Month: August 2015

It’s Saturday and I Have Nothing to Say (September 18, 2010)

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Like an old dish towel that has just finished scrubbing a grease caked set of pots and pans, I am wrung. It has been a rough, physically and emotionally demanding week on all fronts: professional, familial and marital. On Thursday I declared to a friend that I was ready to retreat from the world to an underground bunker like Dick Cheney after 9/11. I am exhausted by routine, people and their moods and demands, herding cats and the energy it took to assemble the courage to do things that are outside my comfort zone. But I got up every day, I did my part and I fought the good fight.

I don’t want to analyze today. I want to ride my bike, drink a glass of wine and tune out.

The Monday-Friday part of my life ended up much better last evening than I had a right to expect when the period began. For that I am grateful. Sometimes just getting there is all there is.

So I’ll shut up and rest now.

I Suck at Self-Promotion (September 16, 2010)

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Self Defeat

I will let you in on a dirty secret. I am a regular columnist for this non-partisan political magazine:

Root Speak

I copy edit and interview Chicago writers for this “Gen Y,” art centered publication:

Jettison Quarterly

I recently won an award from the National Federation of Press Women for a series on the booming phenomenon of urban agriculture for this weekly magazine:

StreetWise

Finally, I review books and Chicago theater productions for this GLBT cultural website, which welcomes 100,000 unique visitors per month:

Edge Publications

Why do I label these facts about my work a “dirty secret?” Because apparently, that’s how I treat sharing my accomplishments, as though they are a source of shame for which I want to limit awareness. Most people who have read my blog work, or hell, even know me personally, are in the dark about my publishing history, which I hustle everyday to maintain when I am not working at my full-time day job.

A very talented and inspirational fellow blogger by the name of Mark Trost has been teaching me a thing or two about learning to get over myself and share my work with a wider audience. But it’s not easy. There is a lot of myself to get over. For example, I often find it difficult to respond to comments I receive out here in the World Wide Web. I have never been able to get over the shock and occasional embarrassment that anyone reads me at all.

So this is my damage.

But I have a close circle of people who believe in me, who tell me, and I know they’re quite logical, that I will never get anywhere this way. In a world of rampant self-promotion, where people re-Tweet, start Face Book fan pages and develop email list servs, it is naïve and counterproductive of me to wait for old-fashioned word of mouth discovery. I know this and yet I do nothing.

It’s ironic that someone who talks and writes as much as I do should suffer from a form of PR autism, yet that’s exactly what I am saying.

Though it is really the only thing I love to do, I have failed to believe in myself enough. I have not had the courage to put Becky out there. I fear rejection or worse – the impression of arrogance. I am my own stumbling block. I can figure out a solution for almost anything else I confront, but apparently not myself.

A Crackberry Addict in Withdrawal (September 14, 2010)

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office-sign-blackberry

Back in November of 2009, I made the jump from a “regular” cell phone, the kind that only allowed me to make and take phone calls, while painstakingly typing out text messages (arguably, this task was not even worth it). After much consideration and deliberation, I chose the Blackberry 8330 in red – to match the color of my hair, naturally. My sister Jen, part of an all-Apple-products-all-the-time family, urged me to go with the iPhone, but that just seemed too complicated to me. The Blackberry offered the necessary upgrades I sought in my communications life: easier texting, picture messaging and Internet surfing ability, without all the expensive apps tricks and hoo ha.

Those who know me best might identify this decision as the defining moment when my ability to interact with other humans in a normal fashion took a nosedive. Even I was taken aback by the ease and speed with which I became a full blown addict. My problem began innocently enough: a perusal of the New York Times or a review of celebrity gossip as I waited for trains or appointments. However it wasn’t long before I found myself waking up in the middle of the night after losing a battle with insomnia, then immediately reaching for my Blackberry. Hey! If I couldn’t sleep I might as well find out who had been in contact with me, or what I had missed in the world as I tossed and turned. Soon I found myself trained like Pavlov’s dog: at the first red flash, indicating the receipt of a BBM, SMS or any other type of acronym, I was physically unable to stop myself from attending to it. Friends, family and my husband half-jokingly lamented that I was no longer able to look them in the eye whilst having a conversation. I am a multi-tasker by nature but clearly my habit had introduced insidious consequences on my personal life.

Last Saturday, as I enjoyed a rainy 9/11 bike ride through the ‘hood, I gave little thought to my trusty Blackberry, riding shotgun safely in my canvas carry-all bag. It’s not as though I make calls and check emails while weaving through traffic. But I was comforted by her presence, ready to be unholstered at any moment. What if I witnessed a crime or fell off my bike? I needed to know I could update my FaceBook status, I mean call the authorities, immediately!

So remember that canvas bag I mentioned? Yeah it turns out that canvas is not water proof. Hell, I am a writer not a physicist. When I returned to my apartment to dry off, and I think you know what I am about to say next here……she was gone. The magic scrolling ball, deliverer of so much web enjoyment, was kaput.

Nearly frantic was I. It took every fiber of my being not to wake a sleeping Eddie with a Gladiator-style explosion of grief followed by scorched Earth. What was I to do with myself now?

I placed a frantic call to my wireless provider and ascertained that my Blackberry was still under warranty and could be replaced (Customer Service Rep: “You didn’t by chance get the device wet, did you? Because that would nullify the terms of the warranty.” Boop: “How dare you!”). The catch? They were unwilling to let me have one off the shelves (‘cause you know I asked). Instead I received the positively dreadful news that I would have to wait 7-10 business days before getting my fix again via UPS.

Though I imagined all sorts of horrors, the end of life as we know it, the inability to maintain a fledgling writing career with nothing more than a desktop PC, I had a surprising knee jerk reaction when the customer service agent offered me the use of a temporary loaner phone. Unequivocally, I answered in the negative. Apparently, even Boop has a line and knows where to draw it. There seemed to be something so desperate about accepting a second-hand, possibly germ infested device simply because I didn’t believe I had the self-possession to endure a week of analog communications.

Today is Day Four of my Blackberry-free sentence, and you know something? The timeout has done me a world of good. I feel more human again. I have stopped relegating the people I love to “conversation between text” status. Like all enjoyable addictions: booze, drugs, sex, I need to learn to have a healthy relationship with my wireless device before I can return to it.

My withdrawal period even provided me with extra time and mental bandwidth to develop a great business idea: a Blackberry Betty Ford clinic. Genius!

Are You Hot? (September 11, 2010)

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hot-man

 

According to the short article below, “28 percent of women and 30 percent of men under 30 rated themselves between an 8 and a 10.” Well yes, we are well are that the youthful tend to think very highly of themselves.

What really surprised me is that the poll, which questioned 26,000 subjects between the ages of 18 and 75, uncovered that in fact MOST oxygen breathing Americans would rate themselves a 6 or above on the 1-10 scale of self-reported attractiveness. Now I realize that a “6” is more Ben Stiller than Brad Pitt, but still, we of the U.S. clearly have a pretty healthy self-image.

For some reason, in a time of so much distress, I find this tremendously comforting.

Work that runway America!

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/09/09/study-think-youre-hotter-than-average-so-does-everyone-else/

A Cosmetic Conundrum (September 9, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

botox_injection_052609_m

I am 32 years old, which I realize, in the grand scheme of things, is far from elderly. With proper care and the continual advances of modern medicine, I could have a good 60 years of soul searching and hand wringing in front of me. That said, I have done some hard living in my three plus decades on the planet. Some of that is due to outside forces beyond my control (family for example), while other influences are an amalgam of my innate joie de vivre, my penchant for self-medicating in difficult situations and the fact that I have always had a terrible time turning my mind off. A good friend of mine recently said something that will always stick with me: “I love your personality Becky – all of them.”

I am a professed neurotic. No sense lying about it. While this certainly renders me an entertaining cocktail party guest, there are definite downsides to the Tao of Boop. I have lines on my face – lots of them. While I am told over and again by well-meaning family and friends that I am a beautiful person, and the evidence of my life experience should not bother me, clearly it does. I am a perfectionist with a palpable fear of aging – a nasty combination when we’re dealing with self-esteem.

To make the situation more interesting, I have a violent aversion to all things medical. I keep promising to tell the story of my flight at the age of five from a pair of nuns wielding booster shots, because frankly speaking, this is one of my proudest moments, but we’ll get to that another time. Though I have since been inked twice (NEVER allow 20 year-olds to select permanent body art – butterflies? WTF?!), had an oral surgery and a couple of short stays in the hospital, each and every time I am confronted with a needle is like the first. I simply cannot deal and often display this fear in the most irrational ways – like pulling a much needed IV out of my arm because I “couldn’t stand the sensation.”

So as I approach my mid-30s, I find myself in an interesting predicament. I want Botox in the worst way. I once claimed I would wait until the age of 35 before giving it serious thought, but that aforementioned hard living is beginning to play itself out in a reverse Dorian Gray fashion. “But Boop,” you may ask, “What about your fear of needles? How will you get around that?” Apparently when it comes to down to it, vanity trumps phobia. I do not declare this with pride.

Let me be clear that for everyone outside myself, I am a huge fan of aging gracefully. I simply can’t imagine loving Sophia Loren, Barbara Walters or Helen Mirren as much had they been the willing victims of plastic face pulling. Why I cannot apply this standard to mineself I leave to those with M.D.s and $100 per hour billing rates to assess. I know so many strong women personally who grow more gorgeous with age, but when I look in the mirror, I see the early stages of hagdom reflected.

But that’s OK. It’s 2010 and I have the freedom of choice to do what it takes to bolster my self-esteem, right? Now the only problem I have is that the Botox gods seem to be trying to tell me something.

On September 22nd, I will be making my third attempt to actually have the procedure performed. Eddie had planned to gift me the injections for my birthday on August 8th (despite his stated disapproval), but after learning that he is being phased out at the office, spending $400 for a cosmetic pick-me-up seemed a little unsavory. Happily, my husband’s employment situation has since been resolved for the better.

Last Saturday, I made my second appointment for a consultation at a trendy spot in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. I arrived right on time for my 12:30 PM rendezvous, feeling a lot of things: shame, excitement, fear and guilt among the mix of emotions. I was immediately disconcerted by the perfect looking mannequins snidely manning the reception desk, but decided that once my wrinkle-free face emerged from the doctor’s office, they could take their superiority and shove it.

40 minutes, many disdainful once overs and two magazines later, I was still waiting to be seen. I began to feel the presence of Panicky and Uncomfortable, the twins who typically accompany me to any sort of medical practice. I realize Botox injections are a relatively minor procedure, but this is, after all, my face and my muscles. If the practitioner isn’t taking my time and my visage as seriously as I am, should I be there?

Just as I was finishing my thought, Mannequin #1 did her best to smile at me before dispensing the information that the doctor would be “ten more minutes.” No apology, just the smug presumption that I would continue to hang around. Naturally, I grabbed Eddie’s arm (after first waking him up from his afternoon waiting room nap) and headed for the door in a huff. For the record, Eddie congratulated me on making it past the 15 minute mark, which is the typical upper limit of my tolerance for rudeness.

I made some calls after I returned home and selected another reputable establishment with which to consult. So in less than two weeks, will I finally be acquainted with my new temporarily motionless, but wrinkle free countenance? Or will the Botox gods throw up another road block?