adventure

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Okay, so, we’re headed back to Italy on Monday for a motorcycle ride from Rome to Sicily and that means I’m fantasizing about losing weight on gelato and getting my ass pinched by deliciously lascivious Italian men.

Wish me luck!
Ciao!
xox

We just returned from a week in Paris and my brain is addled from jet lag and partaking in too much rich food because, Paris. It feels like if churros and beignets had a baby—and then covered it in Nutella. Yeah, like that. So…

1. Plaid does not exist as a wardrobe staple outside of the US. Well, except for Scotland and kilts of course, but I’ve always considered them to be a centuries-long practical joke gone awry.

2. Whatever shoes you pack— they’re wrong. And since sneakers are like wearing a Kick me, I’m the worst kind of tourist sign on your feet, you will never be comfortable. The women there have it all figured out. Me? Not so much. Mine are either too fancy or not fancy enough — too pointy, too dated, too blistery, or too…what is the word I’m looking for here…slutty, to be taken seriously or worn with any confidence outside the U.S.

3. Whatever shoes you finally DO decide to wear will be eaten alive by the cobblestones and the street grates. Europe is a death camp for shoes. One pair of mine didn’t make it out alive—and the rest have PTSD.

4. Their local “Pharmacies” are equivalent to the best Sephora you could ever imagine! Like the flagship store in Manhattan, only it’s been condensed down into a space the size of a broom closet. Besides that, when you’re walking around they’re every few feet, like a Seven/Eleven, and the flashing neon green cross has hypnotic qualities, I swear to god. It lures me in with the promise of blister guards and laxatives, and the next thing I know I’ve spent 150 euro on some French eye cream that promises me that I will have hot-monkey-sex every night if I apply it regularly—to my eyes—let’s be clear. At least that’s what I THINK the small print says. Nevertheless, I fall for it every time.

5. The toilet paper is atrocious. It is ridiculously thin and so rough you can file down a chipped nail or take some home and use it to sand down that one bad spot on the corner of the dining room table that keeps snagging your sweaters. And don’t get me started on the size of the beds.

6. Oh, hello, as it turns out, I’m lactose intolerant in Europe. I’m just one gelato away from spending the night in the bathroom. Which comes in handy because without it—I don’t poop in Europe. It’s like the food is so clean my body doesn’t produce any waste… right, anyway, I’m as regular as rain in the States so this always surprises me…in a bloaty kind of way.

7. There is no such thing as a cold drink. Or ice. But I’ve never stopped asking! I keep waiting for our obsession with tall, cold drinks to catch on, but alas, water, wine, even beer is served at room temperature and you had better get used to it ‘cause it ain’t changin’ anytime soon.

8. The sun is wonky. In the summer it stays up waaaayy past my bedtime, and it’s pitch-dark until almost 9am in the winter. It’s fucked up! Which leads me to…

9. I never pay one lick of attention to my circadian rhythm. Ever. I live in the perpetual light-box that is LA, so mine stays regulated all-year-round. But between the weird hours of daylight, the nine-hour time difference, and the mutant jet lag—my circadian ain’t got no rhythm. It’s like the fifth Pip, the one who couldn’t dance; and no amount of sunlight, exercise, sleep, or wildly expensive, overpromising eye cream can make it better. It just takes time.

10. Speaking of time—that place is old. I mean really, really, old. The stone is ancient and worn smooth. The wood is cracked and bent like my feet, and if the walls could talk they’d tell the tales of a thousand other starry-eyed visitors who walked the streets, drank the wine, cavorted, laughed, and ate more cheese than any human has the right to eat— and they loved. You can’t help but fall in love with Europe. There’s just something about it. It might be the color of the light or the air…I think it’s in the water.

Carry on,

xox

This is a re-tooling of a post I wrote several years ago.

OMG! You guys! I have to tell you what a fucking relief it was to make this tiny tweak in my belief about what was possible for me to have in my life!

Here it is in a nutshell: No dream is impossible. There is ALWAYS a way. Some ways are risky, fast and impractical, others take time and careful planning. Many take both. 

The choice is yours.

Everyone will weigh in. Ignore them! Do what feels comfortable, scratch that, I recommend reaching just a little bit out of your comfort zone for your dreams. It makes life so much more interesting!

Take a few risks.
Pick the road less traveled.
Occasionally drink wine before noon.

As my friend, Steph Jagger would tell you “Lift your restraining device and accept the call to adventure.”

And Carry on,
xox

We’ve all been bitten by the ugly green ENVY monster, especially when other people’s fabulous lives are vomited all over social media.
“Where’s my great kitchen?  “Why aren’t I wintering in the Maldives? ” They bought another car?” “Shit, I know that jacket, that jacket costs eight grand!”

Waaaah, Waaaah, Woe is me…where’s MY stuff?

I turned this around for myself years ago and then shared my devious little plan (insert diabolical laugh here) with my husband – who has turned it into an art form.

Seriously. He should hold seminars.

When I saw someone with something I really wanted, like a ten thousand dollar handbag, or a Tuscan Villa, instead of thinking that’s impossible for me and turning into a sad sack — I’d sit down and make a plan. I enlisted the same part of my brain that talks me OUT of everything fun—to talk myself INTO making it happen.

I Could Have That If I Really Wanted It —I’d tell myself — and it’s true.

If I wanted a wildly extravagant vacation, I could sell some jewelry, cash in my 401K, borrow money, even take out a loan. I could do all those things.

IF I really, really wanted it, I could make it happen.

The same is true for almost anything you desire. You CAN have it — but it’ll cost ya.
If it’s a price you’re willing to pay, great! If not, put a picture of it on your Pinterest page and keep living your life.

Guess what? It may still show up!

A friend Alex wanted a husband. A rich husband. So she made sure she was impeccably manicured, coiffed, waxed and outfitted; ready at a moment’s notice to accept only the BEST party invitations with only the BEST men in attendance. Even though I admired her commitment, I admit I often scoffed at her strategy. It seemed shallow and wildly expensive. She would just smile at me, undeterred. Three years later Alex married a billionaire businessman she met at a diplomatic dinner party in NY.

The bottom line is this — it is a choice. YOU make the choice. It’s not impossible, it just may be impractical, there’s a difference.

Impossible = says NEVER. That deflates me. Like a pair of saggy boobs, it leaves me feeling limp and disempowered.

Impractical Practicality (a term I made up)= says MAYBE. It feels hopeful. Like a calculated risk.

Sell everything and travel around the world skiing like Steph did sounds crazy, right? Only here’s what she did to make that happen. She did careful research in order to pick the destinations, plotted and planned. She got a loan on her house (gulp), saved her ass off and drained her savings. When others, like her dad, questioned her sanity, she just smiled the same undeterred smile as Alex. She wanted it THAT bad.

Now THAT feels empowering.

I wanted to own a house which is impossible when at the age of forty you‘ve only managed to save $1.57.
But I was ready, and it was time. How am I going to make this happen?  I wondered.
I had refused to believe it was impossible, so I made a plan. It actually played out as a mix of practical and impractical. I’d have to bank every cent of my income, adhering to an austerity program that would make the rationing in communist Russia look extravagant.

I’d have to practice wildly impractical practicality for one year — to gain the impossible — and I did.

At forty years old I put all my things in storage, moved into a room at my sister’s with my two cats and saved every nickel I made. I sold watches and jewelry, silver, and anything else valuable that I had collected over the years as an antique jeweler. I also put a large chunk of what I’d saved in the stock market, for the short-term. Very risky, I know, but I made out like a bandit. Impractical you say? Yep. But I was trying to make the impossible happen.

I brainstormed and researched areas I’d like to live in, forgoing my daily Starbucks, nixing the mani-pedi’s, and living on salads made at home. I tried to borrow money at different points during the year, to expedite things and was met with a tight fist every time. That should have discouraged me but I was in so deep at that point it only strengthened my resolve.

Eventually, the perfect house, in the perfect price range, in the perfect neighborhood showed up — exactly one year later, and not a moment too soon according to my cats.

I’ve often found that if you believe the impossible is possible — the Universe provides.

Years ago, my husband was going on and on about a certain car. The car of his dreams.
“Buy it!” I said. “It’s too expensive.” he shot back, without hesitation.

“You could afford it if you sold some things, you have thousands of dollars of motorcycle crap…” he flinched as if he’d taken a punch, “It’s all just lying around, gathering dust. Sell it!”

“First of all, that stuff is NOT crap, and second of all, it wouldn’t make a dent in the price of that car.” He sounded…deflated.

“Yeah, but it’ll get the ball rolling. Put the word out that you want that car, it’s not impossible if you really want it — you’ll find the money.”

He looked at me sideways, but the next day I noticed that his screen saver was a gorgeous vanity shot of that car.
Within a year, he drove it into our driveway.
I nicknamed it The Vomit Comet. Too much car for me. I couldn’t ride in it without getting carsick. Eventually, the bloom fell off the rose and he sold it — and put that money toward the next vehicle of his dreams. He got that car and then realized — it goes too fast, you can never use all that power off a racetrack.

NEXT!  He’s got this down to a science.

NOTHING is impossible. It’s all a choice.

Carry on,

xox

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

“Is that my imagination?… Can I believe in that?… Because I don’t want to create something in my life that’s not real.”
~Me

What is “real” anyway? And what is…not real? Fantasy? Make believe. Hokey pokey? Flim-flam, paddy-wack, and Cracker Jack?

Remember me? Let me introduce myself. I’m the woman with the wild-ass imagination.

“Is that just my imagination?” I used to say that to myself at least twenty times a day. Now it’s down to maybe twice a week, and it makes me laugh every time I think it.

Where the hell do I think the things in my life are first created? Uh, somebody’s imagination…hello?…

My iPhone was the brainchild of Mr. Jobs.

My relationship with my husband started in my imagination and then became more tangible with a list I made of suitable qualities for the man of my dreams.

My house was the bright idea of some developer way back in 1936 when the nearby studios decided they needed housing for all of the workers in the growing movie industry.

The design of my car probably woke some German guy up in the middle of the night who was tasked with thinking up an elegant station wagon design. Well done, Gunnar!

Germs were an unfathomable idea just before the turn of the 20th century. Imagine. Invisible living organisms that can invade your body and make you sick. Well, that’s right out of science fiction!
Who’s sick and twisted imagination thought of THAT?

And what about science fiction? Our present existence would look like something out of science fiction to someone from a century ago. Bluetooth? WiFi? Electric cars? Microwave ovens? Smart phones and personal computers! Oh my!

All of those started in some smart person’s imagination. Because that’s what smart people daydream about. Life changing smart stuff.

Me? I use my imagination to scare myself to death on a regular basis.
Most always at three in the morning. I can vividly imagine and talk my rattled, sleep deprived little mind into a myriad of catastrophes that make me sweaty and weepy. My hall-of-famers are; a motorcycle crash either with me on the back or without, an Armageddon type unavoidable meteor strike, a Trump presidency, or publically failing at something that means the world to me…while naked.

Those become so real in my imagination that I never even bother to step back and question them. They become my virtual reality. Because here comes the science: Your body doesn’t know if it’s real or imagined. What?

But what about all the good stuff? Writing a script? Big money? Wild success? A movie??
Oh, don’t tease me you rascally imagination! Could those things really happen? Are those real?

What a ding-dong I can be! Honestly! If I played you guys the dialogue in my head you’d laugh your asses off it’s so ridiculous…but…wait a minute…I’d venture to guess, so is yours!

What are you unwilling to believe because it seems too good to be true? Why can’t the really good stuff, the far-reaching stirrings that lie deep inside our hearts come true? Why do we poo-poo those? Why aren’t those REAL?

They can be. All we have to do is believe in them as much as we do those awful scenarios that keep us awake at night.

Someone once said: If you can imagine it—you’re most of the way there.

You’ll be happy to know—I’m on this! I’m working on it day and night. I’ve decided to unleash my imagination and let it run rampant (only in a good way) with my life. I’m thinking of keeping a journal about my journey into this new radical reality because I have it on good authority that this next stretch is about to get super juicy!

Wanna come with me?

Carry on,
xox

So… here I go again, back to the land of a thousand mosquito bites, unlimited guacamole, and full body rashes.

My destination is a writing retreat (which my husband is referring to as the seven-day long  “girls night out”), and my intention is to work on my screenplay, which is a comedy—about death (because death is fucking hilarious).

As luck or fate or whatever runs the works behind the scenes would have it — the timing is perfect, and I am giddy excited.

I will always marvel at how perfect the timing is when your collaborator is a disembodied dynamo who isn’t subject to the limitations of space and time.

Nevertheless, I’ve been informed that the internet is sketchy at best, so starting Tuesday, for a week, the posts will be…reprises. (I just hit the deck because my brother just chucked his laptop across the room from 1500 miles away! He is one of a group of you that has been kind enough to let me know that you despise reprises).

I’m flattered and scared to death of you, all at the same time.

Anyhow…I’ve got to do it this way so; there will be some that I liked, some that you guys liked, and a couple that no one liked because I like to give those posts the chance of a new life.
Here’s how it’ll work:
Read ‘um, don’t read ‘um, (Jim).

Catch up. There’s probably a few that you’ve missed.

Browse around the page, there are over 1,000 posts, come on, you can’t remember them ALL!

If you’re new, welcome! Have fun, get to know me, and when I come back I’m sure they’ll be no shutting me up.

If you’re like my brother and you’re thoroughly disgusted, go make yourself a sandwich and check back here on February 2nd for what I’m sure will be the start of some crazy-ass stories of my adventure in screenwriter-ville

Love you guys & Carry on,
xox

“If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.”
― Criss Jami

Things that never happened because I didn’t have the guts.
The list is long. Like longer than Taylor Swift’s legs long.

How do I know for sure what could have happened?
I don’t. But my regret does.
I’m sure you know what I mean.

My regret is an artist who paints with broad strokes. Large, majestic scenery, filled with full-color landscapes of stories that never happened.

It also is a master in the art of persuasion.

Those stories look spectacular.
They seem amazing.
They are fucking fairy tales.

In these scenarios, my gutless self is replaced by another person. Someone who is risk averse; the acrobatic chance taker/failure dodger. For instance:

I’m a Broadway actress with a shelf crowded with Tony awards.

I’m a rock star, or the wife of a rock star (take your pick), who continues to tour and performs to sold-out crowds.

I’m a mother. Twin boys and a girl.

I’m an entrepreneur who shattered the glass ceiling and owns six companies that are all publicly traded.

I’m a seasoned lecturer and public speaker.

I’m someone who looks refreshed and rested, at least ten years younger (but whose wallet is twenty-five thousand dollars lighter.)

I’m the winner of Dancing With The Stars, The Voice, the Apprentice, and Jeopardy (the celebrity edition).

I’m a mentor on America’s Top Model after having my face grace more magazine covers than any other living human being.

I am resting on my laurels.

~OR HOW ABOUT~

I’m an aging hippie who lives off the land up in Oregon.

I’m an aging New Ager who lives off tips in Hawaii.

I’m the aging owner of a brothel somewhere tolerant of that sort of thing.

I’m busking on the corners of Santa Cruz.

I’m the ex-wife of seven men.

I’m someone who never married, looks thirty-five and owns dozens of Siamese cats.

I’m living in a Villa in Italy after cashing out, buying a one-way ticket, and hooking up with a guy named Paulo.

I have photo albums filled with pictures of me bungee jumping, sky diving and formula one racing, climbing Mt. Everest, Deep sea diving and waving my certificate that states I am the top of my class in NASA astronaut training school.

I’ve changed my name to Solange.

After surveying this list. The list that was supposed to summon that pit in my stomach. You know, the one that makes you feel bad about yourself and feeds regret?

Instead I had an epiphany.

What if those things didn’t happen not so much because of a guts deficit — but due to a keen sense of the obvious as far as knowing what I was capable of — an inkling of my life’s trajectory — a ginormous helping of common sense?

Ha! Take that regret!

P.S. I HAVE done many things in my life that required a shit-ton of guts, and so have YOU—but THAT my friends, is a list for another day.

Got any regrets?

Carry On,
xox

Myths and archetypes. They have always fascinated me.

The Hero’s Journey.

Liz Gilbert and Oprah talked this week on Super Soul Sunday, about the calling that everyone (yes everyone) gets to embark on their own Hero’s journey, and how women have no female role models to emulate.

Through the ages, the Hero’s have all been men; leaving us women home, waiting, keeping the home fires burning, and having the babies; so you can imagine, that leaves us no female hero’s for us to follow..
Think Luke Skywalker, Odysseus, Harry Potter.

I feel that less and less. the older I get. I know brave, dynamic woman who are on their own Hero’s Journey. I know I’m in the midst of mine. You could say I’m a late bloomer.
I stayed in REFUSAL OF THE CALL for twenty years, lost in the game, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
I’d say I’m in the thick of it right now, TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES (see list below.)
I’d better get cracking’

I think that we are starting to see heroic female role models on the bigger stage; I’m thinking Malala Yousafzai in real life, and Katniss Everdeen in literature and on the big screen.

Inside popular culture, we can document our paths for the girls and women who follow, so that we leave a legacy behind for them: The Heroine’s Journey.

The Hero’s Journey Outline
The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.

Its stages are:
1. THE ORDINARY WORLD. The hero, uneasy, uncomfortable or unaware, is introduced sympathetically so the audience can identify with the situation or dilemma. The hero is shown against a background of environment, heredity, and personal history. Some kind of polarity in the hero’s life is pulling in different directions and causing stress.

1. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. Something shakes up the situation, either from external pressures or from something rising up from deep within, so the hero must face the beginnings of change.

2. REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The hero feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure, however briefly. Alternately, another character may express the uncertainty and danger ahead.

3. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. The hero comes across a seasoned traveler of the worlds who gives him or her training, equipment, or advice that will help on the journey. Or the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom.

4. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. At the end of Act One, the hero commits to leaving the Ordinary World and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.

5. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. The hero is tested and sorts out allegiances in the Special World.

6. APPROACH. The hero and newfound allies prepare for the major challenge in the Special world.

7. THE ORDEAL. Near the middle of the story, the hero enters a central space in the Special World and confronts death or faces his or her greatest fear. Out of the moment of death comes a new life.

8. THE REWARD. The hero takes possession of the treasure won by facing death. There may be celebration, but there is also danger of losing the treasure again.

9. THE ROAD BACK. About three-fourths of the way through the story, the hero is driven to complete the adventure, leaving the Special World to be sure the treasure is brought home. Often a chase scene signals the urgency and danger of the mission.

10. THE RESURRECTION. At the climax, the hero is severely tested once more on the threshold of home. He or she is purified by a last sacrifice, another moment of death and rebirth, but on a higher and more complete level. By the hero’s action, the polarities that were in conflict at the beginning are finally resolved.

11. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. The hero returns home or continues the journey, bearing some element of the treasure that has the power to transform the world as the hero has been transformed.

What do you think? Does this resonate? Ladies, where are you in your journey, right now?

xox

I wish I could explain this life, this crazy world; to us all.

If I could, I would be the opening speaker at Stephen Hawking lectures, with an intellectually rich, but exasperatingly hard to follow Ted Talk. I would be rocking a tan corduroy jacket with elbow patches, an impossibly dated comb over…and I wouldn’t have time to write this blog. 

I wish I could schedule a breakout, breakthrough, or break up like I schedule my appointments to get my hair this incredibly natural shade of bley (blondish-grey).

It would really make things so much easier to be able to count on a pimply weekend or see your bat-shit crazy attack penciled in for a week from Friday.
I appreciate dependability; like daylight savings time, or how I remember my period being – from days of yore.

I wish things made sense.
Like nice people always finishing first and prayers being answered in the order they are received. I wish that anything that tasted good or was fun, like donuts, bacon, drinking wine and smoking; were good for us.

I appreciate challenge and adversity, I really do.
I get that they lead to change and growth and general growing up. I would just like to go on record, insisting that there should be a quota per lifetime, and once that has been fulfilled, that shit,
Has. Got. To. Stop.

No recurrences of cancer, or anything heinous for that matter.
One painful divorce, miscarriage, job loss – and that is that.

My husband had menengitis. He should never have to suffer with a headache or the common cold ever again.

One almost deadly car accident, ski accident, motorcycle accident or choking on a peanut and your lifetime bullshit accident quota should be fulfilled.

I suppose we are required to pick from the “Menu of Happenstance” before we embark on this wild adventure, and are eyes are too big for what we can actually stomach; when we’re on the other side, filled with grace.

I like to think that from that vantage point all this hub bub looks easy.
Like fun even. An adventure. In the cosmic scheme of things, over in the blink of an eye.

That’s why we come.

When you think of it that way…things aren’t so bad.
Love,love,
Xox

For your listening pleasure 😉
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/thats-why-we-come

Once upon a time, angels descended onto a beautiful planet to play in physical form.

That planet was Earth.

Trouble was, as gorgeous as this place could be, it presented a certain kind of unexpected danger to these playful angels.
They were so used to being non-corporal, that they made unwise choices, tons of them, in the thrill of the moment, which led to hurting or actually destroying their bodies.

Shit, I hate when that happens.

So a call went out and a brilliant plan was devised
.
This plan involved enabling an aspect that would accompany the angels into the physical.
It would relate so completely to the body that it would protect it at all costs.
For all it knew, it was ONLY the body; it couldn’t remember that it had ever been an angel.

Like an unseen bodyguard, it did a really admirable job.
Angels stopped jumping off cliffs without bungee cords and breathing underwater. They developed concern for the wellbeing of their vessel.

This invisible bodyguard is called the EGO. Its operating principal is fear.

Fear is what keeps us alive.
Useful, I would say; one hell of a plan.

To a point.

After awhile, tens of thousand of years to be exact, the beloved EGO started to feel the effects of emotional pain in the body as well.

To the EGO pain is pain, so, like any good bodyguard, the EGO triggered fear of this pain, so it could be avoided at all costs.

Skip to the present, and these angel’s adventuresome, joyful and playful spirits have been hijacked by the EGO.

You can’t blame the guy, he’s programmed to keep us alive and block us from any pain, but in the process, as our bodyguard, he has stepped out in front of, and blocked so much joy. All because it looked like it was attached to some potentially dangerous feelings.

The moral of the tale is this:
The Ego is NOT your amigo.

Do NOT make the EGO your wingman. He gives shitty advise.

He is your bodyguard, not your friend. And as such, he views every situation through the lens of the ever vigilant secret service agent of your life, scanning each situation for threats.

Life, love, it all looks dangerous….to him.

He’s not a bad guy, he’s just doing his job, keeping us away from ANY and ALL pain.
His job description, from the beginning was to keep us alive, but what kind of life is it when we have become imprisoned by him……through fear. 

Now that you know the story, put him back in his place, tell him to lighten up, drop the earpiece and dark glasses and let you live your big, bold, beautiful life.
Give him some vacation time, a day off.

If you get hurt in his absence…..so be it, at least you’re having some fun.

Wasn’t that the point?

Did this change your perception of the Ego? Even just a little bit? Do you believe in fairy tales?
Have a great weekend!
Much love,
Xox

This is one of the beautiful, heroic, woman from our Wednesday Women’s group, about to embark on a long awaited adventure.

She’s showing me her “Maya” heart stone.
One side says: “What would Maya do?” And the other side says: I Am enough, which is a favorite Maya Angelou quote.

I made sure she had that heart stone to take along with her on her trip, to remind her that she is loved.

She is a perfect representation of the power of women.
She is exactly why I started the group. She has gathered her strength and courage as we watched, and we held the place for her.

Now look, there’s no stopping her!!

Love that! Love her!

Who’s next?
Do you have a challenge you want to overcome?
Want a Maya stone? Let me know.

Xox