Life

Music heals. That I know for sure.

In case you haven’t seen this in your country yet it’s making the rounds here in the US, where healing is sorely needed.

Do yourself a favor and take listen—I dare you not to be moved.

Love,
xoxJB

I was thinking about this the other day. Like why are there so many Chumps and so few Champions?
So I made a list-ishy thing. Do you have anything to add?

Chump or Champion?

When you know it’s not right…and you do it anyway.

Chump is a choice.

So is Champion, but for some at least—Chump is the easier path.

It’s a careless choice of words.
It’s a tone of voice.
A turn of a phrase.

Being patently insensitive

A certain indifference.
A definite intolerance.
A lack of empathy.
A need for attention.

It’s taking the low road because the low road can be crowded and they have better snacks.

Chump is a choice.

Chumpy behavior goes viral. It gets its own hashtag and reality show.

Champion’s victories are short-lived.

Chump is a choice.

Chump is loud, unscripted, unfiltered and raw. It gets yips and catcalls. It can be uncomfortably humorous—mostly at the expense of others.

Champs set the bar high for excellence. Funny? Maybe. But it’s inclusive, and it NEVER elicits a groan.

Chumps drink the Kool-aid. What am I saying? They MAKE the Kool-aid and put up a stand on the busiest corner—where they SELL OUT.

Champs quietly drink champagne out of silver awards cups…or Dixie cups.

Champ isn’t easy. It’s about beating the odds.

Chump is a choice.

Chumps a piece of cake. It’s about taking advantage of the odds. Leveraging fear and rage.

I’ve known some people who have chosen to go the way of the Chump. I watched it. It was very quick and very concise. I won’t name names because that would be Chumpy.

I’ve also known those who have chosen to be a Champion. It was quiet. It was solitary. It took time. It was a slog. Like losing that last five pounds, or turning the Titanic.

What I’ve learned is that EVERYTHING in life comes down to a choice. Which one will it be?

Carry on,
xox

Why does “A Case of You” By Joni Mitchell still make me tear up?

Because “Music makes room for our pain.”

Yes, yes it does, Jason Silva.

…Hold me.

Carry on,
xox

Taller, shorter, fat or skinny. Different, not wrong.
Black, white, orange or polka-dot. Different, not wrong.
Red hair, blue hair, or no hair at all. Different, not wrong.
Tattooed, pierced, bearded, half a shaved head. Different, not wrong.
Head-scarf wearer, wig-wearer, fully covered or barely covered at all. Different, not wrong.
Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian. Green Party, Etc. Etc. Different, not wrong.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,or Transgender. Different, not wrong.
Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Unitarian, Baptist. Etc, Etc. Different, not wrong.
#ALLlivesmatter
This is a post from back in 2014 when things seemed less complicated.
Carry on,
xox

The other day in line at my version of The Happiest Place on Earth, Target or “Tar-Jeh” as I like to refer to it; I overheard a couple of women in front of me mercilessly scrutinizing the cashier.

“My God, will you look at those fingernails, they’re so long! And that color!”

Her friend stopped unloading the contents of her cart onto the conveyor belt just long enough to lean forward to get a better look.

“Oh yeah”, she replied, “How does she do anything?

It seemed to me she was doing her job just fine.

“And that blue color- bleck, all the kids are wearing that and I just don’t get it. It’s hideous.”

I was hoping that our checker Tracy, couldn’t hear them, even though they were making no effort to lower their voices, speaking with the same loud, rude, audacity I’ve heard some American’s use in a foreign country when they assume the victim of their vitriol doesn’t speak English.

Once they had finished verbally annihilating Tracy, they went to town on the lady in the line next to us.

“Oh jeeeeeez, she’s too old to be wearing shorts. Not with legs like that! One of the women snorted. “She should get that vein stripping surgery that Miki had done, then maybe she could wear those things…but then only in the privacy of her own backyard for godsakes.”

“Looks like a freakin’ roadmap. Disgusting! My eyes can’t un-see that” her friend chimed in, throwing cat food, tampons and a Snickers bar on the belt.

Because I was behind them I was fair game—and terrified. I became a swivel head, looking around with the intention of changing lines.
God no, don’t do that, you’ll just give them a perfect shot of your ass in yoga pants as you walk away. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them that nugget for their nastiness. Better I just stay put, duck down or become invisible…….
I was certain I was to become the next victim of the Target Fashion Police.

Do you know people like that? That judge anything that’s different from THEIR “normal” as…….wrong?

Hey, ladies, with your overdone Botox, orange skin, and fake designer handbags, (sorry, but you asked for it) it’s not wrong – it’s just different.

I once took a friend to a group meditation which I attended once a month. She was interested in starting a practice, and I’d known these people for over ten years. A previous friend I had taken, described this group as an old, cozy pair of slippers – warm and welcoming. I thought so too.

Meditation was great. My friend seemed to genuinely like the people, chatting and laughing afterward while sipping her alkaline water.

On the way home in the car, I was in for a rude awakening.

“Ernest guy…what’s his story?” she asked.
I knew who she meant, one of the men IS very earnest in his social interactions.
“Oh I don’t know, I’ve known him forever. He can be kind of intense – but he’s sweet, really.”
“Well, he creeped me out. Then that Birkenstock, ferret-faced lady, ha! She’s something else.”

“Hey! These are my friends, sort of….anyway…they’re sweet and harmless and they seemed to really like you.”

I was trying to keep my cool, but I wanted to punch her in the throat. OMMMMMM back to a loving place.

“Yeah, well, they’re not my people, too granola, woo woo, Patchouli, for me. But I did like the water. And the meditation.”

Too bad sister, because I’m never taking you again, I thought silently to myself, not wanting to start a car-fight.

I had heard this same friend level a judgment on everyone around her in ten seconds flat, but they were usually strangers, not people I knew. (I can only imagine what kind of animal MY face resembled.) Seems anyone who didn’t fit in some little box she had envisioned as “correct” – was wrong.
They were ferret-faced, creepy, granola eating (so what) freaks.

“The guy on the corner waiting at the light? He looks like a pedophile.”
“Look at that girl’s eyeliner, who did her make-up? A raccoon?”

I know this seems like a duh, but I’m going there anyway. Obviously, SHE had some self-esteem issues or she wouldn’t be looking around with such a cruel eye and a sharp tongue.

After I ditched that judgy friend for good, I still couldn’t escape it, the judgment that is—I started to notice it everywhere.

Two guys at Starbucks sneering judgmentally at one of those overly complicated coffee orders the Barista is shouting out at the pickup counter. You know the one: grande, half-caf, sugar-free, one pump, vanilla latte with extra foam.

So what! Why is my order any of your business and why is it somehow wrong?

Variety makes the world go ’round. I personally relish it.
In my opinion, it makes life and people watching supremely entertaining.

Because it is so glaringly obvious to me now, I promise to try not to make you wrong.

Be your badass selves.
Fly your freak flags.
Wear your blue nail polish, pierce, tattoo, gray out your hair, Kelly Osbourne.
I LOVE IT. 

DIFFERENT inspires me! It gives me ideas, things I would have never have thought of.

As far as I ever contemplate pushing the envelope, someone has been there, done that, SO last Tuesday.

Start paying attention, see if you can catch yourself or someone around you judging different as wrong.
It’s okay if someone loves pickled herring or sleeps until noon or sings the wrong lyrics to every song (that’s actually endearing).

What do you think? Clue me in. Tell me about it in the comments!

Love you, my different little tribe,
Xox

When I remember—I do this.

Mindfully.

I imagine that the water sort of “clean slates” me. It removes all of the sticky yuck that had adhered itself to me during the day and brings me back to neutral.

Neutral feels good.
Neutral feels doable.
I can handle neutral.

Sticky yuck—not so much.

Who doesn’t feel better after a nice hot shower?

Another option is a hot bath. I like to add Epsom salt. It relieves muscle aches and pains and convinces me that it’s the next best thing to soaking in warm ocean water, which it isn’t, but I’m gullible when I’m wet.

To rid my body of toxins, I’ll add some apple cider vinegar. It is advisable to immerse your entire body, even your head, which, if you’re built like me, includes your face. So take off your false eyelashes.

Try not to breathe while your head is underwater. That leads to death, which, if you think about IS the ultimate in peace and quiet, but I think it takes that a little too far—so I’m not recommending it.

Just think about it. Water has the power to carve stone. Hello, The Grand Canyon?

It can surely wash away all of my jagged edges.

Happy weekend,
xox

A reader sent this to me, and I LOVE it! No surprise there.
These are some wise words. Thanks, Marie!

Carry on,
xox

The magic is back by popular demand!
And by popular demand, I mean all of the neighborhood daddies pushing babies in strollers who have both demanded, and by both I mean daddy and baby (and the occasional nana), who in no uncertain terms, some covered in goldfish orange-colored drool, have yelled loudly, and in unison, “Where are the magic wands?!”

Calm down everybody! (By the way, babies stained orange yelling about magic—is just adorable.)

I LOVE doing this for the kids, and the Agapanthus (the wands), which have bloomed late this year I’m sure due to the drought, LOVE being wands!

So… yesterday, in the early morning hours, I was forced to sneak up and down the streets around my house, darting in and out of the bushes to hide from cars, clippers in hand, cutting wands.

What I won’t do for a pail full of magic!

Magic is everywhere you guys. It’s the hummingbirds crowded around fragrant flowers in your garden, your babies first tooth, peach pie and an unexpected phone call from a dear friend.

Wands are just a small reminder every summer that we can abracadabra some magic right from our fingertips!

Have a joyful, magical holiday weekend!
xox

It’s not a good idea to touch your hair when you are in transition. Or change your appearance at all for that matter.

I can offer that advice because I know from personal experience.

The first time was second or third grade, I can’t remember which, when I was unceremoniously transferred without any warning from Miss Law’s classroom, which I adored because it was very progressive (she had us sit with our desks in a circle), to Sister Francis Ann’s dark and dreary classroom where the desks were all in ROWS.

That night I cut my own bangs. Badly. With plastic doll scissors. But I never admitted it. Until now.

I always seemed to get a bad haircut right about the time I was losing my front teeth or getting braces. Like I couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
What about you?

Was it bad timing?

One of the traumas of childhood?

Or a tragic coincidence?

I can’t be sure, but I have the pictures to prove it.

Due to the fact that pixie cuts were all the rage for little girls in the 1960’s, and that I wasn’t asked or consulted in any way because, well, because it was back in the days when kids didn’t get a vote and my mom chose my stylist and paid for my haircut, I decided to fly in the face of conventional thinking I followed the trend and wore my hair like a boy.

At first a toothless boy.

Then a little boy with teeth too large for his/her face to which the braces only added insult to injury.

Nothing says “Hey, I’m well adjusted”,  like showing up to the first day of a new grade wearing braces, a uniform, and your dad’s haircut.

Damn…childhood. It’s no wonder we’re all so fucked up when it comes to transitions and change.

Make yourself look as bad as you possibly can—venture out into an awkward social situation—and then try to make new friends.

Which I think became a pattern for me.

I remember once, in the midst of a terribly painful break-up (to be distinguished from all the other break-ups that were a laugh riot), drinking and dialing my hairdresser who was a friend. I needed to re-invent. So…we proceeded to spend the rest of the night smoking cigarettes, drinking two-buck-Chuck, cursing sexy bad boys and dying my blonde hair a hideous shade of eggplant purple/red/black/vomit.

Then we both agreed (at least that was her side of the story), that the only thing I needed to make me look even cuter—were bangs.

The next day I wanted to die. No, seriously. I wanted to drop dead at the sight of myself.
I had an audition and I was now sporting bangs. Bangs the color of eggplant vomit; that matched the rest of my hair; and that was the least of my problems.
I was single.
Again.
It was a real catastrofuck.

This is my darling sister, whom I lived with at the time, and I’m sure we’re laughing at the eyebrows I had to draw on with a black pencil to match my hair.

Even my mom, the one who had me pixie-cut, hated it. She actually cried and asked why I was deliberately defacing myself. Like I was cutting or something. She said I “needed help.”

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I sucked at transition. I had a bigger issue. Control. If something happened that I didn’t have any control over…watch out! Bangs were in my immediate future.

They still are.

If you know me, you know how many different colors and styles I’ve worn my hair over the years and if I trace it back, something emotional was always happening, some change or transition, right around the time I did the big ones.

I just did it recently. When I decided I was a writer, I also decided it was time to stop dying my hair and go gray!

So, that just goes to prove that old neurosis die hard although I’ve gotten a gazillion times better.
I recognize what’s about to happen when I get wobbly and start fingering the scissors.

Bangs.

Then I go and hide them from myself.

I’ve also outgrown drinking and dialing my hairdresser and I try not to make huge changes in my appearance before an important event—although I have a big meeting at the end of the month and I’m not sure my hair is purple enough underneath…I’m serious.

The other day I tore a picture out of a magazine of a cute way to wear gray hair with…bangs.

I’m doomed.

What do you do under similar circumstances? Loose weight? Buy boobs? Grow a beard? (Yeah, me too)

Carry on,
xox

“You can’t ride two horses with one ass.”

While I was growing up I used to hear that phrase all the time from my dad.

What? What does that even mean?

This was his reaction to my teenage stress. After he’d watch me fumble and stumble, struggle and juggle; fitting in play rehearsal, singing practice, homework, and my part-time job, he’d admonish me, “Janet, you can’t ride two horses with one ass.”

My reaction was to roll my eyes, snap my gum, turn my head toward the heavens, and exhale the long, deep exhalation of the exasperated teenager. “Okaaaay, daAAAAaad, I get it, make a decision. Do one thing at a time. Gawd.”

I always knew the one thing he thought I should choose to focus on was my job at the supermarket. It could end up being my security, after all, my future, just like it had become his. But truth be told, that was NEVER gonna happen.

He had little patience for my “extracurricular” pursuits. He, as the father figure, the patriarch, the breadwinner, just couldn’t understand what he considered frivolous time wasting.

And I, cast as the dutiful daughter, continued to struggle with not enough asses.

Those extra things were far from superfluous to me, hardly! They were actually my life’s blood –– my passions.

He was unable to wrap his brain around multi-passionate people, and that never changed.
I can’t say that I blame him. Us multi-passionate sorts are hard to figure out.

He’s not alone, there are many out in this world that can’t stand those of us who won’t seem to commit to just one pursuit. “Jack of all trades, master of none” was another of his old school, paternal pontifications.

After a while (years), I understood. I didn’t like it and I was incapable of abiding by it –– but I understood his confusion.

He was from the school of one horse, one ass.

Pick one thing, focus on it, and do it— for the rest of your life.
Then, and only after you’ve collected your retirement, are you allowed to entertain frivolous pursuits. Hopefully, you still have your health, vitality, and a little sass to keep things interesting.

Many in our family died soon after they retired, without enjoying any of life’s extras.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older and hopefully a little wiser.
The things that hold passion for us in life are hardly extras. To me, they are the makings of a life well lived.

Jobs can be had, money made, the focus narrowed, and direction figured out, but it’s the multiple horses that we have the audacity to ride with our one crazy, creative, freedom-seeking-ass, that make us who we are!

Singularly Focused Exemplary Employee is not what I’ve ever wanted written on my headstone.

Badass of sass, multi-passionate creative, who can’t stay in the saddle; sloppy rider of an entire herd of horses, who you may hear whooping and hollering and having one hell of a ride –– and the time of her life.  Now that’s more like it!

Ride all those horses with your one wild ass.

Own it.

Sorry dad.

Carry on,
Xox

A few years back I was described by someone, a dancer in a production I was involved in, I can’t remember exactly who it was because professional dancers have a tendency to become a blur of spinning fabulousness when you’re around them—as “elegantly clumsy.’

I almost wept with joy. I felt it was one of the highest compliments I had ever been paid. Besides, I only heard the word elegant. After that entered my ears—they stopped listening.
I never heard the clumsy part.
Well, maybe I did.
I just have to say that considering the circumstances—clumsy was still a compliment.

Back as a young girl in the midst of tween-dom, I was stick figure thin; a gangly compilation of arms and legs, with giant blue eyes, braces, and a tiny tween brain. What I loved more than anything else was to put on shows. God, how I loved that! Dancing or roller-skating and lip-syncing to the latest movie soundtrack on our long, smooth concrete patio. Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand was my favorite.

I could sing. Sort of. At the time it was a volume over substance sort of thing.
The trouble was, I also fancied myself a graceful dancer. Not a ballerina exactly, I wasn’t quite that audacious. But thinking I was a dancer was still a reach considering the fact that when faced with choreography, even the most elementary dance steps, my left leg traveled right, and my right leg, which has always had a mind of its own, did its very own version of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance.

While all of that was happening below my waist; my arms, hands, fingers, neck and head appeared disjointed, like a marionette, unattached from each other in any kind of biological way. They twisted and turned, undulating rhythmically, part Hawaiian Hula, part Aboriginal Fire Dance with a touch of Tai Chi and a sprinkling of Bob Fosse.

They moved to some internal melody that was completely unrelated to the music that was playing out loud.

Eyes closed, I can remember feeling at one with every note of every song. I had no idea how I appeared to those who were lucky enough to witness my spectacular moves. All I knew was that I was a dancer…until I heard the laughter.

I remember opening my eyes and thinking—actually consciously deciding—I can play up the funny—or I can be self-conscious—I chose to do both.

For the rest of my tweens, I played up the funny, because if you act like you’re IN on the joke, then they’re not laughing AT you—they’re laughing WITH you.

Once I reached high school and starting participating in Musical Theatre, not getting the dance steps wasn’t funny anymore. I became almost paralyzed with self-consciousness. Almost. As luck would have it, God giveth whilst He taketh away. That singing thing had gotten a lot better which allowed them to overlook my awkward dance free-stylings.

While the cast would dance their amazing Broadway-esq ensemble numbers, I was moved to a stationary platform where I was asked, told, to stand still and sing, or to move ONLY my hands in unison with the others. After numerous failed attempts to do exactly that, we all decided, for the sake of the show, that standing perfectly still or sitting on the side of the stage was preferable.

When I decided to re-join musical theater in my fifties, I discovered menopause had helped me to forget how much I sucked at dancing. It was only my feet, those two things below my knees with painted toes, that jogged my memory and saved that tiny shred of self-respect that had persevered since High School.

They did that by completely refusing to cooperate.

I could barely point my toes, and pointed toes are to dancers what lips are to singers.

After only an hour of dance rehearsal, my arches screamed in agony. Every toe was distorted into an arthritic looking charlie-horse. I hobbled around trying to walk off the pain, but my feet knew better. They were saving me from dance humiliation.

Blame it on us, they said.
So I did.
What choice did I have?

The powers-that-be lowered their expectations of my ability to “move”. ‘The old broad has shitty feet”, they muttered as they choreographed around me.

I’m okay with that, I thought, even though the moment I left the theatre—my feet behaved normally. It felt better than the fear of them get wind of the fact that I didn’t possess one lick of dance talent.

I had one of the leads in A Chorus Line, a show about dancers and their passion for dancing, where I was begged not to dance. “God, I’m a dancer, a dancer dances!”, I sang into the spotlight with all of the sincerity I could muster, as I stood nailed to the ground.

It’s called acting.

Eventually, I was cast as Velma in Chicago where they made me dance with a chair. I mean, how hard could THAT be?
It was Bob Fosse style, which means you’re actually making love to a chair.
On stage.
In public.

I couldn’t do it straight. So I made it funny. Sexy-funny if there’s such a thing. I may have just invented it.

Anyhow, they left it in the show, and it was after a run thru of that particular number that one of the dancers came up to me and whispered, “I like your style”.

“Oh, really? What style is that?”, I replied between gasps of air, as I poured buckets of sweat onto the stage.

“You’re elegantly clumsy”, he said with conviction, like he had just told Baryshnikov “Nice Jete”.

I will live off the fumes of that compliment until the day I die.

Carry on,
xox