Through the passive-aggressive veil.

Threw it away.

1.  Speak in soft tones, even if you are telling someone to eat their feces.

2.  Phrase everything as a fake suggestion, even though it’s a command:  So, maybe we can sniff my toenails one more time.

3.  Have thick, curly hair and rearrange it frequently.  This suggests softness of spirit and an easy-going manner.  It also has a distracting effect:  hair is quicker than the mind.

4.  Just be totally fucking crazy.

5.  Attempt to elevate your status by offering compliments with an overdone and obvious restraint in both your tone and word choice:  Lovely job.  Nice.

6.  Use the word ‘professional’ in every fifth sentence.

7.  Tell everyone that you work for a major entertainment conglomerate, but do not disclose your job title.  They will forgive your numerous shortcomings because they might think you actually drew Buzz Lightyear.  And when you watch the Oscars, discuss it like you’re a cinematic proctologist.

8.  Wear scarves.

9.  Use animosity when asking someone where the animosity is coming from.

10.  React to someone who disagrees with you the same level of victimization that you would exhibit if your boyfriend yelled at your sister, slapped your mother, and bought you a bag of poo for your birthday.  And then forced you to sniff his armpits for a half-an-hour.  While he ate his boogers.

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I Feel Pretty

I struggle to not lose my mind during one of too many laps down the same uninteresting stretch of freeway to drive my kids to school, from school, from school to softball, and from softball.  And please don’t forget to credit me with the little pesky return trips on most of these.  Oh, the suffering.

Now this is not a noble kind of suffering.  It’s not true, pitiable misery.  It’s not respected work.  It’s not something to be proud of.  But it is.  It is my life.  I traded in the impossible balance of work and motherhood to become a full time SAHM.  Now, I am an unpaid shuttle driver.  And I have it GOOD.  I do.  I am lucky enough to be home full-time to ‘be there’ with my kids.  Ladies and gentlemen, ‘be there’ means ‘drive there.’  And it sucks.

When I complain to other moms, they just smile faintly and stare.  Do they think I’m a whiner?  I am.  Even I don’t respect me.  You shouldn’t either.  Or are they numb?  Have they lost the ability to feel human feelings?  Have they become one with the machines they ride?  Am I slowly becoming a Honda Pilot?  If that is to be my fate, I hope it comes fast, because the human/car hybrid is not a cute place to be.  You don’t know whether you should cry or drink gasoline.

The tedium is exacerbated by fighting girls who whine for Starbucks and play sparkly purse tug-of-war, causing an in-your-face kind of quarter to fly arrogantly from the glamour pouch and plink itself into your Climate Control System’s vent.  Possibly an $800 repair one day.  Or did it just land my wind pipe?  Hard to tell when you and your car become one.

No one warned me about this when we began having children.  They’ll need health insurance: check.  Clothing:  fine.  Time:  okay.  Patience:  on a good day.  Love:  no problem.  But rides?  To softball?  Physical fitness never seemed more inconvenient.

And then there’s the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL for which I drive a combined 2 1/2 hours a day, if you include the waiting in the parking lot of the parking lot.  The parking lot is literally a parking lot.  It’s one thing for a freeway to be a parking lot.  It’s another for a parking lot to be a parking lot.  I know my readers from Montana just gave up on me.

Yes, you pass your neighborhood school, which humbly eyes you asking, So what’s so great about the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL?  You’re too good for my humbleness?  You think you’re a snob with high performing children?  Nice Lexus.  No, wait, sorry, that’s a Honda.  ANYway…you’re a dumb snob because you rear-end is flying idly through the air when it could be contracting and releasing its way to fitness down the little tree-lined path to me.  Good luck with that.

Well, I chose the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL because of the high test scores, since I have taught at both very high performing  and very low performing schools.  It was very clear which students were getting all the opportunity and which were being left behind.  I wanted my children to have those test scores that made people want to move to a certain neighborhood.  I wanted my children to defy their zip code and outperform the well-to-do children in the southern part of the county, in the name of social justice, egalitarianism, and, heck, personal vanity.  That was before I knew how those test scores were achieved (by moms wearing tight pants, diamond studs and make-up before 8 AM, interrupting yoga to plan the White Man’s Multicultural Day, and gleefully transporting WHEELBARROWS full of flashcards to and from home, after dislodging their faces from the inner recesses of the Teacher Sphincter, one of the most kissed varieties of sphincter on the planet.  It’s right up there with Boss Sphincter, Producer Sphincter and People with Vacation Homes in Hawaii Sphincter).  Those high scores are not school-made.  They are parent-made.  By parents who sit, stay, roll over and play dead for the teachers who take pride in the progress of their students.  I didn’t know I had to drive all that way, just to pick up flashcards to make the teachers look good.  And I don’t get AMEX gift cards in December and June.

So the subtle but certain torture of the car is quite an unhappy conundrum.   The suffering, by its very vagueness, is tedious and, thus, torturous.  But unlike true trauma, it lacks the malignancy that allows you to feel entitled to pain.  It’s like having someone powerwash your eyebrows off, with white chocolate syrup.  Sure, your eyebrows have been blasted off, but come on, WHITE CHOCOLATE.

And so I struggle in a way that even I cannot justify.  Yes, the SAHMs of the universe suffer, only to be dismissed by the work force as lucky to have the opportunity to experience such boredom.  Oops, I forgot to be grateful.  Thank you, Boredom.

Now, somebody hit me over the head with anxiety and a deadline.  Or, at the very least, some some urgent voicemail to return or ignore.  I could use some adrenaline.  Perhaps I should just cultivate a love of repetition and talk radio, and burn a really interesting CD for the car…  Help!

What are the tedious trials of your day?  Please share with me.  I hope you’ll comment away.

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• I wish I were a hockey fan. I missed the game and it didn’t destroy me.  And that’s the problem.  It’s great to be an individual with your own drumbeat in the drum line and all, but it sure is fun to be instep with the rest of the world who loves hockey and give yourself the gift of elation or heartbreak when your team does what it ends up doing.  Vancouver was a sea of maple-leaf-red after the Canadian team won gold.  I want to care enough about something to wear red for it and bump into people on the street while screaming things.  How come I’m stuck loading the dishwasher in a state of envy and indifference?  I will not let this happen again.  I will watch.  I will embrace the chaos, the fight, and the inability to really see the puck on TV.

• The Canadians didn’t just own the podium, they paid off the mortgage, raised five kids, and buried all their dead pets there. Fourteen gold medals.  They deserve it.  If nothing else, for being in our shadow all the time.  (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.)  I’m not sure why the Americans are called the winningest team or the most decorated.  We (you know, Lindsey, Shani, Apolo and me) got the most coin necklaces, but bronze has only the fraction of the importance that gold does:  He’s worth his weight in bronze.  It’s a bronze opportunity.  Nothing bronze can stay.  Bronze Girls.  Bronze Gate Bridge.  Fool’s bronze (even the fools won’t have it).  Bronze digger (hey, that might be me).

• The US men’s four-man bobsledding team ended a sixty-two-year honor drought and won gold. Glad I didn’t hear this statistic before.  I didn’t know how bad I had it.  But no disrespect, seriously.  I’m always happy for people to shock themselves by how cool they are.  What I want to know is how you get in to that sport.  Is there a pee wee bobsledding league or is all training done in saucers?

In any case, thanks for joining me here at Saving Private Mommy for your primary source of irrelevant Olympic coverage.  I had a great time being rubber cemented to the TV and the laptop.  Now we, the good spectator citizens of the world, must rest up for more adventures in the summer of 2012 in London.  It’s going to take of lot of napping between now and then.

And coming up, is the gorgeous spring outside that nature will officially hand over in the next few weeks. In anticipation, the trees in my neighborhood are sprouting their pink blossoms and the hills are soggy and green.  Ahead are longer, warmer days, and a big boot to comfort foods, plus the Easter Bunny and my girls turning three and six and me turning thirty-nine and my husband, too.  And my oldest turning eight much later.

I hope you’ll join me as I put my feet up for a bit.  I’m going to need my dogs to be in good shape and perhaps you do, too.  I have telemarketers to take on and a governing board of the PTA to make fun of.  Please check back.

And now, a little March poem from our favorite spinster, Emily Dickinson.

To March

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat–
You must have walked–
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the birds’;
The maples never knew
That you were coming,–I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But, March, forgive me–
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear as praise
And praise as mere as blame.

At a time like this, the only option is to quote Robert Frost (just ask S.E. Hinton or the writers of daytime television drama).

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Okay that felt good.  No matter how much this poem has been exploited and abused by bad writers (not you S.E. Hinton), you can’t argue with these words.  And you can’t argue with the fact that short track is about to become boring again.

When I first saw Apolo skate in the Olympics, I was  three months pregnant with our first child.  That was when she was still a boy and dangerously close to being named Apolo, though we would have honored the Greeks with a correct spelling.  (We could have name her Apolla, I suppose.  Apolla Antonia Ohnoyoudidn’t Koenigin.)   I was on Winter Break from my job as a high school teacher, and in a lasting bout of pregnancy nausea, I endured the hours of the week on the couch that felt much more like a boat.  Apolo eased my pain.

Well since that time, our baby Apolla has grown to be seven years old.  My child can be used as a unit of measurement for Apolo’s career.  Judging by her height and her ability to sing harmony, Apolo’s done well for himself in Olympic racing.  Perhaps that’s why I find his decline or exit so sad.  When I became a mom, he became an Olympian.  I suppose it’s good that he’s retiring.  I don’t want to have a fourth child at the age of 42, though it’s certainly possible…hmmmmnn.

Though in the end, we must all kiss certain things good-bye.  Our youth, our reproductive years, the ability to unload groceries without saying ‘ouch’.  And there is a very fleeting period of perfection in the pieces of our lives.  Perfection that is so easy, delicate, sumptuous.  Like the time during which our children are old enough to watch Sponge Bob so we can sleep in, but young enough to still want hugs all the time.  Or when you are young enough to look good, but old enough to not be so dumb.  Or when you directed that wonderful high school theater production, with that magic minute-and-a-half where the meaning of the play flooded the audience with inspiration and emotion.  And your mother-in-law was there watching.  And now she isn’t anywhere.

That’s not to say old people don’t have fun.  When Apolo is 58 he’s going to be happily drinking margaritas and eating chips and salsa with Kate Hudson, and he will be much happier than he was when he was courting the ice.  Talk about cold.  Lifeless.  Just lays there.  But those moments of brilliance or triumph can’t be canned, jarred, preserved or even tape-delayed.  Unless you’re a visual artist, but they dress weird.  And even then, the triumph is not on the canvas that hangs in wanna-be permanence before the crowds that don’t get it.  Or think it’s nice or love it.  The triumph is in the moment that the tube of ochre screamed to be squirted on the otherwise cool palette, and threatened to destroy the comfort of blue fading to gray, and did and was.  perfect.  Those moments can’t be frozen in canvas or on ice or in archives.  Those moments exist for a fractions of minutes of our days.

At the risk of sounding more Ohno-centric this Olympics, I would like to thank Apolo for enlivening our spirits for the past eight years.  I wish him well as he begins the next phase of his life.  And I wish all of us well as we find a new hero or heroine on which our hopes can hitch a ride.  Lindsey Vonn has crashed way too many times for this honor.  It’s scary riding in her fannypack.  And if I cry with her about any more of her victories, I won’t be able to respect myself.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

Image via Wikipedia

South Korea’s astonishingly graceful and precise Kim Yu-Na won gold in women’s figure skating, scoring a world-record breaking 228.56, thus smashing, kicking, and insulting the previous record by 18 points.  The record held by Kim Yu-Na.  What does this mean?  Never in the history of Olympic skating have all the judges been in such a good mood.  JUST KIDDING.  Yu-Na earned every hundredth of a point of that score by quite literally flying above the competition, like a rotating swan, injected with helium, and maneuvered by a pre-programmed weight counterbalance system switched to the ‘on’ position by her coach, Canadian silver-medal Olympian, Brian Orser.  He was that other Brian, who in a fierce battle of blading Brians in the 1988 Winter Games,  lost to the very tall, thin one named Boitano, who took gold and went on to be lovingly satirized by the South Park creators, famous for their revolutionary, cinematic triumphs:  pooing and vomiting puppets.  Brian O. said that the loss only haunted him for about…10 years.  Whoa.  Is it inappropriate to ask what would Brian Boitano have done?

But now Brian O. can take some credit for helping Yu-Na usher in the gold that he narrowly missed.  Now if you are feeling the temptation to say, “Those who can’t do, teach,” I will quickly reply, “Those who can’t do and can’t teach say, ‘Those who can’t do, teach,’” so please don’t say that.  It’s simplistic, and it’s not nice.  And it’s okay to be the second best in THE WORLD.  That doesn’t put you in the “can’t do” category.  It just puts you in the won’t quite be Scott Hamilton category.  Or Nadia Comenici.  Even she couldn’t be Scott Hamilton in the 1980 Olympics.  Did you see her decline?  In the end, she really wanted to be Bart Conner anyway, which is why she married him and had his baby.  If you can’t be them, replicate them.  I’m sure Yoko Ono felt the same.

But back to the superstar, please.  Yu-Na brings in eight-million dollars a year and, according to the media, has had enormous pressure to earn gold in order to keep her sponsors, her biggest being Nike, Kookmin Bank, and Hyundai.  Really?  Drop Kim Yu-Na, who threatens even Scott Hamilton’s place on the podium in the event called Olympic cuteness? This just goes to show you that winning a silver medal is far more reprehensible than telling your wife that you’re getting ice cream, but really you’re dining out from a menu of cocktail waitresses, porn stars, and gold diggers.  (Nike did not dump Tiger Woods, for the record.)

So South Korea has one more reason to smile, even wider.  Add that to the fact that they have a train that can travel 217 mph.  At least the US still gets to keep Apolo Anton Ohno, even though his first name has only one ‘l’.  And unfortunately, Dancing With The Stars isn’t going anywhere either.

Visit Saving Private Mommy tomorrow for more Olympic coverage and, quite possibly, another irrelevant mention of Apolo Anto Ohno.

And your Babble vote wouldn’t hurt either.  Thanks for reading this far.  You are an Olympic reader.

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Image via Wikipedia

1.  Lindsey Vonn broke her pinkie after another day of crashing into the mountain side at 60 miles an hour.  There were whiteout conditions on Whistler Mountain, but with all these injuries, it might be time for her to consider that, maybe, skiing just isn’t her thing.  I quit the PTA over much less.

2.  Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso have been described as “frenemies.”  Why does this surprise anyone?  When a blond and a brunette spend a lot of time together, no matter what the arena, the brunette is going to be resentful at some point.

3.  South Korea was disqualified in the women’s 1500 meter relay, and yielded the gold to China, the silver to Canada, and the bronzy spot on the podium to the US team who looked like they also thought they were a joke.  Why do I think Apolo is going to have to pay for this in the 500 meter sprint?

4.  I’m completely stressed out for Dutch coach Gerard Kempkers who, in the 10,000 meter speedskating race, directed his would-be gold medal skater, Sven Kramer, to change lanes which DISQUALIFIED HIM.  I can’t imagine the level of guilt that poor coach feels.  Ruining someone’s life is not a great thing for a coach to do.  I felt the same way when I was a high school drama teacher and I would post the cast list.  I can be credited with giving the world a few more surgeons.  You’re welcome, world.

5.  My husband indirectly stated that the women on the bobsled teams have nice butts.  I asked him how he noticed since I was so busy worrying about how they were surviving riding the track upside down with their helmets carving the ice and being EJECTED from the bobsled onto the frozen chute.  He said that it was SO EASY TO SEE what their butts look like, and he reenacted the departure where they push the bobsled back and fourth to get momentum and their butts bob up and down.  Click here to see this action with a wardrobe malfunction bonus.  My husband tried to make up for this remark by saying that he wanted me to be an Olympic bobsledder for Halloween.  There really are so many ways to say, I love you.

6.  I would like to give a shout out to the real heroes of the Olympics: the unsung champions of the biathlon and curling.  It’s true, these athletes are uncelebrated  because no one watches them.  They conquer in obscurity.  You could run into a three-time gold medal biathlete at Safeway and never even know it.  It’s one thing to fail in private, it’s another to be the best in the world IN PRIVATE.  You could die from the irony alone.  And it sort of defeats the purpose of conquering the world if no one knows about it.  And while we are in the safety of our living rooms or having a pleasant experience buying dishes at Target, they are having the (race?  what do you call it?) of their lives.  And we don’t even KNOW we’re missing it.  We just shop away while they ski, breathe heavily, and shoot things.  Or push things while lunging as their teammates sweep ice, quite furiously.  On the other hand, Apolo Anton Ohno eats a burrito and we all know about it.  It’s on the news at 5, 11 and it continues to be replayed into the wee hours of the morning.  Yes, he’s good at what he does, but it’s the unsung heroes of the sports we don’t even try to like who are the truest champions.

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Canadian Olympic skater Joannie Rochette lost her mother to a heart attack early Sunday morning.  Her mother was her number one fan.  On Tuesday, she skated through pain and stifled tears to achieve the greatest performance of her career.

The Canadian brotherhood present in the rink extended palpable warmth and support through their claps and cheers.  When the universe seems unfathomably cruel, it is nice to know that we can answer back in stunning grace, skill and style.  Mlle. Rochette, you did just that, and our hearts are with you.

Commentator Scott Hamilton gave a very quiet show of support:  silence.  Rochette skated her entire short program without any comment by Hamilton or his colleagues on all the elements that suddenly seemed so pointless in a time of such loss:  jumps, landings, turns, artistry.  Perhaps the choice to be silent was obvious, but the lack of discussion was so pronounced and unusual that it RESOUNDED on the airwaves.  Sometimes it’s not what we do, but what we don’t do that is the strongest action.

Here’s to a mother’s love.  RIP Therese Rochette.

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Monday, Canada had its day to squat on a patch of the Olympic hosting country’s mantra:  own the podium.  Ice dancers Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue won the gold medal in an elegant bloodbath of ice, sequins, lifts, and chiffon against dueling diva pairs from the United States and Russia.  Who could not love Canada as the crowd sang ‘Oh Canada‘ in Canada for Canada?  And we Americans all thought NO ONE knew the words to that song, except maybe Celine Dion and the people who hear her take showers.

Canada is like that girl who runs in the second tier of popularity in school.  She’s kind (the one who shares her health care with you), and visible (everyone puts maple syrup of their waffles), yet not too impressive or intimidating to resent (no one fears a Canadian invasion).  She’s the dark horse in the race for Homecoming Queen.  And in the endgame of popularity, Canada is a ferocious competitor and earns the tiara right off our ostentatious American head.

This leads me to another sleeper, shocker or even wolf in sheep’s clothing:  Olympic ice dancing.  Many, including me, have insisted that ice dancing is not a sport.  As a former sixth grade basketball player and runner of a twelve-minute mile, I say with confidence, even indignation, that those fluffy, giddy, sparkly DANCERS who claim to be Olympians are kidding themselves.  My husband disagrees with me citing strenuous pose after lift after jump after drag after fall after jazz hands as indisputable evidence of their athleticism.  While I admit that even my dreams are too flabby and unmotivated to perform these stunts, I still wouldn’t call an event in which you dress like a phoenix or an Aborigne to be a sport.  There is one thing, though, that turns me into a believer.  Their game on the podium.

That’s right.  In a week of tears and lip biting and emotion over one’s own victory, the Canadian ice dancing duo proved themselves to be the true warriors of the medal ceremony.  The duo won gold at their first Olympics.  They danced like pixies and they dressed like divas, but they listened to their national anthem like champions.  Not a grimace or drop of the head to hide emotion.  They were happy like Olympic winners should be.

Then there’s the Russian couple who probably felt that gold was stolen from them.  The couple mastered the stance of the non-verbal “You are fools.  Ull ov you!  Vaht ez Canada?  Not evahn a Sputnik to your name!  Blah! “  Oksana Domnina managed to eke out a trace of a smile for the kind lackey who awarded her that wretched disc of bronze.  This is one tough Baltic beauty.  If I were lost in a dark alley, I would chose to run into Lindsey Vonn over this ice swan.

Canadians and ice dancers provide a good lesson in not judging books by their covers.  Just because someone exhibits grace and softness, does not mean they won’t icefish their way to world dominance.

Chose Greta for your alternative Olympic coverage.  Check back tomorrow!

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On Saturday, Bode Miller won gold.  It makes sense to discuss him on this post, and surely my peers at the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor have done so.  However, here at Saving Private Mommy, I was planning on devoting today’s post to him anyway.  Does that make me a prophet?  No, but it sure makes me sound like one.

My familiarity with Bode Miller happened via commercials just before the 2006 Torino games.  It was either Nike or some beer that asked me to Join Bode.  I missed his 2002 Salt Lake Olympics performance, during which he won two silver medals, a reputation for partying and ‘not caring’, along with the sponsorship of various companies marketing his brand of athletic cool.

The level of hype made me nervous.  Footage of him looking detached, pans to products, understated narration, and the famous call to Join the dude who doesn’t change his facial expression dominated the television.  It all seemed too well-crafted, contrived and, yeah, HYPED.  Footage of him skiing, fine, but making him a movement?  That’s a lot of pre-Olympic pressure.

When he failed to medal race after race, I felt really bad for him and feared that his indifferent persona would be catapulted into a permanent, unresponsive, apathetic stupor (when cool can’t get cooler).  It’s okay to finish sixth in downhill skiing at the Olympic games, but not if Bud Light has been flooding the minds of the world with your image as a champion.

Bode went unloved by the media for his honor-free showing and his aloofness in Torino.  He told interviewers that he enjoyed ‘partying like an Olympian,’ and even the charismatically vague Bob Costas responded with angry words for Bode, “If he doesn’t care, neither will others.”  Was this because Bode didn’t tell of his 28 minutes of Cardio and eating Wheaties and Luna Bars?  Was it because he didn’t say, “Bob, I really didn’t live up to the hype.  I made a good appearance, but was kind of unmemorable, much like you will be until the summer games two years from now, when Americans see you again and say, Oh, yeah, Bob Costas exists, doesn’t he?”

I maintain that Bode was doing what he needed to do to survive.  He is a skier.  A fast one.  A finely-tuned Olympic machine that must perform at an optimum level all the way down the slope.  For some people, pressure is debilitating.  To achieve success, this requires a bit of not caring and the willingness to forgo a Luna Bar in exchange for bong rip.   (I am not a stoner.  I just understand them.)  Unfortunately, the media needs golden boys and girls who wear gold, eat gold, think gold, and excrete gold.  Had Bode talked only of Luna Bars, he would have been okay, but unmemorable.  Since he alluded to beer, he became notorious.

My analysis of Bode, and my approval of his rebel tactics, is straight out of the Innner Game Of Tennis by Tim Galleway, who found that his original style of instruction taught his students a “command and control self-dialogue” which was impeding their real, focused attention.  He then found ways to help his students focus on “non-judgmental observation.”  This improved their performance and enjoyment of the process.

I get this because I am pretty much just like Bode Miller and Andre Agassi, save the talent, fearlessness, and being attracted to leggy, German women.  You see, I was in a community theater production after years of having only directed high school theater.  My return to the stage was fraught with nervousness about lines, staging, performance, and my lack of ability to focus.  It sounds strange since this was only a community theater production, but, in fact, a Podunk production provides far greater opportunity for embarrassment since, at any moment, one or more of your behaviors will liken you to a character in a Christopher Guest movie.  Waiting For Guffman, anyone?

I went to see my favorite guru on theater, Carla Zilbersmith, of Carla’s Calendars fame.  She assured me that any theater that is too planned, locked-in, or controlled is dead.  She reminded me of the importance of “being in the moment” and letting the relationship or the scene unfold.  She urged me not to be afraid of failing and to let myself be open, inspired, and, possibly, brilliant.  Inspiration does not live in shackles.  But if it did, it would wear leather and ask you to call it Dieter.  That’s Madonna’s fantasy, not mine.  Anyone remember Erotica?

This very simple, but often elusive, idea for people who want things desperately, was the key to my being able to perform in a way that not only felt better, but was more effective.  Irony!  Once I no longer used success as the word on my post-it notes stuck to my bathroom mirror, I could focus on what I needed to, to let it happen.

I think Bodie’s gold medal performance is just like community theater acting.  In fact, it might be exactly like community theater acting.  Different personalities respond to the pressure differently.  Just because Apolo Twitters about winning doesn’t mean Bode has to eat Luna bars.  And just because Bode has to look like the guy in your Algebra class doesn’t mean Apolo needs to shave his soul-patch.  The mental game matters, and our minds work differently.  Thankfully.  Otherwise parties would be really boring.

Now Bodie’s won gold, so, of course, the media has attributed this to Bode’s ‘growing up.’ Bode did deny any ‘new him’ scenario in an interview with Time, saying it’s all media perception, that is, how the media ‘wants to position itself.’ Funny, now that there’s gold around his neck, there is media around Bode.

So let’s take a lesson from Bode.  Ski for fun.  Chill out.  Relax and let it happen, and you may lose in Torino, but you just might dominate in Vancouver.

Stay tuned for more sporadic, irrelevant, incomplete, yet highly important Olympic coverage here at Saving Private Mommy. 

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