Cirque du Malaise

I recently read this article: 9 productivity tips for working at home. I work at home, writing, all day. It’s not easy, and I’m always interested in how other people manage to pull it off. Some of these so-called tips were like, dur. But the whole time I was reading the blog post, I was shaking my head “no.” Maybe I'm weird (I am), but what works for other people doesn’t seem to work for me.

For me, every day consists of a lot of pacing, peeing, stalling, cleaning, spacing out and waiting anxiously for the mailman. To be fair, I’m equally if not drastically more unproductive in an office environment. But over the years that I’ve been a freelance writer, I’ve started to learn what really works for me. So if you are looking for my advice (trust me, you’re not), here are my tips, amended:

They say: Track your time by hand.

My actual calendar

I say: If “by hand” you mean the genius, multilayered, complex Excel spreadsheet and iCal calendar (with 7 different embedded calendar subjects) that I spend my time obsessing over instead of doing actual work, yup, check.

They say: Pair up with an accountability partner.

I say: Does my split personality count?

They say: Work with someone else in your home.

I say: Oh hahahahahahahaha that’s funny. Right Michael? Remember the last time we tried that? I’m pretty sure we watched all 3 seasons of Arrested Development in a week.

They say: Leave [the house].

I say: You sound like my therapist.

They say: Dress for work.

I say: I do this! Well, what I mean is, I take the time every morning to put a bra on (under my sweats that I already was wearing) and to put my hair in a ponytail. If it’s good enough for the mailman, it’s good enough.

They say: Reduce web clutter

I say: Twitter actually helps me concentrate, and if you don’t believe me, watch this:

They say: Psychologically reinforce self-discipline. Instead of getting up in the middle of a project, reward yourself with a snack once you’ve gotten it done.

I say: I can’t concentrate when I’m hungwee so that doesn’t really work for me. I’m more into fanatically monitoring my blood sugar all day. This is also why I can’t work from the library. I have to be within 30 seconds of food at all times.

They say: Answer phone calls and emails in batches.

I say: I wholeheartedly agree with this direct quote from the article: “There are few things more distracting than answering your phone in the middle of the project. After hanging up, your concentration is shot and you have to start all over again.”

And that’s why I don’t answer the phone. Pretty much, ever. The telephone is the scourge of humanity, in my opinion. I have a lot to say about how evil the phone is. But I don’t find email distracting at all. In fact, as a writer, it helps me stay in the flow of writing, sometimes.

They say: Reduce physical clutter.

I say: I throw shit out.

One of the downsides of being a writer with a naturally curious personality and a wee bit of an obsessive compulsive issue is that I know a real lot about some extremely useless things.

For instance, ask me anything in the world about percale sheets. I’m pretty much the world’s leading expert on threadcount versus weave, after spending the last three weeks shopping around for new linens. I can tell you, for instance, that percale gets thicker with time as the threads tighten up and bind together. And that a high threadcount does not necessarily make for nicer sheets. And that the best cotton, as far as sheets are concerned, comes from Egypt. And that the best flannel comes from Italy. And that everyone that works in the Macy’s sheet department at the Northgate Mall cares more about crystal meth than they do about sheets. And that, incidentally, the Northgate Mall is a good place to go if you want a glimpse at what hell is going to be like. (HINT: It smells like Drakkar Noir.)

Another thing I know a lot about: tea.

Once, I got in what I’ll politely classify a “discourse” with a barista in San Francisco because he erroneously told me that the mint tea was “decaf.” I felt like it was my moral responsibility to explain to him that, technically, mint tea is not “decaffeinated” because it never contained caffeine in the first place. In fact, mint tea is not tea at all but, rather what’s called a tisane. To actually be tea, it has to come from the camellia sinensis plant, and naturally contains caffeine, whether it is black, green, puehr, or oolong. (And I swear to Christ I did not even have to look this up on Wikipedia.) Otherwise, it’s a tisane, which is what all herbal teas are.

He wasn’t really all that pleased to be schooled on his job and I’m pretty sure he wanted to shoot me in the eye with his espresso spigot. In case you are thinking, I can see where he was coming from, don’t worry, I hate me too. Know-it-alls are real annoying. I try to tone it down.

I really do love tea, though. I’m very, shall we say, particular about tea. I once stormed out of a Whole Foods in L.A. because they only had Twinings tea available at the coffee bar. Not okay, Whole Foods. Twinings is diner tea. At least pony up the Mighty Leaf.

In an alternate life I would own a tea company. Instead, I own an imaginary spice company, SimpleBasic: www.simplebasic-sf.com Sometimes I concoct actual things and give them to my friends. Recently, I made two gigantic batches of two different kinds of tea:

They’re pretty delicious. I was feeling self-congratulatory.

But then I got turned on to this new company Tea Sparrow, and I was humbled. Tea Sparrow is a tea club. Every month, they send you a variety box of loose leaf teas in these sweet little reclose-able bags. I got my hands on the first box, and dove in to the Red Rocks, which is an herbal rooibus vanilla blend. I’m not usually a big rooibus fan, mainly because it reminds me of a certain South African tea “friend” I used to have who kind of ruined my life a little bit, but this rooibus may have actually turned my life back around. It was that good. The rest of the teas were equally star quality.

Signing up for this monthly tea delivery might have to be my splurge of the year. Unless you count the Italian percale sheets I just bought.  But, you know, those were more of a necessity than a splurge.

Anyway, I really want this new company to succeed because they are doing good things with tea and it’s a fun idea, so if you’re into tea, please check it out:

www.teasparrow.com

Spoiler alert: If you have not yet seen Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (“Forever is only the beginning!”) and plan to, you might not want to read this just yet. Otherwise, these are the top ten most embarrassing things about the fact that I went to see the latest Twilight movie this past weekend.

1

Having to walk up to the ticket booth and say “two tickets for the Twilight movie, please,” and then using my telepathy-slash-paranoia to read her mind as she thought: “Wow, you’re definitely 40, and this is what you’re doing on a Saturday night?"

2

When the ticket-taker asked us “Team Edward or Team Jacob?” (just before I punched him in the throat).

3

When the lady in line behind me at the Kabuki ordered a “Team Edward,” which apparently was a special drink they were serving at the bar that night. I was embarrassed for HER in this case, but still. I got a Diet Coke.

4

That the only people in the theater were us and a bunch of serious girl-nerds who actually have an opinion on “Team Edward” versus “Team Jacob.”

5

That said girl nerds spent the movie shouting things out at the screen during sex scenes as if we were at Rocky Horror Picture Show and giggling maniacally until Leslie had to tell them to STFU (which she gracefully waited until I was in the bathroom to do because she knows I get anxious about confrontation).

6

Having to later explain to Leslie the creepy innuendo behind a sexzy werewolf “imprinting” on an infant vampire baby. Gross.

7

That I did kind of like this movie, just like I liked all the others, which I also saw in the theater.

8

That I have clearly tipped over the edge into sad unrecoverable spinsterhood.

9

That all the street cred I got for never having seen an entire episode of Sex & The City is now out the window.

10

I ran out of ideas so I asked Leslie for #10. She said I should be embarrassed that I bothered to instigate a conversation with her on the way home about whether or not the baby was a vampire baby or human baby, and then when she said human baby, I said that doesn’t make sense, since it had to drink human blood IN UTERO to survive, at which point she said, “Really? That doesn’t make logical sense to you? But the rest of the movie and the entire franchise does?”

Every once in a while — okay let’s just call it once a month — I resign myself to take a mental health day. A mental health day is when, despite the mountains of work and exercise obligations and “should’s” and “must’s” and “have to’s,” one instead collapses on the couch in a state of general malaise, maybe sobs a little bit, and then watches 8 straight hours of mindless television while eating cookies and soup for dinner (in that order).

Mental health days are absolutely essential for maintaining spiritual equilibrium, especially around the holiday season. And to be really worthwhile, they have to happen when it’s least convenient and there is the most amount of pressing things to get done STAT.

I had a mental health day yesterday. Mondays are good days for mental health days because they are a) high pressure days to begin with and b) a great way to set you up for a week of saying “fuck it.” On this particular Monday, I had just gotten back from spending the weekend with good friends up in Mendocino. I had already taken a half day to drive home, and was planning to buckle down the moment I arrived at my office in order to power through several hours of work before going to yoga at 6:30pm like a good Godfearin’ yogi.

But it was not to be.

It was too cold in my house to think (cursed damp 55 degree November day) and things were out of sorts. Because I was gone all weekend and have been busy lately, there was an ominous pile of laundry calling me. There were tumbleweeds on the floor and a sink full of dishes and, try as I might, I could not ignore them. But I couldn’t get myself to do them, either, because that would just be admitting defeat over my concentration issues. So instead, I did the logical thing: I flung myself on the couch, had a tantrum for just a sec, and then commenced to watched back-to-back episodes of Six Feet Under until midnight.

I didn’t go to yoga. You know how they say, “You never regret going to yoga”? You know how they say that? You know how they tell you that going to yoga will fix whatever ails you? That if you have a cold coming on, you should “sweat it out”? If you just got really bad news, you can “find gratitude” on your mat? If you are experiencing general malaise, you should “get out of your head”?

Sometimes they are right. I’ve had these yoga-saving experiences; I have. But I’ll tell you what. Nothing brings you back to a state of equanimity and peace like a good old fashioned mental health sesh on the couch.

The slow decline into winter’s dark days is a time when my bio-clock says “Slow down! Hibernate! Store up fat for winter!” and accordingly, my energy level plummets and I desire warm, high-calorie foods and less activity. This is the season when I am most inclined to blow things of a social or active nature off and geek out on the Internet instead.

I used to fight it. I used to self-judge. But I’ll tell you, I’ve really learned to abide by my need for a periodic mental health day. I’ve been taking them my entire life. They really do work. Better than yoga.

If you ever want to figure out exactly what kind of a person you are, I highly recommend traveling alone to Asia. You can't hide from yourself when you are completely out of your comfort zone.

Luckily for me, being out of my comfort zone has been extremely comfortable during this trip to Thailand, thanks to the generosity of two very good friends of mine, and also American Express. For the past week, I've been staying at some of the most extravagant hotels and resorts I've ever been to in my life.

It all started at Le Meridien, a sophisticated highrise hotel for worldly traveler types in the Silom district of downtown Bangkok, where the  retro-chic rooms have both day and night blinds, operated with the touch of a button. I'm a big fan of blackout shades, especially when dealing with epic jet lag, so I got "my" money's worth out of these shades.

After this first day in Bangkok (affectionately referred to as "the day that lasted a thousand hours" by my jet lag), M and D and I took a car down to the coast to a lovely little seaside town called Hua Hin. Sadly for me, I made the mistake of popping a Dramamine for the ride and was in a drooly lobotomized state for the duration, able to lift my head just barely once we pulled through the gates of the  Hyatt Regency. After that, I was forbidden from taking Dramamine again. M referred to it as "drama!-mean" and said that it was strictly off limits. Boo.

The Hyatt was amazeballs. Pictures, a thousand words, etcetera on my Tumblr page if you are interested.

I've never been a great traveler. I get really homesick. Homesickness, for me, often takes me the form of fainting. It's a quirky panic attack symptom I honed very early in life.  When I travel to overwhelmingly far away places, there is always at least one moment when I faint or almost faint. I fainted in Bradley Intl airport once while waiting to board a plane to Mexico City, and another time I actually fainted on a plane, a red-eye from SFO to Miami. That was one of my more dramatic faints. I nearly fainted in Cuzco, Peru, although I blame the extreme altitude for that one. And true to form, I almost fainted here in Thailand, but good news: I kept it together. I can sometimes psych myself out of fainting.

But I can't psych myself out of feeling completely adrift. It's so strange to be on the other side of the planet, while everyone I know and love is not just around the other side of the world, but actually a whole half a day away, so that while I am here, sitting on the beach in the bright sunshine on Friday, you all are sleeping your way through Thursday night. I look out over the perfect celadon sea and wonder if my life in California is a real thing or just a construct of my imagination.

But quickly my life here in Thailand — now I am on the Shangri La island of Samui — is becoming the new normal. Days of sunshine, icy lemongrass water, decadent massages on breezy open-air platforms, brilliant Thai food dumbed down just a wee bit for wussy Western-girl stomachs. I could get used to this. The only thing missing is you guys.

Because here is who I am, it turns out: a major introvert who doesn't like to sit at the community table or talk to strangers. I'm still the same shy 5-year-old. But lucky for me, I've somehow managed to accumulate the most righteous group of friends in the world, and I can't wait to connect with you all again.

But first, I have a massage to get to. Lates.

So far, turning 40 has been epically bleak. I’m not going to lie. For those of you who haven’t yet reached this milestone of despair, brace yourselves. It’s been nothing like turning 30, when I felt really, really old but also super relieved to not be in my suicidal twenties anymore. My twenties had been all about reading Sylvia Plath and Anais Nin and journaling about how nobody understands me while popping pills and going through the occasional cutting phase. My thirties, in contrast, were about yoga and Buddhism and self-care and reinvention. Unfortunately, that whole trend seemed to peak about ¾ of the way through the decade, and the last few years have been a rapid decline back into my cold hard atheist roots and occasional rebellious cigarette smoking.

So what lies ahead for the 40s? I suspect I’ll spend a big chunk of it freaking out about my looming 50^th birthday. Fuck the what. For now, I just keep repeating the phrase “I’m forty” to myself over and over, to see if it sticks.

(A friend of mine tried to cheer me up by attempting to convince me that the phrase “Life begins at forty” is a thing.  It’s not.)

I used to think that Hope For a Better Future was the one thing worth living for. You know, that future when I would have a family, kids, a front porch, etcetera? But I’ve changed my mind. The one thing worth living for, it now seems, is humor. Things that are funny. Like my friends (especially Vanessa) and Oatmeal comics and Shelby Fero on Twitter and this new Ricky Gervais show Extras. I live for other things too. The special connection I share with my feral cat, Budapest. My rich inner life.  Whipped cream.

That’s all for now. I’ll let you know if it gets any better.

Sauerkraut is really good, too. My friends made this for me. It's fucking delicious.

Like so many people in my circles, I am plagued with first world problems that threaten to derail my fragile psyche on a semi-daily basis. Right now I am spinning my wheels about a really tough one: whether or not to buy an iPad for my upcoming trip to Thailand in September. I can't really afford it, and I thought I had talked myself out of this extravagance, until I had a nice sit-down with my good friend Michelle last night. She is one of the savviest travelers I know — one of those fine modern ladies who has traversed the entire planet with a backback and a pair of sandals on and can hang with equal aplomb in a high-end resort on the shores of Bali or in a seedy hostel in Amsterdam. Furthermore, Michelle knows me really well and she knows how attached my half-assed Buddhist ass is to my gadgetry and my ability to stay in touch via the cloud. She did not recommend that I go cold turkey off my Mac fixation.

My packing list, so far

I don't want to bring my laptop, because I don't want to be tempted to work, and also because I don't want to worry about it getting stolen or waterlogged while I'm frittering away my days on white sand beaches without a care in the world. My laptop is pretty much my most prized possession. I value its wellbeing more than I care about the welfare of my own body. If I get rufied in Thailand, I'll deal with it, but I can't risk getting a scratch on my Macbook Pro.

Michelle advised me to get the iPad. Not only will it allow me to write (what's a pen?) but it will preclude me from lugging armloads of books with me on my trip. Also, movies for the plane. Very important to be distracted on airplanes at all times. I'm sure you've all seen Bridesmaids by now. I didn't even laugh during the scene where Kristen Wiig loses her marbles on the plane for a sec. I've actually fainted on airplanes. Serial.

Because I am a 6, making minor decisions is really challenging for me. I will end a relationship and move cross-country into a brand new apartment in the blink of an eye — and have done so many, many, oh too many times in my life — but ask me what kind of pizza toppings I want and I'm likely to develop adult-onset epilepsy. So this particular decision is really weighing on me.

Can you guys be a lamb and decide for me?

I’m turning 40 quite soon. How do I feel about this?

Let me illustrate by telling you about a nightmare I’ve been having: I’m driving a giant truck speeding down a freeway; the brakes don’t work; I can’t slow down; there is a big-rig on fire spinning out of control and about to jackknife into me; oh, and I’m going backwards.

That pretty much sums it up. Thanks, brain.

This morning I had a meeting with a longtime friend client, Cynthia Simon. She said, “How are you?” and I said, “I’m freaking out about turning 40.” Cynthia — who is a beautiful, stunning, radiant post-40 woman herself, laughed and said, “You’re doing fucking great.” I appreciated that — mostly because of the swearing. But, I’m not actually doing that great. I’m doing pretty terribly, if you want the honest truth. I’m kind of losing my mind about it.

I just so happen to be reading By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham, a novel about two self-involved yuppie New Yorkers in their early 40s who constantly refer to themselves as “middle aged.” Really? Middle aged? I asked a few friends of mine this weekend — women about my age or slightly older — whether they think we are in fact “middle aged.” They all basically agreed that we are (as did Wikipedia, fucker). I nodded as if I could handle this information on a cerebral level, but inside, I was quaking with terror and rage at this concept.

In my mind, “middle aged” applies to people who have gray hair (that they don’t, ahem, color), retirement plans, and grandchildren. “Middle aged” does not under any circumstances apply to people who have barely figured their shit out, are single, live paycheck to paycheck, and still remember the sordid moments of their bohemian childhood quite vividly. Yes, my grandmother was technically just a few years older than me when she became a grandmother, but things were different then.

Incidentally, I had a lovely session with another of the intuitive Cynthias in my life —Cynthia Mellon — and she informed me that I have what’s called “renunciant karma.” She explained that in other times and cultures they might have called this “nun karma.” Remember when we were teenagers and endured tragic breakups with our boyfriends and then exclaimed in a tone of abject despair: “That’s it! I’m just going to be a nun!” Ironically, I actually am, apparently, going to be a nun. You win again, 13-year-old Joslyn.

Still, the middle aged thing is not sitting comfortably in my mind.

What does this all mean? I wish I had a nice tidy answer for you. But at the moment, all I have is this recent shoe purchase to tide me over:

Would a middle aged person wear THESE?

I only fell down 4 or 5 times when I tried to wear these today. I’m gonna push through. A homeless dude at the Whole asked me why I was wearing them. I said, for practice. He said, for practice for what? And I said, to be good at it. And he said, kindly, that he would teach me how to play the bass guitar if I need to be good at something.

That really happened.

I just finished reading Man's Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. (I should say that I just finished RE-reading it, since I've read it before, but thanks to the magic of old age forgetfulness, I can now re-read books I read when I was younger and it's as if for the first time. Perk of dementia.)

Food for thought:

More and more, a psychiatrist is approached today by patients who confront him with human problems rather than neurotic symptoms.

In other words, just cuz you're miserable does not mean you're maladjusted. After all, life is kinda hard.

And also:

Edith Weisskopf, before her death professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, contended, in her article on logotherapy, that "our current mental hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to  be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable happiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy."

Well said, Edith. A legend before her time.

Takeaway: It's okay to be sad, depressed, miserable, and just generally over it sometimes. Don't let the positivity propogandists tell you otherwise! "Mental hygiene," ew.

It was rainy and glum yesterday, and that made me happy.

I was looking forward to a cozy night at home with the kitties, recuperating from my trip back east and getting rotisserie chicken at the farmer's market, and then curling up in my sleeping bag and watching my last bootlegged episode of Game of Thrones on my big new Apple monitor. I was looking forward to it so much, in fact, that of course the universe decided to thwart the whole idea. Actually, PG&E decided to thwart it.

Some project they had embarked on in my front yard went awry and our gas got disconnected. I discovered this when I went to make tea for the 400th time and the stove wouldn't light. I had a long, circuitous discussion with the PG&E repair dudes out front, and only by deductive reasoning was I able to ascertain that yes, in fact, they had accidently turned the gas off.

But don't worry, they said; it will be back on in 5 hours or so. Grr. Without gas, I have no stove (which means no tea), no heat, and no hot water.

First world problem, I told myself.

Then I went out to dinner with Maynard and ordered enough food to feed a small Malaysian village.

When I got back, the PG&E truck was once again parked out front and they were fixing the gas. The tall, beady-eyed repairman, who I am pretty sure has a mild case of Asperger's (sidenote — I sometimes think I myself have a mild case of Asperger's, so I'm not judging, just saying) came into my cottage to relight the pilots on my stove, hot water heater, and — most importantly — my regular heater.

My heater is the thing that makes my apartment so wonderfully warm and toasty and cozy and charming and just all around sweet. It’s a faux fireplace that lights up with the flick of a switch and renders the entire cottage Bikram-yoga-warm in a matter of minutes, while throwing off an inviting, wholesome amber glow. It’s so efficient that I never leave it on for more than a few minutes and I often keep the windows cracked when it’s on. I do, however, use it year round, because the Bay Area in June can be a cold bitter winter. The heater was the main source of my panic attack around not having gas. I can live without showering and hot tea, but I can’t live in a chilly cottage when it's raining for days on end.

Sadly, this is the point at which the dude informed me that my heater is totally against code and will probably poison me with carbon monoxide any minute now IF it doesn’t explode in a giant violent fireball. He said this with zero bedside manner, before giving me a lecture about how air works and quizzing me about whether I actually learned anything in high school science class (rhetorical question; I didn’t). He dramatically refused to light the pilot and backed away, muttering about the inane person who had sold us and then installed a lethal weapon in place of a heater.

Naturally, I googled “death by Carbon Monoxide poisoning.”

Now if they’re trying to make it sound scary, they are doing a really bad job. That’s A. I mean, on the list of ways to die, silently and painlessly in one’s sleep is preferable.

What’s B? B is that I got the pilot lit anyway and turned the heater back on. It’s been working for a year and a half and I haven’t asphyxiated yet. But I did plug in the carbon monoxide alarm that's been languishing in my drawer since the last time it went off (when I told myself, “the thing must be on the fritz”).

Unfortunately, it did go off again in the middle of the night. And more unfortunately, I was so tired that I got up out of bed, unplugged it, and put it back in the drawer. The one thing I am more afraid of than death is not getting enough sleep.