Group Exercise and Cellphone Holsters...guess which one I don't like so much

I was forced to exercise indoors this morning along with 250 other people, most of whom are public health professionals who have decided that it’s time to take action against obesity. It was early in the morning in a windowless bunker of a ballroom in a Marriott. And it was called, “Instant Recess,” which is a program from the Professional Athletes Council, featuring Allen Rossum of the Atlanta Falcons demonstrating exercise steps and marching in place to get the heart rate up. I admit that it raised my energy level and made the next session much more gripping.

For my job I get to frequent health conferences—3-4 day marathons of best practice models, power point presentations, and plenary sessions where people talk a lot about leadership and behavior trends. Every major presentation includes a minimum of two New Yorker cartoons for laughs. Most of the time when people go to conferences they go with colleagues or get to meet up with people who do similar work in other cities. I’m always sent to conferences where I know no one and end up locked up in my hotel room dreading the “networking opportunities” which always end up feeling like middle school dances.

This latest conference has been one of the best ones by far. The hosts have really wholesome senses of humor, which are critical when things get started at 7am. I came down for a meeting this morning and the organizers were finishing up their staff meeting that had started at 6am. But really, these conferences are a gift where I get sent off to distant states and let out my unbridled geekness. People gather round to hear me make a fool out of myself whenever I get back to the office. I send out these long winded emails about how I think we should devote resources to a new initiative that will solve all of these problems but is completely outlandish. For the past two conferences, I’ve come back freaking out about the obesity epidemic. My general panic is this: little kids are developing Type 2 diabetes, which only a few decades ago, was only seen in adults. Tweens are something like 3 or 4 times bigger than they used to be just a few decades ago. This latest generation of kids is the first one in recorded history that is probably not going to live as long as their parents. And get this: a lot of the drugs aren’t being tested on larger people—including hormonal contraceptives. And there’s preliminary data to suggest that they don't work as well if you're on the seriously obese side of things. But the main part of the problem that makes me so depressed is that there's no infrastructure or support to help people lead healthier lives and maybe not get so big.

I always like to go on walks when I go to conferences, but this one is in a “tech park,” which is basically code for concrete wasteland with no grass or crosswalks. If I lived here, it would be hard for me to get motivated to go outside and walk around. I seriously thought I would get hit by a car many times because there was no way for me to cross the 11 lane highway. No crosswalks, but lots of khakis and polo shirts with the ever-present, and perhaps requisite, belt attachment for phone and blackberry. I issue a penalty on all people who use those. I tried to have a conversation yesterday with someone whose blackberry was buzzing in the holster every few minutes. I couldn’t concentrate enough to form a coherent sentence. Today I’ve been working in my hotel room and running outside every few hours to consort with the displaced bunny rabbits that look terribly confused in the parking lot and the bees, that, I guess have all come to the “tech park”—they weren’t disappearing after all or suffering from extreme immune system breakdown because of pesticides.

"It's over your head now"

The other day at dinner with my friend Friend, I opened our fortune cookie that was on top of the hot fudge sundae we were sharing. Don’t ask, it’s just what the restaurant does—they also put hazelnuts on top, which is out of the ordinary but always above expectations. I opened our fortune, which makes me feel like it was more addressed to me than Friend, but she might dispute that logic. It said the following: It’s over your head now. Time to get some professional help.

This is hands down the worst fortune I’ve ever heard of anyone receiving from a cookie. A few months ago a woman came up to me on the street and said that I had a dark aura, something she wanted to discuss with me in more detail, you know, for some money. I generally prepare myself for wacky or disturbing behavior from humans, but fortune cookies are supposed to say, “you’re great and people love you.” Or, “your love life will soon pick up.” Or some lame statement about togetherness. Generally speaking, cookies are in the reversal-of-despair sector of the business, they don’t typically dole it out.

You might not believe me, but this is the third in a line of strange fortunes I've been getting from cookies over the past 12 years. I’m taking this latest one personally. The other ones were 1) This biscuit suits my taste; and 2) You’re still hungry, order take out. These last two make you wonder if the person whose job it is to write the fortunes got a little lazy, or is British and wanted to send out a special clue about how s/he is British and calling the cookie “biscuit” was the best way. But the “in over your head” fortune, which I like to call the worst fortune ever apart from eminent death or disease (wfeafedod), has really affected me.

After laughing about the fortune with Friend, she started asking me if I had read The Secret. I hadn’t. Someone reputable had told her to check it out. Friend said it was applicable to our lives because it helped you figure out how to make what you want to happen, happen. But then we walked to a bookstore to look at it, and the whole time I was sending out negative messages to the universe, and with that attitude, what I want to happen will not happen. Friend is right. I am way too sarcastic when sending out messages to the universe, which, by the way, I am pretty sure I believe in. I mean the messages to the universe part--the fact that there is a universe doesn't really seem to be up for discussion. I was still secretly upset about the wfeafedod on our walk and made up for it with sarcasm and general self-deprecation, I guess, and thought maybe my usual coping mechanism would ward off any not-to-be-warded-off feelings about "it" being over my head. I sort of assumed that the intention of the fortune was to address emotional troubles and not intellectual ones. I just can’t imagine that the fortune was saying, "it's over your head now," referring to a book or intellectual concept that's hard to understand...

As luck would have it, I have recently begun seeking professional help. It wasn’t the cookie's suggestion to seek professional help that offended me; mainly I was angry that the advice came from what should be an inane but fun-filled cookie fortune. I consider therapy to be just about the most amazing luxury. I recently found someone who offers a sliding scale but is too pretty. I’ve decided that the discounted rate means I just have to deal with the too-pretty-to-be-trusted part. During my last appointment, the day after receiving the wfeafedod, I was distracted by whether or not to show her the fortune. I thought it would be funny and that maybe I could even give her the piece of paper for her desk or fridge or something. Occupational humor. But then I panicked that showing her the wfeafedod and saying something sarcastic about it would only highlight the defense mechanism that she points out I keep using to control situations and distance myself from experiencing my life. And then I tried to think whether it might be helpful to bring it up and say that I was thinking about it which could help inform our work together. Clearly these kinds of internal debates are why I decided to seek professional help, you know, before the stupid cookie suggested it.

But now it’s Saturday night and I’m sitting in a Denver hotel room on a work trip trying to finish preparing a work document, but instead I’ve been staring at this wfeafedod. I’ve been trying to work for 4 hours with no luck. While trying to avoid looking at myself in the hotel room mirror above the desk and feeling panicked while staring at the fortune, I turned it over to look at my favorite part of fortune cookies, the “learn Chinese” feature. I am still amazed by the phrase they chose to accompany the wfeafedod: “don’t matter,” which is, according to the fortune, mae yao guan xi. That is too hard to even try to pronounce if you only get to practice with sundae fortunes. How could one side of a fortune be so ominous while the other side is so glib? Are they suggesting that if I were able to say “don’t matter,” in either English or Chinese, and live accordingly, I wouldn’t necessarily need the professional help? For now, I’ve decided that the freaking wfeafedod mae yao guan xi.