Thoughfulness Versus Thinking Too Much

While chatting over dinner with a friend about a year ago, I worried I was annoying her. At dinner a week before, she smiled, was engaged, and I had hoped she enjoyed my company. But this night, she was detached and unmoved by everything I said. I reviewed everything I'd said during dinner, then everything I said to her earlier that day. Nothing made sense. What had I done?

In the weeks and months prior to this night, two special friends reminded me frequently that not everything was my fault. This is obvious, but knowing this fact is not enough. When are things my fault, and when aren't they? I needed to learn that discrimination. On this night, I remembered this lesson and tried an experiment. What if my dinner-friend's "reaction" had nothing to do with me?

I quieted my mind, which was still racing with self-blame. Listening to her, watching her -- there's something! -- I saw my friend blink a long, slow blink. I was reminded of trying to stay awake during class after a late night. My friend might be tired. Maybe I truly wasn't to blame!

Looking back at the first paragraph, I see many self-action phrases: "I was annoying her", "What had I done?", "enjoyed my company", "unmoved by everything I said". I wanted to be a good friend and good company, and when the unexpected happened I took a 'me-centered' view -- it was my fault. I was in control of the situation and I screwed it up. Usually, I follow these thoughts with intense self-scrutiny, hoping to find something I can fix. It usually turns into a wrestling match with reality, where I try to bend events to my will.

The ending of this story is the best part. While it felt nice not to blame myself, the joy came afterward. I asked my friend if she was tired, and learned she hadn't been sleeping well. By thinking less and listening more, I was able to take a step into her world. I felt thoughtful and supportive, like a good friend. We said goodbye early that night, so she could take care of herself.

Dance history

I tried swing dancing tonight, for the first time. I enjoyed every minute of it, once I finally got to the dance floor. A question arose about my dance history, for better or worse, and I felt compelled to enshrine it on my blog.

• Elementary school, sixth grade, end of the year: the principal (male) and several male teachers thought they should encourage the male students to dance before they transitioned to junior high school. We formed a circle, learned to two-step, and learned something they called the "flying Dutchman." I can't properly recall what that move was, but it was silly. I think the male teachers were more uncomfortable than the students, but I appreciated their effort. I also remember my Uncle Marve performing a jig at a family reunion, and I was captivated. I never learned how, though.

• Junior High: my father had cable television, and hence had MTV back when they played music videos all day long. I thought Axel Rose had a cool move in the Sweet Child O' Mine video, and mirrored him in socks on carpet. At school dances, there weren't many guys, so I'd hang out in a circle of girls if they'd let me. Again, I'd dance similar to the girl across from me, as if we were dancing together -- one girl eventually noticed, named Casey Meyer (on whom I had a crush from 4th grade into high school).

  At one memorable dance, we had a DJ and a dance contest. I was surprised when I was among the last 4 people dancing, and very nervous. Finally, it came down to me versus Sean Isaacson (a really nice guy that everyone liked). Sean had the Milli Vanilli moves going, and I was freestylin' with the occasional Axel Rose slide thrown in. I won, and took home Bon Jovi's &dquot;New Jersey&dquot; album (on an LP record -- this was long before CDs).

• High school: not much to note here. I remember being short on cash when it came time for photos at my first real high school dance -- that was scary, and I managed to work things out with Tammy noticing (and I still have the photos). My mother loved dancing at Oktoberfest, and I went along a few times over the years. At one of these events, I learned the Chicken Dance and how to waltz, sort of. None of the adults could really answer a technical question I had about the waltz, and I gave up. I'm solid on the Chicken gestures, though.

• College: went to one Sadie Hawkins dance, and I think the woman that invited me was named Laura. Started dating someone that didn't care so much for dancing, and that kept me off most dance floors for more than a decade. There were two notable exceptions. At Erik Anderson's wedding, the bride's mother taught me to waltz and polka during the reception. This was a Country-Western dance, and the polka moved very, very fast around the room (I loved it).

  The second, enormous exception is that Dr. Read, my undergraduate math adviser, encouraged all the math students to try his wife's Scottish Country Dancing course. I attended the course, and joined the club on campus. I was practicing Scottish Country Dance once a week (or more) for at least two years. Since few people have seen this style of dance, I'll include links to videos (which will eventually break, at which point you should just search for [scottish country dancing] at Google video or YouTube).

  • A collection of reels (fast dances), 5.5 minutes: includes Marie's Wedding, and maybe Reel of the Royal Scotts (I've forgotten a lot since college): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCptMS8IZvA
  • A strathspey (slower dance), 1.5 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLnx5PZpcOI
  • Good example of a formal ball, 4 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osuow59BHdU
  For what it is worth, yes, I wore a kilt for the bigger dance events. No, I won't tell you what I wore underneath.

• The Google Years: The only really notable event, before now, was my friend Jill dragging me to a Tainted Love concert and dance. Jill danced with wild abandon, and I felt like I was in high school again (when I danced with wild abandon and often embarrassed myself -- Spin Me Round, anyone?)

Tonight I can add Swing Dancing to this list. I had a great time. My partners were patient and helpful. In fact, I danced with every women but one (I'll remedy that next time). I suspect I'll be back for more.

No, thank-you.

This might be the most-important story I was told last year.

I was chatting with a good friend, and asked about being open while protecting myself from abuse. She shared a parable about an abusive old man in a small village. I applied the lesson from the parable later that same night, and several times that week.

An old man in a small village enjoyed intimidating his neighbors. He would abuse them verbally until they felt bad about themselves, telling them how lazy they were, or stupid, or thoughtless. Everyone was afraid of him, and this made him feel powerful. Having mastered his village, he wanted to go further and dominate the guru who lived peacefully in nearby hills.

He visited the guru and offered rotten fruit as gift. The guru declined, saying nothing more than "No, thank-you." The old man feigned anger, and began his verbal lashing of the guru. After receiving each abusive statement, the guru simply said "No, thank-you." Eventually the old man's feigned anger turned to real anger, and he lost control, yelling "What do you mean, 'no thank-you'? That doesn't make any sense, I wasn't offering you anything!"

The guru replied, "When you offer me rotten fruit, I say 'no, thank-you' because I know it is bad for me, and I do not accept it. Then you have to carry your own rotten fruit while you return home."

Almost every application I have had for this lesson has been in defense of myself, from myself. While listening to the story, I missed an important call. When I discovered this, I made myself feel guilty for not returning home sooner. Then I saw how I offered myself that rotten guilt, and accepted it. Finally, I told myself "no, thank-you" and refused to accept the guilt any longer.

The story's abstract lesson, for me, is that I can protect myself without building defensive walls. There's no need to create one-size-fits-all boundaries. Instead, I can remain open but discriminate between good and rotten fruit. Of course I will make mistakes, most likely accepting rotten fruit due to an assumed obligation. When I observe myself compounding those mistakes with additional self-abuse, I simply tell myself, "no, thank-you."

What is a work-out?

In yoga teacher training, we recently got distracted by the term "workout." I decided to follow-up with a quick gander at the Oxford English Dictionary (I have the compact version, with 9 original pages micrographically printed on each page). However, a trip to the OED is never quick for me. Instead of writing a short email with a cute explanation to the interested party from teacher training, I wrote the rambling text you see below. Hopefully I've quoted the OED in a way that doesn't violate the spirit of copyright law.

With respect to the origins of the term "work-out", here's what I could deduce. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed) has "work-out" as follows: A boxing bout for practice; more widely, an exercise session, practice, or test.". It has quotes from 1909 onward, with the early quotes all related to boxing:

• 1909, R. A. Wason in _Happy_Hawkins_: "I expect to give it a fair good work-out before I'm through with it."
• 1923, H. C. Witwer in _Fighting_Blood_: "I aint going to get no gym workout"
• 1927, Daily Express on 27 May: "Either in a workout or in an actual contest."

but a quote from a decade later has a clearly non-boxing context, where the subject is not a boxer, and the event is not clearly a "practice."

• 1938, M. K. Rawlings in _Yearling_: "'Will we take both dogs?' 'Nobody but old Julia. She ain't had a work-out since she was hurt. A slow hunt'll do her good.'"

The definition for "work-out" points to a subsection of the 38th definition for "work". The definition for "work" is broken into 39 meanings covering 13 pages. Definition group 38 is for "work out", and it is broken into 3 sub-categories. The third category has the relevant definition: "To box for practice, as distinguished from engaging in a set contest. Also gen. to practise, take exercise, rehearse." There's a few quotes from 1927 through the present, with a quote related to dancing in 1929, and a quote using the general sense (beyond boxing) in 1948 from Gore Vidal's The_City_And_The_Pillar_: "Jim worked out in the YMCA."

More interesting to me were other definitions in group 38. Here are entries from the first two sub-categories:

sub-category 1:

• a) "To bring, fetch, or get out by some process or course of action; to get rid of, or effect a riddance of; to expel, deliver, efface, etc." (quotes from 1595)
• d) "To wear out, esp. by labour, or by continued application of force (obsolete or rare)" (quotes from 1611)

sub-category 2:

• f) "To bring about, effect, produce, or procure (a result) by labour or effort; to carry out, accomplish (a plan or purpose)" (extra def from Shakespeare in 1597: to persevere until the end) (quotes from 1534)
• j) "To bring to a fuller or finished state; to produce or express in a complete form or in detail; to develop, elaborate." (quotes from 1821)
• k) "To study or investigate completely; to work through (obsolete or rare)" (quote from 1830)

Having copied these definitions carefully, a process which encourages me to think more carefully, I would venture that the use in boxing might have originated from uses like sub-category 2, j and k. That is, a boxer would work out his moves, or his plan for a fight. This "strategic" sense of "work out" would make more sense if boxing practice was less athletic (compared to modern "working out") in the early part of the century. From there, I can easily imagine loose usage of "working out" a plan in boxing leading to generalized "practice" exercise in a gym (as opposed a "soccer practice", which we don't usually call "working out").

It is fun to pick and choose definitions we might like for yoga, versus aerobics and other gym workouts. For instance, the catharsis of 38a is nice for all exercise, but I prefer to leave 38d to exhausting oneself through jumping rope and such. 38f and j might mean chiseling your abs on a machine, or might be self-transformation in yoga. 38k sounds much more like yoga than like aerobics -- though I suppose "total body workouts" might claim membership for 38k. My hypothesized pugilist use fits nicely with the idea of yoga, where asana is part of learning and practicing focus and awareness for life in general. Of course, such picking-and-choosing is probably hard to support academically, and is more of a mirror of my yoga-biases than of real meanings.

Bravery

I think I just learned something. Bravery is a symptom of understanding your priorities.

Great weekend!

1. Todd arrives Friday afternoon.
2. We meet Jill, David, Devon, and other great people at a Tainted Love concert. Tainted Love rocks.
3. Sleep late on Saturday, then go to breakfast, then to the used record store.
4. Dinner with Lina, Jason, and Kai, who have impeccable taste in restaurants and wine.
5. Stay up late talking, with another couple bottles of wine.
6. Eleven-mile solo hike in Tilden Regional Park and Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.
7. Dinner and dessert with Todd, Ginelle, and Linda.

How to make the Chicago River green

After a friend told me about the Chicago River running green on St. Patrick's day, I had to investigate. Here's the report I sent to my friend, once I figured out how it's done.

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On the other hand, current rumors that I'm nerdy are spot-on. I couldn't help but search for [chicago river green] tonight, after your mention of this St. Patrick's day spectacle. I've written more than you want to know about it below. Here's the executive summary: yellow-green fluoroscien dye appears relatively non-toxic, is sort-of natural, is safe for use in potable water, and Chicago taxpayers are spending at most $133 per minute of glowing green delight.

The query [chicago river green] led me to a site with a photo, and I was surprised/frightened by how bright green the river becomes (the coloring of the people and sidewalk looks normal, but the river is crazy-green): http://www.saintpa\ tricksdayparade.com/chicago/index.htm

That site told a story about the inspiration for dying the river. Supposedly, it came from observing a plumber's green-stained overalls. This led me to a plumbing supply store that sold leak-tracing dyes, and had a "material safety data sheet" (MSDS) available. The MSDS was for Xanthene-based chemicals, and was slightly frightening (some combustability, irritability with skin). However, the site said their dyes were safe for drinking water, so I searched further.

The query [chicago river xanthene] led me to a wikipedia page in French about "flourosciene" (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoresc%C3\ %A9ine). Flourosciene has been around since 1870-ish. It is naturally produced by some bacteria, in very small amounts. It might be useful as a defense for these bacteria, in that it has some toxicity to some organisms. The page confirmed that it is used in the Chicago St. Patrick's Day parade. Later, I found an english version of the page (english spelling is flourescien, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescein), but it doesn't mention the bacteria. At any rate, fluorscien appears to be safer than xanthene in general.

The lethal dose of fluorscien in mice (LD50) is 0.3% of the mouse' body weight, when injected intravenously. Scaling up to me, this is about 0.42 pounds of fluorscien (0.3% of 140 pounds), or about 190CCs. So it's only barely toxic in mammals. It is not carcinogenic, or suspected of being carcinogenic, in humans; but somewhere I read that it is mutagenic in yeast, at some level.

Forms of fluoroscien are used in medical treatments, for example detecting corneal scratches (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medli\ neplus/ency/article/003845.htm). The most useful MSDS page I found is http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/FL/flu\ orescein.html.

I don't know Chicago geography, and didn't know Chicago had a river before tonight. So I don't know which part of the river to get flow information from. The max flow listed at http://pages.ripco.net/~jwn/sewage.html is 350 cubic feet per second (but some branchers appear far smaller). So one minute of green water means dying at most 21,000 cubic feet, or about 157,000 gallons. According to websites that sell fluorscien dye, one pound of dye powder will give you a "strong" visually discernable coloration of 120,000 gallons of water.

A similar blue powder dye can be had for $102 per pound. It's not easy finding prices for the powder version online, I'm guessing this quantity is typically not bought by consumers over the internet. =-) I saw a picture of the tablet version of the yellow-green dye, and the tablets are orange. This agrees with the story I first read, which said when they dump the dye in the river, the water starts out orange. At any rate, I'll bet you get a discount if you buy hundreds of pounds of this stuff, but I didn't find any numbers for this.

So 1.3 pounds of fluorscien dye powder will provide 1 minute of St. Patrick's day fun, at a cost of about $133 and a few mutated yeast organisms.

-Paul

Larabars and philosophy

What do Larabars have to do with philosophy? Outside of having a spot together in this post, probably nothing.

Larabars are a fabulous ice cream topping. Here's a new favorite combination of mine: ice cream, some muesli, half of a "cashew cookie" Larabar, and some berries. I think blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries are fabulous, alone or in combination. It even works if you add hot fudge, though I'm not sure the hot fudge adds much. I'll take this combination over a traditional sundae, hands down.

When you see Coldstone or your favorite ice creamery featuring crumbled Larabars next to the crushed Oreos or M&Ms, remember that you read it here first. Of course, bought in boxes of 16, Larabars run $20, so you should expect to be charged a full dollar for that half Larabar.

Here's the philosophy bit for this post: for all we know, we've done the right thing at every moment, up until now. We still don't know what the right decision will be for the future, but we have chance of making the right choice for right now.