advice

“So, he said I have a really cute vagina…”

I just about dropped the carton of eggs I was pulling out of the fridge for our breakfast but made the save. The half-smoked cigarette I was balancing between my lips wasn’t as lucky, falling onto the kitchen linoleum, just barely missing my bare feet—as my mouth hung agape.

My roommate chattered on as I stomped out the hot ash that was skittering about with my heavily callused heel.

“One of the prettiest he’s ever seen.”

“Wait. Who said that? Michael? Your boyfriend?” I asked as if I really wanted to know.

Moments earlier I had innocently asked how her visit to the Gynecologist had gone the previous day. She’d had a couple of wonky pap smear results and, well, now here she was, off talking about all the compliments her vagina was getting—and I was confused.

She did have the attention span of a spider monkey so this wasn’t new, but the subject matter was. We weren’t in the habit of sharing super intimate, sex-related pillow talk.

“No, silly, Dr. SoandSo”, she laughed, smoke billowing from her nostrils as she snuffed out her cigarette in the Philodendron on the kitchen table.

We had a habit of smoking while cooking. Only while cooking. It nauseates me even now. All of it. Even this conversation. Especially this conversation.

I whipped around, setting the egg carton down hard in front of her. Egg snot ran from several of the perforations onto the vintage 1950’s Formica diner table we sat around in the kitchen.

She jumped, startled, as I yelled into her face.  “What the fuck?! Are you telling me you’re Gynecologist said that to you?!”

She looked at me as if my head had spun around (which it had, but just once), her big, brown saucer eyes filled with fear.

“Uh, yeah, he was just…um…it wasn’t…uh…”

“Please tell me he at least removed his hand before he said that!” I asked,  again not really wanting to know the answer. I’m not even sure why that mattered, it’s just that the thought of her doctor wrist-deep inside of her, cooing that bullshit while she’s on her back with her legs in the stirrups made me want to puke—and call the police.

“That is sexual harassment!” I screamed louder than I intended.
”He’s a professional! He should NEVER say that sort of thing to you! Everyone knows gynecologists are only allowed to talk about the weather when they’re down there—below the equator!”

She looked bewildered.

“Honey”, I pulled up a chair and sat straight in front of her, lowering my voice into a calmer, more soothing register as I realized she had no idea what he’d done.

It was a compliment. About her lady parts. From a man.

UGH.

“You have to report him. He’s a bad guy, and not a good doctor. That wasn’t a compliment. It was HIGHLY inappropriate.”

When she finally got it, she looked ashamed.

“If you don’t—I will!”

Sexual harassment in the workplace, from people in positions of power, and I think, in general, is SUCH a subjective topic and to this day—I’m not sure why.

It’s been my observation that most men just don’t get the intricacies.
The boundaries are blurred to the point that unless it comes down to an actual physical assault—it can slide under the radar like it did for my twenty-seven-year-old roommate.

It is often covert—cloaked in a compliment, delivered by someone in authority, wrapped inside of a joke or said straight up to your face with a wink—and if you so much as bat an eyelash—you’re overreacting.

Clearly, the situation was “misconstrued”.

I loathe that word. Misconstrued.
Lots of slimy people get away with highly questionable shit by hiding behind that word.

Here’s the thing, I don’t misconstrue anything. My gut construes everything you said correctly. Your innuendo? It was interpreted exactly how you meant it. There was no mistake made.

Except for you thinking I wouldn’t say anything.

I worked in a male-dominated business for almost twenty years.
And I grew up with a brother and worked my way through school on the night crew of a supermarket as one of only two girls.
I know men. I love men, and I know male humor.
I get it. I can even appreciate it. It can be bawdy and blue and I’m a real broad—one of the guys—so I’m often right there in it AND I can let a lot of shit slide.

But there’s a line. A boundary that should never be crossed, and you know when it has been by the pit in your stomach.

My male boss was always the epitome of appropriate behavior. He never made a misstep.
But one day in the midst of an all-male jewelry buy (or a shark feeding-frenzy, take your pick), the free-range testosterone in the room took control of one of my boss’ partners and best friends. As he went to leave, he hugged me goodbye for a little bit too long, and the hug was just a little bit too tight and there it was—his semi-erect “little friend” pressed up against my thigh.

It was no accident. There were a couple of dry-humps. I kid you not.

Reflexively and forcefully, I pushed him away with both hands looking him straight in the eye—horrified.

He winked, and yelled something back at the guys about his jeans being too tight, and made a quick getaway.

I could barely catch my breath. I was shaking and red in the face. Immediately, I grabbed my boss by the arm, yanking him out of earshot of the others.

As a woman in a man’s world, you walk a tightrope—you want to be a “good sport”, “one of the guys”, yet still be treated with respect.

“THAT man!”, I whisper/yelled, “You had better keep your FRIEND away from me—he is NEVER to lay a hand on me again, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? If he does—I will quit and then I will sue him all the way to hell and back!”

He shook his head and shrugged, confused. “O…kay…”, he stammered still staring at my panting, red face.

“He pressed his dick against my leg!” I whispered forcefully, staring him down, trying to make him understand. He immediately looked down at his feet, embarrassed. “Okay”, he replied, wishing he were invisible as he slowly turned and walked back to his buddies.

I think, rather I KNOW, that he thought I was overreacting. That I had misconstrued his friend’s natural affection for lechery.

I tried not to gag every time I had to see that man again, which was often since he was a part of my boss’ inner circle. But nothing even remotely resembling sexual innuendo or impropriety happened again. I don’t know if my boss had a talk with the guys or if they had just decided on their own to behave themselves.

All of them except for that one man.
In the space of ten years, with a wife and two kids to support, he settled three workplace sexual harassment cases (that I know of ), out of court.

If I remember correctly, I think it was when my boss told me about the second one that his face registered some sort of understanding and an unspoken apology for having doubted me.

That would have to be enough.

Talk to me.

Carry on,
xox

“We are Starstuff and we remember what we forgot”
~Carl Sagen

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

Marinate in those two thoughts today you guys and make your Sunday a great one!

Carry on,

xox

I just wanted to give you guys, my trusted tribe of loyal followers, a head’s up regarding my upcoming music video.

What’s that?
You haven’t heard about it? Have you been living under a rock?

Okay.(Giant, exasperated exhale)

So, I was going to videotape one of my epic karaoke go-arounds.
Preferably the one happening at my friend’s upcoming karaoke wedding reception.
What? I know!
Except the stupid LIVE kareoke band doesn’t play Total Eclipse of the Heart OR Living on a Prayer.
So, I scrapped that plan.

But I am going to be on an episode of Orange is the New Black.
After I write myself a part.
Which isn’t completely out of the question, and my favorite color is orange and I wear mostly all black, so…
Let’s see..
The Huffington Post did pick up and publish this essay I wrote about feeling like an alien stowaway inside of my own family, growing up a black sheep, and suffering through a wedding attended by a bunch of mean strangers disguised as family.

If it sounds familiar maybe we grew up in the same family OR you read it here on the blog earlier this week. Read it again, Jim, I know you, and you don’t have a photographic memory!

I’d love it if you’d take a look, comment, like or share.

And this concludes the self-promotion part of this Saturday, but I can’t promise you anything regarding the shamelessness.

Sorry, it’s the weekend.

Carry on,
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/a-stowaway-a-black-sheep-_b_9696654.html

Mind. Blown.
xox

This week needed its own anthem and thanks to a friend of the blog, Billy, we have one!

Fuck This Shit I’m Out!

This past week at our house has been an interesting mix of tomfoolery and shit.

We had a surgery, a completely fried computer hard drive, a kitchen drawer full of rat poo, doctor visits, three FULL glasses of a liquid that got knocked over and spilled EVERYWHERE! (The last time I spilled a full glass of anything was when I was five.) We also have a blown sprinkler that shoots so high into the air that it waters the moon, a little dog with breath so bad you want to slap your mama—a bar-b-que that’s on the fritz—and a migraine. Not to mention Friday is tax day!

On the upside, nobody died, I have blue/purple in my hair again and got to power wash the outside patio area in anticipation of new furniture. Yip.

So, yeah.
It may only be Thursday, but Fuck this shit I’m out!

How about you?
Carry on,
xox

“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.

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

We’re at a family wedding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Black sheep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carry on,
xox

Got any good “black sheep” stories?

Happy Sunday you guys!

I advise you, this wonderful Sunday morning, to take the time to read this.

I’ve written about this subject numerous times, I’m a fucking pro at NOT THIS. But as usual, Liz Gilbert manages to hit a home run with this essay.

I know about fifty gazillion people who are in the midst of their NOT THIS moment right NOW—myself included.

(Any two cents in parenthesis is mine, just so you know.)

I think you’ll feel a little bit better after reading this. At the very least, better understood.
I did.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones –
Most of us, at some point in our lives (unless we have done everything perfectly…which is: nobody) will have to face a terrible moment in which we realize that we have somehow ended up in the wrong place — or at least, in a very bad place.

Maybe we will have to admit that we are in the wrong job. Or the wrong relationship. (I’ve left both. You?)
With the wrong people around us. Living in the wrong neighborhood. Acting out on the wrong behaviors. Using the wrong substances. Pretending to believe things that we no longer believe. Pretending to be something we were never meant to be. (yes, yep, uh huh and yep.)

This moment of realization is seldom fun. In fact, it’s usually terrifying.
I call this moment of realization: NOT THIS.

Because sometimes that’s all you know, at such a moment.
All you know is: NOT THIS.

Sometimes that’s all you CAN know.

All you know is that some deep life force within you is saying, NOT THIS, and it won’t be silenced.

Your body is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your heart is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your soul is saying: “NOT THIS.”

But your brain can’t bring itself to say “NOT THIS”, because that would cause a serious problem. The problem is: You don’t have a Plan B in place. This is the only life you have. This is the only job you have. This is the only spouse you have. This is the only house you have. Your brain says, “It may not be great, but we have to put up with it, because there are no other options.” You’re not sure how you got here — to this place of THIS — but you sure as hell don’t know how to get out…
So your brain says: “WE NEED TO KEEP PUTTING UP WITH THIS, BECAUSE THIS IS ALL WE HAVE.”
But still, beating like a quiet drum, your body and your heart and your soul keep saying: NOT THIS…NOT THIS…NOT THIS.

I think some of the bravest people I have ever met were people who had the courage to say the words, “NOT THIS” out loud — even before they had an alternative plan. (On the GPS map of life, the blinking red dot shows that I’m “currently here”).
People who walked out of bad situations without knowing if there was a better situation on the horizon.
People who looked at the life they were in, and they said, “I don’t know what my life is supposed to be…but it’s NOT THIS.” And then they just…left.(Did you see the word BRAVE? You know who?)

I think my friend who walked out of a marriage after less than a year, and had to move back in with her mother (back into her childhood bedroom), and face the condemnation of the entire community while she slowly created a new life for herself. Everyone said, “If he’s not good enough for you, who will be?” She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about what her life would look like now. But it started with her saying: NOT THIS. (Are you getting this cryptic message Liz and I are sending you? You know who you are.)

I think of my friend who took her three young children away from a toxic marriage, despite that fact that her husband supported her and the kids financially…and the four of them (this woman and her three children) all slept in one bed together in a tiny studio apartment for a few years, while she struggled to build a new life. She was poor, she was scared, she was alone. But she had to listen to the voices within her that said, NOT THIS.

I think of friends who walked out of jobs — with no job waiting for them. Because they said NOT THIS.
I think of friends who quit school, rather than keep pretending that they cared about this field of study anymore. And yes, they lost the scholarship. And yes, they ended up working at a fast food restaurant, while everyone else was getting degrees. And yes, it took them a while to figure out where to go next. But there was a relief at last in just surrendering to the holy, non-negotiable truth of NOT THIS.

I think of friends who bravely walked into AA meetings and just fell apart in front of a room full of total strangers, and said, NOT THIS.

I think of a friend who pulled her children out of Sunday School in the middle of church one Sunday because she’d had it with the judgment and self-righteousness of this particular church. Yes, it was her community. Yes, it was her tribe. But she physically couldn’t be in that building anymore without feeling that she would explode. She didn’t know where she was going, spiritually or within her community, but she said, NOT THIS. And walked out.

Rationally, it’s crazy to abandon a perfectly good life (or at least a familiar life) in order to jump into a mystery. No sane person would advise you to make such a leap, with no Plan B in place. We are supposed to be careful. We are supposed to be prudent. (Uh, Steph?)
And yet….
And yet.

If you keep ignoring the voices within you that say NOT THIS, just because you don’t know what to do, instead…you may end up stuck in NOT THIS forever.(We know these people. They live in a state of quiet disappointment.)

You don’t need to know where you are going to admit that where you are standing right now is wrong.
The bravest thing to say can be these two words.
What comes next? (My mantra is: What Now?)

I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. It might be worse. It might be better. But whatever it is…? It’s NOT THIS.
ONWARD,
LG

For one brief and shining moment in the mid-nineties, I had a live-in boyfriend.

And as I came to find out, live-in anythings tend to ruin most of your possessions, especially the ones that they do not have a dollar invested in—which is pretty much EVERYTHING.

That goes for all significant others, dog, cats, pygmy pigs, and children. They systematically destroy all the material things you love the most.

Case in point, I had an expensive bespoke coverlet made to match the fabric of a very cool bed that had an upholstered headboard that resembled a couch. I know! right?
It was the color of  buttercream frosting, it cost me a fortune, and I loved it more than coffee.

Okay, I mention coffee here because it plays an important role.

One glorious Sunday morning, in a lapse of better judgment, I overlooked the fact that said boyfriend had broken a cardinal rule, the one which stated NO COFFEE IN BED.

He had frothed us each a cup of particularly delicious cappuccino and in a show of my appreciation, well, things got a little out of hand. I’m not going to get into it lest you think poorly of me or worse yet, ask me for details. But let’s just suffice it to say…
A foot (or some other body part, this memory is a bit fuzzy for me), met with two, 3/4 full cups of coffee on the nightstand, which caused one to fly up and into the ceiling fan spraying coffee and frothy milk EVERYWHERE, while the other landed face down in the center of my priceless duvet cover.

It would have been funny if there hadn’t been so much brown on the buttercream and if I’d had a sense of humor at the time.

While we cleaned the floor, walls, and the ceiling, the coffee/milk stain caused our Siamese cat to pee on the bed. Numerous times. I get it. Coffee does that to me too. It was a phenomenon that had never occurred before and never happened again—but it added insult to the injury.

To stop the madness, the brown and smelly bedspread took up residence in my car until I could figure out what to do. Apparently, the giant coffee stain was the least of its problems.

After I got the coffee out of places where coffee should never be, I went to search the cat pee drenched coverlet thingy for a care tag. You know, those tags that have all the symbols telling you how to clean it, but since it was custom-made, no tag.

I was just about to wash it in one of our giant apartment laundry room washers when I remembered that they had teeth and preferred to dine on expensive fabric. Never the stuff from Target. Explain that to me.

So, I decided to accompany a friend to the laundromat, but when she saw the velvet brocade type of fabric on that thing she advised that I get it dry cleaned. That made sense. The fear of this prize possession getting ruined was ratcheting up. Can you feel it?

So, to the dry cleaners I went. The expensive one. The one that had a guarantee and specialized in decorator fabrics. Only the best for this investment of mine.

What could go wrong?

They called in their resident “fabric expert”, a stern woman with black fuzzy caterpillars as eyebrows and huge, magnifying lensed glasses on a chain around her neck. She did a thorough inspection of the coverlet, rolling the thick fabric between her thumb and forefinger, then she paused, skewed her mouth which in turn crinkled her entire face, causing the two caterpillars to kiss just above her nose and form a spooky looking unibrow. She then grabbed a nearby pencil which looked as if it had been chewed to a nub and wrote something on a piece of paper, slide it across the counter to me—face down, and looked at me with her over magnified eyes and the two judgmental caterpillars—waiting for a response.

I turned it over and the dollar amount made me gasp. Her lip turned up slightly at the corner into a smile..or a sneer…I couldn’t tell which.

“Zhah chat urineeen schemel meh nahver comb out, oot zhat meehlk meh churrdle”, she said attempting English in an accent that sounded like a combination of Dutch and Chinese.

I nodded, pretending to understand. “Fine, that’s fine”, I replied signing that scrap of paper as verification that the equivalent of a monthly car payment would be the price paid to save my beautiful coverlet.

About two weeks later I received a call from the cleaners. There had been a “problem” and I needed to come and talk to the manager Mr. SomethingorOther. The trouble was that every time I showed up for the chat…he was out to lunch, off the premises, or had just gone home. Black caterpillar lady was nowhere to be found, and when I asked to talk to her they acted like I wanted to have an audience with the Pope.

I’m going to cut to the chase—here’s the good news: The bedspread that had committed suicide by cat pee wasn’t brown anymore. But it wasn’t a bedspread anymore either. Now for the bad news: It looked like it had run with scissors—or fallen into a wood chipper.

It resembled a shredded mass of buttercream velvet held together by cat hair.

Well, you have to fix this!” I screamed.
“It’s no charge”, said the tiny Hispanic woman who had obviously drawn the short straw in the back room. She crumpled our paper agreement and threw it away as she pushed the buttercream mess my way.
I pushed it back in her direction.
“Fix it.” I hissed, knowing full well that unless they had a loom in the back that was pretty much going to be impossible.

That night, as I plotted my revenge, I splashed wine with abandon all over the cheap cotton duvet cover that was acting as understudy until the Star returned. Should I sue them? Should I make them pay to have it replaced? By midnight, I knew what had to be done.

But days turned to weeks and I never went back to deliver my ultimatum.

One morning when my boyfriend got back from a bagel run, he was acting weird, clearing his throat, mustering his courage.
“Did you ever solve that comforter cover debacle?” he croaked.

I felt my face instantly catch fire. “No! I need to go back there…”

“You’d better wear your asbestos underwear”, he murmured, walking into the kitchen.

“What are you talking about?”

“The place burned down last night. It’s still smoldering.”

We immediately jumped in the car and went to join all the other patrons around the caution tape, ready for a fight. But when I saw the utter destruction and the people crying over their burnt up wedding dress or the loss of their daughter’s baptismal gown, I realized what an idiot I was.

I saw the part my fear of losing a material possession (albeit a beautiful one), had played in this entire fiasco, how I continued to make one bad decision after another, how I couldn’t see how much the freakin’ bedspread just wanted to die…and that’s when I finally laughed.

Carry on,
xox

Once upon a time, I was a hoe. Or least I had convinced myself that I was.

During my early twenties, I fell in and out of love—a lot! And by a lot I mean, weekly.
But there were two teeny tiny complications.

Number one: I mistook infatuation and lust, for love and…
Number two: I was married. So, there was that.

I’m sure the fact that I was completely and totally unhappily married lead me to look for greener pastures, but truth be told, lush green grass was EVERYWHERE I looked. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have to look for it—it found me. I seemed to unconsciously wander naked into field after green and luscious field of wild, verdant, grass.
Are you getting the thinly veiled sexy grass analogy? Yeah, I thought so.

Anyhow, I know that being a dissatisfied housewife summoned the greener pastures.
How do I know that?
Because less than two years after my divorce and a subsequent short-lived roll in the hay dalliance, I remained tragically single for eighteen years, half a dozen of which were grass-less and barren. The furthest, most opposite of lush green grass as you can get. Mohave Desert brown and dry.
Swollen tongue dry.
Severely chapped lips dry.
Camel toe dry.
Dry in every sense of the word—if you get my drift.

Nary a phone call nor a sideways glance came my way. Nothing. Zilch, zero, nada.
Crickets. The complete and utter lack of interest expressed in me by the opposite sex was if I do say so myself…appalling.

I found myself single…and invisible.

When the occasional fellow (and I mean occasional, three in ten years), did decide to traverse the desert and ask me out, I responded like any dried up, thirsty nomad looking for her green oasis—I drank at the well of desperation as I clung to him by my sand filled fingernails—while my toes dialed the wedding planner.

I’m serious.

I had convinced myself that I couldn’t be trusted to make good decisions where men were concerned, after all, I had listened to lust and let a good one go.
Or so I thought.
What can I say? I was hallucinating, not in my right mind.
So, if a guy showed interest, and (gulp) I slept with him, I had to MARRY him. Right? Or at the very least buy matching his and hers snuggies and put a down payment on a condo—because that’s not terrifying to a man!

I was confiding this whacked-out way of thinking to a young friend the other day as anecdotal evidence that I was once under thirty-five, made a ton of questionable decisions, and had sex with men who didn’t propose. Hell, they didn’t even spend the night. Often, they ran shirtless out of my apartment and down the street to their car. Or I jumped out of a window and ran shoeless after their car…

What a mess. What a hot, hot mess. A promiscuous monogamist.

Anyway…

Then the craziest thing happened. She admitted to feeling that way too sometimes. (And here I thought that went out with big shoulder pads and even bigger Bon Jovi hair).

“So what did you do?” she asked, “How did you get out of thinking that every time you dated a guy—it HAD to lead to the big white dress?”

“I became a hoe” I chortled, the memory of it causing a dribble of coffee to come out of my nose.
She balked.
“Seriously! My best friend, the one with the great husband, finally lost her patience with me and my dating drama and ordered me to JUST DATE!”

My young friend was intrigued, “Go on”, she said with a quizzical look on her face.

“Well, my friend advised me to just play the field—have fun—lighten up—quit overthinking it—leave your phone with the Bridal Registry on speed dial…at home—and have sex like a man!”

My young friend leaned forward “What does that MEAN?”

I leaned in too “It is pretty vague, but I got the gist of what she meant. Have sex with the damn waiter. If he’s nice and there’s chemistry, and you’re both careful…go for it. You will probably not marry him—chances are, after two or three dates you may never see him again, but that’s okay.
You’ll know the right one.”

Now, that’s the way a woman has sex like a man—but it was the virtual permission slip I needed from someone who really knew me well—and I ran with it!

Listen, I’m not saying you should do this or anything else I ever write about but I will tell you this, my young friend ran toward a pasture that she was afraid to venture into and walked in some very tall, green grass this weekend—if you know what I mean.

Carry on,
xox