Well, now...

Sometimes Ms. Peri is a lot better at offering advice than she is at taking it. And sometimes the universe gives Ms. Peri a huge smackdown, just to get her attention.

A few weeks ago, I realized that I was drifting. I had several writing projects under way, and I was splintered in a dozen different directions. I wasn't focusing on the goals I'd set and more than a few friends advised me to slow down, take a deep breath and force myself to answer the question, "What do you want?"

But I didn't.

Why? Well, because I'm Ms. Peri, and I can do it all. And because if I don't commit, I'll never fail...and Ms. Peri does not like to fail.

Smart move, right?

Apparently the universal powers that be (UPTB) did not agree.

First, they tried a friendly nudge. A local professional organization nominated me for PR person of the year. It was a huge honor but throughout the process I kept hearing a little voice asking, "Is this what you want? Is this it?"

Dealing with those issues was inconvenient and the little voice was a nag, so I blew it off...even though I knew that PR, at least this year, is my bread-and-butter, not my heart and soul.

I didn't decline the nomination, but I didn't fully engage in the process either. I just went with the flow. I didn't commit.

Clearly dissatisfied with that approach, the UPTB opted for a shove.

Today, my job-share arrangement at a local magazine ended without warning. Whoosh! One more item off my plate.

While I was listening to my boss tell my work share partner and me that we were fired, that darn little voice came back and asked, "What do you want? What do you really want?"

Apparently, I am destined to answer this question one way or the other. I'll either suck it up and commit to something or, one by one, my diversions will be waved in my face or be taken away.

Not to bring age into the equation, but I think the UPTB are trying to tell me that I'm too old to be so ambivalent.

Life is interesting, isn't it?

Playing on iTunes right now: Everything by Michael Buble. I LOVE this song!

Last week's Quote of the Week

"Begin anew by throwing away old things. Old shoes, old maps, old cookbooks. Outgrowing is part of growing up....For every object we cast away, for every friend we lose sight of, for every moment in time we can't recoup, and for every place that's no longer what it used to be, we receive in exchange a wealth of keepsake impressions. How strange -- no one can ever take away what is no longer ours."
-- Veronique Vienne from The Art of Growing Up, Simple Ways to Be Yourself At Last

What's your theme song?

Carleen Brice asked this recently on her blog. What a terrific question. If music stirs the spirit and lyrics arouse the mind, we should all have our own theme song, shouldn't we?

Here's mine. It's Proud by Heather Small. It's the theme song for me, for my novel -- and (here's positive visualization talking) for the movie I see being made from my book!

Wonderful lyrics, yes?

I'm not a math-phile, but...

I struggled through a few calculations to better understand just what was involved with the percent of body fat issue mentioned in the previous post. Here's what I discovered:

1) 37 percent of my current weight is 59.57 pounds. (Imagine carrying 12 5-pound bags of sugar -- or an average-sized nine-year-old -- on your back every day. That's comparable.)

2) 23 percent of my ideal weight is 32.20 pounds. That means I should lose 27.37 pounds of fat and gain 6.37 pounds of muscle to be reasonably fit.

Okay...27.37 pounds of fat! I'm having a total Bridget Jones moment here. How does one even wrap one's brain around the concept of losing 27.37 pounds of fat?

Not to be whiney, but -- Ugh! This is going to be hard.

Obesity: It's not what you think

For years, the concept of losing weight and getting fit was a pleasant pastime -- lose a few pounds, get into those cute pants; firm up a bit, don't scare myself when I catch a rear-end view in a dressing room three-way mirror.

You get the picture, right?

The other day, for reasons I still haven't figured out, I dusted off my super-dooper Sharper Image scale (it measures weight and calculates percent of body fat) and hopped on. The results left me shocked -- and not in a good way.

I'm still roughly 20 pounds overweight, though you probably couldn't tell that by looking at me. I'm also, and this is the scary part, 37 percent body fat. For someone with a family history of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, this is not welcome news.

Phillip Whitten, a writer for Swimming World Magazine, says obesity is defined as too much body fat, not necessarily too much weight. Translation: you can be thin and fat simultaneously.

According to one of his articles, men should have 15 percent body fat or less and women should have 22 percent body fat or less during their prime. There's not much wiggle room for boomers, either. Whitten says 55-year-old men who exercise regularly generally have body fat levels of 23 percent; hearty women exercisers have body fat levels of 29 percent at the same age.

Our nation of couch potatoes aren't faring well, however. Whitten writes, "According to 1994 health statistics, at age 35, the average American male carries 25 percent of his weight in fat, average female 33 percent (the numbers are probably even higher today.)"

I'll be honest. I'd hoped there'd be great dissent about how much body fat is healthy. (You've seen those weight charts. They're all over the map.) Alas, it was not to be. There is some deviation, certainly, but overall, not that much.

Why this matters:

If, like me, you have writing projects you're trying to finish or other goals you'd like to complete, and you just can't seem to make progress, if may be because your body -- and your brain -- are under stress from other sources. Becoming more fit may be just what you need to do to get going.

Intrigued? Here are a couple of sites you can visit to see where you fall on the health-o-meter:

Recommended Body Weights and Percent Body Fat Contents for Women

Sports Fitness Advisor

Playing on iTunes right now: Authors on Tour featuring Allan Folsom, author of The Machiavelli Covenant. Authors on Tour is a podcast of writers discussing and reading from their works at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. Sign up on iTunes.

Last week's Quote of the Week

"I haven't written a great book yet -- but I have written some really great paragraphs!"
-- Marianne Williamson
Author of nine books, four of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers, and a former guest on Oprah, Larry King Live and Good Morning America, among others.

I didn't chew.

While reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I gulped each chapter rather than reading slowly and savoring the book. I didn't pause to study the very, very fine line Ms. Rowling occasionally drew between her mythical society and current, real world affairs. I didn't linger to laugh at the sentence, near the end, that appeared to be a friendly nod to Aliens II.

At the end of my romp through the last of the Harry Potter series, I discovered something interesting, though.

The book, while exceptional, wasn't flawless. Every sentence wasn't perfect; every word wasn't gold. What they were, however, were pure J.K. Rowling. Her imagination. Her prose. Her best.

All of which reminds me that striving for perfection, holding on to your creative work until it's absolutely beyond reproach, isn't necessarily your greatest contribution to the world.

Sometimes you can change lives -- and change minds -- simply by doing your best.