lessons

This is dedicated to my rebels. You know who you are. xox

“You can just stop with the damn smoke blowing thing!”
Me ~ to my Shaman.

I once had a shaman. I highly recommend it. 

Mine appeared out of nowhere, like a questionable smell, and actually moved in with me back in the winter of 1993.
With his bald head, Australian accent, and wild, Rasputian eyes, I call him my “pocket shaman” since he was barely shoulder height — and for just shy of a year he literally went everywhere with me. 

If I want to sleep at night I don’t think about that time of my life. The memories remain dark, murky, and mysterious. Definitely NOT a place that’s safe to go without a weapon…or a guide…or as fate would have it—a shaman. 

My friend Mel posted this “Promise of a Shaman” on her Facebook page the other day. I wish I knew who wrote it because I can tell they’ve lived it. Their words bringing every detail of our little dance alllll back to me…

The rituals. 
My fear.
His refusal to meet me in my fear.
My rage at that.
His indifference to my rage.
The energy work that I initially scoffed at and then later counted on to save me.

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that he saved me, my pocket shaman. He saved my sanity—and in turn, he saved my life.

“Be careful what you wish for,” they say. Up until that point I’d never listened to “them” anyway—and I wasn’t about to start.

I was a thirty-five-year-old seeker who’d been seeking since she was seventeen, and was beyond ready to end her seeking and find her enlightenment already! 
I wished to know all the secrets of the universe. To have them revealed to me so that I alone could understand them.

“Be careful what you wish for,” my pocket shaman admonished as he sat in front of me with eyes the size of salad plates, seriously questioning the direct, solo route I’d chosen to take. It was not working out well for me. Yet I persisted. He was in favor of a more circuitous path; one that came with rest stops, snacks, and water—in other words—a lot of help along the way.

“Fuck that shit!” I ‘m done waiting! I want it now! I’m in a hurry! I argued.

Then I lost my mind.

Sacred texts suggest that when undertaking the path to enlightenment, it would be wise to apprentice for like a thousand years while following the sage advice of a master, guide, or guru.  They say that for a reason, the most obvious one being that the edges of the path are littered with the bones of those who’ve tried to “go it alone”.  And if you don’t die, you are doomed to wander the streets of LA or some other place you no longer recognize, barefoot and afraid, babbling incoherently about “going fast, going solo.” 

Trust me. I was almost there. Luckily for me, a shaman showed up. 

I say thank you to whoever sent him my way. He was exactly what I never knew I needed. 

I also say thank you for the experience we went through together. It was most definitely a battle, and he will forever be my primary overseer and James Bond-level-super-duper-gizmo-in-the-toolbox-fighter-of-the-dark-arts-foxhole-buddy.

And even though it took me twenty years to get here I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank you to the universe for scaring the living bejesus out of me, beating me up every which way imaginable—and some you cannot; and for scrambling my brain, rewiring my nervous system, and then spitting me out on the other side with a cadre of “lovely parting gifts”—that took me two decades to discover. 

And I say thank you to myself, for being brave enough back then to even make the journey. 

So, what is the moral of this story you ask?

That in some instances, good things come in small packages and everybody loves a shaman?

That, in the case of chasing spiritual enlightenment, you’d better put a team together because you are quite LITERALLY playing with fire?

That “they” are right when “they” say, be careful what you wish for because you just may get it—and then have no fucking idea what the hell to do with “it”? —OR—that we don’t say “thank you” nearly enough to that part of ourselves that offers acts of audacious mercy, like conjuring shamans out of thin air at times when we barely have the wherewithal to remember our own names—and that the access code for said mercy should be on page one of the Being Human Handbook?

Hmmmmmm….That’s a hard one. I’ll let you guys decide.

Carry on,
xox

The Promise of a Shaman

If you come to me as a victim I will not support you.

But I will have the courage to walk with you through the pain that you are suffering.

I will put you in the fire, I will undress you, and I will sit you on the earth.
I will bathe you with herbs, I will purge you, and you will vomit the rage and the darkness inside you.
I’ll bang your body with good herbs, and I’ll put you to lay in the grass, face up to the sky.
Then I will blow your crown to clean the old memories that make you repeat the same behavior.

I will blow your forehead to scare away the thoughts that cloud your vision.
I will blow your throat to release the knot that won’t let you talk.
I will blow your heart to scare fear so that it goes far away, where it cannot find you.
I will blow your solar plexus to extinguish the fire of the hell you carry inside, and you will know peace.
I will blow with fire your belly to burn the attachments and the love that was not.
I will blow away the lovers that left you, the children that never came.
I will blow your heart to make you warm, to rekindle your desire to feel, create and start again.
I will blow with force your vagina or your penis, to clean the sexual door to your soul.
I will blow away the garbage that you collected trying to love what did not want to be loved.
I will use the broom, and the sponge, and the rag, and safely clean all the bitterness inside you.
I will blow your hands to destroy the ties that prevent you from creating.
I will blow your feet to dust and erase the footprints memories, so you can never return to that bad place.
I will turn your body, so your face will kiss the earth.
I’ll blow your spine from the root to the neck to increase your strength and help you walk upright.

And I will let you rest.

After this you will cry, and after crying you will sleep, 

And you will dream beautiful and meaningful dreams, 

and when you wake up I’ll be waiting for you.

I will smile at you, and you will smile back

I will offer you food that you will eat with pleasure, tasting life, and I will thank you.

Because what I’m offering today, was offered to me before when darkness lived within me.

And after I was healed, I felt the darkness leaving, and I cried.

Then we will walk together, and I will show you my garden, and my plants, and I will take you to the fire again.

And will talk together in a single voice with the blessing of the earth.

And we will shout to the forest the desires of your heart.

And the fire will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the mountains will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the rivers will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the wind will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And then we will bow before the fire, and we will call upon all the visible and invisible guardians.

And you will say thank you to all of them.

And you will say thank you to yourself.

And you will say thank you to yourself. 

And you will say thank you to yourself.

~Author unknown

This is a new Shots of Awe where Jason rants on risk, creativity and failure.

Most people shy away from ranting on failure but I happen to believe, like my buddy Jason here, that it’s extremely rant worthy.

A while back I even wrote failure a love letter.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/my-love-letter-to-failure_b_8198096.html

I wrote it because I truly believe that failure has taught me SO much more than success—and sometimes late at night, after a glass of wine or four, I write love letters that are really only rants on paper.
I do.
Look for yours in the mail.

Carry on,
xox

This is a reprise from one year ago but I consider love letters an integral part of any gratitude storm…maybe you’ll agree. So, here ya go!
xox

Hi you guys!
Here is this week’s Huffington Post essay. It has to do with failing BIG and making peace with it.
So much so that I sat down and wrote it a love letter:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/my-love-letter-to-failure_b_8198096.html

If you know anyone going through a hard time right now who could use this, I’d love it if you’d share.
Carry on,
xox

My dearest, darling Failure,

You don’t mind if I call you by that name, do you?

I’m well aware that it’s much more politically correct to refer to you on your visits as re-direction, contrast, disappointment and a shit storm blah, blah, blah.

But when the shit hits the fan, when careers crash and burn, when marriages end badly; when we get fired, sued, or otherwise fucked over — when the things we hold dearest in our lives fracture and give way under the stress — sweetheart, it’s YOUR face we all see at the scene of the crime.

I know, I hear you when you complain that you are greatly under-appreciated but let me be clear — no one wants you around!

That being said, as I’ve come to know you better over the past few years, well, I have to admit– I’ve fallen for you…hard.

I don’t mean to sugar coat things, but you came into my life with the face of my foe and you have become my friend.

You shook things up for me BIG TIME. You took my tiny Etch-A-Sketch of a life, with all of its perfectly drawn straight lines, and you hurled it into an F5 tornado.

But I love you for that, ya big lug.

Just uttering your name, Failure, can set a person’s teeth on edge, but please don’t take it personally. I’ll give it to you straight. The reason you’re not welcome in our lives is because we’re all terrified that when you show up you’ll get comfortable, and never leave.

But truth be told, you are just as fleeting as success, THAT you’ve taught me.

When you are standing next to me knee-deep in the rubble of my life, you know what I do the next day? I get up and put one foot in front of the other, each step moving me forward.

You know what I do the days Success holds my hand? I get up, put one foot in front of the other and move forward with my life.

Success has its value — don’t get me wrong — but you Failure, your lessons have marked me more deeply and profoundly than I could have ever imagined and I love you for that.

Success never caused me to grow, gave me depth nor made me an internally richer person.

But by God, you have Failure.

Success made me lazy, afraid to try new things and take chances.

You gave me a glimpse of my true nature.

You have delivered to me some of my most agonizing moments but they have transformed me.

You made me better. Better in business; better in life. A better friend, sister, and wife.

Damn it, I love you man.

We all go to extraordinary lengths to avoid you–I know I did–but I realize now that was a mistake.

It’s like trying to avoid aging, which is a similar double-edged sword and just as futile.
There are as many benefits to be gained from failure as there are from growing old, and BOTH are a privilege.

I truly love you Failure.
If you had not come into my life when you did, I would not be the person I am today.

Big hug and a sloppy kiss,
xox
Janet

So…I’m back on the killer hill. Hiking. Or otherwise known as taking my life in my hands to walk on dirt, uphill, in black stretch pants at 8 am for no good reason.

I’m still fucking around with my little WiFi experiment, but interestingly enough, the signal has been uncooperative since those two miraculous days last week when all the stars aligned to give me my NPR.

But I’m still at it. My middle name is tenacious. Janet Tenacious Bertolus.

There may have been some begging even though I know that begging is the surest way to silence.

Through the years, I’ve been told by pretty reliable sources that The Universe doesn’t keep score, or prioritize, and I know for a fact that The Universe can’t be bothered with begging.

Asking? Sure. Prayers? Absolutely! Begging? Not so much.

Especially begging for something as ridiculous as WiFi to distract from the excruciating “discomfort” I put myself through trudging up that freakin’ hill every morning.
It sticks its fingers into its ears and LA, LA, La’s until I stop.

Anyway…no begging this morning, just resigned acceptance when the signal cuts out.
Shit.
Then I laughed because it’s getting funny.
Not.

Have I mentioned what an opportunist the Universe can be? Oh, yeah.
Just at the point where I am my most vulnerable; hands on my hips, bent into the hill, drenched in sweat and gasping for air like a sherpa about to summit Everest; the WiFi kicks in and Abraham on YouTube comes back on.

The Universe decides that this is the perfect time for a teaching moment.

I am elated.
This will help me summit my own humiliating, Studio City version of Everest. Except for one thing. I’ve already listened to this part. It didn’t pick up where it left off, it went all the way back to the beginning. Back to what I’ve already heard for the last forty minutes.
Shit.
A mild wave of disappointment washes over me as the smile leaves my face.

Immediately the signal cuts out. Silence returns.

Awwww come on! I actually shout out loud. What the hell?!

I stop and fiddle with my phone for a minute. Nope. Nothing. It’s no use. Resignation sets back in as I pull up my big girl stretch pants and soldier on.

It’s then that the Universe decides to give a lecture series entitled: Split Energy (Will Fuck You Every Time).

‘You split your energy. You do it all the time and you needed to see an example of how it can stop the momentum of a desire in it’s tracks.’

Clarify please, I barely have enough oxygen to keep me upright let alone understand what the hell you’re trying to tell me.

‘You desired WiFi. We gave you WiFi. And may we point out, in a place where WiFi doesn’t exist, so there’s that…’

I know! And I was so happy about that!

‘For a minute. Not even. Then you were disappointed by the specifics. That’s split energy and it will stall a desire faster than anything else.’

‘So what should I have done?’

‘You can’t stay grateful for a miracle for like five minutes?…What do we always say?’

‘I don’t know…be kind to others and don’t say fuck so much?’

‘Besides that. We remind you that disappointment is taking score too soon. When you ask for something and it arrives, don’t say, Oh, not THAT! it seems ungrateful and it hurts our feelings. Wait awhile before you take score.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Of course, we are! We’re the Universe! Whatever we deliver to you is ALWAYS perfect.’

Always?
Always.
What if…
Always.
What about that…
Always.
But…
What part of ALWAYS are you not understanding?

Point taken.

‘I’m at the parking lot and I have to pee so arrivederci and thanks for the chat.’

Listen you guys, who among us hasn’t questioned a wish fulfilled because it didn’t look exactly like we expected it to look?
We’ve gotta cut that out. Me included.

Carry on,
xox

This is a Flashback from a couple of years ago that I was telling a friend about just the other day. Her husband has to fly up to the Bay area in a couple of weeks for a mediation on a lawsuit that is one of the bat-shit craziest wastes of time you could ever imagine. I can SO relate and it’s easier for me to repost this than to tell them the story—and I figure maybe a few of you might need to read this too.
Big love to HT & CT.

Carry on,
xox

“Anger is just Sad’s bodyguard… and Shame’s too, I think.”

Someone tell me, how come the crazy ones never lose any sleep?
Is it their complete lack of a conscience that causes them to appear so slick, smug and impossibly fresh?

Not a hair out-of-place.
Barely a hint of the devil that lies within.

While those of us that possess a moral compass and have the misfortune to find ourselves in their orbit are sleep deprived, disheveled, walking disasters.

That will always bother me.

The fact that people who operate outside the constructs of polite society close their eyes at night and sleep the uninterrupted, peaceful sleep of the just.

Why is that?
How can it be?

The night before an arbitration with the attorneys for DWP to discuss the fact that their one-hundred-year-old water main had burst and turned my store into an aquarium; I tossed and turned until the sheets were knotted up around my head and neck, fashioned into an unattractive turban/noose—and I ground my teeth down to nubs. Which left me the next morning gumming my toast, with a foggy brain and pronounced sheet marks on my face that didn’t fade until after lunch.

The team of He, She and It, that represented the water company, entered the room that morning laughing.
Uproariously.
Like they’d all participated in a hilarious episode of Carpool Karaoke on their way to work.

I felt at a distinct disadvantage. Out of the loop, like the punchline to the funniest joke ever told was lost on me. Was that their plan?

They were meticulously coiffed and groomed, cool as the proverbial cucumbers, while I was drenched in flop sweat, permanently wrinkled and frantically struggling to remove a poppy-seed from between my two front teeth with my tongue.

Note to self: Don’t accept half a poppy-seed bagel when you’re out of coffee. And you forgot your water.
You’re going to need something to rinse your mouth with when the big guns enter the room.

If I’d had more sleep I would have remembered that.

They all seemed so nice, so genuinely happy to meet me; that is until the bell rang and we went to our respective corners. Then the gloves came off and the crazy started to show.

They made shit up. Their entire alibi was jack-crap.
With graphs, documents and flow charts. Listen, if you show me a flow chart, I’ll believe anything…almost.
Somehow they double teamed my attorney and me. In the most well crafted, legal babbly, thinly veiled insulting way, they pinned the whole thing on me.
ME!
They made the accidental, midnight break of their water main seem like MY fault.

Business was slow, debt was high, it was 2009, and I need out—only I was too stupid to commit arson.

Seems bat-shit crazy, right?

When we broke for lunch even I wanted to throw the book at me.
The picture they painted of me was that of a sad-sack, loser of a business woman. Which was exactly how I felt at the time. I think my lawyer drank the Kool-Aid too—they were that convincing. She wouldn’t make eye contact, skulking in the corner on her phone, and then disappearing for the entire lunch break.

But you wanna know what trumps sleep deprivation? Rage. That’s what.
It also instantly removes sheet marks from your face.

It also overrides all shame and victim-hood.

Crazy and Rage are curious dance partners and they should never be left alone in a room together.
Let me tell you why. Crazy is so put together, so charming, pretty, and unflappable. Crazy looooooves a victim, she gets off on them, they get her panties wet.

Rage is no victim, he’s a gangster. He’s raw, he’s greasy and he talks real dirty. He wears a wife beater t-shirt and too much Aramis; and he has only one thing in his crosshairs—Crazy.

Crazy gets high on Rage and it quickly becomes a street-brawl.

But Rage is better than Sad, which is where I’d pitched my tent for eighteen months. Some say you can get caught in anger and never feel despair. The opposite had been true for me.
Sad victimhood covered in shame is like chum in the water to Crazy.

So Rage felt better. It felt…empowering. Sadness felt like quick-sand—Rage, like solid ground.

It got my attention and cleared my vision, so I could finally see the truth and it kicked Sad’s ass to the curb.

I locked myself in a public bathroom stall kicking, screaming, and raging for nearly an hour before taking a walk around the building to help me come to my senses—and find my courage.

I knew my opponent. I was very familiar with Crazy.
You see, I had met her as a teenager in the form of my father’s second wife. I had witnessed her devouring her victims and I was smart enough to remember that Rage threw her into a sort of drunken feeding frenzy.

I also remembered that nothing can get to Crazy. Nothing touches their heart. There is no reasoning with Crazy. There is no sympathy, empathy or compassion and absolutely nothing is open for discussion.

They act as your judge, jury, and executioner.

And the more they sense is at stake; the faster and louder the accusations come. Their aim is to keep you off-balance, on the ropes.

Remember they are rested, ready and strong after their peaceful night’s sleep.

How is that fair?
Because they get a buzz off this shit and they don’t care about anything other than winning. So it’s not.

I sure wasn’t feeling sad anymore, Rage had hatched a plan but I knew better than to let it enter that room. I waited outside the double doors of the conference room until I saw my attorney exit the elevator. I could hear the team of Crazy, Crazier, and Craziest, whopping it up inside.

“You handle this, I’m leaving” I announced. I had her by the arm and was walking her back down a long hallway of endless doors, out of earshot of the hyenas.

“What?” she asked, looking surprised.

“You don’t need me here. They can smell my fear and sadness, and well, their offer is beyond ridiculous. See what happens when they can’t focus on me. When they have to deal with you and only the facts.”  We had walked in a circle making our way back toward the bank of elevators.

“Give me a number you’ll you settle at”, she asked as she reached into her bag for paper and a pen. She actually seemed relieved, like the day could be salvaged. Like it could go back to a language she understood—the law.

I wrote a figure down. She looked and nodded in agreement, folding the paper into a small square and tucking into her suit-jacket pocket.

The elevator chimed, opening right on cue. People were packed in like sardines, but as I stepped inside she grabbed my purse strap, making me turn around. “This could end today”, she said with a hint of a smile, letting me go as the doors slowly closed.

A hairy mystery hand reached around me and pushed the button for LOBBY, getting me the hell out of that DWP building. I know it was Rage. I could smell his Aramis. But I made sure I left him behind, losing him in the crowd.

*I got the call a couple of hours later that they’d settled on the figure I’d written down. “Piece of cake”, I remember her saying in a distracted voice; she was already on to her next case.

We all slept well that night.

I know some of you guys needed to hear this,
Carry on,
xox

I lost something very important to me last week. I squirmed. I obsessed. I bargained with God. The very minute I stopped caring…it came back to me.

Pass it along…
xox

After reading my post the other day about our majestic ash tree,
http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2016/05/earthquakes-rings-and-singing-ash-trees/
many of you asked me to reprise this essay about that very same tree—and his pal JAWT—who we murdered.
And just so you know, a year later finds Ash thriving as is our garden with all of the newly available sunshine (my bougainvillea has never looked more beautiful).
Yet…RIP, ‘Just A Weed Tree’, know that you are missed.
Carry on,
xox

We are all connected.
And not just by the proximity and outreach that is available to us via our devices.

It goes way beyond that.

I believe that everything is alive and has a spirit.

There is another web active in our lives besides that World Wide one. It is a web of life, of energy that connects everything and everyone on this earth.

We are all interconnected and anything that suggests the belief that we are separate is an illusion.

Nature is the supreme example of this web of interconnection. The bees need the flowers. The flowers need the bees to bloom.

And I fucked up and cut down a tree in our front yard, apparently upsetting the delicate balance of nature throughout the world, or at least Los Angeles, California.

We are the custodians of a one hundred and fifty-year-old ash tree. And he is our giant, grounded guardian.

Of that I am sure.

I remember a psychic predicting that I would live in a tree house one day, (which at the time seemed absurd), but when I purchased this house a few years later my friends all remarked “I see you got a little house with your tree.”

It is massive, one of the largest trees in Studio City and we are so blessed to live under its majestic canopy, feeling its energy, enjoying its shade.

On the curb, just adjacent to Ash (we’ll call him Ash) was a nondescript tree-thingy.
The arborist that came to the house ten years ago during our remodel educated us, telling us all about Ash, and when asked he informed me that the other tree wasn’t any species that he was familiar with.

“It’s just a weed that someone let grow into a tree a long time ago” he told us.

Just A Weed Tree was a lot of trouble.
His canopy was dense and…ugly, even after the annual haircut we gave him, not light and airy like Ash’s.
He cast too much shade for anything to flourish and the birds loved to congregate inside that dense, dark green foliage and shit all over our cars.

He had the bad attitude of an overgrown weed. He was pushy. And greedy, lifting the sidewalk, and getting into our pipes on a regular basis.

Just A Weed Tree always appeared to be crowding Ash, vying for light; and in the severe drought that we’ve found ourselves under, I feared he was chugalugging at the water table—and I knew Ash was too polite to say anything.

I LOVE trees, I do, ask anyone. I absolutely adore Ash, but I was not fond of JAWT.
He wasn’t a tree. He was a garden variety pest.

So this past Saturday our gardener cut him down. It took two guys and they were fast and thorough, even grinding the stump.

We both forgot that it was happening that day so when we got home the whole look and energy of the front yard had changed dramatically.

There was no sign that Just A Weed Tree had ever been there. But you could feel a HUGE void.
That weed had a presence.

FUCK.

We both stood at the curb, “Wow” was all we could say.

Now you could really see the front our house, there was the added sunlight in our yard that I had craved (for the plants) and with JAWT gone you could fully grasp the wonder of Ash.

“It looks like they trimmed the big tree too,” my husband remarked as I went around picking up leaves still on their branches.
It appeared as if they had been cleanly cut and they were EVERYWHERE.

Except they hadn’t been cut. They had been dropped.
I’d never seen anything like it. They covered the entire front yard, the driveway and even parts of the roof. In the fall, Ash drops single, dead, brown leaves, never bright green leaves still on their small branches.
What was up?

My arms were full, carrying the leaves to piles I had made on the driveway
And it suddenly occurred to me: Ash was showing his shock and disapproval at the death of his friend Just A Weed Tree.

I walked over to him, closed my eyes and rested my hand on the rough bark of his truck—and I could feel his stress and despair.

Oh Fuck.

First of all, I had always felt Ash was a female. Wrong. He has a very pronounced masculine energy.
And he was pissed. And under extreme stress.
Apparently the high pitched whine of a chainsaw has the same visceral effect on trees as a dental drill has on humans (yeah, okay, got it) plus he had known JAWT for over sixty years since he was just a tiny little weed that had somehow been spared. They were buddies.

I could feel his despair and it felt awful. I should have known better. Trees do have feelings and I had callously overlooked that fact.

We had basically murdered his friend right in front of him.

FUCK.

We are all interconnected, residents of this web of life and I needed Ash to know that I could feel his anguish, so I stood with both hands and my forehead on his trunk, apologizing and conveying our sincerest condolences for the loss of JAWT. I also explained the water situation and the fact that his health and stability were of the utmost importance to us. Then I played to his vanity telling him over and over how gorgeous (handsome) we think he is.
“You Mister, are the star of this neighborhood.” I think he was flattered.

Raphael watched from a distance, he could sense what was going on, and he added his sympathies from there. “I hope he’ll be okay,” he said with genuine concern, gazing at the piles of leaves.

“Now that he understands and knows how sorry we are—he’ll be fine.” I replied.

And he is. After our little talk…he never dropped another leaf.

Carry on,
xox

Two weeks ago I mailed my brother in Arkansas a birthday card.
That is unremarkable except for the fact that I may have forgotten to address it. Which these days is not that surprising. Recently, I have gargled with body wash, left my purse in my unlocked car overnight and put my phone in the fridge.

I got a text of the picture above on Tuesday, so two weeks after mailing it, with the caption: WTF?

From my brother, the most sceptical of sceptics. Here was this brainiac, computer nerd, prove-it-to-me kinda guy holding a blank envelope in his hand, asking me to explain how in the holy hell it had made its way to not only the state of Arkansas — but to his office?

Remember that thing I said about magic? How if you have it in one aspect of your life it bleeds into the other places. Magic doesn’t know boundaries. I love that about magic. It starts showing its face EVERYWHERE.

So, you think that’s pretty cool right? It looks like the card got wet and no trace of the address was left, OR a distracted sister forgot to address the thing and it still got to its intended destination.

Harry Potter’s owl dropped it off. That’s clearly the only plausible explanation.

Wait. Here’s more magic.

When the text arrived I was at lunch with my friend Kim. Kim is the Janet whisperer.
When I get wobbly — she sets me straight. She doesn’t take any of my shit. She quotes all of my insights back to me. Bitch.

Anyhow, at the very moment the text came through, Kim had just finished saying “Quit worrying! Your screenplay will get where it needs to go — NO MATTER WHAT.”

Just like the little yellow birthday card.
Magic.

So right now you’re asking yourself what is that? Is that an easily explainable mistake or the result of a clairvoyant postal clerk?  Nope. That’s just some damn good magic right there ladies and gentleman!

I’m sharing this because I’m sure I’m not the only one who worries about the how’s and why’s of life.

We gotta cut that shit out! Let the magic bleed all over the place!

Carry on,
xox

Love, lust or any other addiction.

It hijacks the brain and its ability to reason, the mouth and it’s ability to bargain, a vagina for obvious reasons; and is apparently able to override a fear of heights.

In the mid-eighties, I left my husband. We had a perfectly lovely life — just absolutely NO sexual chemistry…and I wanted some. BAD.

I read about it in books. I saw it in the movies. I dreamt of it and fantasized about it; this elusive beast, and being that I was in my twenties, I was damned if I was going to live a life without it.

Cut to 1985 — I’m sharing a dive apartment in drug infested hookerville with my little sister who had just left our father’s cushy home to find her way out from under his thumb and forge her own independence.

It was Flashdance meets Friends only without the great clothes, the sexy dancing and the killer apartment.

My sister had moved a saltwater fish tank up two flights of stairs only to have the summer be so fucking Africa hot on the second floor; in the Valley; with no air conditioning; that even after trying to cool it off with trays of ice cubes — eventually, all the fish cooked.

Later, after she’d emptied most the water and cleaned the green slime off the glass, and since we had no entertainment budget, we organized races with little plastic wind up swimmers from the novelty stores on Ventura Boulevard.   Frogs, Snorkelers, a fat man in an inner tube whose legs furiously tread water; even an alligator doing the backstroke.

These were real races. Beers were guzzled. Bets were placed. Money may have exchanged hands.

I’m tellin’ ya it was the wild west inside that toasty little shit-hole with the sticky green shag carpet in North Hills.

After the Feds shut down the toy races, we floated three basketballs in the tank.
It was art.

Speaking of art, one morning when I was getting my fried, I mean permed, blonde hair nice and Bon-Jovi gigantic, my blow dryer gave out from exhaustion. The eighties were a rough time for blowdryers and a boom time for hairspray. My sister and I could go through a case of Aqua Net a week.

Anyway, my blow dryer started throwing blue sparks, and inside of a small unventilated bathroom full of Sebastian Hair Fix fumes, well, the whole apartment could have ignited — blowing us all to kingdom come.

Since only half my head was coiffed, I finished with my sister’s very upscale blow dryer and hung my little flame thrower from a plant hook in the corner of the dining room.

At night we would turn off all the lights and plug it in; then sit and watch that thing shoot blue sparks into the air — because it was art.

It was beautiful and dangerous art. We just had to be diligent about keeping our hair a safe distance away.

How we’re not both dead is beyond me.

Which leads me to the window in my room.
It was rectangular, running from floor to ceiling and narrow, about the width of an average person. Because it was so freakin’ hot, even with my fear of heights, I would sit on a towel (there was no way I was going to let my ass touch that disgusting carpet) next to the window at night and read, paint my toe nails, or talk on the phone.

I talked on the phone a lot.

You see, I had fallen hard for a much younger boy/man who had lived with us for one glorious summer and then gone off to college (yes, that young). I pined for him something awful, so we’d talk on the phone late into the night, he from Cal State Long Beach and me in front of that window, smoking cigarettes, searching for a breeze.

That window became like a portal.
All sorts of weird shit happened around that window.
It just so happens that there was a street light directly below, one of the few in the hood that hadn’t been blown out. I always tried to park my car under that light, you know, for safety, although thinking back I’m not sure why I bothered. Anything valuable had been stolen off of, or out of, my piece of shit Mazda within the first month we lived there.

Parked under that very street light — in full view of that window.

Late one hot summer night, the three of us were startled awake by the sound of shouting and car engines. Of course we went to the window to see what was up. My sister soon joined us, all the noise had woken her up but she couldn’t see the activity from her uneventful, non-portal window.

Our three sleepy, middle-of-the-night faces were now wide awake and fascinated, silently poised right above all the action as we watched more and more police cars surround a vehicle with two men inside. Soon a police canine unit and tow truck joined the crowd. “Drug bust” my boy-toy whispered.

We watched for hours as they carefully and methodically stripped the car down to its skeleton. The seats, the dash, the inside liner — they had this down to a science.

We got snacks—we took potty breaks—all the while staying quiet enough to be eyewitnesses to a potential drug bust. Then, just as we were beginning to lose interest, and it seemed as if the drugs didn’t exist, we heard a cop yell, like they do on TV, “Bingo!” and fifty cops descended onto the metal frame, like ants at a picnic. There it was, bag after bag of some illegal substance, hidden in the dark recesses of that car’s guts. They hauled the two guys away and it was all over in fifteen minutes as if it had never happened.

Yeah, I know, great neighborhood. Not really, it was the site of drug deals, used condoms and hookers, Oh My!

Another evening, as I waited for my sister to get home with pumpkin pie (we both worked at Vons at the time, so we’d call the one who was working late, right before their shift was over, with junk food cravings), I was sitting next to the window, writing a letter to my beloved — yes, with paper and a pen — when I thought I heard moaning.

Now, moaning was a regular occurrence in our apartment. We had a couple with a very active sex life that shared a wall. She was a moaner and he had white-boy rhythm as evidenced by the intermittent, uncoordinated frenzy of headboard banging that used to make us howl with laughter.

But this moaning sounded different — like a wounded animal.
I turned down the TV that was always on to keep me company; and listened. Just below the window was a balled up something on the dead, dried up grass under the street light.

I decided to investigate.

I put on my dime store flip-flops, took my keys to the security gates with me, and walked down two flights of stairs to the street below. It was just slightly cooler outside than inside the apartment but still around eighty degrees — an Indian Summer night in the Valley.

As I slowly closed the gate by hand behind me so it wouldn’t slam (a habit), I could still hear a low moaning. Walking slowly toward the street light, I still couldn’t figure out who or what was there. It was rolled up tight into the fetal position, small, like a dog… or a child? I remember it was beige, the color of skin. Could it be a person?

“Hello?…are you okay?” I ventured closer.

“Do you need…” I screamed and reflexively jumped back.

“Oh my God…” I kept backing away slowly, terrified and unsure of what to do.”I’m, I’m, I’m going upstairs to call 911!”

Her face (I didn’t know it was a woman until later), looked up at me, toward the sound of my voice. Her ear was missing, replaced by shredded skin. I knew she couldn’t see me, her eyes were purple and swollen shut, and her face didn’t resemble anything human. It looked like a hideous Halloween mask.

I ran so fast I flew out of my flip-flops.

No such thing as cell phones in those days, so I sprinted back up to the apartment, made eerie by the juxtaposition of the TV laugh track and the scene on the street below as I dialed 911. The phone was on the floor in front of the window and I watched her like a hawk the whole time. I was shaking so hard it took me three tries to dial 911 correctly.

A squad car pulled up before I even had a chance to speak. I hung up, turned off all the lights in the room and watched from my second story perch as they slowly, cautiously, got out of the car and walked toward her. One cop poked her with a stick and when she moved and looked at up them — even they flinched. The other cop was calling it in as his partner crouched down to talk to her. The paramedics and a fire truck were there in minutes and I watched, nervously biting my nails, from my dark window as they took her pulse, assessed her injuries, loaded her almost totally naked body onto a gurney and took her away.

My sister got home just about that time, “What’s all the commotion down there?” she asked.
It took me a minute to gain my composure. “I’ll tell you over pie” I replied.

As the story goes, and I can’t quite recall how we got this information; the woman was a regular at one of the local dive bars peppered throughout our neighborhood. The drunker she got the more she bragged about getting a big bonus at work. As she bought round after round of drinks, she exposed a thick wad of bills that was like fresh meat to the low-life wolves at the bar. Apparently, as she walked to her car, under the safety of the street light, two of the animals beat her in order to get her purse (which she fought to keep, ladies, don’t ever do that, just let them have it). She fought so hard they practically pulled her clothes off — both of her hands sustained multiple fractures. The last I heard she was hospitalized with a cracked skull, and in need of massive plastic surgery.

It happened right under my window, under the street light, and I never heard a thing.

Why didn’t we move?

Last but not least is the story about the time I jumped out that window. That second story window. To chase after a boy.

“I loved him somethin’ awful” If someone says that, believe them. It was awful.

I had, at long last, found me some chemistry. It burned hot, and was highly combustible, constantly boiling over like those science experiments gone awry.
My whole body was on fire. I was consumed by lust which I was calling love, because honestly, I didn’t know any better.
My brain went offline.
My mouth said things that still, to this day, make me cringe. It bargained and begged.
I was reduced to a writhing pile of pheromones and sex organs. He was a beautiful disaster.

When this boy/man said he had to leave after spending three days straight in bed with me; well, I went a little berserk. I couldn’t see my way clear of the crazy.
I stumbled to the window over the dirty dishes, coffee cups, food scraps, and piles of clothes that had surrounded and sustained us that entire weekend.

It was over and he had to go back — to school — cringe.

I heard his car pull away as I got a running start and literally flew, in one giant leap, through the screen and out that portal/ window without thinking.

“Noooooooooooooo! Don’t go!” I screamed in mid-air. The large rectangular screen made it to the ground first in a twisted mess. I managed to clear a shrub and stick a nice tuck-n-roll landing, but that still didn’t bring me to my senses.

It’s amazing I wasn’t hurt; clearly people that stupid are indestructible — That does not bode well for the gene pool.

My screaming continued to echo outside and around the block.

“Don’t leave, not yet!” I got up as fast as I could and ran out into the street, where I could barely see his tail lights at the corner.

“Waaaaaait!!!!!” I wailed at the top of my lungs and sprinted as fast as could after his car and right out of my flip-flops. (What is the deal with that?)

I’d obviously lost my sanity AND my shoes, and now I was losing my voice but it didn’t matter, I continued to scream his name at the top of my lungs until I saw him pull into the Seven Eleven parking lot around the block — the one just before the entrance to the 405 freeway.

When I saw his face I knew I’d gone too far.
Who was I? What had come over me?
I was bent over, trying to catch my breath while he sat in his car looking stunned.

When I could finally manage to speak all I could say was, “I’m sorry…I just…this is so NOT sexy, right?”

He shook his head slowly, got out of the car, gave me a mediocre hug, got back in the car and drove away.

As I took the slow walk of shame back to the apartment I could see the crumpled screen lying dead on the sidewalk, but there was no sign of my flip-flops.
Someone, some other size seven, had stolen them while I’d made a fool of myself — chasing after a man in a car — barefoot — for no good reason other than addiction.

That stunt shocked me…finally!

To say it was not my proudest moment is an understatement.

I learned so much about myself that day. What I was capable of, how, if I let my vagina make all the decisions I could really get hurt since in her narrow-minded focus on chasing desire, she had little regard for my personal safety — and that we needed to get the hell out of that apartment.

It changed me, I started thinking about self-worth, boundaries, and personal responsibility so that nothing even remotely like that would EVER happen again.

I blame that fucking portal/window.

Okay. So who here hasn’t done a crazy-ass window jump in one form or another in their life — show of hands? Uh-huh, I thought so.

Tell me about it below.

Carry on,
xox

How many of you are blamers? Or married to a blame? Or were raised by a major blamer?
Show of hands, please. Uh-huh, I thought so.

I had a boss for almost twenty years who was a blamer and it drove. me. nuts. He was a shamer too. I’m convinced blame and shame are siamese twins, but that’s just me. Let’s see what the expert, Brene Brown has to say about blame in this short, funny and insightful video.

As for me? I’m not a blamer, I’m an “I told you so-er”.
I have to bite my tongue not to say in some way, shape or form, “I told you so” to my husband like, forty-five thousand times a day.
Seriously.
Like today. He saved all of his outdoor tasks for this morning. The morning we were ALL warned that El Nino was going to hit us like well, like a big, fat, super soggy storm full of really wet rain.

And like the shining example of good wifery that I am, I reminded said husband of his shitty decision making,choices, —timing, before I left for the gym and it was only drizzling.

But alas, he waited until the REAL rain hit to empty the dog poop can into the main garbage bin, get the dead Christmas tree out to the curb for pick-up, and fiddle (fix in man-speak), with the sump-pump (all of which we talked about just yesterday), and then sent me a text and left evidence (wet pants in the shower), of how soaked he got. (Who is surprised here? What woman is the least bit surprised by this?)

See how I did that? Never once did you hear me say I told you so. I wanted to. So very, very, badly.
My tongue has permanent grooves.

Listen, I don’t want to tell Brene how to run her social media, but I think that needs to be her next video.

The seemingly repressed but clearly expressed I told you so.

What do you guys think? (That’s for you, Jim)

Love, soggy in Studio City
Carry on,
xox