guidance

Yuck it up big guy.

This post is from early last year and the good news is: nothing has changed. And the bad news? Nothing has changed. Cest la vie!
Big Love,
xox
***

My husband is a gem. He is a prince of a man. A tender-hearted soul who adores dogs, good food, boobs, and anything with an internal combustion engine.

Okay, now that I’ve made that clear let’s get real.
He can also be an asshole.

But, hey, show me the short list of who can’t.

Plus, I said ‘can be’ —not ‘IS an asshole’.
That’s a VERY big distinction and one that will probably save my marriage.
He has his moments, but then again, don’t we all.

He is also a MAJOR procrastinator.
Big time. A professional. It is such a finely honed skill of his, refined and practiced all these many years, that he is a MASTER Procrastinator.
He could teach it at the college level.
At Harvard.
Sir Raphael of the Bertolus, Professor of Procrastination.

Now you may be worried that he’ll read this and get angry. He will, and he will — he’ll get to it in about a month. That leaves me plenty of time to practice my apology, find my push-up bra, and cook him a nice dinner.

So, am I writing just to bag on my adorable hubster? Yes… and NO.

You see, this is all relevant because his behavior has surprised me lately. He’s taken on a new “ator”.
He has become The Validator.
Validation is just this side of a compliment so I think he’ll get to keep his *“I’m a Frenchman, The French don’t give compliments” card.

Just the same, he’s been showering everyone around him with the gift of validation and it sounds something like this:

HUB: “I told Matt that I was very happy with the fact that he’s treating himself to a nice, new motorcycle, you know he works really hard AND he takes care of his brother…”

ME: “Wow. That was nice of you.”

The following week,
HUB: “When I had lunch with Peter the other day I mentioned how impressed I am with him. He always seems to make the best, most measured and uncompromising business decisions. He’s a pleasure to observe.”

ME: “Wait, What? You said all of that to his face? Did he choke on his steak sandwich?”

Then, today…
ME: “Thank GAWD we didn’t run into anybody at lunch. It’s a miracle. I look how a fart smells. I have this freaking head cold so my entire face is a chapped disaster, my hair looks like fuel for a grease fire, and I smell like yellow toenails.”

HUB: “I really like that you can go out in public and not care if you’re all dolled up. You’re like Janet—Unplugged. That’s really great because when you DO get fixed up, it’s such a startling contrast that everybody realizes how good you clean up.” (OUCH. And Yeah! Okay, it’s not perfect but I got the gist.)
*SEE, HE GETS TO KEEP HIS FRENCH CARD.

ME: “You are…that is just so…Was that a compliment? I think it was. No, wait, it was that validation thing you’ve been doing lately.
It needs some polish but I like it!”

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to — The Validator!
Which makes so much sense to me because he is such a silent observer of the human condition, only I guess now he’s decided to offer us all some validation on the wanky-wonky way we’re just trying to get by—just living our lives.

I think more people could use validating. Everyone needs to be acknowledged from time to time, right?

Don’t you agree my beautiful, smart and loyal tribe?

Carry on,
xox

“Can I get a little help here? Anybody?”

Oh, Hello Rut.

At least I think that’s you. I haven’t seen you in a while and even though you tend to show up in my life on a semi-regular basis—you rascal—you always fool me.

Never one to pass up a good disguise, in the past, you’ve arrived wrapped up in a blanket of safety and security—sunglasses—and a hat.

Always a damn hat.

“Tell me, who doesn’t love safety and security”, you coo. “No one”, I answer. “Unless… it starts to feel like a high-security prison.”

You scoff loudly and keep on digging a deeper hole.

Webster defines you as, A habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change.

I don’t know why I listen to you but I do as you feed me all of your bullshit stories and disproven theories, and I’ve come to notice that when you’re around there may be safe & sound—but there’s no growth or change. Just more of the same ol’, same ol’.

I have to admit, that may feel good for a while but even a table full of chocolate gets boring if that’s all you get to eat for months. Sometimes a girl just wants a steak.

Lately, you’ve taken on the guise of rules and rigidity. Keeping to a strict schedule. No wiggle room, no deviation, no slack, no life—no kidding.

Then, like all Ruts do, you point at all of the surrounding chaos as you sing me a sweet lullaby and lull me into complacency. That all works fine as long as I stay inside of this hole you’ve dug for me.

But you see, here’s the thing: Writers/artists/people need to be IN the world not just OF it.

Sometimes a person needs to put their feet in the sand, feel the warmth of the sun on their face, and set out walking in a pine forest with absolutely no destination in mind. But with you around that isn’t easy. I can feel the tug of your two goons Shame and Guilt around my ankles pulling me back into the chair where they place my fingers firmly onto the keyboard all the while chanting “Write, write, write something good.”

So, I get it. This time you look like creativity wrapped in obligation, except everyone knows those two don’t mix.
They’re like oil and water,
Kanye and Taylor Swift,
Democrats and Republicans.

Be gone Rut! I’ve seen thru your latest ruse. You can go and look for another soul to crush but I’m ratting you out right here and now so…good luck with that.

PS. See ya. I’m going on a walk to nowhere and I can’t tell you how long I’ll be gone.
PPS. I hate your stupid hat.

Carry on,
xox

“In Asia, they have a saying: The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.” ~ Martha Beck

Everyone seems so down in this new Age of Absurdity.
Long faces. Flus and colds that last weeks. Up in the middle of the night uncertainty.

Russian hacking. Healthcare reform. Suppression of truth.  In other words…Too. Much. Stress.

I think Martha Beck, a magical pixie of a woman, is on to something here—so please take a look.

Inclusiveness.

Dissolution of fear, neediness, and rigidity.

Critical mass.

React from the heart. Make art.

““This is precisely the time when artists go to work, there is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” ~Toni Morrison

xox

Um, Yeah, what he said.

Since Donald Trump landed with a giant, orange thud on my radar two-ish years ago, I have watched him traverse the political landscape with a mix of slack-jawed awe and mild nausea.

Who is this guy and how in the hell did this happen?

Previous to running for the office of President of The United States he was just another self-aggrandizing blowhard who lived in a golden tower, cheated on his wives, called himself a billionaire, starred in a cheesy reality show and had something to say about everyone and everything.

Not necessarily an educated opinion—just something to say.

He assumed he had an audience. I guess he thought people cared…Right? Someone must have said that to him once, “Hey, Don, I’d love to hear what you have to say about Roe V Wade!”

He slithered his way through his preferred method of communication—a Howard Stern interview, waffling back and forth on his opinions of the Clintons, Barack Obama, abortion, and the Iraq war on a regular basis.
It was all in good fun back then.

Just a couple of douches talking nonsense.

New Yorkers couldn’t stand the guy and yet, without ever holding public office or participating in any kind of community organizing besides building skyscrapers with his name emblazoned on them in thirty-foot high gold lettering—he gained some traction.

And in 2015 after some consideration (I can’t write that it was careful because that word can never be used in the same sentence as his name), Trump decided to you know, run for Leader of the Free World.

After the most wtf campaign on record and the most wtf win in the history of winning—he now sits behind the big desk in the Oval Office.

“Nothing like this has remotely happened!” has been echoing around the globe since November and I for one have just GOT to put some kind of positive spin on this…this…this anomaly.

What is an anomaly anyway?

Webster defines it as “something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.”

An oddity. A peculiarity. 

A quirk. A rarity.

Something inconsistent with the norm.

Yes, yup, uh huh and bingo.

It seems to me we are now living in the Age of Absurdity. I can resist (which believe me, on the things that matter I am) but on one point in particular, I say, if you can’t beat ‘um—join ‘um. Do you wanna know what the tipping point was for me?

One word. Oprah.

She voiced in a recent interview exactly what I’ve been thinking.

When asked if she was interested in running for President she responded saying that Mr. Trump’s election had made her re-evaluate her previous skepticism about running for President.

“I never considered the question even a possibility,” she told David Rubenstein on his Bloomberg Television program when pressed about whether she might consider running in 2020. “I just thought, ‘Oh… oh?'”
Referring to Mr. Trump, Mr. Rubenstein said: “It’s clear you don’t need government experience to be elected president of the United States”.

“That’s what I thought,” she continued. “I thought, ‘Oh, gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.’ And now I’m thinking, ‘Oh.'”

That’s crazy, right? …CRAZY GOOD!

Will Oprah run? Probably not. But that’s not the point.

How many of us think we’re “unqualified” for a promotion because of the way things have always been done?
How many of us never even try things we know nothing about like writing books, screenplays or musicals?

What if we could accept this new normal and have the kind of faith in ourselves that Trump apparently has? We don’t have to go all dark and twisty narcissistic. What about supremely, peculiarly and unexpectedly confident?

You know what I mean.

If you’re like me you reconsider opportunities because of your age (too young or too old), your inexperience, the fact that you’re unfamiliar with the “system”, and the knowledge that certain things Just aren’t done that way.

I think we can all agree that time is over.

All bets are off.

The rules have all been broken. They are scattered at our feet. That can either be a bad thing—or a good thing.

I say if the idea occurs to you and you think you’d be good at it—go for it!

Who knows, you may end up President of The United States.

Carry on
xox

Nothing remotely like this has happened before!

I’ve heard this more in the last three months than I have at any other time in my life. Have you noticed it too?
I joke that we went to bed one night in one reality, one that we were completely familiar with, and woke up in a similar but significantly different one.

But is it a joke? I mean, look at their faces?

There is a growing school of thought among some big brains out there that we are living inside of a computer simulation. Think the Matrix, the holodeck in Star Trek, or Westworld if you’re looking for a reference that’s not decades old. And this thinking wasn’t really mainstream until…

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/did-the-oscars-just-prove-that-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation

This is an article not from Science Digest or The Computer Geek Journal, it’s in the freaking New Yorker you guys! The author Adam Gopnik makes this point: Start with the election in November, the Superbowl results and the recent Oscar f-up and we have proof, according to Adam, that someone or something is either asleep at the wheel or stuck in the loo.

Either suddenly nobody is paying attention or there is the glitch of all glitches glitching with events that are viewed oh, let’s see…BY THE ENTIRE WORLD.

We’ve experienced not one, not two, but THREE Nothing Like This Has Remotely Happened Like This, events in the space of three months. I’ve been scratching my head. Haven’t you?

Doesn’t that somehow make sense? Did you see the Truman Show? When is the sky going to peel back?

This hypothesis is all at once fascinating and terrifying. If given the choice of how to feel I’ll go with fascinated.

Read the article, then talk to me.

Carry on,
xox

Lather, rinse, repeat. Who does that? Whose got the time?

Yet, those are the directions on the bottle of shampoo. If your hair won’t come clean after one lather, you’ve got bigger problems baby.

Tags on a mattress: It is forbidden, under penalty of law to remove the tags.
Who leaves them on?
I rip tags off of everything…immediately.
I once worked my way around a friend’s apartment discreetly removing the tags that were still on her futon, chair cushions, couch, and pillows. I couldn’t help myself.

Was she just lazy or following directions, hoping to avoid the tag police?

What about waiting a half hour after eating, before going back into the ocean or pool.
“You’ll get a cramp and drown”. That rule never made any sense to me. Even if it did happen to Marge’s sister’s cousin, kid brother. Never mind that he didn’t know how to tread water, it was the bologna sandwich that did him in. So, our moms enforced that rule to-the-minute. As a kid, I could inhale my lunch in 2.5 seconds, so a half an hour was an eternity.
But to all of the neighborhood moms which included my mom, that rule was law. It was non-negotiable. Believe me, I tried.

Some folks follow directions to the letter.
Not me. Directions, tags, rules for games, most rules in general, are always just…a suggestion.
The ones I can’t get around, like flossing and taxes, I adhere to begrudgingly.

Maybe it’s America. So much fear of liability. You can be sued by anyone, for anything, anytime. It’s not that way in other countries.That’s why I love the Italians. In Italy, there is a kind of “live in the moment” attitude that renders laws and rules…obsolete.

To the Italians, they truly are only suggestions. Weak ones. Ones that should be ignored. Which makes them my people.

I was in Rome for a couple of weeks when every day it was steamy, well over 100 degrees. They call that August. There are many, many gorgeous fountains in Rome. Each one has a sign that basically says: Stay Out of the Fountain. But by the number of men, women, little kids, grandmas, dogs, even nuns; standing and splashing around, you would have thought the sign said: Come on in, the water’s fine!
Even the politzia turned a blind eye.

Several years later I went back and the signs were down. Apparently, after hundreds of years they had figured out, why waste good wall space? Godere!

My husband is also European, so maybe it’s in the water. His motto is one that I’ve grown to love, and have adopted as my own: It is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Meaning, if you know the answer most likely will be no, if you know a rule is about to be broken, and no one’s getting hurt, just do it.

Gasp… I know, I know. But there are so many joyful, playful, beautiful things in life that somewhere along the line became “not okay.” Some killjoy decided it was a bad idea to swim too soon after eating or rip a tag off a mattress or shampoo only once or splash in a fountain on a hot summer day, and they ruined it for everyone.

I’m not advocating hurting anyone, defiling public property, or acts of debauchery.

I’m just saying, it’s okay to color outside the lines, to find joy whenever and wherever you can.
Rules are made to be broken. Tear some tags. Laugh in a library. If there are no cars, cross the street just before the light turns green. Oh, you rebel! And if you’re caught in the fountain, don’t be embarrassed, just smile and say: I’m sorry, it’ll never happen again.

Until next time.
Xox
.

I don’t just appreciate this quality from my foliage, it is a quality I like in my friends too.

I like a friend who, even if you haven’t seen them in a while you don’t have that awkward “catching up” phase.

I like friends who require very little eggshell walking.

I like friends you’ve had long enough, and that you know well enough that you can order their drink to be waiting for them before they arrive at the table.

And like the tree I have in my front yard, I like to just begin where we left off.

No idle chit chat.

No shallow small talk.

Not with my friends, we like to jump right into the deep end.

Exactly like I do with you guys.

Carry on,
xox

#Ilovemytribe

“Be a matador” he yelled as I whimpered pitifully in the middle of a six-lane highway, traffic whizzing by us on both sides.

Not waiting for a break in the traffic he had grabbed my hand and run us between cars out to a place I try REALLY hard to never find myself. The middle of a busy street.

I hate that shit.
I will NOT play chicken, I’ll wait, or walk to the corner crosswalk thank you very much.

But to my French husband jaywalking on a busy boulevard is in his blood, a skill learned as a youth on the impossibly dangerous streets of Paris.

It is not a chicken sport. It is a bullfight. And he/we were Matadors.

Gulp.

Me: (leaning in, yelling above the noise of the cars) Wha…what? Did you say a matador?

Husband: Yes! Stand still! Don’t let the cars smell your fear.

Me: (Squeezing his hand like a vice grip, hoping to illicit pain) Are you crazy? What are you talking about?

Husband: (Yelling back at me through a smirk) Listen to me! All the greatest Matadors are French!

Me: You’re kidding me right? They are NOT French, they’re Spanish!

Did you see what he did there? He took my mind off of my predicament, knowing I would argue with him. Well played husband, well played.

Husband: I’m telling you, they’re French! They’re called Coreadors.

I was laughing nervously. Mostly at the absurdity of the conversation. I’m sure I appeared squirmy, uncomfortable and maybe a little hysterical. That comes from knowing that you’re probably going to end up as a splat on the windshield of a Prius.

Me: Shut. Up! They are NOT!

Husband: (Leaning in, yelling above traffic) Or Toreadors. Those are the guys on horseback. 

Me: (Feeling queasy. close enough to death to relate to the bull) Uhhh! Stop! Bullfighting is barbaric! The French don’t have bullfighting! They’re WAY too civilized for that!

Husband: (Amused by my argument) That’s what YOU think!

By the way, can you believe we were still standing in the middle of a busy street? Me either, but we were!

Me: (Wishing I’d ordered the french toast as my last meal) Egads. Bullfighting. Brutal. Whoever thought that was a good idea?

Husband: The Romans.

Me: Figures.

With that, the last car hurtled past us and he yanked my hand and ran me to the safety of the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. We were both laughing, not at bullfighting because it’s a horrible practice*—but at the absurdity of our conversation.

Husband: God, you can be such a baby!

Me: God, you’re weird! And damn, the Romans were assholes!

Some story on the radio in the car changed the subject, but I had to share this.

Words from a French wise guy I know—When you’re in the middle of chaos—stand still—be a matador.

Carry on,
xox

*Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I am in no way condoning bullfighting and no bulls were killed in the telling of this story.

Right?
Okay. Add to that:

Low rise skinny jeans.

Any TV playing cable news.

All of my diet books & all seven, three of my vegan/paleo cookbooks.

All of my shoes except flip flops.

What are you getting rid of this weekend that doesn’t bring you joy?

Carry on,
xox

“Nature is efficient, it doesn’t waste time.”

As I huffed and puffed my way up the hill, hoodie up protecting my ears from the freezing (58 degrees) winds, shoes caked with mud from the recent rains, all I could do was question my sanity—demonstrated by the fact that I’d decided to “switch things up” and go the opposite way that I usually do—which is markedly harder—and freakishly longer—and that I don’t have time for this shit, I’ve got things to do!

Don’t argue with me. I understand when you tell me that it shouldn’t be harder OR longer, that it is physically impossible for that to be true, blah, blah, blah…

HEY, GO TO HELL! I have one of those step counting thingies which said I climbed 31 flights of steps today as opposed to 17 flights on a regular day, and we all know those things don’t lie.

Feeling every. single. extra. step. I was called to sit on a bench at the apex of one of the hills. I have to mention that the view of the San Fernando Valley from that bench is spectacular.

Yet, in the fifteen plus years that I’ve hiked that hill, I have NEVER been called to cop a squat on that bench.
Not when the ninety plus degree weather was making me nauseous.
Not when I’ve been caught in the rain.
Not when my plantar fasciitis had me limping like Quasimodo in yoga pants up the entire hill.
Not even when it was the best seat in the house for some of our recent brush fires.

Nope. I blast past that bench as I silently judge anyone who sits there.

Must be nice to just be able to sit and waste time, I think in that judgy tone of voice that inhabits your head when you see someone doing something which never occurred to you to do, or you feel unworthy of attempting.

So when the bench called me I was surprised. Taken aback.

Wha…what? I stammered back. Are you talking to me?
My face laughed a little. My head turned right as I looked in its direction but the rest of my body continued full steam ahead straight up the hill.

Why don’t you come sit for a while? It said again.

Listen, I have a heart-rate to maintain…

That’s when I observed my body in full speed-walking mode, make a very impressive u-turn in one sweeping motion and end up planting my ass on that bench.

Huh.

I sat there self-consciously for a minute or two staring straight ahead, catching my breath.

That’s when I saw him enter. Like a highly choreographed actor, he came gliding into view from stage left, out above the trees, but right at eye level. A stunning red-tailed hawk hovering in one place, artfully surfing the wind currents.

I sat mesmerized. So enthralled I neglected to take his picture. It was that wonderful and I would have missed his graceful dance had I not heeded The Calling of the Bench.
Or was it the hawk calling me from the wings to sit and witness his perfectly timed entrance and beautiful dance?

Huh.

He seemed to be having a ball; maintaining his altitude, wings majestically out stretched, big smile on his face (I’m just assuming that last one). He didn’t seem worried about the rest of his day, about how the hunting would be and catching his dinner. He seemed unaware of the occasional smaller birds that tried to join him and couldn’t.

He was having fun wasting time. Actually, he seemed unaware of time at all.

Huh.

I was reminded of that quote I once heard, “We have twenty-four hours in a day. Eight hours to work, eight hours to sleep, and eight hours to do whatever else makes us happy.”

I sat there and watched him for about ten minutes which is a really long time to sit on a random bench—on the top of a hill—in the middle of a hike. It felt suspiciously like time-wasting but it made me happy so I put it in that eight-hour category.

Hey, leave it to nature to school me. If that gorgeous hawk who must hunt and catch his prey if he wants to eat, has the wherewithal to just enjoy life and waste a little time, then me with my refrigerator full of food (and some trail mix in my car), can follow his example.

So…who do you think called me to sit? The bench or the hawk?

Carry on,
xox