Every few days I pluck my whiskers. Every day, I ride my bike for at least an hour. Every few days, I do yoga. Every six weeks, I bleach my hair. I wear a bra almost every day. Sometimes I wear boots with heels. Sometimes, I wear make-up. Every year or so, I get my brows done. On super special occasions, I get a mani-pedi. Every once in a while, I wear a pair of control top panty hose. These things, all of them, alter my body. I can tell you that if I didn't do everything I do to feel good, I would look entirely different.

And there is nothing wrong with that. After my whisker plucking vid came out, I got a lot of people telling me that they were confused about my message, that they didn't know if I was telling people to love themselves the way they are, or to change the way they are.

I believe, down to my toes, that you should do whatever you need to do to feel good about yourself. If that includes plucking your whiiskers, getting breast implants, getting your eyes done, so be it. It is your choice and if it helps you feel good, no one should  tell you that your are wrong. 

That is the whole thing about confidence. You must OWN it. You must make it yours. Part of confiidence, is telling people to fuck off. Part of it is doing what you damn well want to do. Part of it is getting to know youself well enough to know what will make you happy. This shit does not come from outside sources. It does not come from your parents, your partner, or your priest. It comes from deep inside.

A large part of my message, such as it is, is to do confidence YOUR WAY. Not my way. Not the way the mass marketing machine would have you do it. Not the way Oprah does it. No. confidence, to be truly powerful, must be cultivated on an individual level, without regard for conformist standards or consumer culture. 

The best any of us can do is be ourselves. Not our neighbors, not our sisters, not our parents clones. 

Be just who you want to be. There is power in that, and in that power, you will find your confidence. You will find your value. 

Do confidence your way. 

​Then show us what you got.

For the third time in a row in not even as many weeks, a date I set up on Tinder cancelled on me. For the record, I am not lamenting my life, where I get to have sex with whomever I want whenever I want. No. I am lamenting the game-like nature that is Tinder and most other virtual dating sites and what we are becoming.

Back in the olden days, (the nineties) I used THE NEWSPAPER to set up sexual interludes with mysterious strangers. There was a bit more danger to this, but, still, a well-worded ad for almost no money would garner plenty of fish in the barrel into which I could shoot. Just after the olden days or ADO (the new millenium) I used Craigslist personals to find people with whom I could blow off steam. This also served its purpose well, as is evidenced by my 20 Dates project.

Then, the future happened, and at first, it was awesome. OkCupid, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Match, it seemed like all there was was opportunity to find someone with whom you could spend some intimate time. I would call this The Golden Age of Sexual Conquest, or TGASC. I had more options than I had time for, literally. It was truly wonderful in almost every way.

I fear however that the sexual pendulum has now swung a bit too far to the right. It has become so easy to find someone on-line, that when it comes to the real work of actually meeting someone and maybe talking with them, maybe finding a commonality or two, people are, more and more, unable to do this. Or, on the horrifying other end of the spectrum, they are treating the on-line dating sites like they are pizza delivery services, but for sex, assuming that any person who is DTF (Down to Fuck) is DTF with them. 

We are losing our humanity to the machines, people. Judgement Day is here, but rather than a nuclear holocaust which the machines have thrust upon us, it is our reliance on them to build relationships for us, making us almost completely unable to interact and relate to each other. Don't believe me? Walk down the street and look at how many people are on their phones, either texting, FBing, or checking the latest Fantasy Football scores. Go to any eating establishment and look around. How many people in that place are looking at their phones, laptops or tablets instead of paying attention to the person they are with?

What's worse, I have become one of them. I used to see it as rude when a date would spend time on their phone, now, I date a man who is more often looking at his phone than anything else. A while back I started doing the same thing in retaliation, now, it is just what I do! I can't stop!!! I have been taken over by the Borg! I have been assimilated!

I just went to a very dark place there. Anyway, as of late, and this is the entirety of my point, I have been having text conversations with men on Tinder, and have started to notice a strange tendency for them to assume that because I am a healthy woman who wants to find someone to have sex with, that I will just have sex with anyone, and because we both like the way the other looks in a photo, that it is akin to a done deal, sexually speaking. When I go out of my way to explain that this is not the case, that I will require a sniff test at the very least, and frankly, some type of intellectual connection, they ghost on me. It is the most ridiculous thing, like they can't be bothered to speak with me before they fuck me. Like if they have to put any effort into it at all, it is not worth it. 

I have found, in my widely varied sexual experiences, that sex with people with whom I have no real connection is just not as good. It just isn't. Of course, there is the one-night-stand scenario which can be quite something, but really, I have found that nothing that awesome ever comes from fucking a person with whom you have nothing in common. It ends up being quite depressing, actually.

​I have said it before and I will say it again, I am a grown-ass woman and I have earned the right to be with a person who knows how to fuck me. If this person won't put in the effort to even talk to me? Get to know me? Hang a bit? Then fuck em'. And not in the good way.

This whole experience, the dating/casual sex experience I am describing, has inspired me to start a project when I forcefully and without regard separate myself from my technology at least once a day for several hours, maybe even for days at a time. I am not sure how that will help my sex life, but damn, I have to do something to save humaninty from The Borg. I might as well start there.

Just like everything else, fitness and health are about mindset. So, if you want to be fit, there is one very easy thing that you can do in lieu of the other five, and while it might sound ridiclous or like sarcasm, it is not, it is every bit as true as you can make it.

The best advice I can give anyone who wants to be fit but doesn't want to put in the work to do it, is change your perception of what fit is. This is the simple trick I use when I am not feeling especially energetic around my physical activity. It works for thousands of people, and it could work for you, too. I wouldn't say that it will put you in a better position physically, but mentally, it helps a lot. A good example of where else changing definitions effect health and wellness is how many shapes we have had to plan our meals with: squares, circles, pyramids, and I am sure there are more. Each time the shape changed, Americans were told to change their eating habits to reflect it. Each shape was right, for its time. Beauty and fitness are fads that change with cultural shifts. If you can wrap your head around this, you too can be quite fit. 

The following is a pick-and-choose type list, but, you do have the option of doing all of this stuff. It is what I do, and it works for me, but as I have said time and time again, it really is best if you figure out what type of person you are, what motivates you, and what you love. This will keep you active and as a result, fit, for the rest of your days.

1. Set goals for your old age. When my mom was about 65, she slowed down. A lot. It was difficult to go anywhere with her, because she could not climb stairs or really walk anywhere very quickly. She was unhealthy and overweight, but it was way too late for her to do anything at all about it. It was depressing for her to be in that state, though she was responsible for putting herself there. After this experience, I decided I would not be as feeble at that age. I decided that I would be able to walk stairs, go hiking, and ride my bike, so I make sure that all of those things are part of my life now. My long-term goal is to get around without assistance, so I participate in activities now that will get me there.
2. Know what type of activity you enjoy. Too many times I have heard people who sign up for Crossfit then complain about it all the time, or start doing Insanity and limp around after an especially arduous work-out, or go to some kind of boot camp and get hurt about three weeks into it because their body could not take the stress. Physical activity used to be fun. It used to be play. I try and make my physical activity as much like play as I possibly can, because the moment it is not, I begin to hate it, or check out mentally, and when I do that, I get hurt or I quit. So, I do handstands throughout the day, I leap up the stairs. I see how long I can hold myself up on my forearms. I do things that I will have fun doing, things that will challenge me. Things that do not seem like work.
3. Do not watch TV. This might sound like it has nothing to do with fitness, but it is actually the most important one on this list. Sitting in one position for hours on end is not good for your body or your mind. You are completely passive and receptive to whatever comes your way. Hours pass and you have wasted another evening of your life not living it. I implore you, get rid of your TV and replace it with a work bench, a desk, anything that will either keep your mind or your body engaged. You will not believe the difference it makes in your life.
4. Eat intelligently. This is very general. I am not a fan of telling people what or how to eat. But I can tell you that it is easier to lose weight/maintain weight loss when you are eating real food. What this means, generally, is that it is not pre-prepared, it is not overy processed, and it is relatively fresh. What this also includes is eating when you are hungry, not when you are bored or thirsty or otherwise. Go to the effort of finding foods you love and eat those foods. Be a food adventurer. Right now there are so many ways to find great and easy recipes on-line. If you are a complete novice start with children's cook books. The food and recipes in them are simple and tasty because they are meant as an introduction to eating and cooking. Eating intelligently also means making sure you are not consuming calories when they are not needed. For instance, I try not to eat after six. Why? I don't routinely do much after six, so there is no reason to load myself up with energy. 
5. Be conscious about transportation. I am a bike commuter. I am also a big fan of walking. I don't own a car for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that having and using a bike kills several birds with one stone. I get to have fun because I love bike riding, I get to see a lot more of my journey because I am going slower, I get great exercise because I am depending on my own strength to get me around, and whenever I get to where I am going, I feel like a badass. In short, bike riding and commuting on foot builds confidence because you are almost completely self sufficient. It is truly a beautiful thing.

All that said, the value in being fit is that it allows you to do things. Being fit allows you to play with your kids, walk your daughter down the aisle, take your grandkids to Disney. It allows you to hike the PCT, play golf with the fellas, dance until the club closes down. In short, fitness is the goal because the life you can live with fitness is that much more of an adventure. The life you live with fitness contains within it more possibility, more choice, more freedom. I am the first to admit that I very much enjoy looking healthy. But the reason I do it is because I want nothing to stand in my way of having an excellent adventure, least of all my own inability to get my ass off the couch.