Shipwrecked & Comatose

Aren't you glad this isn't a political post? 2016 was the year to try to rebuild my strength to pre-surgery levels and try to find a way back to a healthy weight and bodyfat level. I succeeded at the former, but failed at the latter.  Nonetheless, I celebrate my success.  Over the course of the year I sometimes looked at the routines in my various workout programs and thought, "That's too hard.  I can't do that."  Then I went ahead and did it.  I continue to amaze myself every day. I swore that I needed to accept my body and just deal with the fact that I'm not willing to make the changes needed  to radically make over my body.  I got my level of fitness back and that's all that matters. Or is it? Unfortunately in recent months my pony has become impossible for me to ride.  She is unresponsive and even combative when I ask her for simple tasks.  My trainer has asked me to consider if I might be too heavy for her.  I think she may be right.  I

The word from the armchair political analysts and the corporate media pundits is  that Donald Trump won the election because he suckered the white working class into believing he will bring manufacturing jobs into the United States.  Under Trump everyone will be working well-paid jobs again. This will never happen of course.  Manufacturing companies have nothing to gain by having their factories in the US where minimum wage laws and OSHA rules apply.  American corporations want to treat their workers in a standard most Americans would never accept.  Due to union busting over the past three decades, even if companies did bring their factories back to the US, manufacturing wages and benefits would not be any better than working at WalMart or McDonalds. Trump has stocked his cabinet with billionaires like him (or actually I should say true billionaires who are far more successful than he is and even more ruthless).  They aren't going to care about the working class.  It will be bu

After this election, I have been reading nonstop about all the poor assumptions liberals made about this country and its voting habits, and how their biggest mistake was not understanding "Real America". What is "Real America"?  Real America is geographically the central states of the US, often referred to as "flyover territory" in a derogatory fashion.  The people who live there are characterized as white, working class (or poor), Christian, and conservative.  Their education levels rarely go beyond high school.  They are seen as clinging desperately to a world that never really existed.  They fear change.  They fear being left behind by an ever-increasing multicultural population and the globalization of the economy. It doesn't matter if these stereotypes are true or not.  Every election we have ever had panders to them.  The assumption is every politician is eager to grab votes from minorities, educated and professional women, and big cities wit

You have elected the President you deserve. Last night, after spending hours watching the polls, I stumbled fearfully into bed with the thought that I could wake up in the morning and Donald Trump would be president.  It wasn't looking good for Clinton, but I couldn't give up hope for an eleventh hour miracle. Kevin and I were both sleepless.  I tried to stay away from my phone and computer, but during his periods of wakefulness, he would check the news on his phone.  I finally had to ask him for the bad news.  All he needed to say was, "He won," and now I don't know if I will ever sleep again. I remember in 2000 feeling such horrible dread when George W. Bush was elected.  My dread was justified.  He was terrible for this country, starting with his monumental failure to prevent 9/11 at the beginning of his presidency, to the Great Recession at the end of it.  What I feel now does not even begin to compare. What have we done?  Why?  What has made anyone be

Athleisure is the new business casual.  Your gym clothes aren't merely what you wear to the gym.  You now wear them out shopping (and I don't just mean a quick trip to the grocery store).  You wear them out to dinner.  You may even wear them to work.  A typical athleisure outfit isn't the pair of leggings and the oversized souvenir t-shirt I wore to the gym this morning.  In fact, an athleisure outfit may never see the inside of a gym.  On a typical morning I  roll out of bed and stumble into some sweatpants and steel-cage sports bra.  That's not athleisure.  Let's imagine for a moment that I took the athleisure route when I got dressed this morning.  There would be no random pulling of tops and pants from a drawer in the dark.  I would carefully put together today's exercise-inspired outfit ahead of time.  I will pull a pair of leggings over my legs from a massive collection of colors and prints   I put on a matching sports bra with questionable ability to ac

"That is the stupidest question you have ever asked on your blog, Rachel," you tell me.   One can’t divorce without marrying. The world is filled with moralistic doomsayers who swear the divorce rate is skyrocketing and no one stays married anymore.   This isn’t the reality.   The US divorce rate has remained relatively stable for decades.   Still, it is quite depressing to think nearly fifty percent of marriages in the US will end in divorce.   Americans are often surprised to find the US divorce rate is declining, but it it is only declining because many couples are abandoning marriage as divorce seems somewhat inevitable and not worth the risk.     While many of us fear marriage, there are still many of us who want to be married and want it badly.   As I grow older and see more of my married friends divorcing, I start to question why marriage is so important.   Divorce, it seems to me, can be a result of wanting marriage too much.   Marriage for the sake of marri

I took my vacation this summer at the annual Chincoteague Pony Swim.  I have written about the swim many times, so I probably don't need to say how much time is spent waiting on a boat for several hours for the ponies to cross.  It's usually the same group of people who go on our boat, but we had some newcomers this year. It was an active and cheerful older couple who were kind, funny, and polite, but whom I heard whisper to each other about how sad there were so many out of shape people on the scene.  I made an offhand remark about fitness at one point and the husband said to me, "You look very strong and athletic."  That remark made my day.  These past few months are starting to show.  I don't look out of shape. Or do I? I am still my own worst critic.  I still hate the way I look.  When I see myself in the mirror I can't take my eyes off the spare tire that sits above my hips and is starting to succumb to gravity.  I compare it to wearing a child's

I am fortunate enough to be taking a brief European vacation this summer.  (I don't want you to think I'm a dumb American who thinks Europe is a country, so I had better specify now I'm going to the Czech Republic.)  As I make sure my seat assignments are correct for the flight, check out guidebooks for sights I want to see and restaurants where I want to eat, and make packlists of the best clothes to wear, I also find myself falling into the abyss of travel etiquette websites. I like to explore the websites that help me navigate the quirky customs of the country I'm visiting so I make no major faux pas.  Unfortunately it's also easy to find myself checking out the dozens of sites out there enumerating everything wrong with American tourists.  There are sites explaining how not to look like an American tourist (although it doesn't matter because other sites tell you Europeans can practically smell an American tourist no matter how hard she tries to blend in). 

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