stories

Bal·ance: noun

1. An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.
“I tripped and lost my balance” (This is a very relatable example for me.)

2. A condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.
“Overseas investments can add balance to an investment portfolio” (Um…This example? Not so much. We have no money invested offshore AND —my right boobie is bigger than my left. Just sayin’.)

3. An apparatus for weighing, especially one with a central pivot, beam, and a pair of scales.
(Any allusion to weight or scales and I get squirrely and stop reading.)

So, 4. and 5. and blah, blah, blah… There are three more definitions for balance but I think we all get the picture.

The only reason I put this up was because of my meditation today. You see, while my mind went searching in its own kind of scavenger hunt sort of cleverly disorganized way for my newest mantra, which is SURRENDER, it came back to me with the word BALANCE.

That was not what I sent it out to find!

So, I fought it. You know, like you do during meditation.

I fought like a crazed spider monkey looking for a hidden peanut in a rainforest in Madagascar.
I wanted my word!
I wanted SURRENDER!
Not that it was working all that well for me, which seems fairly obvious as I type this. But damn it! I find myself lately in dire need of some surrendering, so I figure that if I repeat it enough times in that far away place that meditation can drop you into, all of my synapses will re-wire themselves and I will open my eyes and suddenly be…tranquil…Accepting…Surrendery.

Except look who showed up instead. Fucking BALANCE.

Okay, show of hands, who here has achieved balance in their life? Uh huh. Uh, huh. Just as I suspected. Billy…put your hand down. Don’t make me come over there…

We all have moments of balance. Maybe even a day here or a month there and then that pesky thing called life gets in that way and fucks everything up.

Regardless of how convinced I am that my shit is together, there’s always a stray hair, right? Or a loose thread that’s threatening to unravel my delicate sweater of a life. Or a sudden wind set to blow down my house of cards.

If you’re anything like me (and I know you are), I always think I need to chill out more. Things are too hectic. Running, running, running. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Oh, my! Then, after I have relaxed for, I don’t know, three days, I get the itch to un-wedge my ass from the beach chair, grab a scooter and rob a bank because I’m SO FUCKING BORED!

Who’s with me?

BALANCE, HA! That means things are humming along nicely, right?  T’s crossed and I’s dotted. Duckies all in a row.

Very rarely (never) are my duckies in a row. My duckies are scattered to the wind, skittering across the pavement. My duckies are distacted by shiney objects and since they all wear tin-foil hats—it’s a mess. I’m under the impression that you need perfectly lined up duckies to achieve balance.

Am I wrong?

When I’m home I feel wanderlust. I want to be traveling the world and when I’m traveling I want to get home. When I’m eating kale I want it to be pizza. If I’m writing I want to be playing. I ask you, is that balance?

My girls and I went to Nashville to work. To hunker down and finish stuff. All of that unfinished stuff that tortures us at 3 am. To write our asses off. To brainstorm, and make calls, and answer emails and…“Can we go out? Can we go back to that hipster bar tonight so I can flirt with that bartender Kenneth again?”  I started whining at 5 pm.

I was done. Cooked. The unfinished stuff would have to wait for another day.

BALANCE!

I have none.

None!

So, I guess the voice in my head knows me better than I know myself.
SURRENDER will have to wait…or will it?

Carry on,
xox

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” – Chuck Palahniuk

“Tread lightly and do no harm. Approach the problem from a passive direction and everything will simply come together.”-Skunk

“Oh, F*uck, Ruby!!!”

Our boxer-pup Ruby has been skunked three times in past nine months, the last time being Saturday night. I know what you’re thinking: What a glamourous life you lead!

Everything we own has the lingering aroma of skunk woven into its cellular structure. I say aroma instead of odor because the inhabitants of my home react to it like it’s a new scented spray from GLADE, or a particularly cloying potpourri because well—we’ve all gone nose-blind.

We don’t smell the residual skunk in our shower, on our blankets, or in our clothing until we leave the house and come back.
And you know what? I have to say, it’s really not that bad!

Human beings are mysterious creatures. We are so incredibly adaptable and as if to prove that fact my entire family has adapted to the stench.

The first time, it caused my eyes to water profusely and I drooled like a cartoon wolf eyeing a pork chop.

The second time I gagged. Loudly.

This time the smell barely made me flinch.

Even the little brown dog seemed unfazed and her sense of smell is ten hundred billion times more sensitive than mine.

Here’s the thing, if you visit me three times…you’re a totem. I don’t care what you are. Grasshopper. Praying mantis. A Girl Scout selling Thin Mints. And since I am not one to miss an opportunity to ask “why?” I looked up “skunk totem.”

“If Skunk is your Animal Totem;
You are the ultimate pacifist, always preferring to avoid conflict and turmoil. You walk a very fine line between being a people “pleaser” and balancing your own self-respect and always maintain a “do no harm” attitude. You know how to be assertive without ego. You know how to attract others and are very charismatic. You have a good understanding of energy and how to use energy flows to get what you want.”

This makes no sense. It fits absolutely NO ONE in my house! Not one word of it. The three of us bicker like a angry pack of honey badgers. Ego is our middle name, and if charisma smells like skunk, well then okay. Otherwise…

My husband insists that this only goes to show that sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar, Janet—and a skunk is just a nuisance.” This all makes me mad because it proves that he is right yet again. 

And so…this bleeding heart has agreed to catch and release—the trap has been set and the skunk-scented potpourri is about to leave the building.

Geesh.

Happy weekend y’all!

Carry on,
xox

“Never trust any who treats a waiter badly.”

~ Anyone with a soul

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. I worked my way through my twenties as a cashier in a supermarket while many of my friends waited tables, catered and tended bar. Based on our nightly bitch sessions, I can tell you without hesitation that selling people food and serving it to them are two completely different experiences.

Food service is grueling work. And absolutely soul-sucking if people aren’t nice. Nobody has to lick your face or nibble your neck—just your standard issue basic human decency nice would suffice.

I’ve sat at tables with snippy divas. Women who are prickly, easily annoyed—on the lookout for trouble. It has always been my belief that if you’re lookin’ for trouble, trouble will not only find you, it will pull up a chair, order a drink, charge it to your tab, and over-stay its welcome.

We all know these women. They huff and puff and send stuff back. They act indignant, dis-respected. Like me when I get carded.

They don’t like the look of the lettuce, the ice is too cold or the coffee tastes burnt—so they shame the staff. Seriously? The only time I ever sent something back was when my wine glass had a lipstick stain on the rim and I hadn’t sipped from it yet. And I apologized so profusely my husband had to shoot me some stink-eye to shut me up.

Listen, I’m not particularly judgy. But be forewarned. I WILL judge you harshly for treating people in the service industry rudely.

That includes being a cheap tipper.

Lots of folks supplement a lousy salary with commission or tips. It can be the difference between making ends meet and having to pick up a second job. Please, think of that the next time you’re tempted to hand the young guy who ran three blocks, in the rain, to fetch your car—a lousy buck.

I’ve seen that.

One measly dollar. You know what one dollar buys these days? Uh…nothing.

Same with the young man or woman who spends twenty minutes hand drying your car at the car wash. I saw a lady hand the guy next to me ONE dollar after he not only hand dried, but at her insistence spent extra time cleaning and shining up the chrome rims on her giant SUV—in ninety-degree weather.

You could smell the stingy. Don’t be that lady.
Get change if you have to, but please be a decent tipper. Trust me, that person needs the cash a lot more than you do.

At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m tempted to be cheap. I’m not immune to feeling broke but if I have the good fortune to spring for a mani-pedi, or get my car washed, park valet or go out to lunch—I’m better off than most.

This seems to be a time of me or them. I might suggest that we find some common ground. Like hard work, industriousness, and hustle—and the fact that we’ve all been there. Then it’s just us.

Right?

Carry on,
xox

Dearest brave ones,
All I can say is that after the past six months—for almost everyone—including me—and tens of my friends—this could not feel more relevant.

Carry on,
xox

I found this a while ago…somewhere…I can’t remember.
I’m sure I was bleary eyed, in need of sleep, and I only had the presence of mind to copy/paste.

I wanted to show this to you guys. It’s by Katy Bourne and it’s so good I can’t even…there are no words.

This is for the ones going through hell right now. You know who you are. And for those of us that have been there and back. Katy obviously has, and her words are here to soothe all of our souls.
Enjoy your weekend,
xox

“You’re dangling precariously.
You’re frozen and trembling. You’re gripped with uncertainty and the ominous unknown. The wolf is at the door.

The bills are piling up, but no money is coming in. Or maybe your baby left you, walked right out. Perhaps you’ve made an epic mistake, with disastrous and irrevocable consequences. You can barely breathe, suffocated by the unwieldy weight of your own broken heart.

You frantically scan the landscape, looking for clues or any kind of lifeline. But the vista is barren. You’re shredded into a million bewildering pieces. You’re hanging on for sweet life. Or maybe you don’t know what you’re hanging on to anymore, or if you even can.

This is survival mode. And it will be okay.

Raw vulnerability is the midwife to grace.
Stripped of your old safety nets and certainties, you have nothing but openness and new eyes. There is a pouring in of all the things you never noticed before. Even a dew-soaked leaf takes on a fresh poignancy and buys you a nanosecond of peace and beauty.

The very light of day changes. It softens and clarifies. Your pain is not here to batter you. It’s just making passage for perspective, transcendence, and rebirth.

No matter the mayhem of the present moment, your heart is still steadily pounding. Your lungs are still expanding and contracting. Oxygen is still coursing through your body. And as you flail around in your anguish, your inner warrior is hard at work behind the scenes: rendering first-aid, holding your broken soul and keeping you alive.

He or she is fighting for you, more ferociously and diligently than you can imagine.

Your mind is your best weapon and your biggest obstacle.
It can spin you into infinite madness or ground you in brave resolve. Panic can make it chatter relentlessly, but you can bring it back to earth again.

Step outside. Turn your precious face upward. Breathe. The air and the sky and the sun will calm the clamor. You don’t have to figure it all out right now.

Grief is the natural and real response to loss and hardship.

Despair, however, is grief on steroids. Grief holds its own gentle resolution. Despair is resignation, a long-term forecast for gloom. Fear has an ugly snarl but limited power. Still, it rages like a lunatic, leaving you disoriented.

Courage moves through the chaos, one steady step at a time. Your heartache is like a free fall. You can scramble to fill the void, grabbing for whatever fix you can to numb the jagged edges. You can also persevere with quiet dignity. In every moment there are choices, even in survival mode.

The hardest part of survival mode is the ambiguity.

It will not budge. There is no clear pathway to relief or even a guarantee that you’ll find it. You are at the mercy of time and forces beyond your control. Such is the nature of ambiguity. Your present circumstances merely accentuate the point.

But even within the ambiguity there is possibility.

Although you’re shaking on the edge, there is a larger view available. This current difficulty, with all its sorrow, dread, and anger, is just a blip on a much greater narrative. There is spaciousness, wonder and the divine gift of impermanence.

All are there for you. There is elegant liberation in releasing your weary clutch. You have already traveled for eons. Grace is the tender seraph pulling you home, wherever that may be.
And you will be okay.”

Katy Bourne is a self-described ‘basic goober making her way in the world’. A child of the Southern plains, she spent her Oklahoma childhood throwing rocks, blowing saxophone in the school band and riding horses. The youngest of four, she was often left to her own devices and entertained herself by making faces in the bathroom mirror and dressing up the family pets. Having navigated numerous life challenges over the years — addiction & recovery, the death of a child, divorce, the ups & downs of parenthood, the music business — she is particularly interested in exploring themes of survival, grit and grace in the face of ambiguity. Katy makes her home in Seattle, WA. By day, she writes promotional copy for musicians and bands. By night, she sings jazz at nightspots, festivals and private events throughout the Northwest.
{You’ll Be Okay}

You could contact her via her website.http://katy-bourne.com

I am not proud of what I’m about to say next but I need to vent…so here goes.

I HATE to be carded.

Above is a picture of me with my beloved tribe taken on our trip to Nashy (Nashville) last week. That face is the default annoyance setting that my face naturally morphs into…when you card me…and then take my freaking picture.

My face can’t help it and neither can I.

This “carding everyone” has apparently become a “thing”; a regular practice in hipster bars across the country. Never one to pass on a ridiculous fad I expect as much in LA, but Nashville, you? You definitely surprised me.

Being carded at thirty, or even forty is squeal worthy. Trust me. Although it happened infrequently (which is just a kinder way of saying almost never), I’ve squealed the flattered squeal with the best of ‘um.

But now, three days shy of my fifty-ninth birthday I am by no means flattered by this charade.

I wear my gray hair with the purple fringe with pride.
I exercise and take pretty good care of myself.
Genetics, (for which I can take absolutely NO credit) has been kind to me.

But there are no circumstances, no amount of great lighting or make-up, of farsightedness under which I can be mistaken for under twenty-one. I know it. You know it. And if we stopped a random person on the street and asked them, they’d know it.

So cut the crap.

Here’s the thing, I’m totally okay with it. I earned this head of gray. Every. Single. One. So don’t condescend to me by telling me you’re “required to card everyone”, or smirk as I fumble for my license while you hold my overpriced artisan cocktail for ransom. Show me the respect I’ve earned.

I have handbags older than you. And books. And memories. In bars.

There. I said it. I’m finished. But be forewarned. I may slug the smug off of the next millennial who asks me for I.D.

Carry on,
xox

http://mb.ntd.tv/2017/03/04/3-year-old-taekwondo-devotee-recites-student-creed-slays-us-cuteness/

Throughout my life, I have switched up my spirit animals on a pretty regular basis.

I’m fickle that way.

Although, I have to admit that it’s not been as often as I’ve changed my hair color.

If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what a spirit animal is, here is the “real” meaning:

“A Power animal, a shamanic belief of a spirit which guides, helps or protects individuals, lineages, and nations. Spirit guide, a spiritualist entity that remains a spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being. Totem animals, animals revered as sacred or possessing supernatural powers.”

In order to be chosen as my spirit animal you must:

Possess an inordinate amount of self-confidence, passion, concentration and focus,

Be a straight-up badass,

Set a good example for me,

Make me think I can be a better person by emulating everything you do,

Be excellent.

You know, a combination of qualities I just didn’t get or know were available to me when I was mindlessly standing in line getting a second helping of that wicked predisposition for belly fat—and frizzy hair.

Some of my previous spirit animals have been Madonna circa 1980’s, Lara Croft, Maya Angelou, and Dory.

You get the picture.

Take a look at this three-year-old. I adore everything about her, most especially her whale-spout pony tail, and I aspire to take her oath every morning for the rest of my life! Seriously.

Carry on,
xox

At breakfast this morning, my BFF Steph and I were marveling at how kind and thoughtful the folks are here in the south, specifically Nashville and Huntsville since that is where my butt has sat for the past few days. I’m sure the rest of the south is equally kind. For instance, I know for a fact that the folks in my brother’s home state of Arkansas are top-notch, slap your mama, over-the-top nice.

Especially Billy. Billy is in a league all his own—but that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, Billy has gotten me out of so many jams—technologically speaking, (and let’s be honest, are there any jams that are worse than a computer staring back at you with the black screen of death?) that I bought Billy a pony—on Amazon.

Anyway…Steph was relaying the story of her seat mate on the flight into Huntsville yesterday.

He was your standard issue, middle-aged guy, who’s been commuting from the state where he’d been transferred, back and forth to Alabama where his wife and daughter have stayed put until she finishes her senior year of high school.

In my tribe, we’ve been talking a lot lately about mindfulness—conscious living.

Why we want the things we want.
What are our expectations?
What do we hope to gain?
Will this decision add to my quality of life—or detract from it?

You know, all of those questions that make us formerly impulsive Bohemian types cringy and squirmy.

We have entered the phase of life where the opening line when you talk to God has changed from “Dear Lord, please give me what I want—to, Dear Wise One, please show me what I need.”

The man on Steph’s flight was coming back to be present at his daughter’s senior prom. The decision was easy for him as he explained, “You know those dates on headstones and the top of obituaries? The date of birth, then a dash and the date they died?” Steph nodded.

“In my family, we’ve decided to ”live the dash. To figure out what makes us happy between those two dates—and just go for it!”

I sat back in my chair for a minute taking that all in.

Don’t you fucking love that?

I never thought about mindful living quite that way before, but he’s right! There are a finite amount of years that fit inside the dash. How we fill that space is our choice. We can live unconsciously, (which to most of us means fearfully, cautiously), reacting to circumstances that seem beyond our control.
OR
We can take the reins and live the dash. Filling the space between those dates with love and happiness.

I choose the latter, don’t you?

Carry on,
xox

Have you ever given that much thought? I have.

The fact that we’re trying to maintain our balance on a planet made mostly of liquid, that is spinning at 1000 mph?
Then imagining that big wet blue ball hurtling through the void of space at 67,000 mph.

No wonder I fall down so much. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit.

I know science says it all has to do with centrifugal force, gravity nd blah, blah, blah…
But I think it’s a freaking miracle.

This rare jewel. This Goldilocks habitat, in the middle of a vacuum. How did I get so lucky?

When I contemplate all the places, all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the worlds, in all of the Universes, where I could have ended up, I must have drawn the long straw, because I could have been born as a gnat on the ass of a Wookie.

It is my belief that we volunteered to come here at this time in Earth’s history.
We waited in line.
We knew things wouldn’t be easy. But we knew they wouldn’t be boring either.
It would be a time of great change, and we knew we could make a difference. It would be a challenge to fit all of our magnificence into a body. It’s uncomfortably tight at times, like squeezing into size zero skinny jeans.

And those emotions! How the hell do they work?
They looked really fun from an outsider’s perspective.

But the beauty. My God, the beauty.
Trees of green and skies of blue. Purple mountains majesty.

I’m in awe whenever I see an elephant or a whale, or a wild wolf.
Watching hummingbirds in my backyard or starlings flying in formation.
The smell of cut grass, and orange blossoms and puppy breath.

Those are just a few of the things that help me maintain my balance here.

I KNOW we all came in with a purpose. God or whoever does not make extra people.
That’s not the way the Universe works.
No one and nothing is superfluous. And all life is connected.

Remember that the next time you’re feeling lonely, unsettled and out of balance.

Then open your eyes and look around. Take a deep breath and realize how freakin’ lucky you are. How lucky we ALL are.
Then get to work, you with your mad skills.

XoxJanet

“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up until the day he killed himself.”
~ Johnny Carson

I had a startling realization about myself recently, I am to the diet/health connection what the deniers are to climate change/global warming. I know that all of the studies are true—it’s just so fucking inconvenient!

Case in point.

I love to eat. Food makes me happy. Almost happier than good sex with bad boys.
Most of the time I try to eat healthily but I’m far from fanatical about it. Unless you count donuts. Donuts are my Kryptonite and they are banned from entering my house lest I devour an entire dozen, naked and dripping in raspberry jelly in the space of an hour. And here’s the thing, my body doesn’t react in a negative way at all, at least not in an overtly obvious way. I’m sure the blood sugar spike is off the charts, I just can’t see it so it doesn’t exist. The only thing I CAN see is the shame on my face in the bathroom mirror so that is deterrent enough for me.

Denial. That has been my default setting up until now.

Last week my husband and I did a cleanse. Not one of those highfalutin celebrity cleanses that promise you clear skin, shiny hair and an ass you can bounce a quarter off of. Nope, my husband absconded with some literature (basically, the how to’s—whys — and what for’s) of a client’s wildly expensive, doctor supervised cleanse.

Never ones to take things at face value and because we happen to be as cheap as the day is long, we decided to follow the basic tenet of the program—but morphed it to our liking.

Instead of their spendy protein shakes twice a day (at breakfast and dinner), we drank what we had on hand, our old faithful, Shakology.
We also included coffee.
And pumpkin pie.

Just kidding, No pie.

The rest of the day you are required to juice and I know how lazy I can be, especially when I’m in full victim mode, like during a cleanse, so I went to the grocery store (ours has a juice station in the produce dept.) and bought some juices to go so I’d have no excuse.

The cleanse advocates a healthy lunch of fish or a lean meat and filling up on tons of fresh veggies and fruit. My husband was great about that especially since the dinner of a protein shake loomed large for him.

Me, not so much. Once I get in full deprivation mode I tend to run with it in a religious pilgrim kind of way. I swing to an unhealthy extreme. If I was into pain I’d self-flagellate.

I know, what can I say, I need help.

All week for lunch I switched between albacore tuna out of a can, a baked sweet potato, or raw apples and celery. Instead of juicing them I ate them raw so I had something crunchy to gnaw on in lieu of my own foot.

We were both diligent. Our stick-to-itiveness impressed even me and I have impossibly high standards.
He was dropping weight at a slow and steady rate. I don’t weigh myself (long, violent story. A lot of scales were killed along the way so I won’t tramatize you with the details). Suffice it to say my skinny jeans moved out of the torture device category and back into fashion where they belong.

Then this happened. Nothing. At least not what I expected.

I didn’t get tired. I was filled with energy.
I slept great. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (I finally know what the means).
I wasn’t angry about anything. My moods stabilized, giving me a perpetual skip-in-my-step giddiness.
I barely pooped and when I did it smelled like violets (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration).

I figure it even changed our character a little. We didn’t cheat. Not even little. And we kept on going through the weekend which is unheard of for us. It’s just a thing we’ve silently agreed to. We use the weekends, which of course start Friday night and last through Sunday, as neutral territory. Nothing sticks. No fight, no diet, and no freaking cleanse. Duh.

Except for some reason, this one lasted until a baby shower we were both required to attend on Saturday late afternoon.
I was reluctant to eat. I felt tentative around the crudites. Skittish. I eyed the cheese with suspicion.

He piled his plate with fresh bread and a perfectly ripe camembert but passed on the red wine.

Did you hear me? He passed on the red wine!

Who were we?

We were the freshly cleansed. That’s who.

After the smell of the dark, freshly baked bread took up residence inside my nose, hanging drapes and laying carpet, I caved too.

Cut to a couple of hours later with me in the car, prone, my pants unbuttoned, moaning.
I felt like shit. Worse that shit.
I felt like the foul smelling shit on the bottom of shit’s shoe.

When we got home I went straight to bed without my shake. So did he. It was 7:30.

Never in my long and illustrious life as a foodie have I noticed the connection between food and how it affected the way I felt more than I did that day. It made me a believer. A convert. And now a zealot.

I’m currently on a writing vacation with my tribe, happily eating my way through Nashville but I have to confess– I can’t wait to get back to my cleanse and the way it made me feel.

Has this ever happened to you? I need to know.

Carry on,
xox