When Personal Ceased to be Private

Hey, you.

Yeah, you, perfect stranger. Let me ask you something.

Can I get your phone number? No? How about your email address? Why not? It's for demographic purposes. Hey, why are you walking away?

Is it just me, or is giving your phone number or email address to a total stranger NOT something you do on a regular basis? At a bar, on the bus, even at church--under what circumstances are you willing to part with these particulars? Doesn't someone usually have to earn your trust (or at least your acquaintance) to gain access to them? For me, the answer is yes, they do. And yet, with increasing frequency, I have lately been asked at retail stores to provide both these personal identifiers upon checking out--as though this is no big deal.

What makes this so unbelievable to me is that all around us are are stories of stolen identities, hacked accounts, fraudulent credit card charges. This is the golden age of identity theft. Who doesn't know someone who has been touched by this? You can even hire companies now whose sole purpose is to protect you against this crime. As someone who's seen the devastating effects of identity theft firsthand, I'm not likely to verbally give out much more than my name within earshot of total strangers. But, against all reason, retail stores expect their customers to blithely spew out their personal information like candy out of a broken pinata.

It's become so pervasive and obnoxious that I find myself driving away from these encounters fantasizing about the preposterous information I'm going to give next time--the fake addresses, spelled out one letter at a time. "My email address? Sure, it's M-U-T-A-N-T-H-E-M-O-R-R-H-O-I-D@gmail.com. You did ask me for my private information, right?" Or "F-A-K-E-E-M-A-I-L@N-O-N-E-O-F-Y-O-U-R-B-E-E-S-W-A-X.com. Can you read it back to me to make sure you got it?" I know it's not really the employee's fault for asking. I'm sure they're trained to do so and probably even policed by their managers about how many they can get in a shift. But I have had the occasional run-in with an employee who seems genuinely affronted that I won't supply my private information upon request. Like this exchange I recently had at Pier 1:

"Can I get your phone number?"

"I don't give it out."

"Oh, but it's just for demographic purposes."

"Sorry, I don't give it out."

Look of confusion and offense.

"Can I get your email address?"

(Laughter) "No, I don't give that out either."

"Oh, but it's just so you can receive coupons."

"I'm not interested, thanks."

"Okay. Would you like to sign up for our Rewards Card and receive X percent off your purchase today?"

Primal scream; I climb over the counter and throttle salesperson.

Seriously, though, when did personal information cease to be private? Is this the path our culture of exposure leads to? If people I've met once or twice can see my family's vacation photos on Facebook, maybe the amiable stranger behind the counter at Bed, Bath, and Beyond is entitled to give me a call on his next break. But last I checked with my wrong-o-meter, that's just not okay.

So what do you think? Is it reasonable for a retail chain to expect people to issue forth their phone number upon request? Or is it totally presumptuous and an invasion of privacy to even ask? For now, I'm just going to be the broken record that keeps saying no.

And if they have a problem with that, they can reach me at zombies_ate_my_email@gmail.com.

Telling Myself the Truth: the Experience of a Hypnobirth

Nine days ago I gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Christine Hope. Unlike my first two deliveries, with this one I opted to do a natural, unmedicated birth. Otherwise known as Insanity--(or some people would have me believe). I'm no glutton for punishment and (surprise!) I don't actually like pain, but I had my reasons for wanting to at least attempt to do this crazy crunchy granola thing, and now that it's all said and done, I feel so pleased with and moved by the experience that I wanted to share about it here on my Soapbox.

So…why would any woman in her right mind choose to endure hours--in my case 15 hours--of unparalleled physical pain with no medical relief? To earn some weird badge of honor? To atone for the sin of Eve? To manipulate her children in years to come by bemoaning the X amount of hours she spent in labor to bring them into the world? It's somewhat hard to explain, but no, no, and no. For me, the desire to give birth naturally stemmed from a few (non-martyring) factors. First, because I had already experienced giving birth to two other children with the support of our friend Mr. Epidural, I wanted to try a different experience--perhaps to unite myself with those billions of women who have for centuries given birth in this way. And because there were a few aspects of my first two births that I felt dissatisfied with, this time I selected a midwife instead of an OB doctor. Knowing that the midwife's general philosophy runs along the lines of nonintervention, I decided to go with that flow as well. (Not that she would/could have stopped me from receiving pain medication; I did, after all, give birth at a hospital.) Also, to a degree of much less importance to me, I knew that an epidural carries with it some (very minimal) risks to both mother and baby and can make the baby quite a bit sleepier after birth. I would argue that babies are sleepy after birth no matter what, so this was not a huge deal to me. But there you have it.

The main reason, though, that I felt such a keen inclination to go without pain medication this time around has to do with my perpetual obsession with the interplay between mind and body--or, more aptly in this situation, the power of the mind over the body. As I've alluded to elsewhere on this blog, in the two years since my last child Elliot was born, I've been fighting the mindbody battle against my own funky version of fibromyalgia. This means I have roving muscle and joint pain that comes and goes in correlation with my levels of stress and negative emotions like anger, anxiety, and depression. Basically, my body is a total drama queen that likes to act out my emotions on its own. As I began to understand this underlying connection (believe me, I was tested for every known disease, disorder, and allergy and experimented with diet, exercise, and sleep to no avail) I was able to mitigate my pain by meditation, relaxation, taking time for myself, and simply being aware of my circumstances. Having achieved this success gave me the confidence to believe I could use my mind to deal with pain on any level--even the "10 out of 10" pain of labor and delivery. If I could do that, I knew that on my days of doubting whether all that mumbo-jumbo works (because some days are harder than others), I could always look back on unmedicated, mind-tempered childbirth as a victory--possibly the greatest mindbody victory of all.

Enter Marie F. Mongan's book, Hypnobirthing. I purchased this book after reading positive reviews online and decided to use it as my guide to accomplishing this goal I considered so worthwhile. Upon reading it, my primary takeaway was Mongan's premise that fear is the enemy during childbirth. (And isn't that true of life in general?) Fear gives rise to tension, which gives rise to pain. And truly, in a normal childbirth, there is nothing to fear. Mongan reiterates many times the fact that the female body is meant to do everything it does during labor. Your uterus is supposed to contract--how else could it let the baby out? You're supposed to feel pressure--there's a seven-pound bundle of humanity about to come out of you. Thus, through a combination of meditation/visualization, breathing techniques, and simply telling yourself the truth, fear can be eliminated and pain drastically reduced.

And guess what? It worked!

As contractions came rolling down the hatch, I was able to maintain a state of mental calm, reminding myself that there was nothing to fear, that this was a perfectly natural and appropriate process. I reminded myself that soon after I had made the decision to try a natural birth, I was praying about it when I felt a strong assurance from God that I would accomplish this. I put on my iPod and, to the tune of some of my favorite ambient music, visited a place I've been many times in meditation--floating on a raft in brilliant sunlight on a perfectly tranquil bay. (Yeah, I know it sounds cheesy, but you can't argue with success.) And I must have appeared to be in some kind of tripped-out state, because when Anthony told the admitting staffer at the hospital that I was in labor, she looked at me--headphones on, eyes closed, practically slumped over in the wheelchair--and said quizzically, "Is she all right?" But I really was all right. Only two or three times during the labor did I start to feel fear--and let me tell you, when I did, those contractions were ten times worse than the others. When I kept fear out of my mind, the pain was present but bearable. And about 35 minutes after arriving at the hospital, the whole thing was over and I was holding our precious child.

In the nine days since this experience, I've had some time to reflect upon what it taught me, and yes, it does serve as a touchstone to remind me of my mind's power over pain. It also has instilled in me irrevocably the truth that fear can either cause or compound pain, and reminds me that I am not powerless against fear. This has spiritual as well as physical value. I can choose to tell myself the truth about any situation, even if it is just to say "God is in control" or "Jesus, I trust in You." I don't want fear to be an inevitability in my life, and this birth experience was a powerful reminder that it doesn't have to be. I am thankful for all of these lessons…though I almost always run from pain, it always has something to teach.

What I've Learned from Less Facebook

This Lent, I was inspired for the third year in a row by a priest friend of ours who recommends a fast from "words and images" (i.e. media that distracts us from God or is not edifying). This time around, I decided to refrain from two such media: radio in the car--which usually results in the harriedness of constant station-surfing and yelling at my kids because I can't hear them and I want to hear the music--and Facebook. I've known for awhile that Facebook is a huge distraction and time-waster in my life--probably one I could do with a lot less of. Confession: on an average day, I probably normally look at it ten times a day. That's a LOT. Just think of all the useful stuff I could do with all that time, I thought. And I must say that even in just this first half of Lent, going without Facebook except for Sundays (Catholic tradition), I've learned several things, good and bad, about The Social Network, its impact on young adult culture, and myself. Such as….

1. For me, Facebook is one more way to benchmark myself against others--not so much whether someone else had another baby or got a great job, but (petty and narcissistic as it sounds) I find myself caring about being an interesting Facebook post-er. If my posts idle forlornly in the news feed with maybe one "like" from my husband, while other people's garner tons of comments, I feel all lame and boring.

2. In other ways, however, Facebook can really boost self-esteem. The feeling of blasting out good or exciting news to a large number of people can buoy me for the better part of a day. For my extroverted side, this is a giddy trip, and is probably the main thing I've missed in my FB hiatus. "Only connect."

3. Speaking of connection, I also realize now that if something is important enough to someone who's important to me (and vice versa), I'll hear about it without Facebook. I might not hear about it instantaneously, but not being on Facebook doesn't mean falling off the planet.

4. In these last three weeks without Facebook, I've improved vastly on keeping up with direct communication like email. Without the perpetual influx of "communication" via status updates making me feel connected to anyone and everyone on FB, I'm remembering to actually communicate one-on-one.

5. The word "friend" is a real chameleon. Facebook has, of course, forever added a new definition of this word to the English language, and I'm starting to re-think who should and should not compose that constellation of smiling faces of my profile. (I predict in ten years the OE Dictionary will have to include an entry under "friend" that explains what it means on Facebook…if anyone can even nail down such a fuzzy concept.) My new idea, after a break from Facebook has made me realize how few of my FB "friends" match my definition of that word in real life, is wouldn't it be ideal if they offered one-week trial friendships? You could one-week trial "friend" those people you'd like to catch up with at a high school reunion so you could get a general idea of what's going on in their lives, and then that's it. They don't have to forever after have access to all your pictures and status updates. Eh? Eh? Are you listening, Mark Zuckerberg?

6. Facebook truly is the ultimate social convenience. I don't have to remember anyone's email address, birthday, place of employment, or even their favorite music--just their name. I enter it into a box and there they are, the most flattering picture of them ready to supply most anything I ask. Having gotten used to this, it would be tough to do without long-term. I will say, however, that I'm pretty sure this is making us all extremely lazy (real) friends. My birthday isn't listed on Facebook, and you know how many birthday wishes I got from friends last year? Three. Yeah, um…that kinda hurt. If we can't be bothered to actually remember friends' birthdays or any other relevant personal information simply because we care enough to do so, I call that a degradation of true friendship.

7. Lastly, without limits on my Facebook-ing, I waste a LOT of time absorbing meaningless information that doesn't edify and which I soon forget. With a one-day-a-week limit, I can keep myself from misusing my time so egregiously throughout the week and get caught up in one day on what I've missed. Then again, I of course don't like limits. They remind me of draconian curfew times and painful weight loss and NO FUN. But with certain things, I guess I just have to accept that moderation will not naturally flow forth to keep me in appropriate balance. Unlike other areas, where years of experience have conditioned me to self-regulate healthy boundaries (eating fast food, spending too much, swimming in vats of chocolate, hiring the dancing boys--wait, where were we?) Facebook is a relatively new phenomenon in my life. I think I need to put this puppy through a little obedience school before I let it run around the park without a leash. Maybe after a period of imposed limits, the habit of self-regulation will set in and I won't need to be so strict. I look forward to that day. But until then, I think I'm going to (even after Lent) stick to my Facebook fast. And in the meantime, I'm enjoying all this extra time I can use to play Bricks Breaking and Angry Birds.

Just kidding. ;)

Creativity and "The Northernness"

If you've ever read C. S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy (which I had to for a class in college--these days I'm nowhere near that ambitious in my spiritual literature) you might recall a concept he calls "the Northernness." When Lewis was young, he came across a headline and an image in a book that inexplicably filled him with a sense of longing of the profoundest kind--"a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity…almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself, the knowledge that…I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country." He named this visceral emotion "Northernness" and, deeply inspired, wrote a poem on the spot (which, with typical self-deprecation, he in retrospect essentially called garbage).

Though I remember very little about the rest of Surprised by Joy, I have never forgotten the Northernness because I, too, have had experiences of it--almost impossible to describe, those rare moments in life when a pin pricks the universe and you feel utterly transported, standing on holy ground. The stillness of a frozen lake in winter; a first discovery of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry; the moon rising over empty desert. The other reason I recall this concept so clearly, though, is that Lewis goes on to discuss later in the book his disappointment in the course of life that this mystical emotion or experience, the "old thrill" seemed to become rarer and rarer. "To 'get it again' became my constant endeavor; while reading every poem, hearing every piece of music, going for every walk, I stood anxious sentinel at my own mind to watch whether the blessed moment was beginning and to retain it if it did. …But far more often I frightened it away by my greedy impatience to snare it, and, even when it came, instantly destroyed it by introspection." This, too, I have experienced first-hand. The desire to capture a moment of mysticism can overpower the experience of mysticism itself and thereby tarnish it, obliterate its natural occurrence. Still (and forgive me, I can't find the reference in the book) I remember Lewis going on to say essentially that the desire for the Northernness is, in a sense, the Northernness itself. In other words, even if we're not being struck by these thunderbolts of awe on a regular basis, and even if we feel lesser and lower for having lost the ability to consistently have such experiences, it is our desire to have them that matters, that attests to their existence and our connection to them.

Lately I have been feeling this same way about creativity. Anthony and I have long talks these days about how much we want to be creative people. He wants to write and perform music; I want to write something, create something--I just don't know what. Neither of us feels inspired at this time in life. We repeatedly attribute it to the constant stress and drain of having two small children and another on the way, not to mention work and church and sick parents and selling our house and moving into another. (As I mentioned in my last post, this window of life feels like a bit of a holding pattern.) But I've come to relate this situation to Lewis' summation that the longing for the Northernness is the Northernness. Meaning that even if Anthony and I are not currently living out our potential as creative people or are not currently feeling that creative spark very much, it doesn't mean we've ceased to be, deep down, creative people. The desire to create, in essence, is enough proof for me to keep believing that we are creative people. Not that I want to sit around making excuses and clinging to this claim of creativity with nothing to show for it. After all, I am also a big believer in what Anne Lamott calls the "shitty first draft"--as in, sometimes, you've just got to park yourself down someplace and crank out something, anything, and go from there.

Hence this blog post.

Regardless of how I feel (or don't feel), how inspired (or uninspired or unmotivated or just plain lazy), the show must go on. Though the longing for creativity represents the genuine creativity underneath, I've still got to sit myself down and create. So, in the midst of this gap of boredom, I've determined to make at least a weekly habit of creating, be it a collage for a friend, a nonsensical comic strip, or...yes, even a blog post. The "shitty first drafts" will continue until morale improves. ;)

Bored, Season One

It almost defies belief, but lately I've actually been……bored. After finishing a giant, months-long transcription project that consumed most of my children-sleeping hours, I found myself somewhat uncomfortably awash in a sea of time. Weird, right? After any stretch of busyness, having time feels like paradise found, and you loll about in a contented, deep-breathing haze of movie watching, book reading, and neglected house cleaning. (At least that's what I do.) But after awhile, the movies you've been wanting to watch get watched and the books you've been wanting to read get read. Your house gets clean to the point of acceptability, so that what remains is the really deep cleaning stuff you didn't really want to do anyway. This is what's happened with me, and now I find myself unsure of what to do next. Two nights ago, telling myself I might as well, I actually spent a good thirty minutes cleaning my kitchen cabinets. Right, the exteriors of them. I can see your finger poised on the back button of your internet browser as you think to yourself, "Get a life, woman! Go make some new friends! Get a job or serve the poor!" I know, I know. That's what I tell myself half the time.

And yet….maybe this season of boredom is an unexpected gift. Being six months pregnant, I'm not exactly in a position to get a job, train for a triathlon, or start a new ministry with guns--er, spiritual gifts--blazing. Maybe bored--for now--is a good thing. Maybe bored is a privileged, sacred break from crazy. A break I shouldn't go stuffing crap into just to re-create a comfortable chaos. When my kids are blessedly napping during the day and I have no pressing tasks to complete, I've been trying to simply remember that silence is an experience I am usually whining about not getting enough of. Well, here you go, Miss Whiny Ungrateful-pants. Oh, yeah…thanks, God.

So even as I sit here on Sunday night wondering if it would be just plain lazy to watch yet another movie or read yet another book, to choose something leisurely over something constructive, I realize that all too soon my life won't look like this at all anymore. Three more months and a little pink-clad person will be demanding my time, my energy, my sleep, my milk. And sooner than that, more freelance work will probably come my way and I'll be wondering how I'll ever manage to finish that novel before the book club meeting…let alone clean the pee stains off my guest bathroom toilet. So for now, my hope is to shake off the guilt of un-productivity and enjoy this free gift of time. To just be okay with just being.

TV Without TV

People's responses vary when I tell them we don't have TV at our house. Some people give me an awkward smile and a look that says they think I'm probably also still breastfeeding my four-year-old and growing some mary-jane in my back yard. Sometimes, it's, "What, did your kids break it or something?" (Not an illogical assumption, but not the reason why.) Others give me a once-over to ascertain why I'm not wearing a long skirt and my hair in a bun. Still others make consolatory sounds, understanding me to mean that we simply don't have room in our tiny budget for anything pleasurable.

The reason we don't have TV at our house, though, is none of the above.

We're not trying to be revolutionaries; we're not trying to be saints. We possess neither a hydroponic garden nor a 12-inch mid-90s Sony in our basement for the purpose of viewing Veggie Tales. Our kids also did not break the TV, though one of them did recently scratch the screen (oh, that big, beautiful, last-year's-Christmas-bonus screen!) beyond any hope of repair. And, fortunately for us, our budget could stand to include a cable bill.

Truth be told, the story of our transition from TV to no TV is not terribly exciting, and actually reveals more about our moral failings than our moral superiority. When we first moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago and had the cable installed, we noticed that we were suddenly getting about 50 channels more than we had gotten at our previous residence. I justified this by telling myself that in Mesa, everything is cheaper than in Gilbert. (Badum-ching for East Valley residents.) So for four years, we blissfully enjoyed 70-some channels for $22 a month, never bothering to find out exactly why we had been blessed this delightful free upgrade…UNTIL my dear husband had to go and get the cable company to send a guy out to fix a problem with the internet. This astute employee happened to detect the extra channels, and our tidy little setup was nixed. Lo and behold, for four years, we had indeed been receiving $50 worth of cable for free every month.

The loss was sudden and shocking. I think I actually went through a few stages of grief. I specifically remember, that first night, watching a full five minutes of a soundless, fuzzy, black-and-white Lifetime movie--the only remnant of the former glory that used to stream gratis into my living room at the touch of a button--before accepting that it just wasn't coming back. A decision had to be made: would we now pony up the extra $50 a month or do without? Well, if you know us very well, you probably know we're way too cheap to may $1.50 a day for ANYthing other than food or rent. So no, we decided we couldn't justify paying to get the channels back. Then we realized that we were still paying $22 a month for the basic channels we never watched anyway. Well, heck, that's almost $1 a day for something we wouldn't use at all! And so, in an act of either defiance or frugality, we cancelled cable completely.

This was six months ago. Since then, for the same price we paid for cable, we've opted for a combination of a Netflix streaming plan and the TV shows we can get on hulu.com. (If you haven't heard of it, don't worry, it's legal.) The transition has been oddly meaningful. While I miss TV on a regular basis (like, um, every single day) I get the feeling that my life is much better without it. There are several reasons why.

-Since I'm now the master of my own viewing destiny, the stuff I watch these days means a lot more to me. Nothing is left to chance.

-Therefore, if I'm going to watch anything, it's a complete show or movie that I've picked out--it's a commitment. Since I can't just sit down and watch 5 minutes of something, I don't.

-When we had cable, I could totally justify watching trash. Like, "Oh, I just turned it on and it happened to be The Girls Next Door, and it was lewdly fascinating, so I kept watching it." Without TV, there would be several more (probably devious and sneaky) steps involved for me to end up watching anything so raunchy.

Overall, without TV, I waste less time and feed my brain less garbage. And as much as I miss my old pals the Real Housewives, that's an outcome worth keeping…for one LOW-LOW-LOW payment of $22 a month!!! Call in the next ten minutes and receive a genuine leather Chia Head juicer ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

The O.T.

Wow…it's been awhile. If you've noticed a lapse in posts around here, let's just say that life is crazy AND I've been reading through the Old Testament. (Both are true.) I always try to keep myself reading a particular book of the Bible--I'm more likely to stick with it that way--and one day in September, I sat down and started Genesis. And like Forrest Gump, who "decided to go for a little run" and ends up running across the country for three years, I just kept on reading. Truth be told, after almost four months, I'm only at the end of Numbers. It would appear that, like Forrest, I'm on the three-year plan…however, one of my New Year's resolutions is to get to the finish line of Malachi by the end of 2011. I'm pretty sure I can do it. If you can get through the Pentateuch, I think you've pretty well proven your commitment and the rest is a home stretch. It's been 12 years since I read through the whole Bible, and from what I recall from back then, my 10th grade self did a LOT of skimming. Like most of Leviticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…well, probably most of the entire Old Testament. So this time, four books in, it's provided several eye-opening insights.

Here is a chronicle of my revelations. I'll try not to include too many lamentations. Yuk yuk.

The good/easy to swallow/fits in nicely with my faith paradigm stuff:

- Getting the whole picture of who the Israelite people were--their overarching story from the beginning--gives me a much better lens through which to view Jesus, the early Christians, and the Bible as a whole. I'm even learning significant little factoids, like that they're called the Hebrews because Abraham lived in Hebron. Never knew that before.

- A lot of the rules and regulations in the Law make a lot of sense in ways the people of that day couldn't possibly have understood, like not eating certain animals that probably carried numerous diseases or not touching dead bodies, which would have of course caused contamination. Obviously, God was protecting His people, and they just had to trust Him for His good reasons....much like I have to do about a lot of things today.

- Such a huge sense of relief--and a sense of just what a big deal it is--that Jesus' death on the cross constituted THE ONE sacrifice acceptable to God for ALL sin. When you read 100 pages of all the offerings and sacrifices the Hebrews had to perform, it really leaves an impression of what a burden we as Christians are freed from.

- Certain stories are really exceptionally moving. I developed a whole new affinity for Joseph after reading his story straight through. His continued depth of love for his brothers, even after they sold him as a slave to a foreign country, is challenging in the best way. I love the fact that he's always running off to a corner to weep with love for them.

The bad/challenging/kinda faith-shaking:

- Is it just me or was Moses a total megalomaniac? It's hard for me to buy that he was "more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3). To me, he appears pretty ego-driven and power-hungry, and since he's the only one hearing directly from God, it seems somewhat suspicious that God is always on his side. When Miriam and Aaron dare to oppose him, God yells at them and strikes Miriam with leprosy (why only Miriam, by the way?)

- The blatant sexism, such as the "Test for an Unfaithful Wife," in which if a man suspected his wife of infidelity (he didn't even have to have any reason; maybe he ate a bad quail taco and was feeling cranky) he could bring her before the authorities. She would be forced to drink a bitter liquid intended to make her barren or miscarry. If God intervened and the concoction didn't work, the woman was innocent. If the liquid did indeed function as expected, she was deemed guilty of sleeping around. (Numbers 5)

- Having to make atonement even for sins that were unintentional. This really rubs the wrong way against my understanding of God as gracious and compassionate, or the gentle Messiah who wouldn't even break a bruised reed (Isaiah 42).

- The number of times God totally destroys people, even His own people. With all the references to God as "slow to anger" elsewhere in Scripture, He sure is depicted as a hothead in the Pentateuch. It seems like Moses is constantly scooting off to the Tabernacle to pacify this volatile God who is about to wipe everybody off the face of the earth.

Anyway, these are my honest thoughts. I'm sure I should probably be reading with a good scholarly commentary that would explain some of the passages I find offensive--add that to my New Year's resolutions, I guess. I still believe, of course, that the Old Testament is the inspired Word of God…but it does seem to raise almost as many questions as it answers.