July 5, 2026
ONE OF A KIND
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” — Dr. Seuss
There’s a part of me that is procrastinating on today’s relatively arbitrary tasks, such as planting the last three pineapple keikis, taking the compost up to feed the chickens, getting my swim in before dinner. And finishing my blog. While I’m procrastinating on all the aforementioned tasks, I get up intending to rinse out my smootie cup and buy some avocados.
So, after procuring three avocados, two baking potatoes and a small bag of truffle chips 😜 (the only kind they had) I’ve set my alarm for exactly two hours in which to continue this magnum opus of a blog post.
I think I’m still partially in a food coma (in a partial food coma?) after indulging in too much 4th of July fare at the annual over-the-top dinner buffet. And possibly the free-flowing champagne. I overheard a friend saying in the locker room yesterday morning, “I have a date with a foot-long hotdog and a brew”, referring to lunch at the family field day, and it struck me as something Mae West might say. Without the raunchy overtones that made her famous.
Fast fact: by 1935 West was the highest paid female actress in the U.S., and the second highest paid American, next to William Randolph Hearst.
Thoughts of overindulging in general, and Mae West in particular, segue into what my personalized blue zones project is suggesting to me: embrace your uniqueness, your individuality. To the point of capitalizing on your flaws. “Instead of hiding quirks or physical traits that didn’t fit the rigid societal norms of her era, West leaned into them. She famously instructed, “Cultivate your curves — they may be dangerous but they won’t be avoided.” She refused to dilute her bold personality, stating, “I’m my own original creation.” (AI Overview)
To me that’s all part of the creative process. I can’t count how many arts and craft projects (or even recipes) I’ve salvaged by leaning into irreversible “mistakes”, often pulling off a one-of-a-kind “masterpiece”.
Think about it. What’s something you least like and therefore least value/appreciate about yourself? One of my regrettable flaws might be what our kids call my verbal Tourette’s. My habit of speaking without thinking. Easily one of the hardest things to take back is the spoken word, sometimes intended to be funny but falling flat, or being meant privately but, regrettably, overheard. How would it feel to give oneself a “get out of jail free” card after making such an embarrassing faux pas? And not censure oneself forever thereafter. I’m not advocating being crude and unmannerly, or disregarding others’ feelings, just being less hung up one what other people think, or on meeting some arbitrary social criteria. Less with-holding of my spontaneous comments lest they cause offense.
I once won a trophy for “best line” in a theatre improv show in which I was pulled from the audience to participate in an unrehearsed skit. When the flustered “secretary” asked what it would take to buy my silence about her inter-office affair, I popped up with: “I’ll take that mickey you’ve got hidden in your bottom-left-hand drawer” to peals of laughter from an audience who hadn’t anticipated such a crack coming from a “little old gray-haired lady”. There might’ve been some nepotism involved, our son was part of the regular cast, but still…a high moment that I remember to this day. (As I recall, the trophy was a repurposed junior league baseball, or amateur golf trophy, but that didn’t diminish my sense of accomplishment).
I guess what I’m saying is that we can’t take ourselves too seriously, or hew too closely to whatever conditioning tells us to mind our p’s and q’s. Whatever that means. In both junior and high school I had a major rebellious streak, and am beginning to like that iteration of myself better than the stodgy perfectionist I later held up as my role model. The fact that “the rebel” would never have been accepted in university in this competitive age, having eschewed math, history, and any form of authority, she did have some uniquely colorful things to say. So I’ve decided to include a little more Mae West and a little less Emily Post in my vocabulary, (if not in my actions). Anyway, with all the scandalous behaviors being tolerated on the world stage these days, Mae West seems anachronistically tame.
P.S. It is seven minutes before my alarm goes off and I’ve already got a draft blog. Heigh ho, heigh ho, to the pool I go! In seven minutes.