In Search of...a consistent workout

When I started my blog about two weeks ago I was kind of worried that I would be about as consistent with it as I am with working out. And now, two weeks later, I can safely say that there have been far more blog entries than workouts.

Oh, it's not for lack of a treadmill and weights...or a yoga video...or Qigong book...or bouncy music on my iPod...or Pilates videos. I've got them all. I even have the towels and bottled water...and (it shouldn't be a total loss) the fear of an untimely death to boot.

I watch Dr. Oz every week and think, "Yeah, I'm gonna start eating more organic vegetables and do some deep breathing." And yet, here I am, shallow breath and all, playing my daily mental game of "okay Ilene, if you go work out now, you can take a half hour off and read a book later." This form of mental bribery seldom works. However, the ability to fit into my jeans generally does.

And to make matters worse, there's this awful predisposition for women to pack on the pounds as we get older and our hormones change...a predisposition I become more and more aware of as I look in the mirror and see an increased resemblance to my grandmothers. (No disrespect intended, of course).

So I'm wondering if a different kind of workout would inspire me to be more motivated. I'm wondering if there's something I could do that I would actually look forward to and enjoy.

I'm open to suggestions. But for now, I'm off to the treadmill.

Thanks for stopping by, and please tell your friends.

In Search of...a happy ending

I just finished watching Nights in Rodanthe and (spoiler alert!!!) oh my God, am I depressed! Now for all of you who would tell me that ultimately this movie is uplifting, I'd say, "Are you kidding me?!!"

And I didn't find Slumdog Millionaire to be particularly uplifting like people said it was either. Call me crazy, but any movie in which one of the lead characters is raped and sold is not a "feel good" film no matter how it ends or how cute the dance number is.

Where's my happy ending? You know what I mean. In Pretty Woman Julia Roberts gets to buy a new wardrobe, learns which fork to use, and ends up with the rich handsome guy. Now that's a happy ending! And Baby ends up dancing the night away with Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing. And Annette Benning ends up with the single handsome leader of the free world in The American President. That's the kind of happy ending I'm talking about, the kind that leaves me feeling like anything is possible and that romance is alive.

I can go back to the real world soon enough, but for a few brief shining moments I just want to be swept away in utter bliss. Maybe tomorrow will be the day...

Thanks for stopping by. Tell your friends.

In Search of...something I don't already know

So yesterday's blog entry seems to have struck a chord with people and I'm really glad about that. I've loved every one's emails and responses about being an "insider." Of course, that kind of puts the pressure on me for today's blog entry. I'll try not to buckle under the stress of your high expectations, but I make no promises...which brings me to today's topic of politics.

I suppose for the sake of moving up the Google ladder (and because it's Sunday and George is on on Sunday) I should mention George Stephanopoulos again. It was my goal this morning to come away from his show, This Week, learning something I didn't know before I sat down to watch it.


While you know I love me my George Stephanopoulos, I was not successful in this desire. The big headliner, our Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, just didn't answer the questions. Any of them. From where I sat, he didn't even look like he was trying to answer the questions. And if you read my blog last Sunday about substantive discourse, you know that makes me CRAZY!!!


Part of why it makes me crazy is that when someone doesn't answer the question they're being asked, it looks like they are lying or covering up something. And while I want to believe that Tim is a swell guy just trying to do good, I can't believe that when he's circumventing questions with a quivering voice. And also, just for the record, even if he's the most qualified guy for the job (which I don't know that he is), the appearance of impropriety should have prevented him from accepting it. Even if it was an honest mistake, I have a hard time believing that someone who didn't pay all his taxes is completely on the up and up. And that makes it harder for me to believe anything that he says, and I'm on the same team!!!

So George Stephanopoulos, if you're reading this, (and I know it's possible that you are), could you do me a favor please? If someone you're interviewing is blatantly avoiding the questions you're asking, could you at least throw in an occasional, "I can see that you don't want to answer the question" comment just so the viewers at home can know that it's not okay with you either?!! I would really appreciate that. Plus, if everyone started doing that, maybe we'd start receiving legitimate answers to our questions. Wouldn't that be nice?

Why is Jon Stewart calling more people on their stuff than network journalists? (And I don't just mean George Stephanopoulos, it's everyone.) Why do I feel like I'm getting a straighter answer when Bill Maher is asking the question? It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

So here's what I think we all need to do: demand more. No one would be selling us a bill of goods that we weren't willing to buy. In the climate of change that we all want to embrace, let's be responsible citizens and viewers and demand something more...of ourselves and of the people who represent us and report to us.

There is a responsibility that reporters have to journalistic integrity and that public servants have to the people that they are supposed to be serving, but we have been lax about insisting they live up to it. I for one am speaking up now. I want to know something more at the end of a news broadcast than I knew at the beginning, and I don't really care who gets uncomfortable in the process. No one's job responsibilities on either end of that equation are to be comfortable. However, they do include getting to the truth and being forthcoming. So that's what I'm expecting.

How about you?

Thanks for stopping by today. Please tell your friends.

In Search of...being an "insider"

We have a voyeuristic tendency in our society when it comes to celebrity. We want to know what they do, where they eat, what they wear, who does their hair, how they exercise, etc. We're obsessed. Frankly, our society as a whole, acts like a bunch of children who would be better off if we kept our eyes on our own papers...like we were told to do in elementary school.

I have not been above all this either. Aspiring to a career in anything to do with show business has exposed me to a lot of years that have amounted to pressing my face up against the glass window with a yearning not only to see what's on the other side, but to be on the other side.

Why do we put people on a pedestal sometimes seemingly just to take them down? Why do we always think that more is better, when sometimes it's just more? Why do we think that beauty is about appearances when we have seen some pretty attractive people do some pretty ugly things? And why oh why do we think there's intrinsic value in fame itself?

While I don't know all the answers to these questions, here's the night that changed all that for me for good, and I was reminded of it a few days ago when Stevie Wonder was on American Idol.

I don't know if you know this or not, but in show business, there's always another layer. I found this out the first time I went to an actual award show - The Grammys. They were in New York that year and for the week leading up to the show there were parties all over town each night. On the grand night itself there were also parties. Just having a Grammy ticket got you into one of them. And I thought (erroneously) that I was special. But there would be few, if any at all, "important" people at that party because that was the one for just your average Grammy ticket holders, which again, erroneously, I thought, was a big deal. So while I was dressed for the red carpet, I was painfully aware that I was not on the "inside" or even anywhere close to it. All the celebrities, I was told, were at the parties thrown by record labels.

So there I am a few years later about to go into one of the post-Grammy record label parties with a friend of mine who's a reporter. We go inside, past all the people hoping to get inside and I feel like I've "arrived." Here I am with all the young cool people at the record label bash. But "where are all the recording artists?" I'm wondering. I don't see them. I just see a lot of young cool people I don't know. It's then that I find out that they are in their own VIP room at the party. And I wonder what that inner sanctum must be like. It must be beyond cool. So my friend and I leave and I think, "Someday I'm gonna be in that VIP room." As we leave, I see the long line of people trying to talk their way inside the party, and I know that they don't know that all that will get them is some free drinks and appetizers because there is a party within the party that they will never see.

So, again, years go by and now I'm at a different awards show. A dinner, actually. And by now I know that there's a party afterward for the VIP's only. It's in the same hotel as the awards dinner was held, but by now I know enough "insiders" to get myself invited to tag along to the VIP shindig. "Wow, I'm finally going to see what it's like," I think to myself as we ride the elevators to the penthouse!

I am having an honest-to-goodness Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City moment, and I feel decidedly glamorous. We get to the door and there are two very large football player looking types standing guard there asking to see invitations. The person I'm tagging along with pulls out a tiny white card and then says, "These four are with me," and we go in. This is it. I'm in the "inner sanctum" with celebrities and record label execs. There's more expensive booze and appetizers at this party, not to mention a host of people to wait on your every need.

I think I'm going to feel special...different than my previous life up until that moment. But I don't. And the people I'm chatting with and nodding "hi" to in passing don't seem all that different either. In fact they mostly seem uncomfortable and not particularly happy. I think it's just a fluke because "insiders" have got to be happier and more comfortable in their own skin than the rest of us. They have to be.

Then Stevie Wonder shows up. We are all expecting the heavens to part and angels to sing when he walks in. I mean, God love the other singers, but this is STEVIE WONDER!!! The thing is that he has just lost his mother that week and his sadness is as palpable as that big, beautiful voice of his. So he doesn't stay long, and I find myself feeling his pain because I've recently lost my mother too, and I'm wishing I could stop the hurt that is overwhelming him at this moment in the same way I wish I could stop my own hurt.

A while later I overhear a friend giving Gavin DeGraw songwriting advice. I cringe because he's the one with the record deal and I think that it crosses a line that I personally wouldn't have, but that's just my opinion.

We leave the party around 4a.m. and I am still trying to process the whole evening. I feel sad... like I've just found out this awful secret - that we are all the same. Even the people in the VIP room, separated from the rest of us because our society has deemed that appropriate.

It is an illusion that has been shattered for good and it has freed me, though it hasn't lessened my admiration for the work that artists do, or the talent they have. In fact, it has increased my admiration, knowing that they are just like me. Even Stevie Wonder.

Thanks for stopping by, and please tell your friends.

In Search of...the energy to write my blog

Just like the road to hell, my day was paved with good intentions...intentions that included writing an entertaining blog with underlying depth and oodles of creativity.

Somehow though, my few errands took hours and hours and left me dizzy and unable to make the necessary decisions I planned on making today...like whether to switch from Sprint to Verizon and which cell phone to get. And then there are the plans...how many minutes do I really use each month, how many people use the same carrier...or do I want to upgrade to where it doesn't matter what everyone else is using...and do I really want to text...or check email...or take pictures...or download music...or get a GPS thingy. It's a dazzling array of overwhelming choices when really I just wanted a phone.

And then there was the bottle of wine I went to buy to bring to an open house on Sunday. But I don't really know these people...or what they like...or if they drink wine at all. So I wandered aimlessly, looking at every bottle in the liquor store, wondering if the people whose house I'm going to strike me as red or white, American or imported, dry or sweet.

So here I am, finally home...with a bottle of wine I've never heard of and some Costco chicken wings I had to buy because the sample tasted so good. (Somehow the chicken wings won out over the matted Obama pictures they had for sale...which is why you should never go shopping when you're hungry.)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

In Search of...something better

I think this happens to everyone at some point. You wake up one day and say, "This is soooo not how I pictured my life turning out." We all do it...or at least I think most of us do. (I could definitely say that about writing this blog...was totally not on my earlier agenda.)

But here I am, and at what point are we able to let go of our perception of ourselves in order to embrace that which we actually are or a direction we never thought of going that might be more rewarding than what our little brains can conceive of on their own?

One of the many self-help-spiritual-new thought/ancient wisdom gurus that I listen to frequently (just like La Oprah does, I'd like to point out) always says to say "this or something better" when putting desires out into the universe, and I think that's a great idea.

I kind of look at it like shopping at stores like Marshalls or TJ Maxx. (And yes, it's a little scary that I approach the broader questions in life with shopping analogies, but whatever works).

You see an item on a rack of clothing and you think, "this is just what I was looking for"...until you see the item a little further down the rack...the one you never dared imagine yourself owning because it would be too expensive to wish for or imagine yourself wearing...but there it is...in exactly your size and favorite color...and Clearance priced...and it can be all yours now...but you never would've thought so...and so you never asked.

So today I'm asking. I'm asking for my life to be better than I imagined it could or would be. I'm asking to let go of all that would stand in the way of me living up to my full potential. I'm asking to be everything I can conceive of myself being...or something better. And you are all my witnesses.

And you know what else would be really cool?? If you joined me. Come on, you know you want to...ask for what you really want...or something better.

And one last thing. Since the point of me doing this blog is to get enough readers to entice the perfect publisher to grant me a book deal, I'm asking that you tell everyone in your email address books to check out this blog. See that cute little purple "stat counter" in the upper right? I'm shooting for at least the magic million number. Well, that or something better.

Thanks for stopping by.

In Search of...a good restaurant in Nashville

This may be a very short blog entry because I had food poisoning last night. And so I'd like to publicly thank The Cheesecake Factory in Nashville, Tennessee for that enjoyable experience.

...which brings me to the restaurants in Nashville as a whole, which for lack of a better vocabulary word, um, suck. On a good day I could tell you that they add cheese and sugar to most things that have no business having cheese or sugar anywhere near them. But this is not a good day.

So let me suffice it to say that I'm down to one, count 'em, one restaurant at which I will still eat and still call good in Nashville...Carrabba's in Green Hills, and that is solely because of the manager/chef, Eric Martino who makes it a quality dining experience. I'd also add Joey's House of Pizza in Brentwood...but they're from Brooklyn, so I'm not sure how that works exactly.

Okay, I said this would be a short blog, and even thinking about food is making me....

Thanks for stopping by. And don't eat out in Nashville.