Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 23

Six Things I Learned Hiking the Overland Track in Tasmania

My husband and I just returned from a dream vacation to celebrate our upcoming 25th anniversary: a hiking trip along the Overland Track in Tasmania, the island-state off Australia’s southeastern coast. The trip we booked through the Tasmanian Walking Company was a guided trek, 50 miles over the course of six days, through the Cradle Mountain/Lake St. Clair National Park.

Together with four other hikers and two guides, we hiked long days over terrain that varied from wooden boardwalk (to save vegetation and keep us from sinking into bogs) to mud puddles to gravel to rough rock, downhill to see waterfalls and lakes and back up again to the ravishing views from glacial peaks, all while carrying backpacks weighing 25-30 lbs. The physical challenge induced the kind of mental focus that leads to revelations, of which I experienced at least six:

There’s preparation, and there’s preparation. Reading over the copious literature sent by the guide company ahead of time, one thing was clear: this walk was not for the unprepared. There were at least three paragraphs in every brochure and email about making sure our hiking boots were sturdy, broken in, and waterproof, all of which we took to heart. In the months before we left I regularly walked eight or nine miles at a clip, and my husband figures he had at least fifty miles on his newish boots before we boarded our plane.

Hahhahhhahahaha. Next time, we’ll make like the Proclaimers and walk five hundred miles, while we carry bags of rocks.

Seriously, there’s walking in your new boots, and then there’s hiking the Overland Track in them. I had a few hotspots – those tingling precursors to blisters – before lunchtime on Day 1. Luckily I also have ballerinas for daughters, so I knew that when it comes to feet, to wince is human but to tape is divine. Our preternaturally prepared guides slapped some medical tape on my heels on Monday, and by the time I pulled it off fifty miles later on Saturday afternoon, it was grimy and gray and my feet were making audible noises of protest…but there were no blisters.

2. Leeches are ticklish. Here’s what freaked me out the most about the leeches we encountered on Day 4 as we hiked through the Tasmanian rainforest: they didn’t really freak me out. It helped that the guides, Tom and Gemma, had by that time thoroughly inculcated us in the beauty and intelligent design of the Tasmanian bush – the fagus leaf looks like a crinkle-cut chip to collect water, those cushionplants are an example of convergent evolution, the Jack Jumper ants put white stones on top of their nests to repel the sun during hot spells, and black stones when it’s cold to retain heat. It was all fascinating, so why would leeches be any different?

It also helped that by Day 4 our small group of hikers was also experiencing convergent evolution, whether it was pulling water bottles out of each other’s packs, sharing around a tube of sunscreen (the human equivalent of white stones on the nest,) or saying “Ria! You have another one! Below your left knee! It’s big!” We were Team #AllLeechesLeftBehind.

But mostly it helped that guide Gemma taught us the “tickle and flick” move – when you find a leech, you tickle its back until it releases its grip, then you flick it back into the bush. When I undid my gaiters back at the hut at the end of the rainforest day to find one on my right calf, I just suppressed a scream and did Lamaze breathing, confident that Ria would tickle and flick it away.

3. Australia wants to kill you, especially if you’re American. Each night we repaired to snug little eco-friendly huts just off the track, where Tom and Gemma prepared three course dinners while we enjoyed the comfort of 5 minute hot showers and Tasmanian wines. As the only Americans on the trip, most of the dinners were spent having our new Aussie friends describe all the things that could kill us in their fair country, from the aforementioned Jack Jumper ants (anaphylaxis) to redback spiders (“they lurk under toilet seats!”) to tiger snakes (“the key to surviving their bite is to stay relaxed,” said guide Tom, who was so damn competent that he probably would stay relaxed.)

By the time we reached a lake where a brown trout swam lazily under our feet on the dock, and our fellow hikers said, “That’s no trout, it’s the famous Anti-American Fish that will jump out and bite your jugular, he’s just waiting for you to look away,” we didn’t even question it, just put our hands on our necks.

Aussies and Americans speak two different languages. The other dinner topic was What The Hell Did You Just Say? First there’s the fact that Aussie truncate everything. Hot chocolate becomes “hot chokkie” becomes just “chokkie”, mosquitoes are “mozzies,” and my favorite – spaghetti Bolognese becomes “spag boll.” How tired are your vocal chords, Australia, that you can’t finish a word?

Also, a lot of their idioms presume an intimacy with reptiles which I as an American mercifully lack. “You know, flat out like a lizard drinking!” or “Mad as a cut snake!” For my part I taught them “Hella” and “Cash me ousside, how ‘bout dah” so you’re welcome, Oz.

She who laughs, sees no wombats. We had some trepidation before the trip about the strangers with whom we’d be spending our six days in very close quarters – if they were weird or mean, there would be no escape. Instead we had the opposite problem: our fellow hikers were so interesting and nice that we had a hard time shutting up while we walked. It didn’t seem to bother the wallabies much – we saw plenty, including this guy making his escape down the path.

But where were the wombats, the Tasmanian devils, the platypodes (thank Tom and Gemma for teaching me the plural for platypus, at least in Australian, until they inevitably make it platties)? Probably hiding somewhere in the buttongrass as we marched past in a line, laughing hysterically about Melissa’s plans to someday meet Russell Crowe and ask him to tickle and flick her leeches (that she would draw on strategically with Sharpies.)

This too shall pass. On the last day, as we descended from Kia Ora hut down toward Lake St. Clair, letting gravity and the medical condition called “End-in-sight-us” pull us forward, Gemma asked me what I’d take away from my time in the wilds of Tasmania. I told her that simply being off the grid and away from American political news for a full six days was the gift, the ability to wake up and not have my stomach already clenched at #45’s latest pronouncement.

Gemma said that for her, she’s comforted by the site of the mountains that have been there for millions of years, because they remind her how inconsequential she is, how all of us are tiny specks on the timeline.

And I found that a helpful thing to remember. This, too, shall pass – you, me, and especially Trump. I’ve been home a couple days and he’s still at it (has anyone thought of dispatching him to Australia to see how he does with the indigenous species? Just a thought.)

Of course we have to continue to resist and fight – and as soon as I kick this jet lag, I’m ready to tap back in. But we also have to take a deep healing breath once in a while and remember that eventually, even his time will fade.

I bet Cathedral Mountain will still look just the same when it does.

Why yes I did pack my tiny portable Bluetooth speaker and instigate a Neil Finn listening party one night, figuring it was location-appropriate. This is the song that everyone sang along with, wherever they were in the hut.

                   
CommentsWe were but now we're back…fastest 12 days ever. Hopefully ... by Nancy Davis KhoThanks, Marianne, you and me both. I wish I could go back to ... by Nancy Davis KhoI was wondering when you'd update everyone. I'm so jealous of ... by LanceFascinating but I want a lot more! by Marianne LonsdaleRelated StoriesHat TrickRemember When I Was a Humor Blogger?Conflation Nation 

Hat Trick

Packing for our upcoming trip to Australia has been a challenge. My husband and I have a few city days in Sydney and I want to look nice, in case Time Travel gets invented while I’m there and I’m able to bounce back to the Crowded House Farewell To The World concert at the Sydney Opera House in 1996.

Plus I’m meeting my friend Kitty’s husband in person for the first time and I don’t want him to think, “THAT’S who you used to sneak over the border with to go dancing in Toronto, after you each told your parents that you were sleeping over at the other person’s house? What other poor choices are lurking in your teenage past?” (Answer: many. That’s why Kitty and I can never stop being friends.)

But after Sydney, we’re trekking for a week in Tasmania in what we’re told is highly changeable conditions – could be hot and sunny, could be cold and rainy, could be all of the above, and that’s just before lunch. More importantly, we have to carry all our gear in backpacks that our guide company provides. (If I’m honest, it wasn’t until two months after I paid our deposits that I realized no one was carrying my pack for me. I’m not so much with the fine print sometimes.)

So everything that’s going in the suitcase right now has to be as light and durable and as versatile as possible, as I cross it off the Official Packing List the guide company sent. If you were to look at my growing pile of stuff you might think “Must not match anything else in the pile” was also a requirement, but no, that’s just luck. It may make it easier to spot me from the air if I wander off – I’m sorry, go bush – in search of the elusive Tasmanian Teacake Bakery.

Most of the items make sense to me – good boots, warm socks, lots of fleece. A suggestion that we might want to bring a small hand mirror “if you wear contacts” tells me that I can probably leave the makeup bag behind, as it does not appear that I will have to see myself at all and, as the rest of the people we’re hiking with are strangers, they’re just going to have to take me as I am. (As for my husband, did I mention this whole trip is in honor of our 25th anniversary? He’s seen worse.)

Another optional item: bathers. I could Google it, I know, or ask Kitty. But I prefer the element of surprise and am going to assume that’s a bathing suit. If it’s something else, I will definitely blog about it when I’m back, to share the knowledge.

But there is one item that has me stumped: a beanie. I know what a beanie is. I think we’d probably just call it “winter hat” in America, but “beanie” is so antipodeanally awesome, let’s stick with it.

Up until early November (we booked this trip after my dad passed away last summer, when I needed something big to look forward to) I had idly been thinking that I’d pack my fleece beret from the 2002 Olympics. I bought it in Lake Placid, while on a day trip with my husband and his dad, poking around in one of the souvenir shops up there. The hat is warm, light, durable, and could double as a soup bowl in a pinch.

When I wear it I look just like Malia Obama in this picture minus, of course, everything that makes this picture EVERYTHING.

Happy President’s Day!! xM #Aspen #friends #family #fun

A post shared by Monique Lhuillier (@moniquelhuillier) on Feb 20, 2017 at 8:10am PST

But after 45 happened, I realized that wearing something so overtly red-white-blue, with its little American flags, may not be the best strategy right now. Especially if I’m visiting an allied country whose leader 45 hung up on, like a twelve year old girl whose feelings were hurt by an insulting cootie catcher. It reminded me of my friend Ted, who bought a red baseball cap last spring that said, “Make Hats Great Again” in white embroidery. Hilarious, except no one got the joke and after getting glared at wherever he went here in the Bay Area, he took it off. Not worth the satisfaction of wearing it.

Maybe, I thought, I should wear something vaguely Canadian, or Swiss. I dug out a fetching little white winter hat that would make a lousy soup dish (it’s crocheted) but otherwise fits the bill.

But then I started getting mad. Because red, white, and blue and flag symbols don’t belong just to those that support 45. In fact, I’d argue that those of us resisting his damaging policies and pronouncements are the real patriots. It’s up to us to keep reaching out to the international community to reassure them that we are fired up and fighting back. If all I do is convince eight Tasmanian hikers that an American woman who dresses like the color wheel is dug in to oppose the shenanigans in her country right now, that’s still worth doing.

That gave me an idea. I went back into the winter hat box to find one that I’d placed in there after my last visit to Rochester. It snowed one day that I wanted to go for a walk, so I reached up onto the shelf of my late dad’s closet and landed on this beauty: a knit wool cap from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

My parents took us out of school to drive us from Rochester to see those Olympics; I went to see Women’s Ice Skating, my brother saw Bobsledding, and we all cheered the Women’s Grand Slalom. It was a much more parochial time, before the Olympics-Industrial-Complex started. I remember shopping in a souvenir store – maybe the same one I would hit years later with my father-in-law – right next to a couple of the female skaters I’d watched on the rink the day before. One of the security guards on the Slalom course picked me up and put me into a Snowcat with the silver medal winner when it passed by; I don’t know who was more stunned by that, her or me. Lake Placid in February 1980 felt like a snug little winter festival, with more foreign accents and better pin trading.

Dad wore this hat for years afterward, to shovel out the front walk or cross-country ski in Mendon Ponds Park. It’s warm, it’s colorful, it’s from an American-hosted Olympics at a time when we were proud to welcome the world to our shores (and to our Adirondack villages.)

You know what else happened at that Olympics?

Hey 45: do you remember which team YOU’RE on?

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Conflation Nation

So a number of administration officials seem to be having trouble remembering who they spoke to when, about what, and whether borscht was on the menu. Or, they remember being there but they’re certain that only greetings of the season were exchanged, that season being Russian Orthodox Christmas, which was technically four months into the future.

Look, I totally get that. Conflation happens, and it happens a lot when you get older.

Just the other day I told my youngest daughter how at my friend Maria’s wedding in Sweden in 1990, we had to hide the news from her hockey-loving brothers of the tragic death of Pelle Lindbergh, Swedish goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyers, for fear it would ruin the wedding.

I reminded Maria of this story last night and she gently said, “Actually, that happened five years earlier, and it was at my brother’s wedding.” She didn’t need to mention that I was not even at her brother’s wedding, because we both knew it. I apparently was so taken with that story when I first heard it, though, that I felt free to insert myself right into the middle of it.

Similarly, I can tell you with crystal clear recognition that when Elvis died, I was at camp, and a counselor who looked like Marlon Brando named Donny broke the news to me. Only my sister can also remember Donny telling her, at camp, and she and Donny and I were never at camp at the same time. One of us is lying. It’s probably Donny.

I even wrote a blog post once about a terrible date that I didn’t know I’d gone on, a fix-up courtesy of my brother. My brother read the post and said, “You are fine to remember this however you want.  But no way I ever set you up with anyone,” and proceeded to give me a meticulously documented account of how the timing was wrong, and offered to call his old college roommates for further evidence. I only stopped the Truth Train when I decided to re categorize that post from Nonfiction to Fiction and just move on.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the vagaries of memory and conflation and aging lately because I’ve been recording interviews that will in due season be the Midlife Mixtape podcast. (That season is end of March, not Russian Orthodox Christmas.) The podcast is me talking with some super interesting mostly GenX guests about what their lives are like at midlife, what they’ve learned, and – obviously – what concert made the biggest impression on them.

Last week I asked a guest a two-part question, and she immediately stopped me. “I hate two part questions,” she said. “I can never remember part two.”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “I’m 50. By the time you have answered part one I’ll have forgotten that I asked part two.”

So maybe these administration officials can just blame their spotty memories on aging – I mean, at seventy years old, 45 is the oldest president ever elected and he hasn’t exactly brought the members of Youthquake on board with him.

Or maybe they can blame their sincere intent to manifest the world of which they dream. I mean, if I had been there at Maria’s brother’s wedding I would definitely have helped hide the Pelle news, just as I’m sure Donny would have wanted to be there for both my sister and me when Elvis died, just as I’m sure administration officials wish they hadn’t had all those Russian discussions, now that they realize everyone is finding out about them.

The problem with conflation, though, is that at the end of the day, someone always knows what really happened. The truth will out. In the case of these Russian stories, it’s critical to the health of American democracy that it does.

So to the FBI and CIA and media heroes and Democratic representatives working hard to figure this out: may I suggest you get my brother and his college roommates on the case?

Did you hear what happened the night before 45’s speech, in Sweden? Jens Lekman’s new album dropped. I can’t recommend this one enough.

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A Load of Crap

It was not lost on me that the same week I had my first ever colonoscopy, that “Welcome to Your Fifties!” present you wish came with a gift receipt for easy returns, there was a blizzard of bull on the political front too. I’d call it Operation Parallel Shitstorm but I know your sensibilities are too delicate for that. Just know that I thought it.

For my younger readers, let me reassure you that the medical procedure was easy and straightforward. One second you’re chatting with the anesthesiologist about your upcoming trip, congratulating yourself on not slurring the phrase “hiking hut to hut in the Cradle Mountains,” and the next second the nice nurse is saying “Wake up, Nancy, it’s over!” In between, the deepest, darkest knockout sleep thanks to propofol aka Michael Jackson Juice aka I definitely understand why he would say to the doctor “Keep it flowin’!”

Just as everyone had foretold, the hard part of the colonoscopy was the buildup for the letdown. First, twenty-four hours of fasting, much of which I spent standing in the kitchen staring woefully at the breadbox like an old dog whose masters have just driven away and left no forwarding address. Then, 12 hours before the procedure, you have to start drinking glass after glass after glass after glass of a solution called GoLightly which hahahahaha pharmaceutical naming professionals, nice try. Can’t wait until you turn 50 so you can curse your own name.

No details from me. Instead I’ll just include this scene from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, called “Potion of Despair.”

Anyhoo I was up early enough on the morning of the procedure to get all caught up on the latest from #45’s week: the real leaks and the fake news, the assumption that reporter April Ryan was only there with a notebook in case she needed to jot down his bagel preference for the meeting she’d set up between him and the CBC (he was hoping CBC stood for Christian Bootlicking Cabal), the tweets about an increasing number of media outlets conspiring against him.

(Every time he adds another outlet to his list of unfair media, I’m reminded of a parenting conversation I had a couple of times with my kids at various points as their social skills developed and solidified: “If you have the same problem with more than two people, you need to have an honest talk with yourself about who’s causing that problem.”)

The team who took care of me at the medical center was entirely nonwhite, and half of them appeared to not have been born in the US. What was a maddening week for me on the political front was surely, for them, even more personal and serious. These are people who literally work with assholes every day so I imagine they’re pretty quick to recognize one behind a presidential podium. Yet there they were, doing their jobs well, courteous, professional, friendly. They took good care of me because that’s generally what people do for each other, all signs from our “leadership” the contrary.

When I came to a little while later, the nurse said, “How do you feel, Nancy?”

I answered, “Fine. Wait, is Trump still president?

Having a colonoscopy come back all clear? Great. Cracking up the entire medical team with your joke? Priceless.

While I waited in recovery for a little bit I scrolled through my phone and saw the news report of a leaked memo about sending National Guard troops out to round up immigrants. I read about a Sudanese family fleeing a US Border Agent into Canada in the small border town in upstate New York where my husband grew up. I got a text from a friend of Mexican descent with whom I’m having dinner Saturday night, saying she was glad it would be dark when we met up because it would make it harder for Border Patrol to find her.

“Can I have more propofol?” I said, to no one in particular.

That, or can someone dump some GoLightly into the White House water supply?

The Old 97s cast Brandi Carlile as God on their latest album…and she is not here for your bull.

***I wrote a piece about my beloved late father in law over on TueNight and the title sums it up. Hope you’ll take a read about his amazing life and the contributions he made.

This Is What the American Dream Actually Looks Like

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Not In The Mood

Valentine’s Day 2017 is going to be different for a lot of people. With our new all day, every day #Resistance workouts, our wokety-wokeness, our roller-coaster vacillation between dread and hope and back to dread again, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say no one’s in the mood right now. Except maybe Nazis.

I mean, on February 14th, what are you going to do? Give roses to your beloved? “You know, those were probably picked by immigrant workers, and when I look at these deep red blooms all I see is the look of anguish as they worry what will happen to their families. Everything is awful and I’m sleeping in the guest room.”

How about chocolates? “Imported from France… I wonder if Le Pen will really win that election. Of course she will. If Brexit and Trump then Le Pen, it’s the algebraic theory of equality. Everything is awful and I’m going to stay up late eating these chocolates and sobbing.”

You don’t even want to THINK about sexy lingerie. “Where’d you get this, Nordstrom’s? Sure, they’ve dropped the Ivanka line for now – and by the way, did you see what 45 tweeted about that? How in the name of all that is holy can he still claim to have separated from his businesses but he’s still tweeting about them? It’s complete and utter conflict of interest. Everything is awful and I’m just going to wear this long underwear to bed for another night.”

Maybe you’re thinking about some sort of experience, rather than a gift, to take your beloved’s mind of their worries. Good luck scheduling that gondola ride or romantic picnic. “Can’t do it on Saturday, I have a Black Lives Matter Human Billboard protest, then I’m going to the Together We Can Post-Inauguration Resource Fair. On Sunday I told you the girls and I are doing the Code Pink Dance Across the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything doesn’t feel as awful when I do those things, but my schedule is FULL UP.”

If you’re like me, not even music works as an aphrodisiac right now. I have taken to listening to Ninth Circuit Court arguments and impassioned Democratic speeches livestreamed during confirmation hearings like I used to listen to Frank Ocean and Luther Vandross. So don’t even bother with the love songs unless Al Franken is singing them and they include snippets of educational policy questions.

Maybe it’s for the best that our hearts aren’t being tugged too hard this year, what with the assault on the Affordable Care Act. Cardiac arrest is probably not going to be covered by whatever replaces it.

You really want to make the worried American in your life a little more inclined to romance next Tuesday? Here’s seduction in 2017, kids: Donate to the ACLU, or the Southern Poverty Law Center, or PBS, or your local school, and fold the receipt into an origami heart to present as a token of your love. You should recycle the heart afterward because environmental protection laws are about to be decimated so it’s more incumbent than ever for us to do our part.

Ugh. I love you, but everything is awful and now I need to go donate to the Sierra Club.

Ok, maybe there’s one romantic song that still works for me. Because if I stop responding to this one, that means 45 has won.

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Concert Review: Frank Turner

The last thing I wanted to do after barely surviving the first week of this Assault On Democracy was go to a concert. You guys know I usually have concerts mapped out weeks and months in advance; I just haven’t had the will to put my money down since November. And with my new part-time job as a protester (I understand Soros and the Illuminati and Mark Cuban are paying us now? SWEET. Tell me where to submit my expense reports!) I can’t even keep up with who’s playing around town.

But I did know that Frank Turner was coming to the Bay Sunday night. Frank, who I heard for the first time in a tiny KFOG concert acoustic set, and then saw as an opener last summer…Frank, the punk rocker-turned-acoustic guitar player whose music I suspected could only be fully appreciated in a headliner show…Frank, the one who shouted to the crowd last August, “I’m British so it’s none of my business, but I know America is better than Trump!” and received raging cheers and applause. I love that guy, and I felt like I needed to show up if only to apologize that America crapped all over his high opinion of us.

But I still dragged my feet up until last Friday afternoon, when I texted my college daughter about my ambivalence. She sent back a text that let me know in no uncertain terms that I had to go on her behalf, since she is basically living in a music desert where the only performer to visit campus so far is…Jesse McCartney.

via GIPHY

Sigh. I owed it to my daughter. Ok. Together with my friends Lysa and Larry, I dragged myself off to The Warfield in San Francisco Sunday night. I was still tired from doing the Black Lives Matter/Stand Up For Racial Justice protest a day earlier, putting my white female body on the #BLM line which I finally realize, truly understand, is a critical responsibility if I actually care about equal rights. Lysa came to the show directly from the San Francisco airport, where she’d been protesting the Muslim ban. We all agreed that we’d sneak out early and not feel guilty about it.

And then Frank came out and sang this simple, fresh-out-of-the-oven song: “The Sand in the Gears.”

And holy lord, suddenly rock and roll became the most patriotic, rejuvenating, important thing I could think to do.

It helps that so many of Turner’s songs work as protest anthems.

It’s easy enough to talk about Blitz spirit


When you’re not holding the roof up and knee deep in it


And the pictures and the papers got ruined by the rain


And we wondered if they’d ever get dry again

But I don’t want spend the whole of my life indoors


Laying low, waiting on the next storm


I don’t want spend the whole of my life inside


I wanna step out, and face the sunshine

They threw me a whirlwind


And I spat back the sea


I took a battering but I’ve got thicker skin and the best people


I know looking out for me


So I’m taking the high road


My engines running high and fine


May I always see the road rising up to meet me


And my enemies defeated in the mirror behind

And I won’t sit down


And I won’t shut up,


But most of all I will not grow up

It also helps that underneath Frank’s tats and raging voice lurks the most polite British gentleman, with a heart full of compassion and good. When it was time for the Wall of Death – that punk phenomenon where the audience divides itself down the middle and races at each other to clash in the middle – he commanded instead a Wall of Hugs. At his signal, we all turned to someone in the crowd we didn’t know and hugged them, which is how I found myself embracing a tiny Asian millennial girl saying, “It’s gonna be ok. It is. We are all gonna get through this.”

Then, when it was time for some crowd-surfing, Frank pulled a young woman out of the audience and issued a challenge. He wanted us to propel her, first to that tall guy in the plaid shirt in the second tier for a high five, then to that lady on the right side for a selfie, and finally to the bar to grab two shots of Jameson to bring back and drink with Frank on stage. But first, he made a speech about how at some shows it is not safe for a woman to crowd surf because she will be groped and grabbed, but WE ARE NOT THAT KIND OF CROWD AND WE RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER AS HUMAN BEINGS AND RESPECT EACH OTHER, RIGHT?

Five minutes and many, many cheers later, that young woman stood onstage with two shots of Jameson, having been treated more respectfully by a punk crowd than she probably would have by our current president. (The mom in me noticed that she was not wearing the red wristband to signal she was over 21, and that same mom in my kvelled when instead of doing the shot with Frank, she handed it off to the bassist with a bow. Because PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.)

And finally, it helps that Frank Turner’s music is so incredibly, indelibly, head-shaking danceable, and everyone knows what kind of stress relief a good dance sesh provides. According to the health tracker on my iPhone, I took NINE MILES WORTH OF STEPS between 9 pm and 11:30 pm Sunday night, all of which were made pogo-style, with fist punches for an added upper-body workout.

I’ll just wrap this by saying these are unusual times, and if for a while I have to lighten the concert schedule while I write out signboards or show up my senator’s offices, the music gods bless that too. But I will be damned if I let 45 rob me of my love of live music.

Or as Frank sings:

Now who’d have thought that after all,


Something as simple as rock ‘n’ roll would save us all.


And who’d have thought that after all, it was rock ‘n’ roll.

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Remember When I Was a Humor Blogger?

Hahaha! Remember when I used to write a humor blog, back in…ten days ago? Me neither sob sob sob.

My method, in my younger and more naïve days of early 2017, was to take a subject, any subject, and find the humor spin on it. For instance, I drafted a post about the fact that my husband and I have a trip to Tasmania planned this spring – we’ll be trekking for six days in the Cradle Mountains there. I thought it would be hilarious to compare my search for comfortable hiking shoes to Goldilocks, or maybe Cinderella, because I keep rejecting them. One was too small, one was too big, and one looked like a Eurotrash astronaut’s fever dream. It looks like I’ll be packing the ten-year-old boots I pulled out of the storage area coated in a thick layer of dust. C’mon, that’s funny, right?

But I can’t write about that because what I’m actually thinking about Tasmania is: what are Australia’s immigration policies, and can we send for the girls if we first establish a beachhead?

Similarly, there was some comic potential in the Tasmanian wildlife. You and I both know that the only Tasmanian wildlife you and I both know is the Warner Brothers’ Tasmanian Devil.

My friend Hugh informed me – and I feel here I need to disclose that it was over many, many glasses of wine at a dinner party– that the milk of the Tasmanian Devil has curative properties, which led to a lively group discussion about how one would milk a Tasmanian Devil. I have also augmented my knowledge base with a guide that informed me that there are three types of snakes in Tasmania, all poisonous, but “luckily the same anti-venom works for all of them!”

Instead of making jokes about that whole situation, though, I have to ponder whether the Tasmanian Devil milk and the snake anti-venom are effective on pre-existing conditions left untreated when Obamacare is flushed down the toilet. I’ll pack some empty vials for us to share around just in case.

Finally, I could talk about how this is the trip of our dreams. We met in Arizona and my husband and I bonded over hiking into the Grand Canyon and in Utah; twenty-five years of marriage later, we finally have some time to take up an ambitious hiking trip again. The trip includes a stop in Sydney, another place I’ve dreamed of going since I bought my first Split Enz albums.

However, the actual dreams I’ve had since January 20th involve a.) losing our children in Tasmania (note: they’re not coming on this trip, so that’s extra weird,) b.) being unable to find the start of the trek in Tasmania, complete with imagery of a compass spinning wildly, and c.) the snapping of my shoelaces off the aforementioned hiking boots, on the first day. All three dreams resulted in gasping, wide-awake sheet clutching at 3 a.m., plus a bonus phone call to my sister to make her promise me that she will protect my children if something happens to me. Think I’m maybe slightly worried about leaving my kids on a continent led by a madman for 12 days when I’m on the other side of the world? Maybe just a smidge.

All I can say is I plan to keep trudging through this challenging terrain trying to find some humor. And I hope you’re coming along for the long, long walk.

Here’s a Tasmanian pop punk band called the New Wave Saints. Kind of a Blink-182 sitch here, wouldn’t you say?

P.S.  I’ve had some writing on TueNight.com in the past couple weeks in case you want to check them out…

My Proof God Wants Us To Keep Laughing

I’m Fifty and I Can’t Remember Jack Shit

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Pace Yourself

Since November 9th, I’ve woken up most mornings animated by rage. I hide it pretty well, what with the family being around, and the Nutcracker, and the Lord Huron concert, but seriously. I wake up nearly every day feeling like I want to punch something. I did a little research on brain chemistry and what happens when you’re mad, and it appears that the Nonepinephrine Warehouse in my brain has been flashing a “Going Out of Business! Everything Must GO!” sign since early December.

I know I’m not alone. And you and I both know this isn’t sustainable.

I’m not saying we’re not justified. Every day brings a new insult, whether it’s a group of white men signing anti-abortion legislation when they’d be hard pressed to pick a speculum out of a lineup, or a press secretary trying to pull the “These are not the droids you seek” routine on us, or an Indiana state senator circulating a meme on Facebook about the Women’s March that pulled off the tricky trifecta of weight shaming women, disparaging Michelle Obama, AND – by yanking it off his page and saying he didn’t know how it got there – gaslighting anyone who has ever posted anything to their own Facebook wall. AGH. I am so angry again.

But I also need to survive until I watch that man leave office. Which means stress management. I can’t be mad about all the normal things I used to be mad about, and still whip myself into a fury around “alternative facts.” That is an actual fact.

I am therefore cleaning out the virtual vault of the following things that used to piss me off, in the olden days of pre-2017. Therefore, from this moment forward, I pledge not rise to the bait when confronted with the following.

People who say “comprised of” instead of “comprises” or “composed of”
Cereal boxes with half of one flake left inside, sitting in the pantry. Ditto to juice/milk with ½ teaspoon of fluid left in the ‘fridge
My neighbors who still have their Halloween decorations up. From Halloween 2015.
Short girls who try to nustle up under ribcage during a concert, and then lean backwards and wave their arms in my face as they dance
Last night’s dinner dishes co mingling with this morning’s breakfast dishes in the sink, and everyone who avoids eye contact with that situation
The ladies in my exercise class who can’t stick the beat
A certain young male writer in San Francisco who titles his female characters “She”
People who post “97% of people won’t post that they think cancer is bad. Please cut and paste this into your status bar if you are the 3%.” Making you look like a cancer-loving jackweed if you don’t do it
Waiters who say, “What are we having for dessert?”
The band Train
People who make the left turn on the intersection closest to my house, swing wide, and veer into the lane where I’m waiting to make a right turn. You probably can’t visualize this, and you don’t really need to. Just know I’ll stop yelling, “NOT IN MY HOUSE YOU DON’T!” when they do that.

All those situations: I’m pacing myself. Go for it. I’ll be deep breathing and om-ing and centering myself, the better to dial my senator and demand that a woman who has never had to take a student loan or attended a public school isn’t put in charge of the nation’s educational system.

Whoops. There goes my insistence on the Oxford comma.

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Watermark Conference for Women 2017

On Wednesday, February 1, I’ll be making the trek down to the South Bay for my third Watermark Conference For Women, and I could not be more excited. This annual event brings together women from all over the Bay Area (as well as in sister cities like Philadelphia and Boston) for professional development and networking opportunities. It’s basically a giant hit of inspirational estrogen power and pride, and, if I may say so, we women are more in need of it than ever after a bruising 2016.

The speaker list this year is so great. Keynoters include:

Madeleine Albright in conversation with Condoleeza Rice, interviewed by Kara Swisher
Viola Davis (I’m going to see Fences this weekend in case we run into each other in the ladies’ room)
Sheryl Sandberg

And breakout sessions and roundtables are being led by my pals Luvvie Ajayi, Lisa Stone, Lisen Stromberg, Brandi Riley, and A’driane Nieves, among others. You can check out the full speaker list here. I’m on the Social Media Street Team again, so if you follow @midlifemixtape on Twitter, I’ll be sharing words of speaker wisdom there throughout the day.

Or better yet, join me in San Jo!  Tickets are still available here.

It’s an uplifting day of inspiration and practical information. Maybe because I work from a home office I find that merely being in the company of a giant ballroom full of smart ladies makes me want to work harder and be better. Here’s a clip from one of my favorite sessions last year, when Glamour editor Cindi Leive interview Mindi Kaling on “Feminism 2.0.”

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: Last year I was merrily tweeting away on the morning session I was assigned to cover, and then a text came in from a friend. “Prince died.” Nuh uh. No way. For the next ten minutes I wasn’t tweeting, because I was madly chasing down proof that this a hoax. You know the rest. One of the first people I thought of was my friend A’driane, who happened to be at the same conference, and within a few more minutes we’d both fled to the main hallway to be in shock together. The conference went on and was still inspiring even so, but the pall of Prince’s death was way way way too much.So this year: Someone put Bruce Springsteen and Neil Finn into a bubble that day and do not let them out until February 2.  You cannot play me like that two years in a row. 

 

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: Last year I was merrily tweeting away on the morning session I was assigned to cover, and then a text came in from a friend. “Prince died.” Nuh uh. No way. For the next ten minutes I wasn’t tweeting, because I was madly chasing down proof that this a hoax. You know the rest. One of the first people I thought of was A’driane, who was also at the conference, and within a few more minutes and texts we’d both fled to the main hallway to be in shock together. The conference went on and was still inspiring even so, but the pall of Prince’s death was way way way too much.

So this year: Someone put Bruce Springsteen and Neil Finn into a bubble that day and do not let them out until February 2.  You cannot play me like that two years in a row.

 And make sure Aretha and Annie are taking their Vitamin C, too.

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“The Weight of Him” – The Mixtape

Ethel Rohan is a Bay Area writer by way of Ireland, one of the people I’m happiest to see at various local literary doings. Her debut novel, THE WEIGHT OF HIM, comes out on Valentine’s Day this year. Told against the picturesque yet haunting backdrop of rural Ireland, THE WEIGHT OF HIM is about Billy Brennan, a 400lb man who loses his teenage son to suicide and then sets out to stop the epidemic, by shedding half of himself. Billy’s public weight loss fundraiser and other ambitious plans to stop suicide appall his family and pit this heartbroken dad against others, too, including his own demons. His startling journey makes for an unforgettable, deeply compassionate read.

Thrilled to have Ethel’s author mixtape on the site today! Make sure you read all the way to the end so you can enter for a chance to win your own copy…

Songs by My Side During the Ten Year Telling of The Weight of Him

by Ethel Rohan

Irish singer-songwriter Imelda May is a Dubliner like myself. I would love to be able to sing, but I do not have a note in my head. Song and music are powerful gifts to possess, and a great salve to share with the world. Imelda May is wonderfully gifted. “It’s Good to Be Alive” was the perfect novel-writing companion as so much of the The Weight of Him is about rescue, resurrection, and the sanctity of life. The song always lifts me.

I remember Phil Lynott’s music from my girlhood (my oldest brother was obsessed). This one line from this song, “This boy is cracking up, this boy has broke down” really helped me tap into Billy’s son, Michael’s, character. Michael kills himself five weeks before the book begins. I wrote so many scenes with Michael that didn’t end up in the book but were critical to my getting to know, understand and love him–in the hopes that readers will too.

Ryan Doyle wrote “Fall” two years ago, when he was 16! I can’t count the number of times I’ve listened to this song and every time, unfailingly, it touches something deep inside me and makes my eyes water and throat thicken. Heartstrumming.

The Irish band, HamSandwicH, are so great (despite their disappointing name, or is that just me?) and the pairing of this haunting song “Ants” with this unofficial video is especially fitting for The Weight of Him given the fictional world Billy creates with damaged toy dolls and soldiers. And the repetition of ‘start over.’ How hard this novel’s characters wish they could start over. So, yeah, a must-listen I played on repeat.

Well first off, it’s Beyonce. And who doesn’t want to love and be loved like this? Oh joy.

When I first emigrated to San Francisco and during the subsequent early years with my husband, we listened to Tracy Chapman all the time. She’s got such grit and ache in her voice, and I love that combination in just about everything. The characters in The Weight of Him want to be wanted. They want a reason to stay, too. Don’t we all?

Before his death, 17-year-old Michael was a budding singer-songwriter. He would have aspired to sing, play and write like Gavin James. If he could have stayed in his world, he would have continued to write songs with all the soul and ache of “Remember Me” too. You’re only alive in my book and heart, Michael, but I will always remember you.

I love “Brave.” I love Sara Bareilles. Her work shows her heart. “Let the light in.” I’m always trying to let the light in. I also want to see myself be brave(r). I wanted to see all my characters in The Weight of Him be brave(r). There’s such inspiration and a sense of promised connection in this song–like for every good, brave moment each of us has there’s a collective reaction–like maybe, just maybe the entire universe benefits because of each of our own tiny, shiny, brave moments. And this video. It’s fantastic.

Book Giveway

Want to read the book that inspired the list? Ethel is giving away a signed copy of  THE WEIGHT OF HIM to a lucky Midlife Mixtape reader! To enter for your chance to win, leave a comment below…we’ll use Random.org to select a winner on Monday, January 23 at 5 pm PST!

Book Launch Party

Bay Area Friends, join Ethel Rohan for THE WEIGHT OF HIM’s novel launch party at The Booksmith on February 16 at 7 30. She’ll be In Conversation with Edan Lepucki, author of CALIFORNIA. If that isn’t enough for a stampede, there will also be food, wine, Irish whiskey, and raffles prizes. Mark your calendars! And check out details of Ethel’s two other Bay Area book parties here.

photo Eva Stoyanov

Ethel Rohan is the author of THE WEIGHT OF HIM, a debut novel forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press, February 14, 2017. THE WEIGHT OF HIM won the inaugural Plumeri Fellowship. She is also the author of two story collections, Goodnight Nobody and Cut Through the Bone, the former longlisted for The Edge Hill Prize and the latter longlisted for The Story Prize. An award-winning short story writer, her work has appeared in The New York Times, World Literature Today, Tin House Online, GUERNICA Magazine, The Rumpus, and many others. Raised in Dublin, Ireland, she lives in San Francisco where she is a member of the Writers’ Grotto.

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