Chemically Enhanced Marketing

Hi. My name is Sheyna and I'm an introvert.

Usually.

I had a bad headache today and took one of the most effective OTC headache meds for me. It has a painkiller that helps my headache. And it has caffeine, which I've discovered helps my marketing skills.

Caffeine makes me happy. It boosts my self-confidence, decreases my anxiety, and brings out the closet extrovert in me. I can accomplish, overcome, and succeed. I am the person I dream myself to be. That's the upside.

The downside is that I don't regularly "do" caffeine in any form, so when it hits my system, it's effective. It also can make me a little jittery, a little scattered. By this afternoon, I felt I should have a sign on my forehead that read, "I am not as disorganized as I appear."

So I can use it when I need it, but I have to use it sparingly. I'd like to use it every day. Who wouldn't want to wake up feeling good about herself, ready to take on the world? Especially when you've had a lot of experience not feeling that way?

Apparently for some people, the same effect is achieved with alcohol. I'd like to think that the caffeine-enhanced me has far more common sense than the alcohol-enhanced me. Actually, I know from experience that the alcohol-enhanced me is sleepy and not nearly as fun. But I would hate for anyone to think that I advocate any kind of chemical enhancement for marketing (or other) purposes.

It's a dilemma. Caffeine gives me the edge I need to really put myself out there. But it's only effective with occasional use, and marketing is a full-time job. Some day I'll figure out how to get the upside of caffeine without the downside. Until then, maybe I will have a refill on that coffee...

How Much Affliction?

Matzo is the "bread of affliction" (Devarim 16:3), also referred to as the "poor bread," and bread of poverty or oppression. But just how much affliction is enough?

The observance of Pesach (Passover) provides for us a different sort of bondage. Those of you who observe Pesach know what I'm talking about. Shouldn't every box of matzo come with a free jar of Metamucil? Or a Fleet enema?

For some of us, it's annoying and potentially embarrassing. For others, such as those coping with IBS, it can cross the line into a health issue. One physician claims it's life-threatening.

So how much affliction is too much? At what point does it cross that line?

There are things one can do to try to offset the symptoms:

• eat high-fiber Pesach-friendly fruits and vegetables such as raspberries (8g fiber/cup), pears (5.1g fiber/med pear), artichokes (10.3g fiber/med artichoke), and broccoli (5.1g fiber/cup) - although brocoli has its own digestive issues. According to the Mayo Clinic, from which these numbers come, "Recommended fiber amounts for women is 21 to 25 grams a day and for men is 30 to 38 grams a day."
  
• drink lots of water
• exercise
• try prune or mulberry juice
• when the symptoms are too severe to treat with food, water, or exercise, try a warm bath or heating pad

Additional fiber content information is available on this fiber chart.

We were meant to understand what it's like to go without luxury foods (like bread) for eight days. We were meant to see ourselves as if we're also leaving Egypt. We were not meant to understand through matzo what it feels like to be disemboweled (IMHO).

Only three more days to go. Meanwhile, those raspberries are looking really good.

Amazon in the News Again

I'm not sure if Amazon.com keeps making these controversial decisions due to some inherent flaw (sort of like the classic input-output error), or if it's intentional to keep them in the news, even if it means protests and losing customers.

From Amazon.com itself, through Mark Probst's blog: "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

There are lengthier explanations and open letters making thier way around Twitter including:
BookSquare: Open Letter to Amazon Regarding Recent Policy Changes and
Publishing Talk: An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos

Makes you wonder what's next. If sex is taboo, maybe religion and politics are next.

UPDATE 4/13/09: Amazon.com claims it was all an error.

The REAL Me

Along the lines of my previous post about being on Facebook, I've decided to stop hiding behind my avatar. Don't get me wrong -- I love my avatar. I even went so far as to take a printout of my avatar to my hair stylist and say, "My hair is really close to this, but what can you do so that it can look exactly like this?"

My stylist said she's had a lot of people bring a lot of different photographs in before and say, "I want my hair to look like that," but no one had ever before brought her a cartoon...

But I have decided that if I'm going to bare my face to the world on my Facebook page, I can afford to do it here, too. And so, a fond farewell to the avatar that served me so well.

This is the real me.

Not now, honey, I'm Facebooking

I've done it. I am now socially networked. And there must be something wrong, because I am having WAY too much fun with it.

Whoever thought that throwing a sheep at a shul friend or sending flair to Husby when I'm sitting four feet away could be so fun? Okay, more to the point, this takes the term "global community" to a whole new level.

I'm pretty much an introvert. This is why I write instead of the myriad other things I could be doing that would actually make money (that, and the voices in my head won't leave me alone). So putting myself "out there" seemed a little scary at first. I'm okay with it now. No stalkers have appeared outside my home, at least 50% of the email I get is still junk (I'm not interested in cheap meds, fake handbags, or lengthening my organ), and all of the readers who have identified themselves to me seem to be nice, stable folks.

I have a full profile for people whom I know (more or less); I have a page for those I don't. And if you're on Facebook, I'd love it if you'd swing by and become a fan. (Because we all need fans and it looks really sad otherwise.)

Meanwhile, I'll work really hard on my part and keep up with the blogging again. Deal?

Jews and Halloween - some personal thoughts

Today is Picture Day at school. Yep, on Halloween. The reminder explicitly states "No costumes, please." Now, it is a Jewish school, so I asked Oldest Son (7) if they'd talked at all about Halloween and why the school doesn't recognize it. He said no, which I thought was too bad, because it would have been a great learning experience about what constitutes a holiday and the difference between religiously-based "American" holidays and purely secular American holidays.

We started out not celebrating Halloween at all. I have nothing against it; it's just not my holiday to celebrate. I have friends who follow earth-based religions and celebrate the original meaning of Halloween. I have secular friends who simply enjoy dressing up in costume and participating in the sugar rush. And for my kids? Well, it's complicated. Sort of.

I could say that the lure of dressing up and getting candy was just too much for the boys, but that's not entirely true. We have our own holiday where we dress up in costume. And we give treats to friends and those in need (though we get treats from friends, too). 10 points to the first person who guesses which holiday this is. But that's different from Halloween, according to the kids, because we don't go around our neighborhood. Would they feel differently if we lived in a Jewish neighborhood? I don't know.

But that's not all. We live in one of those old-fashioned neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone, where we watch each other's homes and dog-sit and run next door to "borrow" a cup of sugar when you run out while making cookies. We have block clubs - neighborhood-defined monthly get-togethers primarily for social purposes, but if there are crimes in the area, we work together with the city and law enforcement to deal with it.

I'm the block club captain for our neighborhood, and I feel a certain amount of obligation to the neighbors to participate. I don't want our house to be one of those that the neighbor kids can't go to on Halloween. And the best way to designate our house a "Halloween-friendly" house is by having a lit jack-o-lantern. At the same time, I'm not convinced it's fair to give out candy and not let the boys go trick-or-treat themselves.

So we compromise. The kids pick out their Purim (whoops! I gave it away) costumes in October, and get to use them twice, once for Halloween and once for Purim. We carve pumpkins and talk about how pumpkins are part of the fall harvest that we celebrate during Sukkot. We hand out kosher candy, even though we're the only ones in the neighborhood who care.

And we acknowledge that there are commonalities among our seemingly disparate holidays. Pagans believe that Halloween is a time when the barrier between the spiritual realm and the earthly realm is thin enough to cross over. It's easy to initially dismiss this as superstitious, but Jews believe the same thing during another holiday, when the barrier between the heavens and the earth is thinnest and prayers are most likely to reach their Destination. 50 points to anyone who can name that Jewish holiday.

Tonight will be more than a CandyFest, even if that's the most important part for the kids. It will be an experience in identity, community, and comparative religions.

Yes, But Did It Speak?

Oldest Son came home from Jewish summer camp today with the question, "Guess what we had today?" Before I could answer, he continued. "We had a big storm and lightning struck a bush and it caught fire. But everyone's okay."

I couldn't ignore the opportunity. "You had a burning bush at camp?"

"Yeah. The fire department was there and everything."

I was still finding this amusing, since no one's safety was in question. "Did anyone speak from the bush?"

A big smile beamed from his face. "No! Not that kind of burning bush. This was a real burning bush. I didn't see it but I heard someone tell my counselor. People were in the building and saw the burning bush and called the fire department and they put the fire out before it caught anything else on fire."

I guess they go all out for having Jewish experiences at camp.

Back to Work

The kids are off to day camp on Monday (for three weeks), which means I can get back to work! Ergo, also back to the blog.

I have such ambitious, noble intentions.

Strength to Stand is in the hands of my editor. It's progressing more slowly than I'd have liked, but it's still progressing and I can't complain about that.

I've been working on the business end of things for a while now and my creative side is yearning to come out. This balance thing, it's so hard.