Abby Rosmarin's Blog, page 25

Day 318 of 365: Walk, Don't Run

As I've mentioned a time or eight, I strained a tendon in my left leg. This forced me to downgrade to the 5-miler in Boston's Run to Remember (which I was able to complete with only minor pain and a very bruised ego). This has also forced me to stop running, completely -- which has also forced me to put myself out of the running (har har) for the Chicago Marathon.


The Chicago Marathon is this Columbus Day Weekend. Ideally, I would've had 20 miles already under my belt, which would give me the summer to keep it relatively short (aka 10) until the weather calmed down. Even in less than ideal circumstances, I would be started my training right now, getting at least 6 - 8 miles in as a starting point.


As I hinted at briefly that dropping from the Chicago Marathon was a big deal for so many reasons. One being that I have to go back on a pact that my best friend and I made (she'd have the chutzpah to move to Chicago; I'd have the chutzpah to run the marathon there). She's said a million times that the pact itself was enough to do what she knew she needed to do (namely, move out of Boston) and that actually going through with it is unnecessary on my end, but still. I'm a woman of my word. I don't make promises or goals lightly.


The other is the timeline of everything. I also mentioned that my husband and I have been thinking about that whole "raise a family" thing, and the Chicago Marathon was going to be more or less my apex moment before taking a breather from running my body into the ground (literally). We don't want to put things off another year (because, as much as I feel 24, I'm not. I'm toeing in on 28 and I am vehemently against having any kids past the age of 35, which means the metaphorical and biological clock is ticking). So that means the marathon could be on the back burner for a very, very, very long while -- because any female athlete, professional or amateur, will tell you that the physical strain of intense training is enough to send your body into, "Oh fuck that shit," mode when it comes to fertility.


I spent the last month doing absolutely no cardio. I did my yoga, I ran my tai chi classes (which is about to turn into "tai chi class" singular, but that's for another time), but that was it. No running, no Zumba -- shit, no DDR, even (and we all know how much I love my DDR).


I've now added in a few walks during the week. Now that my tendon only acts up when it's raining, I make it a point to walk to the lake near where I live, which is roughly two miles from my house. It is beyond frustrating, going from running to walking, going from crossing that threshold after 18 minutes to crossing that threshold after 30+. But I do love walks for the sake of walks, so as long as I don't try to think about it as exercise, I'm fine.


One of the biggest messages in yoga is accepting your body exactly where it is. And right now I need to walk, not run. I'm eyeing the Boston Half Marathon (which is also on Columbus Day Weekend). Registration is on the 16th of July, which means I have 3 weeks to see if I would be okay to re-train come August. I'm not setting any expectation for myself, and I'm certainly not expecting my tendon to be 100% by July 16th, but I just can't completely let go of not running that October weekend.


But, for now, it's time to just walk. Put one foot in front of the other one and see where I go from here.

Day 317 of 365: Women/Girls (Try #2)

So I've decided to make one very small, but very crucial change in my life:


I've stopped calling adult females "girls".


It seemed really silly to me at first. I immediately thought of all the, "Atta girls!" my track coach would yell. I thought of someone saying, "We're having a girls night out/It's just us girls!" I thought of how the diminutive is a term of affection and endearment in so many languages. Obviously there was nothing inherently wrong about saying, "girl," when the person in front of you (or in the mirror) is quite obviously over 18, so why would I try to do this?


While a diminutive label like "girl" makes sense when the coach is congratulating her team or the group of friends is going for a night out, it stops making sense outside of it -- the same way you'd never use the diminutive in Spanish to refer to a superior or a stranger. But here I was, talking about female celebrities as "girls", talking about co-workers as "girls" -- talking about myself as a "girl" when I am toeing in on 28 years of age.


So I tried to stop cold-turkey. I allowed myself to fumble over my words as I nixed "girl" from my vernacular and replaced it with "woman". I'd stop myself mid-word to keep myself from saying "girl". I'd even reword a thought in my head if I started slipping into old habits.


Again, this seems a bit unnecessary. Why am I letting myself sound like a stuttering freak in order to not say, "I talked to the girl at this company..." or "She's the girl from..."? Why go through all this trouble when it's socially acceptable to do what I'm already doing?


The problem is, is that language shapes thought. You don't have to attend a semantics class to know that how something is worded can drastically change how it is taken in. My favorite example is of an experiment where they showed groups of people a video of two cars getting into an accident. In one group, the testers would explain that the audience was about to watch a video of, "a blue car bumping a red car." In the other group? They were told they were about to watch a video of, "a blue car crashing into a red car."


The differences between the two group's reactions were startling. The "crash" group saw the accident as more severe, the red car as having taken more damage, and the blue driver as being more incompetent of a driver. Exact same video of the exact same two cars, but viewed in completely different lights, purely because the testers replaced "bumped" with "crashed into".


The most telling reaction to this change came from within -- the visceral reaction I would get against myself when I would say "woman" over "girl". I felt out of place using that term -- who the hell was I to use such a strong word when describing this female or that female. Especially, who the hell was I to use that word when referring to myself? "Girl" is sweet, "girl" is dainty, "girl" is unassuming; I have no place busting out the big guns like "woman".


And that reaction is exactly why I needed to change. As I mentioned already, "girl" is diminutive. The same way a coach will say, "Atta boy!" or a friend will talk about, "hanging out with the boys." The only difference, here, is that "boy" feels out of place when taken out of the familiar and affectionate. We replace it with "guy", which carries a more masculine and strong connotation. But there's nothing to replace "girl". However, "girl" doesn't magically lose its connotation of soft and unassuming when we start referring to women that way. The word doesn't carry the same type of weight, and when even the most subtle changes in language can change thought (which, in turn, shapes behavior), that small inequity can unravel into bigger consequences.


Recently, a man who shall remain nameless got in trouble with his boss. His boss gave him the third degree -- and rightfully so, since he had messed up. However, his boss was a woman. What was the first words out of his mouth when he was out of earshot from that woman?


"I'm not going to let some girl tell me how to do my job."


People will disagree with me. People will brush off the idea that one seemingly-innocuous word would ever make any type of influence in life. People will see this change as another example of a hyper-feminist harping on every detail in society, changing "woman" to "womyn" and burning every bra she can get her hands on. And I'm okay with that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, man and woman alike.


Besides, none of this will stop me from shouting, "That's my girl!" when a friend finishes a race or busts a seriously sick move on the dance floor.

Day 316 of 365: Well, That's Disheartening

As I've mentioned before, my husband and I are going to Virginia/DC for our anniversary (and then up to Long Island/NYC for our friend's wedding). Since I've never been to DC before (somehow never went on those class trips, I guess), I decided it was high time I do all the touristy things: visit the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and (of course) the White House. I learned a long time ago to always look into every single place you are traveling to, so I decided to look into tour times for the White House -- because I distinctly remember there once being group tours of the White House.


Well, color me surprised when I find out that you have to get written permission from a state congressman, now.


After the confusion settled, I vaguely remember hearing that they discontinued group tours of the White House for safety reasons. Which I can get, to a degree. There's only so much you can control when you have 20 or 30 people roaming the halls on a routine basis.


But, still, though. I find that incredibly disheartening. You can only tour the inside of one of the most important buildings in America during very specific times, and with written permission from a state leader -- something you get as much as six months in advance.


It just doesn't make sense. And I can't help but put my tinfoil hat on and speculate why this is the case.


But, regardless, I'm excited for Washington. I'm excited to enjoy Virginia and I'm excited to knock a few more states off my "to-visit" list. And -- most of all -- I'm excited to see an incredible woman get married in just a few weeks.

Day 315 of 365: One Year Ago

I've been trying to figure out what to write about today. It's been a busy day: I had one of my scheduled observation classes today, followed by a long talk with my favorite instructor (which included talk about putting me on the sub list for that studio). I filled out yet more paperwork, both for yoga and for writing (what they don't tell you is that, as a freelance writer, you get to fill out a W-2 every.fricken.time a website accepts your essay and actually pays you for it. But, hey, not like I'm complaining. Get money, bitch). I talked briefly on the phone with a yoga studio that might be using me as a sub as early as this August. I even submitted some more work and edited M#2 until I found myself reading to read (which is a sign that I need to stop editing because I've lost my critical eye).


That's a lot of stuff to write about. And yet, I really didn't feel like writing any of it. And then I realized that today is June 16th. I checked the 2013 calendar and realized that it's been a year and two days since I left the teaching world behind.


That means it's been a full year since I've worked a standard, full-time job. I spent the first three months in a weird tizzy, thanks in large part to our road trip and moving into/establishing the house. I then spent the next three months wondering WTF I was doing, if I really understood what I was doing next, and, really, if leaving such a stable paycheck made that much sense in light of buying a new house.


The last six months were spent in teacher trainer to become a registered yoga teacher. During that time, my ebook got published and I went from a lowly contributor to Thought Catalog to someone who had multiple publishing sites under her belt.


I feel like it figures that today is the day that I can't think of anything to write about. A day when I made some progress in both yoga and writing, but still couldn't think about anything to write about until she realized what date it is. Today is a good day for retrospection. Today is a good day to see where I was before I left teaching, to see where I was before training -- shit, to see where I was in February, when the very idea of even doing a 10-minute practice class blew my skull.


So here's to a second year being free of a standard 9-to-5, a proper paycheck -- here's to a second year of freelancer like the pseudo-broke baller I am, because I'd rather be budgeting our money and be happy than be more financially liberated and miserable as all getout.

Day 314 of 365: It's Okay to Not Say "Best Father A Girl Can Ask For"

It's that time again: another parental holiday. On Mother's Day, Facebook and Twitter and Instagram became flooded with posts proclaiming a happy Mother's Day to the "best mother a girl can ask for!" And now we're at Father's Day, which means we'll get more of the same.


First off, I find that to be a little disingenuous. I am physically capable of asking for a lot. I could ask for a billionaire father who is fluent in 20 languages, travels the world, fights dragons, and buys me a pony for every birthday. In fact, I could ask for all of that and still have the innate capability of saying the phrase, "But can I have a father who is also Batman?"


And then there's the sincerity behind that comment. For every person who genuinely feels like they had the best father a person can have, there must be five or six people who will verbatim post that same line because people tend to side-eye you funny if you say, "Happy Father's Day to that guy who clumsily tried to raise a child in an ever-changing society!"


Is my father the best a girl can ask for? Even when you factor out the chance to ask for billions of dollars, ponies, dragon-fighting skills, and -- of course -- the ability to be Batman, I could definitely ask for more. And people who know me personally would nod their heads in agreement. But if I did get to ask for a few changes here and there for my father, I probably wouldn't be the person that I am today. Whether a different version of me would be an upgrade or not is irrelevant. I like who I am and where I am and I've watched enough of that shitty Butterfly Effect movie to recognize that even the tiniest things factor in greatly.


So I say happy father's day to a man whose intentions were good. Happy Father's Day to a man who did everything within his power to raise his daughter to be a productive citizen in this world. Happy Father's Day to a man who loves to his absolute maximum capability. Happy Father's Day to a man who really, at the end of the day, only wants what is best for his children, whatever that "best" might actually be.


Heaven knows that, when I have kids, I won't be the best mom they could ask for. And I'd feel like they're intentionally being hyperbolic if they said otherwise. But I do hope to go forth with those good intentions, to do everything I can to raise them right, to love them with all of my heart and soul, and to pray that they see that I only want what is best for them.

Day 313 of 365: Paid What You're Worth

There's something that has not been sitting right with me for quite some time. It started with a random comment on the minimum wage increase. Someone said, "You're not paid for how hard you try; you're paid in what value you are to the company." Misguided and slightly pie-in-the-sky attitude, but, in terms of internet comments, they could be a whole lot worse.


But, because the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is an actual thing, suddenly that's all I could see. "People are paid what they're worth! If you're punching numbers in a cash register, then you're not worth much!"


I'm going to first set aside the part where, if you look at wages over the years and adjust for things like inflation and productivity, a "punching numbers in a cash register" person should be making at least $18/hour. That's a rant for another time. I just want to dissect the "you're paid in what value you give to the company" belief.


On paper, that makes a lot of sense. A boss will make more than his underlings because his worth to the company is greater. It takes more work and responsibility to keep the ship sailing, and it's harder to replace a boss. On paper, this makes 100% sense.


But what about interns? And I don't mean interns from yesteryear, who got paid in college credits, worked part-time, and mostly played the part of observer while they did menial tasks. I mean the 2014 intern. The person who would have the title of "VP of Communications" or "Marketing Manager" in 1999. The person who works full-time and gets paid nada. No college credits. No stipend. Just "valuable experience" -- which, somehow, in our day and age, has become a commodity in and of itself, even though apprentices of yesteryear still got paid as they learned their craft.


I'm talking about the 2014 "intern" who really is "accounts receivable". The internship that weirdly hires a 35-year-old man with experience in the field. I'm talking about the intern who is not even remotely an intern, but slave labor.


That sounds like something out of a Colbert Report skit, but it's not: the previous paragraph describes an actual situation that an actual 35-year-old man got into. He applied for an internship after getting laid off, and quickly realized that they were just using the term to have a free accountant.


Because, "A company will pay you what you're worth/your value to the company," is about as farcical as, "Communism ensures equality for all." A company will pay you what they can get away with. Because -- honestly -- are you going to tell me that a CEO is really worth 400 times what their average employee makes? I can go ahead and list about three or four CEOs who are now notorious company-hoppers, driving the company into the ground as they do whatever they need to do to get their yearly bonus and then deploying their golden parachute. And that isn't including any of the CEOs involved in creating the Great Recession of 2008.


Companies have hemmed and hawed about having to make changes to better protect their employees, from the Industrial Revolutions, when they scoffed at the idea of putting up expensive safety rails by heavy machinery, to far, far, far beyond that. It's the same flawed human mindset that gives rise to slavery in the first place, but that is also a rant for another time.


It's exhausting, hearing people spew out flawed ideology like this, as if corporations are calculators, systematically figuring out exactly an employee's value and subsequent wages. Because, at the end of the day, companies will do whatever it is they can get away with. And the more the government shrugs their shoulders, the more corporations will act up. And the more "interns" we'll see in the marketplace.

Day 312 of 365: Yoga for Martial Artists

Well, ha ha, you're stuck with another yoga post.


Or, not, since this isn't, y'know, a mandatory read.


So, on top of preparing for my practicum, I've been trying to research how other yoga instructor do "Yoga for Athletes" and "Yoga for Martial Artists". I even found a lady on YouTube who has a "Yoga for MMA" series. And -- since I'm a fanatic of mixed martial arts -- I jumped on this. Please, established yoga instructors, tell me the magical way to instruct yoga for athletes and martial artists.


The problem I've found is that most of these sequences are one big, "Hey! You're athletic! You can do physical shit! Let's so crazy physical shit!"


I was actually talking to one of my teacher training instructors about this. She had advised me against observing a certain Yoga for Athletes class in the area because she knows the instructor has a reputation for creating unsafe sequences and doing things that can potentially injure someone. I talked about how this gung-ho attitude for athlete yoga just doesn't make sense -- that the last thing you would want to do is tell a bunch of naturally competitive people to jump into intricate poses that bend and strain muscles in an unfamiliar way. Athletes are taught to push push push, push through the pain, muscle on through, and "get better". Problem is, if they've never done chaturanga before and suddenly you're making them do one-legged chaturangas, someone's going to walk away with a torn shoulder muscle.


My instructor smiled and said, "You know what this tells me? This tells me that you don't need to observe a Yoga for Athletes class in order to create your own class. It sounds like you already have the right intuition to do what is best for those athletes."


Granted, this "intuition" doesn't get me out of fulfilling my observation hours -- it just means that I shouldn't feel like I need to be told what to do for these hypothetical yoga classes.


So: how would I run a Yoga for Martial Artists? On the physical side, I'd focus a lot on the hips and shoulders (as a strong punch is all about shoulder and lat strength; not bicep). I'd hold poses for a little length of time to help build strength. I'd do a good amount of core work (since the level of achievement in any athletic endeavor essentially starts at how strong your entire core is. Note that I said "entire core" -- that means more than just your abs).


But that's the physical stuff. The mumbo-jumbo I would start my pitch off with to a martial art studio. The part that would assuage a studio owner who would be worried that the yoga was going to be hippie-granola.


The more important part would be the mindfulness. Learning to draw that attention inward, listen to your body, listen to what it needs, and understand that yoga is a time to do exactly what you need. That yoga is about letting go of your ego, letting go of your expectations and attachment to the results. That deep, deliberate breathing can mean the difference between falling out of a pose and being able to maintain it.


And if a martial art studio is worth its weight in wall-to-wall mirrors, that aspect of yoga should be just as enticing. Martial arts is all about the calm energy -- that explosive kicks does not mean an explosive temper.


With any luck, starting in August, I'll be trying to get this started up. It's very tough in an area like New Hampshire; aside from Manchester, it's easy to find places who think "gong fu" is just a really hard version of "kung fu" (which I have heard a guy say before. Fun fact: "gong fu" is just another way of saying "kung fu" -- and neither literally mean "martial art". It just means something that take a lot of time, practice, and skill to do.) But I'm willing to see what I can make of it. Being a bit of a pseudo-athlete gives me that advantage of other yoga instructors, who will tell their students to do hamstring-ripping shit like "roll from plow to boat while still holding onto your feet".


I mean, seriously: who does she think will be able to do that? I'm abnormally flexible and even I would have to let go of my feet during that.

Day 311 of 365: Thankful in Retrospect

From Kindergarten to about Grade 3 or 4, my teachers all had one thing to tell my mom at parent-teacher conferences: "She's smart, but she's exhibiting signs of ADD. We advise you to get her evaluated."


Now, anyone who has spoken with me on a personal level already knows this. I'm not exactly known for my linear train of thought and intense attention span. My elementary school life was one gigantic, "Get A on the test, then get in trouble for doing random and disruptive stuff." Now, that may have been purely because I was bored in school and, instead of being the oldest in the class, I should've been bumped up a grade (and subsequently the youngest in the class -- something you could do in my hometown in the early 90s if you were born within the last few weeks of August or first few in September). That may have been because I didn't have the most stable of home bases and my acting out was my subconscious trying to sort out what a 7-year-old's mind cannot sort out consciously. Who knows. All I know is that my parents poo-pooed the idea of me having ADD, even though, two years later, my then-kindergartener little brother would get the same parent-teacher conference result -- and, within that same year, be diagnosed with ADD and ADHD.


I remember growing up and finding that so unfair. Like a proper firstborn, I couldn't get why certain things were just expected of me, while my little brother was getting his hand held every step of the way.


But, the second I got out into the real world, I realized that, in hindsight, my parents refusing to believe their firstborn had issues with attention and auditory processing was a gift in disguise.


In a perfect world, I would've been given the proper guidance and tutelage, perhaps seeing a specialist to help keep things on track. But this was 1991 - 1996 -- a world where were doctors not only handed out ADD diagnoses like Oprah hands out cars, but personality-changing drugs to boot. I think about how quickly my fellow ADD students were put on Ritalin, and I think about all the issues that came with it. Granted, many of them genuinely needed it, but it made me wonder how many could've gone without it -- how many of them would've been spared the complicated side effects if they had seen specialists and given interpersonal treatment instead of chemical.


But, even then, even if going on medication at the astoundingly young age of 5 or 6 would've been beneficial to me, I think about the attitude that surrounded children with that diagnosis in the 90s: please excuse their behavior, they had ADD/ADHD.


What would my life have been like if, growing up, I had been given that excuse? Please excuse this disruptive behavior; I have ADD. Please excuse this shoddily-done project; I have ADD. Please excuse my inability to Know How to Adult; I have ADD.


And this is where I shift from me being thankful in retrospect to how kids are raised today. It doesn't matter if they have ADD, ADHD, or any number of diagnosable problems. What do we hear from parents these days? "Please excuse my daughter's behavior; she's bored in your class." "Please excuse my son's poor test scores; he doesn't test well." I know one teacher who tried to have a sit-down with a parent about a son's disruptive behavior, only to be told to, "Stop sending these notes home. You are upsetting my son when you do that."


I know so many Millennials who had such a rough transition to the real world -- not because of their ADD, but because their every action had been excused from Day 1. Suddenly, they're in territory where no one cares about their "inability to take tests" or "being bored" or even having ADD/ADHD. People only care about what results you can produce for them. And -- the same way a lot of us had to scramble to actually be "college ready" during our freshman year of college, but that's a rant for another time -- they had to scramble to learn how to take proper responsibility for their actions.


Now, I know this is veering off track (what was that about lack of a linear train of thought?), but this turn is inspired by the phrase, "Please don't be mad." I can't think of a phrase that better encapsulates this ideology of, "Yeah I did this, but I believe I should be excused from all reactions/consequences." I honestly getter madder when I see that phrase, even if it's part of a conversation that does not involve or influence me in the slightest. No, that's not how the world works: you screwed up, you did something careless or shitty or selfish, and now you own up. Don't tell the person you offended, "Please don't be mad."


So, in some weird way, growing up in a household where none of my transgressions were immediately excused or explained away -- even if it meant going a little to the extreme and not addressing what might've needed to be addressed -- was one of the best things to happen to me. I couldn't just shrug my shoulders at the 8th grade teacher, tell her I had ADD and know that my parents would back me up if it ever came to a meeting with the school.


I say all this knowing full well that the medical world has changed dramatically -- that I would never in a million years tell someone to ignore a diagnosis and go about life as originally planned. But I am also saying this knowing full well that the parenting world has changed dramatically as well.

Day 310 of 365: Some Days

There are just some days when the well is dry and you are struggling to get even the tiniest sentence out.


This was bound to happen: I spent the last two months downright Juggernauting through my last manuscript. I barely gave myself 12 hours to rest before I was back in the saddle, querying out for M#1 and editing for M#2, pitching to various magazine websites (remember: "e-zine" died with Web 1.0), and writing and talking out every damn opinion I have, from the #YesAllWomen movement to the sudden string of failed drug tests in the MMA world (which I have not posted on this blog, but can be found in opinionated comments throughout the internets -- but, cliffnotes: bravo, high time we clean up the sport) to yet another school shooting (and, at this point, I'm just too exhausting to even comment on anymore). At a certain point, your well is going to run dry.


So this was my morning today:


"I could write about John Oliver's segment on Syria, and how it's dictator is the reincarnation of Macbeth/King Tut. Nah, too esoteric, and I don't have the energy to make the proper comparisons."


"What a lovely day. Let's right about the few spring days we actually get. Wow, how clichéd and pedantic."


"I could write about the various prospects I have going on! Yeah, great idea -- jinx the precarious thing that may or may not happen. Man makes plans and God laughs. So shut up."


So, obviously, this post is just me rambling about how I've tapped out the writing resources. I'm sure something will inspire me tomorrow. Something will happen that will make me go, "Fucking a, I need to write about this."


But, until then, here's this obvious time-waster of a post.

Day 309 of 365: Toning Down the Naivete

So now that M#3 is finally finished, sent to my loyal first readers (aka my husband and my best friend), I'm back in the saddle with my first and second manuscripts. I've been a good chunk of yesterday tearing through my query letter for M#1 (which, at this point, has been torn up and pieced together and rewritten and torn up so many times that I probably wouldn't even recognize the first draft anymore). I got to beef up my "Writing Credentials" section and I changed up the wording in the synopsis for easily the 50th time. I sent out one query today. My goal is to do a slow-and-steady one-or-two-queries-at-a-time pace for M#1. Spray and pray is just a bad idea for using guns, peeing in the woods, and querying agents.


I remember when I sent out my first query. My writing credits were abysmal -- short stories and poems in my university's literary magazine and that was it -- but I kept pressing forward because I believe that an agent would be so enamoured with my story that they'd look past that whole "completely unpublished" part.


On a scale of "One" to "Gullible is Written on the Ceiling", how naïve is that statement?


It's an ugly truth that, unless you are Stephanie-Meyer-possibly-made-a-deal-with-dark-forces levels of fortunate, a "good story" is just not good enough. There's a reason why most authors these days are also TV writers or comedians or celebrities in general. You essentially have to have a ready-made audience before anyone will take a "risk" in getting your work out to an audience.


It's a fun Catch-22: they won't look at, let alone publish, your work unless you have built an audience, and it's hard to built an audience if you're not ever published.


So, this time around, the naivete has been taken down a notch or eight. I no longer think in terms of, "When I get a book deal..." (and, yes, I actually thought like that for a bit). I recognize that how "good" of a story is doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things, as disheartening as that can be.


And I also recognize that my credentials are still paltry (or poultry) compared to other people my age and in my exact same situation. But hey, we all have to start somewhere.