Life

Since I refuse to iron clothes (it is too time-consuming and besides that, I have a mild form of PTSD from a couple of “hot iron left unattended” incidents back in the day) I take all of my hubby’s shirts to the dry cleaners to get them laundered.

They have coupons online that make it so cheap it’s free.

Anyhow, this all started when Raphael insisted he LOVED to iron. He said he found it very “zen”, like drying dishes and baking pies—all three of these fantasies have NEVER happen in our house. Ironing went the way of many other good intentions gone awry. The iron itself turned into a heavy object that fell on my foot or got tangled up with all of the other useless laundry items we have stored (and that’s just a nice way of saying shoved in a haphazard way) next to our washer and dryer.

And don’t get me started on the ironing board. It met with a terrible accident recently and had to be put down. Let’s all take a minute…

Now, let’s cut to the real reason his shirts need ironing.

We have a dryer that cost more than my car but the lovely Swiss or German people who manufacture it have neglected to include a simple “fluff” cycle. Obviously, it was designed by men. Men who either have wives who love to iron or take their shirts to the laundry—and they’re too clueless to know how in the hell they live a wrinkle free life.

Anyway…I owned a piece-of-shit Kenmore for like a thousand years and it had the most magnificent “fluff” cycle imaginable. That freaking fabulous fluff cycle was one of the contributing factors for me turning my back on ironing clothes. You could throw a wizened 2500-year-old mummy in that dryer for ten minutes and it would come out looking like Heidi Klum. All you had to do was spray a little water on the wrinkled garment (even linen, *gasp) and voila! The fluff would work its magic.

Ten years ago when we upgraded to our present washer and dryer I was disappointed but I didn’t want to sound like Bratty McBraterson so I kept quiet about the loss of my beloved “fluff” cycle. After all, these fancy appliances had brains and sensors that could sense all of my deepest emotions—so I just assumed they’d figure something out.

But that never happened.

Every day Raphael would throw on a shirt that was clean but looked like it had been tied in a knot and then wedged into the tiny crack between the wall and bed to dry.

Remember scrunchies? They all looked like scrunchies.

He looked ridiculous. Like no one loved him. Like a sad, unloved, shlumpadinka (it’s an Oprah and Gail word—look it up).

“You need to iron that shirt before you leave.” was our default goodbye every morning. He never did, (you know, because it’s a fucking hassle) so he looked like a hobo. Like a 6’ 4” bald hobo. Nobody wants to hire a giant hobo/schlumpadinka to build their multi-million dollar dream home. Believe me, it’s in the small print.

So my solution was to get them laundered. Problem solved.
I know. Wife of the Year!

Cut to yesterday, when I was picking up his shirts (and one blouse of mine) and taking in some dirty ones to be laundered, I let the delightful little man who works there help me with the five-thousand smelly shirts that I had piled up in the back seat of my car (I put them there as a reminder—it works…seldom). He is an older gentleman who stands outside every day and helps all of us back and forth to our cars with our dry cleaning. I never see him without a smile and a freshly pressed shirt. My guess is that he’s retired and can only take so much of Fox news or the golf channel.

Anyhow, since it was close to ninety outside (he sits in the shade) and since he’d helped me schlep my shirts inside and then carried the clean ones to my car while I paid, I grabbed a couple of extra dollars bills (three to be exact) and mused aloud if it was okay to tip him.

Me, addressing the girl who worked there and anyone else within earshot while holding the money in my hand:
“I should tip him, right? I mean, does he accept tips?”

The woman next to me with the tightly pulled ponytail, dressed in head-to-toe LuLu Lemon huffed under her breath, “How rude.”

The girl at the register just shrugged.

“It’s rude to give him money…or it’s rude not to?” I asked, dumbfounded and a little embarrassed.

“What do you think?” She replied looking me up and down like a dog looks at a lamb chop—or like I was the unfortunate victim of a dryer without a fluff cycle.

“I don’t know! That’s why I asked!” I sneered at her in my best shlumpadinka voice.

She turned on her expensive, designer, limited edition Adidas and walked out giving me stink eye the entire time.

That’s okay. I burned a hole in the back of her head with my superpower bitch repellent as she struggled to get into her Range Whatever. I’m surprised she could drive.

After she left, the girls who work there rolled their eyes so hard they all did backflips and then told me that it was okay to give Ernesto a couple of bucks. “A lot of people do,” said the woman with the chartreuse hair and the painted on eyebrows (she’s my favorite).

So I did. And it didn’t feel rude and he didn’t seem the least bit offended.

Take THAT you ornery bitch-faced woman!

Okay, Now back to a loving place.

Carry on,
xox

According to me, this applies to men too.

“You’ve arrived
It’s easy to fall in love with the GPS version of the universe.

There, just ahead, after that curve. Drive a little further, your destination is almost here.
Done. You’ve arrived.

Of course, that’s not how it works. Not our careers, not our relationships, not our lives.

You’ve always arrived. You’ve never arrived.

Wherever you go, there you are. You’re never going to arrive because you’re already there.

There’s no division between the painful going and the joyous arriving. If we let it, the going can be the joyful part.

It turns out that arrival isn’t the point, it can’t be—because we spend all our time on the journey.”
~ Seth Godin

Oh, brother Seth, where do I begin?

Did you write this just for me? Did a little birdy whisper to you how much I suck at the journey part of life?
Or was it the screaming, hair pulling, and the skywriting that said YOU SUCK JOURNEY! GIMME THE FUCKING DESTINATION ALREADY! —that gave me away?

It’s not that I haven’t improved—I have.
And it’s not that I haven’t reached some amazing destinations in my life—I’ve done that too.

But oh, mah, gawd, does it have to be such a slog?

Listen, it’s just that as zen as I try to be, as chill and non-attached as my facade makes me out to be, there is always an epic interior battle raging. A churning. A yearning. It’s the fucking Game of Thrones inside of me. And as hard as I try to quell it (and just to be clear, trying hard doesn’t stop a raging battle, trying hard are the foot soldiers, the ground troops) it looms ever larger in my brain.

And that’s the rub I think you guys. All of that striving and “are we there yet?” is in. My. Head. Not my heart. Not my kishkes, and definitely nowhere near where my intuition hangs out. It all goes off the rails when my head grabs the map away from my intuition and starts to second-guess everything.

“Do you think you should have turned left there?”

“Make a u-turn! NOW! I don’t care of it’s legal or not!”

“Oh, what a dumb move! Fine. Let me try and recalculate the route—but I have a feeling you’re wicked screwed.”

All of the second-guessing. Don’t you guys hate the second-guessing? God! I have been known to yell out loud to that wise guy second-guesser “Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say! Where were you when I was deciding what to do?”

Can you even have buyers remorse with regard to your ex? No? Then shut up!

And I have to report that THIS was a bit of a turning point for me. I set boundaries with the all of the mean voices inside my head who were making the journey a living hell. I told them that unless they had anything helpful, encouraging, or constructive to say—I didn’t want to hear it. Currently, my interior dialogue goes something like this:

“That was dumb…”
DON”T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!

“Are you sure you want to do that…?”
STICK A SOCK IN IT!

“They don’t seem interested in your…
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

“Huh, I would have done it differently…”
STOP TALKING. NOW!

See how that works? It’s self-care Tourettes.

Maybe you’re better at this than I am. Maybe you peacefully traverse your life like a passenger—holding a glass of champagne in first-class on British Airways. But I’m guessing you’re not because you’re here—you live on Earth so… I can’t guarantee it will work 100% of the time, and I have to admit that it gets exhausting, but it does help keep the clown car quiet. And that my friends is a definite improvement!

Carry on,
xox

I case you were wondering about just such a thing—THIS is a Magic Wand farm.

As you know I supply my little slice of Studio City with magic wands. In the beginning, they looked like this:

The sign on the bucket was more creative than the wands themselves—but that’s beside the point.

Then, my sister “out wanded” me with her usual flair and because they were scooped up in less than a day by the hungry masses yearning for wands—I was forced to up my game.

But the wand phenomenon like I suppose all good things do has developed a life of its own. It has its “people” who talk to my “people” (me) voicing their thanks (mostly), opinions (often), and now…requests. This week a group of stroller moms as I call them were rifling through the bucket looking for just the perfect wands for their kids when they caught sight of me getting into my car.

“Oh, hey, are you the Magic Wand lady?” they asked.

“Yes, I am” I answered proudly waiting for the usual parental gushing. Instead, this is what happened:

Mom #1 – “Listen, we love the wands, we really do, but…”
Mom #2 – “The little ones chew on them so could you put more without any paint in the bucket?”
Mom #3 – “Unless you use pesticide, Do you, I mean, use pesticides?”

“Uh, no. No, I don’t” I stammered. I was caught completely off-guard.

Mom #1 – “Are you sure? Have you specifically asked your gardeners not to use any pesticides or even worse… Round Up?”
Mom #3 – “Oh, look, Barbara, she has dandelions everywhere, they don’t use Round up.”
Mom #2 – “You don’t look sure. Are you sure?”

They all looked at me waiting for an answer.  After a minute of biting my tongue I said, “No, I mean, yes, yes, I’m sure. In four years no kids have died from holding or chewing on these Magic Wands. I swear!” 

Mom #1 – “What I really wanted to ask you was, do you make them in any other colors besides purple and gold?”
Mom #2 – “She did. You did, you had blue ones once.”
Mom #3 – “The reason we’re asking is that our sons, well…”
Mom #1 – “Our sons are all nine and ten this summer, they’re getting to be big boys and well, they want a wand…”
Mom #2 – “Just not a pink one.”
Mom #3 – “They’re not really pink, they’re more purple…”
Mom #2 – “Magenta. They’re magenta!”
Mom #1 – “Anyway, they’re too old for pink…”
Mom #3 – “And sparkles. Do you make any wands without the sparkles?”

“The boys hate the sparkles too?” I asked, crestfallen.

Mom #1 – “Not really, it’s just that the sparkles get all over the carpet and…”
Mom #3 – “I’ve found sparkles all over Jimiraquois’ bed!”

They laughed and nodded in unison while the toddlers in the strollers happily chewed on my Magic Wands.

I was clearly outnumbered.

“Do you have a color in mind? Something that both girls and boys would like?” I HAD to ask knowing full well that they did.

All three moms in unison – “Red. Red works.”

So, in closing, you can’t fight progress. Kids get older. And boys don’t like pink. And requests. Some people are very comfortable with big asks, not that this was a particularly big ask, but still, I couldn’t have done it. But maybe that’s just me.

What do you think?

Speaking of moms and their big asks…

Now I don’t feel so bad.

Carry on,
xox

When I was a kid, around middle school age, I had a best friend named Ellice. Her last name was something long and German sounding, virtually unpronounceable if you weren’t wearing lederhosen or didn’t have sauerkraut running through your veins.

Ellice had a father with perpetual dirt under his fingernails, which always struck me as odd because my dad never did.
In his filthy drab green coveralls, all greasy haired and grizzled, he was some kind of super-duper airplane mechanic. Her mother, on the other hand, was the executive assistant for some highfalutin businessman downtown. I never saw her without her high heels, red lipstick, and a really fake looking black wig with tufts of gray hair peeking out from the sides.

A more unlikely couple you could NOT imagine. If you saw her parents standing side by side you couldn’t picture them sharing a cab—let alone making babies.

Nevertheless, they had three. Ellice had a kid sister and a baby brother who were looked after by an au pair, which I learned was an exotic word for nanny, which was just another word for babysitter/maid—or in other words, Alice on the Brady Bunch. This entire concept was as foreign to me as the au pair, Kirsten’s, British accent.

Since we were tweens and obviously waaaay past the nanny stage, Ellice made it clear to Kirsten that “she was not the boss of her” which I’m sure came as a relief to the poor young woman seeing that every time I saw her she was braiding the toddler’s hair with one hand while holding the infant whose diaper had exploded ochre colored baby poo-poo all over her powder blue uniform with the other.

I can trace my earliest memories of “Yeah, that baby stuff—that’s not for me”, back to those exact moments.

That time in history, the 1960’s, was fraught with social conflict, burgeoning women’s rights, hippies and the English Invasion. All which mirrored my own internal, pre-teen, hormone fueled, identity crisis. But what may have imprinted on me the most was a fondness for foreign accents and my appreciation for the way they made the dumbest diatribes sound like freaking Shakespeare.

So, for three months one summer my “precocious friend“ (my mother christened her with that title) and I walked around our little slice of suburbia wearing Kirsten’s Mary Quant white lipstick (which we “borrowed” off of her nightstand)—and took to speaking with British accents. Now, when you’re faking a British accent it’s really only fun if you go around acting clueless and asking strangers a ton of questions in the most non-American way possible like “Where is the loo?” and “Can you please direct us to the lift?”

We explained our general stupidity and unbridled curiosity by saying we were exchange students from Bristol (I wanted London, but she picked Bristol.) We peppered our conversations with lots of “brilliants” and “cheerios” and as we walked away we flipped our hair and yelled “Tah!” over our shoulders.

We acted out this charade for so long that after a while I started to believe I was British.

That is, until our neighbor, Judy, busted me at the drug store in front of a man and his wife who went from being absolutely charmed and beguiled by us—to being thoroughly disgusted.

“Corkie, is that you?” Judy asked in her thick Brooklyn accent swinging me around by my shoulders. “Why are you talking like that? Don’t be an idiot. Stop embarrassing yourself!”

My face still gets hot with humiliation just thinking about it.

Which leads me to the present day and eyelash extensions. Have you seen them? They are spectacular!

I was late to the party on this trend, but after my sister convinced me to get them for the sake of “convenience” I have to admit—I fell truly, madly and deeply in love. They became my Holy Grail. My own black-fringed version of the Fountain of Youth. My Be All and End All.

You see, my natural eyelashes are so blonde they are invisible so I have always had to dye my them black to even know they exist. These days, my body suddenly has the ability to produce jet-black chin hair but my eyelashes have remained the color of straw—so I’ve taken to wearing false eyelashes, which I LOVE.

But, come on! Eyelash extensions were MADE for me! I mean, the fact that you WAKE UP—IN THE MORNING— with lush, dark black eyelashes made me feel… beautiful. I tried to stay blasé but I couldn’t help myself! Every time I caught my reflection in the mirror I did a double-take. I didn’t recognize myself. Those eyelashes transformed me into one of those women who wakes up gorgeous, like a Kardashian, or a soap opera star.

Strangers even commented on how pretty my eyes looked. I just batted those long, voluminous, black lashes so furiously, they repositioned the jet stream.

As the weeks passed I started to believe that I had been born with long, thick black eyelashes. And that they looked natural. Both which were lies.

Sadly, and I mean break my heart, dead puppy kind of sad, this time the part of my neighbor, Judy, was played by my own body. I was double-crossed by a severe allergic reaction which caused me to have to “give up the jig” after a brief six weeks.

I’m ashamed to say, they were the best six weeks of my life.

Nevermind. It has been my experience that throughout my life I’ve tried on a lot of affectations on my way to deciding who I really am.

And I’m betting you have too.

Some are ridiculous, like fake British accents, and we discard them after a couple of weeks. Some are impulsive but they grow on us and we weave them into the fabric of who we are like I did back-in-the-day with my red hair and more recently with a tiny gold nose ring.

I will not be deterred! Age hasn’t stopped me from morphing and changing and trying new things and I don’t believe that it should! Listen, I think that if I stop doing this you’d better hold a mirror under my nose to make sure I’m not dead.

Carry on,
xox

The great 11 pm. eyelash extension self-removal debacle of 2017. Which I can barely speak of without crying. Now I look like I have alopecia (not that there’s anything wrong with that.).

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been talking to friends about perfectionism and what a soul suck it is. 

Recently, when I saw a friend spinning out of control, I sent her a “You’ve got this” text—which she promptly corrected for grammar and punctuation. So… I recognize it takes many decades and a ton of face falling before it REALLY sinks in.

Back in 2013 when I first started blogging I was too stupid to realize that anyone would ever read it, so I’d write my face off and press “Post”—spelling and grammar be damned. My compulsion to just get the words out overrode my shame.

So, I guess that was another time when I discovered that MY inner perfectionist had FINALLY left the building.

What about you? Do you freeze when faced with creating something that may not be “perfect?”

I say “Fuck it! Just do it!” (Sorry Nike.) Anyway…

Here’s an old post that explains my thought process on this very subject.
Carry on,
xox

Ah, perfectionism—you rat-bastard.

You are the behind the scenes ruin-er of every event.
You are the “I told you so” inside every mistake.
You are the “It could have been better, you should be thinner, I’m a freak, a fake and a fraud” whispered in my ear at the end of every day.

In short, you are the cause of so much grief.

I’m on to you, Perfection. Like a 22-inch waist, a man who asks for directions, and delicious vegan cheese—you are literally impossible—a myth and an illusion.

Perfectionism, you started for me in childhood.
The dolls lined up perfectly on the shelf, school papers stacked in neat piles, worn thin by rigorous erasing.

Perfectionism, you sabotaged my joy.
You’re a punk. You steal Joy’s lunch money and gives it a wedgie. I see you, Perfectionism, hanging out with those two thugs, anxiety and shame.

Perfectionism, you stifled my creativity.
I know you two cannot possibly co-exist because creativity is messy, I don’t care what anyone says. When you’re in the flow, you can just throw perfect punctuation and grammar to the wind.

Have you ever seen a painter’s studio when they are creating? It is a catastrophe! There is shit everywhere – Empty coffee cups, brushes and tubes of paint in heaps, tarps, stacks of ideas, even some paint on the ceiling (?).

I know you Perfectionism. You would never be caught dead in the swirling vortex of creativity—it might mess up your perfect hair!

When I take perfectionism to a meeting well, yeah, things don’t go well.
It is the bully in the room, taunting me with thoughts of inferiority, constantly assuring me that I’m not good enough (as if I needed the reminder.)
Work harder, be better, PROVE YOUR WORTH, it sneers.

It is my belief that perfectionism is complicit in every nervous breakdown. Most especially, the ones suffered during the holidays.

Listen, I can speak to this with authority.

I am a semi-retired perfectionist.
It started to wane when I got married again. Perfectionism doesn’t compromise, and compromise is to relationships what singing is to musicals. Imperative.

My perfectionism’s exact time of death occurred when we decided to live in our house during a remodel.
Any last vestiges that remained died, (along with the tiny bit of modesty I possessed.)
Residing in so much chaos, dirt, and destruction; I can remember wiping 4-5 inches of plaster and drywall dust off random surfaces in order to sit and drink the coffee we made in the bathroom. For long stretches, the refrigerator was in the dining room and we were sleeping in the garage.

It got so bad I actually started to throw random trash (gum wrappers, receipts) on the floor, fuck it, what’s the use, it’s a disaster, I’d tell myself. The upside was that I’d never in my life felt so FREE! So I ran with it, and I haven’t looked back!

Living in a construction zone is like aversion therapy for perfectionists.

Take off that twenty-ton shield and fly! Or at least trot toward your goals.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not completely void of my perfectionist tendencies. They torture me now when I walk down the street. No longer can I just stroll along haplessly enjoying my surroundings like I did before I turned fifty.

Nope. I worry about my gut. Is it sucked in all the way? Are my thighs going to start a small friction fire inside my jeans? What the hell are my boobs doing and are my shoulders up around my ears causing me to look like I’m doing a Quasimodo impression?

Oh well, old habits die hard.

Maybe you want to talk about how you kicked perfectionism’s ass, or how you’re still struggling? Either way, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Don’t be shy. It doesn’t have to be perfect. 😉

Xox

“Now everyone of us was made to suffer
Everyone of us was made to weep
We’ve been hurting one another
Now the pain has cut too deep.

So take me from the wreckage
Save me from the blast
Lift me up and take me back
Don’t let me keep on walking
I can’t keep on walking, keep on walking on broken glass…

Walking on, walking on broken glass
Walking on, walking on broken glass
Walking on, walking on broken glass
Walking on, walking on broken glass.”

Written by Annie Lennox • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

The energy was spiky this weekend, could you feel it? It felt crunchy, sharp and toxic, kinda like my hair back in the 80’s.

For me, it started with the middle-aged madman calling me a dumb bitch on Friday and it continued to amp up all the way through Sunday.

“They” say it’s the lead up into the full solar eclipse that’s happening next month. If I had a dollar for every time I blame bad shit or wonky energy on solar eclipses —well—I’d have tens of bucks.

Maybe it was the ungodly heat that was making everything feel like a life or death, big hairy deal. I don’t know about you but you can’t trust a word out of my mouth when I’m dehydrated.

And traffic. Traffic in the summer or any season for that matter is the ultimate barometer of humanity’s angst.
You want to know how the world is feeling about its current state of affairs? Hop on the 101 or the 405 freeways. There is rage. There is drama. There are motorcycles splitting lanes! If you make it home without killing anyone—that was a good day. Or the world ended and you’re the only person left on earth.

Even my even-tempered husband was edgy. Moody. PMS-ing. He kept on cruising’ to pick a fight. By Sunday I was exhausted from deflecting his barbs with my Wonder Woman bracelets. Running away from home occurred to me, and I would have except for the fact that after sixteen years I have him honed, groomed and trained exactly the way I want him.

Plus, he has this endearing and completely irreplaceable habit of not minding my snoring and appreciating my bed head in the morning.

He gets up before I do so by the time I wander into his office to signal the fact that I’m ready for my coffee, he’ll take one look at me, “Oh, yeah”, he’ll say, “That is some particularly epic bed head this morning,” and he’ll come in for a pity hug.

He thinks it’s adorable. My best look. He has since day one.

I play along, hardly able to contain my excitement on the really bad days. Like when I’m sick, or hung over, hot flashing, or
all of the above. With a pigtail sticking straight out from the side of my head and the rest of my hair arranged into a something resembling a sweaty beaver’s den, I’ll run to his office looking like a cyclone victim—barely able keep a straight face. Standing on the stair I’ll strike a pose, waiting for my score like a beauty pageant contestant during the swimsuit competition

“There she is,” he’ll say, slowly getting up from his chair nodding with appreciation, stifling a laugh, “A great natural beauty. How do you manage it?”

These are some of our best laughs. They’re always at my expense because he’s bald, so there’s that… but I know for a fact that I could never find anyone who could muster that level of genuine appreciation for such a hot mess—so I’m staying. Fight picking or not.

All of this to is warn you of the impending eggshells shards of broken glass you may find yourself walking in the next few weeks or so until the moon covers the sun and all the animals go to bed and darkness inhabits the Earth for like a minute and then it’s over and we can all get back to our regular scheduled programming.

Like loving baby goat videos, avoiding those who view parking as a combat sport, catching a cool breeze, and hating Trump.

Stay strong & Carry on,
xox

I told a man to go fuck himself today, and I’m not even going to apologize for it. That’s because he deserved it—and I don’t feel bad. At all.

Now, let me begin by saying, He started it! This will infuriate my mother. Maybe not. She was known to throw out an occasional, well-deserved f-bomb in her day.

Anyway, this guy. This guy who looked to be someone’s husband. Someone’s good ol’ dad. Their Pop.
Without even knowing me, he judged my parking. Actually, he said, and I quote: You can’t park there  You. Dumb. Bitch!

Okay. Now, in an act of full disclosure, I will admit that as far as parking goes—he’s warm. I can be a parking challenged. Even though I could win a parallel parking contest any day of the week, sometimes I am guilty of squeezing my station wagon into a “compact” space, creating a space where there might not be one, and taking ten tries to get into an awkwardly angled spot.

But who hasn’t?

Just to be clear, HIS outburst was not provoked by ANY of those things. My parking was flawless.

Flagged into a rare metered spot in front of my favorite cafe by the valet himself, I was just running in for two seconds (five minutes, maybe ten) to pick up take-out salads for my sister and me. As is our unspoken custom, the lovely man gestured for me to take the space. Listen, it was his space to give, but apparently, the judgy guy’s car was sniffing my car’s butt—because he was thisclosetome—convinced that meter had his name on it.

Unsuspecting, I cheerily jumped out of my car salivating for my favorite Chinese chicken salad which is like crack, or bacon, or bacon crack, or chocolate covered bacon crack to me.

In any case, that’s when the bad man pulled up next to me, rolled down his window and called me a dumb bitch.

“Excuse me, what did you say?” I asked, dumb (bitch) founded.

“You heard me,” he snarled.

“Did you call me a dumb bitch?”

“Well,” he sneered, “If the shoe fits.”

After that, I’m not exactly sure what happened. Everything went into slow motion. My saliva dried up, birds fell out of the sky, music played backwards, and before I even had time to form a thought—my mouth did the talking.

I wasn’t mad. Not really. I bent over, a big smile on my face, leaned into his passenger side window, gave him an unintentional cleavage shot (you’re welcome old man)—told him to go fuck himself with a little hand gesture and everything. Then I strolled away like a boss.

I could smell the burning rubber as he screeched away.

I can’t explain it—but you guys, it felt FANTASTIC!

Like empowered, hands on both hips, Wonder Woman fan-fucking-tastic!

I don’t ever do stuff like that! I’m polite. I’m nice. Too nice. I apologize for stuff that’s not even my fault.

Maybe it was the addition of the phrase “dumb bitch.” I can’t be sure.

Anyway, you guys, I’m not advocating telling strangers to go fuck themselves. Or maybe I am.

Bottom line: Don’t take anybody’s shit.

Carry on,
xox

Remember this old Huffington Post piece? I didn’t either. Ha! Here it is again on this Throwback Thursday.
Carry on,

So, we’re at a family wedding.

Not immediate family. Extended family.  The worst kind. The judgiest ones in the bunch. The one’s who keep inviting you as an afterthought, because, well, you never come anyway, so when your husband convinces you that it’s an afternoon of cake and dancing, you RSVP Yes + 1—and blow their judgy little minds.

I’m the black sheep of our family, one of several, and so they’ve seated us at the “loser’s” table. I actually overheard someone at the wedding call it that.

It really is the loser’s table.
It’s the absolute worst table in the room. It’s all the way in the back next to the kitchen, so far away from the action that the music takes a minute or two to reach us. It’s so bad that the band’s lips are out of sync, like an old Charlie Chan movie. They run out of food by the time it’s our turn to hit the buffet. And cake. My hubby and I share the last sliver of cake.

We are seated with two non-recovered alcoholics who are shit-faced and speaking what sounds like pig-latin to each other, what looks to be someone’s fourteen-year-old pregnant niece, an old hippie who took way too much LSD in the’60’s—and a convicted felon.

In stark contrast, the horrible bitch-faced woman who was married to my dad and quite literally drove him to his grave, is smiling sweetly at my husband from the bride and groom’s table (I can see her with my binoculars)—because she knows how to write epic thank you notes—and she plays the game.

I can remember looking at pictures of myself as a baby and wondering if I’d been a stowaway on a ship from some far-off galaxy that was looking for signs of intelligent life and when they realized this was an okay place to leave me—they did just that—in Santa Monica California—so, not too shabby.

With my thick white hair and tanned skin, I didn’t resemble my pale, dark haired, freckle-faced siblings in the least.

I also arrived with the most vivid imagination, a song in my heart and a skip in my step. And it saved me.

Rickets skinny with large buck teeth, I forged my way through childhood wondering if my people were ever going to swing back by this way and pick me up. That had never been their promise but still, I held out hope.

I’ve always been different. I can’t explain how or why and at times it caused me a world of hurt.
As much as I loved Catholic school, (especially the uniform. See, I told you, weirdo), the dogma never made sense to me.

The wrath of God? A punishing God?
Whose God were they referring to anyway? Mine told me knock-knock jokes and led me to the fields with the most lady bugs to catch. Mine wasn’t hanging over my head bleeding on a cross, mine lived happily, laughing and loving in my heart.

This caused me to question things. Mostly authority. I could never do or believe something just because someone older told me to. And I just could NOT bring myself to “play the game.”

That spells trouble for a kid. Trouble, with a capital T.
And not the obvious punky trouble. Rather, the kind that challenges parents and teachers with all of its “Why’s”.

I will ALWAYS pledge allegiance to the wild side, and by wild I mean overgrown. The unbeaten path.

I remember asking my fifth-grade teacher what I was actually promising by pledging my allegiance to the flag. It opened an hour- long conversation about Patriotism and love of country and she seemed genuinely happy to be asked something she’d ‘never before given any thought to.’

I broke some of our unspoken family rules as a teen by addressing the elephants that had taken up residence in pretty much every corner of our house. It sounded like sass, back-talking, and disrespecting authority and it was resoundingly underappreciated. But because I kept my 4.0 GPA and honor roll status, it saved me from long weekends grounded in my room.

I was an anomaly at the time. Not a paint-by-numbers slacker and not your typical hippie-druggie—just a high performing, insufferable, pain-in-the-ass.

Black sheep.

I think my dad first labeled me. He could never figure me out. That day it had something to do with the fact that I got an A in Science Class without ever buying a book, yet, I wanted the teacher fired for being a dumb-ass.

Black sheep. I’m guessing most of you were black sheep too.

I quit college to act.
I retired from Catholicism.
I prefer the cookie dough to the baked cookies. Always have.
I didn’t want to work the “family business”.
I believe in energy and the power of thought.
I was divorced by twenty-six.
I decided NOT to have kids.
I’m unafraid of confrontation.
Until I went gray, I couldn’t have told you what color my hair REALLY was I dyed it so many different colors.
I don’t like ambrosia salad.
I hate green jello, bridal showers and babies breath in flower arraignments.
I love to sing and dance. Anytime, anywhere.

And that vivid imagination that led me to believe that there was something greater out there for me. I know many of you feel the pull as well.

I’m back at the wedding, with all of its criticisms hidden in polite discourse.
“So, I guess no children for you, Janet?”
“No Aunt Barbara, You do realize I’m over fifty now.”
“Huh. And you’ve finally married. A Frenchman. American men aren’t good enough for you?”

I decided right then and there, in the midst of this family of strangers, to declare my status.

“I guess not. You know, I’m a black sheep.”

The old woman looked up at me with something…recognition?…as I gently guided her back to the “winners table”.

Carry on,
xox

Got any good “black sheep” stories?

“Our self-systems are like leaky buckets. No matter how much pleasure we’re getting, we’re bleeding from our many holes” – Jamie Weil

There’s something I never really gave any thought to:  While human beings are wired for pleasure, sadly, we are incapable of collecting and stockpiling joy?

No one can argue that we are experts at doing that with fear and anxiety. It seems as if humans are hardwired to hoard all of those bottom feeding emotions. Collecting them in the storage unit parts of our brains that we visit much too often.

When something good happens I always say to my friends, “Wow! I’m going to live off the fumes of THIS for a while!” Because I have to remind myself to do that.
To inhale deeply while it lasts.
Because…Fumes!

The joy leaves only fumes while the shit sticks. It sets up camp inside my narrative complete with a big old tent, a canoe, some jet skis, a generator, and a box of graham crackers.

Am I right?

In other words, after a peak experience, we as realists go right back to chopping wood, carrying water.

“After the ecstasy, the laundry.” ~ Puritan mindset

Shouldn’t we try and change that? I think so. So does Jason. Take a quick listen.

Carry on,
xox

There are those of you who tease me in a semi-snarky way about never making a misstep. Of projecting the illusion of a perfect life.

This post is for you.

Sunday started out like a cream puff of perfection if a day can be such a thing. (Don’t get mad. Keep reading, it’s gonna go south fast.)

After the brutal heat of the past week, the morning dawned clear and cool. The sky was so blue it hurt my eyes.

My coffee was perfectly creamed, my bed head only mildly Einsteinian, and even though we’d splurged on some fried food the night before, the little white shorts I’d found in the back corner of a bottom drawer fit like a glove. Okay, so maybe as tight as the OJ glove—but fuck it—I didn’t have to wear my Spanx (I have a “no weekends” rule with them) and even then the velcro stayed closed—so I’m calling it a win.

After spending an hour watching Sunday morning politics I put my head in the oven to stop the madness but nothing happened so I had another idea—food numbing. I texted my friend the “Hike Nazi” about meeting me for breakfast after she was finished hiking (any cardio in temps over 68 degrees is unacceptable to me)—and she agreed.

On my way up the hill, I could see that the temp had already climbed up into the eighties so I made a pact with myself. After breakfast, I would complete all tasks that required being outside before noon. I had to water the plants in the back and run to the market. Then I would spend the rest of my alone time (Raphael and the whiney little brown dog had left early for a car show) watching movies in our den which for some unexplainable reason gets as cold as a meat locker when we run the AC.

Say what you will, at least I know myself and the fact that this older 2.0 version of me has a very low heat tolerance, ask anyone. I am a delicate flower and I no longer have the stamina for triple digit heat.

Up at the top of Beverly Glen is a little deli my friend frequents so we met there and that is when she introduced me to Mrs. Harris.
I’m in love with Mrs. Harris.
I want to lick her all over.
Before you barf up your bagel let me explain. Mrs. Harris is a scrambled egg and cheese sandwich on rye bread (because any bread other than rye would be a crime against humanity) that completely erased any memory I had of Trump, Mitch McConnell or that miserable snake woman, KellyAnne Conway.

Life was good.

(Insert sound effect of a needle scratching across a record, the air being let out of a balloon, or a giant dog fart.)

When I went to pay for my Mrs. Harris I noticed that my debit card was missing from my wallet. No big deal I thought, it’s probably at home or in the car or…anywhere other than my wallet. Nevertheless, I had like seven dollars on me and when I pulled out the pockets of my tiny white shorts to check for change—tiny moths flew out. In other words, my friend paid for breakfast.

On my way down the hill, I forgot about it completely because Prince was on the radio. Right? I mean, Prince!

Anyway, when I got home I immediately went online to check and make sure that some culprit hadn’t absconded with the gigantic balance in my checking account. You see, my much too enormous to talk about health insurance payment gets automatically taken out this week. I’m never sure exactly what day that happens, so I could picture the money being spent on somebody else’s idea of fun, like bungee jumping or a trip to see the world’s largest sticker ball in Longmont, Colorado, and the Blue Shield ordering the hospital to put my uterus back in!

I could picture the crooks furiously hacking their way into my account only to experience emotional schiophenia—hysterical laughter followed by unexpected feelings of pity—and then rage—at the colossal waste of their time. Minutes later I see my card being thrown out the window of their fast-moving car into the dry brush on Mulholland.

After I was assured that my vast fortune was intact and that there had been no activity since Thursday, I felt bad about my boring life and the sad fact that I hadn’t been anywhere or done anything that cost money in three days— then I breathed an enormous sigh of relief and started wracking my brain while I watered my plants.

Where in the fucking fuck was my debit card? 
I don’t normally lose things. I misplace them, that’s different. It’s one of the quirks that makes me delightful.

You know that sinking feeling that grips you in the guts when you can’t find your wallet or your credit card goes missing? I had that. The dreaded gut grab.

I mentally retraced my steps (there weren’t many so it didn’t take long), called a couple of places, struck out, and finally decided I’d cancel the card and then just let it go. But alas, I couldn’t let it go. In the supermarket, I appeared to anyone watching to have a nasty case of Tourette’s. I’d walk halfway down an aisle, stop, think of a potential debit card scenario, yell “Shit!” or “Fuck it!” when I’d realize that it wasn’t a viable solution—and then keep walking.

In other words, I was mildly obsessed.

I bagged my milk and frozen stuff together at the self-check-out putting everything in a “cooler” bag and made my way back out into the one-hundred-degree heat. By the time I got to the car, I was a mumbling, twitchy, sweaty mess. Since I only brought my car keys (which this high-tech vehicle only has to smell to open and start) and my wallet with me, I threw them in the bag with the groceries and then watched in horror as the back hatch of the station wagon clicked shut…and locked.

With the keys inside.

Not surprisingly this had happened to me once before and the experience was burned into my memory. In a frenzy I called Raphael, whose reassuring response went something like this: “How can that happen?” and “What can I do from here?”

For some reason, the doors won’t lock if the keys are in the front of the car but I have it on good authority that the car can’t sense them all the way in the back—in a bag (or at least that’s what the internet says).

So, that’s when I went full Tourette’s. I ran around the car trying every door while cursing a blue streak. It was like a scene out of Saving Private Ryan—flying f-bombs landing everywhere!

Nooooooo! It was so hot I could feel the skin on my shoulders sizzling. I didn’t even have my phone with me to call Raphael so he could say the same damn things and offer the same useless solutions. Finally admitting defeat, I threw my hands up in the air in surrender.

I knew what must be done.

That’s I started the one-mile walk home in my stupidly small white shorts and flimsy black flip-flops, wondering why it felt like August in the Sahara Desert, and why in god’s name I was dressed like a seventeen-year-old Daisy Duke impersonator at a 4H State Fair. 

Looking at the big picture the whole thing was kinda funny. I mean, I was so wrapped up in the debit debacle, and that energy got so much momentum going, that it distracted me enough to make me do something I swore I’d never do again!

The lock and walk. 

Then it happened. I hadn’t even made it fifty-feet when I experienced the mother of all fails. The fucking flip-flop fail.

My flip-flop chose that exact moment to fall apart causing my bare right foot to hit the superheated black top, scalding it in an instant. Imagine being barefoot on hot sand or walking across hot coals. Yeah, like that.
“Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck!” I yelled, hopping backward on one foot in the middle of the parking lot while awkwardly bending over like some ridiculous French fried Flamingo to pick the thing up, fix it, and nonchalantly walk away. “There’s nothing to see here!” I yelled in my head. But I had to admit…there was.

Soldier on. Keep walking, I told myself.  Three steps later it flew off again! Foot burned. Fucks flying.

Always a quick study, I hopped over to a postage stamp sized bit of shade to assess the situation and that’s when I started to laugh because:

A: I was shit out of options. I knew I’d have to hop on one foot the entire mile home or just burn the shit out of my foot and deal with it.

B: Once momentum gets going in a downward spiral you’d better figure out a way to change its course—or else. (Or else your clothes start on fire and your shoes explode.)

C: I’m sure I looked beyond ridiculous! A sweat-drenched fifty-nine-year-old woman in tiny white shorts, one flip-flop, and a scarlet red right foot hopping down a busy street. I mean, I can’t even!

Holding the irreparably broken flip-flop in hand, I hobbled home praying the entire way for Raphael to be there so I could beat him with it, he could hug me, kiss my blistered foot, and give me a ride back to my melty groceries. He wasn’t, and I couldn’t walk on my right foot it was so burned, so I grabbed better shoes (ouch), and the spare key, jumped into his big van, and drove myself back to the scene of the crime.

I figured we could pick up my car later.

I was gone all of five minutes but when I got home he was there—wondering how one person was driving two cars. He figured the van had been stolen. As I told him the story he shook his head (because he knows I’m Lucy Ricardo) and gave my foot tons of sympathy.

Wait!… Don’t you want to be me? Don’t you wish you had my glamorous life? And is anybody still worried about the debit card?…ha! exactly!

#flipflopfail
#Sundayfootfry
#animperfectlife

Carry on,
xox