mistakes

What If Life Is One Giant Improve Sketch?

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” ~ William Shakespeare

I took a bunch of improv classes back in the day and lemme just validate what you probably already know—improv isn’t easy.
If it were, everybody would be doing it—and they’re not. Most of my acting friends at the time said they would rather do stand- up, or sing a song at an open mic night than be stuck on stage for one hot second doing improv.
Reasons Given: There’s no set story, no plan. There are no parameters, no written lines to rehearse. To be any good you have to (gulp) surrender to the moment. And, you have to listen with your whole body.

Fuck no! They yelled as they ran toward serious drama. That shit’s too scary!

Me being me, I thought it looked fun. You just make shit up and everyone has to go along with it? Cool!  So I decided to try it. And just like you do when you find yourself committed to trying something completely terrifying for no rational reason and no money, I puked like a rockstar backstage before I stepped one fearful foot into the lights.

How bad can it be? — famous last words.

“You’re hard candy at the bottom of a grandmother’s purse!” Someone yelled. Oh hell no!  I thought, frozen in place. I’m not candy…candy can’t talk…what am I doing?…why am I here?…Jesus H. Christ, I feel naked…am I naked?…am I dreaming?…have I died?…where’s the exit?

The other actor on stage, the good one, really got into it. His candy had a backstory, a history. Separated from our wrappers and passed over by the grandkids, it was just the two of us, he insisted. Left to our own devices among the stray Kleenex, tiny envelopes of artificial sweetener, and our arch-enemies, THE COUGH DROPS — we had a shared destiny to fulfill!

I could barely hear the guy over the voice of my ego screaming inside my head. There must be an easier, less mortifying way to spend your time! It railed. Then fear took over.
My legs grew roots.
Paralyzed, I couldn’t move a muscle.
I tried to swallow but my saliva had turned to dust.
I’d also gone mute.
I’m sure this only lasted a minute or five, but it felt more like an hour as I stood on stage in a stupor, listening to this guy yammer on about his imaginary life as a purse candy.

Once the blood found its way back to my brain, I remembered the number one rule of improv: Say Yes. Always agree and SAY YES.

Finally, my hard candy comrade ran out of things to say. Having finished an impromptu five-minute monologue, he stood there glaring at me, every minty molecule of his being willing me to die play along. Rule number two: Don’t Deny. Denial is the number one reason things go south. Taking a deep breath, I attempted to override my ego whose pernicious idea it was to stand like an idiot deer in the headlights.
Like that wasn’t weird at all.
Like it was the lesser of two evils.
Like nobody would notice.

Epiphany #1 — What my ego was advising me to do was no less humiliating than acting like a candy!

There was somebody on the stage who was begging me to join him and it would be impossible to look any worse than I did right that minute. I went for it. Putting my hands on my head I teased my big eighties hair into a cotton candy frenzy. “Can I ask you a question?” I said, “How do you keep all of this purse lint from sticking to you?” Off we went…I can’t tell you what we did after that, or what was said, all I know is that was the moment the suffering stopped. That was the moment it got fun!

People laughed.
I didn’t die.
I learned a TON.
And in the future (yes, I kept at it) every time I overrode my ego’s impulse to make me hurl or bolt for the exit, improv got… easier.

Epiphany #2 — As I studied spirituality, meditation, and being in the moment— as I read all the Ekart Tolle books and Michael Singer’s The Surrender Experiment, I realized that most suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are, instead of saying yes to what the universe, AKA the best improv partner ever, has put in front of you.

But it takes practice! I constantly have to remind my ego: Say YES. Let go of your agenda (don’t deny). Listen to what you receive and build on it. You can’t be wrong. Make your partner(s) look brilliant. Keep moving forward. Surrender, surrender, surrender.

Epiphany #3 — Life is one long improv sketch! You can listen to your ego and do everything in your power to keep from looking weird or making a mistake, which I have found is the quickest route to dullsville OR in a world full of choices— you can be the hard candy!

Epiphany #4 — Always agree with Stephen Colbert.

Carry on,
xox J

On Beyond Zebra

This is so good you guys. I could heat it in the microwave and spoon it over ice cream! It’s by Anne Lamott (or as my tribe refers to her, St. Anne), and it’s about fucking up BIG. Like HUGE. Some might even call it self-sabotage.

But then it’s about forgiving yourself (which if you’re like me is about as impossible as losing those last ten pounds.) Because when we do that it allows the universe to get a word in edgewise. And maybe, just maybe, lead us to the miracle in the mess, or at least some peanut M& Ms to console us while we wait.

I’ve already sung the praises of her new book HALLELUJAH ANYWAY but this is a Facebook post. Written at the airport. I mean seriously? I can’t even!

Take it away St. Anne!

xox

___________________________________________

“We all secretly think we are defective–this is why our parents were unhappy, or unfaithful, or abusive, or whatever.
Believing this gave us our only shot at control in households that were chaotic or cold: If we were the problem, then it meant our caregivers were good parents, capable of nurture and the healthy raising of children. And it meant we could correct our defects, and then our parents would be happy, finally, be nice to each other, and stop drinking.

I have spent 30 sober years healing from this survival tactic, of thinking I am annoying or a screw-up. I have just toured the country promoting a book on mercy, called HALLELUJAH ANYWAY, whose main premise is that if we practice radical self-care and forgiveness, this will heal us and radiate out to our families and communities, bringing peace.

However, I have done something so out there, so On Beyond Zebra, that it drew into question every aspect of that guiding principle (i.e., that I am NOT defective). I thought I was 80% over this. As a child, I agreed to believe it because it helped my family function and helped the other members feel better about themselves, because at least they weren’t screwed-up, annoying me.

But I have outdone myself. I have done something so amazingly incompetent and so profoundly inconvenient to so many people I love that it will allow you to forgive yourself for almost anything. I will be your new gold standard; you will no longer be secretly convinced that you have Alzheimer’s. You will think you are just fine and have been overreacting. You will understand why my son, Sam, so frequently mentions the website A Place for Mom to me.

So: six months ago, I was invited to give a talk at the 2017 TED conference in Vancouver. This was very heady stuff, as sometimes millions of people see these talks online and might want to buy your new book, saving you from financial ruin and having to go live at the Rescue Mission and live on government cheese, which is very binding.

So I wrote and sort of memorized my 15-minute talk, and my various caseworkers worked for months to get me to Vancouver this morning from Seattle, where I did a reading last night.

I got to the airport an hour ago, got out my passport, and tried to get a boarding pass for a flight I’ve been booked on and obsessing about for 3 months.

That’s when I’d realized I had grabbed the wrong passport at home. The expired one.

Therefore, I would not be able to catch a flight to our tense new enemy, Canada, to give the biggest and most important talk of my life.

It is hard to capture my feelings at that moment: terror, shame, self-loathing and catastrophic thoughts about my doomed future.

I texted my agent, ran to TSA, pleaded my case and how I must be HUGELY important (albeit brain damaged) to be giving a TED talk.

No go. And no way to get on board any flight to Canada. I was doomed.

But those 30 years had not been in vain. Because within a few minutes, I had remembered 3 things:

God always makes a way out of no way.

Radical self-care and forgiveness are always possible – always — and always the way home.

And HALLELUJAH ANYWAY is half about how there is nothing outside of yourself that can heal or fill you or make you whole unless you are waiting for an organ. A TED talk was never going to have been able to fill me with respect. That’s an inside job.

I hate and resent this, but it is the truest truth — union with God or Goodness, including our safest, most trusted friends, and deep friendliness and forgiveness to one’s sometimes very disappointing self.

So five minutes later, my agent and the TED people had worked out a plan whereby as I write this my son is flying to Seattle with my passport. He’ll be here in 5 hours. There’s a late flight to Vancouver, and the TED people have created a space for me tomorrow morning out of thin air. Talk about making a way out of no way.

Additionally, I charged $30 worth of medicine, magazines and a sack of peanut butter M&Ms.

I’m not sure what the message of this is. I quoted Samuel Goldwyn in Bird by Bird, who told screenwriters that if they had a message to send a telegram. All I have to offer is this story: that we get to make huge mistakes, and that the one I made this week is almost certainly bigger than any of yours. But neither of us is defective. We are perfect children of the universe, although maybe still a little funny around the edges, with tiny character issues and failing memories. We possess every day the capacity to extend gentleness and forgiveness to ourselves and those suffering nearby.

I am smiling gently at all the miserable frantic people at the airport and telling them I like their hats. I gave a sobbing child my IHOP crayons. (This is the path to world peace.)

And I will never, ever hear the end of this from the people who love me. Ever. Believe me.”

One of My Best Dance Partners…Was a Chair

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If you’re like me, I can bet that you’d just as soon forget some dances from your past.

I engaged in some pretty sketchy moves. I did. I may have tangoed with a few men, a rose held firmly in my frozen grin, who I realize now were not the best dance partners for me.
But I have to admit—it was fuuuuun.

I, the woman with two left feet, may have attempted Bob Fosse choreography at the age of fifty-four, and I cringe every time it comes to mind.
Which is never.
I never need to remember that.
Right?

But I danced with a chair. And the chair had better moves.
And I’ve never laughed so much in my entire life!

What about all of the partnering that has danced me to where I’m standing right now?
The collaboration and the joy?
Just thinking about it makes me smile.
And cringe.
But mostly smile.

Life is a dance. We make it up as we go along and it is stunning in its complexity.
A beautiful series of fast footwork and sidesteps, backwards motion and even a few graceful leaps into the air that carry us where we need to go—and nobody, NOBODY—can take that away from us.

Not even ourselves.

Carry on,
xox

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Hiding, Attention To Detail and Nose Hair

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“Hiding takes many forms. Inappropriate attention to detail is a big one because it feels like a responsible thing to do.”
~ Seth Godin

Take a look at the two quotes above.

Attention to detail. Good. Necessary for greatness.
Attention to detail bad. Perfectionism. Hiding.

I agree. With both. Seriously.

My belief in the quality that lies in attention to detail remains unwavering.

HOT water causes peonies to open.

Dirty fingernails telegraph all your nasty secrets.

Cloth napkins. ONLY cloth napkins.

Clean underneath your patio furniture. God forbid someone moves a chair and a family of ten thousand baby black widow spiders decide it’s time for a meet-n-greet. (I speak from personal experience on this one).

Make sure you’re wearing your glasses when you shave your bikini line. You don’t want to leave unseen strips of grown out stubble that are long enough to braid. That’ll ruin any day at the beach. (Again with the personal experience.) And men, the same holds true for nose hair. Glasses on, and…Clip it.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg for me when it comes to paying attention to the details, and it’s easy for me to go overboard.

Here’s the thing, as unbelievable as it may seem to some, I’ve lightened up significantly the older I’ve gotten, and you know what? Things still look great—and I‘m so much happier.

As far as hiding in the attention to detail, never one to pass up a neurosis—I’ve done that too.

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It’s easy as a writer to convince yourself that “it” will be so much better if you just work on it for a few more days. Who hasn’t done that with a project they care about? It’s got your name attached, so it better be perfect. Right?
Days turn into weeks, weeks turn to months, months to years and all you have are drawers and files full of “rough drafts”.

Just send the freakin’ article! Just enter the photograph in the contest! Jeez! Pahleez! There may be a typo, flub or a mistake.
Big. Deal.

Truth be told, tired eyes miss typos. They just do. I’ve seen typos in published material that was edited by industry professionals! It’s okay, it actually makes me smile and you know what? I’m pretty sure nobody died in the making of that minor error.

I know an artist AND a writer both of whom are so intellectually adept that they over think their creative endeavors to. a. fault. They’re always reading one more book, or taking yet anther class—when they should just be painting and writing! Enjoying the process.

No more details! Flip perfection the finger!

The rest of the Seth Godin essay:
“There are endless small details to get right before you have something you’re truly proud of. No doubt about it. But there are frightening and huge holes in any bridge to the future, and until you figure out how to get across, I’m not sure it matters if you have a typo on page 4.”

One way I figured out to get across the scary bridge is the fact that I take consolation in knowing there always has to be a FIRST DRAFT. Always. For everything.

Carry on,
xox

My Favorite Mistake

I will be away this week, vacationing in a land of sun, sand, and questionable Wifi. If it’s not two gerbils running on a habit trail unreliable, I will post something NEW.
Otherwise, every day there will be one of the six most popular posts from the past few years in no particular order.
I hope you’re all pigging out and having fun. I know I am!
Carry on,
xox


“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, Ralph. Or do you want me to call you Waldo?
How did you get so smart? So enlightened? After all, you lived during the nineteenth century, a time of immense intellectual and industrial expansion; yet it was also the time of corsets, slavery, the horse and buggy, The Civil War, and before the use of the electric light bulb.

You went around espousing and developing certain cutting-edge ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Holy cow R.W.!

With this quote you give those of us in the twenty-first century, an era whose technological advances you could scarcely have imagined in your wildest dreams—permission.

Permission to make mistakes;
Permission to get over ourselves;
Permission to be high-spirited, unencumbered;

Permission to start the fuck over!

Thank you Ralph, Waldo, Wally? We really needed it, because in that respect—humanity hasn’t changed a bit since you walked the earth.

Nearly two centuries later we have yet to master the art of forgiving ourselves and employing The Start Over.

“Blunders and absurdities” not only creep in, they set up camp and ruin our sleep as they set fire to our lives; and after we clean up the mess and re-group, we have a hard time letting go of the past, the old nonsense—and an almost impossible time forgiving ourselves.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I don’t know about you guys but you may as well be asking me to get into a shark cage in infested waters, or eat just one Lays Potato Chip—it’s simply not going to happen.

Then I remembered this, something I haven’t thought about in eons:

Years ago a friend posed this amazing question to me after too much wine and not enough cheese. (Remember the Sheryl Crowe song My favorite Mistake? It was playing in the back round),

“What would you say is your favorite mistake?”
I watched as her IQ rose several points just in the contemplation of such a thing.

Me: A Favorite Mistake? Really? I, I, uh, I don’t know. (tens of IQ points evaporating by the second.)

I suppose it was the word favorite that initially hung me up, but the more I thought about it, the more I LOVED the concept.

If we could deem a mistake our favorite, it would release the charge, the tug in our gut.
It would become the path on which we could meet up with “high-spirited and unencumbered”.
It could become old nonsense and jumpstart THE START OVER.

I was willing to give it a try.

“I suppose my favorite mistake was my marriage at twenty. We were way too young and not a good match, and after the divorce we both went on to live happy lives with other people—and we’re still friends” I admitted, feeling lighter by the minute.

Hers was an unplanned pregnancy, a son she had at nineteen. A favorite for obvious reasons.

Thinking about this again, all these years later, my heart started racing as I ran through twenty plus years of memories and they started to look less like a Tela Novela and more like a situation comedy.

Starting my business, my store, is quickly becoming my latest favorite mistake due to all of the internal growth it’s caused. I can finally be done with it. It has become old nonsense, and now I have this (the writing) and SO MUCH MORE. I can say that now.

As I lay in bed the other night it dawned on me that since the beginning of time, humans have tortured themselves over their mistakes to the point where perfectly lovely people lead lives of quiet disappointment trying to avoid another.

What is your favorite mistake? This needs to be a mandatory question on any employment or dating application.
The answer changes people.
It changed me.

Okay, you knew it was coming, Tell me, What’s your favorite mistake?

Then you can Carry on,
xox

My Favorite Mistake

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, Ralph. Or do you want me to call you Waldo?
How did you get so smart? So enlightened? After all, you lived during the nineteenth century, a time of immense intellectual and industrial expansion; yet it was also the time of corsets, slavery, the horse and buggy, The Civil War, and before the use of the electric light bulb.

You went around espousing and developing certain cutting-edge ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Holy cow R.W.!

With this quote you give those of us in the twenty-first century, an era whose technological advances you could scarcely have imagined in your wildest dreams—permission.

Permission to make mistakes;
Permission to get over ourselves;
Permission to be high-spirited, unencumbered;

Permission to start the fuck over!

Thank you Ralph, Waldo, Wally? We really needed it, because in that respect—humanity hasn’t changed a bit since you walked the earth.

Nearly two centuries later we have yet to master the art of forgiving ourselves and employing The Start Over.

“Blunders and absurdities” not only creep in, they set up camp and ruin our sleep as they set fire to our lives; and after we clean up the mess and re-group, we have a hard time letting go of the past, the old nonsense—and an almost impossible time forgiving ourselves.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I don’t know about you guys but you may as well be asking me to get into a shark cage in infested waters, or eat just one Lays Potato Chip—it’s simply not going to happen.

Then I remembered this, something I haven’t thought about in eons:

Years ago a friend posed this amazing question to me after too much wine and not enough cheese. (Remember the Sheryl Crowe song My favorite Mistake? It was playing in the back round),
What would you say is your favorite mistake?
I watched as her IQ rose several points just in the contemplation of such a thing.

Me: A Favorite Mistake? Really? I, I, uh, I don’t know. (tens of IQ points evaporating by the second.)

I suppose it was the word favorite that initially hung me up, but the more I thought about it, the more I LOVED the concept.

If we could deem a mistake our favorite, it would release the charge, the tug in our gut.
It would become the path on which we could meet up with “high-spirited and unencumbered”.
It could become old nonsense and jumpstart THE START OVER.

I was willing to give it a try.

“I suppose my favorite mistake was my marriage at twenty. We were way too young and not a good match, and after the divorce we both went on to live happy lives with other people—and we’re still friends” I admitted, feeling lighter by the minute.

Hers was an unplanned pregnancy, a son she had at nineteen. A favorite for obvious reasons.

Thinking about this again, all these years later, my heart started racing as I ran through twenty plus years of memories and they started to look less like a Tela Novela and more like a situation comedy.

Starting my business, my store, is quickly becoming my latest favorite mistake due to all of the internal growth it’s caused. I can finally be done with it. It has become old nonsense, and now I have this (the writing) and SO MUCH MORE. I can say that now.

As I lay in bed the other night it dawned on me that since the beginning of time, humans have tortured themselves over their mistakes to the point where perfectly lovely people lead lives of quiet disappointment trying to avoid another.

What is your favorite mistake? This needs to be a mandatory question on any employment or dating application.
The answer changes people.
It changed me.

Okay, you knew it was coming, Tell me, What’s your favorite mistake?

Then you can Carry on,
xox

Time To Quit Or Commit?

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Hi you guys,
This is a subject I struggle with A LOT.

I’m tenacious to a fault, and some of my greasy (I wrote greatest but auto correct changed it to greasy and who am I to challenge auto correct? Truth be told — they were greasy!) Mistakes happened when I didn’t know when to throw in the towel — cut my losses.

Other people fold the minute things get tough. Wait, what am I sayin’ I’ve wanted to do that too!

I love me some Marie Forleo. I want to be her when I grow up and I love this graphic by Deborah LeFrank, cause I’m visual, I love seeing Marie’s insights all written out.

The ten-year test is genius.

Asking for guidance…learning curve.
..listening when it’s offered…pricless.

Quitters DO win…game changer!

So, is this something you battle with as well?

Which one are you? Do you get dragged or do you let go too soon?

Or both – like me?

Do you have any stories, what did you learn?

Carry on,
Xox

A Drug Bust, Stolen Flip-Flops, And A Window In Hookerville

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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 — 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 telling’ 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 basket balls 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 hairspray. My sister and I could go though a case 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 was 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 the 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, as if it had never happened — in fifteen minutes.

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, bags of chips 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 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 happened 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

Public Humiliation, Shame, and Forgiveness

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I realize this post could be polarizing. It could upset people.
What upsets me is the fact that because of your age, many of you may not even know who Monica Lewinsky is!

“Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop.”

“Show of hands – who has regrets from their days as a twenty-two-year-old?”

“At the age of twenty-two I fell in love with my boss…”

These are just a few quotes from Monica Lewinsky’s recent TED talk.

I had read the Vanity Fair article, but I was curious;
what did she have to say for herself now as a woman in her forties?

I found her talk articulate, fascinating, and thought-provoking.

Like many at the time, I’m ashamed to say I had judged her as a doe-eyed, beret-wearing bimbo, who during a lapse of better judgment, trusted a “friend”, and neglected to get that freakin’ blue dress to the cleaners…then lived to regret it.

I drank the kool-aid of popular opinion.

As I watched her speak I have to say, I was awash in contradictory emotions. I found myself feeling sorry for her, yet what surprised me were my overriding feelings of empathy and pride. I was damn proud of her. Yes, that’s right, I said it.

She’s had the audacity to pick her head up and speak out.

How long do we punish ourselves for our mistakes and missteps?
Ten years? Twenty? A lifetime?

Are we allowed to re-write our narratives? Start over and reinvent ourselves using all our gained wisdom and insight?

Watch the video and then…
You tell me.

Carry on,
Xox

Resentment – And How To UnBlock Your Prosperity – By Daniele LaPort

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Hello my peeps,
I gotta tell ya, I love this recent blog post from Daniele LaPort.
I’m sure you all know how much this resonates with me, being that after five years we’re still paying off the Atik debt,(my business that failed/flooded) and I just can’t hear this enough, and I know I’m not alone.

Resentment about “what is” (something out of your control) is like poison, it affects everything.
Your future earnings, your attitude, your peace of mind, your optimism, your weight — even your sex life!

Forgive them, forgive the situation and most importantly forgive yourself!

That goes for you, the guy paying child support and alimony.

And you with the student loans for the Law School education you’re not using, since you decided to become a pastry chef.

How about you with the mortgage payments on a house that is STILL worth less than what you paid.

I know a couple of people whose businesses tanked in the recession that are back on their feet, but carrying the debt.

Someone really wise told me recently,“Every successful person had a dry spell, and it was that dry spell that fueled their future success.” I LOVE that!

It can be soul crushing…or you can just let it go, spit out the poison, and…carry on!
xox

Take it away Daniele!

“When my first company tanked, I was on the hook for about $150,000. Before I got slammed with that fact, my CEO, who I hired to run the company, thought it best to fire my Founder’s ass. Shortly after they canned me, the whole business fell apart — because you can’t have a personality-driven business without um, the founding personality there. And because, bad karma.

Anywaaaay, I got to sit back and watch them tank without me. Which was only slightly satisfying. Mostly it was sad and crushing. When the castle crumbled, the bank called me for its money. And because I’d co-signed the loan as a “person” and not as a co-founder of the business — I had to pay up, even though I’d been fired months before.

I made a conscious choice to not resent the shit out of paying off that bad debt. Decision, made. And it’s not like I had the money. I had noooo money, beaucoup credit card debt, and only 60 subscribers to the site I started since I was suddenly solo. (You and about 300,000 people are reading that site right now! Woot! Good karma.) For 5+ years the bank withdrew $524.97 out of my account monthly, and I hammered the rest down in chunks of money when I had it to spare.

Resentment
– Is a major energy drain;
– Can feel all righteous and cool, but it’s actually totally disempowering;
– Can be insipid, like water poisoning that you don’t really taste but it’s affecting your whole system.

The good news about resentment is that — unlike other so-called negative emotions such as sadness, or jealousy, or grief — resentment can be easily turned around.

Turning around resentment:

Own that you are in charge of what you do. YOU CHOOSE to be there, to give it, to respond, walk away, show up, do it with swagger, with grace, or with vengeance. Your energy, your choice.

1) Be grateful for what you have. And there’s always something to be grateful for.
Trust that more of the good stuff is on the way. (Bonus: Your trust helps it get to you sooner.)

2) Know where you want to go. You have to be really clear about where it is that you are heading — and that it is better than where you’ve been.

3) I knew that if I actively resented and bitched about those monthly payments, that it would distract me from my own creations. Also, the anger about the whole situation was heavy-duty. And I was done carrying it. So I re-framed paying the debt into a reason to be grateful. Every time that money came out of my bank account I said, “I’m grateful that I have the money to pay this.” And I was. And I let THAT be the lead story.
And then… magically (but not instantly,) on the VERY same day that I FINALLY made my very LAST monthly payment on that bad debt, my company tipped its first million dollar mark — and I did the happy karma moonwalk. Oh ya, oh ya…”

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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