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Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to admit that intelligent design had something to do with this little experiment we call planet earth, I certainly do!  We celebrated Earth Day the other day and at the risk of getting all preachy on you:

1. Every day is and should be Earth day!
2. A few months ago, a friend sent me this article about trees. Not only do they breathe, they have a pulse, a heartbeat so to speak, every two hours!

https://articles.spiritsciencecentral.com/3-unbelievable-facts-trees/     

The health of Mother Nature and Earth is critical to our survival as a species and if you don’t believe that—go hug a redwood, or swim with dolphins, or simply sit on a porch and watch a late afternoon electrical storm roll in…

Okay. I’m done. Keep breathing everybody.

Carry on,
xox

I call this, brother hugging tree

Churches talk. Especially old stone ones. The statues, the stained glass, and all the voices that have been raised in song and worship are now a part of the wood, glass, and ceiling plaster. And it all has something to say—if you listen.

I was like a lot of you yesterday, emotionally gutted as I helplessly watched Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burn. I have many memories of her. All of them good. All of them sacred nuggets embedded deep into my cells. Her rose windows left me breathless—every damn time. It didn’t matter; dark grey day with little light or super heated summer day with a blazing blue sky, the color wash on the walls was transformative.

She is Paris to me. Mysterious, exquisitely beautiful, and a little over the top. But mostly eternal. To even entertain the notion that Notre Dame would cease to exist was more than I could handle.

Last night, attempting to dive below my grief, which was bubbling right at the surface, I sat to meditate, asking for the ‘bigger picture’, you know, the reasons things happen that stay hidden from us until we ask. Notre Dame did not disappoint; that grand old Dame, started to talk—and she had a lot to say!

Believe it or not, the lady was in dire need of a major facelift and this fire was the path of least resistance for her rebirth.
Real “Phoenix from the ashes” kind of stuff.
You see, they’ve tried over the decades to raise enough money for a major restoration but refurbishing an old cathedral has never really been on the minds of well, anyone but all those amazing people who care about that sort of thing, like historical preservation types, and they just haven’t been able to make the subject sexy enough for people with money to open their wallets.

Long story short, they’ve piecemealed the fixes and they were in the middle of one of these fixes when the fire broke out and it may actually end up being the cause (gasp). Anyway, we all know how it works when you piecemeal shit together—it doesn’t. The new parts just make the old parts look bad, which in turn makes them feel lousier about themselves than they already did and fall into disrepair faster, just to get the much-needed attention. The gargoyles are the WORST— there’s not enough attention in the world for them so naturally they’re crumbling, ready to fall to bits during the next electrical storm—or so says Notre Dame.

By this point, almost nine hundred years into her reign, the ancient cathedral was so sick and tired of looking sick and tired (underneath the fabulous, of course) that she took matters into her own hands and lit a fire (literally) under the Powers That Be for a compete and total restoration—and NOW, finally, that’s what she’ll get.

As I write this, over six-hundred-million euro has been pledged toward her rebirth and it’s been less than twenty-four hours. Additionally, President Macron assures us all that it will be completed in five years. Five years! That’s like nuthin’ in Notre Dame years!

So, in the space of fifteen minutes this venerable old church did what old churches are meant to do—it comforted me.

I don’t mean to get all Jesusy on you, but the timing isn’t lost on anybody, especially me. It’s freaking Holy Week for St. Pete’s sake! A week whose sole focus is death and rebirth. And she’s united the entire world in a way we haven’t seen in decades which, these days, is an Easter miracle. (Another example of Divine intervention— the votive candles along the sides have remained lit—despite the fire, the roof falling in, and the waterfalls of water from the hoses outside—THEY, PEOPLE’S PRAYERS AND INTENTIONS— ARE STILL LIT.)

So, you’ve gotta hand it to the old Dame, she sidestepped total destruction and when the dust settles, she will be a more spectacular version of herself than anyone could have ever imagined. Bravo!

Hot damn Notre Dame—well done! (Sorry, too soon?)

I’m feeling blessed and reborn, how about you?

Carry on,
xox

“And then, when you’re off chasing a dream, you miss out on what’s happening right under your nose.”
~Charles de Lint

Oh, hello Paris, it’s me, Janet…Again.

In my mind, we are old friends given the fact that’s this is the third time in a decade that I’ve visited your beautiful City of Lights.

You might not have recognized me. My hair is a softer shade of red now that I’m rounding the bend toward forty, and I may even resemble a local Parisian woman, not the ‘American in Paris’ tourist whose skin I inhabited the other two times.  Much to my surprised delight a Frenchman asked me, ME,  for directions this very morning.  Anyway, it’s okay if you didn’t know who I was.

Paris: Bon Jour Jeannette, good to see you again. Nope, sorry, you are right, I didn’t recognize you because all American tourists look the same to me.

Me: But the man asked ME… uh…right. Was it sitting on the wall on the banks of the Seine, having my picture taken that gave me away?

Paris: No. Well, yes, that and the metro schedule and map of the city that I can see protruding from the little bag you’re carrying. Also, and I say this with the all the sensitivity I can muster ( I am Paris after all), no self-respecting French woman would be caught dead walking around my city with a sweater tied around her waist.

Me: Right.

Paris: Enough idle chit-chat, what brings you here?

Me: Oh, uh, it’s kind of awkward. I’m here with my boyfriend, but I can see the writing on the wall. We’re here for a friend’s wedding, traveling around Europe for three weeks by train and I’m sorry to say we can now add long distance travel to our ever-expanding list of incompatibilities.

Paris: Right. Sorry. How can I help?

Me: Ugh. I’m so tired. Chasing love for so many years is exhausting. Although…I do have to say I love your men. I think my next serious relationship has to be with a European man.

Paris: Well, Ma Cherie; there’s European men and then there are French men. Do you think you are ready for a Parisian man?

Me: Yeah, sure…no, you’re right…probably not. But I think they are sublime. I’ll aspire to one, yeah, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll…

Paris: You can start by untying the sweater from around your waist. Try your shoulders instead.

Me: Right. Listen, do you think I need to move here to find true love? You know, I’m not getting any younger and I’ve fantasized about doing that for years! What do you say? Rent an apartment here, eat cheese and warm baguette while walking the city, find an amazing jewelry job and a gorgeous French husband all at the same time?

Paris: This may surprise you but—I don’t believe in chasing dreams. I say go back to Los Angeles and be yourself. Wear your sweater as a belt and let the love of a Frenchman find you there. You never know, there could be the Parisian man of your dreams living within a ten-mile radius. Fate will intervene. If you are meant to marry a Frenchman…he will find you. Stop running.

Me:  Thank you Paris. I have to go now. I’m wearing a dress and the rough stone is exfoliating my ass and not in a good way. I love you.

Paris: Je t’aime Jeannette.

This is a true story. Mostly.
Actually, the moment our plane landed back in LA my boyfriend and I broke up. That was okay. I had my European dream and I just kept putting it our there and lo and behold, four years later, on a blind date in Los Angeles…I met the most delicious Parisian man…who it turns out lived within a ten-mile radius of my house. Fortunately, he was able to overlook my poor use of sweaters—and married me nine months later.

To me, that just goes to prove that ANYTHING is possible!

Carry on,
xox

Hi All,
I posted this on Insta this weekend (if you’re not following me, shame on you!) and when I looked at the comments, everyone pretty much agreed that this was a metaphor for life masquerading as story about wisteria.
Take a look and see if you agree.
xox

This never gets old and I’ll never take it for granted since it’s been close to twenty years in the making.

When I bought this house, a friend gifted me with two potted wisteria plants that bloomed anemically for a couple of years.
“Put them in the ground,” someone suggested after getting tired of hearing me complain. “You’ll have better results.”

So I did, put them in the ground; the results unfortunately were…meh..unimpressive.

Then, when we remodeled, I was forced to pull them up and imprison them back in pots for almost two years where they lived unhappily—just barely. If plants can live on neglect and vengeance—that’s what they did.

My dream was to have them frame our newly built outside living room or ‘casbah’, as we call it, but by this point they’d been through the ringer so let’s just say my expectations were…low.

For over seven years they held a grudge, refusing to bloom. People advised me to not to give up hope.
“They’re in shock,” they said, “They’ll bloom eventually, once they feel secure. Be patient.”
Since patience is not a virtue I possess, I forced myself to forget they were a flowering vine and was just grateful for the shade they provided every summer. 

Then, when I least expected it—THIS started to happen and I have to tell you, it’s better than anything I ever expected!
And I can’t even about the fragrance—it’s intoxicating!

Mother Nature. She can be a deliverer of life lessons…a bit of a bitch…and a show off!

Carry on,
xox JB

This is a Reprise from a couple of years ago, but it came to mind today as I watched two old ladies basically audition for Michael Flatley—Lord of The Dance—just to keep from getting stung by a bee. I’m embarrassed to say that I find this kind of thing hilarious and I had plenty of time to watch the show from my place in line outside the driveway of In-N-Out. Do you think this shit happens just to entertain me? I do. Read on… 

I sat in traffic on a crowded tree-lined boulevard today trying to figure out how I could get to the Starbucks drive-thru on the other side of the street without going to jail.

I don’t mean to sound mellow dramatic, but the city planners had placed this caffeine savior on a corner that is almost impossible to get to without repelling from an aircraft. Seeing that I was not in my helicopter, or driving Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang today (if you have no idea what that is–shame on you—and look it up), I had the bright idea to go down a block, get in the left-hand turn lane and swing an illegal u-turn.

Great minds think alike.
The left turn lane had sixteen cars in it blocking the flow of traffic. There, clearly posted, was a black arrow swinging back at itself inside of a bright red circle with a slash through the middle. In other words, the universal sign for no u-turn. Unfortunately, caffeine deprived human beings don’t give a shit about signs. Signs are just suggestions. We want our lattes and we want them NOW!

Besides, there’s safety in numbers, right? 

As I waited for my turn to break the law, out of the corner of my eye my attention was drawn to the bus stop at the corner. There stood a young woman dressed like she was catching the shuttle to Coachella. Let me explain why that matters. We had London weather today. Cool, gray and drizzly. I wore a sweater although most people in LA who are under thirty dress like it’s one-hundred degrees all year ‘round.

In her daisy dukes, crop top, muffin top, and flip-flops, she was flailing around like my aunt doing the chicken dance at a family wedding. At first, I thought she might be having a seizure, but I quickly realized she was being chased by a bee.

I recognized that level of apiphobia.
Once, at a bar-b-que, the cousin of a friend ran straight through a sliding glass door trying to escape a bee. We all assumed she was allergic, fleeing for her life. She was not. She did, however, knock herself unconscious, require seventeen stitches and a splint for a severely broken nose.

Everyone uses anaphylactic shock as an excuse to act like a headless chicken but it’s actually pretty rare to die from a bee sting. Trust me, I looked it up. 

I’ve been stung by a bee half a dozen times in my life and while it hurts like a MoFo, in my opinion what she suffered was way worse than a bee sting. I never saw her again but I always wondered if her overreaction that day cured her of her bee phobia.

Back at the bus stop, I could understand this girls panic given all the prime real estate she displayed.
The amount of skin to clothing ratio must have summoned the bee to come and check her out. Don’t they always show up when you’re in a bikini drinking an orange soda? I suppose it could be the soda that attracts the bees, but they never sting the soda can, aiming their sites strictly on a bikini exposed stomach or the back of a lily-white thigh.

Think about that.

Speaking of soda, my little brother was drinking a soda once when a bee landed on his mouth, deftly placing its front legs on his upper lip and its back legs on his lower lip. Of course, he froze. I think he mumbled “help me” but being the highly dysfunctional family we were, we showed little concern for his well-being. This was funny and we love funny, so instead, we laughed our asses off, my mom took a Polaroid, and someone eventually snicked it off his lips with their thumb and forefinger leaving him shaken, but un-stung.

 Bus stop bee hysteria prevailed. The girl was spinning around frantically, arms in the air, wildly shooing the invisible bee from her hair and swatting at her face. It was the best free street theatre no money could buy. I’m ashamed to say I was riveted. I couldn’t look away. When she narrowly missed running into one of the bus stop poles, I nearly lost it. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Tears were streaming down my face. I think I peed a little.

I felt like such an ass (for a minute) laughing at her that way until I saw her laughing too. Oh, thank god she could see the humor! I guarantee you couldn’t have kept a straight face. The whole thing was hilarious!

Finally, the not so friendly, aggresive, honking from the long line of cars behind shook me from my trance. It was my turn to break the law and I was holding things up. In case you were wondering, when I left the Starbucks, I checked to see how our bee slayer had fared but she was gone. I can only assume she made it safely onto the bus or knocked herself unconscious with her shoulder bag and was in an abulance headed to the hospital.

So, thank you, girl at the bus stop being chased by a bee. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Carry on,
xox

On my way to meet my friend for lunch on Tuesday, as I rushed my face off because I had totally spaced and the only thing that got me away from my computer was her phone call at 12:15, asking me where I was, and did she have the wrong day? 

As an aside can I just say right here and now that I can’t believe I’ve turned into THAT girl—the one who forgets about plans because she’s chasing a dangling participle around a particular paragraph, or worse yet—she gets sucked into a FaceTime vortex that morphs time and spits her out somewhere inappropriate. And late.
Lord. Have. Mercy!

Anywaaaaaaaaayyyyyy…
I was traversing a crowded parking lot when I observed with my own two eyes, something so perverse it filled me with rage.

I saw two millennial men, strolling to their car(s) eating ice cream cones! On a random Tuesday! In broad daylight! 

It wasn’t National Ice Cream Day (I, of all peole would have known) so I had trouble wrapping my brain around what I’d just witnessed. 
Here is just a snippet of my internal dialogue —aka—food rage (maybe you can relate):

Me: Huh. Must be nice. Look at them, they probably think by walking to their car they’re working off the calories.
Men.
I’d have to walk to Nebraska and back just to justify the sugar cone. 
I wonder who’s idea that was? Did one guy say ”Gee, let’s get an ice-cream cone,” and the other guy said “okay” without any argument? Without reciting all of the reasons why that was a bad idea? What are they, nine?
Women don’t do shit like that! We insist we’re full when in reality we’d trade our first-born child for an ice cream cone. Everyone knows women don’t do spontaneous dessert! We have to have an excuse! Like a bad break-up or being on vacation. And even then we feign disinterest.
Me: “Oh, look, a new ice cream shop. Should we go check it out?”
Everybody’s Fucking friend Sheila: “Oh, I don’t know, ice cream, really, we just had lunch.”
Me: “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say, wishing a car would jump the curb right then and put us both out of our misery.
But not these guys! They’re clearly making no excuses!
And it’s obscene the way they’re flaunting it! Strolling like that! Like they’re in some fucking piazza in Tuscany! They have some nerve!!

As much as I wanted to, I could not become the better version of myself. Things started to snowball downhill to a bad place. I wanted to trip them both for acting so carefree, sending their cones splatting onto the pavement. Nobody needs to see that shit out in the open! All it does is makes us feel bad about ourselves! Or better yet, I wanted to accidentally stick my face, tongue extended, into their cones, you know, for quality control purposes…That’s when I almost got hit by a car which pulled me out of my food rage because that’s what happens when a woman of a certain age spirals out of control on account of ice cream. 

Question: Can anyone relate to this or is it just me who’s carrying this deeply buried, unexpressed dessert rage?

Carry on,
xox 

Is this creepy? It feels a little creepy to me. 

I’ve started to attend a local meditation at 9:30 on Sunday mornings. I used to spend the morning hiking, but I do that every weekday, and although you can call hiking a meditation of sorts; you know, outside in nature…with my dog…blah, blah, blah… REAL meditation (at least not this kind) doesn’t involve sweating and pain so, hike…or meditation? 

It wasn’t a hard decision.

The one thing the hike and meditation do have in common is breathing. Actually if you want to get into it, staying alive often involves breathing too, but controlled, or intentional breathing, the kind most of us do well—never—is what I’m referring to here.

The goal is to harness the breath to get you through either forty-five minutes of sitting silently with your legs crossed, or chugging your way up a hill, because both for me would be torture without the breath. Long, long, ago, I was taught deep breathing involving the diaphragm. Your diaphragm lives in the vicinity of your belly and there’s the rub. 

As counterintuitive as it may seem, breathing like this involves pushing your belly out on the inhalation—and contracting your belly on the exhale. Exactly the opposite of how most people breathe and when I say most people I mean women. As women, we spend every waking moment sucking in our stomachs. It’s a reflex we learned the moment we tried on our first bikini.

Stand and inhale, suck it in. Sit and inhale, suck it in.Walking and sucking, running and sucking, swim-suck, dance-suck, everywhere a suck suck. You get the picture.

So being told to push your stomach OUT is tantamount to being told to wear your vagina as a brooch. It ain’t gonna happen.

I had a friend confide to me that the happiest time of her life was when she was pregnant. “Yeah, sure I was growing a human being in my body and it was a freaking miracle, but you know what else was a miracle?” She asked, not waiting for me to answer. “My hair! It was so thick it looked like a wig (is that a good thing?) and for at least six months I didn’t have to suck in my stomach! Seriously, it was liberating! I never let anybody confuse my little pot belly in the beginning for too much pizza, I’m pregnant! I‘d scream, if anybody even looked at me sideways. I couldn’t wait until my belly was the size of a watermelon!  No more excuses! I was gigantic and nobody cared about my food consumption and exercise regimen.”

“That is quite the testimonial,” I said.

“God, what I wouldn’t give for that now,” she said, pushing a piece of kale around her lunch plate. “I never did loose that last ten pounds.” I could see her actively sucking in her stomach.

Which leads me to shallow breathing.

All of this to say: shallow breathing is our default setting and it’s not healthy. Physiologically it’s terrible for us and it triggers anxiety. Spanx should be labeled a health hazard (But let’s get real here, if they were against the law I’d still wear mine under penalty of prison). 

I was reminded of all this after a few of the young women in meditation simply could not push out their stomachs. “Oh, I can’t,” they giggled self-consciously. I threw up a little in my mouth. They may as well have been asked to breathe under water. Or give up Twitter. They acted like it was physically impossible for their body to function that way. Pahleeeez.

Fine. We’re all just a bunch of shallow breathers.

After class, me and the woman who leads the thing exchanged eyerolls, even though I’m sure inside those comfy yoga pants of hers—she was sucking in her stomach.

I know I was.

Carry on,
xox

This is from back in 2016. I was reminded of it, (try to stay with me, it may be a challenge) because my husband sent me a text earlier today, letting me know that “The city is covered in butterflies.” I spent a good amount of time wracking my brain to figure out what he meant because, well, he speaks in metaphors. And sometimes they’re French. And they’re always obscure. 

Did he see a bunch of little girls in tutus? Were people flying kites at the beach? I dunno. Eventually I gave up. 

 Later, I was out driving and well, I’ll be damned if the air wasn’t filled with butterflies! Hundreds of actual butterflies who were obviously on their way to lunch. And the best part was (yes, it gets better) they were managing to navigate their way above the traffic. Not a splat in sight! 

They were freakin’ butterfly matadors! Or Coreadors. (Not Toreadors because no horse, but you get the picture.)

xox

“Beyah mahtahdah!”He yelled in his frequently indiscernible accent.
“Wait. What?” I whimpered pitifully in the middle of a six-lane highway, traffic whizzing by us on both sides.
“Beyah mahtahdah!”
I shook my head, shrugged my shoulders, and threw both arms in the air which as we all know is the universal sign for, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE SAYING!

Not waiting for a break, he grabbed my hand and ran us both out into traffic, weaving and bobbing in between cars out to a place I try REALLY hard to never find myself. The middle of a busy intersection.

There are no words in the English langauge to express how much I hate that shit. Glockenspiel will have to do for now.
Here’s the thing, I will NOT play chicken in traffic. Why?
1) Because I have a brain in my head that very much wants to stay there and not become a splat on a windshield and…
2) There is no place I need to be in such a red-hot hurry that I can’t wait for a break in traffic, or walk to the corner cross walk thank you very much.

But to my French husband, a red light is simply a suggestion and jaywalking on a busy boulevard is a bloodsport—a skill he mastered as a youth on the impossibly dangerous streets of Paris.

It is a bullfight. And he/we were Matadors. Gulp.

Me: (leaning in, yelling above the noise of the cars) I’m gonna…we’re about to…wait, what? Did you say…a matador?

Husband: Yes! Stand still! Don’t let the cars smell your fear.

Me: (Squeezing his hand like a vice grip, hoping to illicit pain) Seriously? Are you crazy? What are you talking about?

Husband: (Yelling back at me through a smirk) Listen to me, all the greatest Matadors are French!

Me: You’re kidding me right? They are so NOT French—they’re Spanish!

Did you see what he did there? He took my mind off of my predicament, knowing I would argue with him.
Well-played husband, well-played.

Husband: I’m telling you, they’re French! They’re called Coreadors.

I was laughing my nervous hyena laugh. Mostly at the absurdity of the conversation and the fact that I hadn’t made any plans to die that day. I’m sure I appeared squirmy and maybe just a tad hysterical. That comes from knowing that you’re probably going to end up as some random, gray-haired stain on the front hood of a Prius.

Me: Shut. Up. They are NOT!

Husband: (Leaning in, yelling above traffic) Or Toreadors. Those are the guys on horseback. 

Me: (Feeling queasy. close enough to death to relate to the bull) Uhhh! Stop! Bullfighting is barbaric! The French don’t have bullfighting! They’re WAY too civilized for that!

Husband: (Amused by my argument) That’s what YOU think!

By the way, can you believe we were still standing in the middle of a busy street? Me neither, but we were!

Me: (Wishing I’d ordered the french toast as my last meal) Egads. Bullfighting. Brutal. Whoever thought that was a good idea?

Husband: The Romans.

Me: Figures. Rome. Brutality central. 

With that, the last car hurtled past us as he yanked my hand and ran me to the safety of our car on the opposite side of the street. We were both laughing, not at bullfighting because it’s a horrible practice* —but at the absurdity of our entire conversation.

Husband: God, you can be such a baby!

Me: God, you’re weird! And damn, the Romans were assholes!

Some story on the radio in the car changed the subject, but I had to share this.

Words from a French wise guy I know: When you’re in the middle of chaos—stand still—be a matador.

Carry on,
xox

*Don’t get your panties in a bunch. We are in no way condoning bullfighting and no bulls were killed in the telling of this story.

Have you ever wanted something so bad you could taste it? Like dark, black chocolate on the tip of your tongue, or a sour patch kid that made the glands in your neck ache? Like that visceral? Something so big it could change the trajectory of your life? (Although I don’t recommend putting that kind of pressure on, well, anything.)

What did you do?

Did you go after it, or did the courage run out of you like melted ice cream through a cone on a hot August day? 

I only ask because I took a shot as brazen as a half court toss at an ALL STAR  game, hopeful, no, make that knowing—that I would make the basket—NO net—and then I didn’t. You have to admire that about me. I have so much conviction in the most unlikely of circumstances. It’s either endearing as hell—or bat shit crazy. No one can decide.

Thwack! was the sound the ball made as it hit the headboard, or the backboard, or whatever they call that clear plastic thingy behind the basket that keeps the ball from killing the crowd. 

I hear it was a near miss, but it was a miss just the same. 

I tried to duck but the thing had momentum as it careened off my face, bounced once, and hit me in the gut knocking the wind out of me. That’s when I realized there was no ball or missed throw, I had probably just swallowed my Adams apple on account of disappointment.

The crowd laughed. Not really. Nobody said a word. 

Even the voices in my head had the decency to take a short coffee break. And if you ask me, that’s why the feeling of having failed on an epic scale only lasted a few seconds. No peanut gallery dared chime in. They just let me marinate for a sec. When I regained my breath I read the email again. It was so fucking polite and encouraging it almost made me forget they’d rejected my work. Almost.

Maybe reject is too strong a word. They took a pass sounds better. Less soul crushing.

“We hope this “no” lights a fire in you to chase that “Yes”! Were their exact words. Who’s soul can stay crushed when they put it that way? Not mine, that’s for sure, especially since I’m profoudly NO challenged. Always have been. Cannot take it for an answer—EVAH!

Someone much wiser than me once said, “Disappointment is taking score too soon.”  And being a retired “scorekeeper” I immediately tried to tally how many years I’d wasted, until I ran out of fingers and toes and then I just decided I had to take that advice to heart.

Besides, when is no ever really no? I mean in my book (the only one that matters) it’s always been the placeholder for not yet.

I’m not gonna get into the weeds with this thing, I’m only here to encourage everybody to take chances in their lives. To get into the game. To do the hard things. To feel scared. To stretch like a goddamn piece of saltwater taffy. I’m not gonna lie, the sting of rejection—yeah, it hurts, but it only lasts a second, like a flu shot. And even though a part of me felt like shit, a bigger part of me was absolutely EXHILERATED!  Because for me, knowing that I never even tried was unacceptable.

Ask anyone who’s had any success and they’ll tell you about all the times they got knocked down to the ground. But, honey, at least they were in the arena.

Since at my age, unless you’re attempting something extraordinary you rarely, if ever, hear the word NO, (seriously) I have had a pretty amazing day processing all of this. And I have to say that as the disappointment faded, the void that was left was filled with something unexpected… pride. For having the audacity to dream as big as I did. 

All of this to say, you guys, please don’t live small, afraid of the pain. DREAM BIG! You can take it from me, it’s not gonna kill ya, l know that because last time I checked—I wasn’t dead.

Carry on,
xox

The other day I found out that I’m allergic to basil. Not in a peanut allergy, drop dead kind of way, but still! That’s like being told you’re allergic to puppies or Oprah. I mean what did basil ever do to anybody besides inspire the invention of pesto and be delicious?

Apparently, for me it was symptom-less. Sneaky. On the sly, late at night, it caused gut inflammation that only some fancy blood test dared reveal. And as we’ve all been brainwashed into knowing, inflammation is the leading cause of evil in the world. You may have thought is was global warming or Alex Jones, but I’m here to tell you—it’s inflammation. 

Inflammation has other talents too, it masquerades as belly fat and belly fat not only causes your pants to fit tight in the waist but baggy AF in the ass (which can make the jean-buying experience even more harrowing than it already is, and causes a serious slide toward elastic waisted yoga pants)—it is a precursor to heart disease because let’s get real here—the heart is a drama queen that can’t be ignored, even for a second, lest it suck all the oxygen out of the room. (Sarcasm intended.)

I’m heartbroken that in order for my heart to mind its own business and my pants to fit properly I’ll have to live a Caprese salad, pesto free life. But I’ll live. And the next time I go to Italy none of this will count. 

Next on the list was soy, but that one I understood perfectly!

In most bodies soy just turns to poop, but in other bodies, soy can turn into estrogen. My body took that little suggestion and ran with it while completely ignoring the other suggestions like the one about chocolate triggering an endorphin that makes eating it as good as sex (it’s not—unless your partner is covered in it—then maybe) and red wine having an anti-aging property (if that were true I’d be fucking Benjamin Button).

Nope. My body is a fucking mad scientist where estrogen is concerned. The Magic Merlin of this hormone laden secret sauce. A Jessica Rabbit look-alike alchemist gone awry. Estrogen makes you…womanly, whatever THAT means. My body heard ‘boobs!’ and interpreted that as something womanly women everywhere must want (they don’t) so the moment it heard that thing about soy it/she became overzealous and indiscriminating— turning EVERYTHING I ate into estrogen. 

Soup. 

Pringles.

Airport sushi.

green tea.

Churros.

Fucking EVERYTHING.

My doctor and I had a of decade of good laughs about this. 

“It can be a blessing,” she said one day after looking at my estrogen levels which could have given a thirty-year-old’s a run for her money. 

I was fifty-two at the time. 

“Your skin will stay moist… and you won’t dry up like an old lady,” she reassured me with a wink, wink at fifty-five.

Meanwhile I was growing a baseball team of fibroids who soaked happily in bubbling hot tubs of estrogen the mad scientist kept replenishing. 

All that to say, soy has never been my friend. I may have had skin supple enough to baffle the dermatologists, (or it could be my mother’s genes, the DNA test hints) and yet, I remained one edamame away from a hysterectomy which finally happened because someone couldn’t practice dietary self-restraint. 

I’m not sure I like these fancy tests that tell you all about yourself. I think I was better off not knowing what I know so I don’t have to feel bad about not listening to any of it. Besides, being afraid of inflammation is highly overrated, don’t you think?

I mean sometimes a stomach ache is just a bad burrito. Am I right? 

Carry on,
xox