February 8, 2010
Awhile back, I posted on five household items you can do without, as well as five household items you *can’t* do without. Both posts were inspired by the myriad tchotchkes that pepper our house, courtesy of my gadget-loving husband.
I got to thinking about this very issue once again this weekend on a somewhat grander scale when two things that had gone missing from my life unexpectedly reappeared.
The first was a dishwasher. As I noted when talking about why we all need a wife, my dishwasher died about six weeks ago. Ever since, I’ve been washing dishes for our four-person household by hand. On Friday, the new dishwasher finally arrived and I’ll say it here first: God, do I love my new dishwasher. Yes, I could have managed just fine without one. But I literally feel *blessed* everytime I place a dish in its new home, rather than piling them up in the sink.
The second thing from a former life which reappeared over the weekend was – oddly enough – a health club. When I first moved to London, I wrote an essay for the Guardian Weekly about how the cost of living was so high in this city that my husband and were forced to become Green by default. It wasn’t so much that we embraced Green living as that we had no choice; overnight, certain things had just become prohibitively expensive. So we gave up those staples of middle-class American life: two cars…a tumble dryer… and our health club memberships. And both of us started exercising outdoors; he cycling and I running.
But this past weekend my son was invited to a birthday party at a health club. While the kids played, the adults got a free workout. I went nuts. I climbed a StairMaster, I used an elliptical trainer, I lifted some weights…heck, I even took a sauna. And I topped it all off with a lovely cappuccino in the adjoining cafe where – posh mama that I am…(not) – I purchased some long overdue yoga gear. In a word: spectacular.
But unlike my new dishwasher, I came away from the whole health club experience thinking that – much as I enjoyed being in a fancy gym for two hours – I’m not sure that it’s something I actually need in my life. I’m actually quite happy just going running. I like the feeling of freedom it affords. I like the odd assortment of people and animals that I encounter along the way (which in my hood’ runs the gamut from Helena Bonham Carter to wild foxes). I like the cold air waking me up as it hits my face. And most of all, I like that it doesn’t cost a penny (pence).
In short, I learned that I could live without a health club.
As we grow older, it’s worth reflecting now and again on what we need in our lives to make us happy and what we can do without.
How about you? What creature comforts could you let go of?
*****
I was absolutely thrilled to get this shout out from the blog This Bird’s Day about my essay “Married to a Metrosexual” in the forthcoming Chicken Soup For The Soul: True Love. It made my day!
Image: day1DSC_0055.jpg by journojen via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
10 Comments | 
Consumerism, Gadgets, Lifestyle | Tagged: chicken soup for the soul, creature comforts, cycling, dishwasher, doing without something, Elliptical Machine, foxes, Gadgets, going running, green living, gyms, health clubs, Helena Bonham Carter, household items, married to a metrosexual, metrosexual, needing a wife, running, StairMaster, This Bird's Day, washing dishes, what can you life without, wives, yoga wear | 
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Posted by delialloyd
February 4, 2010
Every Friday I point you to some worthwhile reading from around the blogosphere:
1. A friend emailed me this hysterically funny – and spot on – parody of your standard news story (via Althouse.)
2. I also enjoyed this article in the Los Angeles Times about why pop culture is for grown ups these days.
3. If you haven’t yet tired of odes to J.D. Salinger, here’s a beautiful one by my Politics Daily colleague, Walter Shapiro.
4. And from another Politics Daily colleague, Janet Bataille writes a beautiful tribute to her loving husband.
5. I was quite taken with this lengthy meditation by novelist John Lanchester on the meaning of money in the Financial Times (Via Madam Mayo.)
6. Finally, I thought I’d share my own work over at PoliticsDaily.com this week, a story on female suicide bombers and a post on why we should all be bullish on America.
Follow me on Twitter.
3 Comments | Recommended Reading | Tagged: althouse, bullish on america, female suicide bombers, husband, Janet Bataille, JD Salinger, John Lanchester, loving husbands, Madam Mayo, meaning of money, money, news clips, pop culture, standard news story, Walter Shapiro | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
February 3, 2010
Every Wednesday I offer tips for adulthood.
As some of you know, last Friday was the first anniversary of RealDelia. And while I fully intended to break out the champagne…the confetti…the whole nine yards, somehow I didn’t quite pull it off. (I had hoped that my wife would throw me a party, but she was too busy that day).
So I thought that I would mark the occasion today instead, by telling you five reasons why I love to blog, and why you might like it too:
1. It helps you to find your voice. I have been writing for a long time now in my adult life. I started as a research assistant when I first got out of college. Then there was that long, hazy academic morass when I was a graduate student and then a professor. Over the past three years, it’s been a blend of personal essays, reported features and occasional fiction writing. But it was only once I started this blog that I felt that I finally found my voice as a writer, and realized that – with all my career shifts - that was what I’d been looking for all along.
2. It makes you more mindful as a person. Mindfulness is one of those new-agey terms that I deliberately avoided for awhile. But in fact, one of the great virtues of blogging – at least if you are blogging about your own life and trying to extract lessons from it – is that it makes you more aware of how you lead your life, in ways both large and small. In my own case, one of the major innovations in my personal life was my decision to stop working on Saturdays. And while I can’t attribute that decision entirely to blogging, I think that being in the habit of examining my life on a daily basis (on the blog) gave me the tools to step back and change my life.
3. You make new friends. There’s my e-BFF Sharon, of course – of Neverbloomers fame – whom I first got to know through this blog because of our shared interest in adulthood. Now we’re on Facebook, we Skype one another and I think a professional collaboration may come down the pike. But there are a whole host of people I can think of right off the top of my hat – Colleen, Mike, Kristen, Katy, LPC – to name a few, whom I never would have “met” except through blogging (OK, I did in fact meet Katy once but blogging is our bond.) And I’m so enriched because of those connections.
4. You become more disciplined. Yeah, yeah. It’s trite, I know. But it’s true what they say. When you start writing on a regular basis, it makes you a better writer. Partly because practice makes perfect. But also because you’re able to just sit down and pound it out when you really need to. Which – in my case – has come in really handy over the past nine months that I’ve also been writing for PoliticsDaily.com.
5. You learn a ton. When I started doing this, I thought it would be fun to share my small musings about the world with other like-minded folk. And it has been loads of fun. But it turns out that the best part about blogging is what you learn from other people, either because of a comment they leave on your post, or because you subscribe to their blog, or because you encounter them haphazardly while doing some research on – say – adulthood – and then you end up staying to see what else they’ve got up their sleeve.
In that vein – and to steal a page from Nicola (another great blogger I’ve gotten to e-know), I’d love it if, in the comments section, you’d leave a link to a blog that you really like and which you think I (and readers of RealDelia) should check out. Feel free to leave your own blog’s name. I’d love to come visit.
And most of all, thank you!
Image: Blogging Research Wordle by KristinaB via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
19 Comments | Blogging | Tagged: a boat against the current, amid a life of privilege, Blogging, blogging anniversary, Book Snob, career change, Colleen Wainwright, Communicatrix, discipline, finding your voice, Help! I Need a Publisher, Katy Keim, LPC, mike tubridy, mindfulness, motherese, Neverbloomers, Nicola Morgan, not working on saturdays, PoliticsDaily, Sabbath, saturday, secular sabbath, Sharon Hyman | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
February 1, 2010
A month ago, I committed myself to testing out a new personal resolution: I would no longer work on Saturdays.
I defined work quite broadly for this purpose. It encompassed anything electronic (e.g. email, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds) as well as conducting interviews and, of course, writing. And because I’m more of an abstainer than a moderator, I gave these things up for the entire day, not just for a few hours.
I promised that after one month, I’d touch base to let you know how my attempt to celebrate a secular sabbath was going and whether I thought it was really doable. And I’m pleased to report that it was not only doable, it also gave me a huge happiness boost, in ways that I both did and did not expect.
That’s not to say it was easy. There was not a Saturday that I wasn’t tempted to do at least a bit of work. But there also wasn’t a Saturday that I wasn’t glad that I had decided not to.
So here are five things I gained from taking Saturdays off:
1. I relaxed. My main goal in taking Saturdays off was to bring a few of my favorite things (cue Julie Andrews) back into my life: specifically, reading The New Yorker and going to yoga. Of those two – and somewhat surprisingly – yoga ended up getting relatively more air time than did The New Yorker (which is only surprising because I don’t need to leave the house to read The New Yorker.) But I think something about assigning myself Saturday as “yoga day” motivated me to go down to the yoga studio and sign up for a 10-class pass. And once I did that, going to yoga was not just pleasurable…but automatic. And now it’s part of my (new and improved!) Saturday routine.
2. I was more focused with my children. If you’ve ever attended a parenting seminar, one of the first things they’ll tell you is that if you really want to have quality time with your kids, you need to stop multi-tasking. Back when I worked full-time – in an office – I was actually pretty good about switching off work when I was with the kids. Once I became a part-time, work-from-home parent, however, all that went right out the window. But in the last month or so, I’ve actually sat down and focused on my kids for hours at a clip without feeling the need to simultaneously (fill in the blank): do dishes/check my email/scan the newspaper/etc. One day, my son and I actually took out the chemistry set that he’d gotten for Hanukkah – (which, to be honest, I’d sort of filed away mentally under “great educational gift that will probably never see the light of day” ) – and – gasp – used it. And the more I focused on the kids and didn’t try to get 12 other things done simultaneously – the more relaxed I was with them.
3. I re-connected with old friends. One of the big changes that has come with taking Saturdays off is that I’m now back in touch with old friends. Close female friendships are a big predictor of long-term survival and success. Back when I was still living in the States, I used to call my friends during my daily 45 minute commute home from work in the car. (I know, I know. I could probably be arrested for this now.) But it was a reliable, daily interval when I knew that I could make those calls. Now that I don’t commute, I’ve lost that window. Compound that with a time change that’s anywhere from five to eight hours, and over time, I just started calling my friends less and less. Until now. Now that I’ve given myself leave not to use spare time on Saturdays to jump on the computer, I can usually find 30 minutes somewhere in the day to call a friend back in America. And it’s been really great to re-connect.
4. I went shopping. For myself. Yes, I realize that this isn’t such a great admission for most people, but I am not a natural shopper. And so – even when I desperately need something, a pair of new boots, perhaps…a bra…heck, even some new socks – I will always opt to get some work done, rather than go out and shop. No more. Because I’ve now given myself permission to shop on Saturdays. In the past month, I’ve purchased some running shoes, a new jacket, some earrings…even a colorful scarf to brighten up this dreary London winter.
5. I’m more productive. Finally, taking Saturdays off has also helped my productivity. I would often drag myself to the computer on Saturday – not really wanting to wade through my inbox but feeling like I ought to “because I had the time.” Now, in contrast, I think about Saturdays as “my time” – a chance to re-charge those proverbial batteries. And then, when I do sit down on Sunday morning to tackle that cluttered in-box, I actually have more energy.
*****
Here’s a piece I wrote on Friday for PoliticsDaily.com about Tony Blair’s testimony before the Chilcot Inquiry on his role in the War in Iraq.
Image: Chemistry Outfit, No. 1, 1947 by Chemical Heritage Foundation via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
6 Comments | Current Events, Parenting, Relationships, Self-development, Work, productivity | Tagged: abstainer vs. moderator, buying things for yourself, chemistry sets, chilcot inquiry, female friendships, getting in touch with old friends, going shopping, julie andrews, multi-tasking, parenting seminars, productivity, Sabbath, Saturdays, secular sabbath, shopping, taking Saturdays off, The New Yorker, Tony Blair, using cell phone while driving, war on iraq, working from home, yoga | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 29, 2010
Every Friday I point you to some worthwhile reading around the blogosphere:
1. I know it’s yesterday’s news, but I absolutely loved this send-up of the whole late night television wars in America on Boing Boing. Hint: it involves Ken Burns.
2. And in what *isn’t* yesterday’s news, here is The Guardian’s amazing video coverage of Haiti.
3. I enjoyed reading FormerlyHot’s take on what it’s like to talk about your job to a room full of six-year-olds.
4. According to a new study reported in The Daily Telegraph, midlife crises are a thing of the past. They’ve been replaced by midlife transitions. Gotta love that.
5. I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned that my hands-down favorite film critic in the world is New York Magazine’s David Edelstein. Here he is ranting about people who have the nerve to text (oy!) during movies and here he is again penning a beautiful tribute to Miramax films.
6. Just noticed that today is the one year anniversary of RealDelia. Check out my very first post here. Thanks to all of you for dropping by and making this the most fulfilling part of my professional life. I’m having a blast!
Enjoy your weekend.
Oh yes. And please do follow me on Twitter.
7 Comments | Recommended Reading | Tagged: boing boing, conan obrien, david edelstein, Formerly Hot, haiti earthquake, jay leno, ken burns, late night television, late night television wars, midlife crises, midlife crisis, midlife transition, miramax, talking about your job to kids, texting, texting during movies, video coverage of haiti | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 27, 2010
6 Comments | Consumerism, Expat Living, Relationships | Tagged: buying a bra, buying bras, buying clothes, companionate marriage, coparenting, dishwashing, grocery shopping, ironing, lingerie, marriage, pew study on marriage, Sandra Tsing Loh, shopping for clothes, washing dishes, wife, wives | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 26, 2010
My daughter came home from school yesterday and told me that her best friend had a “hate list.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a list of all the people in the world that she hates.”
“Don’t make one yourself,” I said quickly. “That’s not nice.”
“Yeah, but I only have one person on it,” she responded.
“I don’t care. You’ll hurt someone’s feelings.”
She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “But it’s Hitler.”
Pause.
At first – of course – I laughed. But then I kept on thinking about it and I realized that not everyone would find it funny that their six-year-old knew about Hitler. I remember once writing a post about talking to your kids about death, which dealt with my (failed) attempts to explain death in any meaningful and convincing way to my then five-year-old daughter. The post also touched upon our visit as a family to The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. And I got more than a few comments from people who thought that it was really bad parenting on my part to have exposed such a young child to the Holocaust. As one woman wrote in the comments section: “I think we have a parental duty to protect children from even knowing about the worst aspects of evil.”
Do we?
In my case, my husband is Jewish, we’ve been to Israel as a family and my nine-year-old could practically write a book on World War II at this point. So somehow I don’t really think that we could “hide” the Holocaust from my daughter, even if we wanted to. But I also feel strongly that the Holocaust is quite recent world history. And at some point children need to know that the Holocaust happened in order to comprehend its magnitude and horror and very possibility, if for no other reason than to guard against it happening again.
But the Holocaust isn’t the only evil we’ve talked about with our kids. I moved to London 3½ years ago, the day before a group of home grown British terrorists was arrested for a “liquid bomb plot” at Heathrow airport. The next day, as we tried to settle our new home/country/life, there were TVs on everywhere we went. People were jittery. My then five-year-old son asked me what was going on. Should I have lied to him? Perhaps. But I didn’t.
As I wrote about subsequently, 9/11 and all that has come since has permanently changed the way Westerners perceive and experience terrorism. It’s no longer something that happens “over there.” It is woven into the very fabric of our daily lives through things like threat levels (ours just went up to “severe”), how much freedom of speech is permissible at universities, even what kinds of liquids we can bring on board an airplane. Living – as we now do – in that sort of environment alters the equation for what kids need to become aware of at an early age.
You could also extend this line of argument to encompass natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Haiti (while understanding that this is a very different form of tragedy.) Is it distressing for a six-year-old to learn that 150,000 people just died in an earthquake because they happened to live in the wrong place at the wrong time? Sure it is. But my daughter and I have talked about Haiti too. Whether that’s to make her appreciate just how fortunate she is or to begin to teach her about charitable giving, it’s a worthwhile lesson, IMHO.
So, at the end of the day? I’m totally down with the I Hate Hitler list.
But how about you? When do you think we ought to begin discussing the reality of “unnatural” deaths with your children? And are there certain topics that ought to remain taboo?
*****
For those who are interested, here’s a post I did yesterday about what Gordon Brown can learn from the recent elections in Massachusetts and Chile.
Image: Mai piu’ by maxgiani via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
16 Comments | Current Events, Expat Living, Parenting | Tagged: anne frank house, bad parenting, charitable giving, chilean elections, death, earthquake, evil, free speech, free speech at universities, Gordon Brown, Haiti, hate lists, hitler, holocaust, i hate hitler, liquid bomb plot, massachusetts special election, natural disasters, talking to children about death, talking to children about evil, terrorism, threat levels, travelling with liquids, unnatural deaths | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 22, 2010
Every Friday I refer you to some recommended reading around the blogosphere. This week, lots to laugh about:
1. Ok, I’ve now heard two women in one week defend why women of all ages should be wearing thongs. Here’s Heather Cori’s take over on Literary Mama. Could *totally* relate…
2. Via my favorite book critic, Katy Keim, I came across this very amusing description by Stephen Elliot in The New York Times of the DIY book tour.
3. I also loved this send-up by Eliezer Sobel in The Huffington Post about how hard it is to find a good shrink.
4. As someone eternally fascinated by how writers structure their days, I really liked this article in the Wall Street Journal about Joyce Carol Oates, who – after 50 years of writing – is still going strong. (Hat tip: another amazing new blog I’ve happened upon, Kristen Bair O’Keeffe: My Beautiful, Far-flung Life, which talks about O’Keeffe’s life teaching, writing and parenting in Shanghai.)
5. For those of you interested in understanding the relationship side of adulthood, I recommend Hannah Seligson’s take in The Daily Beast on why people under 40 are waiting longer to get married, based on her new book A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It’s Time To Walk Down the Aisle or Out The Door.
6. Finally, however you feel about the outcome of Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, here’s an absolutely hysterical rendering of it by Brian McGrory in The Boston Globe.
Oh yes. And please do follow me on Twitter.
7 Comments | Tips List | Tagged: a little bit married, book tours, brian mcgrory, DIY book tour, eliezer sobel, finding a therapist, hannah seligson, Heather Cori, joyce carol oates, Katy Keim, kristen bair o'keeffe, mariage, massachusetts special election, my beautiful far-flung life, special election, Stephen Elliott, therapists, thongs, VPL, writer's days, writing life | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 21, 2010
7 Comments | Expat Living, Lifestyle, Religion | Tagged: american immigration policy, bonnie erbe, burka, burkas, burqa, burqas, european immigration, european immigration policy, european muslims, france, headscarves, islam, muslims | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
January 20, 2010
Every Wednesday I offer tips for adulthood.
My husband and I went to see Up In The Air last weekend, which has just been released in the U.K. We really liked it (even if one of us didn’t think Vera Farmiga was all that hot…ahem.) And yet, when we came home and talked about the film with our 17 year-old sitter, I didn’t advise her to go see it. In fact, I’m not sure I’d advise anyone under the age of 30 to see this movie.
Why is this, you ask? It’s not the sex (of which there’s none, and only one shot of nudity) or the violence (ditto). It’s just that for my mind, this is a really grown-up movie that can’t be well appreciated by someone who’s not…well…middle-aged.
So despite the PG-15 rating, here are five reasons why I think this is a movie for grown-ups (Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t yet seen the movie yet, this post contains some revealing information!):
1. It’s about the economy. As my former colleague Michelle Brafman notes, this is a movie where the recession plays a starring role. It’s a movie about downsizing, lay-offs and the way in which technological advances affect office life. I’m not saying that someone in their 20s can’t appreciate those things, but they won’t have quite the bite that they do for people who’ve lived through a few economic booms and busts. Evidence in support of this theory: the most moving parts of the film are all shots of real-life middle-aged or older people whose entire lives have been turned upside down by getting fired.
2. It’s about feminism. This is also a movie about feminism – as I define it – by which I mean women making independent – and sometimes shocking – choices about their lives. In this case, that amounts to having an affair (not so shocking) and not wanting to ditch everything for your apparent soul-mate, even if he’s George Clooney (a bit more shocking). There’s a point in the film where the 20-something, tightly wound, overly professional and overly idealistic colleague of the Clooney character thanks Farmiga’s character for “all her generation has done for feminism.” We’re meant to laugh, because there’s only about 10 years between them. But later on in the film – when Farmiga tells Clooney that she’s a grown-up and that he should call her when he’s ready to play with the big kids (i.e. to accept a sexual friendship with no strings attached) - we understand that the last laugh’s on us. This lady *is* liberated.
3. It’s about commitment. As many people have already observed, this is also a film about loyalty and commitment. In my own view – and as I’ve written in this space many times before – it’s incredibly hard to stay committed to the same person over the long haul. And that’s just not something young people worry about. They’re off experimenting and having fun and aren’t terribly bothered by what’s coming next or how long anything lasts. And that’s just as it should be.
4. The romantic leads are middle-aged. At one point in the movie, the script (foolishly, IMHO) suggests that Farmiga’s character is 34. She looks more like 38 or 40 but whatever. The point is that while she’s no Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated – (and despite what my husband thinks, Vera Farmiga *is* hot) – nor is she the young, naïve 23 year-old who also co-stars in this film. At one point, I thought they’d write the ending so that Clooney ends up with the younger woman. Thank goodness they didn’t. The whole point of this film is that it’s about what it’s like to fall in love – or “in like” as the case may be – when you’ve already been around the block a few times.
5. It doesn’t have a happy ending. I’ll fess up to having a preference for dark movies and sad endings. This film has neither. But – other than for the 23 year old – nor do things end on a particularly tidy note. Which is – dare I say it – a tad more realistic. And also comforting for those of us who’ve also been around the block.
*****
For those who are interested, please do have a look at my post in PoliticsDaily.com yesterday on whether universities breed terror.
3 Comments | Aging Ungracefully, Movies, Tips List | Tagged: commitment, dark movies, Feminism, George Clooney, grown ups, loyalty, marriage, Michelle Brafman, middle aged romance, middle aged stars, movies for grown ups, recession movie, romantic leads, sad endings, terrorism, universities, Up In The Air, vera farmiga | Permalink
Posted by delialloyd
For those of you who live in Europe – and even those who don’t – you’ll know that headscarves – and now burqas – have been a hot-button political issue in France for awhile now.
