Real World Wednesday

Walk it Off!

Real World Wednesday has covered the topic of Childhood Obesity in the past, and a couple of recent news articles have me thinking on the topic of weight and health again.

Of course...one look at the lazy characters on Wall-E also had its impact.



The two articles that got me thinking are these:
1) The new study suggesting that 58% percent of the world's population will be obese by 2030.
2) The WebMD article promoting the notion of walkable neighborhoods as a weight-maintenance, if not weight-loss, technique.

Most Pixar movies have a message. There was the whole scare shortage vs. electricty shortage of Monsters, Inc. for one, and Wall-E provides no exception. Though some blame the obesity of the characters on the collapse of Earth's environment, as someone who spends her days observing everyone from ages 4 to 100stare blankly at the computer screen, I blame the obesity in Pixar's latest on an over-involvement with technology and an underinvolvement with the surrounding world.

Non-walkable suburban neighborhoods not only require that people use their cars more often, but they also encourage folks to simply stay inside. If you could just walk down to the corner to pick up some fruit, wouldn't you rather do that than get up off your couch, get in the car and drive five miles away? Especially with current gas prices?

So, to avoid this plague of obesity, what can you do? Well, for one, you can advocate for sidewalks in your neighborhood. Write letters to your Homeowners Association, city councilpeople or mayor. Let the people in power know that your neighborhood needs change. Aside from just advocating for safe walk spaces in neighborhoods, you have to take up the charge and walk. Don't just leave this to those saucy secretaries and their white reeboks walking around the block on their lunch breaks!

Why Sarah Needs a Sabbatical

Dear Non-Existent Sabbatical Committee,

I know that you don't usually give sabbaticals to librarians who have worked in the field for less than two years, because, really, shouldn't two years still feel like a vacation? Shouldn't I still be reveling in the fact that I'm all done with the stress-mess that was grad school? Sadly, though, I am not.

So, great, wise, Sabbatical-Granting Committee, though I am hardly a seasoned veteran, I would request that you provide me with an extended sabbatical for the following reasons:

1) It would allow me to fully recover the patient smile and friendly demeanor I had two years ago.
2) It would provide me with a break from the crazy customers who insist on yelling, yes, yelling, across the library when they have a question of some kind.
3) It would relieve me from the impossible to tolerate meetings in which I am told for the nineteenth time how to do something that I already do right.

Perhaps these reasons seem like excuses. Perhaps these reasons won't convince you to pay for me to not work in your facility, but oh, great Sabbatical-Granting-Committee, I believe that you know the truth. I believe that you know that this job is, to quote someone near and dear to me, "ruining me." You must know that I can still be saved from bitterness!

A return date? Oh.

Uhm.

About that.

I'll have to get back to you.

Sincerely,

Me

Real World Wednesday

On Being Young.

What does it mean to be young?

Is young when you're a child? When you're in high school? When you're 22?

I ponder this not only for myself but also in light of the current presidential campaign. Barack Obama is being pegged as young and inexperienced, yet the man probably remembers the 70's like I remember the 90's. Obama is married, has two children, has more than one college degree under his belt and has served in the senate. Plug that in to someone born, oh, let's say 19 years after him, and he certainly doesn't seem like the same kind of "young."

When do we stop being young? Do we ever? And no, this is more than that "young at heart" business. This is real youth.

My peers and I are not all that far from 30, but we are all at the point in our careers when we're both looked down upon for our youth and praised for our energy. But in ten years, or even five, when the next crop of overachieving graduates enters our field and seems oh so much younger what will that make us?

Is it all a matter of perspective? My over-25 friends all seem young when we think about our over 30 friends, our over-40 co-workers, our over-50 parents. Then, we encounter a group of 20 or 21-year olds and suddenly feel old.

Obama is young in comparison to John McCain, who quite possibly remembers the 1940's like Obama remembers the 1970's and I remember the 1990's. Obama is also young in comparison to your typical president. The youngest elected president was Theodore Roosevelt at 42. So, at nearly 47, Obama falls after four prior presidents. He would not be the youngest, yet his youth is a major factor in this presidential campaign, as was Bill Clinton's.

I can remember that Bill Clinton took advantage of his relative youth. He played sax on the Arsenio Hall Show. He and Hillary danced like maniacs to Fleetwood Mac. He took advantage of the fact that he was neither George H. W. Bush or Bob Dole. Barack, on the other hand, seems to want to shove his youth under a rug.

In any case, it seems to me that youth can be used for or against someone. It's all just a matter of perspective.

Self Diagnosis

In my two undergraduate psychology courses, I was warned against "self-diagnosis," and that included making guesses as to what may be "wrong" with various friends and family members. For the most part, I headed this advice, at least in the presence of my instructors.

After reading, Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison, I am more convinced than ever that through my father's bloodline runs the tendency to be a bit on the Aspergian side of the autism spectrum.

According to both John Elder Robison and WebMD, Asperger's Syndrome often shows symptoms including:

Not pick up on social cues and lack inborn social skills

Dislike any changes in routines.

Avoid eye contact.

Talk a lot, usually about a favorite subject. One-sided conversations are common. Internal thoughts are often verbalized.

The most interesting, and perhaps oddest, symptom that I discovered while reading the book, is that Aspergians tend to like small spaces and also like to sleep with something heavy on top of them - this can include pillows or blankets or even another human being. While I can certainly relate to the lack of eye contact, the tendency to get caught up in talking about my own favorite topics, it's the blankets and the need for warmth and weight on top of me that stands out most. It's also the one that affects someone else (that would be WG). I can't explain why I like to have heavy covers on top of me...I just do, and I'm beginning to understand a bit more that there may not be an actual reason.

As a kid, I tucked myself away in corners. In fact, as a teenager, when I had the opportunity to rearrange my furniture, I created corners and small, snug places, that I then packed with pillows. I would also hide away in my closet. In fact, I still tend to have dreams about crawling into the closet with a book and just escaping for a few hours.

WG is a social creature. He flourishes when surrounded by people. I shrink. My technique for dealing with this is to take frequent bathroom breaks. I can go and be in a room, alone, breath, and reconnect with the world. Overstimuation, crowded places and too many things happening at once tend to make me go "Vegas," or, as I am beginning to see, make me go just a bit autistic.

There are more things that are present in both my life and that of my father, but I think the blankets and the blank stares are enough for now.

It's time to go spend a nice, quiet, commute in the small, safe world that is my Honda Civic.

30

Thirty is a crisp, clean number. It's solid. Thirty hints at what may have happened in three decades.

Thirty means that time has passed but that there is still time to come.

Thirty means dedication, commitment.

Thirty has memories of slammed doors and raised voices, but thirty also clearly remembers a walk down the aisle and the feel of a newborn baby, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Thirty is beautiful. Thirty is melancholy. Thirty is proud.

Thirty is love.

Happy Anniversary, Mama and Daddy!

Clamming Up and Calming Down

I'm on a constant quest to calm down. That's just a fact. Another fact is that I HAVE calmed down, significantly, in fact, over the past couple of years. I still get worked up, and I still run around like a crazy chicken when things start get a little bit stressful. Overall, though, I feel ready to move onto the next project.

and that would be Clamming Up.

I talk smack about my co-workers. I could justify it to you all 100 different kinds of ways, but I'll limit it to one: Some people exhaust me, and their various antics require that I vent a little bit. Luckily (or unluckily), several other co-workers agree that the venting sessions are sometimes necessary.

Today, however, I called a halt. On Tuesday, three of us were standing in a huddle, sharing horror stories about "Dwight Schrute" (that's really the only name I can use to describe this person, because this co-worker really does belong on The Office). Over the next couple of nights, as I fell asleep, I was riddled with guilt. Three of us. Standing in public. Complaining about a co-worker. That's just not right.

And so, it's over. We're going to work as a team to not smack talk against each other and try our hardest to avoid what one co-worker faced with a previous employer: group therapy.

Real World Wednesday

Well, me and my purple toenails (that's for you, Ruby)survived a weekend with 22,000 librarians and nearly a week with 22,000 of WG's relatives and friends. I may be slightly exaggerating one of those numbers, and it's up to you to figure out with one, ha.

More on the trip later.

Now, it's all about Mawwiage.

A dear, dear friend and I have gotten into many a verbal tussle over the value and meaning of marriage. Both of us intend to enter into it at some point in our lives, but the societal value of it has different meaning for both of us. So, I thought I'd take the current discussion "public."

I've already told you about my thoughts on Motherhood, and that topic ties clearly in with Marriage.

Can all agree on the fact that notion of love as a reason for marriage is relatively new? Certainly love existed in marriages, but love as a catalyst for marriage? That's a modern invention.

I would venture a guess that even with love as a cataylst, many marriages still take place because the provide financial advancement (a merger of two powerful families, for example).

And now, for what most defines our perceptions of the importance of marriage: the media. With movies like Sex and the City and awful books like Chasing Harry Winston, it's possible to say that marriage hasn't made much progress in the past fifty years, at least not as far as the media is concerned.

Current movies and books often drive home the point that life without a partner may be the best bet, and that, my friends, is a new concept for a society at large to accept. Others still treat women as gold-diggers who chase after men as the only solution to their problems. Rather than having society treat women as a man's property, novels like Chasing Harry Winston show the women making themselves property.

The fact remains that, while American Society has come to see marriage as more of an equal partnership than at any other time in recent history, things, with a few notable exceptions (Sex and the City being one), haven't changed that much in our television shows and movies. Mothers on t.v. still prepare dinner, though it may consist of take-out fried chicken, and the moms are sarcastic, rather than placid and pretty in their pearls. Women in books, movies and on t.v., still scramble after men and get as worked up ast the Bennet sisters.

Perhaps marriage in the real-world has changed more than many of us are willing to admit (because then, some true believers in the fish/bicycle phenomenon may well have to jump on the marriage boat), but the media has only made small changes here and there. Women primp and preen and prepare pot roast. Girls giggle when a boy looks their way.

Perhaps none of this matters. Perhaps if we're able to look beyond the media (and that's a tough thing to do, mind you), we'll see that marriage as a cultural institution really has changed, and that we women aren't out there selling ourselves to the highest bidder.