My Name Is Peter

Last night I was on the phone with a good friend who was dealing with what turned out to be a relatively minor dilemma. To be fair, it seemed major at first because it involved good friends, emotions, and finances, and it only became minor once perspective had been reestablished.

But after he and I sorted out the issue at hand, we began talking about a series of situations we’d both encountered – as well as situations our friends have encountered – where we had truly overreacted to what turned out to be a very simple reality. Why did we do the things that we did? What motivated our actions? Why did we need to recruit a supporting cast for what ultimately was a very insignificant and uninspired drama?

It reminded me of a tennis lesson I had taken when I was 12. The instructor would hit the ball to wherever I wasn’t on the court. If I was on the left side, he’d hit it to the right. If I was at the back of the court, he’d hit a drop shot that landed at the front. And every time he’d hit me a ball, I would react in a dramatic and frenzied manner.

I would sprint at full throttle to wherever the ball landed, come to a screeching halt while over-crowding the ball, flail ridiculously to get my racquet back, and either return the ball directly to him or hit it into the net. Then, we’d repeat the same pattern over and over again. Always off-balance, I could never quite get myself back to my center court ready position.

Finally, he stopped playing and asked, “What’s really going on here?”

I had to think a moment. “We’re playing tennis,” I said, confused.

“No. I am playing tennis. I don’t know what you’re doing,” he fired back. “The game of tennis is very simple. I hit a ball over the net. It bounces on your side. You hit it back to my side, ideally where I am not standing. That’s the game of tennis.”

“Yeah. I get that,” I retorted, indignantly.

“No, you don’t. What you’re not getting is that all you have to do is put your racquet back, calmly move to the ball, and hit that single ball back over the net. There is nothing else going on there on your side of the court. The way you’re reacting, you’d think there was an army chasing you, trying to stop you at all costs from returning not just one ball, but a hundred of them. And then, after all the unnecessary gyrations you go through, you make my life easier by hitting the ball right to me.”

I had to stop for a moment and think about how I had been approaching what I believed to be a very complicated and intricate game. My flailing and sprinting about was really doing nothing other than making me look and feel like a crazy, flailing person. Once I had allowed the perspective of a very wise tennis instructor to sink in, the noise in my head began to quiet.

And so now, when I can remember that tennis lesson in the midst of what I believe to be a very complicated and involved situation, I ask myself, “What’s really going on here?” Nine times out of ten, I realize that I am about to act like a crazy, flailing person in the midst of a very simple reality.

I remember that the best thing I can do is calmly move to the single ball on my side of the court and hit it back over the net the best way I know how… and then wait for the next shot.

My friend Johnny educated me not too long ago about a little known loophole on airlines for service dogs. That’s him in the picture with his sweet and adorable Greyhound, Zoe.

Now, I have always thought that in order for a one’s beloved pooch to qualify as a service dog, the service dog in question would have to be of a certain breed with documentation of specific training and skills. And its owner would have to have a documented physical need for the dog.

Well, we can all breathe a sigh of relief because that just isn’t quite so. At least not any longer.

With a note from your licensed therapist, doctor, or psychaitrist attesting to your mental and emotional need for a canine companion, you too can bring your dog on board a plane, snag yourself a bulkhead seat, and ride in therapy dog style all the way to your destination. I believe there are breed exceptions, like no pit bulls, but for the most part, you and your therapy dog can enjoy your own special bonding time at 35,000 feet.

Love.

LOVE this. It’s been around awhile, but it never gets old for me…

I am not an expert on health care by any stretch of the imagination. But like most Americans, I am very concerned about it. Things need to change. And they need to change quickly. Record numbers of Americans and American families are uninsured or under-insured. That is not OK.

I personally have a problem with huge corporations profiting off the lives of human beings. I always have. Maybe I have always been naive. That’s OK. I know that there is no simple answer to this crisis. The insurance companies would argue that the for-profit, capitalist system of health care in this country has been directly responsible for the major, lifesaving technological breakthroughs we have had in this country over the past century. And they do have a point.

But now, we must face some hard facts. We must come to terms with the fact that our current system of health care no longer works, and we are long overdue for a huge overhaul. It is about time we got to work!

I borrowed the picture above from The New York Times to make a simple point. My Dad has always said in business meetings, “If you don’t have a positive solution or a positive idea, I don’t want to hear you speak until you do. Tell me how I can, not why I can’t.” In this case, I could not agree with him more.

Stop yelling! Stop crying! Stop grandstanding! And stop being roadblocks to positive change! If you have good ideas, let’s hear them! Your representatives are holding town hall meetings because they want to explain things, and they want to hear ideas. They are not there to endure endless tirades about what’s wrong with this country and what life was like when you were little.

Look, it is very simple. Change must come. Maybe Obama’s plan is a good option. Maybe it isn’t. But if it isn’t, then offer some ideas to your representatives. Ideas on how to do it better. Don’t just be a pawn in some crafty health care company’s pocket. Don’t adopt their PR messaging and lobbying as your own point of view. Do some real investigating yourselves! Take ownership of your lives and become true American citizens!

If you can’t do that, then stop talking and go home. Please.

The dramatic release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee yesterday still gives me chills. It’s like that final moving scene of one of those suspense thrillers starring Richard Gere or Claire Danes!

But in all seriousness, I am so thrilled, happy and relieved for the young journalists and their families. Read this article from the New York Times for a thorough and incredibly interesting account of what happened behind the political scenes to secure the women’s release.

Of particular interest to me was the comment by a “former official” that Kim Jong-il was ultimately motivated to release Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee as a “reciprocal humanitarian gesture” to a note Mr. Clinton had sent as President when Mr. Kim’s father had passed away.

It never hurts to do the right thing and reach out on a very human level to another human being, no matter who he or she is or what he or she has done. You never know when that humanity will be returned.

This morning I was relieved to discover that I do, in fact, consume more than enough Vitamin D on a daily basis. Call off search and rescue. Crisis averted.

But in case you were wondering, adults should get between 400 and 800 IU per day of Vitamin D. Though, apparently, much more than 1000 IU per day isn’t so great for us, so be careful!

I get my Vitamin D from direct sunlight, fish oil capsules, my multivitamin, fatty fish like salmon, and fortified soy milk. Check it out for yourself, and make sure you are getting an adequate supply of Vitamin D everyday.

Good stuff.

Oh wow.

An article the Associated Press just published states that, yes, in fact, tanning beds are as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas. According to an analysis of around 20 studies, people’s risk of skin cancer jumps 75% when they start using tanning beds under the age of 30. The article continues on to say that in the UK, melanoma is the leading cancer diagnosis for young women in their 20’s. Melanoma is no joke, and it is typically not seen until much later in life! The UV light from tanning beds is also believed to cause eye cancer.

Yes, eye cancer.

The American Cancer Society suggests people use alternatives like bronzers and self-tanning creams to get that golden glow.

Check out the article from the Associated Press for more info.

Sunday night I had the chance (thank you, Christian!) to see Grace Jones at The Hollywood Bowl. The acts before her were good, but when this lady came onstage, it was very clear why she became an an icon and the others were relegated to opening act status. She owned that stage. I mean OWNED. And even though I’m only familiar with one song she has sung in her long career, I was riveted to the core for her entire performance, which included a costume change for nearly every song. At one point (video below) in the middle of her version of the Edith Piaf classic “La Vie En Rose,” this 61 year old veteran turned around to show us her naked backside, which, at 61, looks better than mine after a year and a half of Barry’s Bootcamp. Check it.

Side note: Earlier in the show, Ms. Jones explained to us that her son was in her band. So, as my friend 007 so deftly pointed out, her son had been staring at his Mom’s naked rear end for the entire song. Therapy anyone?

But I digress. This morning at Bootcamp, I was both struck and disturbed. Barry asked us all to do a fairly complex maneuver on the treadmill that involved a steep incline, a slow moving belt, and slightly acrobatic jumping lunges. Admittedly, this was a challenge, but it wasn’t forever, and the benefits became crystal clear through the sudden and intense pain I felt in ass muscles I didn’t even know existed. Trying to take my mind off the pain, I glanced down the row of treadmills to see Barry coaching an acquaintance of mine on how to perform the lunges. The acquaintance finally gave it a half-assed try, pun intended, until a frustrated Barry banished him to “Run the stairs!” Bootcamp Acquaintance was seriously on the sh*t list to achieve that honor. I am afraid of those stairs. Seriously.

Anyway, once Bootcamp Acquaintance returned from the stairs, he did one or two more exercise rotations and then unceremoniously took off. Now I don’t know if he didn’t feel well or what the story was, but truth be told, I thought of Grace Jones. Would she have given up so easily? Did her 61 year old ass look like it did on Sunday night by sheer genetics? Watch that video again.

Grace Jones proved to me, and to the entire Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night, that when your ass is on the line, you have to get out there and do your thing. You’ve got to persevere and win over an audience who may know nothing more about you than your name. Because if you aren’t willing to work your own ass off, how’s it going to be when other people’s asses on are the line?

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/ZB9F4tFCfmY&hl=en&fs=1&border=1

The other day, I got an excited email from a friend I will henceforth call 007. This is because he is so beautiful he may as well have a License to Kill. It seems, according the screen grab in 007’s email (example to the right), that a certain someone’s facebook status had switched from ambiguous to “single.” And it also seemed that I may have inadvertently sent this certain someone a slightly flirtatious comment, as one does. But I myself had no idea that this certain someone’s status had moved from ambiguous to single, as I am not a professional cyber-stalker like 007 has so clearly become. I simply like to send slightly flirtatious messages through facebook to cute boys every so often, as one does.

Side Note: I have been told by relatively objective sources that my slightly flirtatious messages tend to have the subtlety of a steam roller.

But I digress. Back to 007’s email. The message and tone were both quite clear. “BACK THE &@#% OFF,” I believe it read, followed by the obligatory email smiley face. So I flew to my iChat to find out what was going on! As it turned out, 007 had had his eye on this certain someone for a few years, but this certain someone was in a very serious relationship. That is until facebook told us otherwise. Timing is everything in life, don’t you think?

Anyway, the whole situation got me to thinking, as one does. What has happened to our world? Has our instinctive mating dance been reduced to the way we choose to address our facebook relationship status? As we progress further and further into the information age, where everything is becoming faster and faster and more optimized, I have watched some of my friends’ sex lives dissolve into a brief series of email and IM encounters. Both parties answer a series of questions on a website and then agree to meet for a hookup. Hookup happens. Needs have been met. Life moves on until someone gets horny again. And then it’s back to the Question and Answer section of tonight’s program.

Now, with the advent of iPhone apps like Grindr and Loopt, we don’t even need to speak to people at bars, clubs, restaurants, libraries or produce departments, let alone bother with clunky websites. All we need is a GPS-enabled iPhone and we’ve got ourselves our own personal sexual homing device.

Come on people! Live a little! Get up from the computer. Put down the iPhone. Take a chance and meet someone in-person and for real. Introduce friends to each other. Set people up on dates. Get set up on dates! Go have a real conversation that doesn’t include abbreviations like LOL, QT, BTW, or ROTFL. Please.

OMG – look at the time. TTYL!