I have days where I feel down (like today) and I get a nudge from someplace reminding me that I haven’t been working on this project very much at all.  It’s like the vacation photos that have piled up or dishes that need to be washed (though obviously, the dishes get taken care of first).  And every once in a while I remember, Oh, yeah, I’m not really making much progress, am I?

I suppose I’ll have to go back to baby steps and take it one article at a time, one issue at a time.  Which I’ll try to do.  I’d also like to not think of this as a chore, something that I’ve put off doing for years, but as an opportunity to grow.  Yeah.  That sounds better!

I’m hoping to get back in the saddle soon, not because more issues keep piling up in my magazine basket, but because I have to renew my subscription soon.  I’m really on the fence about that.  The August issue has more editorial changes, and it looks less and less like the O I was excited about subscribing to, and more like any other women’s magazine.  If it didn’t have Oprah on the cover, I might not be able to recognize it.

I’m presently in one of those funks where I feel that if I bring up anything, it not only gets shot down right away, but it’s probably also held against me at some point.  This is very anti-Oprahish thinking, I know, because I don’t know what other people think, and I shouldn’t let my feelings and emotions be controlled by this imagined behavior.  This is a roundabout way of saying that if I wrote in to the magazine to complain about the loss of the “Breathing Space” feature, they’d probably say that feature was stale, the magazine was stale and needed to be spruced up.  Focus groups demanded the changes.  You know, add more pat answers and instant solutions, don’t make us think too much.  Heaven forbid we think and ponder and reflect at all.  That apparently isn’t the way to live your best life.

I noticed a consultant listed on the masthead of the August issue.  I’m not saying this is all her fault, but I wonder why she’s there.  I wonder if my magazine is going down the tubes.  I wonder if I need it anymore.

OK, since I seem to be slipping up a bit on getting the rest of this issue blogged (oh, it’s been read for a couple of days, but I can’t get around to blogging it), I’m going to do a recap of what I thought of the last half of the magazine:

• It makes me laugh to see all the recommended stuff on The O List, and then on the next page, there starts another round of “here’s more stuff to buy, even if it’s not on Oprah’s list.” It’s the style section, and it’s got this headline, “Look What We Found!” which made me wonder, did they really find it, or did they just have a lot of x on hand and decided to write about it. I don’t know how magazines work, and I’m curious. Besides, you just got through what Oprah found….do you have to get through what the staff found too?
• There’s an interesting, humorous article on body image that suggests instead of the BMI, using the PBII (Personal Body Image Index) which recommends gauging yourself on how you feel. The purpose is really to help you get over your hang-ups and enjoy your body as it is at the moment. If you’re relatively thin, yet think you’re fat, 30 years down the road, you might look at yourself and marvel at how thin you were back then. And what did you think back then? You were unhappy with yourself. An interesting concept–another way to try to live in the moment.
• Books of Summer? I have too many on my shelf to get into the new books of summer (except the David Sedaris. I’m reading that one right now).
• “Men! What Are You Thinking?!” The themed section is a group of eight short articles written by men in an attempt to explain themselves. There’s the FAQs (”What do you like most about us?”), the crazy things men think up, what they think of fatherhood, men secrets (”Sometimes we don’t open up because we are afraid of what we will find.”), men’s war stories, men and violence, how men and women differ, men and dancing. While they’re somewhat interesting, I couldn’t help but think the articles said what men wanted us to hear. I think I get more about men when I read Esquire.
• There’s an article about 54 ways to say no–mostly it’s in specific situations (dinner companions asking for a bite of your meal, social hugs, etc.). They’re pretty decent. What I didn’t expect was the companion piece, “The Year of Saying Yes!” by Patricia Volk, who I just adore. Hooray! Patricia was apparently good at saying no, and her friend accuses her of not really pushing the boundaries of life, not really living. So Patricia decides to say yes to every offer that comes up, like introducing a film at a film festival, teaching writing for a semester, going on a blind date. By the end of the article she doesn’t regret saying yes to anything she’s said yes to. “The change has to do with the joy of being available to chance. There is a thrilling difference between being comfortable and being too comfortable.” Well said, Ms. Vollk, and with your usual wonderful writing style. Did I mention that I love this writer’s O articles? One of these days I’ll have to read her books.
• Helicopter parents. This is one of those phenomenon that I do not understand. Why do you want to be that wrapped up in your child’s life that you do basically everything for them? The article said it was a rebellion from Gen X latchkey kids, but I don’t really think so. I think it’s easier to live vicariously through someone else’s life rather than make your own. A lot of women have bought into this competitive parenting, and the results aren’t going to be good (although I didn’t have a helicopter mother, I was told what to do on certain occasions when it would have been more beneficial to allow me to explore and do the work myself. I see that now that I’m an adult.)
• What does Oprah know for sure? She’s still excited about her decision to choose Eckhardt Tolle’s book A New Earth for her book club/class experience. She’s excited that people are living more in the moment (or say they’re living more in the moment) and experiencing more spirituality because of it.
• What does Jill know for sure? Well, I’m glad to be finished with another issue. I’m still trying to get a better balance of how to do this blog. Does one big entry like this work? Or would it be better to separate this a bit more? I’ll keep playing with it, but it’s certainly a relief to be done blogging this issue in one fell swoop!

August 2008 is “True Life Stories,” so I’ll read it, then go back to these other men issues. Onward!

UPDATED TO ADD:  A half-hour after I posted this, I realized the July 2008 issue doesn’t have an O Interview in it!  There doesn’t seem to be one in the August 2008 issue either?  This is definitely odd.  I wonder if there’s a reason, or if this is just a little vacation and it’s happened before.  Anyone know?

Uh oh.  The August Oprah came in today’s mail.  That means I really need to get on the horn and get July done.  But I’ve been working on some network building, meaning I’m trying to maximize the MySpace profile.  If you want to be buddies, just holler!

Hey there–sorry I’ve been gone for a while.  I went on vacation last week (well, it was helping people move across country, but when you have no income, that counts as vacation), and before that I was trying to get my act together and get a little bit of writing/submitting done.  I’m coming up on a three month goal list that I’m not doing terribly well at, which means I need to put my nose to the grindstone a little bit more and get some stuff written.

Anyway, it’s good to be back, and I’m hoping to whiz through the rest of the July issue (August is due in my mailbox any day now).   First up, the July O List:

• one pound of Cundy Harbor, Maine, lobster salad and six split-top rolls:  $85
• handpainted ladybug chocolates:  $34 for 12
• beach blanket/towel from Scoop Beach:  $185
• cutlery caddy:  $42
• Bobby Flay terracotta tray:  $15
• Merriam-Webster leather-bound dictionary:  $156
• Creative Living roll-up beach mat:  $25
• Bensimon rubber-soled canvas shoes:  $70/pair
• Corazona’s heart-healthy oat tortilla chips:  $6.50 for 2-7 oz. bags

Your grand total for July 2008:  $618.50

The Suze Orman column in the July 2008 issue has one stand-out question:  What’s so wrong with having debt?

Suze goes off.  It’s fantastic!  The writer has $20,000 in credit card debt, owes $165,000 on a first mortgage, has an unspecified home equity loan, and car payments.  She says if it weren’t for debt, they wouldn’t own their own home, etc.  Then they’ve got family memberships to a bunch of places:  Disneyland, a water park, museums, and the YMCA.  “I don’t mind that we’re overextending ourselves because I feel these things are important.  We may live paycheck to paycheck, but we’re happy,” she writes.

Suze sets this woman straight:  “First of all, you don’t own a thing; your lenders do.”  I think people forget this part of “owning” a home.  You don’t own it until you’ve paid off the mortgage.  One friend of mine said she just thought of it as paying rent to the bank instead of to a landlord.  And Suze mentions that if you don’t pay, you can lose it all.

Plus, the writer didn’t allude to any savings, so there doesn’t seem to be a cushion in case of unemployment or illness.  She needs to have that six-month rainy day fund to help out in cases like these, so cut back on the spending (especially those memberships), and start saving.

Personally, I was a bit boggled at all the memberships.  How can they go to all of these places?  A long time ago, I read somewhere that it was a good strategy to get a family membership to one museum for a year.  You go back to that museum a few times, and you don’t have to worry about covering the entire place in one trip.  Spend a couple hours there and see one or two exhibits, then go home before everyone gets crabby.  The next year you choose a different museum and do the same thing.  I don’t have a family, but I thought that was a really good solution, if you like going to museums a lot.

The sidebar in this column explains good debt–”money you borrow to purchase an asset, such as a home you can afford” (I’m noting that last phrase….at some point I’ll get to the issues from during the housing boom, and I’m curious to see what she says back then) or a student loan.  Bad debt is borrowed money for something that depreciates, like a car, or for financing indulgences you couldn’t normally afford.  You should try to have zero bad debt.  Interestingly, her advice for car buying is to spend only what you can pay off in three years.  Otherwise, you’re stretching yourself a little too thin in the pocketbook.

Hello again!  It’s been a while since I’ve written.  Sorry for that, but I got to working on some other projects.  I love to write, but it’s always way more time-consuming than I think it should be; therefore, my side projects often get kicked aside for a few days (or a week.  Or two.) while I tackle something that has a deadline or try to get some work that pays.

Anyhow, I’m back again to tackle the July issue–and hopefully finish it before the August one shows up in my mailbox.

Martha Beck is a regular O contributor–I think she may have written something for every issue, but I’m not exactly sure.  I haven’t talked about her articles much because they haven’t always applied to me.   This month she’s got a great article about regret and how to deal with it.

We all have regrets, but Beck says you can stop being paralyzed by regret and take some action to not make it such a negative feeling.  Although you may not think this is true, you can change the regrets of your past.  Beck says, “The past doesn’t exist except as a memory, a mental story, and though past events aren’t changeable, your stories about them are.  You can act now to transform the way you tell the story of your past, ultimately making it a stalwart protector of your future.”

Wow!  I never thought of it like that!  Beck details six steps to help you change your way of thinking about regret.  One comes with an interesting story about a potential Olympian who had a horrible meet that ruined her chances of competing.  Beck asked what she would’ve gotten out of being in the Olympics, and the girl gave a few words.  These adjectives helped her realize what kind of job she was looking for, and she learned to channel that regret into a new passion.  Her Olympic dream didn’t matter anymore.

I like articles that help me see my feelings in a new light.  It’s articles like these that keep me subscribing.

I kind of like looking at the latest issue–that way, if some part of it interests you, you can still go out and buy it. Therefore, next up is July 2008: Men! What Are They Thinking? Plus, summer reading recommendations.

Men is a popular topic with O Magazine. It’s been covered three times previously, so it’ll be interesting to compare all four issues and see what they say. Will anything contradict itself? Once you read all four issues, will you need any other information? We shall see.

Well, I’ve wrapped up another issue (yippee!!!!). I’m not doing a separate “What Oprah Knows For Sure” entry because Oprah doesn’t talk about beauty in the beauty issue. Maybe Oprah feels ugly. Maybe she doesn’t feel like she knows something about beauty for sure. What she does know is that when she was in Krakow visiting Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel, she realized that all of life is extraordinary. “There are no ordinary moments.” The whole Auschwitz experience made her feel sad for the Holocaust but also made her happy and long to be alive.

Beautiful thoughts, yes, but it was a bit of a jolt to read them at the end of the Beauty issue. I liked the fact that the magazine tried to get you to change your thinking about beauty without the pat stories about beauty being from within. It was a very non-cliched issue that opened up my eyes to the way we’ve been conditioned to think about beauty and to think about how beautiful or not beautiful we are.

I remember when I was high school age, I used to sit and look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I was beautiful and some guy would eventually see that and think I was beautiful. I went to a school with a lot of Dutch people, many of whom had blond hair and blue eyes. I looked a little bit different–not overly so, but I wasn’t a looker. Telling myself I was pretty though I think had a decent effect on me because I don’t really buy into the idea that a serum will make me look better–maybe it will enhance my already stunning beauty, but it’s not going to cure anything.

Like many women, I’ve been able to beat myself up about who I am or am not. I compare myself to others all too often, and I focus on that stupidity rather than become excellent on my own. Accepting my own beauty is at least was step in the right direction of being a better person.

The beauty-themed articles in the April 2006 O are useful.  Several pages are short stories from people who have had body issues but have learned to get over them and love the “imperfection.”  I always enjoy reading personal stories.

“Beauty and the Bitch” talks about your inner voice, the one that doesn’t allow you to like your looks.  Some startling sentences:

“Psychologists call it normative discontent:  It’s considered normal for women to be unhappy with the way we look.  Follow this line of thinking:  If it’s normal, then for us to fulfill our role as women, we’re supposed to be displeased with our appearance.”

It’s sad that we’re sent so many mixed messages.  Women are supposed to be beautiful (or adhere to an impossible standard of beauty that’s only obtainable with an airbrush), and if we don’t feel like we are pretty, we just knock ourselves down.  We should try to see ourselves through “kinder eyes” and realize that our outer shells aren’t the only things that matter.

A sidebar gives five tips on “things you should never do if you want to feel beautiful”:

1. Only use a magnifying mirror if you’re tweezing your brows.  If you can’t see it with the naked eye, you don’t need to worry about it.  Also, magnifying can make you think you have problems that aren’t really there.  The example they give is collagen-injected lips.  Of course your lips look small in a magnifying mirror!
2. The lighting in the bathroom should be face-friendly.  No fluorescent bulbs!
3. “Don’t participate in any kind of skin analysis that involves a machine.”  It’s a machine usually tied to a cosmetics counter.  Like they’ll never try to sell you something.
4. “Avoid being lit from below.”  It’s unflattering.
5. Stop comparing yourself to a magazine cover!  They have people (and airbrushing) to make them look good.  You’re the only person helping you get ready in the morning.

The last part of the beauty section that I found interesting (there are other articles–the beautiful person who had mental problems, the spread of mixed ethnicity people and how the blending of genetics create a new definition of beautiful) is an article by Martha Beck, who’s one of the standard contributors to the magazine.  She discusses the idea of self-acceptance, to not be so hinged on your looks that you think people won’t like you because of them.  Beautiful people aren’t always the nicest and not having beauty doesn’t mean you’re subject to a horrible life.  If you learn to accept yourself, you’ll be a more attractive person personality-wise, and that will attract all sorts of good things!

In the April 2006 issue, there’s a fashion spread that was shot in Africa.  It seems only fitting that the “Breathing Space” photo comes from there as well.  This shot is along the River Kwai in Botswana at sunset.  A few trees are scattered around the landscape, and those that are near the banks of the river are reflected in the calm water.  The sky is a gorgeous purplish-pink, and the glowing orange sun is hanging onto the last moments of the day.  It’s simple and stunning, the trees calming in their glory.  The caption states that flocks of wild birds call during this time of day, which is something to imagine–though I actually prefer not to because the contrasting noises just seem like they’d be a cacaphony of sound that distracts me from the calming scene.