Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

What’s in Your TBR Pile?

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My TBR piles on any given day. Image credit: Pixabay

I have one on an end table in my living room. Another on the night table in the bedroom.

And thanks to the digital age, there’s the virtual pile on my Kindle app. And oops, there’s also a library wish list and an Amazon wish list.

I’m talking, of course, about my To Be Read (TBR) pile. Er, piles.

Like many of you, I read for a number of reasons. To escape for a while. To occupy my mind when I’m waiting for something (like for the kids to finish their karate classes). To help me stay sane. So, what have I been reading?

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel, by Mohsin Hamid. A short, bittersweet slice of life piece about contemporary Asia, written as though it were a self-help book. It’s an unflinching look at the rural/urban divide, the sacrifices required to get ahead, corruption, environmental degradation, opportunities, and change.

The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, by Dan Buettner. An eminently readable tour of several so called ‘blue zones,’ where people have long, healthy lifespans. Although fairly old now (published in 2010), it has some interesting implications for how we think about health care. Spoiler: There’s more to it than superfoods!

Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space, by De Witt Douglas Kilgore. A series of essays discussing the American tradition of technological utopianism in art, as a response to the sociological upheavals in the 20th century. Or, in other words, what all that gee whiz sci fi stuff was about. A good read for a sci fi/space race nerd like myself.

Becoming Superman: My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood, by J. Michael Straczynski. Best known for Babylon 5 and Sens8, this is Straczynski’s astonishing autobiography. Straczynski is a consummate storyteller, so it’s a compelling read, but not an easy one by a long shot. That he was able to survive his childhood and go on to make so many cool things is something of a miracle. I’m even more of a fan now than I was before.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. This one had been in my TBR forever, as it was one of those books that is high on people’s recommended books list, but I never seemed to be in the right mood to pick it up. It’s an exploration of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies as told by one man’s journey through life. [As I’m writing this, it occurs to me that Hamid’s book (above) could be considered an updated version of Siddhartha.] I read an article in The Atlantic recently that suggested that a lot of Americans were exploring Buddhist practices like mediation as a coping mechanism. If that’s you, this might be a good starting point to learn the philosophies behind the practice.

The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market by Joseph F. Coughlin. This one wasn’t even in my TBR, as it was an impulse pickup at the library. An eye-opening read about how much media and marketing shapes our perceptions on aging, and how much potential those perceptions waste. Read this one now, even if you’re a long way from retirement, as it will help you consciously shape how you get older.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. This one is a slower read at times, so don’t expect high adventure and derring-do. It’s an excellent meditation on leadership, however. Recommended for anyone who wants an example of how to lead by, well, example, even when you’re surrounded by the proverbial vipers.

What about you? What are you reading right now? Answer in the comments below.

The Naked Truth

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Football player
Image Credit: Pixabay

Well, we’re approaching SuperBowl time again in the United States, and that means that up to 800 million people may be in front of their TV set soonish.

In that group, approximately six people will be tuning in to watch the actual football match. About 150 million people will record the show to skim to the new commercials, and the rest will be watching the halftime show very carefully, hoping Justin Timberlake will show up to rip the shirt off another female singer.

The furor over that show revealed (haha!) how very confused we still are over what’s acceptable viewing on television these days. Everyone talked about the bare chest and it was even the subject of an investigation and a half million dollar fine. Hardly anyone talked about the charming SuperBowl advertisement which featured a horse breaking wind rather violently into a woman’s face. So apparently wardrobe malfunctions = bad, horse malfunctions = good.

Elsewhere in the world, nudity isn’t such an issue. Many countries have nude beaches: the sand just doesn’t bother covering up. The Dutch have at least 135 nude beaches, which just goes to show that Netherlanders aren’t terribly worried about hiding their nether bits.

A recent article in the National Post suggested that some two million people in Great Britain practice nudism. Presumably they only practice there because it’s too darned damp to do it for real.

That number rises to five million in France. This is likely because of the warmer climate which makes it easier to take off your clothes, and also helps produce really good wine, which also makes it easier to take off your clothes. Oddly enough, at least 11 million Germans claim to be nudists; remarkable because when people think of the phrase “wild and fancy free” they don’t usually also think “German.”

Meanwhile, there are entire websites devoted to something called “nudist travel.” It’s unclear as to whether this means traveling to nudist locations or travelling in the nude. I can see, however, where there would be definite advantages in the latter: you’d be waved through airport security check points, and you’d have one heck of a lot more room in your suitcase for souvenirs.

We even allow nudity here in Canada. There are nudist resorts in every province, and where I live women can go topless in public. Most don’t bother because in the summer, the mosquitoes are bad enough when fully clothed, thank you, and in the winter, well, the frostbite wouldn’t bear thinking about.

Personally, I’m quite happy wearing clothes, not out of modesty but practicality. I don’t tan, I lobster; I spill hot tea or coffee with alarming frequency; I use a laptop. I’m quite happy to have a layer or two of clothing between me and the hospital burn ward.

Still, I’m not sure I understand why other people worry so much about other people’s clothes or lack thereof. Some will tell you that rampant nudity would cause too many lustful thoughts, but really, have you taken a good look at most people lately? There’s a reason why public speaking coaches tell you that the best way to laugh, relax, and stop fearing your audience is to imagine them in their underwear.

And anyway, perhaps if we all got a good look at how unfit most of us are, we’d be inspired to do something about it. After all, if we focused on the amount of gravy covering our fries, we’d likely find we need less cloth to cover — or even partially cover — our behinds.

 

 

All Green Thumbs

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Image Credit: Pixabay

It’s winter — well, it is here in the northern hemisphere, anyway — and that means it’s time for all good homeowners to plan out their spring home and garden maintenance. I mean, how else do you get through a winter except by anticipating greenery to come?

Your local newspaper will probably print a spring section, but since I didn’t write it, clearly it’s no good. What follows is *the* definitive guide to yard work.

Day One

1. Start first thing in the morning and attempt to get outdoors. Remember, too late, that the door opens inward. Find you now have a large mass of leaves, twigs and plastic grocery bags (which piled up against the door over the winter) in your foyer.
2. Crawl over pile and survey lawn and gardens. Feel warm sun. Sit on stoop to assess the situation and devise a plan of action.
3. Determine situation much better assessed with drink in hand. Walk to corner store to get one.
4. Return to stoop. Continue assessing.
5. Wake up hungry; realize it’s time for lunch.
6. After lunch, head to garage in search of gloves, rake, and bags.
7. Wait until family member realizes you’re missing and comes to free you from tangle of Christmas lights left near the garage door.

Day Two

1. Shove pile of leaves from foyer out onto lawn. Retry your search for gloves, rake and bags, this time armed with a pair of sharp scissors as defense against Christmas lights.
2. Start raking. Sip tea as you go.
3. Chat with neighbours who stop by on way to store or work.
4. Realize it’s lunch time already. Nip in for a bite.
5. Rake more. Drink more tea.
6. Step on rake. Spend 10 minutes looking for bandage for nose.
7. Keep raking. Take another hit of the tea.
8. Keep raking. Do a quick calculation and realize that the one metre by one metre corner patch you’ve been working on all day has enough leaves in it to fill approximately 35 bags. This is known as the Law of Winter Compression/Expansion, which in turn is based on the Theory of Disbeleaf.
9. Realize — very suddenly — that you’ve had way too much tea. Sprint for bathroom.
10. Finish bagging up that area as the sun goes down. Crawl into bed.

Day Three
1. Attempt to get out of bed. Stop screaming only long enough for spouse to administer muscle ointment to your arms and shoulders, which feel like they’re on fire.
2. Spend day watching TV, as it’s the only thing that doesn’t require much upper body movement.

Day Four

1. Drink about three cups of coffee to try and shake the daytime-TV-induced stupor you acquired yesterday.
2. Wonder if those people that threw the studio chairs at each other really had extramarital affairs with the stepbrother’s cousin of their tattoo artists while wearing vinyl hats.
3. Discover that half of the bags came undone in the night, and that the leaves blew across your neighbour’s lawn.
4. Do a quick rake of the leaf path to hide the fact they came from your yard, but leave the rest on neighbour’s lawn.
5. Start on a new patch of your lawn. Rake slowly.
6. When coffee wears off, call it a day.

Day Five

1. Go outside and discover that your neighbour put all your leaves back on your lawn.
2. Suspect he put all of *his* leaves on your lawn.
3. Suspect he put his other neighbour’s leaves on your lawn too.
4. Hit by sudden inspiration, drive to hardware store, buy industrial strength leaf vacuum.
5. Come home, let fly with a “Mwa ha ha ha ha!” and start the vacuum.
6. Get half the lawn done before you hear a MEOW! followed by a loud *thuck!* and a *whump!* and the vacuum stops working.
7. Spend the next two hours extricating Muffles.
8. Spend the next four hours getting stitches.
9. Return cat to neighbour with apology. Try not to fume when he says, between gasps of laughter, that the video he made of the cat extrication makes up for it all, because it went viral and now he’s got interviews booked with several daytime TV shows.
10. Call a lawn service.

Making Room for Hobbies

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A flower garden
Image credit: Chandra Clarke

John Scalzi, a sci-fi author I follow on Twitter (and read regularly — check out his Redshirts if you’re a Trek fan), said something recently that made me remember the importance of down time. He said something along the lines of: ‘Who knew that living in interesting times could be so exhausting?’

He was referring to that curse that kind of sounds like a blessing, and boy howdy, does that ever sound like it applies to the last few years. Between the chaos that is the current US administration, the last couple of Canadian elections, which featured things like promises to set up dystopian hotlines or a lovely paid-to-smear PR campaign, not to mention concerns about climate change, Brexit, and the angry circus that is social media these days… well, I often feel like I’ve been through the wringer. And that’s before I factor in whatever might be going on in my work and personal lives.

I bet you’re feeling it too.

So, I’ve been making more of an effort to do things to preserve my sanity. It’s trendy to talk about ‘me time’ or ‘self-care,’ but those terms often seem to be paired with commercially-loaded expectations, where you’re supposed to indulge in something you’ve purchased. I started with the term ‘less.’

Less social media. Notifications turned off completely on the phone, and browser tabs closed when I’m on the laptop. And ‘unliking’ several groups and news pages where I know I’m likely to want to wade into the comments section.

Less caffeine. I know, right? Sacrilege! I still like (neeeeed?) a couple of (smallish) cups of coffee in the morning, but slowly cutting back has made me realize how much ‘feeling stressed’ was actually ‘feeling too caffeinated.’ I feel much, much better for having cut back, and I find I enjoy my java a lot more, too. If you’ve worked your way up to a few (that’s all I’ll admit to!) bucket-sized cups per day, you might find the same thing if you slowly taper it off.

Fewer late nights. I hate this one, as I’m a night owl by nature, and I find it really hard to go to bed before 2 a.m. But given that my current schedule demands that I be up at the crack of dawn (*shakes fist at world*), I’m not doing myself any favours by trying to burn the candle at both ends.

And then there are hobbies.

In those years when I was busy with babies and a full-time business, these were definitely off the table. So far off, I’d forgotten I’d had any. But with a little more room in my timetable, I’ve rediscovered how much I love flower gardening (my preferred colour scheme, as you can see above is: riot). I’m back into cooking (as opposed to just warming things up, not that there’s anything wrong with that). And I’m enjoying PC-based games again (currently Tropico 6, which, given that it’s about a tinpot dictator with fascist tendencies isn’t exactly escapist, but it is hilariously cynical. The Penultimo character never fails to crack me up.)

These all have the benefit of being relatively cheap activities both in terms of cash and environmental impact, and two of them also get me up and moving. Movement has also been a key defense against crazy-making; just as it’s easy to slide into over-caffeination, it’s very easy to slump into a sedentary lifestyle if your day job demands a butt in a chair.

So that’s what I’m doing. What hobbies and activities keep you going? Tell us in the comments.