From Here to Autonomy

Pregnancy Journal, Week 36: Working with my feet up

A friend of mine called me from New York. We talked for a while about his new job--I may be one of the few people who enjoys discussing with my friends the intricacies of their day to day work.

He asked me, so how are you?

I had to preface my response with a disclaimer,

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "But things are different." My friend probed to determine if I was unhappy.

"Nope," I said. "I'm just getting used to this change." I felt inarticulate, like when I had nightmares as a kid and my mom came into my room and asked me what I was afraid of, and I didn't know. One time I told her, "I'm feeling something skinny; a skinny string." I still get the sensation, but I don't know what it means.

By "change" I think I mean all that has shifted since becoming pregnant. For years I've been told about how the focus of energy shifts when you become a parent. I've held off on my decision to have children knowing this shift occurs. 

But even knowing that I am supposed to slow the centrifugal force that has tied me to a grinding schedule for so long, I find that I still give myself a spin or two to stay in motion, even during times of physical exhaustion. I wonder if I do this out of habit; being in motion is all that I know. Or because the slowdown scares me; all this momentum, what would it take to start up again? What if I fall in love with slow? What if slow feels like a skinny string?

A trusted friend--a powerhouse, even to other powerhouses--tells me that her desire to work, to achieve, didn't change when she had her son, but her reason for working did.

"I did everything because of him," she said.

Some might bristle at that thought, especially since working women are encouraged to have their careers "for themselves". But some of us have been working "for ourselves" for a very, very long time, at the risk of having no perspective and losing the meaning behind what we do. For me, the thought of working for someone else is liberating; it opens possibilities. It bends the rules I set in my mind of the way work must be.

Still, the rules run deep. My business partner said to me last week that if I may not want to bother commuting these last few weeks before the baby is born. Makes sense: an hour-long commute (on a good day) is hardly safe or desirable should I go into labor a few weeks early. After five years of working together (two of those virtually) she knows the work will get done anywhere. But I struggle to take her up on her suggestion. I've always valued physical, tangible presence. Presence is being in motion.

Another co-worker suggested that I use the couch she has in her cube--something she's integrated into her space for extreme back issues. I thanked her and wondered, when would I think to put my feet up? My first job out of college, when my boss traveled I'd sneak cat naps in her office. Why was it so much easier to acknowledge exhaustion when I was 21?

At the BlogHer conference I promised my colleagues and husband that I would put my feet up regularly. It took my husband physically guiding me back to my hotel room 14 hours after I started the day to do what I'd promised. As I sat there, propped by pillows, feet up against the wall, tired and restless, I lamented that it was still so early--I was leaving first thing in the morning and still hadn't seen or done everything I'd wanted to do.

I am hardly a sadomasochist or born with more energy than others. I just don't know otherwise. I suppose I will learn. And I will learn how to channel that energy where it needs to go. And rather than look upon these offers of support suspiciously, I will learn to put my feet up and note that there are moments that we work and moments that we work FOR.

And that skinny string that keeps us tethered to a life in which we've done very well won't break.

New Core Competencies--How Type A's learn to parent

We sat in a room decorated with pictures of pregnant women and babies--H-band sat on the couch, and I had moved to a glider because my back was starting to hurt.

We watched our instructor, who has been a doula for two decades, swaddle a stuffed plastic baby to near perfection.

"Who'd like to go first?" she said. I much preferred the labor massage part of the course.

H-band crouched over the table and began to crease the blanket, starting over once to crispen his fold.

"He wraps all the presents in the house," I felt compelled to explain. "He'll do better at this." In less than a minute the baby was wrapped in inescapable warmth, the permanently molded "O" of her mouth seemed to say, "Good job!"

"OK," said the doula, "now it's Mom's turn." I wasn't sure to whom she was referring.

I spread the blanket out on a surface and folded over one corner,

"Babe don't forget to fold in her arms," H-band reminded.

"Tuck it in before you grab the next piece, under her side," reminded the doula.

"Next piece is the bottom," H-band added. "Don't wrap the next side around yet."

In the finished look the plastic baby floated in a doughnutty concoction. A mass of blanket surrounding, but not exactly swaddling, her.

"You'll get better at it," the doula said.

Next was a video featuring a Mexican midwife who was giving birth to her own child. She looked healthy and zaftig, taking a vigorous hike with her Japanese husband and parents on their lush farm.

"I thought she was in labor," I said to the doula.

"She is," she said. "She's still in the early stages."

I hoped the midwife wouldn't trip on the rocks she was traipsing across. Jesus, I thought, someone stop her!

The Mexican midwife and her husband retreated to their bathroom to soak in the tub as she labored. They sat in relatively peaceful repose; she moaned softly.

"Look at their bathroom," I said. "Gorgeous tile...I would consider a home birth if I had that tile."

"Are you going to provide commentary throughout?" H-band said.

"Sorry. Just saying."

Being a midwife, the woman instinctively knew when it was time to push, and she did with no screaming, simply pulling her baby to the surface of the water. At this point, her naked, cherubic sons entered the bathroom and joined their parents in the tub. A happy, naked family, sitting in a tub--full of floaties.

H-band looked on with tears in his eyes. I was tearing up too, but for different reasons. I thought of parts of my body stretching beyond recognition. Of me, a beaten carcass with nipples.

"Next video," the doula said, "caring for a newborn." This video was much longer. It opened with an outline of topics that would be covered, including subtopics. Very thorough.

The couple hosting the video looked clean and well-kempt. I don't know if they are actual parents but I like to believe that they were. They seemed to have survived.

As we watched my commentary commenced. I began speaking to no one in particular.

During the diapering part: Are we set on cloth? No cloth? ... Three thousand changes in the first year!... whassat mean for me? At least one thousand...which end is the front?

During the feeding part: You hear that? No bottles until 4-6 weeks. We won't pump until, like, November...notice she's using pillows to prop the baby--why not use them with the Boppy? What's wrong with the Boppy? We can't use those newly upholstered ones...Look, the whole nipple. We have to make sure she latches properly...

During the bathing part: Look both of them are involved... we need two people for this, not just one. They're slippery. Very slippery...We'll have to coordinate ...

"Enough from the peanut gallery already," H-band said.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Clearly he is stressed about his new role. I keep my comments to myself. He just needs time.

BlogHer'10 Wrap-Up: The Premature Version

Every year I have a moment of decompression after a week spent pent up in a hotel--you see, BlogHer for me starts days before the actual event. There's going to be much more to process over the coming weeks from sponsors and attendees, but today, here's what I noticed as an attendee of BlogHer.

• If there's any place to be pregnant, it's BlogHer, (if you can make the trip to the event). People appreciate your plight: They direct you toward chairs, hand you things to eat, insist that you put your feet up. It's like having a thousand mothers checking in on you. I've never been a mom at BlogHer until now--I have always been one of the many non-moms. And while I have loved the amenities we've set up for moms, such as the lactation lounge, it wasn't until this year that I found myself lapping up the discussions with sponsors about BPA-free products, smart snacking options for kids, and educational toys.

• Regardless, you exhaust yourself. I built in time to relax and put my feet up, but my down time became more like catch up time. You find that you want to catch panels and see where folks got their s'mores and makeovers. I insisted to everyone I saw Saturday night that I was just "popping in" to the parties. But then, you know, you get to talking, then dancing, and then you are groaning in your hotel room because you dragged your eight-months-pregnant butt through an hour of eighties music, eaten taffy apples and various fried delights--not to mention screamed over music to talk to people, and hugged hundreds of folks while shlepping various T-shirts, business cards, and samples.

• You can only plan so much at BlogHer: I shared with our staff that while it makes sense to map out the sessions you want to attend and connect with the people you want to meet, it can be a Sisyphean effort attempting to control every minute of the experience.

Imagine a typical scenario: You are planning on meeting someone in front of the exhibitor hall. You've set the time and the place, but then, on your way, you run into someone you see every year at BlogHer. You insist on catching up for a few minutes, then try to compare schedules for when to meet later for more substantive conversation. Then, you realize that it makes sense to capture a bathroom break before a session lets out, and you are in a longer line than the one you've encountered. You check the former men's bathroom that has been converted, which has fewer people, and realize that you are washing hands next to someone you have been wanting to meet since you stumbled on her blog a year ago. You two chat. You navigate your way to the exhibitor hall and don't hear your cell phone or think to check your email or Twitter feed enroute because you bump into more blog buddies, missing your friend's message that she's running late, and would you be able to meet her in the Volt Recharge Lounge instead? Imagine this happening many, many more times.

• I continue to be amazed at the work women are doing with their blogs. Saturday morning's international panel got me thinking that blogging has not only allowed us to build businesses and connect with each other, it has enabled women with a line of access in raising awareness of their country's civic unrest. This is a big "no duh" when you see all that we've covered on BlogHer.com, and the many many activist blogs out there, but having some of these women sitting in front of me in a live setting, sharing stories of poverty, danger, and death, drove this home.

It certainly put into perspective the concept of "risk" we often talk about when referring to how much of ourselves we put out there on social media. Some of us fear losing face, some of us fear losing our jobs, and some of us fear losing our lives.

• We all publish for different reasons, just as we attend BlogHer for different reasons. Some may be more commercial than others, or more activist, or more personal. Some of us come for the parties, some for the sessions only, some to promote ourselves. But we all still have the squealing reflex when we see the people we read.

 

BlogHer '10: My first conference as a working mother

I was chatting with my BlogHer co-panelists last week about our panel: Where's the Line or the Lie: Storytelling, Memoir and Poetic License. I find that I often moderate these more personal-blogging-type sessions at BlogHer, because I started as an identity blogger. I have a natural affinity with those who put it all out there, even if that has not been my reality for five years, since BlogHer began.

I realized, hot damn, I have not posted to this blog in over a month. That's not very bloggy of me. And I and my colleagues will be running a conference built by and for bloggers. I find myself asking, Jory, WTF? Are you still an identity blogger? Do you still see life through the lens of what would make a compelling blog post? The truthful answer is, sometimes.

Sure I've been busy--everybody's busy. Though I must confess the recent disadvantage of pregnancy. I don't cram things in my day anymore, like a blog post or an extra call. I do what's directly in front of my face, get the immediate priorities done, and then call it a day. This has become a physical necessity, one I knew would manifest by my third trimester but chose to not think about...until I noticed things, like how breathless I get when I'm speaking, and how forgetful, and that it's been a month since my last post.

There's a lot of withheld information in my unwritten posts about women, work, and family making; I've thought about this in light of my BlogHer session. Before I was pregnant, I read voraciously about women raising kids and building careers. The only impediment to achieving in both realms, I thought, were others' preconceived notions about women and work--the assumption that once we procreate we're no longer interested in pursuing our careers.

Clearly that's not the case--I know too many women who have achieved even more post-children than pre. Some of the most prolific, and commercially successful, bloggers are full-time moms. While I can't explain why without having been there myself, I do believe it probably has something to do with an efficiency that develops among women who now have two jobs to do: There's no time for questioning your ability; both jobs simply have to get done. Kids need to have their lunches made, just as presentations need to be completed. There's less time to stew and wonder, could I have done that better? Was I less than perfect in that meeting? It's a strange luxury--not having the time to overthink, just to do.

I recall the first BlogHer, when I woke up at 5a.m., arrived at the TechMart at 6am to help post signage and prepare the registration line, and was sick with nerves. Though I was a blogger and can relate to the many pre-BlogHer posts I read by women with social anxieties, my concerns were hardly around who congregated with whom, or what bloggers might blow me off, but rather whether the food was coming out on time, if sponsors got what we promised them, if the sessions were useful. Connecting later with other women over drinks, or even in the hallway on their way to a session, was pure pleasure in comparison.

I realize now that my stress during BlogHer is the kind that lies in the eye of the storm, where anxiety is minimalized to the bare essentials. After BlogHer '05 I cared less about my blog traffic--even stopped monitoring it altogether--or whether I was included in top blogger lists. I was enveloped in a new purpose of creating a space for this community. The act of creation and nurturing something or someone other than yourself immunizes you from seeing the world as a pecking order, or as a series of parties you are not invited to, or as an old-boys network. These constructs melt away; paradoxically, there is less time AND fewer constraints. It's a place of re-invention.

Perhaps, since BlogHer is my "baby" this is not dissimilar to the situation of the working mother.

This year for me will be different. I have a new consideration that is purely physical. I won't likely be able to weather a day of not eating. I won't laugh off suggestions of taking a load off. I'm not concerned about making it to all of the parties, but rather whether I will have the energy to make it to A party. I will literally have to put my feet up at times over the next few days. Perhaps, from this standpoint, I will get to see the event from others' eyes.

But from my own it will be different because I have another job, if you will, that makes some of the rushing, the stressing, the performing a bit absurd. And it will be different because I will be in wonderment at those who have children already, or another baby--literal or figurative--in the making who attack this event like they do every thing else, with no second thoughts.
 

Pregnancy Journal Entry #1: Unintended insults by H-band

Really I shouldn't complain--he's been unbelievably supportive. But there are a few zingers:

--Wow, look at that happy trail!

--Linea negra what? No I'm pretty sure that's a happy trail.

--I'll just assume that was one of the "mood swings" they mentioned in the book.

--I thought you started losing hair AFTER pregnancy.

--It's OK, Sweetie. We'll work it off together.

--No really, let ME make the meals when she starts eating.

--I'm not trying to make you feel bad; I'm sure that having gas is perfectly normal. I'm just amazed there's room for so much air in your tummy when you already have a baby in there.

--I'm just enjoying them now, while I have them.

Mother's guilt begins: Contemplating third trimester travel

A few weeks ago I went to my monthly appointment with my midwife, a gal I've moved heaven and earth (translation: moved to a more expensive insurance plan) to keep. Every few weeks, as I get more and more uncovered lab invoices and anticipate the biggie to come--the hospital bill--I remind myself that I chose this situation. I chose this insurance plan because it includes in its network the hospital where my midwife works, and I really, really like my midwife. She's been in the midwifery business for years, she came very well recommended, and when we met I said to myself--SHE'S the one.

So then, why can I not take her advice?

My monthly checkup was about 90 percent complete--baby's heartbeat is fine, my growth is normal, my pee is normal--when H-band decides to chime in with The Question. The question I'd answered for myself a long time ago, but obviously not to his satisfaction:

"You know, Jory's got a blogging conference in New York in early August she's planning on going to. She's been traveling a lot lately, and this would be her last trip, but I just wonder if it's a good idea."

Midwife asks: "How many weeks will you be?"

"Thirty four," H-band says.

"Thirty three," I correct him, "entering my thirty fourth."

Our midwife doesn't even take a second to think it over, "Oh well, you're not going."

"I'm not?"

"Oh no, not at thirty four weeks."

I throw out my defensive measure--the one I'd been resting on."My airline cut-off is thirty six weeks!"

"Airlines don't know what's best for you," she says launching into a very well-meaning discussion about how it makes perfect sense that I would still continue to think like a business person, since it's how I've derived my identity for so long, and how difficult it can be to start thinking like a mom. But starting now, it was time to think differently, make different decisions.

I think to myself, of course I will, but after the conference.

Mentally I cross off a business trip to Chicago and my high school reunion, which would take place the two weeks before my conference. These are the sacrifices I must make as a mom to be. But no. Not my conference.

****************************************************

Women's work?

Part of my experimentation with my new neighborhood involved trying a new place for a mani-pedi. This didn't come with a small amount of apprehension; a good mani-pedi place is hard to find.

I got comfortable in my chair, settling into the warm pool of water at my feet. An Asian man--not older than 35--lifted my right hand.

"What shape?"

"Short and square," I replied.

"This color on your hands and feet?" he asked, holding up the bottle of deep red that I had picked out when I walked in.

"Please."

I watched this man study my cuticles and start trimming away at my nails. This was most certainly a first for me--having a man give me a mani-pedi. I've seen more men come to salons to receive services, but never had I seen a man giving them before.

I noticed my judgements: Can this guy do a good job? Will he bungle the polish? I watched him work, when normally I would sit back and zone out.

But why would a man who's trained to give manicures do a bad job? This incident made me think about work, and more specifically, women's work versus men's work. What kind belongs to whom anymore?

____________________________________________


I hand H-band a piece of notebook paper with a list of tasks.

"For the week," I say to him, dubious that he would internalize my requests.

"Yep, thanks."

"What are you doing today?"

"Got some work out back, some shopping, and a call at lunchtime," he says.

I'm uneasy with his answer, "But what about the list? When will you get to the list?"

I wonder if, since leaving his company, he'll be efficient with his time, or productive. When we both worked full-time we divided tasks accordingly: He did household tasks like the dishes and most of the cooking. I paid the bills and planned things like travel and dinner parties. I gravitated toward things in the future; he handled things as they came up.  Now he was taking on everything at home: the immediate, the planned, and, when the baby comes, the primary caregiving.

I remind myself that he's good at this. I come home, and he's made dinner. I know that with our daughter he will do what comes naturally and keep her safe, fed, and loved. But I can't help myself: I plan.

"When will you call the insurance people?" I ask. "Will you hang the pictures today?" "Who are you meeting with today?" I want to make sure he really wants to do this. And I have to ensure he's structured, that he's in movement, that he still thinks of his future.

I need to watch him work because I question his instincts in this realm, even when they are more highly honed than my own.

 

 

Preggers

I saw a line, and a lighter line next to it. I read the box again; negative would be just one line. Any second line, light or equally dark, meant yep--with child. Or with embryo, or multiplying cell mass, whatever you want to call it.

"What's taking you so long?" H-band said, walking into the bathroom. I'd been taking longer than usual to get ready for our Saturday morning stroll for coffee. I handed him the piece of plastic I had been studying.

"We're pregnant." I said, perhaps too casually. I'd said that one time before, and devastatingly it didn't stay true for long.

That was January. I'm now just starting to believe the results. After paranoid judgments that I wasn't feeling sick enough and just didn't look pregnant enough--there couldn't possibly be a baby in there while I could still button my jeans--I'm starting to believe. Perhaps when I went in for the second trimester ultrasound and saw a skull and a spine.

"There are the arms," the lab tech said. I had no idea what she was talking about, I couldn't make out any extremities, but those words helped me loosen my grip on H-band's hand. I had no idea I had been holding it so tightly.

"Two?" I confirmed.

"Yes."

She then confirmed two legs, two lungs, and a four-chamber heart. I was almost back to breathing regularly at this point.

"How about the sex?" I asked.

"The baby's legs are closed," the tech said. I would later learn this is commonly said at second trimester ultrasounds as a CYA mechanism, "I'm pretty sure I can see labia...ninety-five percent sure."

I looked at the mass of white on the screen. "If you say so." I turned to H-band. Perhaps it was because a number of our friends were having girls lately that I had been so sure it was a boy. Or perhaps it was the illogical presumption that I had more Y chromosomes to offer up than X--I always felt like I had a lot of boy in me, despite the boobs and other anatomical indices.

"You happy?" I asked H-band.

"Yep," he said, not very convincingly. He'd told me that he didn't care what sex the baby was, but I could tell he felt a twinge of worry, just like I had over the prospect of having a little boy; a question of whether or not he would be able to understand her. I wasn't concerned; though I felt a little guilty. I grew up in a house of women--we take over.

I'm in the "honeymoon trimester". I feel like myself, though I find it more difficult to pick up things from the floor. My fitness instructor has to give me different instructions when we get to abdominals. People who don't know me just think I have a gut and am naturally well-endowed in the chest. Oh if they only knew.

The first trimester was difficult. I was hardly sick and not nearly as tired as I was warned I would be. But I traveled throughout and felt that the 20-30 percent less that I could bring to things was glaringly obvious; my insistence on a cranberry and soda at cocktail parties an admission. I wanted to say, "Not getting my hopes up too much yet," then I shushed myself. I didn't want to manifest the devastation I encountered last summer. I would do things differently this time, whatever that meant.

I came back from business trips and crashed over the weekend, too tired and icky feeling to get up off the couch some days. Still I was only sick-sick one weekend, during a trip to Mendocino. I'd puke and buy myself some hours of reprieve. I called my friend Lissa and my sister-in-law--both doctors--to ensure things were OK. Both said the symptoms sounded indicative of standard morning sickness. It must be something else, I told them. I just didn't feel sick enough.

I harbored a bit of a complex over not being "Mommy" enough. Moms get ubersick when they are pregnant. They look abundant. They drip with, I don't know, Momminess. But during the first trimester waiters still asked me if I'd have a glass of wine with dinner; no one insisted on helping me with my bags on airplanes. I wondered if I was fooling myself.

The few who knew early on asked me, "How will you do it?" I know people wonder that. I've not exactly been one who has lived with visible boundaries between my work and life. The past five years have been all-in. There was a point where I had to stop asking myself that same question. It had become an excuse to not try for something else.

A year or so ago I began practicing creating more space--nothing glaringly obvious. While traveling, I'd stop working before I passed out from exhaustion, taking in a TV show or reading a book before I fell asleep. I came home earlier from work, knowing full-well that I'd get back on email later that night, but at least making it home for dinner. I stopped cramming things into the periphery of my day and letting the things I chose to do stand on their own, without having the less-important accomplishments lean against them like tchotchkes from some garage sale, unnecessary bulk.

Yesterday, after a long day working at home--after two weeks of on and off travel--H-band started in,

"You need to start talking to the baby," he said. "She can hear you."

"I've been on conference calls all day," I said. "She's heard me plenty."

He's been insistent on providing stimuli for the baby, just lately playing this game with my gut, poking my side three times and then waiting for the baby to poke back. She isn't exactly a counter yet, but she's responsive.

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

H-band gets a kick out of this; it's an indication that she'll be responsive to us outside of the womb. We both want that reassurance that the story we're building in our heads--the one we keep repressing--will, in fact, come true.

No promises, I keep saying to myself, then saying more quietly, but why the hell not?

Where did all my hobbies go?

My business partner, Lisa, passed along a questionnaire from a blogger who will be writing about the working habits of female entrepreneurs. Both Lisa and my other partner, Elisa, had responded; I tried not to read their answers as I approached the questions, but I couldn't help but notice that our answers were eerily similar--with the exception that, as a parent, Lisa spends about 1/3 of her time parenting. Elisa and I try to eak in workouts, books/TV and the occasional cooked meal when we're not working or sleeping.

What amazed me about all of our responses:

--Our hours worked: We tend to put in similar amounts of hours, getting up early to address email, getting in a full work day, and jumping back on our computers to address email/reading after our dinners and activities with friends/spouses/children.

--Our time on email: It's an ever-present thing, even when we're traveling or "offline".

--Our dwindling hobbies: Elisa is a theater buff, and Lisa used to ski a ton. I used to go to yoga class religiously and write creatively. These pursuits were not in our answers, or they were mentioned as rare activities squeezed in while on vacation, or with the words "try to" preceding them, as in, "I TRY to catch a show once a month."

As I was typing my responses to these questions about what I did outside of work--working on a Saturday morning, as I tend to knock out reading I didn't get to during the week--I looked over at my husband, Jesse, embarrassed.

"Jeezus hun! I don't have hobbies anymore."

"You think?" he said, with no small amount of sarcasm.

I love to read profiles of other entrepreneurs, with the voraciousness many have while reading People, In-Style, or some other publication detailing the lives of the rich and famous. I love to hear how they spend their time, down to their commute routines. There's a column in Inc Magazine that showcases a different entrepreneur every month, detailing his/her typical work day. And I marvel at those who do such things as cycle religiously for two hours before sunrise, or who are competitive flamenco dancers on the side. How do they do it and run a business? I wonder.  

I think back to early in my career in New York City, when I worked at several media conglomerates and made it a goal of mine to hit all of the new plays, films, and hot spots I could afford that were listed in Time Out NY magazine. Going through old boxes this past month as I prepared for a move, I found an old collection of Playbills and matchbooks--proof that, once, I did stuff that was not work-related. I found old manuscripts and magazine clips and was amazed at the consecutive hours of creative time it must have taken to write it all. Though I wanted to pare down all the random detritus I'd collected over the years, I couldn't get myself to throw this stuff away.

Jesse and I stole away for a bagel this morning, and I bragged to him that every Saturday, back when I lived in New York more than 10 years ago, I used to walk to a local bagel shop, order one with one of three of my favorite shmear flavors, then stop over at the coffee shop across the street to read The New Yorker or a book I was reading with my book club. I didn't have a mobile phone or a laptop; it was a purely analog pursuit. And I'd spend hours there, enough to get my thoughts swirling. I'd go home and write up a storm.

I used to regularly host friends for dinner, planning the menu days before and often prepping food most of a Saturday afternoon. Or I'd endeavor to bake something I'd never made before.

I used to take classes on such things as fiction writing, winetasting, boxing, or improvisational acting, and attend book readings after work.

I feel slightly wistful, but hardly regretful, of the changes; I'm more mindful of them. On the other side of the coin, 10 years ago I yearned for more adventure out of my work, and to do more than read manuscripts and edit articles eight hours a day. I wished I could travel more. I wished that I could work for myself and maybe even support a family with my work. I wished that the time I did have wasn't spent wishing for more.

I may have no hobbies, but in that last respect the grass is most certainly greener today.

Real Advice on Public Speaking

I got a kick out of reading Tim Ferriss's post on how he prepares for a public speaking gig. Ironically Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, could take up an entire four-hour work week with just his recommended prep alone.

Still, I appreciated his no-nonsense approach to getting things done, and in this post his candid admission, despite much acclaim and speaking opportunities, of not being a natural public speaker. I can totally relate. People who know me probably think that's disingenuous coming from me, an extrovert, a Gemini, a communicator. But it's true. Sure I love to talk, but talk in an organized, engaging manner? That takes practice.

Five years ago, if someone asked me if I had a strategy for public speaking, I would have said something about winging it and going with the flow. I am oddly more comfortable with being asked to share something off the top of my head than a practiced response with chunks of sound bites. Unfortunately for me these days that ain't realistic. So I did what I had to, built a speaking prep routine.

Over the past few years I've established best practices that work for me, and maybe for you: