C2
S
KLMNO THE STYLE INVITATIONAL
REPORT FROM WEEK 879 in which we asked you to express some observation about similarities and dissimilarities as a Venn diagram (or, in some cases, a Euler diagram, which doesn’t have to show every possible intersection)
CAROLYN HAX
The life of one young mother feels like a treadmill
Adapted from a recent online discussion:
Dear Carolyn: I am struggling with being grumpy, snappish and downright angry a lot lately, and there’s really nothing more going on than the everyday overload of part-time work, parenting a preschooler, marriage, keeping a house running, keeping up with friends and family, etc. I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes because there is always so much to do and I rarely have time to myself. When I do have a few free moments, I’m usually too exhausted to do anything important to me, like write. I end up doing mindless things instead of what I really want, which depletes me further. Any suggestions for breaking the
cycle of feeling like life is just a treadmill of constant activity?
D.C.
The big one is to stop trying to do other things with your downtime, even things you consider important. Rest is important, too, and you’re
not getting any — except maybe in the form of those “mindless things,” but you’re not even letting yourself enjoy them. That makes them less restorative than they could be. Some of the things keeping you busy are likely to be around for the long haul, like working, chores, social connections and fighting to preserve some time for your special interests. But some of the overload — namely, anything related to those relentless young-child needs — is temporary. So embrace that. Talk to your husband, and pick a few things that you’re willing to postpone until your preschooler is older and more self- reliant (I’m talking 6 or 7 years old, not far off). These can include your preferred amount of writing, cleanliness and contact with friends and family; all of them are at least candidates for the back burner. Similarly, you can pick a few things
that you consider your top priorities for right now. Those can include being available to live life at your preschooler’s pace, or to make a set amount of time available for writing, or to put alone time on the weekly schedule, whatever. Seek out laughter. Include alone time for you and your husband, too; position your marriage as a tonic instead of a drain. Once you have these two mental lists prepared, put them into effect. Start postponing the less urgent things and making time for your priorities. And, maybe most important,
change your outlook on downtime. Decide right now to stop beating yourself up when you spend your precious free time on accomplishing “nothing.” Realize you are indeed accomplishing something: You’re shutting down. We all have to do it. We can’t be productive with every waking minute of every day. Accept this, and the mindless things won’t feel like a soul-depleting failure. Make it your mantra: slow down, ask less of yourself, ask less of others, ask less of this time in your life. As always, if it doesn’t work — if the angry mood persists — then it’s time to consider talking to a therapist. That might not be the kind of time to yourself that you had in mind, I suppose, but it might be necessary to find out why you’re putting so much pressure on yourself to be everything at once.
Read the whole transcript or join the discussion live at noon Fridays
on
www.washingtonpost.com/discussions.
Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or
tellme@washpost.com.
3 (Ring Alexander, New York) 4
(Joshua Kaplowitz, Arlington)
2
(Craig Dykstra,
Centreville)
THIS WEEK’S CONTEST
Week 883: Same difference
_Chicken lo mein _ The New York Yankees _Water balloons _A dental appointment _Illinois _Montezuma’s Revenge _Arlington National Cemetery _An Elizabethan sonnet _Gulf Coast beaches _Venn diagrams _A Real Housewife of D.C. _School lunches _The Nobel Prize _Your friend’s nose
and stuff: Choose any two items from the list above and explain why they are alike or are different from each other.
H BELOW-GRADE INTERSECTIONS (Dion Black, Washington)
(Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)
(Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)
See 15 more diagrams in the gallery of this column’s online version at
washingtonpost.com/ styleinvitational.
(Barry Koch, Catlett, Va.)
Next week: Our greatest hit, or Lex-change operations
Online discussion Have a question for the Empress or want to talk to some real Losers? Join the Style Conversational at
washingtonpost.com/styleconversational.
Some of the categories were used in non-inking entries for the Venn diagram contest; maybe they’ll feel more at home here. Winner gets the Inker, the official
Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives the fine reference book “Five People Who Died During Sex, and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists.”
Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Loser Magnets. First Offenders get a smelly, tree-shaped air “freshener” (Fir Stink for their First Ink). One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to
losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Aug. 30. Put “Week 883” in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results to be published Sept. 18. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week’s results is by Chris Doyle; this week’s honorable-mentions subhead is by Kevin Dopart. The diagrams were produced by Bob Staake and Valerie Holt; Craig Dykstra did his own.
ere’s a perennial Invitational contest that treads some of the same ground as this week’s results, without all the circles
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2010
For Allen, recalling ‘Pop-pop’ and his roots allen from C1
ton Hyatt-Regency hotel, where a sched- ule of morning workshops included “What You Always Wanted to Know About Judaism But Were Afraid to Ask,” and “Men’s Beginners’ Services” (“Do you ever feel lost in the synagogue? Does the Hebrew liturgy swim before your eyes?”). The retreat-goers prepared for Allen’s
evening keynote address with a Scotch tasting (“Our sincerest thanks to Shop- per’s Vineyard Wine and Spirits”) and then tucked into a glatt kosher meal of squash soup, grilled chicken and vegeta- bles. Allen and his wife, Susan, joined the audience for dinner, with the politician mingling with Virginia delegations and eagerly shaking hands. “His mother’s Jewish; we definitely
view him wholeheartedly as a fellow Jew,” said Rabbi Efraim Mintz, executive director of the movement’s Jewish Learning Institute. Mintz said it was not for him to judge how Allen “chooses to celebrate his Jewishness.” The rabbi drew a connection between
Allen’s visit and the work of the Mitzvah Tanks. “The idea of the Mitzvah Tank is to in- spire and awaken Jewish awareness,” he said. “The fact that George feels fully comfortable with his Jewish identity and his Jewish origin sends a strong message to the community.” Shortly after 7 p.m., attendees said, Al- len, wearing a navy suit and blue-and- yellow tie, rose to the stage and ad- dressed the 600 children of Israel. He talked about what it was like to be the child of a football god. “You can learn a lot from football —
level playing field, equal opportunity re- gardless of background, meritocracy, et cetera,” Allen said, according to prepared remarks. Allen, whose late father coached the Washington Redskins, often invokes the mystery of the gridiron. But that’s not exactly what this crowd came to hear. After some throat-clearing, Allen got to the point. “Let me paint for you a picture of the family revelation and how it transpired,” he said. He talked about his mother, Henriette
NICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
“Etty” Allen, who, unbeknownst to him, was brought up as a Jew in North Africa. Over breakfast one day, he quizzed her about her ancestry, which had become a needling topic of inquiry in the senator’s 2006 reelection campaign. “I then followed up and asked if any of her family way back were of the Jewish religious faith? I asked my mother about the possible Portuguese and Jewish roots, I simply said, ‘Is there anything to this, many centuries ago?’ ” Allen re- called. After more prodding, he said, she revealed her own Jewishness, which she had hid for decades. (Back in 2006, Etty Allen told a Wash-
BENTZI SASSON/JEWISH LEARNING INSTITUTE SHOFAR, SO GOOD: After speaking to the crowd, Allen blows a shofar.
ington Post reporter that she explained to her son that she had concealed her roots for fear of anti-Semitism, but also because her future husband didn’t want her to tell his mother. Plus, she said, he wanted to be a football coach. “How
many Jewish coaches are there?”) Allen said he had promised “on Pop-
pop’s head” that he would tell no one, re- ferring to his mother’s father. “My moth- er then haltingly told me that ‘Pop-pop was Jewish.’ I was surprised.”
DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau
Allen said it was this promise that ac- counted for some awkward moments during the 2006 campaign, when he an- swered a question about his possible Jewish heritage at a campaign debate by saying, “My mother’s French Italian, with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as I know, raised as a Christian.” In front of the crowd in Reston, Allen described the discovery of his Jewish roots as “interestingly positive.” Then, according to the prepared text, he added: “I found those facts interesting because I majored in history and have been a lead- er for nanotechnology.”
Allen concluded his speech to a stand-
ing ovation. Mintz climbed the stage and presented Allen with a carved shofar, ex- plaining its symbolism and its use on the High Holy Days. Allen was visibly moved, attendees said, then returned to the mi- crophone and talked about how connect- ed he felt to his Pop-pop. Then he blew the shofar.
Baila Olidort, editor in chief of the Lu-
bavitch News Service, was impressed. “For someone who has never blown shofar before,” she said, “he did well.”
horowitzj@washpost.com
CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson
THE WINNER OF THE INKER (Russell Beland, Fairfax)
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76