writer

My French husband and I are leaving for Paris this week. For the Arrogance Convention. He needs a tune-up. (Kidding—not kidding.)
But seriously, we’re going with some friends to eat our way around the city. THAT is how serious we are about food.

I’m looking forward to the crepes, and the bread, and the butter, and the wine, and the croissants, and the frites, and the butter and the coffee. What I’m not looking forward to is the airport and the ten-hour flight.
Which reminded me of this post from back in 2014 when I hated it just as much.

Bon Voyage & Wish me luck fitting back into my pants when I get home. 

Carry on,
xox

In a month we’re off to Chicago. And the thought of that makes my butt clench. Tight.

It’s not the flying so much because think about it.  Just over one-hundred-years ago, getting from California to Chicago took weeks if not months of treacherous stage-coach travel through scorching deserts and over snowy mountain passes, never mind how many things were out to kill you. The odds of cholera or the possibility of an Indian arrow making your acquaintance and making you dead—were high.

Luckily, there is a different kind of coach travel these days and I concede that on some flights, especially if a baby is wailing, it can feel almost as long and harrowing.

I appreciate the miracle of flight. I really do. I actually love sitting perched in a seat, in an aluminum tube that’s hurtling through the air, watching movies while I snack on things I never eat below 35,000 feet, like bag after bag of potato chips and soda, and then arriving at some far-away destination in the same clothes I put on that very morning.

Here’s the thing that sends me into a tizzy. The before part of flying.  The check-in part. The part that makes you regret your trip before you’ve even left the ground. You know what I’m talking about. All of the degrading malarkey (god, I love that word), that every airport in the world has put us through since 911. You can almost hear the sound of your personal freedoms being sucked right out of you over the garbled gate announcements during the two hours of lining up, waiting, wheeling, shuffling, packing and unpacking, waiting, X-raying, virtually stripping; taking off your shoes, belt, jacket, watch, sunglasses, and in one particularly mortifying case—my underwire bra, only to wait in line some more.

It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.

My husband and I fly frequently enough that sometimes the gods deem us worthy and bestow upon us the words  TSA precheck at the top of our tickets which I’m happy to report allows us to sidestep some of the madness—but I see you there, hopping up and down on one naked foot, trying to get the other damn boot off  while your purse shoots through to the other side unattended, the line backs up, and your other boot falls off the conveyor belt and into another man’s bag.

I feel your pain. I am you. I will be you in a month.

Listen, we have all agreed, as a collective, to hand over our rights to privacy. Into the dumpster they went along with any expectation of expedient air travel as a trade-off to make us feel safe.

I have no choice other than to give up my personal freedoms when I fly, but I will never stop talking about how it used to be.

Here’s the thing, I’m old enough to remember when flying was glamorous. And fun. You got dressed up. The flight crew engaged in polite chit-chat, and as kids they even used to show us the cockpit. Now it’s locked up tighter than the room where Donald Trump keeps his wigs.

Airports had a buzz of excitement back in the day, not like now, where the low hum of stress meets you at the curb—that is literally where my butt clenching starts. There are airports in foreign countries, (I just saw it recently in Mexico), that have full-on military walking around with assault rifles at the ready. That does not bode well for me. It forces me to drink before I board my flight which not only exacerbates the anxiety it makes me stupid and clumsy.

I have given up my freedoms, I have. But I suppose some part of me thought this would be temporary. You know, maybe for a year or two. Now there is an entire generation that only knows air travel to be this way. This ridiculous, freedom-sucking, unorganized, cluster-fuck of a way.

But I for one will never forget that it was not always like this. That we used to check our bags and walk on planes like civilized human beings. Because if we forget that, IF we accept the way things are now as normal, then, in my opinion, fear and terror have won.

Carry on,
xox

“Let us realize that the arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
~ MLK

I know. You don’t come here to read about politics, and believe me, I don’t come here to write about it. 

I like observational humor. I like looking at the ordinary and finding the funny. Trust me, I tried to write funny, but talking about anything else besides the elephant in the room right now feels trite. 

You don’t come here to have smoke blown up your ass either. So I won’t bother, as fun as that sounds.

I’m just like you. My chest has felt heavy since Friday. Since that snake of a woman Susan Collins made her case for the Judge to become a Justice. I had no words (rare) and I wanted to cry (not so rare these days).

It felt like a giant GOP elephant had set up camp between my boobs.  Now that’s funny. That these days picturing the symbol of the party of the Moral Majority and Christian, family values tangling with my tits seems… normal… excusable… like “so last Tuesday”.

My how things have changed. 

I’m pissed. I’m sad and I’m discouraged, and I’m looking for a fight.

I’m a fist in search of a face

A scream in search of an ear.

A belief in search of a…what? A mind to change?

I learned a long time ago that you can’t yell somebody into your way of thinking. By the way, that’s a lesson the old white guys in politics have yet to learn; ‘cause if women loves one thing—it’s a man screaming in her face. Mansplaining. It doesn’t work. It makes you look ridiculous. Use your words, fellas. You’re overreacting. You seem hysterical. (Sound familiar?)

So, I turned off cable news this weekend. And I silenced my phone. I made the radical choice to tune-out.

Not forever. Just for now.

I lost myself in Bradley Cooper’s periwinkle-blue eyes and fantasized that he was singing love songs just to me.

I chose to be happy. 

When someone texted me the final vote, that fucking elephant did the Macarena, which caused me to grab my chest. The pain was real. Until finally, I told it to scram! Knock it off! Enough is enough! I refuse to live at the whim of some boob dwelling pachyderm. 

I needed the distance so I could reclaim my balance. Because I know how this shit goes.

Listen, I’m not gonna sugar coat it. We’re in store for some real, fall-face-first-on-the floor, big changes in the not-so-distant future. Some that could hurt women and hopefully some that could bend the moral universe toward justice. 

You guys, you wanna know what I see? I see women in positions of power! Lots of ‘um!

And if I know one thing for sure, it’s that equalizing the playing field at the highest levels of power has been a long time coming. I also know that we, as humans, don’t make huge, paradigm shifting changes when things are going well. We fence sit, scrapbook, and make friends with the status quo. 

But when shit gets real? When you fuck with us women? Well, you had better brace yourselves for some real and LASTING change. 

Ladies. And you decent, tender hearted men. This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for. It had to get this bad to get us off the sidelines and fight. 

We may have lost this battle, that is true. But we have NOT lost the fight. Trust me. It may look bleak right now, but I think this has changed the trajectory of history in our favor. I believe we’ll look back at this time as the beginning of the DECADE OF THE WOMAN. Or the CENTURY of THE WOMAN. 

And it’s about fucking time.

Carry on,
xox

I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know…me. 

Decades of self-exploration. Hundreds of hours of quiet introspection punctuated by an occasional primal scream.
Lab test out the hoo-ha. Some literally involving my hoo-ha. 
And don’t get me started on the thousands of dollars I’ve spent over the years getting in sync with my body—mind—and spirit.

Seeking, searching, asking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

By this stage of the game I was confident in the fact that I knew myself quite well.
If asked on a game show, I could have easily identified my top three favorite foods:
Pasta.
Chocolate.
Truffles.
And for the bonus points in the lightning round—Truffle pasta with a hint of chocolate.

Ding,ding,ding!

“And what foods are you allergic to?” Bob might ask, in an attempt to stump me.

“None. Oh, wait, maybe strawberries. Sometimes they make my mouth itch. Ok, strawberries for the win!”

Ding, ding, ding!!

Confetti would fall, spokesmodels would weep, and I’d drive away in a BRAND. NEW. CAR!

“Thank you, Bob. And thank you, self, for being so figureoutable. 

But not anymore. All that has changed.

In the past month I’ve had a severe allergic reaction THREE TIMES to something unknown. Something I ingested. And it’s not like I’ve been eating street food in Vietnam, I’ve been at home all three times, eating lunch, which, if you must know, is boring as fuck.

Or is it? I suppose if it kills you, that makes it a bit more interesting…

Anyway, the reaction was the same. A fiery, red rash on my face, chest and arms, and the third time it happened I had trouble breathing. I ran for the Benadryl. That’s what the pharmacist had recommended when I’d called him breathlessly the first time this occurred.
“Take a Benadryl,” he said; his voice free of even the slightest hint of concern as I wheezed and sputtered on the other end of the phone.
I applaud his ability to remain detached. I really do. It has been my observation that is the case with most pharmacists. I’m sure it’s an act of self-preservation. God forbid his epinephrine spikes from identifying too closely with a panicky, hypersensitive, substance sufferer like me.

So I dd. I took the Benadryl.
And then I waited…and eventually…it helped.

My face went back to normal and my arms looked like arms again and not spotted, red clumps of itchy, hot meat.
But it had a side effect. It made me loopy. Loopier than normal. You all know I’m a high-functioning loop.
But apparently, if you add Benadryl into the mix, I bump into walls, drool, and can’t operate the blender. So, my day is over! Shot! And I pretty much end up asleep at my desk.

Which I’m told is a severe reaction. Groggy is normal. Unconsious—not so much.

So, what do you take if you’re allergic to Benadryl?

Thank you, Janet 2.0, for this ever evolving, surprisingly delicate, constitution you’ve saddled me with. And for developing a weird allergy to something random and boring that lurks in the pantry waiting to kill me/us. 

“Eat each thing separately and see which one triggers the reaction.” My pharmacist suggested, like it was a parlor game.  “But have a Benadryl in your hand when you do—you don’t want to stop breathing, and if you do—don’t call here—call 911.”

“Yeah—good advice, you heartless sadist. That’s not gonna happen.”

I’m thinking of switching to food trucks for lunch because if food’s gonna kill me—I’m going with Sriracha sauce all down my shirt and a smile on my face!

Carry on,
xox

It was 4 am.
My alarm caught me bleary eyed and mildly confused. I’d barely slept and I had an early plane to catch. The vicissitudes of the previous day were still scrambling my brain. Like many of you, I’d sat riveted in front of cable news for nine hours straight. Something I only do if there’s a catastrophe, like an earthquake or a tsunami.

I’d witnessed heroic courage and unadulterated, visceral rage. And it surprised me. I mean, I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t what I’d seen play out in front of me all day in Washington.
Again.

It WAS an earthquake. AND a tsunami. Wrapped in a tornado, inside of a hurricane.

Emotional wreckage. Norms shattered. Boundaries breached.
It made me sick. literally. At one point I thought I’d puke. I was seething.
I don’t think I took a breath the entire time Dr. Ford testified. I’m not kidding.

The first thing I did Friday morning, right after brushing my teeth, was to flip on CNN. The east coast is three hours ahead of me and I was anxious to see what carnage had transpired while I slept. The Judiciary committee vote was looming a couple of hours in the future and it looked pretty bleak.

Once at the airport I checked my emails. There were at least half a dozen of you wanting me to write something. To weigh in. What was I feeling? Could I see a path toward hope? Did I see any humor in it or was it really the dumpster fire it appeared to be?

Oh, dumpster fire. For sure…

While I sat there formulating ideas, feeling everybody’s fear, anxiety, and rage jump out of my emails and grab me by the neck, the news broke on the shitty TV at the bar across the way. Jeff Flake, a man of flimsy conscious and the unworthy recipient of the last glimmers of our hope, had decided to vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Gut punch. My abs should be used to being pummeled, but they aren’t. It catches me by surprise and steals my breath every time it happens.

I wanted to write something. I really did. I wanted to vent and rage, but my words would have only fueled the already enormous fire. The one I’m certain they could see from space. And what good is that?

That’s why god invented Twitter.

Besides, it was time to board, and I had three-and a half hours of captivity ahead of me in a metal tube that’s hurtling through the air in an aerodynamic way that no matter how many times it’s explained to me – is still a mystery. Anyway, I had nothing but time to listen to podcasts and watch the news. Except there was no live TV coverage on this particular flight, the WiFi sucked ass, and my podcasts had neglected to download.

What.. the … fuckity, fuck?
When that happens it means I need to press pause.

So I sat and stewed. In some very toxic juices.

You need to say a little prayer of thanks to my husband for bearing the brunt of all the collective feminine rage that was up beside us at thirty-thousand feet, caught in the stratosphere, circling the planet.

In the meantime, I poked around social media, seeking the advice of some of the thought leaders I turn to in case of emergency.
Glendon Doyle was livid.
Anne Lamott was devastated.
Of course they were! Then I happened upon this Facebook post by Marianne Williamson. She’s someone who is thoughtful and measured. Someone who I used to go see speak every Thursday night in the 80’s during the AIDS crisis. As I read it, tears ran down my cheeks and great pools of snot gathered at my feet. “Oh, they have done it now,” she said in an uncharacteristically defiant way. “Now they have triggered the memories of every woman who has ever had her opinions ignored or her feelings scorned.”

Bammo! Bingo! Bullseye! She put into words exactly how I was feeling and isn’t that why we turn to these women? To each other? To give voice to our deepest feelings?

“They have harnessed the power of a thousand hurricanes,” she wrote.

Indeed. And tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes.

When we landed in Chicago I learned that Flake had had found his backbone- for now.

Ever since Trump took office I’ve felt my equilibrium tested. But the one thing I know for sure is that he and his cronies in Congress have poked the beast. They’ve awakened the giant – and she is us.

“Congratulations, Senators Grassley, Hatch, Graham, Cruz et al. You’ve done it now. I think you might have just elected the first woman president.”

Yep. And it will be soon. Sooner than they think. #justyouwait
Carry on,
Xox

“Oh, they have done it now.
They have done what thousands of feminists, hundreds of feminist organizations, and millions of women working as social and political activists over the years have not been able to do: they have harnessed the power of a thousand hurricanes. It is not just that they have triggered the memories of every woman who has ever been sexually harassed or abused. Now they have triggered the memories of every woman who has ever had her opinions ignored or her feelings scorned.
Ted Cruz pointed out in his testimony that Dr. Ford was treated with respect. I suppose he means that because they didn’t throw eggs at her. What those men don’t understand is that being silent after hearing her speak, as though actually she had not spoken, does not show respect. Basically ignoring what she said does not show respect. Making it all about “Brett, poor baby, he is one of us and he is hurting” does not show respect. In fact, their entire strategy now rests on ignoring what she said… not even grappling with her credibility, much less allowing a further investigation or more witnesses to testify. And every woman who has ever felt that her words meant nothing, that they somehow disappeared into the air after she spoke them and simply bounced off the ears of a man or men in the room, whether she was ever touched inappropriately or not, she is triggered now.
Congratulations, Senators Grassley, Hatch, Graham, Cruz et al. You’ve done it now. I think you might have just elected the first woman president. A fierce, giant force just been awakened among us. And unlike Quan Yin sitting silently next to my television, we will not be silent. In the coming days and weeks and years, we will speak our truth. We will hear each other and we will believe each other. And this time, by men, and by women alike, we will be heard. #justyouwait

-Marianne Williamson

Tit for tat – short for this for that. A fair exchange. Quid pro quo, Latin for something for something. A favor for a favor.

How do we feel about that inside of relationships?

Me? I’ve always hated it, because it involves keeping score.
And while some people are brilliant at it, running a metal tally sheet – I suck at keeping score. Probably because it involves math and the only thing I suck at more than score keeping is math.

I remember being blindsided inside of relationships by brilliant score keepers who insisted that I had fallen behind in the “favor” department. Apparently not enough tits for all their tats.

“You drive! I’ve driven us around the last three weekends, do you realize how expensive gas is?”

“We always see the movies YOU want to see. Have I told you lately how much I hate science fiction? You OWE me!”

“It seems like it has been all about Janet lately, when is it ever going to be about me?” Ouch.

Some even got sexual depending on the fight. Actual tits for tat. Others were about family, garbage take-out, even food.
WTF?

All of those declarations caught me off guard.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were keeping score.” I’d reply.
I was sure that when I had signed the agreement after reading the very thick dating manual, that I must have missed the fact that everything was subject to become a line item on a debit sheet, and furthermore, I myself, had neglected to keep score.

So, not a fair fight. (Janet 1- Boyfriend -0) Oh…fuck!

“You have me at a dis-advantage” I cried, trying to plead my case, sure that I could come up with some outstanding infractions on their part – but I couldn’t – I just thought we were being a couple, doing nice things for each other – not making deals.

Someone told me this story the other day, about going to their therapist loaded down with resentment toward their spouse.
Eventually, after several months of couple’s therapy with her husband, the therapist confronted her and said: “You think you are giving gifts. But you are making deals.”

She was struck dumb. What?????
“A deal is when there is a mutual agreement, an expectation. A gift is given.”

She admitted that their therapist gave her a gift that has lasted a lifetime.

My husband tried ONCE to keep score, reminding me of something he did that he felt wasn’t “repaid”.
“We don’t tit for tat in this relationship,” I snapped, trying not to yell. “Speak up in the moment if you don’t like something, don’t keep score, it isn’t fair unless we both agree to do that – which I will NEVER agree to. Do something nice because you want to, because you love me, or don’t do it at all, and for Godsakes, don’t hold it against me! Some days I will be selfish, some days I’ll be freaking Mother Theresa, some days a warrior, other days needy, don’t take score – deal with it!” Okay, maybe I was yelling.

You see it’s been my experience that on occasion, relationships can feel lopsided. No one promised us equality. That word wasn’t in my vows.
But it’s also been proven to me that the scales do even out…eventually.

It may take a while, but the weekends alone with all the kids, the late nights at the hospital, the hard talks about money, and the times you agreed to sex when you were too tired to think, the Thanksgivings spent with horrible Bonnie and crazy Uncle Ned, summers at the Cape being eaten by mosquitos, early morning carpool, working two jobs to keep things afloat, numerous bad choices, mistakes and failures – they all come back around.

So don’t be so quick to keep score.

Give your love without expectations – open-hearted, as a gift, and you know what? It will come back to you ten-fold. I promise.

Carry on,
xox

“Can you just stop with the damn smoke blowing thing?”
Me ~ to my Shaman.

I had a shaman once. I highly recommend it. 

Mine appeared out of nowhere, like a questionable smell, and actually moved in with me back in the winter of 1993.
With his bald head, Australian accent, and wild, Rasputian eyes, I called him my “pocket shaman” since he was barely shoulder height — and for about seven months he literally went everywhere with me. 

I never think about that time of my life anymore…unless I do. It is dark, and murky, and mysterious. Definitely NOT a place that’s safe to go without a bodyguard…or a guide…or a shaman. 

My friend Mel posted this “Promise of a Shaman” on her Facebook page the other day. I wish I knew who wrote it because I can tell they’ve lived it. Their words bringing every detail of our little dance alllll back to me…

The rituals. 
My fear.
His refusal to meet me in my fear.
My rage at that.
His indifference to my rage.
The energy work that I initially scoffed at, and later counted on to save me.

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say he saved me, my pocket shaman. He saved my sanity—and in turn he saved my life.

“Be careful what you wish for,” they say. Up until that point I’d never listened to “them” anyway—and I wasn’t about to start.
I was a thirty-fucking-five-year-old seeker and I wished for enlightenment already! 
I had wished to know all the secrets of the universe. To have them revealed to me so that I alone could understand them.

“Be careful what you wish for,” my pocket shaman admonished. He questioned the direct, solo route I’d chosen to take. He was in favor of a more circuitous path; one that came with a lot of help along the way.

“Fuck that shit!” I want fast! I’m in a hurry! I argued.

Then I lost my mind.

Sacred texts suggest that when undertaking the path to enlightenment, it would be wise to follow the advice of a guide.  They say that for a reason. Because the edges of the path are littered with the bones of those who’ve tried to “go it alone”.  And if you don’t die, you are doomed to wander the streets of LA or some other place you no longer recognize, barefoot and afraid, mumbling incoherently about going fast, going solo. 

Trust me. I was almost there. Luckily for me, a shaman showed up. 

I say thank you to whomever sent him to me. He was exactly what I never knew I needed. 

I say thank you to the experience we went through together. It was most definitely a battle, and he will forever be my foxhole buddy.

And I say thank you to the universe for scaring the living daylights out of me, beating me up every which way imaginable—and some you cannot; for scrambling my brain, rewiring my nervous system, and then spitting me out on the other side with “lovely parting gifts”—that took me two decades to discover. 

And I say thank you to myself, for being brave enough back then to even make the wish. 

So, what is the moral of this story you ask? That in some instances, good things come in small packages and everybody loves a shaman? That, in the case of chasing spiritual enlightenment, you’d better put a team together because you are LITERALLY playing with fire? That “they” are right when they say, “be careful what you wish for because you just may get it”—and then not know what the hell to do with “it”? OR, that we don’t say “thank you” nearly enough to that part of ourselves that offers acts of audacious self-care, like conjuring shamans out of thin air at times when we barely have the wherewithal to say our own name—and that it should be required by law?

Hmmmmmm….That’s a hard one. I’ll let you guys decide.

Carry on,
xox

The promise of a shaman

If you come to me as a victim I will not support you.

But I will have the courage to walk with you through the pain that you are suffering.

I will put you in the fire, I will undress you, and I will sit you on the earth.
I will bathe you with herbs, I will purge you, and you will vomit the rage and the darkness inside you.
I’ll bang your body with good herbs, and I’ll put you to lay in the grass, face up to the sky.
Then I will blow your crown to clean the old memories that make you repeat the same behavior.

I will blow your forehead to scare away the thoughts that cloud your vision.
I will blow your throat to release the knot that won’t let you talk.
I will blow your heart to scare fear, so that it goes far away where it cannot find you.
I will blow your solar plexus to extinguish the fire of the hell you carry inside, and you will know peace.
I will blow with fire your belly to burn the attachments, and the love that was not.
I will blow away the lovers that left you, the children that never came.
I will blow your heart to make you warm, to rekindle your desire to feel, create and start again.
I will blow with force your vagina or your penis, to clean the sexual door to your soul.
I will blow away the garbage that you collected trying to love what did not want to be loved.
I will use the broom, and the sponge, and the rag, and safely clean all the bitterness inside you.
I will blow your hands to destroy the ties that prevent you from creating.
I will blow your feet to dust and erase the footprints memories, so you can never return to that bad place.
I will turn your body, so your face will kiss the earth.
I’ll blow your spine from the root to the neck to increase your strength and help you walk upright.

And I will let you rest.

After this you will cry, and after crying you will sleep, 

And you will dream beautiful and meaningful dreams, 

and when you wake up I’ll be waiting for you.

I will smile at you, and you will smile back

I will offer you food that you will eat with pleasure, tasting life, and I will thank you.

Because what I’m offering today, was offered to me before when darkness lived within me.

And after I was healed, I felt the darkness leaving, and I cried.

Then we will walk together, and I will show you my garden, and my plants, and I will take you to the fire again.

And will talk together in a single voice with the blessing of the earth.

And we will shout to the forest the desires of your heart.

And the fire will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the mountains will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the rivers will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the wind will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And then we will bow before the fire, and we will call upon all the visible and invisible guardians.

And you will say thank you to all of them.

And you will say thank you to yourself.

And you will say thank you to yourself. 

And you will say thank you to yourself.

~Author unknown

Last week I was a giant welt—with arms and legs; carrying a smart handbag. Living on Benadryl.

“I read there’s microscopic mosquitos who’ve shown up in the US for the first time,” my husband warned me after the fact.
He has a tendency to do that. To warn me about the shark sighting after my leg’s been bitten off. Stuff like that. Anyway…

“They’re so tiny you can’t see or hear ’em. You never even know they’re biting you until it’s too…” he could see the look on my face so he stopped himself. He knows that look means his death is imminent.

But how rude is that? Not my husband’s misguided whatever, I mean the mosquito! I count on the buzz to warn me.
“Incoming!” I’ll announce, which is code at our house to run for cover. Or to turn your head because a kiss is coming, which can make for a confusing couple of seconds, but that’s another story altogether.

All of this welty madness reminded me of this post from back in 2015 when mosquitos had the common decency to announce themselves. To at least make it a fair fight.

Fuck you microscopic mosquito. You suck! (See what I did there?)

Carry on,
xox

Thank you gluttonous mosquito for turning my Saturday night into your own private all-you-can-eat buffet.

We are lucky enough in So Cal to escape summers of swarming mosquitos and bugs in general; we traded them for earthquakes, epic traffic jams and no NFL football team, so yep, I still think we’re ahead.

There is only one of you, you persistent little shit, I can tell by your distinctive, stuttering, high-pitched whine (you might want to get that checked out). I have no idea how you got into the house seeing that it’s been as hot as the surface of Mars these past few weeks and no door or window has been open for more than the three seconds it takes to exit or enter our seventy-five degree, humidity free sanctuary.

It was the doggie door wasn’t it?  Well, you’re resourceful, I’ll give you that.

I apologize for trying to kill you, swinging wildly in the dark every time you dive-bombed my left shoulder.
I’m a pacifist at heart. Really.
I carry spiders outside for crying out loud —because spiders have the good sense to hang out up on the ceiling and they leave my left shoulder alone. Besides, spiders are fellow artists, spinning their stunning webs all over the property. What beautiful thing have you created lately, besides this humongous welt on my back?

Still, I have to thank you. You taught me patience and you made me appreciate my little family.

First the patience…okay, well, that was about as long as that lasted.

I have exactly zero tolerance for a mosquito that has no self-control and can’t realize when it’s full. You served yourself at my shoulder four times, my knee (I don’t even want to know how you got under and out of the covers)—and my pinkie. Seriously?
You, my friend, need to practice some portion control!

After several hours of hearing your deranged buzz, and feeling you near my face as you flew your little scouting missions, I wanted to scream and pull out all of my hair! Instead, I got up, ran to pee (I didn’t want you to follow me, I was trying to avoid a fish in a barrel situation in the bathroom) and made sure my husband and the boxer-bitch were covered.

My husband is made from very rare and delicate French stock.
His skin is…different from my tough American horsehide—it just is.
It is void of pores and as soft as a baby’s ass, and when bitten it gets as hot, angry and red as Donald Trump’s face when asked the names of foreign Heads of State.

The boxer-bitch is simply too spoiled to bite.
Super cute, but ornery as hell—I know you wouldn’t bite a teenager for the same reasons, but I covered her nubby little butt anyway. As I found my way back to bed, flailing my arms around like a crazed scarecrow, trying to find you in the dark, I was filled with love and appreciation.

I kid you not.

I was thankful I wasn’t in the Amazon with bugs so prolific I was forced to sleep in a bed under a full mosquito net—or in South Africa avoiding deadly black mamba snakes on my way to pee. (With those guys you hit the ground dead in three minutes, so I know my last thought would be: Did I pull up my pants?) I was ever so thankful that I had a tube of Benadryl handy for the itching—and I was thankful there was only one of you. It made me feel better about my odds of hunting you down and killing you.

Thankfully, I fell asleep and we all survived the night.
Since I knew you were fat and happy, and we had formed a relationship, an uneasy truce of sorts—the next morning while it was a bracing 78 degrees at 6 am, I opened all the doors in the bedroom to facilitate your clean getaway.

Thank you and you’re welcome.

Carry on,
xox

So there she is…

Ready and waiting for him. Ridden hard and put away wet, she still has the mud from her last adventure through the desert Southwest caked to her sides. She’s a badass. Locked and loaded. His steel horse; our steel horse, although I have to admit we haven’t taken a long ride together in a while. 

He’d say it’s because I’m a fair weather rider who can’t tolerate the heat.

I’d say it’s because he keeps getting hurt.

When I met the man he’d already been riding for over thirty years. His boasting, “I’ve never fallen!” was corroborated by the posse of fellow riders who shadowed his every move along the winding roads of Southern California. 

So I got on the back and I never, for one minute, felt afraid.  

Then, when he turned fifty, he took up “off road” riding. Not the kind you do on the weekends with a beer in one hand and a light and nimble bike between your legs. No, he excelled at taking an already heavy touring motorcycle, loading it up with another 50-80 pounds of gear, traveling to Namibia, or the Atacama desert in Peru, and then having the skill/balls/lack-of-sanity to will that now 700 pound sucker up a steep hill composed of loose gravel and rocks the size of watermelons. 

Falling became as common as pooping. 

Picking up the heavy bike on a sandy slope, or after sliding on slippery rocks in the middle of a rushing river, or slow-motion falling with it next to you down a steep and jagged ravine was nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it made for great tales of testosterone-fueled jackassery around the campfire every night. 

As he approached sixty, he took up Crossfit to stay in shape. He needed more upper body strength.

“Not only do I pick up my bike,” he told me, “I ride sweep, so I help all the other guys when they fall.”

Great…and why?

A few years back, on an adventure ride with a particular group of buddies in the wilds of British Columbia, he cracked four ribs in the middle of the trip. Did he stop? Nope. He just kept on riding the rough and ragged terrain, sleeping every night on the hard ground, and picking up bikes for the remaining SIX DAYS without a complaint. 

Until he got home.

Ladies you know how that goes. They’re stoic as fuck until they cross the threshold and see your face. Then they fall apart like a nine-year-old boy. The amount of wincing, whining, and Motrin consumption that took place for the next few months exceeded any woman in the throughs of labor. 

On the next trip with the same group of guys, I got a call on day two from the emergency room. A call that someone in my position (waiting at home while your significant other indulges in life threatening, male-bonding activities) dreads. He’d reactivated an old injury and felt it best to “Let the guys go on ahead”. He drove the seven hours home that same day in great pain and discomfort, and that entire fiasco led to a corrective surgery. Scar tissue had built up from all the riding. He’d never been off a bike long enough to let the injury heal.

I won’t even get into the behavior of a post-surgical husband. I have PTSD and the flashbacks alone may push me over the edge!

Then, in April, all healed up, free of any scar tissue, feeling fit and strong, he headed out with that same group of hoodlums to shred up Colorado, Utah and Arizona. “The trails are brutal’, he texted me everyday; or something to that effect. It should be mentioned that my husband is now sixty-five, a good twenty years older than any of the other guys.

Anyway, I got another call. Only this one was from Intensive Care. That kind that makes your heart race—and then stop—and then do a couple of flips before resuming its regular rhythm. 

“I fell.” he said.

“How bad?” I asked.

“Not bad, really,” he answered.

“I find that hard to believe seeing that you’re in Intensive Care!”

“I have a ruptured kidney and my spleen is pretty fucked up too,” he said. “My MRI should tell us more.”

After two days in Intensive Care in a hospital in the middle of an Indian Reservation in Arizona, a couple of his buddies drove all the way from LA to bring him, and his trusty bike, back home.

So, there she is. Sitting in my driveway, all ready to carry him on another adventure. She knows how I feel about it so she won’t even make eye contact with me. Four days with this same posse in Montana. I have to wait until noon on Tuesday to exhale.

“It’s not all riding,” he said, tying to reassure me. “They’ll be some archery, range shooting and fly fishing too.”

With those guys? Great. What could go wrong…

Pray with me and carry on,

xox

I should be ashamed I love these things.

But I’m not. 

Not really.

I suppose I should be because, well, they’re not the usual suspects like springtime in Paris, or pug nosed babies and equally pug nosed puppies.  But hey, how boring would that be? We all love those things. Right?

No, these are specific to my twisted brain unique sensibility. What I DO feel the least bit of a tinge of shame over is the ferocity with which I love these things. It’s the way I love them. My love is true. My love is mad and my love runs deep. I mean what’s the use of living if you don’t love all the wonderful things that life dishes up with all the…gusto…you can muster. So, although I know you weren’t wondering—without further ado, here they are:

1. Grilled cheese sandwiches. And not just any grilled cheese sandwich. It has to be just so. The trick is to use nice, thick bread and then butter and grill both sides. If that much butter bothers you, order a salad instead and by-the-way—I don’t think we can be friends.
2. Words. Well, certain words like, onomatopoeia, pomplemousse, inert, tiddlywinks and hippopotamuses. I like the way these words make my mouth feel when I say them. Don’t make that face!
3. Homemade croutons. Made from stale sourdough or better yet, brioche bread.
4. False eyelashes. (No secret there.)
5. The very rare natural redhead with brown eyes. My niece is one such unicorn and people literally fall all over themselves staring at her hair. I had blue eyes (still do) when my hair was dyed red—so yeah, I was batting zero for two.
6. Pink champagne. Does this need an explanation? I didn’t think so.
7. Straws in my drinks. I like the metal ones. Oh, and no umbrellas and please, no plastic monkeys… (okay, just one).
8. Hikes with trees. Like a forest hike, not those dirt trails where there’s no shade and the terrain resembles Death Valley.
9. Science Fiction ANYTHING. Movie, book, TV show, it doesn’t matter.  I repeatedly tell my husband that in my next life I’m coming back as an astronaut/archeologist/deep space explorer. I’m pretty sure that won’t be for a while since I don’t want anything to do with our current space program. I want to be on a ship with gravity. Where I can run around, not need money and replicate whatever my little space exploring heart desires. So, see ya around the year 3033.
10. The chinese chicken salad at Joan’s on Third. There is only one that is better. My mom’s. (Hi mom!)
11. Jeans. Don’t you love jeans? Can I just go on the record as saying that I just love that we live in a day and age where pantyhose are no longer required. Thanks. Non sequitur. Anyway, jeans! Woo Hoo! And if they’re not faded and you wear them with a black jacket and nice shoes, in LA you can get in almost anywhere. Except maybe a funeral. Wear a black dress or real pants to a funeral for godsakes. Show some respect.
12. The chocolate pie my friend Ginger made for my birthday. ( Are you sensing my love affair with food?) She made two and we had a least one piece a day for my entire stay. I didn’t ask for the recipe because I’d like to fit in one airline seat the next time I fly.
13. Flashmobs. These little surprise theatre concerts kill me. I will scream like a little girl and then die if I ever see one in person. They make me crazy! You can surprise me with one anytime.
14. Nora Ephron movies.  My favorite is You’ve Got Mail, but I also adore Sleepless In Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Michael, Silkwood, Julie And Julia and…

So…what do you love with a fiery intensity that you might never admit except here, as an anonymous reader in front of tens of  my other readers?

Carry on,
xox