opinions

THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

(the law of) diminishing returns
phrase of diminish—

1. Used to refer to a point at which the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested—

I talked to a man recently, a very accomplished man, who acts like he has the world by the tail. And by that I mean, he looks down on everyone who hasn’t had the good fortune of being him.

Whatever life decisions you’ve made, how you’ve chosen to invest your money, even what music you listen to is met with butt-puckered lips that to go along, like a fine wine pairing, with his disapproving face. (I have it on good authority that when you purchase them at the Smug Store—they come as a pair.)

That’s okay, dude. Gimme all ya got. I worked in Beverly Hills for two decades. Water off a duck’s back.

Anyway, all evening long, as I listened to his risk-averse, conservative, privileged and inflexible views on life, I couldn’t help but wonder, How does his poor wife put up with this shit?

Then I remembered. She does it by trotting off on one of her horses, that’s how.

Oh, dear God, how I wish I had that ability.

The ability to bend to someone else’s will. The ability to let someone else run my life. To bankroll it with a marionette’s worth of strings attached. And then buy me a pony to reward my compliance.

I wish I had a price for my silence. It would have made my life SO much easier.

Because, you see, I was born with a big mouth. A big, loud, mouth that says stuff that makes guys like that shrivel in their underpants. Stuff like, “You’re not the boss of me!” And “Take your fucking pony and shove it!”

Some women trade all of the flack, disagreements, head-butting, and power struggles that happen in relationships for diamonds, vacations, fast cars, and ponies.

Not me. I call that foreplay… or Tuesday.

Unfortunately for me, (and probably for any man who has had a serious relationship with me) I have never been one of those women you could placate with bling. Biting my tongue and swallowing my opinions is much too high of a price to pay—for such little reward.

The law of diminishing returns.
Just one of the laws I have come to live by.
Along with no right turn on red, and chew before swallowing.

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

Family.

I’ve been around family all week and if you want to get a sense of your standing in the larger scheme of things…go sit with your family.

They are the great equalizers.

They are the anti-bullshit brigade.

However accomplished I may think I am, however big I am for my britches; I can count on them to take me down a notch, reminding me of who I really am —the fact that they’ve known me all of my life—and that I’m not all that.

You know what I’m talking about. Who’s with me?

Don’t get me wrong. They are quick with their heartfelt congratulations and words of encouragement, but make no mistake, they will be there to yank the string of my balloon and bring me back down to reality where I belong.

And as much as I may hate it—it’s invaluable.

If you’re like me, you may have the good fortune of being surrounded by people who think you hung the moon and the feeling is mutual. I marinate in a kind of mutual admiration stew. But before you get all twitchy, thinking I’ve aced out all of the truth tellers; every week I schedule regular visits with two of my pals who keep me honest and grounded, Kim and Sally.

They ask the hard questions. They get in my face when I need it—and even when I don’t, but truth be told, we all need that. People around us who call “bullshit!” The bullshit-busters as I like to call them.

Family.

Because they know us SO well, it can be direct, filterless, even blunt, because hey, family doesn’t pussy-foot around. They give it to you straight. It may hurt your feelings, but after the dust settles you know that everyone meant well in the end.

That’s family.

Throughout history, family has been counted on to hold each other accountable. It’s their JOB. Even the famous, highly accomplished folks have a family.

I have it on good authority that Albert Einstein’s mother was horrified by the way he wore his hair. Sure, he was good at math, but for god sakes son, get a haircut!

Bill Gates’s dad was NOT happy that his son dropped out of college. Although, once he convinced his parents how serious he was about starting a company, they became supportive. But still, I can just imagine the uncomfortable Sunday night conversations around the Gate’s family dinner table where they tried to convince him to keep this computer thing a “hobby”, stay in Harvard, graduate, and get a real job.

I’m certain Meryl Streep’s family is so proud of her, but I bet they are the first to dial her down, keep her feet on the ground and remind her of her true place in the world. Mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

Which leads me to ask because I just can’t help myself, where is Donald Trump’s family? Do they ask him the hard questions? Do they call bullshit? He is a perfect example of why this kind of equalizing is so important.

We have our “yes men”, and then we have our family and if yours is anything like mine—they don’t let you get away with jack-shit.

And that is as it should be.

Carry on,
xox

The is a picture of Terra Cotta. She is a life-size bust and beautiful example of papier-mache but at a glance everyone thinks she’s terra cotta pottery and she likes it that way. Hence the name.

I purchased Ms. Cotta the last day of a jewelry show after begging the grumpy old guy who was using her as a necklace display to sell her to me. I imagined a better life for her. She is now the Matriarch of the Mantle having graced our living room for more than fifteen years.

Now, don’t let her serene beauty bamboozle you. Terra Cotta is a grand dame in every sense of the word. A Diva. She makes the Mona Lisa seem warm and extroverted.  Terra Cotta’s face may read docile, her smile might imply a kind of quiet contemplation, but I know from experience that if she doesn’t like you or your choices, she will launch herself off that mantle in less time than it takes to say “I don’t believe an inanimate object has opinions.”

When we remodeled our house, I moved her around from time to time to keep her out of harm’s way.
Covered by a sheet most days to protect her from the drywall dust, I could feel her, in the dark, seething. She expected better treatment AND she wasn’t at all sure about the wall color I was choosing.

When the room was finally finished I uncovered her and placed on the focal point of the room, in her seat of honor in the center of the mantel. The next morning I came out to find her face down on the floor.

Apparently she loathed the shade of white we had picked. It did nothing for her skin tone.

Eventually, after several more face plants, we found a blue that she approved of. I am forever grateful that she is indeed papier-mache and not pottery. By now I’d have a ceramic plastic surgeon on speed dial.

When the time came to place a piece of art on that wall, I did so with trepidation. The Queen of Cotta had her strong opinions and her nose would not be able to endure much more suicidal mantle jumping.

I was determined to save her from herself. I can remember placing her on a table across the room as we propped various oil painted scenes and watercolor landscapes up on that mantel to see what fit the room. On an adjacent wall, there is a very large and brightly colored abstract portrait. She barely tolerates it, and pretty much anything we hung above the mantle clashed.

I think I heard her say “I told you so”, several times. What I actually kept hearing was Something like me.

I’m not one to shy away from collections, I have many. Hummingbird’s nests and heart-shaped rocks. Skulls and hands and chairs large and small. Coffee table books and Eiffel towers just to name a few, but I couldn’t picture a group of busts on the mantle. Or more papier-mache for that matter. So I halted my search and waited for inspiration which came several months later in the most unlikely form imaginable.

Our lot was a construction zone in the back. Or a trash heap. It all depended on your perspective and how many dry wall nails you had stuck in the bottom of your flip-flops. For months, stacks of roof tiles, old medicine cabinets and discarded lumber lay strewn around in the dirt that had formerly been our back lawn. Added to the mess were old garden pots, the box our new dishwasher came in, and some old rubber floor mats, the kind they use in restaurant kitchens to save the chef’s feet from making him so miserable that he spits in your soup.

One day I was organizing the chaos, (moving stuff from place to place to make myself feel better), when I turned one of the large mats over and noticed that on the opposite side of the soft, cushy part was a web of the intricate relief work and designs. This is so cool my brain said. Too bad nobody ever sees this side. That’s when inspiration struck. Why not? Why don’t people see the cool underside of a plain rubber mat? Because no one has any imagination! With that, I heaved the large, cumbersome behemoth over my shoulder and ran inside to see if my hunch was correct.

Would it fit above the mantle and could we hang it there easily?

The answer turned out to be yes and yes! It fit the space perfectly!
My husband was skeptical until the last nail was hammered and we stood back to access. Then even he had to admit—it was perfect. And because we hung it about an inch away from the wall, the light from the sconces on each side cause the perforations to cast these cool shadows. And there was plenty of room for Terra Cotta, who was thrilled with the decision. It didn’t steal her thunder and it was exactly as she’d suggested. It was something like her.

It had been saved from its previously boring fate, and reimagined—as art. AND it is a shape-shifter. It looks like something it is not.

Almost everyone who notices that piece thinks it’s metal. Just as Terra Cotta looks like pottery, the underside of the mat hung on the wall looks like metal. It just does. So much so that when one of our snotty, haughty, decorator friends visited the house, she snorted “Oh I love that piece. That artist (she named some guy) does such extraordinary things with metal.”

I had to hold Terra Cotta back to keep her from launching herself into that woman’s glass of Chardonnay.

So there are multiple morals to this story.

Decorating is a collaborative effort. Every piece in the house has a say.

Listen to your instincts.

And remember…NOTHING is as it appears.

Carry on,
xox

“Well, what will you do for money?” The fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Her eyes were huge, and the fear inside them was palpable.

“Nooooo, honey, you’re a jeweler, that’s what you do.” It was not a statement, it was a directive.

“What? Why? Now? You’re in your fifties.” Said by someone whose recent anthem had been: Fifty is the new Thirty.

Turncoat.

Those are just a few of the reactions I’ve gotten when I’ve been asked ‘So, what are you up to?’ And I reply “I’m a writer.”

I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating. A lot, no, make that most – most people who ask you how you are and what you’re up to – they don’t really want to know.

It’s the amuse bouche of conversation – obligatory and unnecessary.

Which leads me to two important revelations ( bigger than insights, more important to remember than observations) that I’ve had about who I told about the writing in the very beginning; and I think they can apply to anything precious that you’re considering doing in your life.

NUMBER ONE:
Don’t tell just anyone everything. THAT could be considered an act of self sabotage.

That was a hard one for me because I’m about as opaque as Saran Wrap, but you’ve really got to be careful here.
How well do you know the person in front of you?
Are they safe? Meaning, do they have your best interests at heart – or an agenda?

I’ve had more amazing responses and feedback from strangers – on airplanes – than I have from the people close to me.
Probably because they aren’t invested in my old identity.
One guy recently responded “oh wow, that’s great; you look like a writer.” Whatever that meant. It felt like a compliment, but I’m thinking he got a look at my writer’s flat ass.

Advise in a nutshell – take a minute, and size up the asker.

Don’t divulge your new passion/ plans/ career choice/ to anyone who wouldn’t understand, may laugh, or potentially invalidate you – AND you may get burned by a friend.

Just don’t get burned twice by the same flame. 

NUMBER TWO:
I’ve found this to be true WITHOUT FAIL.
Whatever insecurities and doubts I’ve had about any new venture I’ve undertaken (and this includes relationships) I’ve always been able to count on them to be mirrored back to me by some assbite naysayer.

So those responses at the top of the page?
Of courses those were my trifecta-of-terror.
Fear of the loss of income, abandoning my long-standing career, and starting something new at my age; lobbed back across the lunch table for me to justify…to myself really.

Because here’s what happens: when you have the mirror held up and it pisses you off, and your hackles go up; all your College Debate Team skills kick in, and you’re able to come up with graphs and evidence and flow charts, to prove to them – AND YOURSELF – why this is the best idea ever!

So how can you be mad? They did you a favor. I’m aware that I’ve played the naysayer role in other peoples dramas many times.

Now I hardly get any blowback because I worked out all the confidence kinks early on and I’m better at owning it.

I’m kind of a writer like someone in their eighth month is kind of pregnant.

Just be advised; if it keeps happening, your doubts are bigger than you think – or you may need new friends.

Remember: Don’t get burned by the same flame twice.
(I swear, we should all embroider that on a pillow)

As always, I so appreciate your comments below.
When have you had your insecurities mirrored back at you? Have you gotten burned by revealing too much to the wrong person? Was it a friend? Or family?

Thanks loves, Carry on,
Xox

*Below is a recent essay by Anne Lamont. I love her writing. A lot.  And I think this piece is one of her best, or at least it pierced the hard candy shell that sometimes surrounds my heart and got into the chewy, caramel center.

I love that she reminds us that words can be dangerous, they can gut someone faster and more efficiently than the sharpest Ginsu knife. Let’s all be careful with that.

And Horrible Bonnie.  God I love that!

Can I be your Horrible Janet you guys?  Reminding us ALL that everybody gets to be free?

Anyway…I though this would be a great piece to start your week.  ‘Cause I love ya!

Carry On,

xoxJ

“Nearly twenty years ago, I arrived at a fancy writer’s conference, in what were some of America’s most majestic mountains, where I was looking forward to meeting a great (and sexy) American director, who’d given a lecture the day before. But he had already left.

There was, however, a letter from him, to me: to not-all-that-well-known me. It began well enough, with praise for Bird by Bird, and gratitude for how many times it had inspired him when he got stuck while writing screenplays. He singled out my insistence on trying to seek and tell the truth, whether in memoir or fiction, and my belief that experiencing grief and fear were the way home. The way to an awakening. That God is the Really Real, as the ancient Greeks believed. And God is Love. That tears were not to be suppressed, but would, if expressed, heal us, cleanse up, baptize us, help us water the seeds of new life that were in the ground at our feet.
Coming from a world-famous director, it felt like the New York Glitterati was stamping its FDA seal of approval on me, and my work.

Unfortunately, the letter continued.

He wrote that while he had looked forward to meeting me, he’d gathered from reading my work that many of my closest friends and family members seemed to have met with traumatic life situations, and sometimes early deaths. So basically, he was getting out of Dodge before I got my tragedy juju all over him, too.

I felt mortified, exposed. He made it seem like I was a sorrow-mongerer, that instead of being present for family and friends who had cancer or sick kids or great losses, I was chasing them down.
And I flushed in that full body Niacin-flush way of toxic shame, at being put down by a man of power, that had been both the earliest, and now most recent, experiences of soul-death throughout my life.
My clingy child was drawing beside me, What did I do? You can’t use your child as a fix, like a junkie. That’s abuse; plus it won’t work.

Well, duh–I fell apart, on the inside, like a two dollar watch.

I had stopped drinking nearly 15 years before, stopped the bulimia 14 years earlier, and so did not have many reliable ways to stuff feelings back down. Also, horribly, my young child, two thousand miles from home, upon noticing my pain, clung even more tightly. I wanted to shout at him, “Don’t you have any other friends?”

What I did was the only thing that has ever worked. After finding a safe and stable person to draw with my son, I called someone and told her all my terrible fears and feelings and projections and secrets.
It was my mentor, Horrible Bonnie.

She listens.

She believes that we are here to become profoundly real, and therefore, free. But horribly–hence her name–she insists that if we want to be free, we have to let every body be free. I hate and resent this so much. It means we have to let the people in our families and galaxies be free to be asshats, if that is how they choose to live.

This however, does not mean we have to have lunch with them. Or go on vacation with them again. But we do have to let them be free.
She also knows, and said that day, that Real can be a nightmare in this world that is so false. The pain and exhaustion of becoming real can land you in the an abyss. And abysses are definitely abysmal; dark nights of the soul; the bottom an addict hits.
And this, she said, was just a new bottom, around people-pleasing, and the craving for powerful fancy people to approve of me. It was a bottom around my psycho doing-ness, my achieving-ness.
She said that because I felt traumatized, and that there had been so much trauma in my childhood, and so many losses in the ensuing years, that the future looked like trauma to me.

But it wasn’t the truth!

There was a long silence. (Again: she listens.)
Finally, I said in this tiny child’s voice, “It isn’t?”
Oh, no, she said. The future, as with every bottom I have landed at, and been walked through, would bring great spiritual increase.
She said I had as much joy and laughter and presence as anyone she knew and some of this had to do with the bottoms I’d experienced, the dark nights of the soul that god and my pit crew had accompanied me through. The alcoholism, scary men, etc.
She said that what I thought the director had revealed was that I am kind of pathetic, but actually what I was getting to see, with her, and later, when I picked up my luscious clingy child, in the most gorgeous mountains on earth, was that I was a real person of huge heart, laughter, feelings and truth. And his was the greatest gift of all.

The blessing was that again and again, over the years, we got to completely change the script. Thank God. We got to re-invent ourselves, again.

But where do we even start with such terrible days and revelations? She said I’d started when I picked up the 300-pound phone, told someone the truth, felt my terrible feelings. Now, time for radical self-care. A shower, some food, the blouse I felt prettiest in. Then I could go get my boy and we could explore the mountain streams.

Wow. We think when we finally get our ducks in a row, we’ve arrived. Now we’ll be happy! That’s what they taught us, and what we’ve sought. But the ducks are bad ducks, and do not agree to stay in a row, and they waddle off quacking, and one keels over, two males get in a fight, and babies are born. Where does that leave your nice row?

I got about five books out of the insights I gleaned from our talk. I still have a sort-of heart-shaped rock my son fished out of a stream later. Sadly, this director’s movies have not done well in the last twenty years. Not a one. And all of his hair has since fallen out. Now, as a Christian, my first response to this is, “Hah hah hah.”

But Horrible Bonnie would say, Now you get to tell it, because then it will become medicine. Tell it, girl– that we evolve; that life is stunning, wild, gorgeous, weird, brutal, hilarious and full of grace. That our parents were a bit insane, and that healing from this is taking a little bit longer than we had hoped. Tell it. Well…okay. Yes.”
-Anne Lamott

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 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