Decision fatigue

I am mulling over my options this morning. Should I go for an early bike ride? Should I, instead, pour my morning energy into a work task? And if so, which one: the foundation report or the cumulative impacts pattern analysis? Or, since all of those options require more willpower than I can muster right now, should I instead blog about the NY Times Magazine article I read a couple of days ago, Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

And thus, in the past 30 minutes, as I have eaten my cereal with fresh peaches and drunk my 3 cups of tea with soymilk, I have already used up a lot of mental energy thinking about these things and then deciding. Bike ride: later. Blog: now. Which work task first? Ah well, push that decision off for a few minutes.

Good thing I didn’t have to decide what to eat for breakfast or I would have used up even more mental energy. Routines like a regular breakfast menu are ways to conserve mental energy because you don’t have to think about them. Besides, breakfast is important for mental energy in another way: it feeds the brain a surge of glucose so you can carry on with the normal decision requirements of the day.

According to the article, scientists are discovering that mental energy is not a metaphor. It is real, that is, a physiological phenomenon that can be measured. Huh. Coulda told them that. When you’re tired you know your brain is tired, too. Can’t think straight, can’t make good decisions, and heaven knows, willpower is down the drain.

Willpower, in fact, is how these scientists are measuring mental energy. What is your biggest temptation? For me, food.  I know that I snack when I’m tired.  I have no willpower about resisting cheese and crackers in the evening. Snacking is also hard to avoid after I’ve done a difficult piece of mental work. However, it’s not really about physical fatigue because exercise can leave me pooped out but I don’t shovel popcorn into my mouth afterward.

Well they now know why that is. For a long time researchers didn’t believe in the phenomenon of mental energy or its inverse, mental fatigue, because they observed that the level of brain activity stayed pretty constant no matter what your physical state or what kind of mental work you were doing. However, when they looked more closely at what parts of the brain were working hardest, as measured by glucose uptake, they saw what was happening.

When you spend too much time making decisions (i.e. carrying on almost any kind of mental activity), after a while the glucose flow to those areas runs down and instead the glucose goes to the parts of the brain that govern survival: those primitive parts that yell, “I want food now!” “I feel bad! Make me feel better now!”

What kind of decisions wear you down? Any kind, apparently. Including the zillion little decisions involved in shopping for groceries in a big supermarket (I coulda told them that, too). Or deciding on the accoutrements for your new computer. Or what cable channel to watch. Or which blog to read.

The lesson is to make the important decisions and do willpower-requiring tasks when you have plenty of energy and set up routines to cut down on the number of decisions you have to make in a given day. Coulda told them that, too.

On being Number Two

I watched the movie The Social Network the other night and found it so infuriating that I almost gave up my Facebook membership. Then, because I thought it was a really good movie, I watched it again and didn’t mind it so much because I understood something. The movie had touched a nerve with me.

I had identified with one of the losers in the movie, Eduardo, Mark Zuckerberg’s second in command. Eduardo was the co-founder of Facebook who was totally eclipsed and eventually thrown over by his genius friend. I was outraged at the callousness of this, at Mark the callow nerd who didn’t understand a thing about loyalty.

The thing is, Eduardo was smart but Mark was a genius. Eduardo worked hard but Mark’s imagination outran both of them and created something way beyond what diligence alone could accomplish. The enterprise got very big, very fast, in ways Eduardo couldn’t fathom. Eduardo got left behind.

I happen to work with a genius who has also been my friend for nearly 30 years. She has not thrown me over, our enterprise has not left me behind, and I always get credit for what I do. But I understand the Eduardos of this world.

I know what it’s like to be Number Two. I know what it’s like to be part of the support network for someone else’s ideas, creativity, and intelligence. I know what it’s like to work in someone else’s shadow. In fact, I believe this represents a good portion of my gifts, my own brand of creativity—that I am the ultimate team player and prefer not to be the center of attention. But every now and then I question my longstanding habits and preferences, which seem to place me firmly and usually comfortably in the Number Two position.

My fury at the movie was a sign of recurring discomfort. I am aware that Number Two signifies “loser” in our culture. Ever hear sports fans chant, “We’re Number Two”? Number Twos are overshadowed. We are constantly in the presence of someone who is smarter, more beautiful, more creative, or more famous than we are and the comparisons are inevitable. We make the comparisons ourselves, other people make them, and, most insidiously, we imagine other people making them. And, in the worst cases, Number Twos get shafted and left behind, like Eduardo was.

Not all cultures are as obsessed as Americans are about being Number One. My genius friend once got us a whole day of conversation with the genius psychologist James Hillman in which he claimed, among much else, that one of the five principles of the Sikh religion is to always come in second. (I have not seen it put this way elsewhere but it sounds good. One tends to accept what geniuses say.) Hillman was suggesting that cheerful Number Twoness could put us in a much better relationship with the Earth.

The biggest error of Number Twos is to depend on the Number Ones for affirmation and identity—hence the fear of getting left behind. Eduardo sued Mark and got his name restored as Facebook co-founder. But Mark’s genius is still the sine qua non of Facebook.

Perhaps an even bigger Number Two error is to forget our own brand of genius, which is that we are capable of setting ego aside in order to make other people’s genius shine bright and for good. When we think too much about our Number Two status we are right smack back in ego territory. We’ll lose there, every time.

Biker chick

Years ago, in my first season of real biking, I had a favorite T-shirt: “Biker chick,” it said, over a picture of a fuzzy yellow chick perched on a bicycle seat. That’s me, an unathletic softie, an unlikely cyclist.

And yet I am training for a century ride just over 5 weeks from now. No guarantees and no promises but I am on schedule. It isn’t easy what with one thing and another. First it’s the weather, all those thunderstorms then heat, then wind. Then it’s my knees. My right knee, to be specific, and my right hip. 

My right leg seems weaker than my left leg. My left leg says what’s the problem? It is fine and sturdy and never aches. My left leg is developing a biker bulge in the muscles above the knee. It’s bigger than the bulge on my right leg. I am trying to encourage the right leg to do its share and not back off for fear of hurting and it is working. My right leg can now go 20 miles without aching. But it’s still not equal to the left. On Monday’s ride a little ache snuck in at a new place, just under the right kneecap. I talked my hamstrings into doing more of the work and it helped. But a day later the hamstrings were complaining. Whatever.

The legs are doing pretty well, though. They are not yet hundred-mile legs but they are 40 milers and this weekend they will be 45 milers and up and up.

It’s the tush that’s giving me fits. This is not a matter to be discussed in mixed company so I will not go into details but I don’t suppose it requires much imagination. The thing is, the tush problems are worse this season than they have been in the past so I’ve had to investigate new measures. Like chamois cream. The name of this substance dates from the days when bike shorts had chamois crotches that you had to soften up. Now you just soften yourself up with products called Assos or UdderlysMOOth or Beljum Budder. More than you need to know? OK. (Oh, here’s one. Century Riding Cream. Rub it on and magically go 100 miles?)

Another problem is boredom. Short rides take you over the same territory you’ve ridden countless times. You have to be content with small pleasures and observations. I see the soybeans are starting to turn colors. My, the corn is tall and smells like sex. On one recent ride we saw two tall birds, a heron and a sandhill crane. That was truly exciting.

Long rides may get you into new territory, with lunch in the middle, but they are lo-o-ng. Especially after lunch.

Yesterday, aching in various places and contemplating yet another 15-mile circuit under the toll road and past the hog farm, golf course, and goose bog, I decided there was only one thing to do.

It was time to buy new clothes.

I went to the friendly bike shop in Niles, the place where the guys had complimented me on my trusty, rusty little hybrid Bianchi when I took it for servicing rather than trying to sell me a new one. They told me she was a “bike-shop quality bike.” They tuned her up and made her sing, at least on the level stretches. I huff and puff up the hills in her low gears.

This time I headed for the small rack of women’s biking shorts. I bought the most expensive pair I could find. Price = padding. And then I treated myself to a jersey with flowers on it and didn’t even look at the price.

And then I went out on that 15-mile ride, smiling all the way. Even my tush was smiling. Bike short technology has improved a lot in recent years.

Death (and resurrection) on the front porch

This is another one you don’t want to read if you’re squeamish.

I am sitting on the porch swing, drinking a cup of tea and eating a bowl of cereal with blueberries, just enough to rev me up for a bike ride. Short today, 15 miles. Every long ride feels like the maximum I can do but they are getting longer. Last Saturday it was 36. Tomorrow is supposed to be at least 40. The forecast is for possible thundershowers Saturday and Sunday. Monday looks fine, high of 77. Could I persuade Vic to go with me on a long ride on Monday instead of the weekend?

I am thinking of this and savoring the blueberries when I see movement on the floor under the wooden bench a few feet away. What looks like a dead leaf is moving. I look closer and see that the leaf is attached to a spider thread and a spider is pulling on the thread, causing the leaf to move.

I am not opposed to spiders. I clear away the cobwebs in the house now and then but I appreciate the place of spiders in the ecosystem, even the ecosystem of this house. They keep down the population of flying and crawling insects. The previous owner of this house told us at the closing that the house belonged to the woods. This is true. The woods and all its creatures claim it. We try to carve out our living space but sometimes it seems easier to let the woods take over. It has taken over most of what used to be a lawn. Several days ago I gave up trying to feed hummingbirds because the raccoons were emptying the juice every night. We’d take the feeders in sometimes but usually we’d forget. Lots of sugar has gone into those young raccoons this summer. The basement, well, we won’t talk about the basement and centipedes.

A few minutes pass and I glance at the spider operation again. The “leaf” has moved. It is no longer on the floor but suspended halfway between the bench seat and the floor. And it is not a leaf. It looks like a miniature carcass of some kind, hung upside down like they hang beef in a meat locker. It is . . . a tiny tree frog. Pale, transparent, dead.

As I watch, horrified and fascinated, the spider continues its work. Hoists. Pauses now and then to dip into the frog’s left leg and, I suppose, suck. A great treasure. A bit much for the spider but what do you do when a bonanza comes your way?

Somehow I hope the frog was already dead when the spider found it. Somehow I suspect it wasn’t.

The process is yucky. Sad. And in its way, beautiful. The spider has cast a tent of threads around its prey. The sun glints on the thread.

What will I do when Hazel arrives in a few hours? At 12 months, she is learning to walk. The porch is prime practice area for her. She also has a keen eye for tiny objects and floor dirt. She will see the dead centipedes on the floor. She will discover the frog hanging under the bench and see it dance, as it is doing now because the spider is tugging again, trying to wind it up in a package and failing, because it is too heavy.

I will leave the operation in place. Hazel will begin to learn about death, right here on Grandma’s front porch. . . .

Wait! Wait! I have posted this but I must change the ending. The spider tugs once too often and the frog escapes! and hops away. Not dead. I open the door and guide it outside. No more spiders for this frog today.

Life and death and animals

Do not read this if you are squeamish about cat pee or sensitive about the topic of “putting pets to sleep.”

I am a farm girl and less sentimental than most about the life and death power we hold over our animal friends. I favor limiting suffering, both theirs and ours.

They say that the number one reason for cat euthanasia is litter box problems. Our beloved Lalo is 17 years old and in pretty good health, but six weeks ago he stopped using the litter box. We took him to the vet, discovered a urinary tract infection, and treated it by shooting pills down his throat, to his great distress.

Still, he did not go back to the litter box. Instead, he continued to use any loose matter on the basement floor. He favored the coil of cords next to Vic’s basement desk. When we removed all bags, books, and papers and lifted the cords off the floor, he used the bare floor.

We tried different litter—including the Senior Cat litter that he used to favor. It is supposed to be irresistible. He resisted.

We tried leaving him outside most of the day. He peed on the basement floor at night.

We tried keeping him out of the basement and mostly out of the house. We penned him in the front porch with food, water, and litter boxes. I kept him company when I could. We left him there overnight.

In the morning he would be gone, no pee in the box or on the floor. He escaped to the outdoors by pawing open the inward-opening screen door, as he has done before. He has never learned that getting back inside is even easier. Instead, he waits patiently at the backdoor to be let in for food and water.

Why not let him be an outdoor cat? Because any food placed outside for Lalo would also be food for raccoons.

Even food placed on the porch for Lalo, it turns out, is also food for raccoons. Screen doors do not deter hungry raccoons. They invaded the porch one night, overturned the water bottle, ate up the (pristine) wheat-based litter, and dragged the entire feeder into the woods.

We let Lalo back into the house, mopped the basement regularly, and debated our options. Euthanasia came into consideration.

We tried another litterbox shuffle, different litters, different areas of the basement.

A glimmer of hope. We covered one of his pee spots on the floor with a bit of litter and he used the same spot again. Perhaps if we made a litter box that was almost like the floor . . . .

Yesterday we cut down a new litter box so that it had only a 2-inch rim, scattered a thin layer of litter in it, and put it exactly over the spot he’d last used. He peed on the floor right next to it.

Heavy-hearted, we decided to call the vet in the morning to make the appointment.

But lo and behold, as my mother would have said, this morning there were two wet spots in the box. The first in-the-box pee in six weeks!

Of course, there was poop on the floor in the corner but hey. The old cat has turned a corner. He has won an 11^th-hour reprieve.

A string bean and a glass of water

Dear readers I have neglected you because it is summer and I am trying to spend a little more time out of my head. Writing is headwork even though it involves the heart and a tiny bit of finger exercise.

In the spirit of summer I have helped with two moves and spent, in the process, a few precious hours with the granddaughter. Speaking of headwork: it is amazing to see a baby’s brain in gear. At 12 months she has an intense interest in the world. It may be the bathtub drain plug with its lovely, dangling chain. It may be the sandwich I am trying to eat. Or it may be a string bean and a glass of water.

I sat on the couch at the just-moved-into house to snap a bag of fresh, organic beans from the Amish farm. I’d brought the abundance of our weekly CSA haul to share with the Ann Arbor family. I brought the vegetables scrubbed and ready and, while I was at it, I thought I might as well cook some. What is a visit from Mom worth unless you end up with some food in the fridge all ready to eat?

Hazel sidled over to investigate the bean activity, walking with the assistance of boxes, walls, furniture. She stuck her nose into the bag and took a bean. She twirled it in her fist, tapped it on the couch. It did not make much noise. She stuck it in her mouth, not in the anything-goes-in-the-mouth fashion of the infant but in the spirit of "let’s check this out for edibility." She found it not disagreeable but not exactly edible—she has only two teeth. She tried putting the bean in her mouth in different ways—stem end, tail end, and crosswise with both ends sticking out like a mustache. The latter seemed to work well. She could gum it and not gag and it made Grandpa and Grandma laugh. We were too tired to hunt down the camera or the Mustachioed Bean Bandit would be on record.

Next, bean in hand, Hazel expressed interest in Vic’s glass of water. He lowered it for her. She stuck the bean in the water. It made satisfying splashes, plunk, plunk. She stuck her bean-free hand in the water. Also satisfying. She especially enjoyed the way the water came out on her hand and dripped on the couch. She did this for a bit, watering the couch, one handful at a time, clasping and pointing her fingers downward to get the best drip effect.

Then the bean went back in the water. This reminded her of something. A straw, perhaps? Somehow this might help her drink the water. It didn’t. But she left the bean in the water and grabbed the glass with both hands (it was still moderately under Vic’s control) and raised it to take a drink. This worked better than she expected and much of the water ended up on her dress. She insisted on trying again and again, finding the right tilt, learning to regulate the flow. The bean stayed in the water. It was in the way but it belonged there.

Who could have guessed the entertainment value of a string bean and a glass of water? For the grandparents as much as the baby.

Politics in the beloved community

A day of rest, which started with a 25-mile bike ride. It is rest in the sense that it’s not what we normally do on Sunday. We are resting from church. We are resting from being with the beloved community.

We had a little church and quite a lot of the beloved community last week in Pittsburgh, at the Mennonite Church USA convention--6,000 fellow Mennonites and we knew a surprising number of them. One could not walk down a hall or a street without being hailed. This is a good thing, to be with one’s tribe.

It is surprising, too, to rediscover how much we are still members of the tribe. We often think of ourselves as atypical Mennonites but we aren’t really. There are a lot more like us—urban at heart (though we are now rural), well-traveled, decidedly liberal politically, and inclined to spiritual expression and experience that is not exactly churchy. We love the church but are not drawn to traditional churchiness.

Our last church was just about churchy enough for us—great singing, sermons that pushed the intellectual and spiritual edges of Biblical interpretation, regular potlucks, and a caring community in which problems were faced openly.

The church we attend now is bigger and blander but incredibly hospitable and we are being drawn into a beloved community there, too. We also sense more variety in outlook, taste, and political opinion. That is not a bad thing but we do not express our views entirely freely yet. We conceal more; perhaps everyone does. Maybe that is inevitable in large churches. The fear of exposure and offense comes to the fore. It is something we will have to work through, given how important we have found openness and honesty to be in our church experience. Openness and honesty are not particularly churchy, unfortunately. But I have told some members of our new church about this blog so here we go.

For example, in this larger, varied community, when and to whom could I speak of dreams? Of the fact that my scientist husband has discovered his gifts as an energy healer? (He zapped my right knee halfway through this morning’s ride, to great effect.) Most important, how would this church receive our gay and lesbian friends? We have hints that some but not all members of this beloved community would welcome them as they are.

I try not to concern myself with church politics but politics are part of the dynamics of large and even small groups of people. They intrude on even a joyous project like the Congo Cloth Connection.

There are three Mennonite groups in Congo. Marie-Jeanne and Gaston were not the only Congolese guests at the Pittsburgh convention. Two ministers were also present who happened to be members of the other two groups. Congolese Mennonites, like North American ones, have had their differences. There was a little encounter in the Congo Cloth Connection booth in which the two ministers asked why they had not been informed of this project. I believe a satisfactory answer was given them by the appropriate persons. But I did not see them greet Marie-Jeanne, who was sitting right there at her sewing machine. Maybe I just missed it.

Our Pittsburgh Congo Cloth Market, by the way, was a roaring success despite my initial fears. We had fun. We made connections. We raised awareness and enough money to fund two job-training workshops for Congolese women. And we still have cloth left for future markets. 

 SEWING ANGEL