stories

In my world, a castarofuckish day starts out like any other.
The only difference is that for me at least, it reveals itself to be a day disguised as a very fat elephant which I agree at one point or another to push up a very steep set of stairs without any assistance whatsoever from the universe.

Just to be clear it is neither a full-blown catastrophe nor, is it a fuckfest. It is simply a day that I’d just as soon forget because of its general assholishness.

Case in point—Monday.
My first day back from a very relaxing vacation where EVERYTHING went right. I woke up raring to—not move one molecule of my body out of bed. I know you’ll be able to relate to this because that feeling of post-vacation inertia is Universal. Kinda like jet lag only without the jet travel (2 hrs doesn’t count).

And I’m sure we can all agree that the first day back is just as busy or busier than the day before you go. The big difference here is that the day before you leave for vacation you can stomach the stress because it’s balanced by the excitement of leaving any and all responsibility along with your identity in the rearview mirror. Or maybe that’s just me.

So, waking up completely unmotivated to tackle anything on my list—I did it all. I overcompensated. I shoved elephant ass.

I went to Costco.

I went to Costco because, well, is there ever a good reason to go to Costco? I thought maybe I had one—so off I went. Halfway there I had second thoughts. I should have turned around. Instead, I drove faster. The elephant is eyeballing the stairs.
Instead of screaming “Don’t do it!” I move aside and say “After you.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the start of a catastrofuck.

It is just my husband and myself. Just us two. I have no business buying in bulk. But as fast as you can say “Six packages of dental floss for the price of four!” I fill a cart with shit we don’t need that will take us the rest of our lives to use.

Two hours later, when I returned home, tired, famished and having to pee like a racehorse—I took stock and was tempted to start drinking. No problem there, I’d bought enough mixer to host a small, Mexican wedding (if there were such a thing).

What the hell had I done? Nevermind…

While attempting to cut ONE of the five-pound containers of peppercorns free of their childproof, scissor-proof, plastic wrap, I decided, as an act of love, to fill our pepper mill. My husband had mentioned a while back that it looked low.
An hour later, once the jar of peppercorns was free, I cheerfully set about unscrewing the peppercorn holder from the rest of the mill. It didn’t take many corns to fill it (about twenty-five) which was the moment I had the realization that we would have to include the extra jars of peppercorns in our will.

I think I will leave them to my sister.

I screwed the thing back together, very pleased with myself that I’d managed to accomplish a completely useless and mundane task in no time at all. It was so fulfilling I felt a little smug. That is until I went to put it back in its place next to the stove and while in mid-air it decided to come apart raining tiny black peppercorns all over the kitchen.

Not only that.

As I stood there admiring the surprising trajectory of the traveling peppercorns, the bottom of the mill knocked over a full bottle of balsamic vinegar which then proceeded (in slow motion) to glug, glug, glug, its entire contents down the side of and underneath the stove.

Balsamic vinegar is black. And sticky. Who knew?

I still hadn’t eaten and I had gazillion things left on my list as I got on my hands and knees with one of the six rolls of paper towels I’d just purchased.

“When you need something done—give it to a busy person,”
said a fuckface who probably had hired help.

I’ve decided that the only thing worse than a catastrofuck is a post-vacation catastrofuck that falls on a Monday.

Who is with me?

Carry on,
xox

I walked into the gym bright and early, trying to beat this oppressive heat wave at its own game.
I like to sweat on my own terms.

Just inside the opening to the room where they keep the torture devices, weight machines, I spotted a young, ginger haired man wearing a loud purple t-shirt with the words Ima Hugger on the front. It took me a minute to figure out if that was a persons name, some obscure fraternity babble—or a mission statement.

Just one look at the guy’s cheerful, bubbly demeanor assured me it was the latter.

“Oh mah gawd, I’m a hugger too!” I declared, arms outstretched.

“Incoming!” That’s the warning my husband and I give each other when unexpected hugging breaks out.
It’s only polite.

Speaking of polite, I know people who say it’s rude to hug someone without their permission. Seriously? Get over yourself.
I see you looking at the ground or pretending you’re on the phone. Trust me when I say that I can read your body language and I’ll never force myself on you. You are probably an introvert. I’m Kryptonite to introverts.

Besides, no one likes to hug a corpse.

Anyway…I digress…

Completely taken aback and drenched in sweat, (which is not a great combination) My new ginger-pal put down the handles of the heavy, stainless steel, arm-stretchy thing he was pulling as exercise, and we came together in an awkward public display of affection among strangers.

“Sorry, I probably smell,” he cautioned as we patted each other on the back like we were dislodging large chunks of food that had stuck in our throats.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “I’m about to peel the paint right off these walls with my odiferous-ness!”

We both laughed. So did the old man on the rowing machine.

As ginger-hugger turned around to resume his workout, he stopped for a second, his face awash in nostalgia.
“You know, I miss that. Nobody hugs here.”

“Here, like at the gym?” I asked because he was right about that. That only happens at the fancy, pick-up joints on the Westside that masquerade as gyms.

“No. I mean, I’m from the east coast and we hug it out—ALL THE TIME.”

“Seriously?” I said, finding it hard to believe that the hard scrabble, city folk on the east coast hug more than here in LaLa Land.
We even have a reputation as tree huggers.

Case in point. Here is my brother on a recent visit to LA hugging my tree. It’s genetic.

“I’m from LA, born and raised”, I said, “But when I’m in a foreign country and I say to people “Bring it in—I’m a hugger”, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE says “Oh, you must be from California!
I’m pretty sure it’s the only sentence I know in Mandarin.”

“It’s true!” he insisted. “Maybe it’s strictly a LA thing and it doesn’t bode true for the rest of California?”

“That could be it,” I agreed. “A lot of LA acts like it is way too cool for school.”

“It’s a virtual No Hug Zone“, he chimed in.

We both nodded in agreement. So did the lady on the stair-stepper thingy that you will NEVER catch me on.

He went back to his arm pulling and I mounted the elliptical apparatus like a boss.
But I couldn’t help but feel a little sad about the Hugging Ginger’s LA experience. I wanted to apologize for our aloofness and fear of showing affection.

After my heart rate came down to something sustainable, and I had beat the urge to vomit—I realized the aversion to hugging was just a phase. It’s not the locals who are afraid to hug, it’s the transplants. The beautiful people from Peoria and Poughkeepsie who have all found themselves here and are unaware of our customs. I know they worry about looking cool and fitting in so I’m sure hugging was one of the first things that they crossed off their list. After they threw away their crocks.

But then somebody like my beautiful, Hugging Ginger Man comes to town and breaks the mold.
I love that. Don’t you?

To all of you huggers out there…
Carry on,
xox

We are up in B.C this week. At an idyllic place called Tofino where the scenery is so splendid, it leaves me speechless (and that is not easy!). Our intention was to uplug, stroll the beach, nap & read, experience any kind of weather other than the African savannah heat that has plagued LA recently—and celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary.

But today is September 11th.

It’s two days after our wedding day. Just like it always was and always will be.
Just like it was back in 2001 when, as a country, we lost our innocence.
I remember that day as a collective gut punch.
Sorrow on a level I will not soon forget.

And so, no matter where we travel to celebrate love, this day will follow us; our narrative as a couple forever woven into the fabric of the heavy wet coat I put on every year around this time.

Back in 2001, I found it viscerally impossible to be happy after the morning of Sept. 11th. I went from being blissed out—to feeling sad, vulnerable and scared. It changed everything. The viscosity of the air—my understanding of life—and what if means to feel “safe”. It cast a pall over what should have been the happiest time of my life. Even today, all of these years later it tugs at me, trying to recreate that same level of loss.

I was walking on the beach this morning thinking, “It’s September eleventh. Who am I to be so happy?”

Then the voice in my head answered back, “Who are you NOT to? Life is short. Carpe Diem, Seize the day.” And I’m reminded of sixteen years ago, and my sweet, brand new husband of two days, consoling my inconsolable self. “All of those people would want us to be happy and enjoy life”, he said, trying to pull me out of the abyss. “They would if they could.”

And eventually, I believed him.

So the years have worn all of the sharp edges of sadness smooth like time has a tendency to do, turning it over and over like a pebble in a stream—transforming it into a quiet melancholy. But even that is fleeting these days. It visits only for a moment. Then, I see a dog running and smiling on the beach and happiness bubbles up from my feet and rushes to my face and I start to smile—and just at the point where in the past I would start to feel fragile, I ask myself, “Who am I to be so happy? And now myself answers loud and clear—”Who am I NOT to.”

And the circle of life continues…

Carry on,
xox

If I have one good quality it is that I am loyal. To a fault.

I’ve gone to the same hairdresser for over thirty years, I eat at the same little lunch place every week and order the same thing (the Chinese chicken salad), and I’ve had the same housekepper and gardener for close to twenty years.

In this fast-paced age of chasing the latest and greatest, this gives me a sense of stability and more than that; these people are like family to me.

Which makes what I’m about to say well, uncomfortable.

Our housekeeper is legally blind and our gardener is perpetually MIA—which has caused me to question my faulty loyalty.

Since our home is modest and it’s just my husband and me, both Maria and Pedro come once a week and that’s plenty. Through the years we have established the practice of paying them when we leave town and when they’re sick or have an emergency and can’t make it.

Because that’s what family does.

But in the past year, my husband and I have spent many a weekend trimming trees, raking leaves, and cutting back rose bushes instead of waiting for Pedro to get around to it—and pre-cleaning the house before Maria comes on Saturdays.

Maria is barely five feet tall, pathologically private, and seems to be about my age (late fifties) although it’s really hard to tell. She could be thirty-five—or seventy. She has never learned to speak English but that’s okay. Between my broken high-school Spanish and the translator app on my phone—we communicate with each other beautifully. She has endeared herself to me by saying “yes” to everything I ask her to do even though I know she has no idea what I’ve said—because it never gets done. She is as honest and trustworthy as the day is long, which is imperative—but truth be told she’s not the best house cleaner on the planet and she breaks something I love once a month.

But just when I hear about somebody better, I come home to find she has cut fresh flowers from my garden and put them into an old, silver mint-julep cup on my bathroom sink. Or “broomed” a rat to death who had the misfortune to be lurking next to the bar-b-que.

So, after eighteen years, just when she was hitting her stride, Maria had a botched cataract surgery on her right eye. One Saturday morning in May she showed up wearing thick, black glasses and a pirate patch. All drugged up and bumping into walls, we told her to forget about cleaning, paid her for the day, and made sure she got home safely. A few weeks later, for reasons known only to Maria, the timing seemed perfect to have the same surgery on her remaining one good eye.

Unfortunately, that surgery didn’t go well either which left her unable to drive, cook, or see anything in focus. After taking a couple of weeks off, a friend dropped her off at our house unannounced one Saturday morning. When she walked in the door we were stunned. Both eyes were covered with a gooey ointment that was seeping out from the edges of gauze patches, and she could barely make out our faces. It was then that she informed us that she was legally blind but when pressed, she wouldn’t go into any details. Dismissed with a huff, she silenced us by grabbing the vacuum, turning it on, and using the hose like a white cane, banging her way down the hall.

My moldings have never been the same. They wince when they see her coming.

Then there is Pedro. Pedro is a dream. He is the kind of gardener who treats your garden as if it were his own. He trims, weeds and mulches without being asked and over the years we’ve formed an alliance against the squirrels that dig up most of my potted flowers and wreak havoc with the wires for the landscape lighting. He is hardworking and reliable. At least he was until last summer when he stopped showing up. Instead, he sent “The B Team”, who I have to say are terrible. They are of the cursed “mow-n-blow” variety I have been so lucky avoid. When I asked them to trim back the bougainvillea, they Edward Scissorhanded off all of the hot pink summer foliage, leaving just the bare, woody stems.

One Tuesday in late October I came home to find Pedro in the backyard shaking his head in disgust at the hack job I’d done on the rose bushes. Overcome with joy I ran over and hugged him awkwardly while simultaneously knocking the wind out of him with my purse. While he recovered, I peppered him with questions like, “Where have you been?” and “Why haven’t you returned my texts?”

The whole scene felt eerily similar to a bad break-up or five I’d had back in the day.

In a whisper that was barely audible, he told me that his fifteen-year-old son had died of cancer. In the same spooky whisper, I tried to console him by confiding to him that I talk to dead people and that I had it on good authority that love never dies. Now on top of being consumed by grief, the man was scared witless. Rattled, he made a hasty retreat. I’ve never seen someone who wasn’t being chased by a wild animal run so fast. That was the last time I saw Pedro and since it is no longer the beneficiary of his magical green thumb the garden has suffered dramatically.

I’ve been forced to start to asking around for someone else, all the while feeling as if I’m cheating on him.

My friends have noticed my paint-less moldings and hacked up hedges. They chide me about my misguided loyalty, reminding me that I pay good money and that “enough is enough.” But family is family and like most, we are dysfunctional as hell. But one thing is certain; while my loyalty to Maria and Pedro may be in question—my affection for them will never be.

Carry on,
xox

So, what if…?

Nonchalance was the new “hair on fire”?

Because of the joy factor associated with eating pie for breakfast, you set yourself up to burn more calories for the rest of the day?

Sleeping was considered “getting it done?”

“The early bird catching the worm” was a lie started by Starbucks?

Disappointment was taking score too soon.

Kale and chia seeds caused depression—and chocolate cured cancer.

We all wore uniforms (think Steve Jobs).

A study found that gray hair was a measure of intelligence.

Saving money was found to be highly overrated.

Toddlers and dogs were found to have higher IQ’s than Einstein.

The moon really was made of gruyere cheese.

Nine out of ten dentists think the tenth dentist is an idiot.

In a remote section of the Amazonian rainforest, money was found growing on trees.

Little Red Riding Hood secretly ate the wolf with a nice Chianti and some fava beans…and then changed the story.

A university education wasn’t worth the paper the diploma was printed on.

They really drank whiskey at the last supper.

The happier you are the more good things come your way.

I was just thinkin’.

Carry on,
xox

On beating yourself up

Almost everyone does it. I’m not sure why.

After the fact (or even during it) all the blame, second-guessing and paralysis. We say things to ourselves that we’d never permit anyone else to say. Why?
1. It leaves us bruised and battered, unlikely to do our best work while you’re recovering.
2. It hurts our knuckles.
3. It distracts us from the work at hand.

Perhaps there’s a more humane and productive way to instill positive forward motion. I’m sure there is.
At the very least, this is a dumb hobby.
~ Seth Godin

Once, back in the nineties, I took a boxing class.
I figured that with the boss I had and all of the sex I wasn’t having—I must have a lot of hostility to work out. And besides, I had read in Vogue that you could burn 1200 calories an hour boxing!

Sign . Me. Up.

The instructor, a tall, Mandingo Warrior named Frejah (pronounced Free-Jay) who trained professional fighters at a famous gym in Venice, would have us carefully bind our fists with tape, lace up our gloves, and stand in front of a six-foot tall dark blue leather punching bag that was suspended by a heavy black chain from the ceiling. Every class he’d stand behind us, kicking our legs into a wider stance as he ghetto-yelled “encouragement” which could have easily been mistaken for harassment—all in the name of motivation.

“Come on you little pussy” He’d holler at Kenneth, a guy who came in wearing a white shirt with a pocket protector, “You couldn’t hurt your grandmother, who by-the-way, said to say hello to you this morning.”

Some of us may have giggled.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” he swooped in beside me and bellowed in my ear like a drill sergeant, “Do ya?!” I shook my head no emphatically as I pawed at the bag like a baby kitten. “Is that how you hit a fucking bag?!”

He went and stood in front of all of us as we tried in vain just to make the heavy bag swing on the chain.
We all sucked. And this was like week four.

“Hit the fucking bag!” he screamed, foam escaping the sides of his snarled lips. “Hit it like you mean it!”

There was a timid girl next to me, Tina, wearing glasses and a ponytail. Her face was filled with determination but every time she hit the bag her glove would just slide off and she’d almost do a face-plant on the behemoth. Frejah became silent as he watched her punch and lose her balance, punch and lose her balance.

His silence was not a good thing. It meant that the pressure was building—and he was about to blow!

I couldn’t watch.

As I sent a flurry of kitten punches into the body of my bag, Frejah got into Tina’s face. Inches away he started sneering insults. “What the hell do you think you’re doing you little mamby pamby?”

I had no idea what that meant, it just sounded bad. Weak and lame. Frejah was right. We were a bunch of mamby pambys.

He grabbed the glasses off her face and tossed them over to the side. Oh, fuck, I thought, How do I watch what’s about to happen and still look like I’m hitting the bag? My talented right eye traveled over somewhere around my ear to get a good view. (It never happened before—and it has never happened since.)

Frejah was yelling obscenities at Tina while pushing her in the chest with his glove.
Goading her to hit him.
“Your daddy an asshole?” he sneered, “I bet he’s a reeeeeal piece a work. You hate him dontcha?” He pushed Tina a little harder with just one gloved fist.

“Hit me. I’m your shitty daddy. Hit me! You know you want to!”

But that bitch stood her ground. She didn’t budge. Until she did.
Without so much as blinking Tina landed a solid left hook squarely on Frejah’s right jaw. Then she walked out. I found out later that she drove all the way home (without her glasses!) with her hands still bound in the bright red boxing gloves.

We all froze in place like life-size, mamby pamby ice sculptures. Frejah barely flinched. His glove went up to his face and he nodded. I think I saw..admiration?

After waiting the appropriate three minutes to thaw,  I found my nerve, grabbed Tina’s glasses off the floor, unlaced my gloves, and never went back to class. Boxing had started to seem like a really dumb hobby, dangerous in more ways than one. I decided to take up running. Getting run over by a car seemed like a gentler way to go than boxing with Frejah.

One of the guys who stayed, told me later that Frejah only got more abusive as the months went on (it was a twelve-week class) but that in his defense everyone who stayed (one heavily tattooed girl who was more masculine than Vin Diesel, and looked like she could kick the shit out of Frejah if given the chance—and five guys) —they all got REALLY good.

I guess that form of abuse “motivates” some people.

I met Tina that Saturday for coffee at Borders to give her back her glasses and basically say, “What the fuck, girl?!” I told her I wasn’t going back. Tina nodded, “Frejah sounds like all the voices in my head,” she said, “I don’t need to pay someone to talk to me like that!”

“I know. What a dick,” I agreed.

“But I can’t tell you how silent the voices have been since that night. I think I scared the shit out of them!” Tina laughed.
So did I.
Then she leaned in, “And for the first time in over three years I called my horrible father” she whispered like he might hear her. “How did Frejah know?” She looked at me with an odd combination of wisdom and naiveté.

“It’s his job. I think guys like that can smell it,” I said and went to order a giant slab of pumpkin bread so I didn’t have to think about how much I wanted to slug my shitty dad.

Maybe I should have kept boxing?

Carry on,
xox

Some pecker head stole the wands again and my heart is broken.
Not for the reasons you think although they DO come into play.

The fact that some shit bag had a heart so black as to steal magic wands.
All of them.
And the bucket with the sign asking them to please NOT steal the wands because, you know, it upset the kids.

Well, I am gobsmacked. Literally. It felt like the gob has been smacked right outta me.

“Thou shalt not ever steal magic wands.”
It is written right there in the Being a Decent Human Being (& Wizard) Handbook.
Not really. No one thought to it put it there—because no one could ever fathom that some fuck trumpet would steal an entire bucket of wands!

So I stand before you broken hearted.

The first time they were stolen I rolled with it. I pictured a Robin Hood of Wands gifting all of the wizards and fairies in need. Or a little toe-headed girl misinterpreting the “free” sign as my lion-hearted, fellow Pollyanna friend Sandra had suggested.

Not this time. This time I’m wicked pissed.
I have an edge about it. I want the ass badger to suffer. I need to punch the culprit in the face and that’s one of the things that breaks my heart.

My husband is convinced it was perpetrated by a marauding band of teenage boys. Dickless teenage hoodlums if you ask me.

It breaks my heart because where others see fucktards I usually see the goodness in humanity.
To a fault. Ask anyone. I’ve been told it’s infuriating.
I try my damnedest to veer my way out of the rabbit hole we all fell into around the first of the year and endeavor to overlook the mean-spiritedness and hate-speak.

Not today.

My broken heart has unleashed the Kraken of all the disappointments I’ve been feeling about who we’re all becoming.
What the hell has happened to us as a country/city/neighborhood?
What has happened to common decency?
To “not saying anything when you can’t say something nice?”
What’s happened to minding your own business and being “polite?”

It used to be that there was an unspoken rule that woman and children were off-limits to the haters. Not anymore!
What world have I been thrust into?
Now according to a few assorted butt munchers out there, we’re viewed as a bunch of weak sucks who need to learn to stick up for ourselves.

My guess is it’s the same mean-spirited fucks who steal magic wands.

And that breaks my heart too.

So today, this minute, I have joined their ranks. I am filled with anger and hate and I’m throwing verbal Molotov cocktails all over this page. I feel just like they do—disempowered and misunderstood—and it feels like shit. And it breaks my heart.

But I will work hard to recover my delightful disposition.  Will they? And when I do I have a warning for those dick weasels: Do not underestimate me. You do so at your own peril.

Carry on,
xox

How do we feel about eye contact?

It’s kind of like a hug. Or sex. Too short and there’s no connection. Too long and it’s awkward. And exhausting.

I for one, don’t trust anyone who won’t make eye-contact. I believe they are sinister and creepy. They are clearly hiding something. Like the location of a body…or the name of a good tailor.

But what about unbroken eye contact?

Serial killer, right?

That or an accountant. Played by Nicolas Cage. Gawd, he’s the worst! His unblinking, unbroken eye contact in movies skeeves me out!

Ugh! Don’t get me started on no-blinkers!

Unless they have a rare medical condition like their eyelids are too short or don’t close at all, I really feel like someone nice, like a friend (who are we kidding?) or their mother, should advise them to blink once-in-a-while. It’s just common courtesy for god’s sake.

What about eye darters. You know those people whose eyes dart around wildly while you’re trying to have a conversation? Jinky right? I mean, what are they doing? Searching the room for fire exits?

And last, but most certainly not least—the cleavage starer. Unable to even hide the fact that staring at my boobs might be degrading and inappropriate, these pervs cannot help themselves. So how can I be mad? Boobs to them are like flames to a moth and since their brains are about the same size they operate on a similar kind of kind of primal instinct.

Conversation over. Besides, I might use words with more than two syllables that could easily confuse them.

I’m not dissimilar to you guys or anybody on the planet for that matter. All I want out of human interaction is a connection. I want to be heard and understood. And I equate eye-contact with presence. End of story.

So, who knew we, (and I’m including you because I know you’re with me on this) were so opinionated about something as ordinary as eye contact?

Huh…

Maybe we need to get a life?

Carry on,
xox

Since I refuse to iron clothes (it is too time-consuming and besides that, I have a mild form of PTSD from a couple of “hot iron left unattended” incidents back in the day) I take all of my hubby’s shirts to the dry cleaners to get them laundered.

They have coupons online that make it so cheap it’s free.

Anyhow, this all started when Raphael insisted he LOVED to iron. He said he found it very “zen”, like drying dishes and baking pies—all three of these fantasies have NEVER happen in our house. Ironing went the way of many other good intentions gone awry. The iron itself turned into a heavy object that fell on my foot or got tangled up with all of the other useless laundry items we have stored (and that’s just a nice way of saying shoved in a haphazard way) next to our washer and dryer.

And don’t get me started on the ironing board. It met with a terrible accident recently and had to be put down. Let’s all take a minute…

Now, let’s cut to the real reason his shirts need ironing.

We have a dryer that cost more than my car but the lovely Swiss or German people who manufacture it have neglected to include a simple “fluff” cycle. Obviously, it was designed by men. Men who either have wives who love to iron or take their shirts to the laundry—and they’re too clueless to know how in the hell they live a wrinkle free life.

Anyway…I owned a piece-of-shit Kenmore for like a thousand years and it had the most magnificent “fluff” cycle imaginable. That freaking fabulous fluff cycle was one of the contributing factors for me turning my back on ironing clothes. You could throw a wizened 2500-year-old mummy in that dryer for ten minutes and it would come out looking like Heidi Klum. All you had to do was spray a little water on the wrinkled garment (even linen, *gasp) and voila! The fluff would work its magic.

Ten years ago when we upgraded to our present washer and dryer I was disappointed but I didn’t want to sound like Bratty McBraterson so I kept quiet about the loss of my beloved “fluff” cycle. After all, these fancy appliances had brains and sensors that could sense all of my deepest emotions—so I just assumed they’d figure something out.

But that never happened.

Every day Raphael would throw on a shirt that was clean but looked like it had been tied in a knot and then wedged into the tiny crack between the wall and bed to dry.

Remember scrunchies? They all looked like scrunchies.

He looked ridiculous. Like no one loved him. Like a sad, unloved, shlumpadinka (it’s an Oprah and Gail word—look it up).

“You need to iron that shirt before you leave.” was our default goodbye every morning. He never did, (you know, because it’s a fucking hassle) so he looked like a hobo. Like a 6’ 4” bald hobo. Nobody wants to hire a giant hobo/schlumpadinka to build their multi-million dollar dream home. Believe me, it’s in the small print.

So my solution was to get them laundered. Problem solved.
I know. Wife of the Year!

Cut to yesterday, when I was picking up his shirts (and one blouse of mine) and taking in some dirty ones to be laundered, I let the delightful little man who works there help me with the five-thousand smelly shirts that I had piled up in the back seat of my car (I put them there as a reminder—it works…seldom). He is an older gentleman who stands outside every day and helps all of us back and forth to our cars with our dry cleaning. I never see him without a smile and a freshly pressed shirt. My guess is that he’s retired and can only take so much of Fox news or the golf channel.

Anyhow, since it was close to ninety outside (he sits in the shade) and since he’d helped me schlep my shirts inside and then carried the clean ones to my car while I paid, I grabbed a couple of extra dollars bills (three to be exact) and mused aloud if it was okay to tip him.

Me, addressing the girl who worked there and anyone else within earshot while holding the money in my hand:
“I should tip him, right? I mean, does he accept tips?”

The woman next to me with the tightly pulled ponytail, dressed in head-to-toe LuLu Lemon huffed under her breath, “How rude.”

The girl at the register just shrugged.

“It’s rude to give him money…or it’s rude not to?” I asked, dumbfounded and a little embarrassed.

“What do you think?” She replied looking me up and down like a dog looks at a lamb chop—or like I was the unfortunate victim of a dryer without a fluff cycle.

“I don’t know! That’s why I asked!” I sneered at her in my best shlumpadinka voice.

She turned on her expensive, designer, limited edition Adidas and walked out giving me stink eye the entire time.

That’s okay. I burned a hole in the back of her head with my superpower bitch repellent as she struggled to get into her Range Whatever. I’m surprised she could drive.

After she left, the girls who work there rolled their eyes so hard they all did backflips and then told me that it was okay to give Ernesto a couple of bucks. “A lot of people do,” said the woman with the chartreuse hair and the painted on eyebrows (she’s my favorite).

So I did. And it didn’t feel rude and he didn’t seem the least bit offended.

Take THAT you ornery bitch-faced woman!

Okay, Now back to a loving place.

Carry on,
xox

According to me, this applies to men too.

“You’ve arrived
It’s easy to fall in love with the GPS version of the universe.

There, just ahead, after that curve. Drive a little further, your destination is almost here.
Done. You’ve arrived.

Of course, that’s not how it works. Not our careers, not our relationships, not our lives.

You’ve always arrived. You’ve never arrived.

Wherever you go, there you are. You’re never going to arrive because you’re already there.

There’s no division between the painful going and the joyous arriving. If we let it, the going can be the joyful part.

It turns out that arrival isn’t the point, it can’t be—because we spend all our time on the journey.”
~ Seth Godin

Oh, brother Seth, where do I begin?

Did you write this just for me? Did a little birdy whisper to you how much I suck at the journey part of life?
Or was it the screaming, hair pulling, and the skywriting that said YOU SUCK JOURNEY! GIMME THE FUCKING DESTINATION ALREADY! —that gave me away?

It’s not that I haven’t improved—I have.
And it’s not that I haven’t reached some amazing destinations in my life—I’ve done that too.

But oh, mah, gawd, does it have to be such a slog?

Listen, it’s just that as zen as I try to be, as chill and non-attached as my facade makes me out to be, there is always an epic interior battle raging. A churning. A yearning. It’s the fucking Game of Thrones inside of me. And as hard as I try to quell it (and just to be clear, trying hard doesn’t stop a raging battle, trying hard are the foot soldiers, the ground troops) it looms ever larger in my brain.

And that’s the rub I think you guys. All of that striving and “are we there yet?” is in. My. Head. Not my heart. Not my kishkes, and definitely nowhere near where my intuition hangs out. It all goes off the rails when my head grabs the map away from my intuition and starts to second-guess everything.

“Do you think you should have turned left there?”

“Make a u-turn! NOW! I don’t care of it’s legal or not!”

“Oh, what a dumb move! Fine. Let me try and recalculate the route—but I have a feeling you’re wicked screwed.”

All of the second-guessing. Don’t you guys hate the second-guessing? God! I have been known to yell out loud to that wise guy second-guesser “Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say! Where were you when I was deciding what to do?”

Can you even have buyers remorse with regard to your ex? No? Then shut up!

And I have to report that THIS was a bit of a turning point for me. I set boundaries with the all of the mean voices inside my head who were making the journey a living hell. I told them that unless they had anything helpful, encouraging, or constructive to say—I didn’t want to hear it. Currently, my interior dialogue goes something like this:

“That was dumb…”
DON”T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!

“Are you sure you want to do that…?”
STICK A SOCK IN IT!

“They don’t seem interested in your…
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

“Huh, I would have done it differently…”
STOP TALKING. NOW!

See how that works? It’s self-care Tourettes.

Maybe you’re better at this than I am. Maybe you peacefully traverse your life like a passenger—holding a glass of champagne in first-class on British Airways. But I’m guessing you’re not because you’re here—you live on Earth so… I can’t guarantee it will work 100% of the time, and I have to admit that it gets exhausting, but it does help keep the clown car quiet. And that my friends is a definite improvement!

Carry on,
xox