So the actual waxing experience could be an entire blog post on its own, as I decided to throw in a Brazilian to the full leg (as long as I’m there, let’s just giterdone). I get Brazilians all the time, but let’s just say that this one was unique, as it had Veronica the esthetician saying several times throughout the experience, “I am sooo sorry. Oh my god. In my five years of doing this I have never had this happen before!” But I’m here now to focus on the pedicure.

I have a complete aversion to getting mani/pedis. It’s not that I don’t like strangers touching me or my feet (No no, please. Touch my feet. Touch me. Anywhere. I insist.). I’m ok with that. It’s the fact that I am paying someone money to do something for me, something hygienic, something pampering, something that I could totally do myself. And frankly, I don’t see spending $20 or whatever for something that I could do just as well at home for much less. But that’s yet another issue.

If you live in a major city (or even if you don’t), the probability that your nail tech is going to be an immigrant, probably from Asia, is high. So there I was, post traumatic waxing, with my piggies in a bubbling vat of blue liquid as Lien (as I learned her name was) literally sat at my feet and poured oils on my ankles and began massaging my calves.

I could just not relax.

And this is coming from someone who has had plenty of oils and other substances dripped onto her ankles, as well as various other parts, in the past and fully enjoyed every second of it. No problem with that. I began to babble faster than the bubbles.

Oh, hi! I’m Jill! Wow this place is pretty! It’s so… (hushed voice) fancy, right? Sheesh!(read: Lien, please know that I am not of this world, this is not my norm. I am one of you! A worker! A proletariat!) Where are you from? Oh, Vietnam! Neat!

Somehow we began talking about fruit, and how the fruit here was just not like the fruit back home in Vietnam.

Oh I know… I lived in Paraguay for a couple of years. The bananas were tiny and sooo good. (read: I have lived in developing country, too. Boy, were we poor! I get it! I’m hip! I’m with it! Takka takka takka. And boy was the fruit different, and better! Stupid Americans don’t know nothing about fruit, right Lien? But we do. Lien and Jill, one in the same, BFF 4eva!)

It went on like this. I couldn’t stop. Stop babbling, making small talk, trying to relate, trying to prove that this was just a fluke, I was really a scullery maid who was forced to get a pedicure by some evil Groupon discount stepmother. Because in reality I was all about fiscal thriftiness. We talked about coupons. Lien had found some sort of super coupon off a local dry cleaner and ended up getting a ton of clothes and five suits cleaned for like, $17. I praised her ingenuity. We scrunched our noses at those who don’t like coupons. We were One.

It was the never-ending pedicure. Lien kept pouring different oils on my feet, massaging and rubbing, blotting dry with a tiny towel only to rewet with a new, different kind of oil or balm. I was running out of things to babble about. I tried to just STFU and enjoy it. I mean, this was her job, right? Without this, she would be, what? Begging in the streets. Working in an overcrowded, hot and unsafe illegal apparel factory in someone’s basement. Still in Vietnam, doing whatever she did back there (which was probably something like finishing her PhD in biotechnology or the like). But I remained incredibly uncomfortable. I was paying someone money to rub my feet. I guess it’s not unlike prostitution, in a way. But that can’t be it entirely, because I have no overarching ethical problem with prostitution. So what’s the biggie? Hmm. I have to talk this one out.

It was a racial thing. A socio-economic thing. I’m a white girl from the suburbs and she’s an immigrant from Vietnam. My liberal white guilt kicked in. Let’s do a little exercise. What if she had been a white girl doing it? “Heyyy I’m Staci, and I’ll be your nail tech for this evening! What, me? I’m a business administration major at DePaul, and I just do this on the side to pay for books.” If that were the situation, I think I’d think Oh, in that case, lay back, stretch out and tell Staci not to forget to get in between my toes, too, thanks.

No, that’s not exactly true. I would feel better about it, yes. But not entirely.

What if it was a big black dude who lived in Section 8 housing? Well I know how I’d feel, because once a big black dude who said he lived in Cabrini was the hairwashing guy at Vidal Sasoon where I get my hair did. I felt fine about that, but probably because he was uber sexy and spent an unecessarily long time massaging my head and speaking to me in a low voice with lots of inappropriately awesome eye contact that made parts of me tingle, other than my scalp. So maybe horniness overpowers class or racial issues.

No, that’s not true, either. Because I’d have no problem paying a prostitute from one of those “reputable” escort agencies (in theory of course, ha ha. Ha. Eyes shift to right, eyes shift to left). But I could just never get into it with one from the street, young and truly needing the money to pay for baby formula or meth or something, no matter how horny I was.

So it comes down to I just have a hard time paying for services when class issues (which are often tied to racial issues) are at play.

Which reminds me of when I was living in Paraguay. I had just moved to my town and didn’t know how anything worked, really. The Peace Corps Volunteer that I was following up said she gave her dirty clothes to a neighbor woman, Fulana, who washed them weekly, and she paid her I believe 10,000 Guarani for it. (For the record, 10,000 Guarani comes to about $1.98, but is decent pay for the job.) The first week, I took my clothes to my neighbor’s house and gave them to her to wash. She said, “Sit down! Sit down!” and offered me a chair in her yard. She sat across from me and began washing my clothes in a soapy basin in front of her, chatting about the weather and the new pig they were going to buy. I sat there, practicing my Spanish, feeling so uncomfortable. Here I am, white, middle-class woman from the US, coming to live in a poor fishing town in a developing country, paying a local woman to wash my own clothes as I sit in front of her, resting my pretty hands and making small talk. Ugh. This felt wrong. And I wanted to be known as One of Them! She hung up my clothes, told me she’d iron them when they were dry, and her daughter Marta would bring them to my house when they were done. I said gracias and left.

The next week, Marta knocked (well, clapped outside, since some people don’t have doors so knocking is not the norm) at my door. “Mama wants me to get your dirty clothes for the week,” she said. “Oh, ok…” I started in my still new Spanish. “Well I think I’m going to wash it myself. I can do it! Tell your madre that she taught me so well and now I’m going to do it myself from now on.” Marta looked at me for a moment, said ok, then ran away.

Well. Did I hear about that for the next month. Everyone in town was buzzing about how the American was too good to have Fulana wash her clothes. I was shocked. I thought I’d get praise for being independent! Being one of them! I hadn’t even considered that Fulana really depended on that 40,000 Guarani a month income, and now I took it away. And Fulana could talk some shit, I’ll tell you what. It was a forever awkward topic after that, but I kept washing my clothes myself for the next two years.

I thought about this while Lien dried off my toes and began pushing my cuticles back with a metal stick. “Did you see those ladies here?” she asked. “Five sisters! Here for one of their birthdays. 50 years old. Two got massages, all got pedicures.”

I had seen the ladies paying when I had first got there, all middle-aged, well dressed, fake tanned, in flip flops and white cotton toe dividers protecting their freshly painted toenails. They were loud and laughing and fancy. I internally rolled my eyes at the time.

“Yes, I saw them,” I said. “Rich ladies!” External eyeroll.

“Yes, rich!” Lien said. “And so funny! And good business! Bad economy means more business for salons. People come here instead of away on vacation. Cheaper for them. Good for me! And very, very nice ladies. So funny!” She painted my toes. The color was called “Overexposed in South Beach.”

I then realized Lien didn’t seem to feel the same discomfort I felt. She liked these ladies. They were nice to her. Because… they were nice. Rich and nice aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. I felt like an asshole. Again.

But I still felt uncomfortable paying for someone to scrub my feet.

I thought of Fulana. I thought of my brother and me, seven and 10 years-old, looking out the window of our cabin in Wisconsin at the “Honeydew Man” and his truck cleaning out our septic tank. “Eww,” my brother had said, the smell wafting in the air. “Well,” my Dad had replied. “Someone’s got to do it. Nothing wrong with that. Honest living.”

Honest living, I thought. I’m not rich, but sometimes I might find myself getting a pedicure. Just like Lien sometimes might find herself going to a fancy dinner in one of her dry cleaned suits. Or the Honeydew Man might find himself in first class on a flight somewhere for vacation.

But it still just didn’t feel right. And I found that I wasn’t the only one to feel that way. I won’t be doing it again in the near future. I’m too broke, anyway. I tipped big because she did a great job but also out of guilt, and took my pink toenails, moisturized feet and throbbing hairless vagina home.

That being said, I learned some valuable lessons along the way and was happy to see so many people out and about embracing their true selves.

1. There sure are a lot of people who enjoy wearing goggles.

2. It is possible to construct a mermaid tail out of leather and sit around in it for several hours. (I could hear my mother saying, BUT HOW DO YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM?)

3. Just because you own a musical instrument does not mean you should play it in public. A. tried to be polite and called it “deconstructed jazz.” I called it a headache.

4. I had no idea that selling tiny hats was a thriving industry. Go, tiny hat people!

5. Puppets with gears attached to them are scarier than actual, regular puppets.

6. People really enjoy goggles.

7. I wonder how so many women can breathe while wearing what appears to be extremely tight corsets.

8. Parents of steampunk children appeared to be good sports. Children of steampunk parents appeared to be mortified.

9. Both fans of steampunk and my husband enjoy a deep fried hamburger. (I, on the other hand, enjoy having my arteries free and clear). And yes, said hamburger has its very own Yelp page.

10. Did I mention the goggles?

Overall, it was a sunny spring day and I got to spend it with friends walking around outside. I really couldn’t ask for much more than that. Except for maybe my own pair of goggles.

No, I did not buy these; however, I do look quite fetching.

Today’s guest post is appropriately mama themed and comes to us from Roxanne Halpine Ward, a Philadelphia-based writer/editor/yogini. You can check out her thoughts on yoga and fitness, writing, and life with her husband and Yoga Baby over at Rox Does Yoga.

***

As a new mom, I love breastfeeding my daughter.

But as a working mom, I hate pumping.

First there’s the practical problem of lugging the thing around. It’s too heavy to carry on my 20-minute walk to the train station. I solved this for a while by putting a big basket on my bike, but then it got too cold to ride. Now my husband drops me off at the train, then takes the baby to daycare; at night he picks the baby up first, then me, so if my train runs late (and it does), then I’m inconveniencing the entire family, because I can’t just walk home with the pump. Now one of the straps on my pump bag has broken, making it awkward even to carry it the four blocks from the station to my office. Maybe I should mount wheels and a handle on it, like a piece of luggage, so I can drag it? The milk commute sucks.

But worse is the way that pumping makes me feel: like a cow, or worse, a factory worker. Because after all, a cow doesn’t actually care how much milk she produces. A factory worker, on the other hand, has quotas. She starts out strong, more than meeting her goals every day, and even has some to freeze for later, but then things start to go downhill. She’s just not putting out the quantity she used to. She institutes an early morning manufacturing session before the baby is awake. She watches her frozen supply dwindle, wondering what happened. Is there something wrong with her equipment?

The fact is that the female body is designed to breastfeed long-term when the baby is by the mother’s side. When you separate them for 50 hours a week, it throws a wrench in the whole system. As soon as I went back to work full-time, regardless of how good things seemed then, I was setting myself up with a clock that would, eventually, run out, no matter how many herbal supplements I take, teas I drink, lactation cookies I bake, or endless bowls of oatmeal I eat (and I used to love oatmeal).

It would be so nice, so freeing, to be able to stop pumping. But my baby is fat and healthy – do I really want to change things when she’s so obviously thriving? And even though she spends her days at a daycare center/illness incubator, she’s been sick far less often than we would have expected. If it’s the antibodies in my milk that have kept her well, do I want to take a chance on changing that? Shouldn’t I make the sacrifice to keep pumping for her, no matter how hard it may be for me? There are plenty of women who persevere under far more difficult circumstances. Mayim Bialik, for instance, nursed her younger son till he was four despite what must be a fairly grueling television filming schedule. All the breastfeeding advocates and support groups will say that I can keep doing it, but every woman’s body is different, and so is every woman’s schedule, lifestyle, and situation. I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle here, and I can’t keep struggling and worrying and trying new remedies and blaming my body anymore. To be honest, my body is a champ for making it this far.

Last week, my whole family got hit by a stomach bug. Breastfeeding really helped the baby through it, comforting her and providing the fluids she wouldn’t take from a bottle. But the physical strain and dehydration of being sick hit my body hard. Production is at an all-time low, and I don’t know if it can recover.

My daughter just celebrated a birthday: eight months old. I’m thinking I might celebrate by leaving the pump at home. I want to breastfeed my baby for as long as she wants, and I’ll do it as long as I can, as long as my body lets me. But I think it may be time to be done with the pump.

So let’s focus on something else instead for a moment. Let’s think about one of the best part of humanity. Let’s talk about Delaware. (That’s not where you thought I was going, was it?)

Three of the six of us who blog here called Delaware home for some or all of our formative years. When I lived there though, I didn’t think much of the state. It isn’t that I didn’t like it, I just felt like everything about it was “meh,” which is somehwat inarticulate but accurate. I had a high level of apathy about Delaware. Probably that was due to my age and to the fact that my family didn’t have a beach house because the beaches in Delaware are pretty great, and I’m sure if I’d spent all summer down at Rehoboth or Bethany, I’d have had a little more love for the state. And also, a lot more sunburns and underage drinking stories. But my preference really is cities, big cities that always have a lot going on, and Delaware just can’t deliver on that scale. The tax-free shopping, that I miss now that I’m a grown-up who buys big items like furniture. But I never felt like Delaware was an exciting place to be, or a state doing exciting things, things that made me proud to call it home.

However, some good stuff has happened for Delaware in the past few years, at least according to me. First Joe Biden became VP, and damn, do I love that guy. Not the way Leslie Knope does, of course, but still. He is hilariously, accidentally awesome – just check out these quotes and pictures if you don’t believe me – and I even agree with some of his politics, so it’s a win-win.

And then, earlier this week Delaware made me even prouder by passing their same-sex marriage bill. That doesn’t come with goofy quotes and pics, but it does come with State Senator Karen Peterson’s wonderfully accurate quote, “If my happiness somehow demeans or diminishes your marriage, then you need to work on your marriage.”

So let’s talk about love, the opposite of all the fucked-up hate on display in the news this week, and most other weeks. It’s the antidote. It’s not all we need – I’m not going to support that old cliche – but it does help with almost everything because love seems to make everything a little more bearable, and occasionally even makes the impossible happen. There’s just no good reason to shut it down: not religion, not tradition, not personal intolerance, not fear. I mean, those are all reasons someone will cite, but they are clearly shitty reasons. No one else’s happiness and love will ruin yours, so why try to ruin theirs? There are enough people doing cruel and evil things in the world without adding to it by legislating away someone’s rights.

Thanks, Delaware, for recognizing this and giving us a bright spot of hope during a bad week. Minnesota, we’re looking at you next!

If it’s one think Sgt. Friday loves, it’s statistics. This guy is like Rainman! He can spit them out at you off the top of his head. And he’s intimidating, apparently. A common theme is Tough Criminal Won’t Crack, (“You’ll never get anything out of me, see!”) and then Friday shoots some rapid fire statistics at him, and he instantly crumbles. Your sassy attitude is just no match for math, friend. Example:

Sergeant Friday gets very upset if you make fun of his job. And salary. Don’t mess with his $1.82/hour job, mkay?

Example #2:

Friday and Gannon seem to cover every kind of crime there is. Narcotics, child molesters, drugs, even traffic accidents. Here’s a great clip of Friday schooling some traffic cop on car accidents.

First the other traffic cop is all, “Yeah, I know about that Cornell University study, Friday, DUH.” But then Joe schools him with a play-by-play. He’s so disturbed (and perhaps blown away by awesomeness) that he just has to leave. They don’t show him in this video just jumping out of his seat and running away, but he does. Because that’s how any professional colleague in a business meeting would react. Sheesh, if he can’t handle some stats and photos of crushed cars, how does he handle seeing, like, real things that cops see?

Example #3

Ahhhh, 1960s mainstream society’s view of drugs. Best summed up by Friday here:

Do you really spend “most of their time holding some sick kid’s head while he vomits and wretches sitting on a curbstone at 4 AM in the morning?” I thought most of your time was spent memorizing statistics?

Here’s my favorite interpretation of what happens to you when you do drugs.

Apparently you stick your entire head in in a pile of dirt or shredded bark or whatever that is. Then you talk all crazy, and apparently you become a football fan and paint your face with your team’s colors. Or something? Note how when he starts struggling with Friday and Gannon, he also puts his hands behind his back like they’re already cuffed. For easy-cuffing purposes, I suppose. How helpful!

So they make it to the drug house, or the drug party or whatever. People dancing and artists eating their own paint. Sodom and Gammorah! All because of marijuana, you evil, evil drug! Then poor Benji wanted to get further out, further out, further out. And he died. From LSD.

Now I don’t do drugs because a) frankly I find them boring and b) I’m kinda fucked up enough as it is and don’t really need to “see what’s in there” as I “expand my mind.” But if I did, Sgt. Friday wouldn’t be the one to stop me with this routine, that’s for goddamn sure.

Move over, Real Housewives. I love you, but you don’t stand up to Dragnet, the original so-bad-it’s-good TV show. I strongly recommending DVRing some of them on whatever channel they play them on. You just don’t get writing or delivery like that anymore. Unless it’s on Seinfeld.

So I participated in my first food swap. I was nervous for weeks before, actually. I love cooking, baking in particular, but I don’t count myself a foodie or skilled chef.

For those of you who’ve never heard of a food swap, it’s sort like a combination of a Whole Foods and a flea market. Each participant has his or her own little area to display his/her food and delicious samples for fellow swappers to try. The principle is simple. Make healthy homemade food in bulk, preferably something that can be stored or frozen for a long period of time, and trade it. You can make as much or as little as you’d like, but your food is your currency; no money allowed. So the more sophisticated the food, and the more of it you have, the more likely you will be to get a good amount of quality food in return. I made pickles and quiche.

The first hour was about sampling and talking. We got to try a little of everyone’s food and get an explanation of what they made, what ingredients were included, how to store the goods, and how to use them.

My quiche and pickle display

By the end of the first hour, it was time to start bidding. Everyone had a bid sheet in front of his/her goods so that you could walk around the room and write down if you were interested in swapping. Some people were specific about what they wanted to trade, and some were more open. Many people, like me, made more than one item so you could be specific if there was something you really wanted or didn’t want.

Breadbasket display. I ended up with some of the granola bars.

By the end of the second hour, we were ready to start trading, I didn’t really have to move much as I found people came to me, which was great. Most of the time the trade was one for one, but sometimes it was a little more or less. People would hand me their item, and I would hand them mine. Here is a rough list of what I got; keep in mind everything on this list was homemade:

• Asparagus pesto
• Buffalo hummus
• Raspberry tangerine rum
• Flavored kombucha tea
• Hazelnut chocolate spread
• A cream and strawberry brownie dessert
• Strawberry preserves
• Rose lavender sugar
• Hand-ground/mixed Indian spices
• Muhammara (red pepper dip)
• Strawberry yogurt parfait
• Russian pickled eggplant
• A Russian horseradish spread (Xpeh Chren, I think?)
• Homemade candy
• Salsa
• Preserved lemons
• Granola
• Granola bars
• Hot dipping sauce

I can’t say enough about how awesome this event was. I’ll have unexpected delicious food for weeks, maybe months. Some of this is stuff I’d never make on my own, and it will make me cook in new and different ways, which is half the point. Moreover, it was fun, creative, and a chance to share, a chance to realize the possibilities of what can be done in a kitchen if you give a little time and love. Wonderful.

These swaps are popping up all around the country. I highly encourage you to participate in one in your area, or start your own. I promise if you start it, they will come. Happy eating.

As impatient as I tend to get during this process, in many ways I’m sure I’m no better at making a decision. Sure, with the small stuff I decide fast – what to have for lunch, what music to listen to at any given moment, what book to get from the library (when it comes to books, I just get everything). But with bigger stuff like jobs, a house, marriage, kids, these things took me ages to decide. Ice ages, in some cases. I don’t like to cut out any options, and obviously making certain decisions means you forgo the opportunity to make certain others.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I reach my mid-’30s, and this brings me to Tuesday, whereupon immediately after reading Jill’s post, I took the Enneagram test. Turns out I’m a Nine (the Peacemaker) by a very slim margin. This doesn’t really surprise me because I like peace, and until I started taking krav maga, I was aggressive only in my ability to diffuse arguments. However, the timing of finding out I’m the Peacemaker is kind of funny since I just tried to quit one of my jobs and didn’t quite succeed at it, which makes me wonder if I sometimes take being the Peacemaker to entirely new and unnecessary heights. To be clear, when I say I didn’t succeed what I mean is that instead of giving two weeks notice, I ended up giving a month’s, even though I had told myself quite firmly I’d give two. While this isn’t a tragedy and is in some ways beneficial for everyone involved, I’m still wondering why I did it. I’ve come down to the fact that, as a freelancer, I’ve chosen a career in which not closing off your options is how you survive. It’s perfect and horrible all at once.

For rather obvious reasons, as a freelancer it is absolutely necessary to keep your options open. Even more so than the general employee, you don’t want to burn bridges. When you don’t have any type of job security from project to project, you have to do more than just not piss people off; you need to make them love you. You need to do a great job all the time, and you never want to turn down work because if you do it too many times, they won’t come back. You always want them to think of you for their next available gig. Sometimes, this means doing projects you don’t love in order to get to the ones you do love. The choice is yours, except that sometimes it really isn’t.

When I started freelancing, I took all my tips from Erin, who had been freelancing for a couple of years at that point. She gave me lots of wise advice, one piece of which was, “Don’t worry, there’s more work out there than you think.” In our industry, that’s certainly been true. But although that reassured me at first, in the end it didn’t make me any calmer about saying no to jobs. I have started saying no gradually, for my own sanity, but I feel like being the Peacemaker makes it hard to say no once you’ve gotten your foot in the door. It’s like, if you start out saying yes, you just somehow begin to feel obligated to keep saying it, even when you want or need to say no. It’s a  weird cycle, not abusive but not really fun either.

This is not a terrible problem to have, it’s just a position in which I never expected to end up. But that seems to be happening a lot lately, and I think I know why. (Here’s the part where I say something that makes me feel extremely old.) I’m getting to an age where I really understand the levels of complication hiding inside a simple act. I have this very vivid memory of being a kid hanging out with one of my aunts, talking about something, and her saying, “One day, you’re going to try to figure out why people do what they do, and why you’re reacting to it the way you are,” and my response was basically, “Nuh-uh.” (I was so articulate!) Well, that day has come and gone, and now we’re on to reading between the lines and trusting your gut and making the practical decision no matter what. I don’t like it here. I like it back when I was 10 and didn’t worry about the other person’s side of it so much. As long as I wasn’t being mean to someone, my decision-making process started and stopped with what worked best for me.

But here I am, in a place where leaving a job is not black and white, and even when the decision’s been made, it can be tweaked and often is. This is a good thing in some ways, but in other ways it feels suffocating, like nothing will ever be decided. It feels like there is no way to disengage. And maybe there isn’t. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re an adult.

Readers, what say you? Is this life as a grown-up? Did the Enneagram test help you figure out something new about yourself? Are you also struck with indecision in the toy aisle?

I believe that every single person just wants two things: To be loved and to be safe (and those two things can be very intertwined). The way every individual goes about getting loved and getting safe can be very different. Some are positive: soul-searching, healthy friendships and finding hobbies. And others are negative: building walls, pushing people away, being an asshole so you’re never the one to get hurt (“Hey, I warned you I was messed up.”) Whatever. We’re all just trying to get ok. An Enneagram test is a tool to help identify your basic desires and basic fears and your communication style. I think this is huge. A lot of times we act without even knowing why. Sometimes it takes years to figure it out. But once we know what it is that we want or that we’re afraid of, we can deal with it. Sometimes identifying it is half the battle.

Enneagrams basically say that there are nine main personality types (yes, we can all argue there are more, and yes they can overlap and such, but stick with me on this one). Everyone basically falls into one of these nine types. They are all based on the idea that we all are motivated by a basic fear and a basic desire.

The Nine Enneagram Types:

1.    The Perfectionist – Productive, organized, wise, ethical and reliable, this type of personality is concerned with doing things right, living right and improving themselves and things around them. They can be judgmental, critical, controlling and anxious as well. Basic Fear: Of being corrupt/evil, defective. Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced.

2.    The Helper – Generous, insightful and caring, Helpers must be loved to feel their value and react positively to others. They can also be martyr like and possessive, and sometimes overly accommodating. Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved. Basic Desire: To feel loved.

3.    The Achiever – A pretty self-explanatory personality, the achiever is driven by success and hates failure. At their worst, Achievers can be vindictive, narcissistic and pretentious. Basic Fear: Of being worthless. Basic Desire: To feel valuable and worthwhile. Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance.

4.    The Individualist – A key character in almost every plot line, the Romantic is addicted to emotion and must experience her feelings. She doesn’t wish to be ordinary and can sometimes be self-conscious, moody or self-absorbed. Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity).

5.    The Observer/Investigator – At their best, they are analytical and consumed with knowing and understanding the world around them. At their worst, they can come off as critical of others, intellectually arrogant and negative. Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable. Basic Desire: To be capable and competent.

6.    The Questioner/Loyalist – “Do I fit in?” is a common thought for the Questioner, a personality driven by the need for security. While they can be compassionate and warm, they can also be paranoid, defensive and rigid. Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance Basic Desire: To have security and support.

7.    The Adventurer/Enthusiast  – True adrenaline junkies, No. 7’s thrive on activities, want to contribute to the world and don’t enjoy suffering. Their confidence and spontaneity can sometimes be interpreted as narcissism and lack of discipline. Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain. Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled.

8.    The Asserter/Challenger – The Asserter doesn’t want to take “no” for an answer and wants to be self-reliant. Authoritative, energetic and loyal, No. 8’s can also be rebellious, self-centered and aggressive to avoid feeling inferior or dependent. Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others. Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life and destiny).

9.    The Peacemaker – Nines hate conflict and want to smooth things over, but their emotional responses to various situations can vary from genteel and polite to obsessive and forceful. Basic Fear: Of loss and separation. Basic Desire: To have inner stability “peace of mind.”

(source here.)

So first, find out your number (1-9) by taking a free version of the Enneagram Test.

Forget all that other stuff it tells you at the end, just get your number. Next, find your type description. Read the overview here. How well do you relate to it?

Next, scroll down to the “More Depth By Levels” section. I think this is the most helpful part of an Enneagram tool. Levels are divided by “Healthy,” “Average,” and “Unhealthy.” Read the descriptions of actions, behavior and emotions. Where do you fit? I use this to sort of do an emotional tune-up every once in awhile. Am I falling into unhealthy patterns? Am I “Average” right now, and recognize things I can do to get healthy? Do I recognize behavior in others that can now be explained by this? Can it help me understand them better now, and maybe be more empathetic?

Finally, once you know yourself better, you can force all of your loved ones to take the test, too, then analyze your relationship. They call this “Relationship-Type Compatibility,” as it tends to focus on two people in a romantic relationship, but I find that it works just as well with two friends or family members. Understanding the driving fears and desires of the people in our lives and how they relate to your own can be sort of revolutionary in learning how to best communicate and just be with them. Compare types here.

Again, I don’t claim that there is some quick fix to self-discovery or being the best, healthiest individuals we can be. It’s a long, never-ending journey. But using Enneagrams as a tool has helped me better understand myself and others immensely.

What’s your number? How accurate do you find it to be?

Happy growing!

Case in point, two weeks ago on Saturday night after all the hullaballoo died down, A., my friend Erika, and I went to see The Dead Milkmen in concert at The Sinclair. I was psyched. I have been of fan of their snotty punk rock since my formative years. They haven’t toured in forever. I got my tickets in advance. I WAS READY TO ROCK.

Then this happened:

This is what I took a picture of. For real.

Why yes, that is the jacket of a large man standing directly in front of me. Look. I know I am slightly below average height. I get that. I will try to make up for that in sheer brashness, but this was too much. A., seeing my predicament, switched places with me so I could squeeze in between and see the concert. I saw the Milkmen (and boy howdy, did they look old). And when Tall Guy went to grab a beer, go to the bathroom, put away his stilts, whatever, I got to see more of the show. I was happy. Then he came back. And again he stood in front of me. I was starting to take this personally, so I did what any Fluevog boot-stomping concertgoer did and elbowed my way in. (I am short, but I have pointy elbows apparently). Dude was oblivious, I got to see more of the show, and so everyone wins.

The show was good; I recommend seeing shows at The Sinclair. However I was kind of surprised that there was an honest-to-God mosh pit. I haven’t seen one since the mid-nineties. I was afraid that the old guy that jumped in from the stage would break his hip. I may have gasped thinking of the possible call to the insurance company. (“Hello, Liberty Mutual? Yeah, it’s Phil. Phil Burns. Yes, I have my insurance card. Hold on, it is stuck in my wallet. Anyway, I may have reached my deductible. But the stage dive was unavoidable. I mean, how else was I supposed to get off the stage? I didn’t see any stairs? It wasn’t my fault there no one caught me!”)

I digress.

On the plus side, I have awesome tall friends who happily take pictures for us shorties.

Rodney Anonymous tells a story. Thanks, Erika, for the pic!

Does anyone have any tips for dealing with tall people at concert venues? As a tall person, do you purposely try to obstruct views? (Be honest because God is reading).

—–

Also, if you haven’t done so yet, please consider donating to the One Fund for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Also, A.’s work colleague is close with the Richard family (their son Martin was killed and the mother and daughter wounded); please consider donating to the fund set up for them as well.

***

Before I had kids, when I knew everything about parenting, I used to say that my prospective kid would grow up speaking another language. S/he would be bilingual from birth, short-circuiting American stereotypes and probably being hired by the UN just out of junior high.  However, unlike other parenting ideas I had, (family sing-alongs and faceless Waldorf dolls, I’m looking at you) I really did it. Yeah, my kid speaks another language. But it’s not as great as it sounds.

First of all, the second language that he speaks is Russian. That’s because someone else hired the Klingon-speaking nanny! Just kidding, it’s because my second language is Russian, and I had to start somewhere.

Second, it means you have to speak to them in the second language all the time. If you take a poll of all your friends with kids, 100% of them will think it’s a great idea for their kid to speak a second language. But only about 2% of them will want to yell at their kid down the cereal aisle in that second language. When you do it all the time, you become That Mom That Only Speaks to Her Kid in Latvian.

Third, if you live in the US, it means that you might need to dig deep for resources. I live in Hawaii, which means you have to look further than your nearest cab driver for a Russian. I have been lucky enough to find some amazing sitters and a wonderful set of Russian grandparents who watch him right now, but it’s not as easy as dropping him off at Kiddie Kare. I have also paid ridiculous shipping rates on kids’ books from Brighton Beach and given shopping lists to all my friends traveling back and forth to Russia.

Fourth, your family might have problems with it. My mother complained about not knowing what he was saying, and muttered darkly about him never learning his name if we continued to call him by his Russian nickname. (For the record, he knows his English name too, and also speaks English.)  My husband mentioned that at some point, we were going to have to break it to him that we’re not Russians and he might have ‘adjustment issues.’

Finally, it means giving my baby a really different childhood than the one I had. He loves cartoons that I never knew about (his current favorite is based on an Italian socialist propaganda film and stars a mischievous onion who Fights the Power) and says “oy!” when he falls down. He sings songs I didn’t know but learned from mp3s and calls his train Tomás. He calls me mamichka; I’m the Russian mother I never had!

It’s all worth it, though, when I hear him use his verbs of motion correctly, something I spent three semesters cramming into my brain. He distinguishes between dark and light blue, two different words in Russian, every time. On Halloween, he says ‘boo’ with an Eastern European accent. Will he turn on me when he’s 15 and complain that I ruined his life by making him speak Russian? Probably. Too bad- as we say in Russian, “На всех не угоди́шь,” or “You can’t please everyone!”