Owner: Blogga-Looba! URL:http://bloggalooba.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:46:29 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A collection of inspiring and often humorous essays and observations about life, parenting, politics, culture and personal growth by an experienced psychotherapist, humorist and stumbling student of life. Site statistics:Click here
Mini Van Man 2007-07-18 21:45:00 I have finally entered Minivan Nation. For years we drove only 4-cylinder sedans but it became obvious that my family needed a larger vehicle. After methodically narrowing our choices (including weeks of learning about various options and ferreting out detailed information about exactly what people have been paying nationwide) we finally settled on the Honda Odyssey. It's a nice vehicle. We got the mid-level package, without all the bells and whistles but not the bare-bones model either. From what we're used to it's like owning a luxury vehicle.After purchasing the car I noticed a Honda television commercial using the music from Parliament’s “We Want the Funk (Tear the Roof Off The Sucker)”, with subliminal pot smoke, Day-Glo colors and even little dancing cartoon mushrooms. Whatever images and emotions this van evokes, I sure didn’t equate it with drug-tinged retro hippy-dippy life. On reflection, however, I guess they are pushing it right at people like me, aging baby-boom
Magic Bullet Infomercial 2007-07-17 21:42:00 One of the small joys of my life is when I stumble across another opportunity to watch the 30 minute infomercial for the Magic
Bullet, the “personal versatile countertop magician”, which I’ve probably seen 50 times. Sometimes I troll the cable channels looking for it, often striking paydirt early Sunday mornings.For the uninitiated, this fascinating commercial doesn’t just promote the product (which is basically a glorified miniature food processor). What is so compelling is that the action takes place in the kitchen of an impossibly perky and good-looking couple named Mick and Mimi, along with a ragged assortment of their friends who are apparently spending a weekend with them. Mick and Mimi spend half an hour amazing their guests with the many varieties of meals, dips and drinks they create in seconds with the Magic Bullet.The guests are a highlight of the commercial, and apparently I’m not the only person enthralled by the interactions between them and their upbeat hosts.
Drawing On The Walls 2007-03-28 21:47:00 In 2004, I sold the house where I had lived for 13 years and moved with my wife and kids into a friendly intown neighborhood. The purchaser of my property was a developer who bought it along with several others on the street in order to level the land and build a tract of townhomes. Since there wasn’t a need to leave the house in a livable condition, I gave both kids magic markers, cans of spray paint, and permission to write and draw anything they wanted on the walls. It turns out there was a lot to say.Here’s some history: I bought this house when I was still a single guy, and in many ways it reflected some of the core elements of my personality and lifestyle back then. It was the last house on a short dead-end street, across from a municipal water tower surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. I was originally attracted to its proximity to my office and the extent to which it offered seclusion while being close to major thoroughfares. Like me at the time, it was essentially hidden fro Read more:Walls
3 F's and 3 R's: Consumption Junction 2007-03-15 22:19:00 I realized recently it's been almost twenty years since I became vegetarian. I don’t remember exactly when or even why I stopped eating dead animals -- the decision was partly ethical (how can I eat them if I'm not willing to kill them?), partly health-related, and partly because I just lost the taste for them. The process happened slowly, starting with a gradual phasing out of flesh, then eliminating the consumption of fowl, and finally doing away with fish and other seafood (hence the "3 F's" in the title). Eggs, dairy products and honey remain in my diet, so I’m not a vegan, but my general rule is that I don’t eat anything that once had a face or a mother.It’s not a big deal to be vegetarian any more. My grandmother was a vegetarian in the 1920's and 30's. Now THAT took commitment! But the supermarket shelves now stock many new protein sources which mimic the texture and flavor of ground beef, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, steak strips, kabobs, sausage, etc. Some taste a Read more:Consumption
, Junction
Laughing For No Reason 2007-03-10 22:20:00 My daughter and I recently attended our first laughter yoga session. This is a weird and wonderful blending of yogic deep breathing, stretching exercises, and sustained group laughter. The session we attended was facilitated by a wonderfully upbeat and affirming instructor who helped me feel immediately at ease. This was a great relief because I went into the room concerned that I would feel too awkward and self-conscious to laugh in front of the 20 or 30 people gathered there. The entire session lasted 45 minutes, both Casey and I had a great time, and I continued to feel the positive effects from it for days afterwards.Laughter yoga, or “hasya yoga” was founded in 1995 in India by a man named Madan Kataria, a doctor and student of yoga. In doing reasearch for a article he was writing Dr. Kateria discovered an overwhelming body of scientific literature that described in great detail the proven benefits of laughter on the human mind and body. And with that, the concept of laughing Read more:Laughing
, Reason
Waking From a Dream Where I Can't Talk: A Progressive's Journey From Darkness 2007-03-08 22:21:00 I feel like I’m undergoing some sort of gradual, weird and ultimately affirming spiritual awakening. This feeling is different from previous times when I’ve felt intimately connected to my Higher Power, that essentially nameless “I Am That I Am” cosmic consciousness that has uplifted me in more times and ways than I can count or even fully know. The feeling I’m currently experiencing has some legs under it, meaning that it has a practical impact on the way I find myself beginning to engage the worldAlmost 30 years ago I wrote some lines that now seem more than just a little pretentious, but which have stayed with me over the decades:The time has arrived for me to announcemyself, to pull in my direction the balanceso weighted in favor of your silence.I think that one snippet of collegiate poetry was an attempt to encapsulate my sense that life is so vast that it will continue to go on doing what it does regardless of what I say or do. And why not? I don’t “listen” to a c Read more:Dream
, Progressive
, Journey
, Darkness
Al Gore For President! 2007-03-07 22:23:00 Today is March 7, 2007. This is important for me to note not just because it's my 49th birthday but because my formerly apolitical self would never have imagined what I am about to say, even though I think more people will come to the same conclusion as the months go by. Here it goes: I want the man I'm willing to concede Al Gore might actually be (see below for what I mean by that) to finally become President
of the United States. That doesn't mean I think it's going to happen.It’s still a year and a half until the next election, and a lot can happen between now and then, but I look at the emerging field of announced candidates and can’t imagine any of these folks running my country. I’m not a Hillary hater by any means, but I think she’s too divisive to be elected, and besides I think it’s time to have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t have the name Bush or Clinton. Obama? The problem with him is a color issue, and the color is green, meaning that he is way too i
Musical Taste Buds 2007-03-03 22:24:00 I love my satellite radio. I love being able to listen nonstop to endless varieties of music without having to endure any insipid commercials. I love the fact that I can listen to very specific genres depnding on my mood at the moment: classic rock, 60’s soul, reggae, folk, bluegrass, jazz, classical, and on and on (French pop hits, anyone?) I love hearing a song I haven’t even thought about in decades and find myself belting out the words like it was yesterday ("She's lost control again.....she's lost control.")As I approach the half-century mark I find it’s not just my body that is starting to calcify in places. My musical tastes, historically always eclectic, seem to be hardening. I used to pride myself on collecting and playing an extremely diverse collection of music. I enjoyed reaching beyond my areas of familiarity to bring in sounds I wasn’t accustomed to. It was in this way that I discovered many musical talents that are dear to my heart. Ali Farka Toure is a great e Read more:Musical
He Likes You, He Wants to Fight You! 2007-02-25 22:33:00 I'd be surprised if you recognized that the title of this piece comes from the original Rocky movie. A fight promoter utters the line while convincing Rocky that the world heavyweight boxing champion, Apollo Creed, wants the "Italian Stallion" to enter the ring against him. The quote came to my mind when I was remembering how much I used to enjoy mixing it up in 3-minute sparring rounds. It started when my son was about six and we stopped into a local martial arts center. I thought karate might help him with his confidence, poise, discipline, all that thing. Plus, truth be told, I think I also secretly hoped it might prove useful some day, perhaps preventing him from ever being picked on. Why I thought this was important is a mystery to me now. He’s always been a big guy compared to most kids his age, and not likely to have anyone bully him.Anyway, the next thing I know we were both in a class together, learning the rigors and intricacies of a traditional Okinawan style of “empty
My Cat Says It's Your Fault 2007-02-23 22:34:00 I grew up in dog country. I didn't even know anyone with a cat until I was a high school senior, and I never had one in my life until my first marriage. Since then, sundry kitties have sauntered into and out of my life. The most notable among them has been Cowboy Bob, solid black and full of himself. Here, among other feline tales, is the story of how he lived and died more than once.Before Gina found me she found Cowboy Bob “when he was the size of an Oreo”. She patiently nursed him to health with milk from an eyedropper. By the time she and I first met, Cowboy was still more kitten than cat. My first memory of him is watching him crouching behind weeds and pouncing like a little mad thing at bugs and shadows.One story she tells from those early days before we were married still brings a smile to my heart. She had a veterinary prescription for him that needed to be filled and she took it to the local drug store. This was “back in the day” before HIPPA privacy laws, so that wh Read more:Fault
Therapeutic Distinctions 2007-02-19 06:55:00 I’m pretty eclectic in my therapeutic work with clients: different theoretical approaches work best in different situations. Depending on an individual’s personality and needs I may be very directive (“do this”) or simply supportive (“wow, that sucks”). I might spend a lot of time working on how a client interacts with people or primarily focus on intrapsychic processes, i.e. what’s going on between the ears. I primarily use healing conversations to help clients work through their difficulties, (although I’m excited to soon take training on a new technique called EMDR that helps dissipate the negative effects of trauma in a dramatically rapid manner).I listen very carefully to my clients on a lot of simultaneous levels, and pay close attention to the words they use to describe their world. I look for opportunities to introduce and highlight subtle but crucial differences in concepts that people often take for granted. What follows are some of these important distinction
Whatever You Will Do Next, Weep First 2007-02-18 22:36:00 (Originally written February 18, 2007)This feels like a difficult topic to address, even though I recognize deep inside me that it's both necessary and time to do so. There are lots more light-hearted subjects I'd rather write about, but sometimes what we want to do is not nearly so important as what we're willing to do, so here we go. My goal is to bring tears from deep inside your soul, out of your eyes, and into a world that desperately needs them. Vagito, ergo sum. It's not my nature to wallow in sorrow. And yet I am increasingly realizing that the only possible way to avoid the immeasurable heartache of human life is to numb out, wall off, sleep through, or in some other way dissociate away existence. As the Dread Pirate Roberts, aka Westley, says to Buttercup in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. Read more:First
They Call Me MISTER Mom! 2007-02-14 20:40:00 After functioning as the sole breadwinner of our household for most of a decade, about five years ago I reduced my counseling practice to part-time and became the primary at-home parent during the week. The reason this dramatic change took place was that my wife began full-time employment at an HIV clinic after earning her masters degree as a nurse practitioner. This shift in roles has become a pretty well-established routine by now, but initially the adjustment, while ultimately beneficial for the entire family, was a big change for all of us. My current routine is generally variations on a basic theme. After driving my second-grader to school (my strapping middle-schooler now navigates himself to and from school without much help from his parents), I head straight to my office. I’m generally sitting with my first client by 8 a.m. and often work straight through until mid-afternoon, at which time I’m off to wait in the carpool line for school to let out. Then it’s home for snac
Babalooba's Bible Stories 2007-02-12 20:41:00 My recent essay about Jesus and anger has caused me to think about posting some more perspectives on famous Bible passages which make more sense to me than the traditional intepretations. I sure don't think of myself as a Bible scholar or even a traditional Christian as conventional society seems to define that term. And yet I find myself increasingly comfortable sharing my personal version of biblical commentary. I agree with the words of George Fox, the founding Quaker, who shocked the status quo by situating religious authority foursquare in each person's heart: "You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?" Having said that, let's do this thing! As I've previously written, I'm not a big fan of "miracle" stories, as they seem to serve primarily as a primitive way to whip up an audience into buying into a belief system. This cle Read more:Stories
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired Jesus 2007-02-11 20:43:00 There's an acronym popular in various recovery programs known as "H.A.L.T.", which stands for "hungry, angry, lonely, tired". It warns that basic human needs for sustenance, rest, companionship and emotional balance are crucial to keep from falling into unhealthy behaviors that can leave us with dire, unintended consequences. As I often say, this might be simple but it sure isn't easy. So I was deeply comforted to find a Bible story that showed me I have good company in this struggle. It's the tale of Jesus
and the fig tree. The incident in question appears in two books of the Gospels, Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14,19-25. The facts seem pretty straightforward: Jesus and his disciples were walking along the road, hungry. They came upon a fig tree, and even though it wasn't the time of year for it bear fruit, when Jesus found it had "nothing but leaves" he cursed it and the tree immediately withered. This rarely makes the Top 10 list of Jesus stories for most people, but it su Read more:Hungry
, Lonely
Good Blog, Sam 2007-02-05 20:44:00 Tonight I happened to see my son Lincoln toss a book from his bed to a chair across the room. Without thinking I said "Good throw", to which he immediately replied "Sam." We both laughed and he remarked that he didn't even mean to say the magic phrase, that it just came out of his mouth without thinking. The in-joke here is that around our household variants of the phrase "Good swing, Sam" have come to mean anything done poorly. "Good swing, Sam" came out of a Little League baseball game when Lincoln was about 8 or 9 years old. Before then, we were like all parents who cheered, coaxed and encouraged our little Lou Gehrig no matter how well or poorly he performed. With each passing year, however, the praise he earns is more realistic. I'll always be there for him when things go south. When he was 11, he surprised everyone, including himself, by pitching the best ERA on his team through the first four games of the season. Then he suffered a complete meltdown on the mound and had to be
Aquasaur, Thy Name Is Patsy! 2007-02-01 20:45:00 For Christmas my 7 year old daughter wanted an "Aquasaur" kit that she saw advertised in a catalog. In very carefully penned block lettering she beguilingly wrote "May I pretty PLEASE with shugar on top get this for Christmas?" You would no more refuse her innocent longing than I did. And besides, the ad says "With flat heads, three eyes, skeletons on the outside of their bodies, sharp lateral fins, and forked tails, they are the epicenter of a child's world." Well, slap my face and sign me up! For the unintiated, "Aquasaurs" are ugly little prehistoric-looking crustaceans that can grow from dormant eggs to about two inches in length over the course of a few weeks. The species has supposedly been around for over 250 million years and resemble something between a trilobite and a horseshoe crab. They arrive as a packet of eggs which can survive in a dormant state for years, until some unsuspecting fool (that would be me) brings them into his life. For behold! When you substantially alte Read more:Patsy
Beating Them Bongos With a Stick 2007-01-29 20:46:00 The title of this piece comes from a children's book called "Those Can-Do Pigs", who could do almost anything worth doing. It contained a memorable line asking if you wanted to see them "play piano with a stick/or beat them bongos with a brick?" The phrase stuck around and took up residence around our household as so many in-jokes and eventual pets tend to do. But this piece is about something else entirely.I used to play drums a little while in the social work graduate program at the University of Southern Mississippi. I learned as I went on a busted snare drum as a proud and sometimes sober member of a very primitively skilled but energetically creative punk group called the "Singing Magnolias". Once we got a guitarist who could actually play (Chris Marek, aka "Chunky Strum") and had worked up two songs ("U.S.M.becile" and, I believe, "Kansas Sucks" (based on the early life experiences of our lead singer, Sheldon Kohn, who is now a respected educator and writer: look at his book rev Read more:Stick
Face Blindness 2007-01-17 06:40:00 I have struggled my entire adult life with a peculiar condition called prosopagnosia, also known as “face blindness”. I have great difficulty recognizing many faces that should be familiar to me. It’s not that I’m incapable of telling one person from another, but it takes me much longer than the average person to see a face and identify whether or not I know the person.I only learned the name for this condition within the last year when I read an article about it in the New York Times. I was extremely excited to learn that my challenge recognizing faces had a name, that many other people suffer with it, and that research is being conducted to learn more about it.Face blindness has caused a whole lot of difficulty in my life. I constantly struggle with ways to figure out if I know someone or not. Many times I’ve had conversations with people, sometimes at great depth and length, and then totally not recognize the person even a few minutes later, much less a day or week later.
I'll Buy That For A Dollar 2007-01-11 20:48:00 In many parts of the world it's unusual to travel for long without somebody begging money, but in the United States this typically occurs only in certain metropolitan areas. Over the last few months, however, I’ve been approached for a handout several times in local parking lots. There is a “rooms by the week” hotel near a local grocery store, and I regularly find myself being panhandled by someone who has obviously been ground down to a stub by alcohol, crack, meth or some other addiction. It’s during these times I try to remember the Four Questions.I don’t remember where I learned to ask these questions, although I think it came out of an article I read some years back in the Friends Journal, a Quaker publication. They constitute a brief, convivial line of inquiry I ask a person who wants a handout. The questions are: “What's your name?” “What do you love?” “What advice can you give me?” “Is there anything you want to ask me?”The idea behind all this is th Read more:Dollar
A War On Terror Is Unwinnable 2007-01-11 06:53:00 Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.~ Horace A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years.~ Johan Huisinga----- After writing about such light-hearted topics as egg salad sandwiches and the increasing use of automated agricultural noises at supermarkets, I'm ready to turn my attention to a subject that has weighed heavily upon my heart for the last several years: this so-called “War on Terror
”. From my point of view this concept is metaphorically, monetarily and morally bankrupt. Nobody has ever sufficiently explained to me how it will be possible to declare victory over terror. Under what circumstances is such a “war” supposed to end? It’s always been at least theoretically possible in a war between nations for one side to “surrender” to a victor. But who surrenders when there is no state to engage in battle, or no identifiable leader of the opposing force? How in the world is force supposed to vanquish an ideology? What’s next, a war against despai
The Most Important Question in Couple's Therapy 2007-01-06 06:39:00 When I provide counseling to couples who are struggling with each other, there’s one question in particular that I seek the opportunity to ask in the first session. Depending on the response I get I am able to make some crucial initial decisions about the way I'm going to be able to work with the couple sitting in front of me. Of course I’ll ask how each person views the issues they are struggling with and the goals they are seeking. I want to learn something about the positive feelings they have for each other. Together we’ll gain some insight into their communication styles and some appreciation for their challenges in light of their unique personal histories. As the flow of conversation allows, depending on their situation we may talk about sexual issues, financial stresses, alcohol use, parenting, or any number of other topics. Thorughout the entire process I am working to set the stage for greater insight, support, symptom relief, hope, healthier behavior and the succesful Read more:Question
, Therapy
Holding Evil In The Light 2007-01-05 06:41:00 It is our right to hate an evil man for his actions, but because his deepest self is the image of God, it is our duty to honor him with love. --Rav KookWhen Saddam Hussein was executed this past week, I experienced no sense of joy or satisfaction. It’s not that I feel any particular sadness or sorrow at his death. Even when all the propaganda about him that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq by the United States is factored out, the evidence seems rock solid that he was a plain and simple rat bastard.Even before I stumbled into the Quaker faith a decade ago I struggled with the meaning of evil in the world, especially when very powerful people do very horrible things. I had a therapist once who interpreted this struggle to be a reflection of unprocessed primal wounding I undoubtedly experienced as a child. I fired him.In 1998 I wrote an essay about the death of Pol Pot that has languished in my computer ever since. Looking at it now I find that many of the sentiments I wrote th
Fake Chicken Sounds 2007-01-05 06:38:00 As much as possible I shop for groceries at Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market, because they sell the freshest, cheapest and widest varieties of produce from around the world. This week, for example, I had the enviable task of choosing between naval oranges from Florida, Texas, California or Mexico. But for some items I simply have no viable choice other than to venture into one of the national chains such as Kroger or Publix, and the difference is striking even beyond the lower quality and higher prices of the produce.My local Kroger store has several self-checkout aisles, which is pretty speedy now that I've grown acustomed to them. I scan the bar-coded items as quickly as most cashiers, bag my goods, feed my cash or credit card into the proper slots, grab my receipt and head on my way. It's generally much quicker than using the cashier. But I still can’t get used to the disembodied voices of the scanning devices. They sound very friendly when they direct me to re-scan an item, remind Read more:Chicken
, Sounds
Drinking Starbucks While Others Starve 2007-01-04 06:43:00 Sometimes I enjoy drinking one of those fancy Starbucks
coffee drinks. While I'm essentially an expresso kind of guy, it can be a decadent pleasure to drink one of those concoctions that take 12 or more syllables to order, such as a "venti half-caf cinnamon dolce non-fat latte." So a few months back I'm sipping one of these monstrosities and flipping through a magazine. I come across an advertisement for a charitible organization that feeds children who are literally starving and I realize that the price of this drink in my hand could easily provide one of these poor kids with enough food to stay alive for a week.I don't want to fully face the question that I sense inside of myself, but I can't fully turn away from it either. Have I literally made a choice that my momentary pleasure is more important than the week's life of a pitiable child? When I toss this cup into the trash does it effectively insure that a child somewhere in the world will die, a child that would otherwise liv Read more:Drinking
, Others
Television Turns of Phrase 2007-07-20 23:39:00 I notice certain words and phrases on television that I don't think most people catch. At least my wife is generally oblivious to them while they grate on me like nails on a chalkboard. Here are a few brief examples: 1. Anderson Cooper says "I mean" way too often. For an obviously intelligent man this CNN anchor can sure talk like a high school sophomore sometimes. I'm convinced that his Read more:Television
, Phrase
More Therapeutic Distinctions 2007-06-20 21:30:00 A few weeks ago I wrote an entry entitled Therapeutic Distinctions" which included some thoughts about various important concepts that I find useful to address at different times with some of my psychotherapy clients. I've continued reflecting on this topic and have thought of a few more closely related concepts that I find useful to distinguish. Caring vs. codependent – For many years I hardly
Don Imus and Bunny Foo Foo 2007-04-14 21:12:00 The phrase “politically correct” is a pejorative term used by people who resist the evolution of linguistics toward a greater cultural sensitivity. As a therapist who often helps couples heal damaged relationships, I carefully choose my words to be congruent with the viewpoints of my clients. As a person who promotes a progressive perspective on many contemporary social issues, I support the use Read more:Bunny
Come Together, Right Now, Over Me (And You) 2007-04-03 21:24:00 It's a common human tendency to frame an argument in such a way as to miss a deeper approach to its resolution, such as dividing complex emotional and ethical dilemmas into two mutually exclusive categories. Two common examples are the long-running and tiresome “creationism vs. evolution” debate and much of the public discourse related “global warming.” As so often happens in our "argument Read more:Right
Confessions of a Former Hummer Tagger 2007-03-14 21:28:00 It took me almost five years, but I’ve finally used up my supply of bumper stickers that I purchased from an environmental activist group. Their message proclaimed “I’m Changing the Climate – Ask Me How!” and I kept a stash of them in my glove compartment for placing onto the back of behemoth sport utility vehicles such as Grand Cherokees, Armadas, Navigators, Denalis, and Escalades. Working the Read more:Former
, Hummer
Recommend Site To A Friend
