writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, I totally get it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m getting warmer…
Carry on,
Xox

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

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

I do that. A lot.

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

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

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

But who doesn’t do that, right?

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

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

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

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

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

Carry on,
xox

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

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

Why do we choose to live so small?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But why the hell not?

Who’s with me?

Hey batter, batter!
xox

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

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

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

BECAUSE IT’S CALLED CHLOE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carry on,
xox

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

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

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

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

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

In AA they call it letting go and letting God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks.

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

Okay, fine.

Carry on,

xox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sourly odoriferous. That’s the smell!

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

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

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

Has that ever happened to you?

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

We take that you take that shit wherever we go.

Damn, you guys are good!

Carry on,
xox

Generally speaking, I’d be described as an optimist. A Pollyanna even. I think that’s been determined.

So naturally, people come to me to have their spirits lifted. To lighten their emotional load, so to speak.

What ends up happening if I’m not careful about my energy is: I cheer them up—and they cheer me down.

Not too long ago I consoled a friend whose business had fallen on hard times. I can do this, I thought through her torrent of tears.

No big deal. My business tanked almost seven years ago. I’m over it! I said to myself. And I meant it.

But her stories of debt collectors, empty bank accounts, no customers, and an evil, puss-pocket, scum-bag, hell beast, shit gibbon of a partner (he must have been related to my landlord), sent me down the rabbit hole.

Obviously.

Before I took my journey to hell, I did manage to mumble a few things I thought might help. She felt so much better when she left. “I feel so much better”, she said. That’s all I remember. My transformation into Zohar, the gatekeeper of hell had already begun, so my understanding of the English language was getting sketchy.

Driving home I got a splitting headache and a couple of hours later I was in full-on migraine mode. (Muttering incoherently in a dark room about f*cknobs, the horrors of retail and shit, with breath that could peel your face off—and an attitude to match.)

WTF?

It doesn’t happen to me a lot, but more often than I’m comfortable with and I see you my coach/motivational expert/fellow optimist friends. I see your exhaustion, your edge, and your drastic need for a break. This shit can wear you down!

We have no problem listening to our friends vent about their shit. But maybe we’re not doing anybody a favor by re-telling the story. I know, I know! We do it because we love them (and they’ve sat through our endless shit sessions.)  But I’ve gotta say, it is hard work keeping their shit from sticking to my shoes. Especially if I’ve been through anything even remotely similair—which is pretty much everything they’ve been through.

The optimist in me has started to scream Awwwwww! My arm! My arm!

Besides that, I’ve started to remember the advice of someone very wise who was trying to help me crawl out of a deep eddy of despair over twenty years ago. Talking about something over and over again is NOT helpful, and he refused to do it, much to my dismay.

He would hear my sad story ONCE. Only one time would he listen before holding his hand up and shushing me. That’s right, he shushed me! (Truth be told, that was the only way to shut me up once I was on a roll.)

“You think you’re going to find answers to your problems by talking about them”, he said, “but the answers aren’t found in the problem and it’s just making it worse. It’s keeping you from progressing and I won’t stay there with you.”

I think that’s when I lunged over the table with a fork and threatened to tenderize his face. I wanted him to hurt as much as I was hurting, and that’s the truth.

He would have none of it.

Because he knew how sticky that shit is when you give it life with words. “When you give it language, you give it power”, he said. And he wasn’t willing to be cheered down. Not under any circumstances. Not even love.

Plus, if he’d gone to the depths with me—I wouldn’t be here today. Swear to God. I needed him to stay with his head above water so he could throw me a line when I was drowning. You know what they say about rescuing someone who’s drowning: Be careful or they’ll pull you down with them.

So, I guess my advice to all of you optimistic uplifters out there would be (if you’re asking), speak briefly to each other about the shit. Don’t dwell on it and if you’re not up to it energetically—don’t sacrifice how you feel–even to temporarily lift a client/friend.

And check your shoes. ‘Cause that shit can stick.

How do you feel about this? Do you hate it? Does it feel shallow and selfish and other names that start with an “s”? Or are you strangely relieved? Like, thank God I have permission! Tell me about it!

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. Getting from California to Chicago just over one hundred years ago took weeks if not months of treacherous stage-coach travel through scorching deserts and over snowy mountain passes, never mind bouts of cholera and the possibility of Indian attacks.

Luckily, there is a different kind of coach travel these days and I concede that on some flights, especially if a baby is crying, 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 that 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, flying used to be glamorous. And fun. You got dressed up. The flight crew engaged in polite small talk, 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

A reader reminded me of this post the other day. “A guy actually opened my car door for me!”, she gushed, “I just about jumped him right then and there.”

Imagine that.

Alert the media.

Man gets lucky after a random act of politeness.

I couldn’t stop myself. I tweaked it, I changed a couple of things, I added the word anomaly and took out some stuff about stairs. You may remember it. It’s the same only longer in a short kind of way.

Then I sent it to the Huffington Post.

So without further ado, an essay about my short-lived parking lot relationship with the polite man at Target, and my continuing struggle with feminism.

Please, feel free to make it go viral.

Carry on,
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/the-polite-man-at-target-_b_11722578.html

Yesterday, I couldn’t help myself, I plastered this all over social media.

”I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:
I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.

Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever.

Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”

~ Brené Brown

Photo: Helen Mirren, age 70  (70 is the “new” middle age.) 😉

First of all, because I find myself smack-dab in the middle of this mid-life thing —I absolutely love what this says. Secondly, are you farking kidding me Helen Mirren? You are my spirit animal!

And last but not least, I love it because my hubby was just telling me the other day how grateful he was feeling due to the fact that for our age (late fifties, early sixties) we seem to be beating the clock pretty darn well, MEANING… except for a few minor things here and there—we’re not sick (as a matter of fact he puts me to shame doing CrossFit like a beast three mornings a week), and we work at maintaining the gift which decent genetics has bestowed upon us, MEANING…without going under the knife we don’t necessarily look our age (but lets get real, we don’t look like Helen Mirren either.)

Now, since it’s all about  Dame Helen, here is the flashback part from a couple of years ago:

Today I met a couple of girlfriends for a leisurely, late breakfast. I hesitate to use the word brunch because that implies Mimosa’s and Bloody Mary’s, pots of hot coffee and the fact that it’s the weekend.

This was simply an egg, toast and tofu rice bowl breakfast, sans the alcohol.
In other words, a Monday.

We hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, so there were lots of hugs, laughter, stories, and sharing of pictures on our phones.

One of my friends showed us a picture of the cute rainbow-colored, teeny-tiny bikini she’d just had the courage to purchase over the weekend. She is a stunning forty-year-old, who, in my humble opinion should be wearing her bikini to the Post Office and Trader Joes, but this was a big step for her.

No more modest little one piece for HER this summer.
She’s gonna rock a bikini, loud and proud. I applaud her for that.

Here’s what Nora Ephron had to say about bikinis:

Anyhow, my friend had been noticing scores of, for lack of a better word, average women, with their voluminous bellies and boobies, and their jiggly thighs, walking up and down the beach with heads held high, like they’re freakin’ Heidi Klum, and she thought: Hey, why the hell not?

Why not indeed!

I love what she said next. I think I’m going to embroider it on a pillow.

“If people don’t like me in my bikini, they don’t have to buy my calendar.”

Bahahahaha!
After we all got done laughing our asses off, my other friend told us the story of her holiday a few years back, in Italy with her friend Luigi. They were in some steamy southern Italian city and decided to go to the local beach.

Because it was Italy and you can’t be held accountable for anything you say, eat or do there, she was also wearing a bikini. (Italy is where Vegas got their slogan, I think Marcus Aurelius said it first)

Somehow, she and Luigi found themselves together on a raft, (this part of the story gets murky. There must be one hell of a reason behind this because my friend is not a “share a raft” kinda gal). Anyhow, there they were, paddling around in the warm, deep blue, Mediterranean Sea.

Luigi then suggests that they paddle (I’m still wondering about this), over to a small island nearby (what?), to visit a couple of his friends on the beach. As they approach, one of the women, as my friend tells it, slowly unfolds herself from seated to standing on her towel.

“Luigi, Mio Caro!” she exclaims, waving her long, tan arm in the air as she slinks toward the shore to greet Luigi in a warm embrace. (Okay, now I get it.)

So… picture this: Luigi is 5’3″.

She is 6 feet tall and shaped like a ripe pear. Large heaving breasts and curvaceously round hips all the color of mahogany bounce toward the shoreline…oh, and she’s topless.

My friend then recounted how Luigi’s face was buried in this woman’s smoldering Italian bosom for the duration of the endless embrace and no one even flinched. As a matter of fact, there was a lot more of this skin on skin hugging and all of the women were older, voluptuous, tan and topless.
Mama Mia!

Not a body issue to be found. OMG! That’s SO Italian! Actually, that’s SO European. What’s OUR Yankee doodle problem?

My friend admitted that in that moment, she was thrilled she wasn’t all covered up in her chastity inducing, IcantbreathbecausethisisSpanx, one piece swimsuit.

Why is it that if we’re over a certain age, or don’t have the bodies of supermodels, we don’t have the courage to flaunt what God gave us and rock that bikini?

Didn’t the paparazzi capture this picture of Dame Helen Mirren looking fucking awesome in a red bikini a few years back? Isn’t she over sixty? Fuck! I worship this woman.

We don’t have to walk around, with boobs a flyin’ like those gutsy and gorgeous Italians, but some body confidence couldn’t hurt.
I say let’s all get over ourselves, and buy bikini’s, or a least something flattering that plays up our good assets.

Come on, Guys too.
It doesn’t have to be a speedo, but it can be trunks that hit above the calf.
Most guys I’ve met, even if they have a belly, have GREAT legs.
Flaunt um!

When we look back at pictures from twenty years ago, we were HOT and we thought otherwise at the time.

We’re never satisfied, so let’s just love and embrace what we have.

I’m not certain I’ll be able to comply. I can’t be expected to hold in my stomach for more than half-hour increments, and if I eat more than a single grape, it’s impossible altogether.

But….it I do,  I have my new motto:
“If people don’t like me in my bikini, they don’t have to buy my calendar.”

Too much?
Xox