By susan fishman orlins
As a kid at the Jersey shore, on days of ocean calm, I would float over the occasional ripple with my dad, his hands folded behind his head and his tan, slender, feet parallel and pointing skyward. “Ahh, this is worth a million bucks,” he’d say and now I know he was right about those precious moments.
With my mom, we would swing and sway our way out past the breakers and with hands aimed toward England, we’d recite a duet of “Up and over” each time a curl of the sea made its way to us.
Whenever I braved a swim at the beach alone, though, my memories are all about getting battered and tossed about by the waves and ending up tangled underwater among big people’s ankles.
The period between my carefree summers of childhood and my thirty-something years I call my recurrent-tidal-wave-dream years. (Well, to be honest, I just started calling it that for the purpose of this story.) I had no idea what a tidal wave looked like but in my imaginary it was a slate-colored arc of the sea that rose to great heights, all white and foamy at the edges, casting a shadow over all those on the beach. In the recurrent dream, I was always on the beach, where I knew I couldn’t outrun it, but I had to try, and just then I always woke up.
Here’s one more story, or if you’ve had enough and are interested in Riptide Earl, skip this and the following paragraph. When I was in my thirties, I was in East Hampton with my boyfriend, Steve, who then became my husband, father of my three daughters and my ex-husband. Steve is an expert body-surfer, who once saved his Uncle Alvin from a riptide. (The best part of the story comes when, Alvin gasps, “Save yourself!”)
Steve and I went in the ocean and the waves turned out to be bigger than they looked and I couldn’t get past where they were breaking, so Steve held my hand and we had to keep ducking under them. Have I told you how much I fear/hate going under water? We would have exited, but bang, bang, bang, the waves kept coming one after the other, just like my contractions when the obstetrician was angry with me because I was maybe going to switch doctors and also it was Christmas day and he cranked up the Pitocin to get my beloved firstborn, Lizie, out quicker and there was never any break, as I said, just like the waves that day in East Hampton.
Obviously, Steve got me out somehow. Which brings me to Earl. This morning on the radio I heard a report about Earl traveling up the Atlantic coast and the commentator said that there were riptides. And, not only that. He said there was concern because even after the ocean calms down, the riptides can remain for 24 to 48 hours after the hurricane passes. So, please be careful if you venture into the Atlantic, and if you are my kids, stay close to your dad.
By susan fishman orlins
Naturally, when I cook I worry the dish won’t come out right, especially because I don’t measure and I have never followed a recipe with precision. A great thing about Bonnie Pasta is that you can’t mess it up. And everyone adores it, including vegetarians. Read all about it and get the recipe on NBC’s new Website, Home Goes Strong.
By susan fishman orlins
Oh dear, I’m afraid I was terribly insensitive in my previous blog post, Worry Orgasm, which was about how worried I became when a train I was scheduled to take became delayed due to someone jumping in front of it at a previous stop. A friend, generally a supportive fan, wrote to say that she had lost a family member to suicide and that it was very upsetting that I showed no sympathy or concern whatsoever for the suicide victim. Moreover, the graphic I chose of a toy train trivialized the whole tragic thing even more. Suicide of a loved one, she said, is something you never get over.
She acknowledged that my post mentioned that maybe I had repressed the horror of the suicide, but then she pointed out I dropped it and went on to have my worry orgasm. The worry orgasm, of course, had nothing to do with the tragedy of the suicide. Rather it related to having severe anxiety over a delayed train, when I didn’t even have to be anywhere. And then somehow that explosion of stress, relieved me of all the things I had been worried about before encountering the train delay.
But that’s not at all the point here. My friend’s email raises the question of the sensitivities I need to consider when writing my Worrywart blog. Both at the train station and in writing the post, I became enveloped in my anxiety and not only glossed over the suicide but also, as my friend pointed out, enjoyed schmoozing with other passengers.
In no way excusing my insensitivity, I find it to be a tricky business, because the things I worry about include the likes of death, a subject that seems to me to be the last taboo. People seem more uncomfortable talking about death than anything I can think of. My way of dealing with the grimness of it all is to try to take a wry approach toward my own discomfort. For example in my post about when my friend died, I wrote that I suddenly wanted to have lunch with him. Then I wondered who might die next and realized this kind of thinking could lead to a lot of unnecessary lunch dates.
In one of my first blog posts, “White Girl Worries,” I wrote, I worry about appearing frivolous or insensitive to my blog readers, especially those with real problems. Well, I’ll go on worrying about that and I’ll probably get it wrong again, but hopefully I’ll now be more aware of the feelings of those outside of my worry bubble.
By susan fishman orlins
New Article Alert: My second post this week, “My Personal Organizer’s Tips for Unpacking in a New Home,” is now up on Home Goes Strong
Yesterday, my train back to DC from Philly was two hours late because someone decided to end his or her life outside of Trenton and under the wheels of an Acela on that blue-sky afternoon. Employees at 30th Street Station were amiably accommodating, responding with smiles to my persistent requests for updates (which is one good reason to take a train rather than a plane, where agents shoo me away after my first half hour of elbows on their desk during a flight delay).
The Amtrak banter enlightened me that when a train hits a person, they call it a strike. And all trains are delayed while the striking train undergoes a police inspection. The local coroner must also file a report.
Eventually, other trains were allowed to proceed, but the Acela involved had to wait and its passengers were part of the investigation; they weren’t allowed to leave the train!
The banter included that it might take a while because the coroner was probably in the middle of a Sunday barbecue. Maybe too he was weary because the previous train suicide at this sight had occurred only two weeks earlier.
So you may wonder how a worrywart dealt with the delay and uncertainty. I was wrought, but I also enjoy these situations of shmoozing with anyone who wants to strike (so to speak) up a conversation. Two ladies outdoors where I went to sit gave me the 411 about the Bolt bus, which was heading to DC from across the street at 2:12. Do I take my chances and wait for the train? There’s nothing worse than choices. Imagine the regret if I’d had to wait hours more when I could have been home.
I haven’t sufficiently conveyed the anxiety I was feeling. Before the waiting, I was wrapped up in a gaggle of worries. Now that I had this new train delay concern, though, I could think of nothing else. I tested myself, checking in with all my categories, the work I have to do and the gutter problem at my house and how much I missed my daughters. Nope, all my worry wanted to remain with the train being late. And, I didn’t even have to be home urgently.
Why I was so shaky about the delay I cannot say. Maybe underneath it all lay repressed horror about the train hitting someone. But I can say that being so jazzed up and then feeling so assuaged when I finally boarded was like having a worry orgasm that relieved me of all the other tensions I’d had. When I sat down on the train finally, I felt spent and so relieved and relaxed. Maybe next time I’m overwrought I can scan the Amtrak Website for a delayed train and scamper down to the station and buy myself a ticket. Let’s call this a worry tip.
By susan fishman orlins
In case you don’t make it to the end, where I’ll refer to this again,
 see my latest post on NBC’s new Website Home Goes Strong,
“My (91-year-old) Mom’s Do-It-Youself Decorating Tips.”
On another note, this past weekend I visited my brother’s family in Philly, where I picked up some tips from my niece, whom I hereby nominate to the Worrywart Hall of Fame. She comes up with things to stay awake about that have only percolated beneath the surface of my fretful brain. Then she zooms into action.
She asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her and her dog. Shortly thereafter, I picked up her first contribution to Tips Weekend when she hooked two leashes onto her black toy poodle’s harness in case the clasp on one of them were to fail. (TIP #1)
This made me think of the measure I use to protect Casey from assaults beyond the boundaries of my home when I’m traveling. I ask the petsitter to walk him only in the small front yard, jogging laps perhaps, as though competing to win number one beagle-basset in the Westminster dog Show, the way he and I sometimes do, while a crowd (of one: me) cheers, “Yea Casey, number one beagle-bassett in the Westminster Dog Show!” (inferior TIP #1a)
My niece and I returned from walking the dog and we washed our hands. “Did you know,” she informed me, “that the thumb of your dominant hand tends to get overlooked when you wash your hands?” In the future, you may want to pay extra attention to that dominant thumb. (TIP#2) She also advised against using foamy soap, because it makes washing quicker, hence, riskier. (Tip #2a)
As for Spread-the-Word Day, in the spirit of enormous admiration and imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery, I’m borrowing from the playbook of Gretchen Rubin and her blog The Happiness Project where she anoints some days to be Spread-the-Word Days . . . the word being her blog, book, etc. For me, this would be the equivalent of asking you to spread the word to others who might enjoy my blog and my articles on NBC’s new Website Home Goes Strong.
My Spread-the-Word Day campaign in the previous paragraph pales beside Gretchen’s recent spread-the-word request. I’m supplying hers below in case you want to experience the persuasion skills of someone, unlike me, whose blog has thousands, if not tens of thousands, of followers:
My resolution for this month is “Go the extra step.” As part of that, I’m trying to take extra steps to promote my blog – even when that means doing things that make me uncomfortable. (Like attaching this note to a few posts.)
One of the challenges of a blog is just letting people know that it’s there. And so I’m asking you for a big favor.
If you have the time and the inclination, it would be a huge help if you would email anyone you know who might enjoy this blog, to give them the link and tell them a bit about it. Word of mouth is very powerful.
My happiness research predicts that if you do this good deed, you’ll feel great! That’s the Samaritan effect: “do good, feel good.”
Reminder: the above in italics was written by Gretchen, not me. But I welcome (Gretchen would probably say “encourage”) you to “go the extra step” on my behalf, and if you do, I hope you’ll feel great and I’ll be endlessly grateful, but in all honesty I feel compelled to note that I’m not sure the deed will score you a trophy from the Good Samaritan Hall of Fame.
By susan fishman orlins
Picture a worrywart mom getting a call from her mid-twenties-aged daughter, who is all excited to tell about the New Zealand trip she and a friend are planning.
We’re going “cave rafting,” the daughter says.
The worried mother later looks up this cave rafting to discover it’s also called black water rafting and comes with warnings that if you’re afraid of very enclosed spaces or acrophobic, considering the 50-foot zipline, this may not be for you. 
Now there are three more activities the daughter says she is planning, which I’ll name in order of least scary: hang gliding, sky diving, and tied with sky diving for most scary is scuba diving (which in itself would lead a mom to go to sleep with the lights on, especially since she knew a young woman who died at a Club Med while scuba diving) . . . scuba diving, that is, with sharks! (Is there an emoticon for a silent scream?).
Worrywart Mom tells her dear, old friend about this. Dear Old Friend asks, “Was that an April Fool’s joke?” But, no, WW Mom consults her cell phone and sees it is August 22nd. This must be a true story.
By susan fishman orlins
I contract other people’s worries, as though they were chicken pox. That’s why I plug my ears and hum at the mere mention of, for example, sleeplessness.
My friend Joe suffers from travel anxiety. Joe’s a guy who moves around Washington with the ease of a gifted politician, but who–weeks in advance of traveling to a new city–worries whether someone will show up at the airport to take him to his hotel. He lines up people to have dinner with the way other travelers schedule a day of whale watching or a tour of Alcatraz.
Naturally, fear of flying was an active participant in my basket of travel worries way before I knew Joe; whenever I unclasp my seatbelt, I turn on my cell phone and thank God four times, shaking my head in astonishment that we landed safely. But having listened to Joe recount his anxieties every time he prepares to go somewhere, I now experience a whole new feeling of dread when I set out for uncharted territory. I used to love traveling alone, but ever since I’ve known Joe, as a shield against loneliness, I take along a friend, ideally not Joe.
How do you deal with your travel anxiety (nothing too scary please or I’m worried I’ll catch it)?
It helps distract me from worrisome pre-travel imaginings when I make a game out of packing. Read my new post “Packing List and Tips before Trips” on NBC’s awesome new Website, Home Goes Strong.
By susan fishman orlins
Ok, I’m trying to get this right with my blogging in 3 different places (Worrywart, Huffinton Post and Home Goes Strong). I tweet my new posts, I facebook my new posts, my dear daughters do the same, I link one post to the next and when I start a new project, like the semi-weekly home column, I email friends (cringing a bit at the thought of oversaturating them and then having the next thought that people will find it too wearisome to be my friend anymore, the same way they’d want to keep their distance if they thought I had bedbugs jumping around in my pockets, which I read about in Saturday’s New York Times.)
Today my Worrywart subscribers received news of my first Home Goes Strong post, Should I Buy into Feng Shui (Do I, right this minute, link to my previous post? To the article? To the Website? All of the above?). And the reason I am writing this very post is to tell you about my piece “18 Life Lessons From Friends and Family” that I uploaded just now on Huff Po. (That article also links to my feng shui article on Home Goes Strong. If this sounds confusing, imagine how it’s all wrapping around my broiled brain like a mobius strip.)
Anyway, you can read my Life Lessons that include things like, “If you don’t carry a wallet, you won’t lose your wallet.” But for those of you who are less absent-minded than I am, there is something for everyone. Like, “Eat more pink cupcakes and they taste better when you give a friend the bigger half.” Also, you have my blessings to use these lessons as though they came from your very own friends and family if, for instance, you have to give a bar mitzvah speech.
By susan fishman orlins
Today, my first article appears on the NBC Website Home Goes Strong, where I’ll be posting new pieces 2 or 3 times a week.
As you may know, I am capable of worrying about anything. The feng shui fracas began when a friend pointed out that my newly renovated space–where I could see clear from the kitchen at one end of the house to the far side of the living room at the other end of the house–allowed evil spirits to float too easily from one room to the next. Read all about it: “Should I Buy Into Feng Shui?”
By Susan Fishman Orlins
 Today, as I was unlocking my bike in front of Trader Joe’s, I heard the sound of car meets guy on bike, and I looked up to see this guy sliding off the hood of the car that hit him.
To my relief, he picked up his bike and hobbled to the sidewalk. He looked to be around 30 years old, and I got to him just as he was saying to the driver who hit him, “I’m okay.”
Well the mother in me, which is just about all of me, planted myself there and as the driver left to call his insurance company, I mouthed to the biker, “Make sure you get his insurance info and phone number and all.” Then I asked if he had parents he could call for advice.
He nodded yes that he had parents and then . . .and please listen carefully to what he said, especially if you are one of my kids . . . he said, “But I can’t call them, they’d freak out.”
I am bursting to preach my reaction to this. But all I’ll say is: Hey kids, show some confidence in your parents to cope–even if they are worrywarts–when you find yourself in a pickle of any sort, just the way you want them to have confidence in your ability to handle it when they are in a pickle. And parents, vice versa.
If one more preach is more than you can bear, you might want to stop reading at this point. My one more preach is: Make sure you wear bicycle helmets (and ski helmets and seat belts and condoms). The driver today, simply turned his car and drove right into that young man. Which is why I support biking on the sidewalk rather than the street–as long as you can be sure to brake at driveways where someone can come shooting out, not expecting you to be there.
Questions and comments?
By susan fishman orlins
Some worrywarts–me for example—dwell on the past, which often manifests as regret. I rarely saw my old friend Lou, other than at my annual New Year’s Day open house. Then he died and I thought, Why didn’t I talk to him more at my party? I immediately wanted to go to lunch with him. The logical thought that followed was Who might die next? This kind of thinking could lead to a lot of unnecessary lunches.
By susan fishman orlins
Ever since beginning this blog, I’ve become a repository for friends’ and family members’ unnerving scenarios. Just last month my youngest daughter called from Minnesota to say she was reading a review in a Duluth newspaper of The Hypochondriac’s Handbook: Syndromes, Diseases, and Ailments that Probably Should Have Killed You By Now. “I wouldn’t have even read this article, Mom, if it weren’t for your blog.”
You can read more on Huffington Post. For selective reading, I am providing below the unnerving scenarios I discuss in the article.
1. Hypochondriac’s Handbook
2. Projectiles in cars
3. China’s environment and sluggish fish
4. Doggie door, hide-a-key, porch swings
5. Deterring robbers
6. Baby Body Signs, benefits of drinking
7. 6-year-olds needing bras
8. Plastic containers
9. Bedbug TMI
10. Offshore drilling
–Worrywart’s friends’ blogging advice
–Optional disturbing details from Hypochondriac’s Handbook
By susan fishman orlins
I get anxious on weekends when everyone’s too busy to read my blog. So, I’m just writing to say hi and that I’ll be back early in the week when folks have returned to their offices where they have time to visit.
By susan fishman orlins
1. I occasionally allow a fan to whir overhead in my bedroom despite a lifelong fear of decapitation by ceiling fan.
2. I eat in restaurants, even though there’s the possibility that a waiter (annoyed by my requests for tastes of wine, glasses of ice, dish of lemons, sauce on the side) could spit on my artichoke or pee on my cucumber salad, like my friend’s brother, a cook, once witnessed.
3. I rarely worry that an airplane will tumble out of the sky into my backyard. Or onto my roof while I’m sleeping. I sometimes think about it, but I don’t generally worry about it.
4. I pick up my mail from the box on my front stoop, even though I could get unabombed.
5. When someone reaches out his/her hand to greet me, I shake hands, overlooking the risks, because my need to avoid making the person uncomfortable exceeds my need to avoid sharing the person’s pathogens.
6. I periodically send email notifications of my posts and articles to hoards of folks in my address book, even though I worry that recipients will: think I’m a pain, think I’m vain, have disdain, have their interest wane, go insane.
By susan fishman orlins
When my kids were in the single digits, agewise, I would tuck them into their unmade beds, then worry whether or not I was raising responsible citizens. So I decided to turn some dreaded chores into family fun! Read about it on Huffington Post and share with parents and grandparents of young children!
I’d love to hear ways in which you’ve converted housework into family fun.
By susan fishman orlins
I’m on a train where I just walked past a mom and, standing next to her, her little boy who has dumped on his seat an entire parking lot’s worth of toy cars. He is deep into a brrm brrm brrrm fantasy, which reminds me of traveling with my daughters when they were barely taller
 than beagles. Except my girls’ bags contained stuffed animals, Barbie dolls and nail polishes. Even when I was only watching, I felt part of the escape. At home, my bed became pillow village and rather than just preparing dinner, I became Mrs. Grinn of Mrs. Grinn’s cooking class.
The little boy and his cars got me thinking how it would give us a break from our woes if, as grownups, we continued to play pretend games (um, not the kind some adults play in their relationships). I began wondering why it generally requires a child as accessory for an adult to play house, school, cars or my middle daughter’s old favorite, Carol Friedman’s Employment Agency.
If I were playing pretend, I would line up wee painted houses and make believe that all the families who lived within found fulfillment at work or school and had plenty of time to get together and barbecue on a new kind of grill that didn’t give you cancer. They’d resolve conflicts by talking in voices no louder than those of the birds tweeting in their backyards. They’d never  worry and would feel free as the laundry flapping on the pretend clotheslines in the pretend sunshine with it’s pretend ozone layer.
Adult children and their children would live close enough to the grandparents to bike there for weekly family dinners. April showers would bring May flowers and there would be no superweeds like the ones I read about in the newspaper that resist Roundup and other overused harsh weedkillers. Everyone would be confident that newspapers would be around forever, but with only cheery content, the Food Network of journalism.
For people who wanted to scare themselves to death with all the dark and gloom the world has to offer, there would be a plethora of libraries and independent book stores.
By susan fishman orlins
The other day I was searching Google, thinking I’d get some ideas for Tip Day. The first Website I opened began, “Do you worry too much? If so, did you know it could be killing you?”
Then I headed to Barnes & Noble where I discovered books can also scare you to death (pun intended). Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living prognosticates, “Those who don’t know how to fight worry, die young.”
So my tip is: Do not search Google or book stores for worry tips.
By susan fishman orlins
Casey thinks “Fetch!” means watch Mommy throw a ball and yell “Fetch!” I ponder whether he’s bored on my new Huffington Post post.
By susan fishman orlins
 Before going out the other night, I headed into the living room, whose door I keep closed so my beagle-y mutt Casey can’t get in and dig at the rug. As soon as I entered, I glimpsed a twitch of a bushy tail by the window. It was a squirrel clinging to the curtain rod! Funny how, when a pointy nosed rodent with an acorn in its mouth scoots past you on its way up a tree, you never even think, “Hm, there goes a squirrel.” But change the venue to your living room and both you and the squirrel and your beagle, if you have one, go skittering around in a panic.
I grabbed a broom that happened to be nearby in the front hall, imagining I could sweep the rodent back to its natural habitat. Then I sprinted upstairs to get Casey, who was in my bedroom, so I could make sure he wouldn’t go chasing the squirrel around like crazy the way he once did with a deer in our backyard. Now that I’d gotten Casey downstairs, I realized I had exacerbated the likelihood of a chase scene. Moreover, I hadn’t thought to close the living room door or the bedroom door and when I dashed back to the living room, the squirrel was gone. Yikes, it could be anywhere in the house! How would I possibly sleep, knowing there might be a squirrel in my bedroom? I pictured awakening to it’s fur brushing my cheek, it’s claws dancing on my neck while it noshed on my nose.
My fight or flight instinct was to dart around the house, banging furniture with the filthy broom–debris flying everywhere–yelling “Squir-rel! Squir-rel!” But no bushy tail made itself known.
 Casey’s fight or flight response was to poop on the living room rug, just as he did when nerves got the better of him amid a ring of senior citizens when he visited their retirement home as therapy dog.
Worst of all, I was late for a meeting and had to leave. I imagined the squirrel scratching Casey’s sweet, soulful-eyed face into a bloody pulp and Casey responding by eating the squirrel and me coming home to two carcasses in a puddle of blood, as though a duel had taken place in which both participants had pulled the trigger at the exact same moment.
Adrenaline must have helped me come up with the idea of putting Casey in his crate. Then, as I was about to go, I heard “scratch, scratch” coming from under the living room couch. Calmer now, I propped open the door to the outside and jiggled the couch. In one sweeping motion the squirrel flew across the room, out the door and up a nearby tree.
Now that it’s back to its regular life, I’m grateful to my squirrel for the visit. The little intruder turned an ordinary night into a story.
PS The squirrel in the photos is named Julie. She lliterally latched onto her “owner,” while he was playing golf and he took her home. He sought help and the person he found, who had several pet squirrels of his own, was Bernard Goetz, the subway vigilante.
By susan fishman orlins
While writing a recent article for Huffington Post, “Worrywart’s 8 Stress-Reducing Things to Do in Beijing,” I began thinking about how much planning a worrier does before traveling in order to help assure things go okay. Yet the most fun parts of a trip can result from allowing serendipity to take over, especially in Beijing.
For me, the best way to experience serendipity in Beijing is on a two-wheeler. So the first thing I do after I arrive and drop off my luggage is head with my helmet to a bicycle shop, where I can buy a shiny black Flying Pigeon with lock, bell and basket for around $60.
The thrill of navigating Beijing’s densely-populated streets and sidewalks on a bicylce—the polluted breezes caressing my face—gives me the same sense of accomplishment I get from beating out taxis when I drive in New York.
The bike enables me to go all over the city and stop if I want, say, to snap a picture of couples waltzing at 8:30 on a Saturday morning by the entrance to Longtanhu Park. Or get a shot of a cluster of old men schmoozing with one another by their birdcages, which they’ve hung on tree branches.
 On my bike I can leave the bustling, gazillion-lane main drag to explore narrow hutongs where families live cramped in one-story houses behind courtyard walls. So many of these lanes have been demolished in the “concreting” of this out-of-control country, that pedaling along hutongs makes me feel as though I have recovered a smidgen of old China.
One afternoon on a recent trip to Beijing I biked south in search of a little shop I had heard about. As usual, this outing was more about the destination than the journey. I wove through a labyrinth of back streets I’d never seen, stopping at a tiny vegetable shop to buy for around 30 cents a bag full of cabbage, peppers, bok choy and onion for the stir fry my daughter (who lives in Beijing) and I planned to cook that evening.
I didn’t find the original shop I was seeking and as the evening sky darkened, I felt exhausted and realized I could never find my way back along the little lanes. Yet, the huge streets, wide as city blocks, are terrifying even just to walk across, especially at rush hour (except rush hour has the advantage that you can squish nicely in the middle of the mosh-pit-like crowd as they cross, but that’s hard to do with a bike).
So I approached a man in his pedicab. He had a warm craggy smile that revealed only a few teeth and he looked way older than my 91-year-old mom. While puffing on a cigarette, he said he could accommodate both me and my bike and that it would take a half hour to get back to my hotel.
As soon as we pulled away from the curb, my bike fell off the pedicab, so he secured it with rope, but it fell off again. Therefore, I had to hold tightly onto it as we bumped along, and it stuck out on the sides and at one point he scraped it against a wall, and bicycles and cars and motorbikes and busses were streaming all around us. I was freezing in the 20-something degree night, but my terror distracted me from the cold, especially when the old chap made a left turn with his wobbly pedicab cutting across what seemed like forty lanes of traffic. When at last we got close to the hotel, I asked–or rather pleaded–to disembark.
With an outstretched hand I took a picture of the two of us, arms slung around each other’ s shoulders like we were posing for Facebook after our journey through a traffic-y version of the Arctic tundra. He then wrapped his big padded arms around me for a long hug and said zai jian, which is Mandarin for good-bye but literally it means see you again. I hope so.
By susan fishman orlins
Friends often say to me something like, “I can’t believe you’re afraid of driving to New York, but you bicycle everywhere.” I don’t worry as much as you’d think a worrywart might about getting hit by a car while biking (uh-oh will this jinx me?). It helps that I wear my new danger-zone-yellow helmet, ride on sidewalks , brake at driveways, brake on downhills and make eye contact before crossing in front of cars. Except sometimes, when I’m rushing, I scare myself to death by speedily pedaling across the street with only one second left on the traffic light timer and then the light turns red before I get to the other side and I swear I’ll never do it again and then I do it again.
By susan fishman orlins
My first tip today is get a mantra.
Many of the things I worry about, I have little or no control over. For instance, what if the power goes off while I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner?
Then there’s my preoccupation with how I’ll keep my brain busy and distracted if I’m ever
captured by terrorists and put in isolation. I heard about a man who built an entire house in his mind during several years in captivity. After his release he returned home and built that exact house!
I could never do that. But, when I catch myself mired in burdensome musings, I use a mantra like, I’m the one in control here. I can simply say toodle—oo to this worry, this nag that is trying to make me its life partner. For a visual accompaniment, I imagine putting my worry inside a helium balloon and sending it off to the great beyond.
By the way, it’s a bad idea to actually perform the balloon sendoff, since latex kills birds and other living things that may try to swallow it.
Here’s the second tip for Double Tip Day. Picture the opposite of your worry occurring.
The power won’t go off while I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll live my entire life without being captured by terrorists.
What are your tips? I’d love to hear how you stand up to your worries.
By susan fishman orlins
See my new Huffington Post post! (Do you realize how worried I am that you’ll think I am trying to get away with a two-fer here, which I’m afraid am, and that, therefore, you will never want to return to my blog? I hope you’ll overlook this transgression and return to find a new post just for my blog, a one-fer, soon!)
By susan fishman orlins
At dress rehearsal with its stomach-turning surprises, like having to dance onto stage, I asked myself What was I thinking when I agreed to this?
At first it sounded like fun to be one of nine storytellers in a Valentine’s Day show, “Sucker for Love.” But I had not signed up to boogie in public, nor had I focused on the “notes not allowed” edict. Now, having flubbed my first line the day before opening night, I remembered why fear of public speaking ranks higher than that of death. With death, there is so much less that can go wrong. With performing, you have to live with the consequences.
When I’d seen Speakeasy’s call for stories of love, misguided or otherwise, I knew I had plenty to say about misguided love, and sharing a story orally seemed a good way to nourish my attraction to the limelight. So I submitted a piece I’d written that centered on an encounter in Paris with a German boyfriend I hadn’t seen for 42 years. Less than an hour into our reunion, he choked on a chicken bone and went to a hospital, after which no one had seen him for days. I thought he had died.
I arrived at the initial show rehearsal uncharacteristically on time. As others drifted into the apartment of Amy, the director, it became apparent that I was the token AARP member among the “Suckers for Love.” After we introduced ourselves, Amy said, “Let’s start with Susan.” Yes! I thought and wondered how I would ever perform without notes in front of an audience 100 strong if I was so anxious reading to this group of only ten.
I have a tremor that becomes pronounced when I speak in public. A psychologist once told me if you begin a talk by saying you’re nervous, it helps deflect the anxiety. So before reading my piece, I mentioned that my hands shake even when I’m not nervous (even though I was nervous).
After I finished, I expected some praise or applause but instead, Amy simply said, “Andrew?” I had figured my literary skills would compensate for my shortcomings as a speaker. But, like me, Andrew was a writer. With perfect timing and steady hands, he read his tale of yearning for his roommate David, “who was not gay.” There was a scene in the kitchen in which David, while slicing eggplant, was wearing nothing but an apron tied in a bow “above his furry, round bottom.” Squirming to get comfortable in the 90-degree angle of Amy’s L-shaped sofa, all I could think was I do not want to follow Andrew in the lineup.
One by one, my castmates dashed the fantasy that my story was at least better-written. Tabbie–with a strong voice, broad arm swings and no notes–told how she greeted her husband on their first Valentine’s Day wearing nothing but a burka, then surprised him with a belly dance until he tackled her when the burka caught a flame from one of the 33 votives she’d arranged around the room. Believing he was in a passionate frenzy, she wailed, “Baby, I’m on fire, extinguish me with your hose!” How could I hold my own on stage with her?
I rehearsed in front of anyone who would let me. My daughter and her roommates listened on speakerphone, my friend Bill was a captive audience while recovering from knee surgery, another friend Robbie critiqued me while getting her hair styled. I performed before 90-year-olds at my mom’s retirement home and before my friend Jackie during her chemo treatment. At a nearby middle school, I did my shtick for a drama class, where my flaws provided that day’s lesson.
For a month, I traded in worry for obsession. When no one else was available to listen, I recited to my dog Casey and, while biking and falling asleep, I went through the lines inside my own head.
Opening night arrived and I didn’t have to follow David or Tabby. The audience laughed at my funny lines as well as at some I hadn’t realized were funny. And, with the benefit of wine instead of water in my metal Kleen Kanteen bottle, even my hands did not betray me.
By susan fishman orlins
From years of cruising Barnes and Nobles’ self-help aisles, I’ve picked up a pointer or two. Here’s today’s worrywart tip.
Plan a worry break. A worry break is like a coffee break, except instead of drinking coffee, you worry. The idea is that rather than allowing, say, the woe that your dog is likely to predecease you to hang like permanent draperies in your mind, draw those curtains aside and schedule a time to despair. Mark it on your calendar. This way you can be sure you’ll get to dwell on Fluffy’s end-of-life prospects as well as on all the other disturbing thoughts you save up for this respite from carefreeness. And, the miracle could happen that when your scheduled worry break rolls around, you may not feel like worrying at all.
If you find that setting aside a brief time to worry is too limiting, try the reverse. Start with an hour’s break from worry each day, then graduate to an afternoon or even a whole day off!
By susan fishman orlins
I can practically bring myself to tears with morbid fantasies. When a TV commercial aired for a movie about someone getting buried alive, I immediately pictured myself meeting such a fate. I tried to reason that of all the people I had ever known, and all the people each of them had ever known, I had never heard of anyone getting buried alive. The odds were against it. I mentioned this fright of going to my grave with a heartbeat to my friend Sally who told me Victorians were often buried with a cord in their hands that was attached to a bell above ground, so the person could ring in the event of an error. A doorbell in reverse.
 [ Doorbell by Albert Jankowski
It’s not that I am devoid of positive fantasies. I sometimes imagine meeting Mr. Right and living blissfully into old age. Somehow, though, getting buried alive seems likelier.
By susan fishman orlins
I’m trying to figure out how many future unborn generations I should worry about. Down to my great grandchildren seems reasonable. But if I care about them, shouldn’t I care about their children and grandchildren and so forth? There is no end. It’s like one of those photographs of someone holding a photograph of someone holding a photograph of someone holding a photograph, etc. Or the feng shui misstep of gazing into a mirror that is facing another mirror. Infinity.
By susan fishman orlins
The splendid thing about being a worrywart with a blog is that you awaken worrying how you’ll come up with an idea for your next post, even though you know that one worry after another will pop up into your head all day long like a CNN ribbon winding itself around your amygdala. . .
And then you go to a new physical therapist because of back pain related to the hip replacement you got four months ago and the therapist wants you to have an xray and you say I’m worried about too much radiation and he says (which you’ve heard before) it’s no different from a round trip to Cleveland, to California if we take three images.
Then the two of you get into a whole radiation conversation in which he asks did you know that radiation on planes comes in through the windows and you need to keep the shade at least half-closed?
And you’re amazed that knowledge of this threat has eluded you your whole life and this worries the bejesus out of you because when you lived in China and Hong Kong and flew back and forth all the time, including with your three daughters, you never closed the shade nor have you ever closed the shade on the octillion flights you’ve taken to visit your mom in Florida and you are so pleased because now you have something to write about, just as you figured you would when you woke up but worried anyway.
And now you begin to worry about what to write after this. Ideas welcome.
By Susan Fishman Orlins
This may sound cockeyed but–without a religious streak strong enough to be sure prayers get answered–I feel doomed to a lifetime of worry. Yet I spring to action each evening when the stars show up.
I realize, of course, that if I tell you my nightly wish on a star, it might not come true. However, I am going to tell you anyway. It demonstrates just how greedy I am as I attempt to cover all my bases, cramming a kitchen sinkful of wishes into a single request. At the sign of that first twinkle, after silently reciting the Star Light Star Bright rhyme, I add I wish for all good things for my family and friends and for my family’s friends and my friends’ families.
For years I had a different star wish, which I also used on birthdays, that all my wishes would come true. But then I read this folktale, “The Three Wishes,” about a poor woodcutter who is granted three wishes. Without thinking, he wishes he had some sausages to go with the special wine he has just opened to celebrate his good fortune, whereupon his wife calls him an idiot for wasting an opportunity to wish for rubies. He retorts, “A curse on you. I wish these sausages were hanging from your nose!” You can imagine what happens next, and he has to use his final wish to get the sausages off her nose. From then on, I decided it was too risky to wish for all my wishes to come true.
By Susan Fishman Orlins
A less worried blogger would not hesitate to announce something like, “Wednesdays will be TIP DAY!” Then every Wednesday, followers could count on getting a tip that offers a way to deal with worry. But imagine what it would do to a worrywart like me if on a Wednesday I couldn’t post a tip because my beagle-basset Casey got his head stuck in an empty bag of dog food and developed an air pocket in his stomach that I thought was a tumor and we had to spend the whole day at the vet and pay more money than it costs for a weekend in Atlantic City, like happened last fall.
Not only that, when I began thinking about a weekly tip, I checked out The Happiness Project blog where Gretchen Rubin cranks out not just a single tip, but multiple tips for her Wednesday Tips column. Once she had 15 tips to avoid nagging. And that’s the thing. Her tips are not just general how-to-be-happy tips, she comes up with different categories each week, like “19 tips for cheering yourself up—from 200 years ago.”
Happiness tips and worry tips have a lot in common; both aim to make you feel better. (Does anyone feel genuinely happier when worrying?) For example, here’s a hybrid happiness-deal-with-worry tip that works for me: When you have too much to do, look at your to-do list to see what you can put off until tomorrow, then don’t worry about it and use any excess time to have some fun today.
Even though I just noticed that Gretchen recently posted Wednesday Tips on a Thursday (she’s so much more laid back than I am), my other Confessions of a Worrywart random-day tip for getting your mind off worry is to read The Happiness Project on Tip Day.
P.S. Naturally I’m worried you’ll think Gretchen is, say, my neighbor or my kid’s teacher and that I have some reason to promote her. We’ve never met. I’m just obsessed with her blog.
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