stories

You know those things you do in your life that seem like a good idea at the time?

How when you’re young you feel as if you have all the time in the world to change them if they turn out to be nothing more than a bad habit?

Like jaywalking, talking with your mouth full, or unprotected sex?

I smoked cigarettes. Not all the time. Just socially. At parties mostly, and clubs, or with my roommate at the Formica dining table we had in the kitchen of the little rental we shared with my sister, who did not partake in this most unhealthy of habits. We kept a pack of Virginia Slims in the freezer with booze and a little bit of ice. Two liberated young women, beating the odds in a man’s world — Baby, we’d come a long way! Sexy, right?

Meh…now I keep coffee in my freezer. And an unopened bottle of Vodka. And a non-GMO corn crust pizza.
That’s almost-sixty-sexy.
I know. Meh…anyway…

Gossip was served in that shitty little kitchen most mornings and evenings and nothing goes better with gossip than a cigarette. They are the Batman and Robin of vices. In my opinion, you cannot have one without the other. Even now, when I smell cigarette smoke I want to divulge something dishy.

I want to speculate on Tom Cruises’ sexuality or get the dirt on Melania Trump. Is she really a fembot?

I suppose I should also designate gossiping as a bad habit. I thought I did that several decades ago but this talk of cigarettes and vices has opened Pandora’s Box—or a time machine—and inside is a Star Magazine and a pack of Virginia Slims.

This all changed for me the minute a guy told me I smelled like an ashtray. I’m lying. No man ever said that to me. They weren’t stupid, they wanted to get laid.

In my twenties, at parties, and in clubs the smoke was so thick that everybody smelled like an ashtray. Looking back I’m convinced most ashtrays actually smelled better than my thick, curly hair which absorbed all the bad breath, BO, eighties music, and smoke within a ten block radius. That transferred to my clothes, then my car and finally to my pillow. After awhile (several years), when I’d wake up and all of those smells would hit my nose in the first few seconds of consciousness—I’d want to ask—are Angelina Jolie’s lips real?— no, seriously, I’d want to puke.

There comes a time, (thirty) when you ask yourself: Is this the woman I thought I’d become? At least I did that. And I came up short.

I was letting a man emotionally get the better of me. How was that okay?
I was dabbling. I wasn’t serious about much of anything.
I was jaywalking, talking with my mouth full, and smoking, gossiping and apparently lying.
I was having protected sex. So, one point for Janet.

All of that seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I was completely unconscious. I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to become.

When, on the five-millionth smelly pillow morning, it finally dawned on me. I need to get my shit together. I need to figure out where I’m headed, who I want to be, and how that person behaves. And good lord, I need a shower.

I’d love to say it all happened overnight, easy-peasy-Parchesi, but I’d be lying (and that’s prohibited), it was progressive. And messy. It took focus, intention, and tons of introspection. In other words, it took decades to craft the ADULT woman I wanted to be and for starters, she wasn’t a smoker.

A Small Confession: I still miss smoking.

The reason this came up for me was the fact that now, at almost sixty, I’ve begun to craft what kind of “older” woman I want to portray. Do I continue to eat whatever I want and put elastic in all of my pants? Do I forgo red lipstick because it spreads all over my face like Heath Ledger’s Joker? Do I succumb to sensible shoes?

Luckily, because I’ve done this before I know the work that lies ahead of me—and I’m exhausted already!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Carry on,
xox

*This post is from a couple of years ago, but it is forever intertwined with our wedding anniversary, so I can never forget. I don’t think we should.
xox

It is ridiculously dark in a hotel room with the black-out drapes closed.

It is a trip over stuff because it’s a strange room; blink, blink, blink for your eyes to adjust; bang your shin and stub your toe, kind of dark.

I experienced all of those things on the way to answer my phone which was shoved in my purse, somewhere under piles of room service napkins, magazines, and assorted other crap.

La la la la la la, my phone chimed its little heart out.

Who is calling me? Everyone knows I’m on my honeymoon and judging from how dark it is, (forgetting the drapes) it MUST be the middle of the night. How rude!

Five minutes earlier the ringing had woken me up, and I had stumbled like a drunken sailor, half asleep in the pitch blackness, to the bathroom. ‘Wrong number‘ I thought, still half asleep as I felt my way like a blindfolded mime, back to bed.
I heard it go to message. Now I was awake.
Hmmmmmmmm…that’s weird.

It started to ring again; this time, I could swear it sounded more insistent.
LA LA LA LAAAAAA!
Curious, I quietly slid out of bed and started moving heaven and earth to find it, only to hear it go to message a second time.

Not even a moment later, as I was finally holding it in my hand, it started to ring again.

At that same instant so did my husband’s phone charging next to him on the nightstand.  Then the hotel room phone on my side of the bed. It became a cacophony of three different rings, each one of them trying desperately at that point to get our attention.

I heard my husband’s voice behind me in the bed, “Shit, this CAN’T be good”. He was suddenly wide awake as he grabbed both the room phone and his cell, putting one to each ear.
“Hello!” he announced tersely into both.

I had just flipped mine open only to listen to my best friend Jen, mumbling and weeping. At the same exact moment, we both lunged for the remote as three different people screamed into our ears “TURN ON THE TV!”

We were two days into enjoying our post wedding coma. Ensconced in a room overlooking the Pacific at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, still feeling giddy from the excitement of such a magical night.
Exhausted, we had given ourselves a couple of days to decompress before we were to fly to a friend’s party in Chicago and then on to Italy to have a motorcycle honeymoon.
None of those plans would come to pass.

My brand new husband pulled open the drapes with one swipe to reveal bright sunshine; it wasn’t the middle of the night, it was after six in the morning. This must be a movie, I thought, as we both slowly sat on the edge of the bed; watching in stunned silence as the second plane hit the tower.

I think I screamed. I know I screamed. A movie scream.

Everyone we loved was calling; apologizing for bothering us, but wanting us to know.
Because that’s what family does. They share bad news.

Just thirty-six hours before, they had all been loopy from too much champagne and wine, laughing, toasting and celebrating love…now they were crying and asking me, Why?

I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening. Everything felt surreal, like a slow motion disaster film.

I certainly didn’t have any answers.

My husband is an architect/builder. He knows about steel and fire and in his most serious Bob The Builder voice he didn’t pose a question or wonder aloud—he made a statement:
“I hope everyone’s out of there, that building’s coming down.”

And right on cue, as he finished that sentence…the first tower fell.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he yelled, sitting up straight on his knees.
I was screaming and shaking, “No, No, No…Oh MY GOD!”

Peter Jennings’ solemn voice said something to the effect of, “This has turned from an act of terrorism to an act of war.”

Time stopped. The planet shifted, and in my mind, that was the moment it happened. There will always be the world before 9/11—and after.

It was impossible to look away from the TV and I could not stop crying.

My mom called to tell me that Pam, who is like a big sister to me, and had flown in from San Francisco for the wedding, had to deplane on the tarmac at LAX and run for her life. The pilot had directed them all to run as fast as they could, away from the terminals and the airport.

Really. He told everyone to RUN!

No one knew what was going on, and where the next attack, if there were to be others, was going to take place. Lee and my mom picked her up as she ran east on Century Boulevard with a whole crowd of other panicky and confused thwarted travelers.

Many of the women had ditched their heels along the way, running in bare feet and business attire.

They had no idea where they were going.

How far would they run?

How far was far enough?

Where could you go that day to feel safe? I sure as hell didn’t know.

If you had told me a place—I would have run there with you.

After the second tower collapsed and the news went into that perpetual recap mode, I couldn’t watch another second; so I pulled on some sweats and sunglasses to hide my red swollen eyes and walked like a zombie downstairs to the lobby.

My inner historian/collector had kicked in and I went to see if they had the newspapers in the gift shop without the headline of the event, and the later edition, with it.

The adrenaline of the past few hours had subsided, which had dropped us both into a kind of numb stupor—so we also needed coffee. Bad.

The lobby was a ghost town. Everything was closed. No gift shop, no Starbucks, nothing. There wasn’t a soul in sight…this huge hotel felt deserted.

Back upstairs, I called room service.
It rang for what seemed like an eternity, then the voice that finally answered sounded out of breath and off of hotel protocol. She didn’t say Hello, Mrs. Bertolus, (which I was loving by the way), like they had been doing for the past couple of days.

“Yes? Hello, I mean, room service” she said.

“Um, are you guys open? Is it possible to get a pot of coffee?”

“I’ll try my best, I’m sorry ma’am, but no one has shown up for work this morning.”

“Oh my gosh, I completely understand—it’s just so terrible…”

“Yes ma’am,” she said, “it’s so sad.”
She started to cry, which set me off.

“Don’t worry about the coffee” I sobbed, feeling like an ass. “Just forget it, I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No ma’am, don’t be silly” she had composed herself, now the epitome of professionalism, “Your coffee will be right up Mrs. Bertolus.”

Ten minutes later a young man brought up a pot of coffee and some croissants, and after some caffeine and food, the shaking stopped and I started to feel a little better.

The government had halted all air travel until further notice. Planes were finding a safe place to land and staying put. It was unprecedented and I was relieved.

The absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was get on a plane.
We had a lot of phone calls to make and rescheduling to do.

Against my better judgment we kept our reservations that night for a seaside dinner. The place was beautiful… and depressing as hell. Everyone seemed to just be going through the motions. I sobbed like a three-year-old through the entire dinner, having a hard time forgetting those faces we’d seen all day of the people who were missing.

“How can I enjoy any of this? People lost husbands and fathers, brothers and wives and sisters. So many people died today!” I put my head in my hands, I couldn’t eat.

“How can you not?” my husband whispered, resting his hand on mine.

“Those people would give anything to be here, where we are right now, enjoying life. We don’t join them in death, that’s an even greater waste. We enjoy our lives. Every minute. Every day to the fullest. I think that’s what they would want. That’s what I would want.”

Damn, he’s good.

Just writing these memories makes me cry. It instantly brings me right back.

I think it’s important to tell the story. To never forget what happened.
Everything before 911 feels different, simpler somehow, like as a country we lost our innocence.

It just happens to coincide with my wedding. I can never think of one without the other. I celebrate the ninth of September, and I light a candle on the eleventh.
In my life, they are forever intertwined.

Just like our parents had the Kennedy assassination, this is our generation’s “where were you?” moment.

Do you have a 911 story? Tell us.

much love,
xox

https://youtu.be/IIxaVNs6c6U

I love this so much I can’t breathe! So, of course, I had to share it with you.

It’s not that long! I can hear you. Quit complaining! Besides, it’s the weekend.

Enjoy!
xox

This is a shit story. It broke me. It shattered me into a thousand little pieces. But it was the catalyst for my complete reinvention—so… thank you.

This is the best part of the story. The part I love to tell. The “miracle in the mess” so to speak. And it happened seven years ago today!

I’d love to say I stayed in the energy of that miracle and was able to ride the wave of hope, but I didn’t. I fell apart. It was ugly.
This was a sign. But I couldn’t see my way clear of the disaster.
Oh, well, lesson learned. Lessons learned. Many, many, lessons and I’m so much the better for them. Actually, I’m a completely different person. Ask my husband.
Anyhow, enjoy this flashback and appreciate all of the miracles that show up in your darkest hours. I do. Now.
Carry on,
xox

The second miracle occurred during cleanup.
We were about four days in.
The mud had been cleaned up, but the floors, walls, windows and merchandise were still covered with a layer of toxic, smelly slime.

We covered our faces with those cloth masks and plugged on.
Oh yeah, did I mention it was over 100 degrees!

This was the day I was told that the walls of the building had to be cut open up to 5 feet in order to air them out and avoid the dreaded black mold. I don’t know why that hit me so hard, but it did. I walked outside, sat on some steps across the parking lot, and cried while a Sawzall proceeded to systematically carve up my beautiful little store.

This felt serious…and profoundly sad.

Gary (my insurance advocate), came outside and put his arm around me as we sat silently watching the carnage. When he finally spoke, he asked me if I wanted to go in and box things up, the things that hadn’t gotten wet in the bathroom storage closets. Since the walls would be wide open, someone could potentially get inside and help themselves to whatever was left behind, so he gently suggested I go take a look.

I declined. He insisted. (I think about this all the time, you’ll see why in a minute.)

I think he also just wanted to keep me busy so he didn’t have to look at my big, sad and soggy face.

Since the electricity had been turned off, the bathroom was pitch dark as I poked around in the back closets with a garbage bag, waiting for my eyes to adjust. A generator and the Sawzall wailed away.  It felt weird to me to be salvaging Windex, paper towels, and toilet cleaner.

It occurred to me I could just leave it for the salvage crew. What difference did any of this stuff make now?
I was numb, just going through the motions, trying not to feel too much.

Tucked in the back of a shelf was a box of Tampons with the top torn off. All my good customers knew it was there. Periodically, I would bring a handful from home to refill it. (All you women reading this know what I’m talking about.)
There were several left in the box, so I tucked them into my pocket tossing the empty box in the large, green garbage bag.
But as it flew on its way into the bag, I could HEAR that it wasn’t empty.

There was something heavy sliding around the bottom of the box as it hurtled toward the trash.

Blindly, I reached inside, felt something cool and smooth, and pulled out the expensive diamond watch my husband had given me for our 5th anniversary! Was this some kind of a joke?

The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I stared at my missing watch, there alone in the dark. I started to shake. Violently. Then I started to scream. Loudly!

“Myyyyyy Waaaaaatch!” I screamed as I scrambled towards daylight.  All the workers stopped and stared at the screaming woman. “Ohhhh myyyy gawwwwwd! Are you fucking kidding me?!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs, sweating profusely in the heat. My hair was flying out of its rubber band and I had a mask over my face which muffled my words. The entire get-up morphed me into some kind of crazed, incoherent germaphobe. Gary looked at me, horrified.

Here’s the thing you guys. That watch had been “missing” for over 2 years. My husband had just recently mentioned how disappointed he was that I hadn’t found it yet. I felt terrible. We both knew I wasn’t someone who lost my jewelry. In my previous life as a jeweler, I had worn the watch a lot but since opening the store, it seemed too fancy, and I only took it out of the safe for special occasions.

I NEVER wore it to the store. EVER.
One day I had gone into the safe to get it…and it was gone.

Okay. Did I mention I found the watch on September 9th?
Our anniversary is September 9th.

The missing watch had mysteriously appeared after 2 years on a sad but significant day—in the MOST impossible place imaginable.
It was a sign.
Don’t lose hope.
Miracles occur.

I finally stopped screaming long enough to dial my phone. I couldn’t call my husband fast enough.

XoxJanet

This post is almost three years old and I must say…I suck less. How’s that?
If you are someone who is able to easily set their value, without any industry standards to set the bar, please share your bad-ass wisdom here.
If I ever meet you I will kiss you on the lips.
xox

Once upon a time, when I had my store, a lot of people referred to it as a gallery, and I suppose it was, in the looseiest, gooseiest sense of the word.

I thought it would be a cool idea to feature up-and-coming local artists, and display their work alongside all of the folk-art, well-worn wood, and vintage doodads.

Every three or four months, I would send out postcards, and invite friends and clients to an art “opening” with decent wine, fancy toothpick skewered cheese and super-groovy music (usually the artist’s playlist, so, yeah, way groovier than my snoozy Spotify mix.)

One particularly talented artist whose style was very similar to Jean-Michel Basquiat came close to selling out his entire show on opening night, he had become that popular! I took a chance because I saw something special in his work, and lo and behold, so did a shit-ton of other people!

It was the most money he’d EVER made from his art. EVER! Financial validation. Damn! What a thrill!

You see, when I had my meet and greet with the artists, prior to scheduling a show, each and every one of them had NO idea what to charge for their work. They had even less of a clue as to what their costs had been in time and materials. They stared at me like I was explaining Quantum String Theory when I inquired about their time expenditure.

“How much time did this piece take?” I’d ask. “And what is your time worth?”
They had no freaking idea! None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
They kept no receipts at all. No record of what was spent on framing, or paint, or clay, or brushes, and as for time? Well, time just disappeared as they worked…so that was that.

Really? Huh. Okay… I soon determined that was the sign of a good artist—but a lousy business person.

Seems you can’t have both in the same body, except for Damien Hirst.
He is an example of someone with both mad business and marketing skills along with talent, and that has driven his prices well into the six figures.

Everyone else has a more right-brain mentality. “Don’t bother me with the real world. I just want to create, I don’t want to keep a spreadsheet.”

If you become too practical, you’ll cut off your connection to the Muse.

Now, I totally get it!

It seems it is virtually impossible to balance your checkbook and paint a masterpiece.
I think it’s a right-brain, left-brain thing. (Disclaimer: I’m not a brain surgeon, I just play one on TV).

It’s a lot like studying theory and technique. It can be the kiss of death. If you get TOO polished all your individuality goes flying out the window. My advice? Keep the tools that work and discard the rest. (Disclaimer: I do NOT have an MFA. Obviously!)

It’s often the creations made from breaking the rules that resonate the most with people.

What I must admit I have a knack for is looking at something and determining its value. The more unique the better!

Art can be tough. It’s purely subjective. Appreciation lies in the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, every artist I featured had been in other small galleries around town, and I always got them double or triple their previous prices. It was always hardest in the beginning and then once things sold, their “value” was established.

That’s what gallery owners do, they help establish a value.

Now that I’m no longer involved in my previous “field of expertise” I’m noticing that I have the exact same problem my oh, so talented artists did.

Determining your own value? Fuck. It’s haaaaard.

So, you can imagine my chagrin as I added my name to that long list.
Now I’m a WE.
WE don’t know how to set our value,
or WE have a number in mind but don’t have the balls to ask for it.
WE stare blankly into space when asked what WE think our time is worth.

Damn, I used to know! Without hesitation! I didn’t have a Masters in Art History or a Harvard business degree. I just knew what I liked, and if I liked it, I knew other people would too.

That’s it! That’s the formula. It’s always the same.

Value is set by what someone will give you as an exchange for the “service” provided—and it’s based on how it makes them feel.

I’m getting warmer…
Carry on,
Xox

“We are here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.”
~W.H. Auden

Mixed messages. Crossed signals. Conflicting desires. Two completely separate intentions.

I do that. A lot.

I bake delectable goodies when I’m on a diet.
I wish for solitude in a crowd…and vice-versa.
I look at larger homes as I downsize my life.
I swing for the fences and then quiver with self-doubt under the bed.

I want to sleep, write, eat, accept my Academy Award, talk and poop all in the same night.

I send out my mixed messages to the universe and then I wonder why I get shit.

But who doesn’t do that, right?

All of this shit has lead me to a new habit of self-examination, because, well, because life was getting messy. And I’ve got to tell you, I do not function well ankle deep in What the hell just happened?

Poop can be a catalyst. It certainly has been for me.

When I can’t make head’s or tails out of the shit-storm that is my life, I stop and ask myself: What were your intentions? And inevitably, without fail, I realize in retrospect (always in retrospect goddammit), that they were confused, mixed.

In other words, a sleeping pill and a laxative—at the same time.

So, next time you’re at a crossroads and it’s time to make a decision, ask yourself: Do you want to sleep, or poop?

Carry on,
xox

“If you could kick the person in the pants who was responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
~Theadore Roosevelt

Oh, for crying out loud! Why do we do it?

Why do we choose to live so small?

When I was a little kid, I was HUGE. A great, big, unedited, unabashed, force to be reckoned with and I’m guessing you were too.

The other day I was a quivering bag-of-doubt when someone really wise asked me, “Who did this to you? Who made you think life was setting you up to fail?”

Well, good question. I have absolutely NO idea!
Was there one person, a family member or a teacher who caused me to feel like a quivering-bag-of-doubt? No. Not really. My dad wasn’t a huge fan, but that was motivation to me. Besides, I’m not into the blame game anymore, but— it did make me think about how ridiculous I can be.

I think it’s society at large that makes us dial ourselves down. Don’t you? We’re taught appropriate behavior and since we want to fit in—we follow the crowd.

Well, guess what? I don’t wanna follow the crowd anymore. Do you?

I want to write my own story and make it GREAT! I want to blaze my own trail and as of late, I want to swing for the fences!

Swing For The Fucking Fences! (Okay, I may have had too much coffee).

But why the hell not?

Who’s with me?

Hey batter, batter!
xox

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.” ~ Albert Einstein

So, you guys, this is a video that I saw on my Facebook homepage ONCE. One time, (if you can believe that, because when does THAT ever happen?), a few months back and it moved me so much I wanted to tell you guys about it.

I wanted to tell you the story of Chloe, but, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, when I looked at my notes I couldn’t make out the name I had scribbled while I watched. I tried everything. But it didn’t look like Chloe AT ALL! Curtis, Caitlin, Cody, none of those were right and without the name, well, I was screwed because the name plays such a huge role in this story. So, not only was I unable to write about this amazing story, I couldn’t find the video either!

BECAUSE IT’S CALLED CHLOE!

Then lo and behold, this past Sunday, Oprah ran it on Super Soul Sunday because it’s that good. Hallelujah! Mystery solved and here it is.

I’m showing you this on the weekend so you’ll have plenty of time to watch it. Really, you must watch it.

Okay, maybe not.
But…how about this? Maybe if, and only if, you’ve gotten tired of waiting for something you wanted with your whole heart.

Or, if you’ve questioned or even cursed God/Universe/The Lord/Bob, whoever, because it was looking like the thing you desired most in the world was being withheld from you.

Or, have you ever felt that horrible feeling that washes over you on those days when you lose your faith and you think “Yeah, this thing ain’t gonna happen. Never in a million years. What a complete and total FOOL I’ve been!”

Have you felt any of these? I have. All of them.  You need to watch this.

Carry on,
xox

So…okay. I’ve been putting certain words in the search and being totally surprised by what comes up. Kinda like blog-roulette.
This one is nearly three, what? (yes three), years old and came up when I put in the word Delicious, (because I hadn’t had lunch and I was thinking about pie). Right then, the game morphed completely. The universe started reminding me of exactly what I needed to know this very moment…and this one..this one too. Because I currently live in a constant state of ambiguity.

Delicious ambiguity. Can ambiguity even be delicious?
Let’s find out. Shall we?

*I also revised it because, well, it needed it.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
~Gilda Radner~

I LOVE that (and her, btw), What a contradiction, right? Like scrumptious self-consciousness, or yummy yearning.

In AA they call it letting go and letting God.

It requires faith. The definition being: belief in something unknown and unseen as being real. Whoa. Anybody else feeling dizzy?

AMBIGUITY (noun) 
The quality or state of having a veiled or uncertain meaning.

Synonyms  ( I just had to include these) : darkness, murkiness, mysteriousness, nebulousness, obliqueness, obliquity, opacity, opaqueness.

Sounds spooky, right?
But then you add the word Delicious and wtf? It softens it right up.

I saw this quote a couple of weeks ago and it’s been rolling around in my head.
What did she mean?

The lack of clarity about a situation does not necessarily mean it cannot be desirable. (I have since learned this to be true. Not easy, but true just the same.)

I think Delicious Ambiguity means to Revel in the Unknown (can that even be done? yes, yes it can!).

That what appears ambiguous often holds many delicious things for life. I suspect it means, keep your eyes open, your MIND open, and things will reveal themselves. (Oh, man, this was just a suspicion on my part back then but I can attest to this three years later.)

I have this little prayer and I’m saying it every morning.
It goes like this:

Dear God,
Put me in the right place even though I don’t know where that is.
And dear God, when you do it, can you make it comfortable for me and help me to see the sense of it? Really, spell it out, I’m kind of dense.
Can you make it easy and delicious and bring me the right situations and synchronicities to put me in this place I don’t know about…yet?

Thanks.

(Wait. And can bowls of chocolate ice cream line the way to keep me sustained on this journey of faith, you know, to remind me of its deliciousness? Too much?)

Okay, fine.

Carry on,

xox

Hi, Guys!
This is a throwback that I forgot about. I was only reminded of it because when I put the word “shit” in the dashboard search behind the scenes it comes up! Ha! Go figure. Many, many posts come up when I put the word “shit” in the search. An embarrassing amount. Maybe too many? Nahhhhhh…
Oh well, I suppose it goes along with the shit on your shoe piece from yesterday. I also remember laughing out loud at that cartoon at the top because I’m a unicorn…or rather I wrote about being a twenty-six-year-old divorced unicorn, sometimes I just scream UNICORN! for no reason, AND I included the words unicorn balls in a piece and one of my besties, Steph, never lets me forget it!
#unicornballs
Anyhow, carry on,
xox

This graphic has nothing to do with anything—it just made me howl with laughter.

The bigger question today was: Heeeeeyyyyy…Why does my car smell like a horrible fart?

It’s not Ruby, the one we blame for all things foul smelling—she’s with her dad.
So…I’m the only one in here and as far as I know I haven’t passed gas.

Why do the bank and the market and the stroll on my way to the beauty supply also smell like ass gas? I wondered.

Thought process of an intelligent woman: Maybe that rotten egg, sulfur smell is a natural gas leak? Yeah, that’s it.
We must have a major gas leak in our neighborhood. That could be dangerous.

Note to self: When I get home I need to call the Gas Company to come out and check that out.

That could be a lifesaver, especially with all of the cooking and candle lighting going on the next few days. Nobody wants their face blown off while lighting a candle.

What actually happened: I promptly forgot.
I had other things on my mind.
It was the day before Thanksgiving. I was busy!

Someone else has probably called by now, I figured. It is going to have to be up to another Good Samaritan to save our lives.

Silent prayer just before lighting a candle: Dear God, I hope it’s not my face that gets blown off. Thank you. I mean, Amen.

I was reminded that I forgot, (See how that works?) by the smell of dog fart inside my own home!
The same one I had spent all day Hazeling. The one that was minus one poopy puppy.

Sourly odoriferous. That’s the smell!

I went inside and washed out my nostrils. I did! It was like that dog-farty sour smell was somehow stuck up inside my nose, tainting my entire day.

I lit incense. Nothing helped (but at least I didn’t blow up.)
It just hung over the stench for a while. A delightfully nauseating Nag-Champa-Poop blend.

Turns out I had dog poop on the bottom of my shoe and it had accompanied me all day long, everywhere I went.

Has that ever happened to you?

See where I’m going with this?
I’m not even going to say it because you guys are so smart you already know that I’m going to say that the poop on my shoe was exactly like a metaphor for a bad mood. Anger or even sadness.

We take that you take that shit wherever we go.

Damn, you guys are good!

Carry on,
xox