Last Monday, my son and I drove to the high school to watch my daughter’s first tennis match of the season. She played well and I let her know it; not with any big fanfare, just the occasional “Good hit Meg!” across the quiet court. Tennis fans don’t cheer or whistle, see, they watch–so I was extra careful not to let my enthusiasm get the better of me. From my perch behind the chain-link fence, I voiced just enough encouragement to let her know that I was there and I was proud of her. Truth be told, I was proud of myself. (Restraint doesn’t come natch to me.) 
Afterward I ran over and hugged her, telling her I couldn’t wait to watch her next match. She smiled without saying anything and asked if she could drive home with her friends. Of course she could! My little champion. A few days later, she came home late from practice and I asked her where she’d been. Head buried in fridge, her voice came out muddled. “Oh, I had a match, I forgot to tell you.” “What? What do you mean you forgot to tell me?” She emerged with a yogurt and looked just past my left shoulder, like she was talking to somebody else. “Yeah…sorry…I…” Read more
12 Rules for Life
So by now you’ve probably hear of Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. He is all over social media and the news outlets and is surprisingly controversial. (I think it’s because he says men and women are different. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.) Always a half-step behind, I heard of him just a few weeks ago when my husband sent me a podcast of Peterson discussing his new book. I listened to the podcast and began the book that same day. I started reading and couldn’t stop. I ignored my house, my kids, and my prayers while I gulped down these ideas like the breath of fresh air they are. (Just kidding on the prayers except that no I’m not.)
What is this book about? Um, everything. The title is literal; it’s about how to better live your life or, as Peterson puts it, how to achieve a better state of Being. (“Being” being an active, conscious awareness of yourself and those around you. It’s not as psychobabble as it sounds, promise.) I hesitate to call this a “self-help” book because it transcends that cringe-worthy category, but truthfully, it kind of is. It really is. As in, it really helped me understand some important things about myself–and others–in a new, compelling way. For example:
Buildable Volume Mascara, or: It works! It all works.
Lately, my fortysomething body hasn’t given my eyelashes much love.
I’m not gonna lie, I used to have really long eyelashes. As with my really long toes, I’d always considered them one of my better features. Stepping out in flip-flops and a bit of mascara, I needed only to bat my eyes and flash my feet and hearts were mine for the taking.
But in the last few years, my beloved lashes seem to be getting shorter and sparser. They seem to be, well, disappearing. (And yet my long toes remain. And are only getting longer.) I’ve been told that lash loss is one of the awesome benefits of aging but not to worry–the new hairs growing on my chin will more than make up for it.
Last week, however, I learned that all of this was going to change. How? With a tube of the latest, greatest, miracle-making mascara. The sales “girl” (pretty sure?) at Ulta informed me that this new-and-improved formula would make my lashes thick, full, and oh-so-long, due to something called “buildable volume.” I asked her what “buildable volume” was and she graciously explained it to me.