Religious Differences

Today this really nice couple came in and sat at my bar. They honestly were very sweet and I enjoyed chatting with them ... right up until this particular exchange made me a little uncomfortable. Just a little bit, though.

We were talking about books on tape, good books, and the wife said that the best book she'd read in a really long time was The Shack. I think that's what she said. She said what made her buy it was a positive review from Michael W. Smith on the back. (I know who he is from my teenage years.) And she said it was a Christian book, that "nonbelievers" could also enjoy it, but that believers in Christ would enjoy it that much more on a different level.

I just smiled and nodded ... because they were nice people, and I don't need to burden them with the responsibility of creating new social religious standards. Here is what I found strange about the entire exchange: It's Sunday; I'm obviously not at church -- instead, I'm working behind a bar; I am not wearing any kind of Christian jewelry. But the default assumption as to my religious beliefs is that I must be a Christian. It's amazing to me because growing up, the school I went to was always blathering on about how oppressed and marginalized Christians are in modern society. And I totally ate it up and believed it as a kid and a young adult. But the fact is -- Christians are neither oppressed nor marginalized in American society today. I don't by any means wish my religious beliefs were considered the default for anybody -- although of course, I do think that if more people thought the way I do, the world would be a better place. But who doesn't think that?

And it was also strange because I obviously felt a connection with these people; we were having a good conversation. I am under no illusions that, had I stopped the conversation about the book right there and said something along the lines of, "Actually, I don't believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior -- I celebrate each equinox and the cycles of the moon; I'm a pagan," then it would have (probably) changed the dynamic between the three of us. I wonder what they would have said or thought about me. Talk about marginalized ... I have a feeling that they would have paid up and left right then and there instead of hanging out and chatting.

And that's fine. That's their prerogative; I understand that most people don't have the first clue about what paganism is and what it means and the moral codes involved (yes, there are moral codes). It just seems supremely ironic to me that, as a teenager, I believed I really was marginalized, in the minority, as a Christian, because that's what the adults told me. And now here I am, part of a religion that is not even organized and is certainly not in the mainstream. I know what marginalization is now.

Maybe that's just the universe's way of teaching us ... making us into the things we thought we once were.

Not The Reaction She'd Hoped For

So there's this girl who works at the restaurant who, last week, was saying she needed to take a pregnancy test because she was late.

And this week I come in and when I see her, I say, "Hi, how are you today, so-and-so?"

And she says, "Pregnant."

And this is the first thing out of my mouth: "Oh. Shit."

Then: "Um. Congratulations ... who's the daddy?"

"Oh, this guy who lives in Alabama ... it happened over the holidays."

"Wow. So, um, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to have it."

And all I can think about is how there's a recession ... and this girl is having a baby. Not that there is anything at all wrong with having babies. (For me, there might be. But that's another story, another blog, another day.) And it's not because she and her significant other are financially doing okay ... and it's not because she really wants a baby ... it's because she just wasn't all that careful when she had sex with some random dude over the holidays.

To me, it just doesn't make sense. Which is maybe why the first thing out of my mouth is, "Oh. Shit."

Number 26

26. I pluck my eyebrows standing up in my bathtub with a hand mirror because it has the best light in the house.

25 Random Things

This is something that's been passing around Facebook. I'm not posting it there, but it does get to live here.

1. My big toes are double-jointed.

2. I am obsessed about very few things ... one of them is music. I would almost always rather be listening to music than watching television.

3. My three favorite books, in no particular order, are: A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole; the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (although if I have to choose just one of those, it's definitely Deathly Hallows); and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

4. I have a post office box because my house is too close to the post office to get mail. (Seriously.)

5. I don't have a dishwasher ... and I prefer doing dishes by hand, anyway.

6. I can bake a mean pie.

7. And a mean cheesecake.

8. I use clinical-strength deodorant, which you have to put on before you go to sleep. But I forget pretty frequently and have to use my husband's deodorant.

9. Bikram yoga is one of my favorite things in this world, ever.

10. My can't-miss radio shows are a 9:30 a.m. Tuesday slot by Alan Watts and the 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday slot, "Reggae Bloodlines." Both on KGNU. 88.5 FM Boulder, 1390 AM Denver.

11. The podcasts I subscribe to are "This Week in Science," "APM Weekend America" and "Savage Love."

12. I am an avid advice-column reader. Savage Love, Dear Abby, Annie's Mailbox, Classic Ann Landers, the Advice Goddess, Dear Margo, Dear Prudence, Carry Tennis, Amy Dickinson and Carolyn Hax are the columns I read weekly.

13. When I was four years old, an anaconda bit me. True story.

14. I had a dream this morning wherein I was lying in bed, unable to fall asleep. I didn't realize I was asleep until my cat jumped on me.

15. My favorite band/musical group is Blackalicious. However, if I could only listen to one genre of music, it would be trip-hop/downtempo. (Although I would see if I could also squeeze drum and bass in ... the syncopated rhythm argument? Think it would fly?)

16. When I get my master's degree, my GPA in grad school will have been 4.0. First time I did that since elementary school!

17. When I sing along with Bradley Nowell (from Sublime), he makes my voice sound really good.

18. I sing regularly to my dog -- usually freestyle lyrics to a song stuck in my head or something playing about Marshall and what he's doing.

19. I bite my nails. I've been able to get them long and beautiful more than once, but something always caves and I bite them off. I don't know what it is. (They are in a long and beautiful phase right now.)

20. I don't drink alcohol regularly, but I really like making drinks.

21. I weigh myself every day.

22. I make my bed every day. (Well. Almost.)

23. I can type 120 words per minute.

24. I have a mild obsession with stationery.

25. I proudly own an authentic set of Russian nesting dolls.

Go With the Flow

It's an almost universally acknowledged truth that energy creates a flow in the universe. The difference (in my opinion) is what people choose to name and how they choose to conceptualize that movement. And yet (also in my opinion), there are so many people who fight the flow. Or try to change its direction.

Take social and civil progress, for example. To me, it just doesn't make sense to deprive certain people of specific basic rights. Should there be age restrictions on marriage? Absolutely, because (presumably), every human will reach that age and thus be allowed to get married to whomever they please, except for a child or a close relative (which is just NOT good for the gene pool as a species). Not all that long ago in this country, we were debating whether former slaves would be allowed to get married -- to each other! If you look back at human history, there is a slow but inexorable march toward freedom for everybody and equality for everybody. That is part of the flow.

But it could just be me.

Ch-Ch-Changes

1. I have completed my graduation application for May. If all goes according to plan -- in other words, my paper is completed and I pass my defense -- then I will be walking in May with my master's degree. Woot!

2. Ella Taylor got laid off. That makes me really sad. She was my favorite critic in the VVM chain.

3. I had a rant I wanted to type out ... but I'm not sure what happened to it. Will revisit if I can.

Maybe I Should Go Back to School ...

Seriously.

I'm gearing up to finish my master's degree (finally!) but ... I don't know if magazine writing is going to be my future career.

Maybe a doctorate in Women and Gender Studies? Then I could be a professor. I love academia.

Just a thought ...

BL Recap: Game Play

So last night was the third week of the new season of The Biggest Loser. Here's what went down ...

The temptation was as follows: Each team member was left alone in a room for five minutes with an assortment of food. Not healthy food -- we're talking pizza, peanut butter cups, donuts, you get the picture. The team who ate the most calories combined would get the opportunity to take their trainer home with them and train for 24 hours with their partners. Everyone on the ranch refused to eat anything ... except for the yellow team member. (Mandy? I think that's her name ...) She ate one piece of pizza "for the boys." She's a mom and misses her family and wanted to see them. And she cried after she ate it.

Two team members at home ate food: blue team and silver team. The silver team member at home, you may recall, is Carla. Joelle, the silver team member on the ranch, almost ate but decided not to at the last minute. Regardless, Carla consumed more calories than anyone else, so Joelle and Carla were going to bring Bob home to Detroit.

Joelle was excited about going home, and everyone was pissed off at her for it, because Mandy wanted to go home so bad and they thought it was mean of Joelle to rub it in Mandy's face that she wasn't going home. Personally, I think that everyone was just pissed at Joelle and were overreacting a little bit. And if Mandy REALLY wanted to see her kids that bad, she would have eaten more than one slice of pizza.

Well, Bob gets to Detroit, and sooner or later you know it's going to come out to Carla what a big baby Joelle has been for the past week. Carla, as expected, flips out. They fight. They cry. They make up ... kind of. Carla tells Joelle that she BETTER do her best to bring Carla back to the ranch.

(Meanwhile, Dan's orange teammate, whose name is escaping me and I'm too lazy to look it up, has been eating things like hot dogs and fried chicken back home. I'm worried about Dan. Their "couples" relationship is best friends, and if Dan does really well and loses a bunch of weight and his friend can't get a handle on his relationship with food, his friend could end up sabotaging Dan's success.)

Anywho. The challenge this week was a massive jump-rope challenge. Green team's Tara took it home ... but I found myself actually rooting for purple team's Kristin, just because she probably has never won anything like that in her life, and I felt like it would really mean a lot to her. She came in second.

Then came the weigh-in. Tara, of course, got immunity, and Dan, my other favorite, was safe. So was Kristin, whom I also like now. Below the yellow line were ... Joelle. Duh. And Damien from the red team.

It seemed like a no-brainer. But, of course, there was a twist. What happened was this: Damien and Joelle were both on Bob's team. Last week, when Dan and Jerry (Jillian's team) fell below the yellow line, Bob's team came to Jillian's team and asked Jillian's team how they were voting, as a matter of courtesy. This week, Jillian's team did the same. Of course Bob's team was sending Joelle home. Everyone thought that Jillian's team would follow their lead.

But. Jillian's team has apparently started game-playing already. Here's the issue: Damien is a stronger player than Joelle. So strategically for Jillian's team, it makes sense to send the stronger person home; then they still have to compete against Joelle, but it's not like that's as difficult as competing against Damien. Even though Bob's team all assumed they were going to vote for Joelle. Of course they didn't; they voted for Damien. And since the score was tied, and Damien's percentage of weight lost was lower than Joelle's, Damien went home. Joelle managed to sneak through by the skin of her teeth.

Pretty amazing stuff. I bet this starts some serious competition between Bob and Jillian's teams ...

Blah

I was really hoping this wouldn't happen, but it has. I've hit a wall. And it's only January 21!

My biggest issue is eating/drinking at night. Mostly the drinking, if I'm honest. And I usually am. I drink a glass of red wine every night ... but most night it turns into two glasses of red wine ... and they're not the standardized five-ounce pours, either.

I think that's what's going on. I haven't gained any weight since being introduced to Jillian Michaels ... but I haven't lost any, either. Frustrating.

Worktastic

So I just got done with my Sunday shift at Chili's, and there were a couple of things that annoyed me ...

First was our lounge server, Kelli, who always works on Sundays. She is hugely pregnant (due next month), 25 years old with two or three kids already. Nice enough girl, but ... slow, slow server. Every Sunday I find myself filling up her iced teas and waters, spotting tables before she does and asking if she needs any help. It's not like I want to take her tables -- she even told me she missed me while I was on vacation, because the bartender who worked my Sunday shift took every other table in the lounge, so she only got half of what she would have. But it's frustrating to me to see people looking around for the server, then they look at me, and I want to tell them, "Hey, I'm not serving you right now because your server thinks she can handle it."

So she's checking the schedule for next week and writing it down while I'm in the back eating my lunch. (The new southwestern vegetable soup -- yummy! -- with a house salad with romaine mix, no croutons, no cheese and the new fire-roasted tomato vinaigrette.) And she says, "I love Amy." (Amy is the manager who makes the schedule -- the manager who told me when I called about getting more shifts that people are fighting for shifts up in Conifer and I'd be better off down in Lakewood or, god forbid, Applewood -- I am never going back to that store. But I digress. Point is, after the general manager told me I could have more shifts and he would rather have me on the floor than someone who sucks, Amy tells me that there are no shifts to be had.)

And I say, "Oh?"

And she says, "Yeah. Everyone else is getting their shifts cut, but I still have all my shifts."

I said something noncommittal, but inside I'm thinking, "What?" Because some of those are lounge shifts, too, where you need to be able to handle nine tables at once. And Kelli, bless her heart, can't.

Take today as an example. (I'm glad this happened; these people made my day.) This couple came and sat down at Table 75 in the lounge. They were waiting for Kelli to make her way over there; for my part, I'm trying not to make eye contact, until I go back to the kitchen and ask Kelli if she wants me to take them. She says, "No, I got it." I say okay and go back to the bar.

The woman in the couple comes up to the bar and asks if they can order beer. I say sure and pour their beers; when I turn around, they've moved to the bar. This couple comes in frequently and they work while they eat lunch (it's a bunch of paperwork), so being at the bar I'm sure was not what they really wanted, because there's not as much space. But as long as they're comfortable, I don't care; so I take their food order -- and by the time I'm finished ringing it in, Kelli comes by, ready to give them silverware and take their drink order. That's how slow this girl is.

They sit and drink and eat, and they end up leaving me a huge tip ($17 and change on a $28 bill) and tell me, "Thanks for the excellent service; that's why we moved to the bar."

So you can see why I'm not exactly sure why Kelli, of all people, is getting to keep all her shifts at the restaurant. Fair much? I don't think so.

Second: We were busy today. At 2 p.m., Kelli wants to leave, so the manager cuts her. Then we start getting about a billion tables in the lounge. I have another server take one of them, but I'm running my ass off (I have several people sitting at my bar, too), and then my relief calls -- the bartender who comes in to replace me. She is a sweetheart; her name is Deanna. She asks if it's okay with me if she's fifteen minutes late. (She's supposed to be in by 3 p.m.) She's done that before, and normally it's fine, but today I'm so slammed that I say, "We're really busy, so please get here as soon as you can." She gets there at 3:03 according to the computer clock; I'm still running around, getting people refills, making drinks for the dining room, trying to figure out how to make a lemon-drop martini with Tuaca (gross, I know), running food, yadda yadda blah blah. And she decides it's time to walk around and talk to everybody. Finally, I said, "Deanna, can you please clock in?" Because there are people sitting down at the bar; I don't want to open a tab that I'm just going to have to transfer over to her. Or two or three tabs, as it was by the time she decided to actually start working. Like I said, she's a sweetie, and normally I don't care, but I'd been running around and was ready to leave Chili's.

So that was my day. There was one really funny incident: While I'm busy running, running, running, one of the servers, Kristen, rang in a happy-hour margarita on the rocks (which is really two margaritas). She's training to be a bartender, so she's watching me go all over the place; I'm planning on getting to her shortly, but then she says, "I can make these if you don't mind." "Go ahead," I tell her. So she comes back, takes the cocktail shaker and cooler glass (you mix the margarita, or drink in question, in the shaker, put the cooler glass on top and shake them) and puts the tequila, triple sec, sour mix and lime juice in. She puts the cooler glass on and shakes ... and she's somehow managed to get the cooler glass stuck in the shaker. Which happens from time to time. I can't get it off; our manager can't get it off; the manager finally puts it in my sink of hot water to loosen it up and tells Kristen to make another batch. Which she does. And gets THAT cooler mug stuck in THAT shaker.

We only have two cocktail shakers behind the bar, and I'm kind of giggling at this point, because Kristen is a tiny little thing -- smaller than I am for sure -- and I think it's pretty funny she's managed to get TWO of the shakers taken out of commission. Finally the manager takes her second attempt back to the kitchen, where it takes Damon about five minutes to separate the glass and the shaker.

She was so cute, too. She came up to me and asked if I was mad at her, and I said "No, of course not." "Are you sure?" "Yes; of course I'm not mad at you. I thought it was hilarious." "Really? You promise?" "Yes, Kristen, I promise. Funniest thing I saw all day."

Two Pounds

I swear, just doing yoga and working out with Jillian Michaels (I pretend like she really is my personal trainer) yesterday made me lose two pounds.

I know. Crazy, right? But the scale doesn't lie, or so they say.

We'll see if tomorrow brings another two ... the Jillian DVD box says "Lose Up to 20 Pounds in 30 Days." I don't need to lose more than twenty pounds, so we'll see....

Ouch!

Some of you might be aware of my healthy obsession with fitness/workout DVDs. I just got two new ones (late Christmas/early birthday presents); I think they're going to change my life. But then, I think that about all my workout DVDs.

But these are like two sides of the same coin. The first one is Rodney Yee's AM/PM Yoga DVD. Obviously, it has yoga stretches/series for your morning and for your evening. The second is a Jillian Michaels DVD -- 30 Day Shred.

The AM/PM yoga is pretty self-explanatory and easy, although you do get a good stretch on, and I'm not quite as flexible as Rodney or the other yoga instructor, whose name escapes me right now; this will be a good opportunity to work on that, plus get my mind ready for my day (and the end of my day)

Jillian, though ... whoa. Her DVD is broken into three levels. You start at Level 1 (duh), then progress to Levels 2 and 3 as you feel ready.  And I will be the first to tell you, Level 1 might be the "beginner" level, but it's not all fun and games, people. It hurts. And it's only a thirty-minute workout, if that!

She uses circuits of three minutes of strength training, two minutes of cardio and one minute of ab work, and there are three circuits. You'd think that sounds easy ... that's only nine minutes of strength training, six minutes of cardio and three minutes of abs total, right? Right?

No. She moves from one exercise to another quickly, and so your heart rate never gets back to normal after your first circuit. And she is a tough cookie. I can see why her Biggest Loser team does so well year after year.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be done with Level 1 in ten days and ready to move on to Level 2. We'll see, though. Jillian ain't no joke, even in DVD form.

Biggest Loser Recap

Last night was the second episode of the new season of Biggest Loser. By week two, I generally don't know yet whom I want to win the final $250,000 prize -- or even the $100,000 take-home prize. But I have an idea of my favorite players and whom I'm starting to seriously dislike. I have to revise my favorites throughout the season ... take last season for example: I wanted Colleen to win the grand prize. (Or maybe she spells her name Coleen. I'm not sure. But she was the one I thought should win it all.) When she was eliminated, Michelle and her mom, Renee, became my two favorites, almost by default. Yes, they were sweet, sweet ladies -- but my main motivation was that I really, really, REALLY didn't want either of those bitches (aka Heba and Vicki) anywhere near the $250,000 prize. They sucked. I hated them almost from the very beginning, when Heba started being all bossy and Vicki started being all bitchy. I even felt sorry for Heba during the first few weeks! I mean, with a name like Heba, you're really set up to be fat. It's not her fault. But it is her fault that she is mean as a snake! (I know most snakes aren't really mean. But in my world, they are.)

So this week, I cemented my relationship with a couple of people I knew had the potential to be favorites, started garnering some serious dislike for one person, and had to say goodbye to someone who wasn't exactly a favorite but whom I wanted to see do well on the show. Let's start with the favorites: Tara (green team) and Dan (orange team). Tara is an ass-kicker. She carried green team to second place in the challenge last week, and she won the challenge this week -- which involved kayaking across a huge bay and then racing up a mountain. A small mountain, but still. I would have been exhausted, but she managed to beat the black team's Blaine, who is arguably the strongest competitor (next to Tara, of course). She and her teammate are former models who both gained a bunch of weight. Dan, unfortunately, came in last, which means he added a one-pound penalty to his final weight at the weigh-in. I like Dan; I want him to do well. He is an immense teenager (19, I think) and had a lot of trouble paddling the kayak because he is just so big, but he made it to the top of the mountain. I was proud of him. I hope he gets to stay till the end, I think he has the potential to make huge changes.

I should stop here and explain the twist of last week, because it's pertinent. Last week, the black team won immunity in the challenge, and the brown team had the highest percentage of weight lost, so they were both immune from this twist. Every remaining team had to send one member home. In thirty days, if the team member who stayed is still at the ranch, their partner will get to come back on the ranch. So this means every team except for black and brown only has one member on the ranch right now.

So, it made sense that Tara stayed, because her former-model best friend was kind of a wimp. It was her fault they lost the challenge last week. And Tara, as mentioned earlier, is an animal. If she gets kicked off, it will be because she had freakishly low weight loss (which she did this week, 2 pounds! Lucky she had immunity!) and people are afraid of how she's going to advance.

Every other group's split-up last week made sense, too, except for the silver team. They were best friends, Carla and Joelle. Carla is significantly bigger than Joelle, and she also seemed to have more drive, so it would have made sense for her to stay; I remember noticing that last week. It obviously was an argumentative decision they made to have Joelle stay, because Carla said something to the effect of: This is putting our friendship on the line. If she gets sent home, trouble will abound.

This week, Joelle did not impress anyone. She told Bob straight up that she doesn't mind the diet part but hates exercise. Bob tried to get her to understand that it's part of a package deal, you have to have all of the elements of weight loss to be truly successful at it. A very Zen speech. And Joelle seemed to understand ... until you see her in the gym and notice that she refuses to do a real push-up. I can't even explain what she was doing, really ... she had her hands and knees on the floor, in kind of a box shape, and was bending her arms and bringing her head to the floor, not her chest. It was weird. And Bob kept trying to explain to her that she was doing it wrong ... and she would nod and then continue her fake push-ups, looking around to see if Bob was noticing that she was cheating.

She also refused to sprint full-out for thirty seconds, which made Bob completely lose his mind. It was a little hilarious, to be honest ... Bob is the sweet (but tough ... but not as tough as Jillian) trainer, and he (as he said later) became Jillian Michaels for several minutes. He was screaming at Joelle at the top of his lungs. He finally, after I-don't-know-how-many tries, got her to sprint for thirty seconds. "Thank you!"

She also was the only one tempted by the temptation -- $25,000 if she would leave the ranch, effective immediately. Which would mean Carla never got to come back.

I was surprised at Joelle, honestly. Carla doesn't seem like the kind of woman I would mess with. I wouldn't want her mad at me. And I can imagine she was beyond pissed at Joelle.

Anyway. This is getting long. What happened at the weigh-in was: Dan (with his one-pound penalty) and Jerry fell below the yellow line. Jerry is part of the oldest couple that Biggest Loser has ever had on the show. I like him. He has got some serious health problems and really does need to be there. Joelle was right behind them; barely safe. Just above the yellow line. I was pissed. I do want Carla to come back -- I like Carla -- but Joelle doesn't even want to be there, it seems like! She almost went home for $25,000! And for Jerry and Dan, the two players who NEED to be on that ranch the most, to fall below, was worst-case scenario.

Jerry ended up getting sent home. I was sad for him, but also happy for Dan. All of the players said what I was thinking: Nobody wants Dan to become Jerry. And Jerry has his wife and kids at home to support him; Dan is nineteen. And both he and his wife, Estella, look fah-bulous, dahling!

We'll see if Joelle picks up the pace next week. I certainly hope so!

My Dog is a Bad Influence

Truly. He is. I have stopped calling him "bulldog" because his new name is "beardog." He hibernates in the winter, I swear it. He sleeps till at least 10:30 or 11 a.m. every day.

I've been trying to get up at 7:30 when D wakes up and goes to work because otherwise I feel like I've just wasted a huge chunk of my day. But today, Marshall snuggled up right next to me and I thought, "I'll just stay in bed until he wakes up." I had some weird dreams (which I don't remember right now) and finally dragged myself out of bed at 9:50 a.m.

Marshall still didn't get up until about 10:30, at which point he followed me around the house, whining at me. I swear he was saying, "Let's go back to bed. C'mon. C'mon!"

Bad influence.