advice

I startled a squirrel in my backyard Saturday morning and in its attempt to make a hasty retreat it ran up my back – rearranged my hair – and then jumped onto a tree branch where it sat, out of breath, giving ME stink-eye.

I may have peed a little.

At the time I was not strolling peacefully through the patio, nor was I happily trimming the roses.  Nope. I was wrangling a wind chime that is a good foot taller than I me, with chimes the size of a giraffe’s neck. With its five-foot long baritone chimes bonging away with each step I took as I walked out to the courtyard to look for a place to hang it, I was struck by its weight. That sucker was heavy as I held it up over my head in an awkward attempt to keep it from tripping me.

Note to self: Next time pick a spot to hang it first.

Let me just mention that my boxer, Ruby, was also underfoot freaking out at the bongity-bong absurdity of it all.

Bong, bongity, bong…I walked, when half way across the courtyard it happened.

Apparently, the squirrel had a weekend appointment at the spa that is the fountain outside my patio door. It was never expecting a five-foot tall walking windchime to interrupt its Saturday solitude. Scared shitless, it leapted off the fountain and in mid-air is probably, I suspect, when it spotted the dog.

I’m feeling sorry for the squirrel now, aren’t you?

Anyway, I’m assuming that’s when said squirrel used me as its own personal stairway to freedom. I’m sure I wasn’t its first choice—just the best choice since I was between the dog and the tree.

As it reached my hair I realized what was happening and that is when the screaming began. Screaming for me is rare, but when I do scream you can smell buttered popcorn because it is a full-throated, bloodcurdling, horror movie scream that comes from my big toe. It is a scream that chills hearts and strikes fear in everyone who hears it. Dogs bark, glass shatters, birds fall out of the sky, and horses buck their riders, jump their enclosures, and run for open ground.

My husband and Maria (our blind cleaning lady), both came running outside. She was carrying the vacuum cleaner as a weapon. He came loaded with a smirk. He thinks it’s hilarious when I scream.

Whatever.

I blame the screaming for the peeing. It is literally impossible to scream that loud and NOT pee. Swear to God. I think there have been studies. 

As the scream echoed through the courtyard, our neighbors called over the fence “OMG! Are you guys okay over there?”

“Yeah, she’s fine”, my long suffering husband answered.

Shaking his head, he grabbed the giant, 5000-ton wind chime from me, and carried it effortlessly on one finger, like a feather, over to the table.

That’s when it hit me, you guys! Even after a string of bad decsions, exacerbated by a squirrel crawling up my back and doing the Macarena in my hair—I did not drop the wind chimes!

Please, you gotta give me points for this one thing.

Carry on,
xox

I think we can all agree at this point—this is an energetic universe and we are receiver/translators.
Our eyes translate waves of light into images.
Our ears translate sound waves into something we can recognize—and so on.

I always forget the part about ‘accumulating of the energy I’m focused on’—until I’m reminded in a not-so-subtle ways.

A few weeks ago, my husband, who’s the love child of Mad Max and Evil Knievel, an irresistible combination of dangerseeker and excellent rider wrapped in badasserry, broke his leg, and of course it had to be done in a spectacular fashion. No slipping in the shower or tripping on a step like a normal sixty-six year old man! He jumped off a moving motorcycle before it lost its shit and flipped over—on the freeway, another car basically forcing him off the road. 

Needless to say, he’s been a terrible patient, what with the cast, boot, scooter and all. Asking him to take it easy and put his foot up is like asking a fish to ride a bicycle. 

In the beginning although his foot (in an act of solidarity) was swollen the size of a watermelon and black as tar, the entire leg wasn’t that painful. It’s never really been about the LEG pain. It’s more about a critically bruised ego and the fact that he’s been rendered immobile.

So, this leg in a cast thing was sucking all the oxygen out of LA, California, and beyond. It’s been our overriding concern. Keeping it up and out of danger. Have you felt dizzy in Europe? Light headed in Africa? It could be a drop in the CO2. Just sayin’.

Anyway, last week while skipping gleefully down the hall, like I do, the toe next to my pinkie toe failed to jump the flagstone step into our bathroom, instead choosing to bend backwards toward my heal, breaking the tip, and cutting it’s own throat, just under the nail. While writhing in agony, I had time to ponder my fate. How in the hell had this happened? Toes usually follow the leader, the foot and all the other toes, when running and jumping, AND I can’t believe I’ve injured my LEFT FOOT too!

“WE have wonky left foot energy around here!” I whined to my husband who acted as sympathetically as a man in a boot and knee scooter can muster for a toe injury. 

I’m sure he rolled his eyes—but I knew it was true. 

The next day, my ginormous black toe and I were talking to a friend, when she told me about her reoccurring bladder infections. “It’s so weird,” she said, “they keep coming back.”
“Is it?” I asked, reminding her of the months she’s spent taking care of her mom who’s had a hell of a time recovering from bladder cancer surgery.

All of this to say, the universe will always remind you where your energy is focused, whether you want to know or not—which you do, before you lose a toe or end up in urgent care.

Carry on,
xox

This is for all the unicorns out there. You know who you are.
My messege to you four decades later?

It all works out better than okay. Swear to god.

Now, go out there and live life like the lucky anomoly you are!
xox

I was married at twenty and divorced by twenty-six.

It was the eighties, the decade of Princess Diana and Madonna, and it seemed everyone was doing it—getting married young and divorcing.

Even my best friend at the time shocked me when she suddenly filed for divorce. When someone close to you calls it quits you take a magnifying glass to your own relationship, searching for the cracks. Well, no close inspection needed for ours, it was shattered to bits; held together with ducktape, spit, and glue.

I have to admit, in the beginning, her divorce left me reeling, after all, they were the perfect couple. But after they’d been apart a while, I saw how happy they both were and that’s when it finally dawned on me that deep down—my husband was probably as miserable as I was. Relationships don’t happen in a vacume. That’s when I decided that for the sake of our continued happiness as human beings—we could not stay married for one. more. minute.

NOBODY LIKES A QUITTER

It was impossible to paint a picture of my ex as an insufferable troll.

People understand when you divorce a man who is a cheater, an addict, or someone who can’t hold a job. It wasn’t him it was me. That line is cliché I know, but some sayings become clichés because they’re so damn true! My ex-husband was/is one of the nicest men on the planet and that sucks even more. I left an all-around-great-guy because I yearned for something more.

“More than what?” my dad asked upon hearing that I wanted a divorce. “What more could you possibly want? It doesn’t seem like anyone can make you happy!” He was right about that. That was my job, only I didn’t know it at the time. I only knew that something profoundly wonderful was missing. Something…untenable, indescribable and indefinable—and I wasn’t able or willing to settle for less.

That made me feel greedy. And wrong.

Other people settle. Why can’t I? It would be so much easier!

God, I had so much to learn! I had gone from living under my father’s roof to living under my husband’s. I identified as someone’s wife. Until I wasn’t.

HIDDEN BENEFITS

I would say the biggest benefit was becoming comfortable with my own independence. I had been half of a couple, a team, and now every decision, every mistake, was mine alone. I needed to figure out who I was and what I wanted from life, and in the process I was forced to wrap my brain around living without a man.

When there was a creepy sound in the middle of the night who checked it out? Me and my trusty baseball bat.

I started taking some risks, teaching myself how to invest money. I bought stocks and bonds, which scared the shit out of my dad, but ended up rewarding my courage with surprising dividends.

I also became skilled at all manner of apartment maintenance and eventually acquired a power drill and a small, red toolbox. Woof!

DATING

I had a hard time with the label divorcee. Every form I filled out asked me my marital status and checking the DIVORCED box reminded that I had failed at one of life’s most cherished milestones.
In my twenties.

Guys aren’t sure what to make of a twenty-six year old divorcee. No wild-eyed desperation or ticking time clock here. Some of them acted relieved. Many seemed a bit bewildered. Truth be told, it scared the bejesus out of most of them.

I don’t know where all the other twenty-something divorcees went to date—but in my circle, I was as rare as a Unicorn.

A twenty-six year old divorced Unicorn.

TRANSITION IN MY THIRTIES

Once I realized, much to the amazement of my single girlfriends, this controversial fact: that most of the men out there really did want to get married and have babies; and that a divorcee was way too much of a wild card for them at that stage of the game—I was able to formulate a game plan.

I dyed my blonde hair red, which narrowed the field even further. Only serious, artsy guys need apply.

I decided that unless I met someone extraordinary, marriage and children would probably not be a reality for me; and except for about a month when I was thirty-three and everyone around me was having babies—I was more than okay with that.

I made a great life for myself. I had a career I loved; great friends, wonderful family and I made foreign travel my passion.

That all felt amazing. Until it didn’t.

EVEN UNICORNS GET A SECOND CHANCE

After I turned forty, stability became my middle name. I settled down, bought a house in the burbs, let my hair grow longer and went back to being a blonde.

I started dating. Seriously, and a lot. Eighteen unmarried years had gone by and men my age and older couldn’t have cared less that I got divorced in my twenties. Most of them were on their second or even third divorce.

I was no longer an anomaly, an outsider.

I decided to go on a blind dating binge and that’s how I met the extraordinary man I married at forty-three—he was definitely worth the wait. At last I found that indescribable, indefinable something I’d spent nearly two decades searching for—and he found me.

Isn’t timing everything? Ain’t love grand? Maybe it was greed. I don’t know; I think it was all just dumb luck.

We all know how lucky Unicorns can be.

photo credit: http://therealbenhopper.com/index.php?/projects/naked-girls-with-masks/

Fear is the least interesting thing about me. One hundred percent.

It is petty, immature, and unoriginal.

It’s list of greatest hits hasn’t changed since I was a kid, because that’s where it gets its ammunition.

I think we can all agree, fear never had a fresh idea in its life.

Fear’s goal is to keep my life small. To keep me safe and sound and boring as hell.

It thinks its doing this for my “own good” but really, that’s just a tired old story it keeps telling itself.

And me.

And I know it’s doing this to you too. I’ve seen it.

We’re all fucked.

Or…what if we confronted fear? Told it to take a seat, or a hike, or a long walk off a short pier?

What if we told it we didn’t need it anymore? That we weren’t eight years old. That we were grown ass adults who knew how things worked—and a broken heart never killed anybody. That a lot of the times failure led to something better. That a life well lived is so much more interesting than safe and sound could ever dream of being.

What if we thanked it, you know, for all of its hard work and overtime? I know my fear could use a rest and I’m pretty sure yours could too.

Carry on,
xox Janet

A bass drum thrummed like a heartbeat behind the wall next door.

No big deal. There were only twenty of us, sitting on the other side, in lotus, attempting to meditate.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Is that Drake? I wondered for a hot sec.

I’ve participated in that Sunday morning, nine-thirty meditation for six months now and this was the first time the thump thump “music” had encroached. 

Huh. Interesting. 

That wasn’t the only thing that was different. 
Laurie, our usual teacher, and the ONLY one I’ll go to because she isn’t twenty-two, with a Valley Girl accent, spray tan, and a whopping year and a half of mediation under her Gucci belt—was absent. 

In other words—there was a sub.

I tried my best not to get all twitchy, but I’m not a fan of substitute anything.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Veggie burgers, Vegan cheese—just to name just a few.

I could feel the anger rise up inside me. My ears caught fire and I started clenching my jaw like I was arguing a case before the Supreme Court. “Your honor, YOU can’t handle the truth!”

In other words, I was losing my shit—in meditation class. Which translates, in every language known to man and some that aren’t, as an “epic fail”.

Every fiber of my being wanted to jump to my feet—flip a table—start a fire—spill hot coffee—and then race to my car.

Repressed rage, party of one?

‘There’s a reason Laurie’s not here,’ the calmer, less violent part of me reasoned as it gorilla glued my butt to the cushion. ‘Stay and figure it out 
Maybe this woman will be good. 
Maybe you’ll learn something. 
She’s just different, not BAD.’

Fine. You win. (But insert resting bitch face here.)

So I did. And she was, maybe not better, but really, really good.

Then, in the middle, just when I’d started to drool, the thump thump began.
Huh. Interesting. Drool. 
Seriously? Drool.
I’m so glad I’m in here and not in…drool.

When we came out of mediation, the first thing Kim, the sub, remarked on was the thump thump.

“Does this always happen?” she asked the class. Half shook their heads no, while the other half said yes, which wasn’t true, but that’s what happens when you ask a group of people to weigh in on anything. 

“Because I have a thing with ambient music,” Kim-The-Sub confessed, ratting herself out.
Oh, really? Over the years I’ve struggled with the frustration that comes from trying to meditate in a city like LA. Don’t get me started on leaf blowers!

Anyway, I could relate so I went full meerkat.

“Ever since a Buddhist retreat in 1999 (okay, how much do I LOVE that not only was she was alive in 1999—she was at a meditation retreat!) music seems determined to interrupt my meditation. From jinky Tibetan street music, to heavy metal, to the ice cream truck, it’s all out to get me!”

Makes sense, right? That explained why that strange thump, thump tried to interrupt our class for the first time in well, ever. 

Because just like the rest of us, Kim brings herself wherever she goes! She has her narrative—about annoying music— complete with traveling evidence!

Can I get an amen? Because, I mean, who doesn’t love proof of the obsurd fact that we bring our shit wherever we go?

I’m feeling warm fuzzies for Kim-The-Sub who may have just rocketed to the top of my list of favorite meditation teachers. 

I’m thinkin’ she’s a keeper.

Carry on,
xox

Get a house in the suburbs, they said. An ivy-covered cottage with mature trees just north of the hills.
That way you’ll get to experience all of the flora and fauna the area has to offer, they said. So much better than the concrete jungle of mid-city, they said.

So, we did.
We listened to “them”.

And for almost twenty years it’s been exactly as advertised—idyllic—except for that July a few years back when the coyotes ate my two Siamese cats. I can honestly say that put quite a damper on my summer. Still, we have managed to co-exist with nature in a very cordial and symbiotic way.

I leave past-its-prime fruit out for the squirrels so they’ll leave my bird feeder alone; we tolerate the enormous spider webs that are mysteriously woven overnight in high traffic areas and happen to always be at face level. There’s nothing like walking outside in the early dawn hours with a cup of coffee and becoming entangled in a giant, sticky, web that entraps you like a mummy and leaves you batting at your hair like a crazy person—all the while wondering where the damn spider went.

But like I said— we agree to co-exist.

Well, except for the crows. My husband wants to shoot them because they’re colossal pains-in-the-asses whose poops are ruining the paint on our cars. I fight, like a cheap defense attorney, for their right to occupy our giant tree in the front even though the evidence is overwhelming AND it pisses me off too. The sheer volume and size of their shit attacks are hard to fathom. I had one last week, the size of a serving platter, that blotted out the entire driver’s side of my windshield. And it was purple. Wtf?

Nevertheless, I won’t allow him to kill them although I’m pretty sure he’s already had target practice with a few.

But only the ones that laugh at him. Crows laugh you know.
At you.
At your dog.
At your poor choices in cargo shorts.
But you wouldn’t know that unless you live in the suburbs.

Aside from that; things have been quiet. That is, until this year, or as we like to call it: The Year That Wild Kingdom Took Over Studio City.

Lest you label me a complainer—I will first tell you some things I love about living amongst nature.

I love the squirrels, they’re chatty and cute and they hide peanuts in my flower pots… Yipppeeee.

I love the birds. They sing and crap joyfully while building their nests in the drawers of the outside potting table where I keep the clippers and the tiny garden spade—so I can’t get to them until the babies are hatched and raised and go off to college.

I love all the spiders and their cobwebs (which I learned recently are abandoned spider webs that have dust bunnies stuck to them) but I already said that.

I love the hummingbirds who actually come up to my face and make their cute little brrrrrrrrrr sound while I’m watering.

Ok. I’m done.

This year has been the year of the skunk and now, as of late, the year of the raccoon—and I don’t mean I’ve gone schizophrenic on the Chinese calendar.

We have captured and released three skunks after our beautiful but stupid boxer, Ruby, got skunked four times.
It has cost us the equivalent of a monthly car payment for an exterminator to wait them out and once caught, have them relocated to a more hospitable zip code.

But who needs money anyway?

Once those little rascals went bye-bye we mistakenly let down our guard thinking that the worst was over.

Until last week when twice, Ruby and I were woken up by the smell of skunk. Again.

One of my friends joked that the skunks are hitchhiking back to our house because they miss us. I had her killed.

This week there hasn’t been any skunk stench. Nope. Just the terrifying screaming that accompanies Raccoon Fight Club which starts promptly at 2 am—two shows a night—two mornings in a row. The sound is SO loud and horrific I’m certain that if a skunk were anywhere in the vicinity the smell would be scared right off it, but it was not the deterrent I’d prayed for.

“It’s just cats”, my husband mumbled in his sleep the first night. That’s his answer to everything.

“Yeah, if a cat is as big as a dog and screams like a child whose foot is caught in a bear trap,” I replied. To add to the racket, Racoon Fight Club had a cheering section—like it was a fucking championship prize-fight in Las Vegas. The rats who inhabit the Bougainvillea covered fence like it’s rent controlled apartments, were squealing their little hearts out. Favorites were picked. Bets were placed. Peanuts exchanged hands.

Oh, the rats? Haven’t I mentioned them yet? Oh, pardon me. Yeah. Our house is a veritable torture museum obstacle course of mouse traps that are set…everywhere. Apparently, all of Studio City is infested with rats.

They say it’s all the ivy and mature trees. Fucking “they”!

Anyway…After fifteen minutes of cowering in the corner with Ruby, it finally stopped. All of it. The screaming, the squealing, and our whimpering.

Last night it started again only this time it was so deafening and ferocious I could have sworn they were inside the house. Ruby and I jumped into each other’s arms, shaking like two pitiful Chihuahuas. It even woke up my husband and forced him to put on pants.

You don’t want to do that in the middle of the night.

You don’t want to make my husband put on his pants because then he means business—and somebody’s gonna pay.

I heard him grab the giant industrial flashlight that occupies valuable real estate on his nightstand. I hate that thing. It’s ugly AF, weighs a ton, doubles as a weapon, and is so bright I’m sure they can see the light from space.

Husband opened the door to the backyard and yelled “Hey!” because wild animals respond to bald guys holding klieg lights yelling at them. In reality, the screaming didn’t even miss a beat. I wondered how any of our neighbors could sleep through this horror movie nightmare, I’m sure I’ll read about it in the neighborhood blog: Neighbors hold middle-of-the-night, illegal racoon fight club on their rat infested fence.

After another ten minutes of relentless screaming from the raccoons with the rats cheering loudly in the background —I’d had enough. Someone had to do something! I left the safe embrace of my cowardly dog and barefooted my way out the door to the deck on the far side of the yard. I could see the glaring beam of light shining from the flashlight on the other side of the lawn where my husband was hiding standing.

It seems he had bestowed stadium lighting upon Raccoon Fight Club which only caused the rats to cheer louder!

“It’s two raccoons”, he whisper-yelled over in my direction. I could barely hear him over the commotion. But I know they heard us, those two raccoons, yet, whatever they were fighting about overrode their fear of two humans.
And a dog.
As an aside: Where’s the memo that goes out to the wildlife in the neighborhood that lets them know that our house is probably not a good idea for staging Fight Club because —IT HAS A DOG. A little brown dog that will…right.

Anyway, this next section sums up our marital partnership in five or six sentences. Maybe it will sound familiar to you?

“I’m hosing ‘um!”, I yelled over to my hero who was shining his beam of light right on them like it was the Super Bowl half-time show. Meanwhile, the raccoons gave not. one. shit. They just kept on with the scream fighting. So I turned the hose on full strength and blasted them with everything I had.

I think for a minute they thought it was part of the show. But Lord have mercy it shut them the hell up.

Blessed silence.

“They’re gone”, he informed me. “Good idea”, he added as he powered down the klieg light they can see from space.

”Uh, ya think?” I muttered under my breath as I wound up the hose and stood for a moment like Wonder Woman—and then went back to bed.

Being the woo-woo, California knucklehead that I am, I saged the entire yard this morning concentrating on that corner, which I’m convinced is a portal to the mouth of hell.

Hmmmmm...I wonder… how much is it going to cost us to trap and relocate two raccoons? They are definitely meaner than the skunks. Hear that? I’m starting to miss the damn skunks!

I think I’ll start a Go Fund Me Page.

Carry on,
xox JB

Churches talk. Especially old stone ones. The statues, the stained glass, and all the voices that have been raised in song and worship are now a part of the wood, glass, and ceiling plaster. And it all has something to say—if you listen.

I was like a lot of you yesterday, emotionally gutted as I helplessly watched Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burn. I have many memories of her. All of them good. All of them sacred nuggets embedded deep into my cells. Her rose windows left me breathless—every damn time. It didn’t matter; dark grey day with little light or super heated summer day with a blazing blue sky, the color wash on the walls was transformative.

She is Paris to me. Mysterious, exquisitely beautiful, and a little over the top. But mostly eternal. To even entertain the notion that Notre Dame would cease to exist was more than I could handle.

Last night, attempting to dive below my grief, which was bubbling right at the surface, I sat to meditate, asking for the ‘bigger picture’, you know, the reasons things happen that stay hidden from us until we ask. Notre Dame did not disappoint; that grand old Dame, started to talk—and she had a lot to say!

Believe it or not, the lady was in dire need of a major facelift and this fire was the path of least resistance for her rebirth.
Real “Phoenix from the ashes” kind of stuff.
You see, they’ve tried over the decades to raise enough money for a major restoration but refurbishing an old cathedral has never really been on the minds of well, anyone but all those amazing people who care about that sort of thing, like historical preservation types, and they just haven’t been able to make the subject sexy enough for people with money to open their wallets.

Long story short, they’ve piecemealed the fixes and they were in the middle of one of these fixes when the fire broke out and it may actually end up being the cause (gasp). Anyway, we all know how it works when you piecemeal shit together—it doesn’t. The new parts just make the old parts look bad, which in turn makes them feel lousier about themselves than they already did and fall into disrepair faster, just to get the much-needed attention. The gargoyles are the WORST— there’s not enough attention in the world for them so naturally they’re crumbling, ready to fall to bits during the next electrical storm—or so says Notre Dame.

By this point, almost nine hundred years into her reign, the ancient cathedral was so sick and tired of looking sick and tired (underneath the fabulous, of course) that she took matters into her own hands and lit a fire (literally) under the Powers That Be for a compete and total restoration—and NOW, finally, that’s what she’ll get.

As I write this, over six-hundred-million euro has been pledged toward her rebirth and it’s been less than twenty-four hours. Additionally, President Macron assures us all that it will be completed in five years. Five years! That’s like nuthin’ in Notre Dame years!

So, in the space of fifteen minutes this venerable old church did what old churches are meant to do—it comforted me.

I don’t mean to get all Jesusy on you, but the timing isn’t lost on anybody, especially me. It’s freaking Holy Week for St. Pete’s sake! A week whose sole focus is death and rebirth. And she’s united the entire world in a way we haven’t seen in decades which, these days, is an Easter miracle. (Another example of Divine intervention— the votive candles along the sides have remained lit—despite the fire, the roof falling in, and the waterfalls of water from the hoses outside—THEY, PEOPLE’S PRAYERS AND INTENTIONS— ARE STILL LIT.)

So, you’ve gotta hand it to the old Dame, she sidestepped total destruction and when the dust settles, she will be a more spectacular version of herself than anyone could have ever imagined. Bravo!

Hot damn Notre Dame—well done! (Sorry, too soon?)

I’m feeling blessed and reborn, how about you?

Carry on,
xox

Hi All,
I posted this on Insta this weekend (if you’re not following me, shame on you!) and when I looked at the comments, everyone pretty much agreed that this was a metaphor for life masquerading as story about wisteria.
Take a look and see if you agree.
xox

This never gets old and I’ll never take it for granted since it’s been close to twenty years in the making.

When I bought this house, a friend gifted me with two potted wisteria plants that bloomed anemically for a couple of years.
“Put them in the ground,” someone suggested after getting tired of hearing me complain. “You’ll have better results.”

So I did, put them in the ground; the results unfortunately were…meh..unimpressive.

Then, when we remodeled, I was forced to pull them up and imprison them back in pots for almost two years where they lived unhappily—just barely. If plants can live on neglect and vengeance—that’s what they did.

My dream was to have them frame our newly built outside living room or ‘casbah’, as we call it, but by this point they’d been through the ringer so let’s just say my expectations were…low.

For over seven years they held a grudge, refusing to bloom. People advised me to not to give up hope.
“They’re in shock,” they said, “They’ll bloom eventually, once they feel secure. Be patient.”
Since patience is not a virtue I possess, I forced myself to forget they were a flowering vine and was just grateful for the shade they provided every summer. 

Then, when I least expected it—THIS started to happen and I have to tell you, it’s better than anything I ever expected!
And I can’t even about the fragrance—it’s intoxicating!

Mother Nature. She can be a deliverer of life lessons…a bit of a bitch…and a show off!

Carry on,
xox JB

On my way to meet my friend for lunch on Tuesday, as I rushed my face off because I had totally spaced and the only thing that got me away from my computer was her phone call at 12:15, asking me where I was, and did she have the wrong day? 

As an aside can I just say right here and now that I can’t believe I’ve turned into THAT girl—the one who forgets about plans because she’s chasing a dangling participle around a particular paragraph, or worse yet—she gets sucked into a FaceTime vortex that morphs time and spits her out somewhere inappropriate. And late.
Lord. Have. Mercy!

Anywaaaaaaaaayyyyyy…
I was traversing a crowded parking lot when I observed with my own two eyes, something so perverse it filled me with rage.

I saw two millennial men, strolling to their car(s) eating ice cream cones! On a random Tuesday! In broad daylight! 

It wasn’t National Ice Cream Day (I, of all peole would have known) so I had trouble wrapping my brain around what I’d just witnessed. 
Here is just a snippet of my internal dialogue —aka—food rage (maybe you can relate):

Me: Huh. Must be nice. Look at them, they probably think by walking to their car they’re working off the calories.
Men.
I’d have to walk to Nebraska and back just to justify the sugar cone. 
I wonder who’s idea that was? Did one guy say ”Gee, let’s get an ice-cream cone,” and the other guy said “okay” without any argument? Without reciting all of the reasons why that was a bad idea? What are they, nine?
Women don’t do shit like that! We insist we’re full when in reality we’d trade our first-born child for an ice cream cone. Everyone knows women don’t do spontaneous dessert! We have to have an excuse! Like a bad break-up or being on vacation. And even then we feign disinterest.
Me: “Oh, look, a new ice cream shop. Should we go check it out?”
Everybody’s Fucking friend Sheila: “Oh, I don’t know, ice cream, really, we just had lunch.”
Me: “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say, wishing a car would jump the curb right then and put us both out of our misery.
But not these guys! They’re clearly making no excuses!
And it’s obscene the way they’re flaunting it! Strolling like that! Like they’re in some fucking piazza in Tuscany! They have some nerve!!

As much as I wanted to, I could not become the better version of myself. Things started to snowball downhill to a bad place. I wanted to trip them both for acting so carefree, sending their cones splatting onto the pavement. Nobody needs to see that shit out in the open! All it does is makes us feel bad about ourselves! Or better yet, I wanted to accidentally stick my face, tongue extended, into their cones, you know, for quality control purposes…That’s when I almost got hit by a car which pulled me out of my food rage because that’s what happens when a woman of a certain age spirals out of control on account of ice cream. 

Question: Can anyone relate to this or is it just me who’s carrying this deeply buried, unexpressed dessert rage?

Carry on,
xox 

Is this creepy? It feels a little creepy to me. 

I’ve started to attend a local meditation at 9:30 on Sunday mornings. I used to spend the morning hiking, but I do that every weekday, and although you can call hiking a meditation of sorts; you know, outside in nature…with my dog…blah, blah, blah… REAL meditation (at least not this kind) doesn’t involve sweating and pain so, hike…or meditation? 

It wasn’t a hard decision.

The one thing the hike and meditation do have in common is breathing. Actually if you want to get into it, staying alive often involves breathing too, but controlled, or intentional breathing, the kind most of us do well—never—is what I’m referring to here.

The goal is to harness the breath to get you through either forty-five minutes of sitting silently with your legs crossed, or chugging your way up a hill, because both for me would be torture without the breath. Long, long, ago, I was taught deep breathing involving the diaphragm. Your diaphragm lives in the vicinity of your belly and there’s the rub. 

As counterintuitive as it may seem, breathing like this involves pushing your belly out on the inhalation—and contracting your belly on the exhale. Exactly the opposite of how most people breathe and when I say most people I mean women. As women, we spend every waking moment sucking in our stomachs. It’s a reflex we learned the moment we tried on our first bikini.

Stand and inhale, suck it in. Sit and inhale, suck it in.Walking and sucking, running and sucking, swim-suck, dance-suck, everywhere a suck suck. You get the picture.

So being told to push your stomach OUT is tantamount to being told to wear your vagina as a brooch. It ain’t gonna happen.

I had a friend confide to me that the happiest time of her life was when she was pregnant. “Yeah, sure I was growing a human being in my body and it was a freaking miracle, but you know what else was a miracle?” She asked, not waiting for me to answer. “My hair! It was so thick it looked like a wig (is that a good thing?) and for at least six months I didn’t have to suck in my stomach! Seriously, it was liberating! I never let anybody confuse my little pot belly in the beginning for too much pizza, I’m pregnant! I‘d scream, if anybody even looked at me sideways. I couldn’t wait until my belly was the size of a watermelon!  No more excuses! I was gigantic and nobody cared about my food consumption and exercise regimen.”

“That is quite the testimonial,” I said.

“God, what I wouldn’t give for that now,” she said, pushing a piece of kale around her lunch plate. “I never did loose that last ten pounds.” I could see her actively sucking in her stomach.

Which leads me to shallow breathing.

All of this to say: shallow breathing is our default setting and it’s not healthy. Physiologically it’s terrible for us and it triggers anxiety. Spanx should be labeled a health hazard (But let’s get real here, if they were against the law I’d still wear mine under penalty of prison). 

I was reminded of all this after a few of the young women in meditation simply could not push out their stomachs. “Oh, I can’t,” they giggled self-consciously. I threw up a little in my mouth. They may as well have been asked to breathe under water. Or give up Twitter. They acted like it was physically impossible for their body to function that way. Pahleeeez.

Fine. We’re all just a bunch of shallow breathers.

After class, me and the woman who leads the thing exchanged eyerolls, even though I’m sure inside those comfy yoga pants of hers—she was sucking in her stomach.

I know I was.

Carry on,
xox