private dancer.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've bookmarked the information for a new dance class I want to try. The title is very Fame-ish and I can envision myself with a couple dozen other hungry young dancers, gritty, passionate, working it out on the hard wood floors. Well, let me re-phrase: I can envision myself in the very back of the room, maybe not so gritty, definitely passionate and definitely working it out, but hopefully unnoticed. The class is called...wait for it...Heavy Bottom Funk. Yes ma'am! What a title! I am in love and I haven't even read the full description. I nearly made it one time, but chickened out. Someone help me get there, please? I want to do this. I can already feel the endorphins hitting my veins like a drug.

Dance was a big part of my life for many, many years. I took classical ballet for something like eleven years and then was on a dance-heavy cheerleading squad in high school. I was always pretty mediocre at the technical elements, but loved the music, theatrics and general body expression of it all. Dance was my outlet. I would roller skate to Supertramp in my garage, create elaborate dance routines in my living room to A-Ha, and fantasize about slow dancing with my latest crush playing Madonna's "Crazy for You" on my walkman. Dance also provided me with an incredibly powerful life lesson. One that stuns me today, now that I can really see it for what it was.

For seven years straight, from about the age of 8 to age 15 (formative, impressionable years!) I tried out for the Oregon Ballet's production of The Nutcracker and NEVER MADE IT. Picture this young girl who loves to dance, loves the ballet, and despite mediocre technical talent, was always a hard-worker, sitting in the red velvet seats of a classically-designed theatre, audition number pinned to the front of her black leotard, having an anxiety-ridden yet self-promoting conversation running through her head. That was me. For SEVEN years in a row. What stuns me even further is that my mother sat with me every year. I cannot imagine how that would feel now that I am a parent. Obviously, we both thought that I would make it eventually, right? I made it to finals nearly every time but there were always girls (or boys) that were more gifted, looked more the part, were taller, younger, older or fit the costumes better. These were all desired requirements for cast members, which is not uncommon for large, traveling productions with a limited number of costume sizes, etc. I kept going, kept walking out of that theatre year after year, waiting until we got to the car before the tears would inevitably start to roll down my cheeks. My mother must have been in pain as well, but I think she knew that there was value in this experience and so long as I kept choosing it, it would build character. I know that it did. To this day, I interview well, public speak without too much anxiety and am nearly always willing to put myself out there. To simply try out. The costume doesn't always fit, but I show up and this has been a powerful thing in my life.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who I love spending one-on-one time with. She's intelligent, warm, hard-working and disciplined. She, like many of us, is experiencing incredible personal growth, which has included "tune-ups" with a mind-body life coach. One of the coach's recommendations for my friend is for her to dance - this to a friend who doesn't (didn't) like to dance! Privately if need be, 10 minutes, three/four times a week. Crank up the music, shut the door and let your flag fly baby! No doubt my face exploded in a huge grin when she told me about this powerful advice. A few weeks ago, on a Saturday when I was in a very low place due to my pending divorce, a package arrived in the mail from a friend who knows my soul. It was a CD with songs you cannot just sit and listen to, you have to m-o-v-e! I put my dark place on the shelf, put on the CD and danced by myself around my house for two hours, eating Whoppers and drinking a beer. It was, at that moment, a life-saving salve. (Email me if you want a copy of the playlist. :) So I can relate to this idea of being a private dancer for yourself, of finding the salve, energy and joy in that form of body expression.

In my childhood home, my mother hung two framed photos side-by-side in our living room. The first one was of a homeless man who was a regular sight near my mother's place of business. She, like she has always done throughout my life, befriended him, would talk to him on a regular basis and eventually asked if she could take his photo. That photo and his face are ingrained in my mind like he is a member of my family. He is sitting on the steps of a nearby business, and despite his tattered, filthy clothing, scraggly beard and dirty face, you can see him dancing behind these gorgeous, bright eyes. Next to this photo, was one of a man dancing on railroad tracks. Underneath the photo is the famous Nietzsche quote: "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." I'm feeling the music, hearing the music (specifically Donavon Frankenreiter's "Move By Yourself") and I am going to make it a point to get myself to that dance studio...who will join me?

dream on.

Here are some of my answers to that quixotical question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" as answered when under the age of, oh, let's say 22 (in no particular order):

1. Attorney for the ACLU

2. Professional ballerina

3. Environmental attorney

4. Children's book author

5. Lead singer in a folk-rock band wearing a short flippy skirt

6. Self-help author's publicist

7. Architect (short-lived but made for incredibly in-depth Lego play times)

8. Essayist and published author

9. Fun, but demanding (and yet inspiring!), community college Political Science professor

10. The Boss.

If you are laughing (or scratching your head), know that I'm none of these things. As John Lennon prophetically said, "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans." Along the way, the work in my life became more about satisfying objectives than realizing a dream. Paying the bills, meeting or exceeding work-specific expectations, developing a schedule that is compatible with being a wife and mother, taking on jobs that meet the needs of those I am responsible to and for, etc. I'm not terribly upset about this, but I am curious as to what happens to the ideal of those dreams and can you change or enhance your course? How do you realize your potential or direct that into the pursuit of your calling? How important is it to realize our potential? How powerful could it be to just pursue our potential?

The word potential intimidates me. A standard definition states something to the effect of: the inherent capacity for coming into being. And further: likely, expected to become or be. So our potential is there, right there (!), and it's likely to develop or is even expected to do so. That feels so optimistic! During my senior year in college, with dreams running through the pages of my journal and much-talked about over beers on Thursday nights, I dipped my toe in that discussion about potential and it led to an appearance on Oprah. Sadly, not by me, but a promotional coffee mug was provided. Again, sadly, not to me. Yet, I am the catalyst in that story line and it does have relevance.

Sometimes, in order to inspire my writings in the aforementioned journal, I would address the entries to someone. I wrote one to Oprah. It was mailed to Oprah (not by me, strangely enough) and Harpo Productions called me. They were doing a show on college grads giving up their degrees to pursue their calling, á la the movie, "Reality Bites" and they wanted me (ME?!) to be on the show. This was amazing! I envisioned a handful of my best friends and I lined up on Oprah's couch, smartly dressed and sounding like the hope of this new generation of grads. We would be flooded with fan mail and our return letters (we would write to every fan personally of course) would be poetic and inspired. We would have Fortune 500 companies sending us job offers and we would spend all of our vacations together in villas perched high above rocky international coastlines, starting with Italy.

WHOA! What did she just ask me? Ugh. Dream is evaporating. Typical me, I told her a story about another friend of mine who gave up his Princeton degree to pursue a career in professional tennis. They want him now, not me. I told her I couldn't get a hold of him (this is before mainstream use of cell phones) but, being the helpful person that I was, I had a back-up. I had another friend that was giving up a degree in accounting to play music full time. Would that suffice? It did. A few weeks later, I saw the episode. My friend (the would-be-accountant/musician) was not on the show. What happened? All that inspired dreaming for nothing? A recent grad-turned-kayak instructor was all that I remember. Come to find out (months later) that the featured kayak instructor was a friend of my friend. Figures. That friend of a friend got a trip to Chicago and a seat on the couch. My friend got an Oprah mug. Me? I guess I have the story.

Neither the musician nor the tennis player made a career out of those pursuits. That might make for a less-than-inspired turn of events in this story, yet it's a very real and common occurrence. That pesky thing called real life intervened. Can it be enough if you don't make a livelihood out of it? Is that truly realizing your potential if the mighty dollar doesn't come far behind? The tennis player is now an attorney and has a new baby. The musician and I are Facebook friends (figures, right?) He still plays, but not as a career. It left me wondering...are those examples of unrealized potential? I don't think so. Certainly they were, at the very least, in the pursuit of their potential and isn't there incredible value there?

Recently I had the immense pleasure of being introduced to a fantastic group of chorus opera singers. They sign on for an entire season, are paid and are card-carrying members of a local performers' union. This is a serious commitment of invested time and talent. They have accomplished day jobs too. There's the director of worldwide health initiatives for the largest software company in the world and a PhD candidate in neurobiology working on theories around the Circadian Rhythm and the eye, just to name two. This is a fascinating group of people who are realizing their potential, professionally and personally and, mulled wine aside, it set my brain afire once again.

Today, I am asking myself...At 37 years old, what is my potential? Are there things on that young dreamer's list above that I can still aspire to do? Do the endeavors have to make me money? Do I care at this age? I am ready to explore that. I am thinking about these things now. My life is no less complicated (and in some ways, it's even more complicated than ever before) but I am feeling awake. I am listening to myself and carving out windows of time to tap into that potential. Not just with writing, but with thinking, learning, exploring and being open to new ideas. It has been amazing. This pursuit of my potential is opening up fantastic opportunities and I feel like I am finally getting my shot on Oprah's couch. THIS is who I am. This is what I have to say and these are the kinds of things I am interested in exploring. Life may be what happens to you when you make other plans, but I've got Aerosmith blaring right now and I think I'm going to "Dream On!"

crazy with a side of the news.

CNN's Rick Sanchez, as mocked by The Daily Show's John Stewart, reminds me of a comically frightening incident in college that involved an inebriated male friend, a hallway, some saltine crackers and a side dish of crazy (say it in your head like "CA-RAY-ZEE" for the appropriate effect). More on that in a bit.

Television news delivery has taken a weird turn. It's so...aggressive lately. Rick Sanchez does things that buck the old stoic delivery format. He shrugs, raises his eyebrows, pops his lips, triple-blinks, dramatically removes his reading glasses, uses emphatic hand gestures (when was the last time you even saw a broadcaster's hands unless they were shuffling their notes?) and he loudly (and comically I might add) emphasizes some key words in a much higher register. He flirts with Dana Bash, startles whatever co-anchor is with him, badgers the weather reporter and makes Wolf Blitzer look like a weird caricature of a severe 19th century politician. It's entertaining, but kind of crazy. I'm so lost in the delivery, I often totally miss the news. By the time I've regained my focus, he's saying something like, "listen PEOPLE (loud and high)...don't throw crap in the ocean!" while running footage of a diver removing an Aerobie frisbee from around a shark's neck. HUH? What the...? Egads. He just used the word fisticuffs.

I have a host of great memories from time spent at a fraternity that was two houses away from my college sorority. A great group of smart, fun guys, several of whom I am still friends with 20 years later. One memory is totally insignificant, but when I watched John Stewart compare Sanchez to a coked-out friend, I laughed out loud remembering being cornered in the fraternity hallway by an inebriated friend who was spewing bits of saltine crackers. He leaned in, eyeballed us (a girl friend and I) with a crazy (say it in your head like "CA-RAY-ZEE" for the appropriate effect) glazed-over look, spewing cracker bits as he talked with incredible intensity, I gather to make sure we heard him. I have zero memory of what was so important for us to hear, but I can still visualize those cracker bits flying out of his mouth as we were beside ourselves cringing and laughing in total terror! THIS is how the current trend in news delivery feels to me.

Sanchez is not the only John McEnroe/Howard Dean-esque broadcaster on the scene. Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Grace, Joy Behar, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann (oddly, the only one who I can see past the delivery and kind of enjoy)...even Anderson Cooper can sometimes scare the crap out of me. Larry King looks like the Dalai Lama in comparison. I don't know what the answer is because I imagine it's all about standing out, making an impact and being heard in the saturated information market, but not only am I often totally lost, there's really no delivery difference between a story on the Haitian earthquake and a shark swimming around with a purple frisbee on its neck. The "Breaking News" crawl has turned into the modern-day equivalent of crying wolf. I would challenge the back room network stiffs to stop insulting our intelligence and give us some grey! We can take it! We can figure out that a story about a shark is supposed to be light and fun - takes the edge off of the story about thousands and thousands of homeless orphans on a small Caribbean island. Rick Sanchez doesn't have to spew crackers at the interactive map guy during the tsunami coverage. Give us some diversity in the intensity of the delivery that is more consistent with real life. You know, the sphere where the news actually happens. Something's gotta give. Maybe Katie Couric's numbers will start to go back up.

let them eat...caviar.

This might seem like a stretch, but I am thinking that the Brazilian Mafia and Lilly Ledbetter (well, technically Goodyear, the company she worked for) have something in common. I'm no Mother Theresa, but truly there are very few people in my life that I don't like. I may stand on my soap box about things people do that annoy, frustrate or downright piss me off, but I've also been known to find something I can learn from in just about anyone. But (a big "but" here)...if you mess with my livelihood, you are on The List, possibly for life.

A person's ability to provide for themselves and their families is a core issue and value for me, passed down from...you guessed it, my beloved mother. Both from a work ethic standpoint, as well as the right, when showing a hard work ethic, to reap the benefit of that hard work. Don't mess with a hard working, diligent, purposeful person who is doing what they can and need to to provide for themselves and those they love. Period.

Stop shaking your head. I know.

This value has almost no real-life application. People are always messing with our ability to provide for ourselves. Someone's always jonesing for your job, even if indirectly. Greed, economics, skill development, technology, group dynamics, the "bottom line"...there are many, many things working against us. Some stories, however, go way, way beyond all of that.

I was sitting with an old friend and his dad last night. We were telling fun old stories involving mutual friends and experiences, when my friend's dad drew me into this incredible story about how the Brazilian Mafia took his father down. Big money, agriculture, alcohol and international trade. Mind-bending details like volleyball-sized bowls of smuggled caviar, Rolex watches, private jets, getting waved through at international checkpoints due to the influence with/from the highest levels of government and commerce. Much of that actually came after the Brazilian Mafia incident, but it best illustrates the blood in the water. My friend's grandfather was encouraged to accept an offer to sell his distributorship. He responded to this encouragement by climbing over the desk and grabbing the Brazilian by the throat. I suspect this didn't go over very well with the guys down south. He endured movie-script-worthy retaliation and bugged his own office á la Watergate with, what I imagine in my head, a bright red button under the lip of his desk to initiate a recording device. It didn't matter. They eventually won. There were rumors of untimely deaths and he, while not losing his life, lost his livelihood. His son (my friend's father) still ended up in the same industry and he, my friend and his brother would many, many years later be sitting at a table eating Russian caviar like it was salsa. Some small retribution I guess, but his father died having lost his life's work.

Lilly Ledbetter, according to an interview with her on NPR today, had her finest moment one year ago on Jan 29, 2009 when Obama signed the Fair Pay Act. Interestingly, this was his first real piece of legislation as President. For Lilly, that moment was roughly 30 years after she received her first paycheck as a supervisor in an Alabama tire factory. A paycheck that was considerably lower than her male counterparts. She did not know that she was being paid less until almost 20 years later. Her lower pay rate affected all of her compensation: retirement benefits, which are based on a percentage of pay, over-time pay and stock. She had a classic middle-class job and was short-changed significantly year after year. It affected the level of education she could afford for her children, health care, housing and food - her livelihood. She officially complained and suffered egregious retribution. She sued and she won. A jury awarded her $3.3 million dollars, which was immediately cut down to $300,000 due to a law that capped damages. Then the Supreme Court overturned it altogether saying she was entitled to ZERO because she filed the lawsuit more than 180 days after receiving the first discriminatory paycheck. The bill signed in January of 2009 essentially means you can sue up to 180 days after receipt of any discriminatory paycheck. Some small retribution, maybe even bigger than small, but Lilly, at age 71, lives paycheck to paycheck. Maybe her caviar is the Fair Pay Act, but I say...let's hope she gets a book deal.

http://www.makelillyright.com/Make_Lilly_Right/Make_Lilly_Right.html

the smoking gun.

Ok - so here's my attempt at being relevant and timely: Obama is a smoker?! What the...?!

This little gem has been revealed in the past but maybe it's a slow news day because it's EVERYWHERE right now and this might actually increase his popularity. Well, maybe with the ironic, Beatnik'ish, liberal-type crowd. Wait, they already like him. Maybe he will attract the "we still smoke in dark films where we are honing our craft" Hollywood types. Well, pretty sure he's got that crowd locked-and-loaded as well. Teenagers that are trying to buck the system? Didn't vote in the last election. There's still the post-swing shift workers taking the edge off with a cigarette and an icy beer, or the nurses, the musicians, the college kids trying to look cool, the yuppies and gen x'ers who picked it back up after the dot com bubble burst, the ex-pats and their hangers on, David Duchovny on break from a sex addiction session...oh the list is long. Smoking is alive and well in the good ol' US of A. Is it possible that this closet-smoking side of our Commander in Chief makes him more accessible? More "man-next-door"? Joe Cool 2.0?

How many of us watched the now-infamous tobacco execs testify in front of Congress? If not on C-Span, or 60 Minutes, maybe in the Oscar-nominated film starring Russell Crowe "The Insider"? Isn't the ENTIRE state of California smoke-free in public places? Washington State is looking at banning smoking even in public parks. Hasn't the Truth Project (http://www.thetruth.com) stopped many of us in our tracks with their prolific messaging? According to the Centers for Disease Control, smoking has gone down from about 42% of the general adult population in 1965 to just under 20% in 2007 and yet, that still means that something like 44 million adult Americans smoke. Add in high school students (also 20% of them are smokers according to the CDC) and it's probably pretty close to the total number of people who voted for John McCain in the last election (58 million and some change). This is not an insignificant number. Clearly some messages (and the hit on the pocketbook with increased tobacco taxes) are working, thus the declining numbers, but what does it mean when a wildly popular President reveals that yes, he shares this vice?

I don't know, but I find this whole thing fascinating. I think this past summer he may have signed an anti-smoking bill giving unprecedented control over tobacco to the FDA, and yet maybe he's not unlike many, many Americans craving a drag when stressing about, oh I don't know...the unemployment rate, the state of the economy, Ahmadinejad, the decline of American car companies, North Korea? Can't you picture Obama, huddled outside the kitchen door to the White House, taking long drags, blowing smoke up into the night sky, muttering about the state of the Union? I can. It's maybe not the most confident of visuals, but it's a real one. The media is once again going nuts over throwing this in Obama's face, but I say, light 'em if you got 'em I guess.