writing

I was talking by to a dear friend today about meditation and what a challenge it can be trying to fit this annoying exercise in futility invaluable tool into our busy lives.

“I’m lucky to grab five minutes!” She explained as we shared a decadent grilled cheese, tomato and ham sandwich from one of our favorite local haunts.

“That’s better than nothing” I replied with a mouth full of golden, drippy cheese.

“Yeah, well, just as I sat down to meditate yesterday, my husband barged into the room and ruined the vibe.”

Don’t you hate when that happens? I fucking hate when that happens!

It seems like just when I settle in, the gardener shows up with his bliss-shattering leaf-blower. Or my fifty-pound dog decides to jump in my lap.

I hate the interruption—but I don’t let it derail me. Let me explain.

As I’ve expressed here many times, I sucked at mediation…for decades!
I strained and struggled, I sought out the advice of gurus and I studied it endlessly.

One meditation teacher I had back in the early 80’s played loud music, usually Led Zeppelin, for an hour as we, his devoted idiots, students, sat in lotus, desperately trying not to mouth the lyrics. “Quiet the mind!” He’d yell over the voice Robert Plant.

Yeah, right.

One guy who was supposedly an Enlightened Master had us try to meditate with our feet submerged in ice water. That only made me have to pee.

Another teacher used the sounds of the city to try to sharpen our focus. She’d swing the doors and windows wide open allowing the symphony of traffic and sirens to bounce off the walls surrounding us in noise.

You guys, I sucked so bad at all of this. I mean, SO bad.

Trying to wrangle my focus long enough to settle my mind seemed as unattainable as a twenty-two inch waist.

Finally, my Shaman, yes, I had a kind of personal pocket-Shaman in the nineties, (long story) had no patience whatsoever for my endless complaining. “It’s easy to meditate in a dark and quiet room”, he’d say. “Child’s play!”

Yeah, right.

“The goal is to find stillness inside of the chaos.”

Didn’t I see that on a bumper sticker or an ad for Ambien?

“Right. Stillness inside chaos. Tell that to my monkey mind. It’s throwing its own poop right now!

Silently, (because who can argue with that compelling an image) he walked me over to a computer and pulled up a picture of a hurricane from Space.

“Look at this. Nature knows. See the eye? The eye is stillness inside of chaos. Be the eye.”

Well, shit.

But ya know what? One day all of that practice I’d had at focusing my mind in the midst of chaos paid off. I’m pretty sure I could meditate for a least five minutes next to a jack hammer—because I’ve done it!

And if you can do that, the next thing you’ll notice is that you won’t lose your mind in traffic—you won’t blow a gasket in the ten-items-or-less line at the supermarket when the guy in front of you has ten cases of different soups that have to be scanned separately—and you can sit with a group of co-workers, serenely sipping your latte while Bob, the guy in accounting, talks on and on about how Trump has made America great again.

All of this to say, practice pays off you guys. Five minutes leads to seven, seven minutes leads to ten, and the next thing you know, you’ll be so removed from the chaos you won’t know where your nose is or even if you have a face—and you won’t hear the timer go off.

I promise.

Trust me, it can happen. I’ve cleaned many a poopy wall—I know the struggle is real!

Carry on,
xox

Hi Loves,
Holy Moly…
Transformation is messy, and difficult and at times infuriating! Don’t lose hope. Don’t throw in the towel at the 11th hour.


Remember, before the caterpillar’s transformation into the beautiful butterfly is complete—it is literally soup.

Whatever you do, don’t open the chrysalis before you’re cooked!
Please, don’t take score too soon.

We are ALL in the process of transformation, the journey from one point to the next spanning our entire lives. You WILL get to your destination – you WILL metamorphose, of that I am sure.

The grander, more ambitious and fantastical the transformation – the more hellacious it seems during the process.

Don’t listen to the soup. The soup is well…soup. It’s uncomfortable and ugly and incomplete. The soup doesn’t know shit and it doesn’t give good advice.

Soon you’ll take flight,
Love you, Carry on,
xox

THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

(the law of) diminishing returns
phrase of diminish

1. Used to refer to a point at which the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

I talked to a man recently, a very accomplished man, who acts like he has the world by the tail. And by that I mean, he looks down on everyone who hasn’t had the good fortune of being him.

Whatever life decisions you’ve made, however you’ve invested your money, even what music you listen to is met with a pursed lip to go along with his disapproving face. (I have it on good authority that when you purchase them at the Smug Store—they come as a pair.)

That’s okay, dude. Gimme all ya got. I worked in Beverly Hills for two decades. Water off a duck’s back.

All evening long, as I listened to his risk averse, conservative, privileged and inflexible views on life, I couldn’t help but wonder, How does his poor wife put up with this shit?

Then I remembered. She does it by trotting off on one of her horses, that’s how.

Oh, dear God, how I wish I had that ability.

The ability to bend to someone else’s will. The ability to let someone else run my life. To bankroll it with every string attached. And then buy me a pony to reward my compliance.

I wish I had a price for my silence. It would have made my life SO much easier.

Because, you see, I was born with a big mouth. A big, loud, mouth that says stuff that makes guys like that shrivel in their underpants. Stuff like, “You’re not the boss of me!” And “Take your fucking pony and shove it!”

Some women trade all of the flack, disagreements, head-butting, and power struggles that happen in relationships for diamonds, vacations, fast cars and ponies.

Not me. I call that foreplay… Or Tuesday.

Unfortunately for me, (and probably for any man who has had a serious relationship with me) I have never been one of those women you could placate with bling. Biting my tongue and swallowing my opinions is much too high of a price to pay—for such little reward.

The law of diminishing returns.
Just one of the laws I have come to live by.
Along with no right turn on red, and chew before swallowing.

Carry on,
xox

If you’re feeling insignificant, wondering what your place is in this vast and complicated universe, take a look at this link.

https://ispot.tv/a/wNKu

I know, its a car commercial, but the images are gorgeous and the words gave me the feels.
I wish I’d written it!

Look up.

Carry on,
xox

See this stump? It may look like your run-of-the-mill vine that has been cut-down-to-the-bone. But oh, she is so much more than that!

Let me recap. This summer we suffered through a rat infestation so virulent that it made the biblical plagues look like the work of amateurs. Once we discovered that the rats were treating the gorgeous, perpetually blooming Bougainvillea that graced our back fence like a crack house, begrudgingly, we were forced to cut it all back.

That’s when we realized that the sixty-plus year old Bougainvillea had been holding up the equally aged fence. Our first clue came when it fell down. It collapsed like the house of cards we didn’t know it was and left us no choice but to build another.

Today I herby christen last summer as the Rat Bastard Summer of Limited Choices.

Anyway, this stump, and the Bougainvillea as a whole became what my husband likes to call “collateral damage”.

I hate that term.

In my experience, what that means is: We unintentionally broke, cut, demo’d, or otherwise destroyed something you love, and you seem mad—so we tell you it couldn’t be avoided.

Once the fence had been removed I asked the gardener (not my beloved Pedro, his assistant) to cut the Bougainvillea back even further so the guys could build a new fence without being impaled.

That night when I saw their handiwork I almost cried. I’m familiar with this type of eager overreach. Throughout my life I’ve suffered at the hands of your random hairdresser, trained by Edward Scissorhands, who left me with a hatchet job of a haircut so heinous that no hat could disguise the damage.

I was convinced my self-esteem would never recover.

And I was just as convinced that this Grand Dame of bougainvillea’s recovery would be sketchy at best. She is over sixty after all and they desecrated and disrespected her, whittling her into a popsicle stick.

“She’s dead. They killed her!” I moaned, with the same level of tortured angst usually reserved for roadkill, my favorite characters who’ve been killed off in a novel…or everyone on Game of Thrones.

I was furious.

But here it is, three months later, and just like my husband said as he reassured me that hot September night, she has risen from the dead. I have to bite my lip to keep from weeping as I write this.

Reliance is her middle name (she won’t tell me her first, she doesn’t trust me anymore).

From this day forward, when I feel beaten down and defeated, cut down and undermined. And when I feel ugly as a stump. I will look outside at this beautiful old woman, the crone of my backyard, who had the will to rise above the worst take a little off the top, collateral damage in the history of the world—and know that my problems aren’t worth shit.

Carry on,
xox

INTANGIBLE
in·tan·gi·ble
inˈtanjəb(ə)l/
adjective

Unable to be touched or grasped; not having physical presence.
“God seems so intangible”
synonyms:impalpable, untouchable, incorporeal, discarnate, abstract

Settling for the believable.
What?
Why?
No fucking way!

I learned this week that the TED talks want you to have documented proof and data to support your talk.

Fuck. That just makes me mad (no TED talk for me) and worse than that it makes TED a very dull boy.

What about the intangible?

I was reminded this week about certain properties of quantum physics. The fact that everything at the sub-atomic level is made up mostly of …empty space.

Including you and me. And the chair you’re sitting in while you read this.

Yet, we’ve all agreed to see things as solid.

What about the fact that particles make up atoms and yet those atoms contain properties NOT found in particles.
Then atoms gather together and make up molecules yet those molecules contain properties that are NOT present in atoms.
Molecules make up cells and…you guessed it, same thing.

So… we are made up of those cells with all of that unexplainable stuff inside.

Huh.

So far the intangible is waaaaaay more interesting to me than the easily believable. The stuff that adds up. The stuff that makes sense (yawn).

Talk to me more about the abstract, the impalpable; the divine.

“I don’t believe in things that can’t be proven,” said the little shit with the pocket protector.

Oh really Pointdexter? What about dark matter, string theory and the Higgs Boson Particle? Huh?

What about babies?
An egg and sperm collide (and that’s no easy task) and instantly cells start dividing. And somehow contained in those cells are an eyebrow, a penis and a heart that beats. Not only that, the whole thing mysteriously knows how to arrange itself. The penis does’t show up on your face and your heart at the bottom of your foot.

IT KNOWS WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO.
At a cellular level.

It doesn’t arrange itself in a random pattern and become a turnip.
No woman I know of has given birth to a turnip.
Neither has any ape, elephant, cat or chicken.

What plays a role in that? Something intangible?

Where does love come from?
Alaska? Italy? (well, maybe Italy).
Can you order it on Amazon?

Where does it originate?

What about a great idea?
Inspiration? Work of art or piece of music?

I know they are received by the mind, but where do they come from?

Is there a documented storehouse for that?

“Um, hello, yes, I’d like to order two great ideas and if I could get those by Friday that would be great. What? That’s extra?
Fine, put it on my Visa.”

I will not settle for the believable. And neither should you.

Remember we’re all looking for wonder and wonder isn’t even in the same zip code as the believable, the mundane or predictable.

Go ahead TED —ask for data.
You know that white board the study is written on is made up of empty space, right?

Carry on in the most intangible way,
xox

As another year ends, I’m tempted to resolution the shit out of 2018. Like really give it the once over and tell it who’s boss.

But what if FIRST—before leaping forward—I looked back at 2017 with something resembling…satisfaction? Is that even possible for me?

Like you, I had a parent growing up, who could not find it in himself to praise an accomplishment—no matter how big or small. I can only assume that his fear was that I would find a giant pile of laurels and rest on them comfortably…into perpetuity.

“Sure, that’s all good and well but what about…” was his tag line when dolling out any kind of praise. And by praise I mean lack of criticism.

I realize this is like speaking greek to all of the millennials out there who think they’re hot shit right out of the womb, but to the rest of us, who had the privilege or misfortune (depending how you look at things) to be born in the twentieth century, we are hardwired to always be striving for better or more.

Nothing is ever “good enough.”

And THAT, my friends, is a recipe for disaster every January 1st.

Resolutions can loom large. And they can be debilitating.

I’m at my bff, Steph and her hubby’s new house as I write this, in the gloriously dark and damp Pacific Northwest Besides being such a welcome change of scenery for this dried up, smoke saturated Los Angeleno, looking around I can see all of the improvements they’ve made in the two-ish short months they’ve lived here and I must say—I’m wildly impressed. Not just a little bit impressed—WILDLY.

But here’s the thing, I’m certain if you ask her she has a list a mile long of what still needs to be done. No laurel resting for Steph!

We all have that laundry list of things yet unaccomplished.
And that thing is ravenous, growing exponentially by the minute as it taunts us in our father’s voice late at night when we’re trying to sleep.
“Sure, that’s all good and well, but…”

What did you cross off your list this year? No matter how miniscule I want to be the first to congratulate you with a hearty “Job well done!”

Doesn’t that feel nice?

In my humble opinion, any movement forward is commendable, even if it seems more like a cha-cha than a sprint.

I grow barnacles on my body like a piece of driftwood lost at sea for decades.
Skin tags, moles and such, so finally this year I had my entire naked body checked by a young, male doctor (kill me now) for cancer and had several benign moles removed in the process. Every morning when I look in the mirror, I have a flash of satisfaction followed by many minutes of disappointment when I see the twenty or so barnacles still waiting to be scraped away.

It’s like that for me with every unfinished project, broken promises made to myself, and goals left un-met. I take no pleasure in the items that are crossed off my list—I only feel shame for the items that remain.

That’s fucked up.

So, I guess as this complicated, hard to understand year passes into the history books (and believe me, it will) I wish that all of us—each and every one of us knows that we are great!

We are not only great—we are resilient af, and filled with love, humor and most of all…

We are enough.

Pass it on. I’m telling you, so now I’d love it if you’d turn to someone you know, someone who really needs to hear this, (which in my estimation is everyone on the planet) and tell them ever so gently—you are enough.

Many blessings to you, my tribe,

Carry on,
xox

“I work 8 hours, I sleep 8 hours, that leaves 8 hours left for…what?”

I was listening to a podcast today and this “old saying” stopped me in my tracks.

Well, the big, juicy melted piece of gum I stepped in while I was listening and traversing the parking lot at Target actually DID stop me in my tracks. A stop so dead—I walked right out of my shoe.

I kid you not.

Seeing that we are deep into December, I had to park so far away that the actual Target store was just a speck on the horizon. I’m sure someone left their gum, like a bread crumb, to mark the trail back to their car so…I can’t really be mad, can I?
But enough about my glamourous life.

Back to the saying. You know, the myth that implies that there are more than enough hours in a day.

You work eight hours.
Stop laughing.
I know we’re smack dab in the middle of the holidays and what with shopping and wrapping and all—the Elves up at the North Pole have a shorter work day. And better benefits. And terrific catering. Nevermind.

So… you work.

Anyhow, you sleep eight hours. But seriously, who does? I’m lucky to get seven. This morning I woke up at 3 am because I thought I saw an orange glow down the hall and knew for sure the tree was on fire.
It wasn’t.

Too late, adrenaline rushes don’t keep regular office hours.

Then I couldn’t remember all of the reindeer names or get that damn song out of my head.
I lay there wondering where on earth my pine nut cookie recipe went and the next thing I knew it was 4am and all I could think about was how good coffee would taste with a pine nut cookie—so I got up and made some. Coffee. Not the cookies. I’m still at a loss.

So…You sleep.

But you guys, that still leaves at least several, maybe four, hours left to do whatever you want.

My friend says those hours are reserved for worrying.
Yikes.
My hubby says traffic on the 101 freeway chews up his spare time.
Jeepers, people.

What about eating?
Sex anybody?
Holiday merriment?

I decided to paint with a broad brush.
“I work 8 hours, I sleep 8 hours, that leaves 8 hours left for… FUN!”

That sounds downright illegal, doesn’t it? Fun? Really? And for eight hours? Oh, sweet Jesus, help me!

But fun can be anything, right?

A glass of pink champagne for no reason?

Maybe it’s staying up after everybody else goes to bed to binge watch Netflix.

What about going out to lunch and catching up with an old friend?

Today, my friend Kim and I played hookie and went to see a movie—in the middle of the day!

How would you complete that sentence? Gimme some hints, I’d love to know.

Carry on,
xox

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“Christmas is a baby shower that went totally overboard.”
~ Andy Horowitz

I’m about to reveal something so subversive that you may have to look away. I’m not putting up a Christmas tree this year!

Now, let me stop you right here. Before you call me a shrink or start a Go Fund Me page—let me explain.

Since I’m leaving to go visit friends starting on December 26th, I’m pretty sure I’d lose my mind and just napalm the place if I came back to a dead tree covered in ornaments that need boxing the first week of January (and I know it would be as dried out as my lips because the humidity in California is in the single digits.)

But don’t worry about me! So as not to fall into a deep eddy of despair, I decorated the hearth within an inch of its life with garland and waaaaay too many twinkle lights-but the garland is fake—so no pine smell— which as you all know I LIVE for—so, maybe you’re right.

Send cookies. Now!

Anyhow, I’m “trying it on”.
I’m “leaning in” as they say, to a tree-less Christmas.
Right? Are you vomiting yet?

Listen, I’m not gonna lie. A large part of me loves the ease and simplicity of it all.
But…
If I dwell on any of it for more than a minute (no tree, minimal baking and carols) well, I burst into tears so I don’t.
Dwell that is.

And isn’t that what the holidays is all about?
A toxic soup of mixed emotions bubbling just under the surface ready to boil over?

So I decided to focus on the things I’m grateful for.
Because if I go down that other road…there may be sheet cake.

Things I’m grateful for:

Eyelashes growing back after the Great Eyelash Extension Allergy Debacle of 2017.
Along those lines, I’m so grateful that magnetic lashes were exposed as the con that they are. Even Rita Wilson, a woman who loves everyone and everything posted a picture in her Instagram with a snarky caption that said something like Fuck you magnetic eyelashes! You big scam! (I might be paraphrasing).

I’m grateful that we don’t live on Venus. Each day lasts 243 Earth days! Just think of it, December would last the equivalent of twenty Earth years.
Kill me now.

I’m grateful for pie. And for the diners that have a “burger with pie
special.”

I’m so incredibly grateful for all of my female friends. You inspire me every day and i love you more than pie.

I’m grateful that my house hasn’t burned to the ground despite being surrounded by fire for the past week or so. Thank you to the awesome firefighters!

I’m grateful for Spanx. Full stop. No explanation needed.

I’m grateful that my uterus has left the building.  Even though she stayed too long at the party, she served me well and was a righteous old broad.

I’m grateful for all of the exciting projects on the horizon for 2018. I have no idea what they are—but I know they always show up.

I’m grateful that I have writing as my rant receptacle, creative outlet.

I’m grateful for love and dogs and candles and love, did I say love already? And cold noses and hot coffee and selfie filters and family, diamonds and love and hugs and love and boobs and love.

What are you grateful for?

Carry on,
xox

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This is a new Shots of Awe where Jason rants on risk, creativity and failure.

Most people shy away from ranting on failure but I happen to believe, like my buddy Jason here, that it’s extremely rant worthy.

A while back I even wrote failure a love letter.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/my-love-letter-to-failure_b_8198096.html

I wrote it because I truly believe that failure has taught me SO much more than success—and sometimes late at night, after a glass of wine or four, I write love letters that are really only rants on paper.
I do.
Look for yours in the mail.

Carry on,
xox