Happy July! Celebrations, Ramblings, and Oh Yeah, Goals!

photo via x-ray delta one

By Crabby McSlacker

So as promised, even though I'm in full-on blogslacking mode, I'm going to try to slap together at least one blog post a month. Mainly so I can jump down into the comment section and catch up with all my favorite Cranketeers!

But I guess first I gotta actually write about something.

Hmm, let's see. Something about celebrations? We've got the fourth coming up, plus I have to confess I've been in a pretty celebratory mood. Because it's probably no surprise to anyone familiar with this blog that I was pretty psyched about a recent United States Supreme Court decision.

Pretty cool what they said about the unconstitutionality of the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act, right??!!

OK, maybe not that decision. Being an Armed Career Criminal sounds like it would require a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, and guns scare the crap out of me, so I didn't have a huge stake in that one. No, I'm talking about a different Supreme Court decision.

Need a hint?

Can't Every Day be Valentines Day? Picking the Right Partner for Lifelong Love

by someecards

By Crabby McSlacker

Note: Altra Shoe Giveaway Winner announced by the End of Today, stay tuned!

So Valentines Day is over, and we're done with all the flowers and candy and cards and jewelry and candle-lit dinners in snooty overpriced restaurants.

Do you ignore it or did you celebrate? If you played along, did you find a way to make it meaningful and fun or did it leave you feeling a little let down or lonely?

Even if you had a lovely Valentines day (we did!), doesn't it seem a little weird that we set aside a single day to show love and appreciation... right during the middle Gum Disease Awareness Month? (And I'm not making that up! I just got an urgent PR email about it).

This was originally going to be a handful of post V-day relationship tips for keeping the love going 365 days a year, for decade after decade. But when I went to write 'em up? I realized that the most crucial relationship-saving tip in the world is: to pick the right partner in the first place.  And by the time I climbed off my soap box about that, the post was already too long to get to any other tips.

The Power of Partnership

Is there someone in your life, whether a spouse, pal, family member, deity, pet, or even a deceased person or fictional character, whom you can always call on for support?

Hint: not a pet, a sibling, or a deceased person!

Some people don't seem to need this sort of person or presence in their life and they do just fine. Me, I'm basically a crotchety misanthrope (or let's just say "independent," shall we?) but I gotta say, even for a prickly loner, having found such a person?  It Rocks.

I could prattle on and on about "The Lobster," as she is known on the blog--how funny, generous, resourceful, patient, talented, charming, hard-working, forgiving, and adorable she is.

Or I could try to twist this into a post about exercise or dieting or personal development! Or hell, even make it a pitch for life coaching.  I could come up with a list of 10 bullet-pointed tips, enumerating all the cool ways you can leverage the power of partnership to accomplish more in your life.

Or I could get all political and make this a post about gay marriage!  (And speaking of which, if you're not overly offended by (mostly positive) stereotyping and haven't seen this video yet, check out this hilarious pro gay marriage video.)

But the heck with all that.

Instead I'll just say,  "Happy 22nd Anniversary Robin, You Are My World and I Don't Care Who Knows it!"

Anyone else got a partner or support system of some sort you'd be lost without?   Or if not (yet), what would you look for?

Happily Ever After

What sort of person should you spend the rest of your life with?

A recent survey looked at how men and women decide which qualities are most important in choosing a romantic partner. Researchers at the University of Iowa surveyed 1,100 undergrads--and then compared their answers to past surveys.

So, care to guess how important "chastity" is now, compared to back in the 1930's? Or how differently men and women responded to the same questions?

What Do Today's Men Want in a Partner?

Here's what the guys said (ranked from most to least in importance):

Essential characteristics:

• Mutual attraction and love.
• Dependable character.
• Emotional stability.

Important characteristics:

• Education and intelligence.
• Good looks.
• Ambition.

Desirable characteristics:

• Good financial prospect.
• Good cook and housekeeper.

Unimportant characteristics:

• Similar political background.
• Chastity.

And How About What the Gals Want?

Essential characteristics:

• Mutual attraction and love.
• Dependable character.
• Emotional stability.

Important characteristics:

• Education and intelligence.
• Desire for home and children.
• Ambition.

Desirable characteristics:

• Good looks.
• Refinement.

Unimportant characteristics:

• Similar political background.
• Chastity.

What? Men and Women Are Almost the Same!

OK, heterosexuals, you'll have to help me out on this one: I thought gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes were supposed to be alive and well out there in dating land. From the popular media, one would think that in terms of priorities, it's pretty simple: guys want hotties; women want successful Masters of the Universe. So shouldn't these two lists look a little more different from each other?

Are things really changing, or are undergraduates just lying when they take surveys?

True, "Good cook and housekeeper" did not seem to appear very high on women's lists; also women rated their desire for home and children higher than men did (fourth for women; ninth for men). But otherwise: remarkably similar.

So How Have Times Changed?

Love and attraction was not always ranked the most important item; back a few generations ago, it wasn't even even in the top three.

In the 1930s "male respondents were seeking a dependable, kind lady who had skills in the kitchen." And chastity was considered more important than intelligence; it was ranked tenth. Now, chastity is "dead last."

Men have also grown more appreciative of womens' earning ability: they ranked "good financial prospect" 12th in 2008; it was 18th in 1967, and 17th in 1939.

For women back in the 1930s, emotional stability, dependable character and ambition were the top three characteristics they wanted in a man. Attraction and love didn't come in until No. 5.

Women these days rank "pleasing disposition" much further down than they did in the old days. But researchers weren't sure what that meant. Are women ditching nice, amiable guys in favor of churlish louts? Or did the old-fashioned wording of "pleasing disposition" just throw women off?

So What Does Crabby Think of this Survey?

1. It's very cute! It's kind of adorable reading what young people think they are looking for in a mate.

2. However, when it comes to predicting the type of partner these young folks will actually choose? A survey like this is pretty much horseshit.

3. Here's the big fat loophole: "Love and Mutual Attraction" as number one. This means that despite a person's stated desire to find a mate who is dependable, stable, smart, well-educated, and ambitious, all those qualities go right out the window when an "attractive" person strikes up a conversation in a bar one night.

4. Young men really rate "education" above "good looks?" Color me skeptical.

5. Are these even the right questions to ask? Given the sort of mates people frequently end up with, more careful screening might be advised. It's one thing to say that "dependable character" and "emotional stability" are important; it's another thing to know what those traits actually look like in a real live attractive human being.

You may, for example, may want to consider:

• Does Potential Mate get arrested with any frequency?
• Does he/she lack boundaries, and have all kinds of weird scary friends and ex-lovers hanging around?
• Always borrowing money?
• Will sometimes hit on your friends?
• Dictatorial and stubborn?
• Mean to children, pets, subordinates at work, or anyone else with less power?
• Jealous or possessive?
• Frequent liar?
• Physically violent, verbally abusive, or constantly angry?
• Substance abuse issues?
• Unexplained disappearances?
• Always has to be "right?"
• Frequently fired from jobs for "absolutely no reason?"
  

None of these are good signs! No matter how cute and charming a potential mate can be, wrong answers to these questions should be cause for alarm. Yet many folks who would swear that they are looking for an emotionally stable, dependable, spouse don't seem to know what this means. Instead they fall for inappropriate emotional trainwrecks, and can't wait to say "I do" no matter how many red flags are flying.

I Could But I Won't. Yet.

This is one area where I actually feel well-qualified to offer advice. I think 99% of having a blissfully happy long-term relationship is choosing the right person to begin with. Having found a Winner myself, it's tempting to set out a bunch of helpful criteria to help people end up as lucky as I am. (Other than the obvious disaster-avoidance ones above).

And I probably will one day, because I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on the issue and this post is already long enough.

But really, who cares what anyone else advises when it comes to matters of the heart?

The human physiological and psychological responses to romantic attraction are so damn powerful, no "helpful advice" is gonna have much impact. Yet as a bystander, does anyone else find it hard to just butt out when you see a friend or loved one stuck on someone wildly inappropriate?

Sigh.

So, for those of you who are looking, what qualities seem most important in a potential mate? And for those of you who have already chosen, were there any qualities which turned out to be a lot more important than you thought they'd be?

Gay Marriage: Still Too Scary?

So Crabby and her long-time partner the Lobster got married this past weekend, in Provincetown Massachusetts. It's one of the few places in the U.S. where same sex marriage is legal.

Flickr Photo

Forgive us for not inviting you all, but it was a small private ceremony. I can at least, however, share some of the shocking, lurid details.

Oh wait, sorry--there weren't any shocking, lurid details.

We've been together almost 18 years, and we've now had three "weddings" and two domestic partner registrations in an attempt to make our relationship count under the law. (We were actually even legally married for a few days in San Francisco back in 2004, thanks to Mayor Gavin Newsom. That was fun! But that got shot down fast, and we left the state before the California Supreme Court decided to give gay couples another go at it).

So having done the whole wedding thing several times before, we didn't even drag our families out here for the ceremony. It was held in our living room with just a few close friends, a Justice of the Peace, and the cat, who seemed to enjoy making all the allergic people sniffle and sneeze. But however low-key the celebration, we felt like we should do something--it just didn't seem right to leave Massachusetts for the winter without taking advantage of the chance to finally get legally married under state law.

Given how hard folks are fighting for this simple right, it would be lovely to shout from the rooftops "Hooray, Finally, We're Equal!" But, unfortunately, we're still not. Most of the financial benefits one gets from marriage are federal. (Especially if you're in a relationship where one person earns a lot more that the other. You pay lot more in taxes if you can't file jointly).

Why does the federal government get to ignore legal state gay marriages? I have no idea. But according to the IRS and the Social Security people, etc, we're still complete strangers to one another. Our legal marriage doesn't count like a straight marriage does.

Also, despite the panic among the religious right, it's not exactly like gay marriage has taken the states by storm. Most states have gone out of the way to make sure it never happens by amending their constitutions. And while today there are three states where it's legal (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California), tomorrow we may lose California because of Proposition 8. (Arrrgggh!)

Yet there's always hope. And every day, happy hopeful gay couples like us keep trying to get married. And that apparently scares the heck out of a lot of people.

Flikr photo

Batten the hatches! Bar the door! Hide the kids under the bed! Grab the shotgun, because the gays are gettin' married and you know what's gonna happen next...

Er, what is gonna happen next?

I mean, what's the "scary" thing so many people are worried about? I never get that part.

(I suspect most Cranky Fitness readers are not all that frightened, but some may be. And we do get drop-in googlers who may be even be looking for "gay marriage" just to get themselves all riled.)

Truly, we swear we will not try to mess with your commitment to your own marriage and your own family. We will not encourage you to divorce your spouse or abandon your kids. We will not go door to door throughout your neighborhoods, trying to entice you to join us in our "alternative" lifestyle--which, by the way, pretty much looks exactly like your lifestyle, except that we always leave the toilet seat down and we sometimes borrow one another's shoes.

Why do folks need to deny rights to others in order to honor their own? That seems kinda, well... selfish.

Heck, you can still think of your marriage as more "special" if that makes you feel good. In fact, I think everyone should feel like their own marriage is the most special ever in the history of the entire world.

Perhaps I should let Ellen Degeneres say a few words, because she's much better at this than I am. (The video below is in response to Sarah Palin; Ellen has also added her voice to those speaking out against Prop 8 in California.)



'Cause you know what? Honestly, I'm getting a little tired of folks insisting that their own particular religious rules should control what everyone else around them gets to do.

One thing I love about this country is that we acknowledge that not everyone has the same religious beliefs. It would not work nearly as well if we had to pick just one religion and all live by it, right?

I think it's great that we all get to choose: you can eat pork or not eat pork; you can wear head-scarves or yarmulkes or tiaras. You can drink or abstain; you can go to church on Sunday or stay home and watch football. And now, in a few places, you can get gay-married or not get gay-married!

(Although if you are heterosexual and want to show your support, you don't need to run out and get gay-married yourself. Yes, it may seem like a nice gesture, but really, it's not necessary. We gay folks really appreciate your votes and your donations and all the other support you've been giving to fight discrimination. Please, feel free to keep getting straight-married if that suits you better!)

So, to be serious again for a moment: I know how lucky I am. I found the most generous, funny, compassionate, principled, clever, playful, determined, talented, joyful, patient, all-around amazing person in the world to spend my life with. And I wish everyone that same wonderful experience! Love and commitment should not be rationed out only to special, privileged people. The world needs more love, not less.

If you've made it this far, thanks for hanging in there! I know this is off-topic for a health and fitness blog, and I also know my opinions may seriously piss some of you off.

So the Lobster and I will be heading off soon for our cross country trip, but I'll be popping onto the internet whenever I can. Merry will still be here, and we have some great guest posts lined up. See y'all soon... and don't forget to vote tomorrow if you haven't already!

Psst, Girls... Get Your Hot Porn Here!

[By Crabby]

Cover Photo: Porn for Women

So I'm about a year late on this and you all probably have seen it, but what the hell: this book looks hilarious. And there's a new one coming out soon called: Porn for New Moms.

The premise: guys who actually do their share of the chores and are extremely sensitive to their wives desires are... well, mostly amusingly fictional. But to the extent that they do exist: they're HOT! Hotter, actually, than the square jawed guys who bare their six pack abs and pose in skimpy underwear.

So the "pornographic" pictures feature men dusting and vacuuming and saying things like this:


Which play on gender stereotypes, sure, but so what. They totally crack me up.

I probably shouldn't be weighing in on the issue of heterosexual chore division at all, since I have zero personal experience to draw on. But I have noticed that it's not an uncommon expectation that the "home" stuff is predominantly the woman's job, even when both spouses work. And that this expectation persists even though women have been saying "hey, what the hell's up with that?" for the last 40 years or so.

The good news: apparently that expectation is finally beginning to shift a bit, and there's more recognition that guys who do chores are hot! And that at least some men are figuring out that learning to pull their own weight domestically can make them a more desirable mate.

I often wonder how some of you gals who have demanding jobs and kids and a bunch of other responsibilities manage to get enough time to pull off healthy meal planning and shopping and cooking and still have time for exercise. Do chores ever get in the way of your health goals? And are you getting 50/50 help from your significant other? Or are we not quite there yet?

(Anyone hear an odd noise, sort of a chomping, spitting, gargly sound? That's the sound of Crabby physically restraining herself from expressing opinions on matters she knows nothing about. She will be listening, for a change, not spouting off, if any of you want to share how the whole chore-sharing thing works in your relationships or what sort of stuff you've observed watching other couples you know. Crabby will put on her anthropologist's pith helmet and take notes! She finds heterosexual relationships fascinating.)

Someone you REALLY want to keep happy

[By Merry]

There is someone you really want to keep happy.

No, not your significant other. Not your mother, either.

The scenario: You want someone to do something for you.

Do you:
a) Ask them nicely and thank them afterwards?
b) Use guilt, insults, and contempt to pressure them into doing what you want?

Counting hands Wow. That's a lot of people who went straight for the second option. Let me re-phrase the scenario. You want something done and you need to make sure the person you're asking the favor of will still be on good terms with you later. The person you're asking the favor of is someone you really, really don't want to abandon you. In fact, the person you're asking the favor of is the person you see when you look in the mirror.

So many approaches to fitness focus on denying yourself – 'you can't have that brownie, it's bad for you' or 'you will run that last mile, you need to do it, push yourself.' What if you tried the opposite approach and treated your body with some appreciation? It feels really good to do something to pamper yourself. Make the body feel appreciated instead of punished.

I know, the first impulse at this point would be to reach for the fudge ice cream, or glass of red wine, the cigarette or whatever else provides immediate gratification to the taste buds. But feeding a junk craving rarely benefits the body. I would suggest that the junk/comfort foods are largely created by forces outside of yourself – what your parents gave you to eat, what advertisers pushed on you, things like that. Once you satisfy the craving, your body often feels worse. And – come on, admit it. If you try a health-food diet for a few months, your body does feel better.

So, instead of gratifying your cravings, do something nice for your body. For example, I just bought 3 new sweaters, the clingy kind that has angora woven in and feels incredibly soft and warm to wear.

The irrefutable logic behind this purchase:

Irrefutable Statement #1 - Wearing something nice makes you feel good.
Irrefutable Statement #2 - Feeling good makes you appreciate your body.
Irrefutable Statement #3 - Appreciating the body you walk around in leads to wanting to do good things for your body. You reach for the peach instead of the peach schnapps, because it makes you feel good about yourself to treat your body well.

So what the hell. Take an hour or two to get a massage, soak in a hot tub, buy that soft, angora sweater. Do something fun. Do something nice today for somebody you really want to be happy for a long time to come.

Happy Valentines Day?

[By Crabby]

Valentine's Day is a terrible holiday and I am totally against it.

For one thing, you don't get the day off work, which makes it a crappy excuse for a holiday. But the worst thing is the forced, commercialized nature of it. It pretends to be a celebration, but just seems to put all kinds of weird pressure on the coupled and the uncoupled alike.

Singles often say they feel extra lonely and marginalized, even those who are generally quite happy and content with their unencumbered state.

And even many happily married couples seem to be gritting their teeth a bit. The gals often end up feeling under-appreciated. Because isn't your guy's Valentine's Day performance supposed to be some sort of test of how much he loves you? That's what all the commercials say. Like the pressure to be skinny or eternally youthful--even if you know perfectly well the message is bogus, it's still hard not to be affected by it.

(So, like how come you ended up with the guy who never remembers it's Valentines Day at all, or who'd rather celebrate with pizza and a night in front of the tv? Where's that thoughtful hubby who sends flowers to the office where all the other girls can admire them? And how come other women get those broad-shouldered dudes in black tie who spirit them off in a limo for an elegant dinner, then coyly pull out a $20,000 diamond necklace? Where the hell is your limo ride and diamond necklace, huh?)

As for the men... I'm guessing no matter how diplomatically they've learned to hide it, many must secretly dread the whole thing. Culturally, Valentines Day is not a gender-neutral, equal opportunity occasion. It's a test. If you are a straight couple (one gathers from the tv commercials) the Boy's role is to Come Through with the Goodies. The Girl's role is to Cross Her Fingers and Hope He Doesn't F*ck it Up.

So yeah, I hate Valentine's Day... in theory.

But, well, the Crab and the Lobster do celebrate Valentine's Day anyway and it's pretty much always awesome.

[Sorry, some of you probably didn't need to hear that today].

I think same-sex couples have it a little easier on Valentines Day--we're pretty much left out of the cultural and media conversations. DeBeers has not yet, to my knowledge, tried to put pressure on Susie to spring for an expensive diamond bracelet to prove her love to Pam. The 1-800-Flower people are not bugging Steve to make sure he remembers to send a bouquet to Jonathan on this special day. The advertisers leave us the hell alone. Usually that bugs me, but it this case, I feel like it's actually a favor.

However, there are still plenty of miserable gay people on Valentines Day. Why are the Crab and Lobster so lucky?

Partly it's because we've customized the celebration. There's no pressure--it's just one more chance to say "I love you" and have a really nice dinner out. (Which we may actually have the night before or the night after, when it's easier to get reservations. We don't give a crap about the actual date). We don't do the candy or the flowers anymore, or even cards, because after 17 years, we've done all that stuff enough already. We don't need to make any sort of special statement, other than: you're amazing, I love you, how about steak tonight? It may be coincidence, but other couples we know who enjoy the holiday also tend to take a fairly low-key approach.

(Actually, I think the main reason I still enjoy Valentines Day so much despite all my objections is because the Lobster is an incredible person and a perfect partner. So what's not to celebrate? And yes, we belong to that rare and profoundly annoying species: the blissfully happy couple. Really, I'm not kidding, you best avoid us--we're totally nauseating to be around.)

Anyway, to me, what's wrong with Valentines Day is pretty much what's wrong with our view of romantic relationships generally: we celebrate the superficial and barely acknowledge the deeper stuff.

Just look at how so many people select mates: The sweetest, most reliable, thoughtful guy in the world is considered a "loser" if he's not financially successful. The funniest, kindest, brightest woman in the world is considered hopeless if if she's got a few extra pounds or wasn't blessed with a pretty face. Fortunately, not everyone is so short-sighted--but a lot of people are exactly that superficial. The poster children for "love" are always young and pretty and rich, as though those qualities have anything at all to do with the success of long-term relationships.

So my advice? Screw the arbitrary over-hyped Hallmark version of Valentines Day. If you have love to celebrate, celebrate it every day and any old way you feel like it. And if trading heart shaped boxes of candy once a year makes you happy, then do it and have fun!

Just don't let a bunch of corporate hucksters set your expectations for how love is supposed to be shown. The flower and candy and diamond merchants don't give a hoot about your relationship--they just want your credit card number.

What if you are single on Valentines Day? Try to ignore those ads that imply everyone else out there is (a) coupled and (b) happy about it. Sure, a few of us are, but in most cases, a recent study says couples actually find each other more irritating over time. (Not true of other relationships, apparently, like with your friends or your kids). Just keep in mind that a lot of those guys you see dutifully heading home with huge bouquets of roses are actually feeling kinda pissed off at the gals they're bringing 'em home to.

And if you've got some extra unused love on a day meant to celebrate that emotion? Well, how about spending some on yourself. Strangely enough, you may find you plenty left over for other people you care about too.

How about you folks--do you tend to enjoy Valentine's Day, or do you just wish it would hurry up and be over?

Smell me about it

[Written by Mary]

A new dating website matches people by their body odor. They take a saliva-swab to test your DNA, and then match you up with your ideal partner. According to their website, when you share chemistry with someone, you love their body odor and they smell "sexier" to you.

My first thought was that this might be a good dating website for people who were adopted -- at least this way you'd be sure you weren't dating your long-lost brother Fred. Apparently, though, this process doesn't work if you weren't raised by your biological parents until you were about a year old. According to the website, studies performed on mice showed that "When they were free to select partners to mate with, the mice based their mating preferences for different immune systems not on their own immune system genes, but on those of the parents who raised them —- even if they were adopted." It seems that we do try to choose a mate based on the criterion that they are different from Mom & Dad. (Presumably because this will annoy the parents the most?)

Does it make sense to match people by a particular sense? Montaigne wrote that "A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband," but actually deaf people tend to congregate together, probably helped by the fact that they speak their own language. (I make that sweeping generalization based on my non-scientific observations of two people. My brother and his wife are always speaking to each other -- with their mouths full -- across the dinner table. In sign language.)

There is some evidence that people you are attracted to smell better to you than people you're not attracted to. At least, Vanilla wrote a post about how his sweat always smelled attractive to those around him. And he quoted from a scientific study that sounded impressive, so there you go.

Now if only they could segregate people on the subway by body odor, then I'd be a happy camper. Certainly it's possible to be repelled by someone based on their body odor.

What about you? Are you attracted to someone because of how they smell?

Teen Sex Study: Surprise!

This is just a quick weekend toss-it-up-there post, but this study was just too interesting to pass up.

So if the newspaper articles are titled anything like this web story, are parents going to be hiding their local Journals and Couriers and Examiners and Independents for a few days?

Or are they going to clip out the articles and hand them to little Madison and Jason immediately so they won't miss finding out: "Early Sexual Activity May Curb Teen Delinquency."

Wow. This is not what everyone previously thought. In fact,we've been hearing pretty much the opposite all our lives.

So do you think the local school boards, PTA's, Church groups, social service organizations, etc, now armed with this new information, should start handing out condoms instead of anti-sex morality lectures? Hmm... that'll probably happen, lets see... when hell freezes over.

The study followed 534 same-sex twin pairs between 1994 and 2002, which would seem to filter out some of the confounding social and economic factors that you'd get if you just compared "kids who end up having sex early" with "kids who ended up waiting."

Said one of the study's authors: "There is a cultural assumption in the United States that if teens have sex early, it is somehow bad for their psychological health. But we actually found that teens who had sex earlier seem to have better relationships later. Now we want to find out why."

This being a Saturday, Cranky Fitness hereby absolves itself from checking out whether this was a peer reviewed study from a reputable source or something less reliable. (We will just note that it came out of the University of Virginia and was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence--but that the lead researcher is still a Ph.D. candidate.)

Cranky Fitness just liked this study, even though it did not, itself, "start early."

However, those of you who are the parents of teenagers may not find yourselves quite as amused and pleasantly surprised by this information, should it turn out to be true.

Any thoughts?

Guest Post: Dr. J on Sculpting Memories

Those of you who have enjoyed "Dr. J's" witty and sometimes wise-assed remarks in our Comments section may not have realized that he's got quite the sensitive side too! Here's another non-blogger who has ventured to write a Guest Post and done a great job of it. If Crabby can keep getting her readers to write her posts for her, she may never come back! (Just kidding. She's totally addicted to the blog and will be rarin' to come back just as soon as she's settled back home. Lucky you!)

In the meantime, here's some sage advice from Dr. J.:



Sculpting Memories

With the release of the movie “The Aviator” several years ago, I started thinking about the life of Howard Hughes. I believe many people, when they hear the name Howard Hughes, think of some germ-a-phobic nightmare of a man, anorexic with stringy hair and out of control nails.

But Howard Hughes had an incredible life. For much of it he lived as most of us can only fantasize. He knew all the most famous people of his day, dated the most sought after woman, and had more money than most countries! He was able to explore his dreams and desires without apparent limit. With his aging, however, life became difficult for him and he succumbed to the struggles that challenged him. I think many of us have or had people in our lives who because of various reasons, are not seen at their best in our memories. Perhaps, for many of us, seeing these important persons in a kinder light will be of beneficial. A gift to one’s self, perhaps!

It seems to me that with the ‘in the moment’ way life is experienced, it’s all too easy to see people as what they end up as rather than what they were. Life can be very challenging and many people don’t bear up well to the passage of time. Because of a personal experience I feel I have found a tool which can help one to reconnect with the loved one of your past rather that the unloved one of your present.

As my grandfather got older he became more and more estranged from the family. At one point we didn’t talk for almost 15 years. When I heard he was living in the same state as me I decided to contract and visit him. Let’s just say the visit did not go as I had expected. He had years of anger built up and used me to show it. I had been under the assumption that he didn’t want to do anything with the family, but now I understand that that was because of his daughter’s anger with his divorcing her mother. I never saw my grandfather again after this and didn’t have a very good opinion of him. I remember him telling me how hurt and angry he was that I didn’t contact him before. Of course the fact that I was contacting him now didn’t seem to mean much. I said to him, “Where is it written that the grandson has to contact the grandfather and not the other way around?” I had been under the impression that he wasn’t interested in me and I felt that I was reaching out to him. Pride can be a dangerous and foolish choice.

Some years later I had renewed my childhood interest in art and decided to do a bust of my grandfather as a gift to my mother. I collected all the photos of him I could find and began the project. To my surprise, as I worked with the clay and created my grandfather’s image, I found myself reconnecting with the grandfather I had known as a child and young man. Not the angry older man, but the kind, giving person I had known, but had forgotten over the years. I was able to remember the younger man.

I think art can be a useful tool to process, renew and explore feelings. As a sculptor, I used clay.. If one has artistic talents and desires, any medium would work. Otherwise, collage or a photo collage may serve as well. Use old magazines to find memories in pictures. Or perhaps, words from the pages will appear as appropriate to the person. Personally, it feels so much better to remember my grandfather at his best, rather than the person life challenged. I think it’s unfortunate the way one can tend to forget much of a person’s life and focus on the most recent experiences, which with aging can be unpleasant.

Home Stretch

So Crabby's vacation is winding down and she's reached the last few days of Blogging Slackitude. She will soon be back home running a real Health Blog again. However, as she hits the home stretch she finds that she's having trouble managing even these not-quite-real posts she uses as filler between guest posts.

Today, for example, she thought she might talk about some some recent health news: a new study says being in a bad marriage or having other stressful personal relationships can lead to heart problems and other health issues. No big surprise--but still, this is a great topic because Crabby has lots of opinions about relationships! She would love to host a discussion about how not to screw them up. However, a topic like that is too important for a crank-it-out-quick, gosh we've-got-a-long-drive-today post. It should be thoughtful, or amusing, or at the very least coherent, and today there's no time for that.

So, for now: have a nice relationship; it's good for your health! At some later date, we can all talk about how the hell you're supposed to do that. And stay tuned, because as promised, we still have more guest posts to come. By current estimates, Cranky Fitness will resume its official health reporting duties on either October 15th or 16th.

Until then, will there be some days when nothing at all is posted at Cranky Fitness? Well, possibly. Will there be any more Random Crab Facts? Maybe! But maybe not. Since Crabby is not all that interesting a crab, she may hoard some of her very few personal details until her next vacation. Or she may suddenly decide to spill a bunch of them, you never know.

Actually, for those still here and reading, if you'd like to discover an additional Crab Fact, pop down into the Comments. Crabby will explain down there why the title of this post has a Secret Double Meaning!

Thanks again for your patience everyone, and a belated Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Crabby can't believe she didn't know what day it was. Actually--she can totally believe it.

Spousal Support

A recent study highlighted the positive impact one spouse can have on the other by making healthy lifestyle changes.

Before Crabby starts sharing her many disorganized thoughts on this topic (and she hopes you have some too, only perhaps not as disorganized) she'll go ahead and present a few of study's conclusions. It was conducted by researchers Tracy Falba and Jody Sindelar, and as usual, Crabby hopes someday they Google themselves and wind up smack in the middle of the pages of Cranky Fitness--marveling at the mess Crabby has made of their study.

Anyway.

After asking more than 6,000 married adults about exercise, smoking, alcohol use, flu shots, and cholesterol screening--twice, both in 1996 and 2000, here's what our researchers found:

"Spouses were five to six times more likely to quit smoking, quit drinking, and to start getting flu shots if their spouse started doing so during the study."

They were also about 50% more likely to start exercising, and about 80% more likely to get a cholesterol test.

And it didn't matter which spouse changed first: husbands and wives influenced each other equally.

The study didn't specify whether nagging played any part in this, and Crabby refuses to speculate. (She's also not clear that research supports the idea that "not drinking" is always healthier than drinking, either, but whatever).

However, interesting as this was, it's mostly a jumping off point for Crabby's real interest: What impact does being coupled have on the person who is already health-conscious (or health-obsessed)? Sure, having a healthy mate may lead one to adopt better habits, but does having a slackier mate do the opposite? Does it drag you down? Or what happens if you're about equally conscientious?

Crabby guesses that among the coupled Cranky Fitness readers out there, many of you may be the more health-conscious one in your relationship. So while it's great that you may be influencing your mate in the right direction, what's the impact on you?

Not being prepared to actually go consult The Google and hunt down relevant research, Crabby would much rather find out what you all think about how being coupled or not affects your attempts to be healthy. Because who cares what the studies say when we have our very own entertaining database right here?

Of course there is this whole pesky "spouse" issue, which Crabby interprets to mean Partner or Significant Other or Mate. Crabby feels her Most Significant Other should count, even though under the laws of every United State except Massachusetts, she doesn't. But that's a rant for another time.

Anyway, Crabby is very lucky in that even though MSO does not share quite her obsessive interest in health matters, and dislikes most vegetables, she has always been very supportive of Crabby's efforts to eat healthy and get daily exercise.

In fact, check this out: Crabby's knees are trashed from years of running; she is much better at going uphill than down. Her absolute favorite aerobic walk is up to the top of a huge hill (in Crabby's mind, it is a Mountain) but it's an hour and a half round trip, and her knees object heartily to the walk back down. Nevertheless, every Sunday, Crabby sets off with her iPod and her heartrate monitor and charges up the hill.

And MSO arrives, 45 minutes later, at the top of the hill to drive her back down again. She brings a bottle of cold water, too.

Is that not awesome?

So what do you folks think about being singled or coupled and the effects that might have on your efforts to be healthy? Or kids, heck, we can throw kids in the mix too!