But now that I’m in the “get the book published phase”, I’ve been feeling at loose ends.

I recently took a job with Lululemon.  They are a yoga apparel company.  I had far too much time on my hands, and I didn’t want to go back into corporate America..so retail it is!

Life sometimes gives you what you need if you are open to receiving it. For me, that could just be the personal development and goal training that is so very much a part of the Lululemon culture.

(I’m a bit of an underachiever by most standards. (The whole glorified housewife/writer gig seems like a terrible waste of a 143 IQ.) But I digress.

Because I was feeling lost an unfulfilled, I decided to really dig-in and examine why.  I’ve started doing yoga, started seeing a shrink (ok, so maybe it was obvious to EVERYONE else that I have severe ADD…whatever) and now, started goal training.

I had an interesting session today where after listening to Brian Tracy CDs (cringe-worthy indeed, but if you can get past that, actually kind of eye-opening) we had an exercise in goal mapping.  Now I have been tasked with making a visual representation of my “ideal life” or my 10 year goals.

Goals by Dagney

Ahh I love it. I’m posting in a bar right now.

Earlier today I used the GPS to achieve the single most traumatic accomplishment of my life this far… sending my son to camp.

I was so not ready for that. The seperation anxiety is KILLING me!

The poor kid is on his own for the next three weeks. He’s never even been to a sleepover before.

The only funny part was that the kids we viewed as a serious geekfest, dear old son thought were way too cool to even approach, let alone talk to.

Tell me he’ll be ok.

I did it.  I landed the best job EVER.  Are you ready?

I am officially a chief blogger for a “Preppy Lifestyle” site.

For realsies!

See: Life in the Cove, THAT’S ME!!!!!

Since I was a little girl, all I ever aspired to be was a paragon of taste…MY TASTE.

So my job is to write about East Coast Preppy Lifestyle.  Since that is more or less what I live, I basically just spend all day thinking and writing about myself.  It is sublimely self-indulgent.

FINALLY, someone really cares about my opinion of the most mundane of life’s details.

Oh, and the swag, I tell you it’s divine.  I received a gigantic box full of the cutest accessories.  It was all pink and green, whale embroidery galore…sniff…it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Excuse me, I have collars to pop.

It was a 2-part win.

In the first place, the food was sublime.

In the second, I got to eat said meal, sitting at a bar, which is superior to eating at a table in every way.

Usually when one thinks Le Bec Fin, they think formal, big deal, classic French dining…and well they should because this is EXACTLY what you get in the main dining room. It’s all silk wallpaper, fine silver, orchids and course after course of the most exactingly prepared cuisine you can eat in Philadelphia.

While delicious it’s all oh so very VERY formal.

But walk downstairs after you enter the lobby, and you will find a whole other world.

Oh Le Bar Lyonnais, how do I love thee?

The menu is a la carte. (and a BARGAIN I tell you!)

The gentlemen aren’t wearing coats (well, not all of them anyway.)

And you can pop in on a whim without reservations!

Bernard (not sure his exact job, perhaps professional charmer?) is my favorite person on earth at the moment.

It’s worth visiting for his delicious French kisses alone. (My god that sounds risque, but they were relegated exclusively to the cheek, OBVIOUSLY) Alas, now my eyelids are sprained from all of that coy batting they were doing at him.

Oh, and you still get the whole silver dome theatrics at the bar…the whole experience is delightfully contrived!

Because frankly, I’m not all that likable.

I swear.

———————–

Um….. you know that shushhhhhhing thing that you do?  Yeah, the one you use on your 4-year old child? Well (and I’m just speaking for myself here) it’s a little annoying. Mostly because I’m neither 4, nor your child.

I recommend that all mothers should practice talking with other grownups, ESPECIALLY before inviting grownups over to their home.  In my world (grown-up world) adults actually let each other finish their sentences, or at least boldly talk over one another until one person shuts-up.

You just don’t get to say ‘Shushhhh.’

Saying shushhhhh to people makes them hate you.

But by all means, JUST BE YOURSELF!

2. A new purse. $395

3. A toaster. $380

4. The new David Sedaris Book. (Which Dr. Mean DIDN’T buy me the last time we were at Barnes and Nobel. TAKE THAT FUCKER!) $20

..And 6 puppies. PRICELESS

I shall now go shopping…and I mean SHOPPING. (I told him I quit that too…but funnily enough, something seems to have triggered a relapse.)

Please read the following paper to learn all about what a low class fucker my husband aspires to be.

Smoking

Socioeconomic status and smoking

Analysing inequalities with multiple indicators

Mikko Laaksonen¹, Ossi Rahkonen², Sakari Karvonen³ and Eero Lahelma¹

¹ Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
² Department of Social Policy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
³ STAKES (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health), Helsinki, Finland

Correspondence: Mikko Laaksonen, PhD, Department of Public Health, PO Box 41, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, tel. +358 9 191 27569, fax +358 9 191 27570, Email: mikko.t.laaksonen@helsinki.fi<!–
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Received July 2, 2003, accepted January 20, 2004

	Abstract

Top Abstract Methods Results Discussion References

Background and aims: Socioeconomic differences in smoking have been well established. While previous studies have mostly relied on one socioeconomic indicator at a time, this study examined socioeconomic differences in smoking by using several indicators that reflect different dimensions of socioeconomic position. Data and methods: Data derive from Helsinki Health Study baseline surveys conducted among the employees of the City of Helsinki in 2000 and 2001. The data include 6243 respondents aged 40–60 years (response rate 68%). Six socioeconomic indicators were used: education, occupational status, household income per consumption unit, housing tenure, economic difficulties and economic satisfaction. Their associations with current smoking were examined by fitting sequential logistic regression models. Results: All socioeconomic indicators were strongly associated with smoking among both men and women. When the indicators were examined simultaneously their associations with smoking attenuated, especially when education and occupational status were considered together, and when income and housing tenure were introduced into the models already containing education and occupational status. After mutual adjustment for all socioeconomic indicators, housing tenure and economic satisfaction remained associated with smoking in men. In women, all indicators except income and economic difficulties were inversely associated with smoking after adjustments. Conclusions: Smoking was associated with structural, material as well as perceived dimensions of socioeconomic disadvantage. Attempts to reduce smoking among the socioeconomically disadvantaged need to target several dimensions of socioeconomic position.

Keywords: education, income, occupational status, smoking, socioeconomic differences

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in industrial societies. Over recent decades, the overall prevalence of smoking has decreased among men in many countries, whereas among women smoking has remained at the same level or even increased.¹ However, these changes have not happened equally across all population groups. In most industrial societies smoking has increasingly been concentrated among the socioeconomically disadvantaged. This is particularly true for northern European men, but also women and southern Europeans seem to be moving towards a similar pattern.^2,3

Various explanations for the socioeconomic differences in smoking have been put forward. These include lack of knowledge, scarce material resources and psychosocial stress due to an unfavourable social position and poor material conditions.^4,5 These explanations may relate differently to the various indicators that have been used to measure socioeconomic position. Education, occupational status and income as well as other measures of material living conditions have all been found to be inversely associated with smoking.^3,4,6 While each of these indicators is likely to reflect one’s position in socioeconomic hierarchy, they all also have specific characteristics that may be suggestive about the different explanations for the association between socioeconomic position and smoking.

***********You can read the complete paper here.

I’m a 32 year old white woman with shoulder-length, subtly-highlighted, hair.

I’m married to a doctor. (Well, a Ph.D.)

I have one (step) son. (It’s like motherhood light, sans stretch marks.)

On occasion, we all wear matching polo shirts embroidered with our last name (and yes, I ‘pop the collar.’)

I have a purebred Irish Setter. (She is neither stupid nor crazy…she is adorable, and that’s final.)

I live in the most expensive zip code in my state. (Granted, my house is the size of your closet.)

I’m writing a novel (based loosely on my life in my twenties.  WEEE!!!!)

We are members of a private club.

I work out with a personal trainer.

We are remodeling our kitchen this summer and debating which gourmet range to purchase.

And we just bought a BMW.

A BM-Freakin-W.

Do we want to be walking clichés?  Apparently, we do.  Reading the above summary of the current state of my life sure as hell makes me look soulless doesn’t it?

Fuck.

You see, it’s because of all of this STUFF, that I sometimes fall into a deep soul-rendering panic.  This is what happens when you have everything you want.

Want to hear another cliché?  I’m worried about loosing touch with gritty reality.

So I just signed up to run with Back on my Feet.  They are an organization that brings together runners from different social statuses i.e. homeless and non-homeless runners.

I’m hoping it will at least lend me a little depth, before it’s too late.

DUDE!

Imagine a scene that is a 50/50 mix of nature and action…Nova meets Jerry Bruckheimer.

There was

• Drama (scary snapping tree sound.)
• Suspense (Will poor Bill Scott meet his fate, while sipping fair-trade Mexican Coffee?)
• Intrigue (Just what WAS that delivery truck doing in the bike lane anyway?)
• Mystery (Is it a coincidence that Larry Becker - eponymous Gallery owner- was sitting not more than 5 feet away, calmly observing the scene?)
• Redemption (The mean old neighbor and Dr. Woo, the car detailing savant, worked shoulder to shoulder, clearing the road…Woo even said “that’s the nicest that prick’s been to be in seven years.”)
• Romance (OK, maybe just a soupcon, but I’m pretty sure that barrista Barry and the delivery truck driver shared a “moment” in the aftermath.)

Oh, the best part of the whole drama was that all of this happened just as the City Health Inspectors showed up…not that it had anything to to with health code violations (of which there were none!!! Good Karma is squeaky-clean.)

The show was SO good. I remember seeing Ms. Deal about 10 years ago at the same location, then it was just called the TLA, but you know, other than the branding, it remains unchanged.

The last time I saw her perform, I went to the show with my boyfriend, his brother, and their roommate. All Irish boys and all desperate to be ‘cool’, especially in their taste in music. If I remember correctly they all stood around, careful not to move or bop their heads, or indicate their appreciation of the music through any physical manifestation.

Last night whilst bobbling my head around ostensibly to the beat, I noticed a few men exhibiting this dance-floor rigger mortise.  I mean, they were still beyond still. In a sea of pogoing 80′s throwbacks, these islands of flesh were immobile.  They did not so much as a sway, a twitch or even nod FOR 1.5 HOURS!

We’re not talking about a couple of guys simply not dancing.  This was an all out, full-body PROTEST.  It’s like they were proving they were completely unmoved by the music at all. I started imaging them exhibiting signs of great disdain for their fellow, more mobile, concert-goers.

Thank god I was there with one of my girlfriends, a woman after my own heart who danced and pogoed unabashed, an unbridled, breasts asunder.  We were totally in the moment and we LOOKED it.

Newsflash to stoics, even serious music is fun.  It’s OK to look like you are, in fact, HAVING fun.

After the show while waiting for MK to purchase her tee, a line of three boys walked past me, slightly fatter, slightly balder, and still very Irish.