“Cuss Control” Is Like Spanx For Your Brain

June 24, 2012 by 14 Comments

The rule of thumb is to never swear at a person with the ability to break your thumb.  It’s also unwise to swear at your mother, your employer, the person you sleep with on a regular basis, and anyone who appears to be heavily armed.

The past seven years of being a parent have brought with them an epic struggle for me to stop swearing…or at least, to stop swearing so much.

Blame it on my east coast upbringing, my barely-concealed aggressive nature, or just a character flaw, but I have a pretty serious potty mouth.  It is not surprising, if you know me in person, to hear me drop an f-bomb in casual conversation.  When I worked in the entertainment industry, a foul mouth was practically a job requirement.  I fit right in.

But curses are much less funny and cool when they come out of a child’s mouth, so in an effort to clean up my language so that I could be a better role model as a parent, I actively started swearing less when I first became pregnant back in 2004.  I have had my ups and downs with this project, and I haven’t completely cleaned it up, but I have gotten better.  Still, my 7- and 5-year-old boys have been known to scream out GODDAMMIT from time to time.  I’m a work in progress.

With this effort in mind I recently read “Cuss Control:  The Complete Book on How To Curb Your Cursing.”  It’s a yellow book with the title in bright red letters.  Having this lying around, or reading it in public, led to raised eyebrows on more than one occasion, if not outright pointing and laughing.  (You know who you are.)  The book’s author, James V. O’Connor, is a public relations professional, and an old-school conservative person.  His “guide” consists mainly of reminders that your use of offensive language betrays you as uneducated, uncouth, or unhappy.  Or all three.  And his tips for getting rid of the bad words from your vocabulary boil down to one command:  relax.

Sigh.  If only it were that easy.

Through his anecdotal history of language and interviews with people who talk about swearing, O’Connor seems to simply state that cussing is a bad thing and you should stop it.  There is no bibliography and there are many lists of less-dirty synonyms for  offensive words.  O’Connor doesn’t present expert evidence in favor of or time-tested tricks for how to rid yourself of the knee-jerk swearing you rely on, or the stream of invectives you commonly spew when you are very angry.  His “suggested procedures” are all about changing your attitude and include things like “Think Positively,” “Form a Support Group,” and “Plan Ahead,” which all sound like dieting advice to me.  His tips might work for you, but I just didn’t find them useful in my own life.

I’ll admit it – that’s what I was looking for.  A manual.  A step-by-step brainwashing, in a good way.  I already agree with O’Connor that heavy swearing makes a person, especially in professional or parenting situations, look bad.  (Don’t get me wrong – plenty of my favorite writers use offensive language all the time, and I still do myself, but I have seen a pattern in the things I like to read and in how I edit my writing – swearing in writing is usually only effective if it is used wisely and sparingly.)  So I didn’t need him to convince me that I needed to change.  I just didn’t feel like he gave good enough advice about how to do it.

Still, I have found myself thinking about “Cuss Control” when I hear myself swear in conversation, and indeed when I am writing and the f-bombs pop up organically, so that I quickly move to the backspace key and take them out unless they really help to make my point.  I have noticed that when I am in public and talking to a friend, I cringe ever so slightly (or obviously) when that friend swears loudly during our conversation.  I regret it when I let a spontaneous curse word slip if I am surprised, in pain, or suddenly angry.  All of those things mean I’m moving in the right direction.  After all, the first step towards improvement is recognizing that I have a problem, right?

So maybe that is how Cuss Control really has helped.  Without effective steps I could take to solve my problem, it insinuated its judgement of my character into my subconscious, so that O’Connor has become like the angel on my shoulder, shaking his head every time I swear.  I suppose that’s better than nothing.

I received a free copy of this book to facilitate this review.

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Local Writer/Traveler’s Book “Red Goddess Rising”

June 18, 2012 by 5 Comments

Several months ago I met a woman named Halle Eavelyn who runs tours of Egypt.  For a living.

Let that sit for a minute.

She’s not Egyptian.  She’s a young American woman who simply fell in love with Egypt and now it is her mission to lead people there (and other exotic places) on immersive tours that go behind the scenes to where tourists (or “touristes” as they say in Egypt) don’t normally get to go.

Eavelyn’s tours are unusual for another reason:  they are spiritual as well as exploratory.    The tour company that Eavelyn co-owns with her life partner, Greg, Spirit Quest Tours, takes people to the sacred places and stops to do things like chanting and toning and meditating.  They aim to connect with the spiritual energy in the temples and the ancient lands.

According to Eavelyn’s book, “Red Goddess Rising,” they’ve been pretty successful at that.

Once a skeptic herself, Eavelyn gives a regular nod to unbelievers throughout her “spiritual travel memoir,” in which she lays out a detailed account of her many trips to Egypt in an attempt to describe her own evolution from a person who was once terrified of dying to someone who is calm and secure and brave and no longer claustrophic or afraid of the dark.  Some of this transformation happened, as Eavelyn tells it, during “memories” of her past lives, or spiritual connections with other spiritual beings.  But the important thing is that her “aha” moments happened in Egypt.

Whether the reader is open to tales of this nature or not, he cannot ignore the delightful minutiae that Eavelyn shares from her experiences as a Western woman in a Middle Eastern, male-driven nation.  As a traveler she gets away with dressing and acting any way she wants, but over time she herself even adopts the dress and manners of an Egyptian, at least for passing moments.  Especially entertaining is the story about the year Eavelyn and Greg were in Egypt during Thanksgiving, and she went to great lengths to produce a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner in a place where “pumpkin” could mean any kind of squash, and the locals would just as soon cover all of the savory dishes with cranberry sauce or opt for their favorite local beef and cheese meal.

Eavelyn’s tale of her own growth from the time she met and started dating Greg through the latest of her spiritual journeys in Egypt delves into topics one might expect to hear about in a psychologist’s office – childhood, past relationships, adultery, family dynamics, all that messy life stuff that we are used to hearing about when we learn about someone’s history.  But then she does even more in-depth personal work as her relationship with Greg progresses and he inspires her to explore roads less traveled.  Hypnotherapy, past-life regression, different religions – Eavelyn is clearly a seeker, not knowing exactly what she’s looking for until she finds it.

Having first met Eavelyn at a cocktail party and then read her book which describes her life story in cringeworthy detail, I am a little bit nervous about running into her again.  On the other hand, I’m a blogger.  I share TMI on an almost daily basis.  It must be weird for my regular readers to run into me, much less have a conversation with me about regular things.

I enjoyed learning about the many ways Egyptian culture is so different from our own, and I appreciated the detail that Eavelyn included in the book.  As a travel guide, it is handy for this reason.  As a narrative read the book is a bit more challenging – Eavelyn’s attempt to paint a cohesive picture about a tour of Egypt by piecing together stories from many different trips with different companions over the years is admirable, but it falls short of clarity and at times gets confusing enough that a flip back in pages is necessary so you know where and when you are in the story.  I found that reading “Red Goddess Rising” in short bursts worked best for me – it was the perfect dose of someone else’s reality to enjoy while my sons were in karate class two days a week.

Karate class is over for the summer, so I pushed myself to finish the book the other day at the pool so I could tell you about it.  After all, I’ve had it since February.  I missed the opportunity to tell you about the contest that Spirit Quest Tours was having to give away a trip to Egypt, which is a bummer because that might have saved you several grand.  But as Eavelyn might say, everything happens for a reason, so I’m pretty sure you weren’t supposed to win that trip anyway.  Perhaps a “girls’ week out” in Bali to retrace Elizabeth Gilbert’s steps in “Eat, Pray, Love” is more your style?

(I also reviewed Eat, Pray, Love.  You’re welcome.)

I received a signed copy of Red Goddess Rising for review.  All opinions are my own.

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101 Days of Summer – Outside

June 15, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Today was my older son’s last day of school.  When asked what he wants to do this summer, he answers:

“Have a playdate with Johnny, play lots of video games, and spend time with you.”

Awww.

I am pretty sure my husband told him to say that last one, but my son has pulled that one out before, so it may be genuine.

If they had their way, both of my children would indeed stay inside and play video games all summer.  Luckily I am sometimes a very responsible mother, so I do things like sign them up for camp at Agoura Hills Rec Center, shove them out the door into the backyard to play handball (while I grit my teeth every time the ball hits our kitchen window), and tote them around the corner to our neighborhood pool.

Of course, since the boys have inherited my alabaster white skin, they must be dipped in sunscreen from head to toe before they even so much as think about the sun.  When we were invited by Banana Boat to a fun party in at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills to sample their new Natural Reflect Sunscreen Lotion, eat snacks, and play games, I was happy to schlep them across town to check it out.

Banana Boat is celebrating summer with several promotions on their special Facebook page “101  Days of Summer.”  There, you can upload your own photos of summer memories and enter a contest to win a family vacation to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.  You can also take a pledge to get outside this summer, and every time someone does that, Banana Boat will donate a bottle of their sunscreen lotion to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp – a summer camp in Connecticut for children coping with serious illnesses.

I feel comfortable slathering Natural Reflect on my children – and myself too – because it is made with natural ingredients, and includes less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff that protects them from the sun.  It is pretty thick and goes on heavy, takes about a minute and some good rubbing to absorb into skin a little bit.  But that is fine with me.  Number one priority is no sunburn.

The party in the park with a small group of my favorite LA bloggers and their families was the perfect way to get acquainted with the Banana Boat brand.  My kids had no clue we were there for a brand party – they never do – so they cavorted and competed in the lawn games and Kid 1 even took home the bean bag game as a prize.

No wallflowers here – even the bloggers themselves got into the summer fun.  Anna Flores of Spanglish Baby smoked the competition in the hula hoop challenge.  Other contestants were Andrea Fellman of Savvy Sassy Moms, Alexandra Bowers aka Beverly Hills Mom, and Sarah Auerswald of MomsLA and Sarah and Sons.

It’s nice when someone gets it right.  A simple little get-together in a park, good friends, and a small goodie bag with product, a Frisbee, and a flash drive with all the information we needed.  Oh, and mini chocolate cupcakes.  Gotta have those.

I am being compensated for sharing all this Banana Boat-flavored goodness with you, but the opinions are my own and the smiles were all genuine.  Thanks to Savvy Sassy Moms and Adrienne’s House for the lovely afternoon.

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