detoxing and debriefing

I'm detoxing and I'm hungry.

I'm trying to go all holistic on my hive-inducing stress and this includes giving up everything that tastes good. It's the alternative basics and they don't taste very good -- soy and rice and veggies and no sugar or flour or caffeine or alcohol. Writing this down is so depressing! But here's the thing. Its forcing me to think about what we eat, how it affects us and how to eat better and offer better options at home that will provide the best long-term results.


I'm forcing myself to figure out a new set of basics -- not the basics I know and love. Not milk and butter and sandwiches, but instead, rice pasta, tofu and beans. And so this brings me to a workplace challenge (stay with me here). PR is a business of basics with some longstanding delivery channels -- we cover the 5Ws and we charm people briefly with our witty choice of words. We get information out there via press releases, web sites. OK, well we did... and now we're learning a whole new set of basics. Blogs and Twitter and podcasts and wikis and some things even more current than that of course. And these new basics don't taste very good to me yet. I like the IDEA of them a lot, but I'm still trying to get comfortable with them.

So, this, like whole grains and tofu stir fry, is much better for me and for all of us -- I'm clear on that. And I know that if I persevere, they'll taste good too.

Nip it where?

I'm so obnoxious. The older I get, the more completely I become the character of an English major that Garrison Keillor talks about. I rant and I rave and I ridicule (mostly in private but not always) those who misuse the English language. I've become obsessive about random capitalization, I abhor unnecessary quotation marks and I use words like abhor. But lately, the one that's killing me is "nip it in the BUTT." Intelligent people all around me say it all the time. I'm trying not to lecture, but for the record it is nip it in the BUD. As in, stop the growth, and not bite something in the ass.

I think its a colloquialism, an accent thing from the Germans down in the Sauerkraut triangle, but I need to do my part to nip this little misuse ... in the bud.

March is love

April schmapril... March is tough. March is frustrating, unpredictable and can range from ornery to glorious. If you can survive March, if you can just put your head down and get through the tough days, March is a wonderful thing and it rewards you with spring at the far end. Appropriately, this maddening and intriguing month is Shadd's birth month. Never boring... that's the trick to March and marriage.

Just in case anyone has NOT read the Shadd Piehl feature in the MSUM Alumni magazine, you can find it here.