Head Trips & Happy Places

Your head can be a dangerous place. And being inside my head for an extended period of time can be one trippy ride. I have a friend who compares her own overthinking to hopping on board the crazy train. Sometimes, she says, she even brings some friends along. While I was far from jumping on any crazy train this week I did check out the train schedule. 

While I have a tendency to overthink things, I’m certainly not alone. I think everyone at some point has analyzed something to death. But from my past experiences I’ve noticed that when I begin descending into that crazy, head-spinning spiral of racing thoughts and wild conclusions, what I most fear comes true. It’s as if I can manifest the worst by imagining it happening. But this week I decided to stop the cycle, to stop overthinking the issues that were spinning my brain around like a top. I decided I’d fight my way out of my brain and instead refocus and replace it with something different … like eating a Bacon Maple Bar from Voodoo Doughnuts in downtown Portland. http://voodoodoughnut.com.  

That’s where my friend Helen and I ended up at 1:30 a.m. after a night of dancing to some seriously good funk music. The tiny shop was filled with late-night partiers who eagerly paid cash for the chance to sink their teeth into some spongy, sugar-coated bliss.  

I’d heard about Voodoo Doughnuts when I’d first arrived in Portland, and I’d made a mental note never to eat there for fear of clogging up my arteries and dropping dead. I mean, this popular establishment once offered up such FDA-defying fare as the NyQuil Glazed doughnut and the Vanilla Pepto Crushed Tums doughnut before health officials put a quick end to that. As we stood in line, Helen casually mentioned that the shop isn’t known for its hygienic standards and that there’d been rumors of salmonella poisoning. 

“The doughnuts are well worth the risk,” she added without hesitation as she pulled cash out of her pocket.

Really, Helen? I thought to myself, Never!  

But as is usually the case when I say never: I end up eating my words.  

As I took my first bite of Voodoo’s famous Bacon Maple Bar, I couldn’t help but notice the parallel between this doughnut and my week. When I finally stopped overthinking my problems and quelled the raging voodoo dance in my head, I could enjoy some of life’s special delights. And if I’d dropped dead during this indulgence it would’ve been okay because at least I was facing certain fears and finding there’s really nothing to be afraid of -- just a yummy, gooey maple doughnut topped with crispy bacon.  

Good thing you can’t order that on the crazy train.

((please click play button as blogger.com won't post video thumbnail))

Impolite Apes and the Civility Card

I remember a long time ago watching a television show about civility and society. It focused on how people interact with one another in person, on the roads, pretty much anywhere we’re thrown together. My memory of this story is sketchy, but what struck me was how the show documented our mounting impatience with each other, with long lines, with traffic, even with patience itself.  

For instance, I was driving in Ohio last week and stopped several yards from a stoplight to allow a driver to merge. It was instinctive and it’s something I often see in Portland. But within seconds I heard a tell-tale honk from somewhere and noticed the guy behind me inching his white Toyota Corrola within inches of my bumper. From his angry reaction to my small gesture of civility, you’d have thought I’d parked my car in the middle of a bustling intersection and played Chinese Fire Drill.  

While I’m sure civility is still very much alive, sometimes it’s hard to see, especially when it involves those we know best. This week, I found myself in a miscommunication with someone I know very well, and what began as a minor misunderstanding between family members quickly morphed into an epic skirmish. Civility was nowhere to be found. Both of us swore the other was wrong, and who knows? But I think how you treat each other during these uncivil moments is often more important than who’s right.  

Just when I’d nearly thrown up my hands and declared the world a barbarous jungle populated with impolite apes, my faith in civility was restored. On a plane ride back to Portland, I found myself knitting across the aisle from a woman who was doing the same. As our fingers were occupied with yarn and needles, we struck up a pleasant conversation about all kinds of things, including the latest exercise craze: pole dancing. It’s something this mother of three does when she can. She said if Martha Stewart does it must be okay. Later, as we were disembarking from the plane, she presented me with a little knitted coaster as a gift. In the middle of our crazy urban jungle gym, a complete stranger had crafted a gift for someone she’d most likely never see again. This small, lovely gesture filled me with hope that civility and kindness still thrive in the dark corners of our fast-paced, impatient world.  Maybe I just hadn’t been looking in the right nooks and crannies. 

Oh Mama...

After my mother took a fall recently and had to be hospitalized, I immediately bought a ticket home to Ohio. I knew I wanted to be there to help her around the house once she was allowed to go home. But, I also knew this visit would be a bit of a challenge, not just for me but for my mom, too. 

My mom and I are opposites. She drives a Jag. I drive a 12-year-old Subaru. She likes Couture. I like Old Navy. She wears Oscar De La Renta sunglasses. Mine come from The Dollar Store. While challenging, I figured the trip would help us bond in ways we hadn’t before.

 
But less than 24 hours after my arrival home it was clear this was going to be a trying experience for me. I learned there’d be a dinner party at the house with about fifteen guests, all paying their regards to my Mom. In Lebanese terms this means I was expected to put on my nicest outfit and snaz up my hairdo. Coming from Portland, the nicest outfit I’d brought with me was a pair of jeans and a cool red jacket decorated with zippers and belts. From the look on my mom’s face I knew I’d have to make a trip to the mall to search for a dinner party dress. 

It’s been about 20 years since I left home for college and the real world, and it had been a bit of a scandal that I was allowed to do such a thing. Traditionally, a Lebanese girl stays home until she marries. But not this Lebanese girl. I wanted to experience life, and thankfully I had parents who supported this spirit of mine. But as I waited for my mother’s guests to arrive I braced myself for that question that always pops up: “Why aren’t you married yet?” It didn’t take long. One woman, about my age, asked me, in front of everyone, when they would see me in a white dress.’ 

        “I had one on a couple of hours ago at Dillard’s. It was a cute little cocktail dress that I thought would look awesome with my long black boots,” I answered quickly and honestly.

A part of me was glad that this question, and questions like “Why do you always live so far away?” don’t really faze me. As time passes and I live farther away from home, the more I appreciate my culture, my people, and all our quirks. And while the differences between my mother and I still exist and will probably never fade, it occurs to me that the very differences that used to rankle my mother and me are now the traits that we admire about each other. I think my mom admires my dogged determination to live life on my own terms, eschewing the more traditional path my life could’ve taken. And I admire my mother’s sense of style and polish.

So there was more than a little irony when I discovered my mom lounging around in her silk PJ’s while I drove around doing her errands in her shiny silver Jaguar and wearing her Oscar de la Renta sunglasses. And, hey, that’s one role reversal I’m happy to live with.

What I learned from a Kleenex Box

A former CNN colleague and good friend of mine once said she’d learned more after leaving the network than during the 15 years she’d worked there. At the time I wasn’t sure what she meant, but after leaving corporate America, I get it now. 

When you work along hundreds of talented people, there’s always someone who’s more of an expert than you and who can do the job better. As a producer at a big company I could call on one of my team members to go out and shoot video on a tiny gadget or edit video off their laptops. To some degree all this technology made me a little uncomfortable since I never used it directly. But as the sole member of Lila Eidi Productions, I don’t have the ability to boss anyone around except myself. And that’s not much fun. So when I recently took on freelance work with a new online startup company based in Portland, I sensed the time had come to learn the technical tasks I had always delegated to others.

My first story was about doctors who Twitter. I decided I would borrow a friend’s flip video camera to conduct an interview with a local doctor. But I didn’t anticipate needing a tripod, and found myself floundering around trying to interview and shoot at the same time. Some quick thinking, and a sudden need to blow my nose, gave me an answer to my problem: a box of tissues. I propped my camera up on the Kleenex box, lined up the shot in view panel, and, voila!, I was rolling on the interview.  

The next interview I had to conduct was with a doctor who lives in New York City. Since there was no camera crew to hire and send out to her office, I decided to talk with her through Skype, which is a program that lets users talk face to face over the Internet. Easy peasy. What I was clueless about was how to record the interview. I started to stress about it. I made a few phone calls only to learn there’s a program you can download to record skype video. So easy! Within minutes we were set up and Skyping. There I was, in my dining room, talking with a leading child obesity expert who loves to twitter professionally. I felt like the Wonder Woman of the digital age.

What’s amazing is that I’m finally learning that when you have no one else to depend on but yourself to get a job done, the technological barriers seem to fall down without much of a push. And I find it a little ironic that the technology I once feared is now integral to helping me make a living. It’s definitely something that makes my inner boss very happy.

175 Days of Lent...

When I was in grade school I used to envy the kids who were given a half day off every Ash Wednesday. They’d always slide into their desks in the afternoon with a cross of ashes smudged on their foreheads and a vow to give up something for forty days. It was like a secret club. In some ways it was similar to Islam’s Ramadan and Judaism’s Passover in that the Christian kids were instructed to focus on sacrifice and personal introspection. For some reason, Lent always stood out for me, and I think it may have been because, unlike Ramadan and Passover, which tend to focus on the big sacrifices of a group of people, Lent seemed more personal. The Christian kids I knew had to give up a vice, something they loved or were attached to, like grape bubblegum or Atari.  

This week, as Ash Wednesday came and went, I had friends giving up television, facebook, and coffee. After a bad night out on the town, one friend even declared that for Lent she’d decided to throw in the towel and give up hope. 

And then it occurred to me. I’ve been observing my own kind of Lent for 175 days now. Since leaving CNN to move west and carve out a new life, I’ve had to make personal sacrifices all along the way. Gone are the days of regular manicures, pedicures, facials, and highlights. Dining out whenever and wherever I please is no longer an option.  

Nowadays, my world is based on prioritizing, minimizing, and redefining materialism. And I’ve saved a lot of money with that kind of thinking. 

I cook more. I entertain more. I feel healthier than ever, and I’ve found at-home facials really can keep my skin glowing. (I mean, who knew an egg white and a tablespoon of lemon juice could accomplish the same results as a $95 facial?)

For those who persevere through the personal sacrifice that is Lent, the payoff is probably a sort of spiritual cleansing. And maybe they are left with the knowledge that the vice they once thought had a solid grip on them isn’t quite as necessary as they once thought.  

The payoff for the choices I’ve made has been ten-fold. Making sacrifices has allowed me to continue doing the things I’m most passionate about like gardening, seeing live music or heading out for a two-hour hike in the middle of the weekday.  

I’m realizing that all this prioritizing is less about pain and more about clearing a pathway for a brighter and better future for myself - something that, for me, is going to take a lifetime to accomplish, not just forty days. 

(Blogger video troubles. Please click play button to get video to rock n' roll)

Muzzling John...

Playboy is not a magazine I subscribe to or read, but when I heard about singer John Mayer’s recent interview with the publication, I couldn’t help but go online and check out what he said. [http://tiny.cc/flS4u ]. While I actually like some of Mayer’s music, the more I read the Playboy interview the more I thought this guy has a serious case of diarrhea-of-the-mouth and could really use a muzzle. In the article he disrespects former girlfriend Jessica Simpson, calling her sexual napalm; he snubs black women; talks about his undying love of pornography; and he uses the N-word. Reading the interview, I don’t necessarily think Mayer is a racist, just an imbecile. In a recent Rolling Stones article the singer said “he’s masturbated himself out of life’s problems, and that if the phone doesn’t pick up it’s because he’s masturbating.” So I guess the lesson here might be: don’t sleep with John Mayer and don’t ask to borrow his phone. 

With instant information like Twitter and Facebook, what you say sticks and there’s no going back. Mayer apologized on Twitter for his remarks in Playboy. Later, he nearly cried on stage during a performance saying he’s done with the media game. Whether he’s sincere or not is beyond me. I don’t know the guy.  

To me, the bigger issue is about accountability; knowing when to own up and knowing when to shut up. Maybe that’s why I find Mayer so intriguing.  

I’ve met lots of people in my life who have no filter or don’t know when to turn it off. And I’ve had my own share of moments where I’ve said things without thinking, ultimately causing pain to those I care about. But the older I get the more I try to think before I say, do, or write. And in the age of social media, viral video, and soundbites that reverberate from blogs to networks and back again, the repercussions can be particularly damaging and far-reaching. 

As I hiked up the mammoth Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge this week, John Mayer’s PR debacle circled my brain. Albert Einstein once wrote: “look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Perhaps this philosophy could benefit Mayer. Time spent in the woods can bring clarity during moments of chaos, confusion, and regret. I took to the woods years ago during a bad breakup where words were exchanged and deceit was revealed. It was in nature that I realized how important it was to end that relationship immediately and for my own well being. Maybe if the singer lost himself deep in the woods for a while he might come out of it wiser, more centered, and happier with himself. At the very least his filter would likely get a good readjustment.

The $25 Psychic

I have a friend who jokingly compares herself to a $25 psychic. She’s good. Really good. But it’s been awhile since we talked, and so it was a happy surprise this week when, out of the blue, she sent me an email. Something in her note really stuck with me. She wrote: Do not let the luster of Portland wear off … it’s like anything else, you have to work at it to keep it magical and mysterious. You made the right move, Lila.  

Her timing was impeccable, if not a little eerie. Lately it’s seemed the more I’ve settled into making Portland home, the more I’ve entered the somber zone. I have just established my small company with the state of Oregon and keep telling myself, “It’s time to roll up your sleeves and really get serious.” But the more I’ve repeated this to myself, the more stressed I’ve become. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: It’s forced me out there to make more contacts and, in return, get more callbacks from potential clients. Yet, I couldn’t forget my friend’s words.

It was time to tweak my life and get back to something I’ve always loved but haven’t done much of in the last few years: seeing live music. Following bands I like is a big part of who I am. There was the time I snuck backstage at a Def Leppard show and saw drummer Rick Allen skateboarding … or my first Grateful Dead show at Buckeye Lake where they played Franklin’s Tower and Sugaree. Live music has always helped me stay in the present, except maybe for that Dead show. 
 

The good news is that live music is a big part of Portland’s cool scene, too. I have no problem seeing music by myself. In fact, a decade ago, as I attended an Atlanta show solo, I met a big group of friends, many of whom I still keep in touch with today. So when I caught one of my favorite musicians named Tony Furtado http://www.tonyfurtado.com performing at a place called The Woods, a former funeral home in Portland, I figured maybe I’d meet some new faces. As is the case with randomness and small worlds, I did indeed run headlong into some like souls. Turns out, one of them is a friend of a friend, who was also at the Furtado show and introduced us. Later in the week we met up to catch another talented musician. For me, I was getting back to living in the moment. 

I'm realizing it shouldn’t matter if I live in the same place for six months, six years, or a lifetime. What’s important is to try to keep the luster, magic, and mystery going. It’s something I suspect my $25 psychic friend knew all along.