15 January 1999: Appreciation

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Step class last night. A different instructor than Tuesday's. This one might be good eventually but she had no idea how to lead first-timers, which many of the class are. I fumbled too, because she moves in counts of four and every other instructor I've had has moved in counts of three.

The first time an instructor works with a group, particularly when the group is mostly beginners anyway, she should give direction every time she changes moves. It's like a square-dance caller, I figure: call to tap up and down four times then go over the top (of the step), and once over the top, you still have to tell the class what to do on the other side of the step--go back and forth over the top some more or tap up and down on this side? Before an instructor has established a pattern over a few classes, the class's muscle memory cannot make up for our lack of mind-reading.

Also last night I used one of the wooden boxes instead of the cheesy steps. The cheesy steps have no internal support across the middle, so they sag distressingly under any weight. The top surface of the step is quite small, maybe one foot by two, and has a one-inch bevel all the way round. A Reebok step is wider and longer and has a sloped edge. A normal person can stand on a Reebok bench with her feet twice as wide apart as her shoulders, which the cheesy steps do not permit. And the wooden boxes, upon which I gazed as a horror of miserliness the first night, are buttressed so stepping up doesn't mean dropping down. Plus they have little rubber grippies on the corners, so they don't slip. The horror of miserliness proved my assumption wrong.

This is a good workout, harder than I push myself on the Nordic Track or maybe it feels harder since it's twice as long. And I can afford it, which is nice.

I'm wearing a pair of white jeans I bought the summer of '94 when I decided I didn't have to hate myself for not being able to wear the white jeans from the summer of '89. These '94 ones are so snug it's repellent, and the problem I encounter in skirts, using up so much fabric to go out over my belly and butt that there's not so much left to hang down, means with these jeans that I have a high-water effect going on: the leg of the jean doesn't fall when I stand up because my calf fills it. The 1989 weight was not a reasonable one for me to maintain. But I'm not going to make this allowance for myself every five years. Five and a half months to June.

I am not particularly disciplined about eating. I mean, I am not at all disciplined about eating. I therefore must be better about working out. If you count walking, I have exercised six out of the last seven days.

And yes, getting fit--gaining muscle, losing fat, increasing my stamina, strength, and flexibility, and dropping inches--is about all I've been thinking about for the past few days.

Except my audio pages are still inaccessible and I don't know why.

Except that I need a Reader's Guide to Coetzee.

Except this morning I found out Sage is coming back. That'll be interesting.

Except this morning Diane said this:

She said she had been writing--my criticism of Jody has been that she hasn't been doing any--but if only she had a life like mine, then she'd be writing all the time. It's so hard for her to find time, and then she's so tired after work...

I don't know how to deal with thinly-concealed envy. I know how to deal with open envy even less. This is my life, folks, and I don't feel like apologizing for it, though I keep running into people who seem to think I should.

And I wanted to say, although I didn't: having to work is no excuse for not writing.

There's a great quote I saw on Xingcat's page today:

"It does no good to run a pig farm badly for twenty years, all the while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By that time, pigs will be your style."

-- Quentin Crisp

Yes, it's harder, which means you have to make some decisions: are you going to get up 30 minutes earlier in the morning and write, or are you going to sleep in and then complain about not having any time? Are you going out with friends on the weekend, or are you going to cancel because you have to hunker down? Are you going to bring a pad of paper with you wherever you go, or are you going to insist that you can only work on a computer?

In fact, I'd be willing to argue that if your day is completely unstructured, it's even harder to put your butt in a chair and write. Because it's too damn easy to put it off and do something else. But you don't want to hear about that.

You're right, your life probably isn't like mine. That's no excuse for your not getting something done, though. If you're not doing it now, you won't do it at that mythical point in the future. Trust me on that one.

My précis:

  1. This is her life, and she doesn't apologize for it.
  2. Having to work is no excuse for not writing.
  3. Yes, [to write during a working life] is harder.
  4. If your day is completely unstructured, it's even harder to put your butt in a chair and write because it's too damn easy to put it off and do something else.
  5. But you don't want to hear about that.
  6. If you're not doing it now, you won't do it at that mythical point in the future.

My response:

She doesn't apologize for her life (meaning, her income, which frees her from a job), and that's fine. I don't know how either Darin's or Diane's family is financially, how they each grew up, so I'll assume they're self-made. Darin did something or other with Macintosh and has made himself a wealthy man. He used his brain and earned his income. Diane's not the dimmest light on the block either, going to Stanford and USC and working for Apple. So my first point is that no, she need not apologize for her wealth.

I agree that having to work (assumed: for an external employer) is no excuse not to write. Everyone makes choices about how to spend her time, and anyone who watches "Friends" while wishing someone would publish her brilliant though as yet unwritten novel deserves ample noogies. My second point is simple agreement that everyone can write something sometime.

Diane blithely understates that "yes, it's harder." She suggests getting up a half hour ealier or skipping an evening with friends. These are good ideas for those who sleep in or spend all their time gallivanting, but what about those people who already operate on a minimum of sleep or haven't seen their friends in months? Maybe Diane knows more about Jody to justify her assumption but otherwise it's a generalization.

Third point: yes, living a life with an external job and a lower income is "harder" in that it takes more time than living without that time commitment and with ample funds. It's not just the eight hours of the job, it's the time one devotes to upkeeping one's quality of life. People like to live in clean houses, to sleep enough, to have friends and so on: if someone spent every non-work, non-sleep moment writing, she would be fat, friendless, filthy, and uninformed of the world around her and have nothing of interest to say.

Fourth point: If it's harder for her to discipline herself without structure than with structure, then perhaps Diane might see that for most, to write without pressures of paid work, kinwork, and housework would be easier than it is with those pressures. Eight hours for sleep, eight for work, eight for everything else. It is unfair to expect someone to produce as much in stolen moments and, say, a dedicated four of the eight "everything else" hours as someone else with sixteen hours for "everything else," and whose "everything else" doesn't include chores and errands.

Fifth point: "But you don't want to hear about that." The syntactical antecedent of "that" is Diane's temptations and procrastinations. Maybe you do want to hear about them; maybe that's why you read her journal (maybe you read her journal to live vicariously in her plenty, not because she writes a good journal and presumably a good screenplay, in which case you are pathe). The implied antecedent, however, of "that" is that you don't want to hear what Diane thinks, specifically what Diane thinks about people who do stuff other than write. If Diane doesn't apologize for not having to work, should a working person apologize for working?

Sixth point: Absolutely true. If you don't do it, no miracle is going to happen to make you do it. You want to write, you write. You might write poorly, your floors might develop dustbunnies, you might have to write on paper, you might write tediously, you might miss a party, but you will be writing. You set priorities.

Diane says she doesn't know how to deal with envy and doesn't apologize for her life. Well and good. I don't know Jody's habits or attitude; I know only how Diane presented the situation: Jody expressed envy verging on jealousy. The difference: a jealous person wants what belongs to another but an envious person wants what could belong to herself. A jealous person wants her best friend's boyfriend, that particular man, or doesn't want her friend to be happy while she is not. An envious person wants her best friend happy with that boyfriend and wants yet another Prince Charming to show up for herself. The distinction is important.

Is Jody wrong to be envious? I don't think so; I'd call it a universal human foible. I would posit that Jody was wrong to voice her envy and that her choice of audience and manner of complaint wasn't prudent. I'd also posit that Diane was in turn wrong herself. To assert that her lack of pecuniary straits requires more rigorous discipline than that working folks impose on themselves is grossly to insult those who, with less time and money to dispose of, must spend more of what time they have maintaining their lives than she needs to. Does she fetch her own stamps and groceries? Or does she have the disposable income for a postage meter she can exchange by mail and for delivered groceries?

And last of all, my personal point of view. Am I complaining or explaining what I think? I have said nothing about my income or how much time I spend in mundanities, so I'd call it explaining. However, the obvious inference would be that there's a big gap between Diane's and my incomes and hours worked for that income, and that would be a correct inference. I am envious of Diane's material wealth, sure, but I'm not jealous. I don't apologize for my envy and I don't expect her to apologize for her wealth. So we're even. I do complain though: I don't resent her plenty but do disagree with her argument that her discipline need be stronger and I do resent the implication that she is therewith a superior being.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Diane has the blessing, through brains and work, of needing fewer of those hours for the mundane. She does not seem to be grateful for that blessing but to resent those who envy it.

Do you ambulant folk ever pass someone in a wheelchair and feel grateful for what you have, even though what you have is normal and you've done nothing to become normal? Do you perhaps ever feel impatient if someone physically incapacitated obstructs your able-bodied movement along a sidewalk? Do you then catch yourself and remind yourself sternly that you could be run over by a truck tomorrow and end up a quadriplegic so you should be grateful for what you have and not resent those with less for having less? Well, I do. I have known such an impulse of impatience and chased it with self-recrimination and chastisement. I dislike my impatience but am grateful that the self-abasement immediately follows.

That's an off-the-cuff analogy for you. Diane has what she has and shouldn't feel guilty for being well off, just as no one should feel guilty for the use of their legs. But when she encounters someone envious of her material ease, she might not impatiently assume they're wrong for wishing (even if they're clumsy about expressing the wish).

If she were the truckdriver who was putting everyone into a wheelchair, I might have to revisit how guilty she ought to feel if others are envious--nay, jealous--of her ambulation.

I don't express all the time how grateful I am for my blessings either. And I'm elitist about a number of things and have Belgian chocolate taste on a Hershey's budget. And I don't discipline myself as rigorously as I tell myself I ought about another number of things. And I call myself Empress of the Universe. But I am grateful and I am aware I'm fallible (and my ego is still the size of a planet--the planet just varies from, say, the Little Prince's asteroid to Jupiter). And I am further grateful for that awareness. I guess that's what I haven't seen in Diane's writing, and maybe that's merely because she hasn't put it there. She doesn't flaunt the money so perhaps she's under no obligation to flaunt whatever humility I think she ought to feel.

In other news, I just brought a publication to Marketing for a final edit. The editor had her door closed, and as I looked about the area for another in-box, a coworker strolling by told me, "Knock if you dare." I replied, "Indeed I do not dare," and burst out giggling because it's not every day someone sets me up so perfectly for a Jane Austen quote and a Darcy line at that. I explained myself and thanked her, and she loves Pride and Prejudice too and understood my delight. We chatted about Austen and I told her she should see "Shakespeare in Love" even though it might be painful for her to watch Colin Firth as an unsympathetic character.

I used the Nordic Track when I got home, listening to selected tracks from the two CDs I've received so far. The albums are Synchronicity and Ghost in the Machine, so even though I always call a collection of music on a discrete volume of a given medium an album, that arcane term particularly applies to these. Especially when I said, "I only like the first side of Ghost." So I programmed a few tunes followed by songs from my usual work-out albums, Deadicated and Ten. Note to self: do not attempt again to exercise to the Police. "Synchronicity II" might be bitter, but its pace is all wrong. I recovered to Pearl Jam and managed a decent mileage but I think I pushed my heart rate up into the danger zone to do it.

 

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Last modified 16 January 1999

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