Look around. If any number of people kept their resolutions we’d see like maybe nine overweight folks in the entire country, assuming people in Mississippi and Arkansas make resolutions. (Mississippi is the fattest state in the union for the 10th straight year. Burp. Arkansas is the second chunkiest monkey in the United States.)
Why do people abandon their resolutions like rats from a sinking Ben and Jerry’s ship? Here’ s a study out of Myass; because it’s winter! Duh. I don’t feel highly motivated to do anything but stay warm, watch movies and think about what I want to eat, how I will get what I want to eat, and whether there will be any impediments that must be eradicated in order for me to execute my plan…to eat, and then have a nap.
I suppose there’s some kind of scientificky reason why I feel the way I do in winter, like maybe I’m descended from cavewomen who packed on buttpounds in January, because come February and March, mastodon ribeyes were in short supply. By May, cavewomen slipped back into their size 6 pelts and resumed eating a paleo kale salad.
Rather than the doomed-to-fail “New Year’s resolution,” I am in favor of “spring goodness motivation.” Spring is a time of rejuvenation, fertility of mind and body. Optimism is in the air. Our metabolisms pick up in the springtime. Animals come out of hibernation. Bunnies turn to chocolate, and “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
Anything we wish to accomplish in life, such as losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, getting more exercise, or cleaning house both figuratively and literally, is doable…in the springtime. Here are a few tips for getting your cabooses in gear:
1. On the first warm day fling open every window in the house, apartment, condo and yurt.
2. If you have access to any outdoor space, string a laundry line and hang your bed linens outside.
3. Take a 30 minute walk around your neighborhood and smile at every person and animal that you see.
4. Deeply inhale the earthiness of the season – springtime has its own scent no matter where you live. Become a connoisseur of the air like wine aficionados “read” wines. See if you can detect notes of jasmine, earthworm, tree bark, lichen, etc.
5. Wash your hair and air dry it outside.
6. If you’re trying to quit smoking get a copy of Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking and read a few chapters outside, paying attention to the lovely fresh air.
(Actress Joanna Cassidy told me about this book many years ago when I struggled to quit smoking…again. After trying everything else under the sun—acupuncture, the patch, gum, hypnosis, Chantix, Zyban, psychotherapy and hitting myself in the face with a ball pean hammer, Allen Carr’s book did the trick. It has been almost five years since my last cigarette. I do not miss it. I have not been tempted even when the martinis are flowing. The idea of smoking is repugnant to me, although it doesn’t bother me when other people smoke. This book is nothing short of a miracle.)
In the meantime, while it’s still winter, I suggest backing the genius inventors of the Hypnos Hoodie, “an everyday hoodie that inflates for sleep (and support) on the go.” “On the go” seems counterintuitive, but who am I to criticize the greatest achievement since hibernation? See ya in April!
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