writer

“Bird poop brings good luck!
There is a belief that if a bird poops on you, your car or your property, you may receive good luck and riches. The more birds involved, the richer you’ll be! So next time a bird poops on you, remember that it’s a good thing.”
~Bird Poop Expert

What about if a single bird poops on your head while you’re driving in your car? You know, moving target and all. That feels like a whole lotta good luck coming your way—along with super silky hair, right?

I’m about to talk about poop, a lot!
Bird poop to be exact, so if you’re eating your eggs, best to put down your fork right about now. Or oatmeal or yogurt for that matter. Just stop eating until you’re finished reading, okay? Studies have shown that reading while eating can lead to something serious and most likely deadly, like choking while laughing, so in essence, I just saved your life.
You’re welcome.

And now, back to the bird poop.

Many people the world over believe that if a bird lets loose on you, then good things are coming your way. One idea is that it’s a sign of major wealth coming from Heaven (the place where ALL real wealth resides), based on the belief that when you suffer an inconvenience (like a head full of bird shit), you’ll have good fortune in return.

The most popularly held belief is that if a bird hits your noggin, it is so lucky, so random and rare (statistically speaking it is rarer than being hit by lightning), how can a lottery win be far behind?

A Case in point — and true story:

Can a head full of bird poop be lucky, you ask?
A Bay of Islands man swears it is, after winning $100,000 on an Instant Kiwi ticket. The man said a bird recently pooped on his head, and his friends told him it was a sign of luck coming his way.

“This win gives me the funds to be able to get down there and be able to help out in any way I can in the city’s rebuild,” he said.

Let me just start by saying that the man in the story is WAY more altruistic than I’ll EVER be. Or maybe not. After he pays off his debt and relocates, how much city rebuilding can he do? I’m worried about him and his financial planning abilities. He has to make that money last and $100,000 doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe he’ll have the free time to volunteer. Okay. I feel much better now.

Anyhow, on Saturday the hubster and I decided to get a jump-start on Valentine’s Day being that we had flaked, waiting until the last-minute and all the good ideas for Sunday were taken. Left to our own devices, we hopped into the car, put down the top, and decided to drive really fast out of the beautiful, summer-like temperatures and head into opaque whiteness of a foggy purgatory, the beach. Faced with the choice of putting the top back up or leaving fog-ville altogether and going for a big lunch, you guessed it, THE BIG LUNCH WON! (No surprise there).

Winding our way through the tree-lined upscale neighborhoods at a brisk 40 mph (oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch, it wasn’t a school zone and besides, it was Saturday. Nobody drives below 40 mph. on Saturdays), on our way back into town and our search for the perfect kabob, I felt something clobber my cranium.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, hands on my head looking around like a freak. You have to admire my economy with words. Don’t feel bad. I’m a writer.

Anyway…

At first, I suspected it might be space debris or a tiny piece of meteorite, and it was only when hubby, with his two bare man-hands, picked a rather large and thankfully solid piece of avian excrement out of my hair—that I realized my good fortune. Lottery WINNER!

Can I just take a moment to thank my husband for his courage, strong stomach and lack of any real hygienic awareness? (He’s French). You are my hero and I will split the money with you AFTER I rebuild a city.

Needless to say, when the laughter subsided, (thankfully we share the same warped sense of humor that causes us to laugh at another’s misfortune), we hightailed it to the diviest Liquor Store we could find (because everybody knows THAT is where REAL wealth resides — not Heaven), and bought us some Power Ball, Super Lotto and Mega Millions tickets —and a box of Triscuits—the Rosemary and olive oil kind.

Then with big shit-eating grins on our faces (that’s an idiom, not literally, mind out of the gutter people, Ewwww), we drove to lunch.

Lottery or not, nothing says LOVE like picking bird poop out of your beloved’s hair—so I’m already a winner!

Love you my Big Handsome!

I know. You guys envy my life of glamour and romance. What can I say? I’m one lucky girl. Maybe YOU had a better Valentine’s Day than me? Huh? I don’t think soooo but I’ll listen!

Carry on,

xox

” Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,
I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport.
General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed,
but I don’t see that.

It seems to me that love is everywhere.

Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy,
but it’s always there – fathers and sons,
mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.”
~From the movie LOVE ACTUALLY

Happy Valentine’s Day My loves, God only knows what I’d be without YOU!

xox

“The other world is this world rightly seen.” – Nisargadatta

“The been there’s and done that’s of the adult mind — we’ve seen it all. Familiarity breeds boredom”

I think we’re all a little guilty of this to varying degrees. Don’t you? And I agree that travel can revitalize the most numbed-out mind. It’s probably one of the reasons I LOVE to travel. Makes me want to jump on a plane right NOW!

Anyhow, take a look and enjoy your weekend.
xox

Have you ever told a lie so often you started to believe it yourself?

Of course, I never have, I was just wondering about you, you lying scoundrels.

Sometimes it is necessary to lie. It can be the kindest thing to do, and often, is the lesser of two evils.

“Yes, it WAS good for me too.”

“Stop crying, that haircut DOES make you look like Charlize Theron.”

“You’re right, it is SO their loss. Your voice is…beautiful.”

I lie to myself ALL the time. It’s a habit. Like brushing my teeth and going to the gym (lie).
I started doing it in acting class.

Just so you know, acting is the gateway to a life of lying. I’m looking at YOU Meryl Streep.

It would happen just before a big audition, or sitting in front of a casting director. Then, if I’d actually bullshitted my way into the job, there’d be that moment backstage, in the dark, behind the curtain, when my head knew it had to go out and stand in the spotlight but my legs wanted to run, my stomach wanted to vomit, and my butt wanted to poop the entire contents of my large intestine—all over the stage.

There have been times I thought my blood would boil in my veins, my nose would fall off of my face or my vagina would start to recite Shakespeare, all due to nerves.

Oh, don’t look at me that way! You know what I’m talking about.

Instead, somehow, we all find it in ourselves to walk out on stage, hit the mark, and deliver the lines. Or we walk to the front of the room of VIP’S and deliver our presentation. Or we sit our asses in the chair and take the test. Or we unclench our fists—and hit send.

You fake it. You lie. You pretend. I know you do. Just for a moment. That you aren’t scared shitless. That you are a pro and not only THAT! That you’re the best at what you do!

Bravo, you brave motherfuckers!

In Jenny Lawson’s (The Bloggess), hilarious new book, Furiously Happy, there’s a chapter where she’s supposed to go and read for the audio version of her own book and instead ends up on the bathroom floor in a full anxiety attack, frantically texting her friend, the author Neil Gaiman for help.
He sends her back a single line.

“Pretend you’re good at it.”

Okaaaaayyy…She writes it in big block letters on her arm, gets up off of the floor, and keeps on going. She continues to this day to write it every time she has to get on stage for a talk or a book reading.

Pretend you’re good at it.

I do it every time I write. I do it when I sing karaoke, and I do it every time we have sex.

I know you can relate. What have you pretended to do to get you through? I’d love to know!

Carry on,
xox

http://www.amazon.com/Furiously-Happy-Funny-Horrible-Things/dp/1250077001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455242532&sr=8-1&keywords=jenny+lawson+furiously+happy

Me pretending to be Velma Kelly in Chicago (This was my own personal Pretending Olympics).

If life is a dance, I have two left feet.
Which also explains my wonky sense of direction and makes it hard to buy shoes.
But if you’ve seen me dance, or do Zoomba, or even Tai Chi, you know what I mean.

Everyone else is moving in sync to the right while I’m moving, always with great conviction, to the left.
It’s just my nature.
Always has been.
As much as I desperately want to avoid embarrassment, it is next to impossible for me to just blend in, to stay inside the lines, to behave and dance like everyone else.

But, I really have tried, and it has been exhausting.

Just like I play my own soundtrack in my head as it runs through my life (don’t you?)
I have my own unique, sometimes awkward and clumsy choreography—which I often dance alone.

It may not be pretty, but it has gotten me here.

Every once in a great while, I’m supremely graceful; like the Prima Ballerina in Swan Lake, dancing around, up on pointed toes, with my neck long, and my arms fluttering slightly.
The only problem is, the rest of the world is doing a tap routine, and I look like an ass!

So, here’s the thing: I had a humongous epiphany after catching The Dead Poet’s Society on HBO a couple of weeks back. Damn! I had forgotten what a great movie that is, OR, I didn’t have the depth of character in 1989 to fully grasp its meaning. Probably the latter.

In case you can’t remember, it takes place in the 1950’s at an elite all-boys prep school. There’s a new, unorthodox English professor, Mr. Keating, who, among other things, has them stand on top of their desks to see the world in a different way. He also challenges them to call him “O Captain, My Captain.”

John Keating: “O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It’s from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating or if you’re slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.”

He is pushing these boy-men to embrace great literature and poetry, to become free thinkers, to question authority and buck convention. In other words, my Holy Grail!

Bear with me here, because it was this next scene that really got to me.
He has his class assemble in the school courtyard where, as an exercise in self-expression, he has them walk in a circle. A couple swing their arms, several stomp their feet, but soon they are all marching perfectly in time, hands and feet synchronized like a chain gang. Although they found it funny, Mr. Keating was proving a point.

We may start off marching to our own beat, but soon we succumb to the herd mentality.
We all fall in step, conforming, becoming a part of that herd.

It’s encoded in our DNA.

Mr. Keating wants them to break that code, to consider being another way.
Perhaps, to even entertain the idea that it might be okay to go left instead of right, to dance to their own untamed choreography.

Hmmmmmm. Maybe my feet aren’t broken after all.

John Keating: Now, we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go,
“That’s baaaaad.” [imitating a goat] Frost said, “Two roads diverged in the wood and I —
I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Amen, O’Captain, My Captain.
Carry on,
Xox

HAPPINESS
1. “Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

”

And they can’t.

Because defining happiness is like describing a boobie to a blind man. You just have to feel it.

Uh, that word happiness.  It’s such a trigger.

I once heard happiness described as being “As important to living as oxygen.”
At the time, it pissed me off something awful. What wing-nut would equate happiness with life? You can live a perfectly fine life as a miserable bitch—just ask my dog.

Listen, our Founding Father’s did. They even wrote it into our country’s Bill Of Rights — “Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness.”

Have you ever tried to pursue happiness? The big smiley face kind? I have.
That is one slippery, elusive, and habitually unattainable little fucker—when pursued.

That’s the thing. You have to let happiness come to YOU. Find YOU.

What about JOY. If you hate the concept of pursuing happiness, you’re going to loathe the word JOY.

I hear you, Joy sucks. Does it even exist? Joy? I mean really? Who walks around JOYFUL?

Stop being so angry for a second and consider of this:

Have you ever felt curious about something? Approaching it with wonder and awe?

Have you ever been in love? Maybe romantic love has passed you by, but did you ever win a fish at the inky-stink neighborhood Carnival? Or collect ladybugs at the vacant lot around the corner? Or help a hummingbird find its way out of your house?

What about when you fix something that’s been broken? Or find something precious that’s been lost?

I helped a little boy who was lost in Target find his mother.

We are completely blind to the ordinary occurrences in our lives, forever looking, PURSUING, the big, jumping in the air, new pony, fireworks and screaming, Red Ferrari, giant Happy Face moments which, if we’re lucky, happen a handful of times in our lives.

I needed a steadier stream so I learned to redefine what it meant to feel happiness and joy. I expanded the parameters ( Yes, you can do that) to include, well, everything, and I retired my track shoes. I ended the pursuit and opened my eyes.

This says FIND THE JOY IN THE ORDINARY. I say, SEE THE JOY IN THE ORDINARY, that feels SO much more doable to me. How about YOU?

Happy Hump Day y’all,
Carry on,
xox

Dearest body of mine,
I would like to extend my most heartfelt apology for under appreciating you all of these years and for being your harshest critic.

It is high time I write this. It is way past time actually–horribly overdue by years, maybe even decades.

I’m sorry. I can be such an ass.

I certainly deserve your indifference and yet you are so endlessly forgiving.
I could learn something from your example.

Anyway, I’m here to say…I’m sorry. And I love you.

I have repeatedly ignored your wishes, judged you and even called you names.
Tiny department store dressing rooms, covered in carnival mirrors and bright, unforgiving fluorescent lights can attest to that fact.

Please accept my sincerest apology.

Over the years, I have deprived you of sleep, rattled you with stress, covered over your anxiety by overworking you and then made up for it at times by smoking and drinking too much, (which I’m sure is exactly what you did NOT need).

Other times, I have marinated you in a melancholy laced dissatisfaction until it affected your health, at which point you knocked me on my ass with anxiety attacks, Mono, a lung infection, strep throat or some other malady long enough to get my attention and give me time to re-group and let you heal.

Thank you and I’m sorry.

I have systematically starved and over fed you; brutally sunburned you summer after teenage summer; changed your natural hair color and texture too many times to count, tweezed, waxed and lasered you beyond all reason and basically treated you like shit since, well– since I was old enough to get away with it.

And don’t get me started on that face.
Every time I look in the mirror I only see the flaws–the thin chicken lips and over-plucked eyebrows, several deep divots due to teenage acne and just when it looked as if I had come to terms with it all–alas, the wrinkles.

But you always cut me slack. Don’t you just want to strike back at me? Like with a giant forehead zit, you know, the kind that hurt like a mutha or a stye in my eye?

You should! What the hell’s wrong with me?

Just the fact that my eyes have sight, my legs still carry me and that I can hear and smell all the wonders of the world around me–is a lottery win! You are sturdy and strong, hearty and healthy — but why hasn’t that ever been good enough?

I’m so sorry.

As a young woman I was naturally thin, (another unappreciated lottery win), so of course, I wanted to be curvy.
I never appreciated your stellar metabolism for one minute. I took it for granted, stuffing my face with junk food knowing you’d save me from myself, when suddenly at around age forty you dialed it back so that now I have to exercise like an Olympian and watch what I eat–every morsel registering on the scale.

Well-played. I know, I deserved it.

I apologize for never knowing you were good enough just as you were.
Listen, I’d like to call a truce. Can we be friends?

I finally realize you are not some cosmic mistake or last minute consolation prize. I wasn’t supposed to be Cindy Crawford or Florence Joyner. I get that now.

God chose you for me, or better yet, it was a collaboration between both of us before we were born, for the life we were meant to lead.

You house my soul for crying-out-loud–my very essence. We are a team, you and me, so you’d think I would have held you in higher regard.

I am so sorry.

So now, having said all of that,
I don’t care what you weigh as long as you’re healthy.

I don’t care if you can’t run five miles like you used to, your legs are still strong enough to hike–hikes are good.

I don’t care if you have wrinkles. Together we have worried and we have laughed–we earned those lines by engaging in a life well lived.

I promise to try to drink less alcohol (you keep telling me it no longer agrees with you).

I promise to get you checked out on a regular basis, you know, for tune-ups –like the high-performance vehicle you are and trust that you can fix yourself most of the time.

I promise to get enough sleep.

I promise to keep us stimulated, body, mind, and spirit, well into old age.

I promise to quit looking around to see how other women are aging and just be happy and make the most with what I’ve been gifted.

I promise to listen to you and to pay closer attention to what you’re telling me.

You, my glorious friend, are a work of art and a freaking miracle and every creak, groan and crack are there to remind me to treat you with respect–After all, we are a team.

Love you,
xox

Guys,
This came just in time for me!
Just when I thought I was in charge of turning the world, making things grow and rising and setting the sun. Whew! You can imagine my relief when I read that “There are greater forces than us running the show.” Thanks, Liz!

Happy Sunday!
xox

Dear Ones –
Here’s an encouraging reminder, for any of you out there who might still be suffering from the trauma-inducing misconception that you’re supposed to be in charge of shit all the time.

(NOT THAT I HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH THAT MISCONCEPTION!)

Let us not forget: Greater forces than us are running the show. The world doesn’t turn because we personally turn it. Step back for a minute and see how the show still goes on, even when we release the white-knuckle grip we have on the imaginary steering wheel of destiny.
It’s all gonna be OK.

Onward and a big exhale,
LG

Ruby is a boxer-shark teenager girl.

Ruby is a pest.

Ruby is a dog-pleaser.

Ruby is completely self-absorbed.

Ruby will suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

Ruby won’t be ignored.

Ruby wears bright orange polar fleece.

Ruby gets into your face when you just want some peace and quiet. Ask Clyde.

Ruby is a bottomless pit of neediness that can never be filled.

Ruby will shove her face under your chin with her ass in the air just to get you to say I love You —Don’t be like Ruby.

xox

Okay, so, what if I call A Reprise a Flashback? Does it still count? Jim? Help!!
I’ve been feeling Particularly Piraty lately (say THAT fast five times), so fuck that, AND here ya go!

Join me mateys! Join my band of scalawags! Be a Pirate!
Argggghhh,
xox

An original doesn’t conform to expectations — they change them forever.

“It is better to be a pirate, than to be in the navy.”
~Steve Jobs

Being an original is not easy.
As Abraham says: “There is never a crowd on the leading edge.”

So for those of you starting a new, well…anything — listen up.

Unless you have a huge budget for skywriting, a Foo Fighters concert at your book signing, free Sprinkles cupcakes, and car giveaway; there will be crickets a first.

Seriously annoying nothing will happen. Day after day.

“I want the most unusual, badass store in the Valley, a place with one-of-a-kind stuff that I would buy. Hey, listen if I don’t do it two guys from West Hollywood will and I’ll go in there and feel bad as I hand over my American Express card again, and again knowing that I had the idea first.”
~Famous Last Words

I remember days at my store where the phone never rang and no one came in. When I got home I had to clear my throat to speak like you do in the morning when you wake up because I hadn’t used my voice in over nine hours. Like I said, crickets.

Your blog; book; store; talk; product or whatever, will need some back story to be understood, but don’t go overboard with that.
Keep it simple and come from the heart. Heart-Full people will eventually find you and the others, well, they can start their own tribe thank you very much.

Don’t spend too much time explaining yourself
Not to your friends, your wife or potential investors. As you attempt to get validation from the peanut gallery your brilliant creative ideas will get watered down by popular opinion.

If it was easy, made perfect sense, was a sure thing or a slam dunk — there’d be a line at your door and believe me — someone would have already thought of it.

You’re an original.
Original means new, never before attempted.

Uncharted, pirate-infested waters. No map, and oftentimes not all the answers.

Jesus others, what part of original are you not getting?

New Mantra:

People will not be able to pigeonhole you and they will hate that about you. They will also despise you for not conforming.
Happy, creative people doing what they love are annoying to others.

Others also get uncomfortable with square pegs in round holes and if the world is made of round holes and you decide you are a square peg — Grow a thick skin — and don’t say I didn’t warn you…it’s gonna get awkward.

The urge to conform will be seductive.
It will drunk-text you late at night and fill your head with lies.

At one point (or seven), in your endeavor, it will convince you that you fucked up, it will beg you to come back to the fold for an easy ride — and it will be right. It would be easier to conform.
But you will die the very slow death of a thousand paper cuts. And we all know how much those fuckers hurt.

You can’t make everyone like you or that thing you’re doing.
Unless you’re Beyonce or Mother Theresa. It’s an impossible goal so give it up right now Goddamnit.

People will attempt to copy you. Don’t worry about it.
They aren’t YOU, so it will only and always be a lousy karaoke version of your concept. And since it wasn’t their passion, their up in the middle of the night writing new ideas burning desire — they’ll get bored during the crickets phase and drop it.

Imitation has absolutely NO stamina.

Go ahead and exceed what people expect from you — but not to make a point.
Just give your creativity an outlet. Let it flow. Like blood. All over the place.

I post every day. That smokes most bloggers. I do it because I love it. And I didn’t know any better when I started.

Listen, if it was expected of me I know I’d say, “fuck it”.

Many others have given me permission to cut back and some days I do, but I have already exceeded what was expected and as a result that created consistency, trust, and then relationships followed.

You’ve gotta show up. Day in and day out.
When I’m walking around and I stumble upon some cool new shop or cafe that is beckoning me to enter, I can never understand why in God’s name, in the middle of the day, they are CLOSED.
No sign, no hours posted, no nothing.
I don’t care how cutting edge and original you are — show the fuck up. Be open, be accessible, so I can share in your awesomeness.

You may fail. Like big time, skid marks on you face fail.
Think Steve Jobs being fired from his own company. You may taste public humiliation. It’s a bitter pill but you will survive, and most likely flourish.

In closing:
Try not to be an arrogant dick.
Again think Steve Jobs. He was revered — but not well liked — and I know I said people may not like you but when they fire you from your own company…

Often nonconformists have absolutely zero social skills. Mark Zuckerberg for example.
Listen, develop some, break that mold too.
Be kind to others, crack a smile, have some fun.

Be a kind, fun-loving pirate. Think Captain Jack Sparrow — or Sir Richard Branson.

Carry on my square peg pirates,
xox