Cute! Roundup: New Contraptions, Stairs Skills (or Skillz?), the Most Delicious Cucumber, and more!

Gertie isn't as reliable at the cat thing of jumping into bags and boxes. She will quite happily sit ON a bag, or BESIDE a box more often than she will try to jump into it. But not this time!


OTHER CUTENESS:

Everyone is curious about the funny contraption.

I may be more awed than awwwww'd at this pup's skills on the stairs.

Who would have known cucumber is THAT good?

Apparently this adorable thing is called a vaquita and there are 12 left in the world.


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Singalong! One Headlight by The Wallflowers

My main memory with this song is that it rose to popularity right around the time that my youth group (as in, church group for youths) was really into an anti-secular-music phase (secular being non-Christian). People were going on "fasts" from secular music, or at the very least searching for any potentially nefarious interpretation of the lyrics to make sure we weren't being indoctrinated into a sex and drugs lifestyle. (The strange thing about doing that is that you wind up seeing innuendos everywhere, and basically become like a dirty-minded kid giggling at a mention of butts, except instead of giggling you react in exaggerated horror.)

So when it comes to this song, which seems to me to be a sad song about a girl who killed herself (or, according to people on the internet, is a metaphor for life), my youth leader surmised, "I wonder if it's about sex? Like, drive it home?" We all nodded that yes, she has probably decoded it, and then went on to feel guilty for listening to it.


ONE HEADLIGHT
by The Wallflowers

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

She said it's cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead at the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end, it's just her window ledge

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine, cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think of death, it must be killin' me

Hey, hey hey come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

Source: Giphy

Also.... did you know there is a show called The Wallflowers? They tag line is that they are more likely to find a plane crash than love in their mid-thirties. YIKES?


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Learning! Roundup: Actually Helpful Robots, Tree Heartbeats, Extinction and Large Penises, Smartphone Addiction, and More!

Photo by 수안 최

The Robots Will Actually Save Us

FINALLY! They have invented a robot that can actually make our lives better! Scientists in Singapore have designed and programmed some robots to assemble Ikea furniture, and they can do it in 20 minutes.

Trees' Beating Heart

The more we learn about trees, the more amazing they are. Now it turns out that they have a heartbeat, it is just so slow we never noticed it before. Okay, it's more like pulses of water moving through them, but still! Be still my heart.

Large Penises and Extinction

When you study the fossils of long-dead creatures, a trend seems to emerge: species where the males evolution focussed on sex (the males were bigger than the females and they had proportionately larger penises), they were more likely to go extinct.

Smartphones Aren't Killing Us

New longitudinal research shows that cell phone addiction does not negatively impact teenagers' self-control. That's good, because something tells me we won't be getting rid of our phones any time soon!

Be An Effective Trans Ally

The 519, a Toronto-based support centre for LGBTQ youth, created this handy infographic on being a trans ally:


View it in context and see their other resources here.

Neuroimaging of Transcendental Meditation

The first study ever to get neuroimages of people in the midst of transcendental meditation found that they had more activity in their prefrontal cortex, and reduced activity in the pons (the back area of the brain).


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In Case You Weren't Sure About Incel Poison

Image: Andrew Neel.

After Alek Minassian murdered 10 people and injured many more with his van on a Toronto street, a lot of people have been learning about a very scary group: incels. It stands for "involuntary celibate", and is a label men who aren't able to find girlfriends put on themselves.

Since last week, I have read a few articles, and a lot of headlines (I couldn't bring myself to reward them with a click) about how labelling Minassian is pointless and not all incels are dangerous, and OH MY WORD I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING.

The incel movement is incredibly dangerous and completely worthy of being pointed out, over and over again. It is not just a group of lonely men blowing off steam about how hard it is to date. It is a wasteland of anger and entitlement where men have coped with their loneliness by completely dehumanizing women (calling them all "Stacy"), as well as the attractive men who get their affections ("Chad").

There is a twisted logic where women are the ones who are "really" in power (feminism and claims of sexism are just false victimization that help us maintain power over men), and yet they basically see us as automatons who should be distributed evenly among the male population. Women are shallow and disgusting, used up by Chad, and yet for some reason they still want our attention.

Literally everything that women do gets warped into some bizarre sex-power dynamic where we are lusting after the attention of Chads while rejecting incels. To the point where the fact that women have more suicide attempts than men is because we are attention whoring to Chad.

Of course, there is real pain at the root of this: loneliness, isolation, rejection. Happy, well-adjusted people with a lot of friends don't tend to go down this path, and there is a ton of self-hatred in this world as well. But when a person in pain turns to a hate group, guess what happens? Scary things, that's what.

The subreddit r/inceltears is a great place to see some incel hatred collected in one place without delving all the way into a group of actual incels. Still, only go there if you want to feel a combination of anger, powerlessness, and confusion.


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This Week in Church: Questions, Knowing, and Cruciform Righteousness

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about questions.

This was a bit of a throwaway, but the pastor mentioned at the beginning of the service that pastors-in-training are taught to not raise questions in the sermon that they aren't going to answer. Then he went on to raise a bunch of questions he didn't answer.

I just want to say, HOORAY! Raising questions you can't answer is a great idea! How else are you going to learn things???

This week in church we talked about knowing God.

The quote is, "If knowing God is your intention, you have to go where God is."

It's one of those things that seems really obvious with regards to anything - if you want to know someone or something, you have to go to where it is. But then on further thought, how often do we actually do that? How often do we look at someone from a distance and think, "I would like to know them, I hope they come over where I am," and then don't actually move or put in effort or leave our comfort zone. Maybe we should do that more.

This week in church we talked about cruciform righteousness.

It's righteousness that sacrifice. We talked about it in the context of a culture of blame and victimization. I want it to be clear that I think this is an AMAZING reminder/lesson/lifestyle for those of us who are living in a comfortable place. HOWEVER, I worry that it could be a dangerous concept for those who are truly oppressed. How much are they supposed to take in? Sure, Jesus was crucified, and he's supposed to be an example to follow, but he was crucified for fulfilling his mission in life, not for mere existence.


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Inspiration! Roundup: The Future, Straightforward Questions, Growing Ideas, Toto Bona Lokua, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there": Quiet moments with a cup of tea seem like... well, my cup of tea right now.
Photo by Chad Madden.

In the Future

An artist made a billboard to protest gentrification in a downtown Pittsburgh neighbourhood. The billboard read "THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE." I love it. It's afrofuturism in real life.

Straightforward

This is from a collection of advice on how to email busy people, but I would like us to apply it to everything. Let's just be straightforward about what we want! How refreshing and idea.

“If you want a meeting, ask for a meeting. Provide some time options and ask for a specified length. If you want an introduction, ask for an introduction. If you’re looking for funding, tell him you’re currently fundraising and ask to meet to show him your pitch. Don’t be sly. Don’t hint. Make the process ridiculously easy by just asking for what you want.”
-Jason Freedman

Permanent Press

Love the photography from Permanent Press, a Brooklyn-based arts studio.


How to Grow An Idea

What does a farmer who adopted a "do-nothing" approach to farming, simply fitting his farming into the greater ecosystem he was living in, have to do with with writing and other creative endeavours? This beautiful piece by Jenny Odell, On the Growth of Ideas, brings it all together.

"Ideas are intersections between ourselves and something else, whether that’s a book, a conversation with a friend, or the subtle suggestion of a tree. Ideas can literally arise out of clouds (if we are looking at them). That is to say: ideas, like consciousness itself, are emergent properties, and thinking might be more participation than it is production. If we can accept this view of the mind with humility and awe, we might be amazed at what will grow there."
-Jenny Odell

Toto Bona Lokua - Ma Mama


Lessons for Procrastinators

We often procrastinate as a method of self-preservation: if I never start, I can't fail; I need to figure out exactly what will happen first; I am not sure about the idea yet. This article with four pieces of wisdom for procrastinators is a knife to the heart of all that mumbo-jumbo and a handy inspiration for all of us to get going, already.

Have To/Don't Have To

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ANNOUNCEMENT! The Receptionist is Here to Help You Out!

Image: Giphy

It's the moment that you have most certainly been DESPERATELY waiting for! ADVIIIIIICE!

If you need someone to tell you what to do, or provide a little extra perspective, I've got it for you!

Here's all you have to do!

1) Have a question.

2) Email contact@thereceptionistblog.com with HELP ME OUT in the subject line.

3) Pretend to have patience while you desperately wait for an answer.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!


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On Embracing Life and Eating the Cake That You Have

Photo by Charles Deluvio.

I have NEVER understood the phrase, "you can't have your cake and eat it too," or it's alternate, "she just wants to have her cake and eat it too."

OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO WANT TO EAT THE CAKE THAT YOU HAVE, WHY WOULDN'T YOU???

The saying seemed to find a presumptuousness in wanting to eat cake, which is just plain ridiculous. Who wouldn't want to eat cake? Cake is delicious and the whole point of it is to be eaten. Also, you need to have a cake in order to eat it! You can't eat a cake that has never been in your possession. So where's the big deal, here? Is the saying suggesting that we should all be on diets?

Fast forward through my entire life to this moment. I am currently reading Ursula K. Le Guin's No Time to Spare. It is a fantastic collection of her blog posts from the later years of her life. In one of them she addresses this saying, and her hunt to make it make sense.

She uncovered the key: the "have" could be replaced with the word "keep"!!!

You can't keep your cake and eat it too.

I repeat: you can't KEEP your cake and EAT IT TOO.

OH! Well, that makes sense!!!

That FINALLY makes sense!!!!!

And it's actually a very good saying! A subtle warning about the dangers of inaction and hoarding. Sure, you could keep your cake. You could protect it and hold onto it forever, but the whole point of a cake is to be eaten. You would be depriving that poor little cake of its purpose in life AND depriving yourself of cake, and for what??? To be able to tell people you own a cake? To hold onto some future possibility of cake? That's fine if you have a date in mind, but otherwise that cake is just going to rot and everyone will be sad.

So eat! Act! Do the thing! Share! Use it up! Whether it's a talent, idea, project, bottle of wine, beautiful notebook, fancy shoes, sports equipment, or actual cake: you can try to preserve its perfection, or you can give it life. CHOOSE LIFE!

(I realize that the saying could also be construed as a warning against using a thing up--if you eat your cake, you don't get to have it anymore, so be careful and hoard all the things--but I don't think that's what it's really all about. Either way, it's vague enough to be up for interpretation, and I choose the version that encourages action.)

After I read that essay in Le Guin's book, I VERY excitedly pointed it out to my boyfriend, and he was just like, "yeah, I know that's what it means." So, fine. This may not be blowing YOUR mind either because you already read the obvious meaning in the saying and didn't just obsess over why someone wouldn't want to eat cake. Good for you. Now I'm all caught up.

Should we celebrate with some cake?

Source: Giphy


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Cute! Roundup: Turtle vs. Cat, Baby Stingray, Incredible Insects, and More!

Gertie protects the boxes for our games while we play. It's very useful.


OTHER CUTENESS:

Turtle vs. Cat (I recommend turning the volume down on this one to avoid the annoying commentary)

These baby stingray are adorable little alien creatures!

Owls being cute!

These insects-disguised-as-plant-life are more amazing than adorable, but they are definitely worth looking at!

The best way to wake up in the morning.


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Singalong! Thank You For Being a Friend (Golden Girls Theme Song)

Following up on last week's theme song jam, this week let's go into the lovely sentiment of the Golden Girls theme.


THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down a road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
Well, you would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
Thank you for being a friend

Image Source: Giphy


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Learning! Roundup: How to Pet Your Cat, Ovarian Cancer Vaccines, the Marshmallow Test Revisited, and More!

Photo by Shwa Hall.

Where to Pet Your Cat

Finally, some truly important scientific research! Where do cats most like to be petted? Unsurprisingly their favourite spots are the cheeks, chin, and between the eyes and ears.

Ovarian Cancer Vaccine

Ovarian cancer is still tough enough to catch that only half women who get diagnoses live beyond five years. Now there is a little more hope: a personalized vaccine. It takes cells from the tumour and mixes them with immune cells from the patient's blood. Blammo! Improved survival rates.

Aging and Authenticity

It looks like we become closer to our "true selves" as we age, or at least we think we do. It checks out with the fact that older people tend to report caring less about what other people think of them and acting in ways that are more true to their own desires.

More to the Marshmallow Test

The marshmallow test is a famous piece of research: young children would be given one marshmallow and told that if it was still there 15 minutes later, they would get a second one. It's basic delay of gratification, and results showed that the children who were able to wait had better outcomes later in life.

Well, the study has been replicated with a twist: this time, kids were put in multiple conditions. Some were told that their peers successfully waited and got two marshmallows, others the opposite, and a third group heard nothing about their peer group. Turns out, peer pressure wins! Kids did what they thought their pals were doing.

Legalizing Pot

Another study has confirmed the link between legalized pot and a reduction in crime.

Well-Adjusted Leaders

Who is most likely to confront a stranger's bad behaviour and ask them to be a little more respectful of the group? A new study identified the personality type: someone who is extroverted, persistent, confident, good at regulating their emotions, values altruism, and is comfortable expressing emotions, a personality type they dubbed as the Well-Adjusted Leader.


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This Week in Church: The Now & Not Yet and Big Things

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about the now and not yet.

This is in reference to the Kingdom of God, the idea being that after Jesus died on the cross, we were able to live in the Kingdom, but also that we aren't quite there because we also live in this sad and fallen world. Basically, the Kingdom is here - sort of. We get glimpses of it, but not the full experience.

This notion of something being both now and not yet is very potent to me. It seems like a lot of what we tend to want out of life falls into that murky territory. We catch a moment of something - inspiration, love, joy, accomplishment, wealth, connection, power - but it doesn't stick around, or it's not quite complete. Then what? (Notice that it's not all good things.)

Maybe the striving is the thing. Maybe living in the tension of the now and the not yet is a beautiful thing. Maybe we should give up on everything. (Probably not that last one.)

This week in church we talked about big things.

Here's a question: "What is something you could do that is so big you would need God to help?"

(If God isn't your thing, then maybe ask yourself about something you could do that would need a community's help, or the universe, if that smells right.)

I just want to sit with that question for a while. It feels like it could be life-changing.


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Inspiration! Roundup: The Thousand-Hand Boddhisattva, a Tickle or Sledgehammer, Moving Forward, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there": A treehouse without the tree!
Photo by Arnold Dougelas.

Thousand-Hand Boddhisattva

This performance of the Thousand-hand Boddhisattva is impressive enough on its own (that precision!), and even moreso if you know that the dancers are all hard of hearing and the musicians playing for them are all blind.


Cue Sledgehammer
“If you’re open to learning, you get your life-lessons delivered as gently as the tickle of a feather. But if you’re defensive, if you stubbornly persist in being right instead of learning the lesson at hand, if you stop paying attention to the tickles, the nudges, the clues—boom! Sledgehammer.”
― Gay Hendricks (via Swiss Miss)
The Beer Can

I quite enjoyed reading this excerpt from a 1964 issue of The New Yorker lamenting progress as personified in the beer can. Not because of the excerpt itself, it's pretty douchey, but because of the analysis below the piece. It does a good job of pointing out the basic things to look for when discovering the bias in a text.

The Mechanics of Moving Forward

(Sometimes it's awkward.)

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Which is Worse?

"Which is worse... fear of failure or failure? Fear or fear of fear? Trying and failing or not trying at all? Speaking up and not being heard, or suffering in silence? Caring and losing, or not caring at all? Doing or wondering?"
-Seth Godin

Kanako Abe's Paper Art

I love the intricate papercut artwork by Kanako Abe!

A post shared by Kanako Abe (@abemanatee) on


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What's Your 'Take Me or Leave Me'?

Source: Giphy

One more thing that I thought about watching the musical RENT:

There is a song between Maureen and Joanne, the constantly-quarreling lovers (okay, every couple in this show is quarreling except for Angel and Tom because their love is perfect and thus bound for tragedy) called Take Me or Leave Me.

The basic premise is right there in the title: if you want to be with me, you've got to take me for who I am. If you can't, well then you'd better leave me, because this is it.

It made me think -- what is my "take me or leave me"? What is, at the end of the day, the the list of traits that may not be so great, but come with the package of being with me? The things that a person just sort of has to accept if they want us to be in each others' lives.

Here are a few I can think of:

I am always going to be a person who cries really easily. If you can't handle seeing someone cry, walk away.

I sing in random ways, all the time. Sometimes it's just turning the thing I'm going to say into a song and sometimes a pre-existing song pops into my head that perfectly suits the conversation. Either way, it's coming out of my mouth. I can temper it for different situations (I don't tend to burst into songs at fancy meetings - although at less-fancy meetings it has totally happened), but ultimately, if that deeply annoys you, then you will be deeply annoyed around me.

I am working at taking things less personally, but I still take things pretty personally.

I get very anxious if I have to keep unformed plans in my head and don't get to talk them out, make some basic decisions, and write them down - or at the very least confirm when those decisions will get made.

So there you go! TAKE ME BABY, OR LEAVE ME!!!!

What about you? What are the things about you that a person had better be ready to accept if they want to love you? Not your bad habits or occasional selfish behaviour, necessarily, but things that are a part of who you are?

PS: Just to be a killjoy I will point out that this goes both ways. Anyone we want to be in a relationship with will also have their own things that we have to accept. ALAS!


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Challenge Accepted: No Day But Today

Source: Giphy

I just saw my friend perform in a local production of RENT.

You know RENT, right? The musical about a bunch of New York artists who range from poor to actually homeless, trying to get by, dream big, and change the world while surviving AIDS?

It had been a while since I really paid attention to this musical. The movie version came out while I was in university and we all became rightly obsessed with it, and then moved on with our lives. Since then, I decided that the general premise that these artists were being oppressed because they had to pay rent was silly and that the musical as a whole was a little too, shall we say, mush-hearted. A weird thing for me, the mushiest-of-hearted people to think, but there it is.

As much as the story's basic focus on love above all else and plea to live for the moment while rejecting capitalist douchefaces is still very close to my heart, it was associated with the bubble of university, when we all thought that learning how to breathe all the way down to our genitals would somehow save the world.

So I was a little surprised that I basically wept through the entire show.

A LITTLE surprised - I cry super easily, so it's not a huge surprise when anything makes me cry, but this in particular was a touch surprising, just because I thought I had cynicked beyond it.

There is a lot in there that will always bring a tear or two out of my face: love above all else, devoting yourself to your ideals, taking care of your chosen family, reminders that, someday, we will lose everyone we love.

But this is what really got me: the "no day but today" mantra. It comes up over and over again through the show. It hit me hard.

I am not sure how my life would change if I really did embrace each day as my chance to act on the love, life, and ideals in my heart, but I am going to do an experiment.

For the next month, every single morning I am going to remind myself of this by writing the words "NO DAY BUT TODAY" in a notebook. I may journal a bit about what it means to me that day, or I may just write that and move on. Who knows. I will do it by hand, and I will do it for a month. Starting last Sunday.

I will report back.

Source: Giphy


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Cute! Roundup: The Shape of Cats, Rescued Baby Badger Claws, Swim Prep, and More!

Tried setting up a tent yesterday afternoon, and Gertie got herself right in on the fun! Think we should take her camping next time?


OTHER CUTENESS:

The movie The Shape of Cats is going to be a purrrrrfect hit!

Like parent, like child.

We haven't seen any rescued baby badgers on here yet! It's a rescued baby badgers! The claws are kind of adorable.

Warming up for a swim.

Laying the baby down after it's fallen asleep in your arms.

This pup knows what he wants, will meet you in the car.


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Singalong! I'm Always Here by Jimi Jamison (Baywatch Theme Song)

The other day I needed a pick-me-up at work. You know how it is. Somehow the idea entered my brain that I should look up the theme song from Baywatch.

Guys.

It's kind of awesome.


I'M ALWAYS HERE
by Jimi Jamison

Some people stand in the darkness
Afraid to step into the light
Some people need to help somebody
When the edge of surrenders in sight
Don't you worry
It's gonna be alright
Cause I'm always ready
I won't let you out of my sight

I'll be ready
I'll be ready
Never you fear
No don't you fear
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here

In us we all have the power
But sometimes it's so hard to see
When instinct is stronger than reason
It's just human nature to me
Don't you worry
It's gonna be alright
Cause I'm always ready
I won't let you out of my sight

I'll be ready
I'll be ready
Never you fear
No don't you fear
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here

Cause I'm always ready
I won't let you out of my sight
Oooh
I'll be ready
I'll be ready
Never you fear
No don't you fear
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here
Forever and always
I'm always here

Image Source: Giphy



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Learning! Roundup: Power Posing Works Again, Aluminium in Your Armpit, New Brain Cells for the Old, and More!

Photo by Diao Darius

Power Posing - Now it Works Again!

A new analysis of 54 studies on power posing (the act of standing in "powerful" positions, like with your hands on your hips, to increase confidence and sense of power) shows that it does work and is worth further investigation. It's been a real rollercoaster of acceptance for power posing, from TED Talk fame to scorn, but maybe it's back! Everyone throw your hands into the air!

The Case for Anti-Perspirants That Work

I used to be all about the all-natural deodorant, even making homemade deo for a while. I fell off that wagon a few years ago and fell back under the spell of feeling gloriously dry in my armpits. Now here is a collection of evidence in favour of aluminium in your armpits. It's really fine.

New Brain Cells

Turns out that old people's brains produce just as many new brain cells as teenagers! We can stop thinking that our brains are slowly pruning down to nothing as we age. That's comforting.

Night Owl Death Rates

Sorry night owls, it looks like you are more likely to die. Also, have mental health problems, diabetes, and get too little exercise. Of course, this is because you are also unlikely to get enough sleep because chances are that even though you couldn't fall asleep until 2am, you still need to wake up for work in the morning. Sorry.

Increasing Vaccination Rates

Most research shows that, no matter what we try, we can't convince other people to change their belief that vaccines are somehow damaging. They aren't, but once someone has decided that it's pretty much impossible to turn them around. It turns out, though, that the more that is done to make it physically easier to get a vaccine, the more people get them. So you can change some behaviour, even if attitudes aren't changing!

Brag About Yourself

Need to come across as confident and like you have it together? If power posing isn't doing it for you, try writing a couple of paragraphs about your hopes and ambitions, or describe a situation where you had power over others. New research shows that will make you come across well to others.


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What if We Treated Our Monogamous Relationships As If They Were Poly?

Image Source: Giphy

I have recently come up with a theory: everyone, no matter their relationship type, should act like they are in a polyamorous relationship.

Not in the sense that we all need to actually become poly*, but in the sense that the poly community has gotten really good at some basic relationship principles that us monogamous folks could learn from.

(NOTE: Obviously just because someone is polyamorous doesn't automatically mean they are good at it. I am going to be speaking in some broad generalities, but it doesn't mean that every polyamorous person you meet is going to be a wizard at all these things --opening up your relationship doesn't instantly make you a relationship superhero. They are, however, the principles that poly relationships are generally built on.)

Communication

Out of sheer necessity, people in polyamorous relationships tend to be really really good at communicating their needs, expectations, and experiences. They communicate in advance of a thing (whether that thing is a new dating partner entering the scene or some adventurous sexual activity). They communicate during a thing. They communicate after a thing. They often schedule in communication to make sure things don't slip through the cracks.

It sounds kind of formal and stiff, to check in so often and schedule communication, but I think we can all agree that most poly relationships aren't characterized by their formal stiffness. Instead, there is a keen understanding that intentional communication is vital to allow for other kinds of freedom.

Facing Feelings

Along the same lines, I think people in poly relationships are way less likely to let bad feelings hang around and fester than us monogos. (Is that a short-hand for monogamous people? Can we make it one?) Again, out of necessity, feelings of fear, anger, envy, or anything else that might feed into jealousy or resentment, need to be looked at and addressed pretty quickly if your multi-person relationship is going to be healthy.

I have found, in monogamous relationships, that there is often a fear or avoidance of bad feelings. Talking about them is hard and scary and can easily wind up turning into something bigger, so we avoid them until we absolutely have to bring them up.

I am sure talking about negative feelings is still sometimes hard and scary in poly relationships, but there is a difference: everyone involved has recognized in advance that these feelings may emerge. They are prepared for some negative emotional responses and are okay facing them and dealing with them - personally, and as a unit.

Including Your Village

The most frequent argument I heard in favour of polyamory is that one person cannot meet all your needs.

That's true, but it doesn't mean you have to be poly. You certainly can if you want to, but either way, it's a good idea to recognize that your partner is not going to meet all of your needs, and that's okay. That's why we have friends and family and coworkers and a whole other community of people in our lives. Invest in those relationships, too. Build a village!

Self-Reflection

This is the "know thyself" section. Healthy relationships are a lot healthier when people know themselves well: their insecurities, needs, desires, boundaries, dreams, and triggers. Even better when they know these things and also how to take care of themselves.

Again, by necessity, polyamory requires a lot of self-reflection. If you're going to open up your relationship, you have to be very in tune with all sorts of things: what you need and want, what you are and are not okay with, where you might feel triggered or insecure, what your emotional response is right now, what might be behind all of these things, and how to deal with it.

Imagine with me a world where everyone knows these things about themselves. Amazing, right???

Recognize Unintended Consequences

Part of all this open communication, self-reflection, and facing of feelings is the recognition that there can be unintended consequences to your actions and that those matter too. Just because you didn't intend to mislead someone or hurt them doesn't mean they don't now feel mislead or hurt. It is more important to deal with that feeling than convince them that you didn't mean it.

Imagine how all our conflicts would go if we always accepted that there are unintended consequences to our actions, and we dealt with them head-on instead of trying to skirt blame?

Image Source: Giphy

None of this is revolutionary. We all know that communication and honest self-reflection are important to a relationship, but often, if we can get by without it, we do. Not because we hate our relationship and want it to suffer, but because life gets buys, stuff is hard, and whatever, this person is stuck with me.

Basically, the reality of being in relationship with multiple people has forced the poly community to adopt principles that monogos (is it working? Can we make it catch on? It's so fun to say!) often incorporate only after going to a relationship counsellor.

So let's do it! New group chant: Life is busy! Stuff is hard! Our relationships still deserve to be taken care of!!!

*If you don't know, polyamorous relationships are relationships that involve multiple people. They take many forms, but are always above-board and consensual for all parties.


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Inspiration! Roundup: Forgetting Self-Discipline, Reader Dances, Healing, Breath, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there":  I want to go on a big city vacation.
Photo by Jason Bricoe.

If You Wish You Had More Self-Discipline

I love this post from Tara Sophia Mohr about what we really need when we think we need self-discipline. Maybe instead of expecting ourselves to just do a thing, we need to set up a situation and system to encourage success. Maybe we need to address our fear. Maybe we need to adjust the goal.

Maybe we just need to love ourselves for who we are.

The Reader Dance

This short video, from An American in Paris, combines two of my favourite things: reading and dance! Love it!


Behind the Scenes of the Perfect Headshot

I love seeing the weird things people have to do behind the scenes to get an amazing image. Like this one.

Healing

"As some of you
will evolve in your lives to be healers
let me remind you that there are some souls
tat do not wish to be healed.

'You must be healed,'
s so often the message that is given
with the healing.
No they must not be healed.
Only if they want to.
And you are not the authority on that.
Do not inflict your will.

Just give love.
The soul will take that love
and put it where it can best be used."

This came from a Facebook post. If you know the author, please let me know!

Need to Breathe?


Be Original

"Yes, be original, but no, it's not helpful to be so original that we have no idea what you're doing."
-Seth Godin

Right in the Feels


Like You Love Yourself

Let's try it out.

A post shared by Indigenous Goddess Gang (@indigenousgoddessgang) on


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Would You Take Amanda Palmer in a Bottle?

Every once in a while, someone will post this Amanda Palmer TED Talk on Facebook, saying something like, "Just needed to remind myself of this," or, "I needed to watch this one again."


It's an inspiring talk.

It's an inspiring talk that has been both deepened and tainted for me with some extra knowledge I have gained about this woman.

A friend of mine actually worked with her. She spent a year touring the country with Amanda Palmer as one of her living doll statues. It is a classic, "never meet your heroes" story. According to my friend, Ms. Palmer is too busy and important to do things like learn the names of the people touring with her or, you know, be nice.

This, in and of itself, is not very remarkable. The "artistic genius so wrapped up in their own vision they can't be bothered to care about other people" persona is probably the least original storytelling trope of all time.

While going through this experience, however, my friend learned a new saying: "at least I'm not Amanda Palmer."

Apparently, from her college days on, Amanda Palmer alienated people around her to the point where they would comfort themselves when things went wrong in their own lives by saying, "At least I'm not Amanda Palmer."

Now, I have not seen any corroborating information about this on the internet, so I don't know if it is true. But how I see this talk is forever changed. It is both tainted and deepened.

Tainted, for obvious reasons. She was mean to my friend. Also, a talk about the beautiful personal connection that comes from asking for, and accepting, help becomes a little less trustworthy if it is delivered from somebody who may have been so unkind that people comforted themselves by reminding themselves that they are not her.

I now listen to it remembering that people are complicated, nobody is even close to perfect, and wonder "at what cost?", and "do people who aren't giving you money and neti pots get this treatment?"

Deepened because, well, dang. This woman is the very picture of persistence, doing your own thing, and believing in yourself even when no one else will. Her career already demonstrated this, but this additional data points to even greater strength of self. It is an almost superhuman ability to say, "I don't care what you think, I'm going to do it."

That is quite something to consider, and I could use a lot more of that quality.

I share this, not to turn anyone against Amanda Palmer. I know someone else who produced a show for her and basked in the afterglow of the experience for a month, so if the stories about her past are true, maybe she's changed. Or maybe people are weird, multi-faceted creatures with histories and feelings and blood sugar levels and reactions that make us very unpredictable. To one person we are an inspirational story, and to another we are a cautionary tale, and that interpretation depends largely on the history and feelings and blood sugar and expectations of the person on the receiving end.

I will tell you one thing: if they could bottle Amanda Palmer's confidence, drive, and "let's just do the thing" attitude, I would take it. Maybe I would cut the pill in half.

Image Source: Giphy


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Cute! Roundup: Happy Adopt-a-versary to Gertie! (Also, Other Things Are Cute, Too.)

Today is the adopt-a-versary of my dear Miss Gertie Marie!


Okay, okay, okay. It's not like my whole identity is caught up in my cat, but dang do I ever love her.

OTHER CUTENESS:

This must be the cutest way to entertain a baby.

Babies holding babies.

No big deal, just a baby goat and it's stuffed piggy.

The greatest (and cutest) of all the Sharknado movies! I would watch this for 90 minutes any day.

Nothing like a little chinchilla vs. echidna cuteness rivalry


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Singalong! It's My Life by Bon Jovi

When this song came out, I was OBSESSED. I played it for everyone who was captive in my vehicle, saying, "It's awesome, isn't it? This song is AWESOME!!!" I even tried to convince my ballet class to do our year-end recital dance to this song. I repeat: I tried really hard to convince other people that we should do ballet to It's My Life by Bon Jovi. (Full disclosure: I still think that could be a cool ballet, but whatever.)

Also, let's take a moment for the classic music video move: band sets up on the street and rocks out to throngs of young people who appear out of nowhere in the traffic jam, while young man risks life and limb to get there in time.


IT'S MY LIFE
by Bon Jovi

This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
It's my life

This is for the ones who stood their ground
It's for Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder, make no mistake
Luck ain't enough
You've got to make your own breaks

It's my life
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
It's my life

You better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down

It's my life
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)

Image Source: Giphy


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Learning! Roundup: Housework and Sex, How Acupuncture Works, Depressed Doctors, and More!

Image Source: Victoria Palocios

Housework and Sex

Heterosexually married people have better sex if the wives perceive that housework is being evenly divided. If actual fairness isn't a good enough reason for couples to be more equal in how they split housework, maybe this will do it.

A Window Into How Acupuncture Works

Thanks to new-and-improved microscopes, researchers have been able to parse out that, in between our skin and muscles lives a fluid-filled space they previously thought to just be connective tissue. This leads them to the question - is this how acupuncture works? Perhaps it helps develop pathways within this layer so that fluid travels to different areas of the body. Neat!

Depressed Doctors

Maybe your ER doctor has poor bedside manner because they are depressed. It turns out that doctors have four times the risk of depression by the time they reach residency. Yikes.

Sad People Know People

This is one of those kind of depressing findings: people who are a bit more sad and lonely (characterized as "melancholic introverts") understand other people better than their happier counterparts.

Psychopaths

Here is a key difference between psychopaths and the rest of us: psychopaths are able to take the perspectives of others, but they don't do so automatically, while others do.

Children of Centenarians

If your parents live to be over 100, you are likely to feel a stronger sense of purpose and direction in life, which leads to all sorts of positive outcomes. What's kind of interesting about this is that you are likely to be pretty old yourself by the time your parent turns 100.

Morning Sickness

The first thing I learned once friends started having babies is that morning sickness doesn't just come in the morning. Then I learned that some people have brutal morning sickness, while others barely experience anything. Finally, I have now learned that scientists have identified two genes behind morning sickness so extreme, it puts mother and baby's health at risk.

Bad News for Trump Voters

A new study has shown that attitudes about gender and race were better predictors of supporting Trump than economic challenges. So... All those articles trying to remind us that not all Trump supporters are racist and sexist lost some of their footing. Awkward.


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Green Flag! How to Tell If Someone is a Good Person

Image Source: Giphy

The internet can often be mistaken for the land where human decency goes to die, so I was super smitten with with Reddit thread polling for signs that a person is a keeper -- the "green flags" that someone is going to be good to have around.

It is a very encouraging read, full of small actions of kindness and consideration that made me go, "awwww, yeah, that is nice!"

Some of my favourites:

Remembering their commitments. (eg: "Hey I know I still owe you $20, can I get you dinner?")

Being willing to admit they are wrong and being okay with other people being wrong.

Picking up after themselves when out in public/common spaces.

Making an effort to point out people's good traits and let others know about them.

(Also, probably putting on a puffy green suit and dancing for your dog, but strangely that didn't make the list!)

See? Doesn't that just make you feel nice and warm inside? Like a bunny dancing with a sunbeam? Sure, the fact that someone puts their dirty cups in the bussing tray at the coffee shop doesn't mean they're a good person, but it sure as heck does indicate that they might be!

Image Source: Giphy



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Inspiration! Roundup: The Cosmic Banana Peel, Jann Arden's Army, Tech, a Wish, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there": I wanna keep doing this! Every day!
Photo by Jon Tyson.

The Cosmic Banana Peel

“Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware. The cosmic banana peel is suddenly going to appear underfoot to make sure you don’t take it all too seriously, that you don’t fill up on junk food.”
– Anne Lamott

I Am an Army

Did you know Jann Arden is still killing it? Jann Arden is still killing it!

A post shared by E.Cool (@ecoolio) on

Feelings Are a Lot of Work

I love this image, "Feelings are a lot of work." They are, guys! They are! It doesn't mean it's not worth getting into it, feeling things, and working through feelings with others, but it's also important to remember that this is work.

Tech is Not Neutral

A useful reminder to pay closer attention to what our tech is encouraging us to do. And maybe to imagine what we would like to see different!

"Tech is not neutral. One of the most important things everybody should know about the apps and services they use is that the values of technology creators are deeply ingrained in every button, every link, and every glowing icon that we see."
-Anil Dash

A Wish


Wait Watchers

I love the work of Haley Morris-Cafiero! In her series Wait Watchers, she photographed herself doing mundane activities in public, to observe how people interacted with her and her body. It is a stunning series, and I can't wait for her coming series, The Bully Pulpit, where she will comment on the online bullying she received as a result of this project.

National Geographic is/was Racist

Guys! National Geographic just set the example for all of us on what to do when you want to move beyond racism in your own life or work. Admit it, and commit to change. (Yes, it is late, and YES, they have a lot of work still to do - like hire more people of colour to senior positions in the company - but it is such a vital first step.)


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