Dear People of Earth:

This should go without saying, but these are some heavy times and so it bears repeating over and over and over. All of my spaces - my heart, my home, my little corner of the internet - will always be open to you, regardless of your gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or political affiliation. I believe in equal rights, compassion and love for all. I believe all people are my people. I believe we are all connected, that as a society we are only as rich as our poorest member, only as free as the least free among us, only successful when we are helping each other instead of holding each other down. 

Life is hard. For some of you, it just got a whole lot harder. I have always been more of a lover than a fighter but these are fighting times. So I will love you and I will fight for you. I will fight for your rights, your liberty and your freedom of choice with my votes and words and actions. 

You are important to me. I want to hear your stories - your struggles, feelings, failures, triumphs, joys and loves. I want to connect with you, human to human. I am here (jen@fromrobotwithlove.org) and you are always welcome. 

I'm a flawed and imperfect being, so please bear with me as I stumble through this thing called life. There are times when I will fail you or disappoint you. For that I'm sorry. But I will keep trying. Because I believe that our purpose here is to be excellent to each other and to make the party of life an epic event for everyone. I believe that my purpose is to work out my empathy and compassion muscles, to strive for understanding over judgment, curiosity over contempt and reason over rhetoric, and to spread love and awesomeness wherever I can. 

Let's be friends. Let's fight oppression and discrimination. Let's be awesome together. 

From Robot, with Love. Always. 

This Is Marriage: Day 505

Pete is laying on the couch and I am propped up on his legs flying Superman style in the most fun pose we learned last weekend at Partner Yoga and Pete says "Nothing about this could go wrong" and we laugh so hard I almost fall on the ground. We spent the weekend running the River Chase loop with Steven, watching Amadeus in Buffalo (The Buffalo Philharmonic was most excellent. I wish this had been a concert instead of a play. The acting was good, I just thought the script and characters were terrible. I am so tired of pompous buffoons and petty, jealous manipulators), having important, uncomfortable conversations and taking a bread baking class at the New York Wine & Culinary Center.

And laughing. At the crackers we made that tasted like saltines but were more pita-like in consistency so I decided to call them pillow crackers. At Pete accidentally using the women's restroom at Kleinhans Music Hall when we walked into this huge room labelled "Powder Room" and I said "I think this is the women's room" but it was already too late. At Pete telling Eric how excited I was to make a rainbow colored veggie/hummus/cheese/chips tray as they are eating steaks and watching football and I was like "you know, because it's the trifecta of manliness: steak, football and rainbows." At me asking and then Googling all my football game questions. Like what are those grey things on the field, volcanoes shooting laser beams? (Turns out they are actually depicting a bridge and tower, which is far less interesting in my opinion). And where can I get one of those giant tent/coat/sleeping bag things that Brady guy is wearing? (Google did not tell me how to get a giant, tent-sized coat but did point me to some hilarious memes on the Brady coat situation and also to a life-sized bear cub body pillow. The internet is a magical place).

Whatever else is going on, there is no one who makes me laugh as much as Pete does. When I'm sick and tired, when the world at large is depressing and upsetting, I hold on to the laughter and I am eternally grateful for its presence in my life.

Marriage is a beacon of laughter, lightness and love that brightens all my days.

Lyric of the moment: "There is a design, an alignment to cry, of my heart to see. The beauty of love as it was made to be. Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free..." ~Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More"

New Years Resolutioning

I don't typically make New Years resolutions. I have thus far managed to avoid the  it's JANUARY! Of a NEW YEAR! Time to load up on fancy gym memberships and unicorn juice cleanses and all the joy-killing life-changing goals! fervor. I've come to realize that I'm not a goal oriented person, I'm an effort oriented person. I like the work, the effort, the striving. That's where all the magic happens. Early morning runs, trying (and failing and trying) at chin-ups, setting up automatic deductions to max out my 401K and Roth IRA contributions - those are my happy places. I love running, I love mornings, I love starting my day doing one of my very favorite things. I love working at something that's difficult for me and letting the discomfort and struggle make me stronger. I love saving my cash moneys for future adventures (or for Pete's future adventures if I die first). The distances and number of reps and dollar figures are not important, what matters is that I find joy simply in the doing of those things.

That being said, I do think there's something compelling about New Year's resolutions, there's a vulnerability in publicly vowing to better ourselves. Especially since 90% of New Year's resolutions fail (80% of people know that is a true statistic and totally not just something I made up). So I figured I would get in on the resolutioning adventure this year. Ok so truthfully, Pete made a resolution to get up and accompany me on my early morning workouts in January. And I jokingly said that for every day he did that, I wouldn't eat dessert. Except that Pete seemed to really like the idea so it turned out to be more of a commitment than a joke. So here we are. Side note: I think Pete totally got the worse end of that arrangement, as he now has to deal with me waking him up most mornings (like the zealous early bird that I am) by jumping on him and saying "Is this helping you wake up?" and with my occasional lack-of-sugar-induced grumpiness. So far, we've run at Letchworth, Ellison, and on the canal, swam laps at the pool, and gone to yoga, P90x class, spin class and something called HIIT & Ripped (which happily did not feel like getting hit by a fuckton of DOMS but sadly did not miraculously result in 6 pack abs). I have not eaten any desserts this year and mostly feel ok about it, aside from the aforementioned sugar-I-pine-for-you blues. The secret to New Years resolutions, I think, is to design your resolution to last for the month of January only. But now that I'm already aboard this resolution train, I figured I might as well add a few more intentions for the rest of the year.

New Year's Resolutioning Attempt 2017:

• Don't do things I don't want to do. Meaning, don't eat foods I don't enjoy, don't say yes to things when I really mean no, don't cave in to the pressure of The Shoulds. Also meaning, if there's some result I want but am dreading the process to achieve said result, change the process or change my attitude so that I can want to do it instead of feeling like I have to do it. 

• Lose weight: the burdensome weight of expectations, judgments, fears and insecurities. Replace with awesomeness.

• Go to space as needed: the space for personal development, the space between thinking and speaking, and especially all the wild spaces. Also go to outer space if someone happens to invite me on their rocket ship in 2017 (HINT, HINT). 

• Hold grudges (perceived slights/injustices/hurt feelings, etc) like I hold babies, which is to say, sparingly and not long enough to require cleaning up any shit. 

• Put my money where my heart is. Be mindful of how I'm voting with my dolla dolla bills. Support causes, products and companies that align with my bleeding heart liberal values. 

• Keep my chin up. In the physical and mental sense. (Sweet bonus: Now when I do my chin-ups, Pete joins in to do some of his own. So I don't have to watch Arrow anymore because I have my very own hot shirtless chin-upping husband. And let's face it, that show is pretty terrible, aside from the epic pull-up scenes). 

Party on, 2017

Lyric of the moment: "There's a place I dream about, where the sun never goes out. And the sky is deep and blue. Won't you take me there with you? Oh, we can begin again. Shed our skin, let the sun shine in. At the edge of the ocean we can start over again..."~Ivy  "Edge of the Ocean"