At The Risk of Alienating The Holiday Happy

Taking this risk, I'm going to tell you what my last few days have been like. Happy Holidays, by the way.

Okay, if you've been around for the last two posts, you already know the wrangling I've been through with the cattle at Target. Suffice it to say that, in the end, I feel I just had a bit too much personality still, even when I toned it down as best I could. I don't do sheep well, and cattle even less so. But I gave it my best shot, even moreso. And they have a right to want "normies." So anyone who sent me notes about boycotting Target, don't bother. I know I won't, especially since I still need three of everything in the store. But I just might go without for the rest of the year, just on principle. I doubt they will suffer.

Yesterday, after getting my swing swinging again, I witnessed my puppy Gus have two, count them, two Grand Mal seizures again. After having his first a month ago. This time I knew what they were so I knew what to do (basically nothing but get everything out of the way) but it certainly didn't make it any easier to witness - or to clean up! Really, mondo frightening. So we go to the vet and they take blood and examine him and, thank god almighty, clip his toenails and they send me home with Valium for my dog. Which is Valium for big people too, but I made my phone calls and we all agreed that I don't really think Valium would make anything any better for me or anyone else around me. Not.

So now my dog is on Valium until Saturday, when they start him on Phenobarbitol for seizure disorder. So far, the effect of the Valium has been interesting. He has licked an entire wall of my bedroom and tried to head-butt the closet door open in my office. His legs don't work so good, so he's needed to kind of army crawl up my front steps after "walking" around the block. The first hour after he takes the pills, not unlike his mom, he is wound tight and needs to patrol and re-patrol the inner perimeter of the house until he falls down from exhaustion. He then sleeps like the dead for about an hour, and begins the patrolling all over again. He is 70 pounds and is now "sitting" on my lap while I'm trying to write at my desk. I'm sure he wishes I wouldn't have lost all that weight, as my lap is not as big as it used to be.

This perimeter patrol pretty much kept me up all night, as my bed appears to be one of the regular checkpoints, which is not good for me as I am an addictive sleeper. So I was really tired when I got up and answered the door for the Fed Ex man, who handed me an envelope from Bank of America. These are the people who hold my mortgage and who helped me work out my Making Home Affordable new mortgage that I signed last Tuesday. I say, "Golly, thanks pal, and have a great holiday." Thinking that they are returning their signed part of my home documents. Bbzztt, wrong!

They have returned my papers, saying that they did not receive them until a couple of hours after they were due and that they were reneging on the deal. Did I want to start over? Okay, this "deal" started well over a year ago, with someone in upstate New York. Today the guy I get on the phone is from Texas who talks to me about the present documents that were sent to me from Pittsburgh. So naturally, in order for me to start this process all over again, I have to talk to the guy in Arizona. And while they are all affiliated with Bank of America, none of them know each other and I have found that taking their names down makes no difference at all whatsoever in working through anything. They say they are making "notations" in my "file" every time they speak with me, and I can hear them typing, but apparently Bank of America employees don't actually have to read anything, just type. So - I would have to get all the doctors from Harborview Medical Center to write letters again, re-contact Jim McDermott's office (my congressman), write several letters explaining that I am not a slacker, even though on paper it certainly looks that way because I cannot get a job, and re-explain to all the persons all over the country who call me to re-discuss my default all over again for another year that my ex-husband is severely disabled, in what way, and on SSDI? After crying and crying and being unable to enunciate words for a couple of minutes...big breath...I tell the Escalation Officer in Texas that either the deal goes through as is or they can have my house. Period. "Call whomever you have to call, do whatever you have to do," was basically the end of that conversation.

Happy Freaking Holidays. Can I get any more down? No one gave me a Hanukkah gift, which was all right because I knew there was no one to do it. My daughter is only 13 and her dad is still too much of a bundle of continuous self-preservation to think of taking her shopping. And there will be no Christmas for me. Even though I'm Jewish, I was raised with Christmas and my mom, who passed away in 2005, was the only one who took it as more than "another chance for Hallmark to make movies and get people to buy stuff" (per my father). Although this year,my father actually did send me a card with a gift, my only gift this holiday season. You know what that gift is?

A TARGET GIFT CARD.

I kid you not. Need I say more about my dad? YES, but not today!

So. I knew what I wanted for the holidays, and today I went to get it. It's a print of a painting that I saw hanging in an art show recently and I happened to know where to get it. And I brought it home and I wrapped it and I told my daughter that I would appreciate it if she could give it to me on Friday and wish me a Merry Christmas. I'm lucky that she thinks this is "cute." Then I went and got something small that I know that I'd like for my birthday, which is the 4th of January and I brought it home and I wrapped it up and I will open that on the 4th.

Today I'm having a lot of trouble finding something to be grateful for. A lot. I'm grateful for the woman who stopped to give my battery a jump on the way out of the gallery parking lot. I am grateful that there is something we can do for Gus. And I am grateful that the holidays are almost over. I hate to say it, but I am. After all, this sentiment has at least provided a place for me to find gratitude.

Best Interview Answers To Best Interview Practices

At the urging of a friend and former co-worker, I have agreed to post my answers to the aforesaid corporate interview questions (please see previous post, "Torturous Interviews With An Egomaniacal Entity") to underline the injustice of such arrogance:

Interview Question Number One:
Tell me about a time when you and another employee had a disagreement.
Well, there was this one time? When I was a carhop on rollerskates at A&W? And I got into a fight with another girl who worked with me about which burger was the best? Because I definitely think it was the Mama burger and she thought it was the Papa burger and she was so loud that I just wanted her to Shut Up so I grabbed her by the throat and pinned her up against the little shack where we got the food from? And then she kicked me between the legs and I accidentally let go and I rolled back over the curb and into the parking lot? Between the customer's cars? And then she like started to push off and roll after me? And, you know, it was that girl that we used to call "Roller Derby Hippo Legs" and she was big and coming at me fast so I landed a good one right below her ribcage? With my skate up, like this? And so she flew back and landed right on her butt next to the shack? And she couldn't breathe for a minute, so some customer just gets on out of their car and shouts - "Hey! Where the hell's my Mama Burger, you nutjobs?"

Okay. And how did this experience work out for you?
Well, you know, since it was the Mama Burger they were looking for, we both kind of thought it was a sign. From Jesus. Or maybe like Gandhi, I guess. So we both started laughing so hard with like tears and finished delivering our orders? And then we asked our boss if he could get us a six pack of tall boys? Because, we were, like, 16 and he was, like 22? So, we ended up having fun that day after all, for sure.

Interview Question Number Two
Tell me about a time when you had an idea to make things better.
Well, yeah, I guess that might be when I brought up in the manager's meeting at Barnes & Noble, you know, about the day before, when I ran after this really hairy guy who I had seen stuffing DVDs down his pants and then just walking stiff-legged out of the store toward the parking lot. You know, they tell you that you can't do that, like, chase after them and all but, hey, the guy was laughing to himself and talking to somebody who wasn't there and I thought he was a pretty easy mark, so I went for it. And I scared the bejongas out of him by shouting that they were all coming down on him if he didn't drop the merchandise NOW and, luckily I had thought ahead and brought along some tongs to pick up the DVDs with, because, ugh, they came down through his pant leg and I sure wasn't going to pick them up, right? So, anyway, I think we should be allowed to bend the rules for obviously crazy people, right? Like, I got the stolen merchandise back, right? I mean, who are the police gonna believe, me or him?!

And how was this idea received?
Strangely, they, I mean the other managers, laughed and shook their heads and I guess they thought I was just kidding. This happens to me sometimes. Huh...

Interview Question Number Three
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver negative information.
I remember there was this time? There was a guy who used to work for me, in like a customer service capacity, okay? And he had really, really awful, horrid breath, like every day. Okay, as if this isn't bad enough, he had really, unbelievably offensive taste in clothes! You know, they were always within the dress code but, come on already, he was old enough to know better, right? And I took it upon myself to sit him down finally and have a talk with him, because none of the men managers would and, I mean, somebody had to, especially about the one-piece jumpsuits. So I just told him, as painlessly and quickly as I could, that most of what he wore fell within the code but that it was what I would classify as "white trash," and that he was really setting a poor example for the younger college guys at work who were still trying to figure out who they were and who their signature designer was going to be. Then I suggested a designer that I thought would probably cut clothes big enough for him. Oh! And then I just added in, like as an aside, that he needed to brush his teeth and floss or I'd fire him.

And what was the result of this...meeting?
Well, he just remained a total mess. And, believe it or not - they wouldn't let me do another thing about it! So wrong! But what can you do? It is what it is, right?

Interview Question Number Four
Tell me about a time when you had to help someone when you were doing something else.
Oh my god, was this all the time or what? People, especially the Ladies Who Lunch from Laurelhurst, think that they deserve a free, personal shopper, right? Like I'm there to be their slave. And you smile and ask, "Can I help you find anything today?" while your arms are absolutely loaded with merchandise and the store is packed and they just think they are the hottest thing walking, okay? So you're supposed to just drop everything and help them find Every Single Thing on their list! And then, if it's not on the shelf, they want you to go to a freaking computer and order it for them and then they want it all personally gift-wrapped - BY YOU. I know part of it was that they were just jealous because my hair was naturally blonde and theirs was from some bottle. Jeez Louise!! New money can be so tacky!

And how did this work out?
Well, you know, they're never happy. What-ever!

Interview Question Number Five
Tell me about a time when you made someone feel good.
Oh my. Well, I don't know about that. I would never do that at work, you know...THAT! I just, you know, I have always thought that it was wrong to, like, fraternize with your boss or anything, you know...what if somebody walks in on you?(blush)

And so there you have it. I mean, you be the judge: fair or unfair. You do know I'm kidding, right? Today I am grateful to have people in my life who understand me and push me toward higher ground.

Torturous Interviews With An Egomaniacal Entity

I am just now getting out of bed after two days of being up and down and up and down. If I didn't have a kid or a dog I'd still be lying flat. I'm not sure if any of this is physical, even though I do have a low-grade fever, but I am certain that it's the result of the end of six, count them, six interviews with Target.

Yep, six. Not two, not four. Six. I was referred in by a friend of a friend who is now a friend too, since I've been around the Target Experience so long. Can you imagine how many interviews you'd have to withstand if you weren't actually referred by someone reputable within the company?

In a couple of decades of being interviewed, and another of being the interviewer, I have never, ever heard of anyone being questioned by so many people for such a lengthy amount of time. Except by perhaps the FBI or the Spanish Inquisition. Actually had it been the Spanish Inquisition I'd have been stretched on the rack and dead a month ago.

Target got my resume in September, called and started the interviewing in November. It's now almost the New Year. The supposed position available was retail management, of which I have eight years experience in an 18 million dollar Barnes & Noble, the third largest grossing out of 800 stores in the United States. All of my reviews were fairly shining and if one were to seek out former employees I believe they would speak quite well of me. I left of my own volition, with no bridges burning and no skid marks.

Easy, right? So - talk to me, see if I'm mentally impaired, whether I smell okay, if I know not to wear jeans to an interview, even try to provoke me and see if I bad-mouth my former employers. Go ahead, use a big word on me, and then use an "insider" sales term and see if I know what you're talking about. Pass me off to another person and then call my references. At most, set me up to later see the "big guy/gal" on a third interview to see if I know how to behave myself in the face of cold, hard authority and see if I can show up on time for it at an obscure location almost an hour away. Appropriately, I'd be somewhat nervous, but really, piece of cake in the end.

Aforesaid company does not use this model as a best practice. They have a big packet of questions that two people ask you in separate rooms; teensy, tiny, windowless rooms that make you wonder if anyone weighing over 120 or asthmatic could ever be eligible to work there. The questions are, of course, overly simple, and the same as the questions the last person asked you but they are worded just slightly differently. Then they let you go and say they will call.

Then they call a week later and set you up for "an" interview for a week after that. This time you speak with not two, but three different people, in three different beensy, minute, airless rooms and they ask you questions from a different packet, although the questions are still the same, really, just worded differently. They are very mysterious as to what they're looking for, and I ask them after I simply answer the questions if my answers made sense to them. Each looks up slyly as they're jotting away on their pads like some Freudian shrink, and says, "Oh yes." Then they send you home and say that someone will call.

In fairness, they do ask you if you have any questions for them, but for god's sake, it's a freaking retail floor management position, not engineering for NASA, so as hard as I try, I can't really come up with anything. Other than perhaps what shade of red they think I'd look good in. No, I didn't.

They now call on a Sunday, because they're retail and want to know if you can speak without a slur on the weekend, and set you up for another interview, somewhere in the distant hinterlands, to speak with someone else. A person with only one name, like Cher or Madonna, who has an obscure title that you've never heard of that must be an insider thing and, for the love of allah, I just need a fucking job already, I'll scrub your toilets for minimum wage, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME ALREADY!! No, I relax, sure I can look it up on MapQuest and I'll be there whenever you want me to be there.

WTF, what position are they looking at me for? El Presidentress, Tsarina, walker of the company bull terrier - and WTF is up with meeting somewhere else? I just want to sell toys for Christmas and rearrange your housewares department. So, I drive out of Seattle a ways and find this, this other place and walk in and ask for the one-named person on which my future lies. She is busy, can I wait? Uh, yeah, I can wait. And I smile at all the shoppers for awhile, thinking, hey, I could be a security deterrent for awhile if nothing else and forty-five minutes after my scheduled interview time the one-named woman shows up in front of me. No introduction from her, just "Ah, who are you?" I extend my hand to shake hers and say "Hi, I'm Nancy and I've been sent over from Northgate to meet with you." She hesitantly takes my hand and gives me that half-handed, withered dead fish non-grip and says, "Ok, yeah, and what are you here for?" I say, "I've met with five people at Northgate and then HR sent me here to see you." I Am Not going to help this chick out, okay? She takes me back to a larger, windowless cubicle and takes out a packet and asks me exactly the same questions the other five have asked only this time in monotone:

Tell me about a time when you and another employee had a disagreement.
Tell me about a time when you had an idea to make things better.
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver negative information.
Tell me about a time when you had to help someone when you were doing something else.
Tell me about a time when you made someone feel good.

You get the gist, right? Fuck, you are not going to get a more creative question answerer than me, all right?!?! Yet, as I stayed on track for the first five people, by the mysterious and extraordinarily bored sixth, I probably did not deliver with all the enthusiasm she wanted. Or maybe I did. Who knows?

Because you know what? The very next day, Human Resources called and said, "Hi Nancy, Happy Holidays! How are you today? I'm sorry to tell you that we do not have a place for you here and I wanted to let you know as soon as we knew."

I can't breathe. She's called while I am looking over my new Making Home Affordable mortgage papers. I say, very small, "Really?" She says, "Yes, I'm sorry it didn't work out." I wait a moment, quiet, not letting her hang up on me without SOMETHING, Anything, and I ask, "Well, do you have any feedback for me? After SIX interviews with your company?" She says, "Well, we just do not believe that you would be a good fit for our culture."

I feel slugged in the stomach. It appeared to be such a sure thing, any position would have been fine, really, WTF. And I leave my house and I walk miles in the rain down Greenwood Avenue and I cry and people are watching me, probably thinking somebody died and I could give a shit because it's all just too much. My wonderful neighbors bring over dinner because my one-of-a-kind daughter tells them I'm down and out and my friends send me messages on Facebook of love and support and all I want to do is my drug of choice, which is sleep. Please see former post, "Sleep Is My Drug Of Choice."

I get up today and I am enraged, pissy and cannot quit going from sighing to barking at those around me. I miss my mom, who absolutely loved Christmas, like most moms do, but she was fun and we baked and decorated and laughed and cried and sometimes just sat held each other on the couch while we watched a movie. But that's not going to happen anymore. And I'm lost. Again.

Today I am grateful for my sanity, that continues to be tested by some of the most unworthy opponents. Okay, that didn't sound very grateful. Today I am grateful, so much, for my super-supportive friends and neighbors who are not afraid to show up, even when I just want to crawl in a hole, and bring me kudos and chicken cassarole.

To Have Or Have Not

I have the most fabulous kid on earth, and that's a fact. And I hope she never reads this.

I have read that the highest rate of divorce occurs between people with children, when their children are age four. I'm fairly sure that this is strictly an American statistic, and that would make sense to me, since "family" means something a lot "looser" here than in just about any culture on Earth, except for maybe Canada. Please see future post, "I Just Don't Know What The Hell To Think About Canada."

My experience in this potential marriage-breaking endeavor, this bringing forth of progeny, pretty much holds true to this statistic, except that the actual breakup of my marriage occurred six years later than the norm, even though it was over long before that. My own specifics will not be gone into here, but suffice it to say that upon questioning my divorced and not-divorced-but-fantasize-about-it-regularly peers, this theory appears to hold some water.

Let me give you a random situation in a nutshell: let's say...Jancy and Mavid meet. They go out for about a year, move in together and live happily together for another year, they get engaged and a year later they get married. Mavid says to Jancy one day, "Hey, what say we try to have a kid?" Jancy, thinking, what the hell, I've never been pregnant even by accident, says, "Uh, yeah, sure, why not?" I have found that the majority of married couples I know put exactly that much thought into the creating of another life. Because, what the hey, our parents did it, right? How hard could it be?

And wouldn't everyone like to have a little onion bun that looks just like them and has their funny expressions and blows bubbles and wants to play and help you keep your fun, youthful spirit hopping about for as long as it can? I mean, besides the mandate that that's what your supposed to do after marriage and besides the ongoing nudging of your parental units claiming, ad nauseum, "But I want to be a Grandma!!"

You know why she wants to be a grandma? She'll even tell you this one: Because I get to be the good guy and have all the fun and then send them home when I'm done with them. "Grandma loves you! Bub-Byeeeee!!" And the door goes, "Slam."

And won't your so-far loving and satisfied husband love you even more once you've pushed that big bowling ball out of your tiny little pin hole, right there in front of him, with all the attendant blood, sweat, bodily functions and the exclamations of sheer hatred that pop out during hard labor? Okay, maybe everybody's not quite that bad, but I'm trying to build my theory here. Childbirth can be thoroughly disgusting. Beautiful and gross all at the same time. I have photos if you want to see them.

You bring this little sweetie pie home and voila! It sucks and cries and poops and vomits and sleeps every once in awhile, and then it sucks and cries and poops and throws up and doesn't sleep for a couple nights straight. And on and on. And for a woman, your hormones are whacktastic and other-worldly anyway, but now you're not sleeping, even though your husband helps you as much as he can but he doesn't produce milk so...and even if you pump, your screetching child will not latch onto a bottle so he can't help you anyway...zzzzzzzz.

This part goes on for a couple of months, which feels like a couple of years because you're not sleeping and even when you're sleeping you're programmed to be listening. And you really do have some beautiful times, especially when your kid gets gas and you imagine that she/he's smiling at you when really they just need to fart. But it's cool anyway.

All of this said, this is not even touching upon what's happening to your All-American romantic relationship. Your husband asks the doctor, while you're still in the childbirth recovery room, "So how long til we can DO IT again?" If he's lucky, you don't hear him because if you do, there could well be hell for him to pay. Even after a couple of weeks, after the episiotomy heals and you stop the non-stop bleeding, you haven't slept in...forever. This phase is not unlike psychoses. And it's not that you don't love your husband anymore, but your needs have become very, very simple, primal and, quite frankly, unimportant. Your body is no longer your own, it's become breakfast and lunch - and a picker-upper and a bender-overer and changer. And unfortunately you haven't even thought about the fact that his needs have not altered in this profound way at all. He still wants to DO IT. And once y'all DO IT again, he will assume that y'all will again resume your regularly scheduled impromptu sexing. But you can't. And it's going to be awhile before you can and even then, you're going to be DOING IT as a mom. If that kid cries, you're stopping the show, regardless of what scene you're on.

I remember a pregnant friend once saying to me, "Well, nothing will change for us. We will still hike with little Harold on our backs and travel and ski and everything else we've always done. He'll just come with us!!" Right. What if your kid doesn't like sitting in that backpack and throws a fit until you take him out? What if your kid doesn't like to sleep anywhere but home? What if your kid finds the cold too irritating and the hot too crabbifying? I mean, they're not born little blobs who can be molded into whatever fits your lifestyle. My kid decided she was a vegetarian at age 4 and announced it at the dinner table while I was in the middle of cutting up my prime rib. At 13, she still is. I have to cook two different meals. Oh, you say I don't? I bet you don't have a kid.

But I think the bottom line on the maintenance of a good, loving relationship while being parents is not really any of this. I think it's more of a psycho-spiritual roll of the dice than meets the eye. I think there are a lot of factors at play, physical, mental and spiritual, and so many of us didn't take the time to examine our own personhoods before we so glibly stopped the birth control. So much of what happens to form a good and loving relationship has to do with the unconscious and the subconscious. It's not all about what we think or decide. Most times it's decided for us by something much bigger than us. Isn't that what real love is?

And what I have found for myself, and from what I've studied of other newly parental relationships, is that a profound shift occurs that we have no control over, in parts of our psyche that we are not able to steer in any direction - we don't even know they're there! Something happens to a man when his woman starts being called "Mommy" and to a woman when her man starts to be "Daddy." Sounds warm and fuzzy, but that's not always the case.

We owe it to ourselves and to our potential children to perform great, painstaking personal reflection with major internal housecleaning before we go pitching the condoms. Did we have wonderful powers of example in parenting? Did they? Are we really willing to amend our full-disclosure intimacy with one another or our satisfying lifestyles just to do what people may think is right or that we'd be "good at?" And what would make us "good" at it? Because we're childish and haven't even grown up ourselves yet? Do we really feel like relinquishing our cherished child-likeness to an actual child for whom we now have to set a power of example? Most of all, do we realize, fully realize that the spiritual life of this little blue-eyed bumpkin is going to be our responsibility 24/7, 365 days a year, really, for the rest of our lives? Because even when they leave home, we will still think about them all the time and wonder if they're happy.

I don't know about you. Your experience may differ, and more power to you, for sure. But these are my thoughts tonight, and they're not fully coherent, even to me. What I do know is that almost every single day, I see evidence of more and more heartache and hearts breaking over what seems to have been a couple's easiest decision to make. And none of them seem to know why they hurt, or where the pain started.

And yet, here again - I have the most incredible daughter a person could want. I couldn't have designed a better kid, even if I were given all the options I could have dreamed up. But this has come at a huge, tremendous personal price to someone without a prayer or a clue or a handbook.

Today I am humbled with the gratitude I have for my Sasha and for my survival as a now single mother - but I am grateful most of all perhaps, that I realized just in the nick of time that it really DOES take a village to raise a child well - and that I am able to avail myself the help of that village. Let's spread that love, right?

I Heart RWE - But Could RWE Ever Heart Me Back?

"Don't tell me who you are because who you are is thundering so loudly that I couldn't hear you anyway." Ralph Waldo Emerson

This saying by Emerson has been resounding through my chest cavity and bouncing off my ribcage ever since I first heard it probably twenty years ago. It was quoted to me by that same good friend of mine who spoke with me of disappointment: please see former post, "The Fabulousness Of Disappointment." She felt moved to quote RWE to me in response to my attempting to give her an extremely lengthy justification (droning on and on and on) for why my being a control freak was so necessary for the survival of the species. Please also see future post "My First Fourth Step." (Yeah, I doubt it!)

I think the woman who originally quoted it to me was really just saying, "Wow, give it a rest, wouldja? Give other people more credit for their own intelligence and perceptions - who they think you are is more about what your actions say than it is about your words!!" Or maybe, "Shut it, already!! We got your number a long time ago!" That sounds more like Ainsley.

Ironic, isn't it, how we're always the last people to know who we are? I remember after being clean and sober for awhile, warily approaching a long-time, dear friend of mine who had told me to pretty much get lost a year earlier because, in her words, she didn't want to watch me kill myself with booze and drugs. Now I was terrified that she would hate me once I told her the truth about me but I did it anyway. I met her for coffee at the corner of 42nd and Ninth and shyly told her that I was sorry for anything I had done to upset her, but that I thought she should know that I quit drinking and that I was an...an alcoholic. Her response to me was to laugh and say, "Yeah, no shit!!"

I recently had a fatal fallout with a different friend, specifically about "the obvious." I told her how I saw a situation where she was desperately trying to change and control some of our mutual friends. True, I could have stated it more simply myself, but she went on to write email after email, paragraph upon paragraph of explanation, justification and the theory behind her rightness. And then to show up later to publicly recruit other people over to see it "her way" too.

I know what this is. I know it because I've done it myself, all too many times, particularly in work situations where I thought someone was a bitch or I felt threatened by someone else's good fortune that I thought was undeserved. And I have felt perfectly justified and righteous in making my correctness known worldwide re this given situation. Only to go home and later feel baffled as to why I hate myself so much and feel the need to eat an entire layer cake or scratch at my wounds or cut my nails too short. Little did I know that it was Ralph and his wisdom, thundering their way up through my denial, telling me, "Hey, you don't believe that crap is right anymore, remember? Knock it off!"

These days, when I don't act well, I don't feel well, no matter what I've said and to whom. I still do these things on occasion, although only about 1/24th of the time I used to. But now I know what to do about my regression into fearful self-absorption - own it, baby, both with myself and with those I've visited it upon. And best of all, I get to do it with the helpful insight of my beloved friends.

Today I am grateful for the path and all the challenging mirrors I find along the way. Even if they sometimes don't look "right" to me.

Facebook Burnt My Dinner - Again!!

I know. I have to own this, don't I? Even though most of my friends are also hooked on Facebook...and, come on, Facebook doesn't MAKE me attach my psychic consciousness to it all day...so it probably is, at least somewhat, my fault that I didn't get up when the timer went off for the pizza. Again.

Crap! It was such a beautiful pie, too. I got it freshly made at PCC. Which in itself is saying a lot - please see my vile November post entitled "Life Amongst The Encapsulated, Part 1" to fully know how hard it is for me to revisit that slow-motion, tree-hugging, nightmarish establishment. Yet I did, and I was anticipating such succulence, even if it was organic.

I think George Clooney could have been waiting on me in the boudoir with tactile-enhancing oil from the yumyum plant and I wouldn't have budged tonight. The subject on the thread was "Glee," the musical, and the way Rachel nailed her rendition of one of my all-time favorite Broadway hits, "Don't Rain On My Parade." I mean, I wept and had goosebumps for an hour afterward! Fuck Dinner, Right?!?!

Gawd, I can be so ambivalent. Pizza, Facebook, pizza, FB, pizza, fb...?

Today I am grateful for: being able to afford something to eat, certainly pizza; for having a psychic consciousness at all (much less one that can attach to FB drek); for being able to own my own part in the demise of things dinner (kind of); for George Clooney and the ability to be moved to tears by Broadway show tunes; and for being able to consider the possibility that I will someday enjoy a PCC experience.

Not necessarily in that order.

I Let Nixon Do My Hair

Like most mothers, my mom had a couple of supremely annoying stock lines. Ones like, "Because I said so," and "If you keep scrunching that face up it's going to stay that way," etc. The one that's creeping up my consciousness ladder today like an old choke weed is "A woman's hair is her crown of glory!" Ugh, gawd. Not in front of my friends!

Translation, for those lightly baffled, is: If your hair doesn't look good, forget about the rest of your day. It's going to suck. Please see future post, "Princess Diana's Hair Was Never Quite Good Enough."

Funny, this coming from a woman who could have singlehandedly destroyed the ozone layer above North America with the way she wrangled her tresses through the spray of a full can of AquaNet. She was a high-teasing, redheaded, beehive hairdo champion of North Suburban Minneapolis, she was. And for her era, she was as good as it gets in the excellent hair day department.

Still, puberty had a way of making much of what she said creepy and I guess today I'm still hearing her "glory" saying through pubic ears. It could be because I got up this morning and looked at my hair while brushing my teeth. I tend to avoid this early sneak peek, not because I never like what I see, but because I can't predict which days I won't. So I usually put it off until after caffeination. This morning my hair just sucked, plain and simple. I totally hate the last haircut I got, it's growing out wonky, it's too short to cut any differently just yet and I'm simply having to live with it for awhile. But today, as it just lays there dead to the world, up from the depths comes that inane mommy quip to frost my already paltry cake.

Ack! Of course I have to do something - and I have to do it today. Whenever I find the time is ripe for hair modification it must happen on the same day the thought occurs. Everybody's got their thang, all right?

I phone my usual colorist. It's the holidays so naturally she's booked out for three entire days. Breathe. So, after a small amount of panic, I say to the receptionist, "Okay, go ahead and book me with whoever has an opening today."

What?! What am I thinking?! Who in blazes do you think is going to have an impromptu opening in their schedule this close to the holiday?

I get to the salon, check my coat, and am informed by the receptionist that I am to be the lucky "guest" of one of the newest members of their design team. Ah! Greaaaaat...and who would that be? "Nixon," that's who. A brand-spanking new hair school graduate with the same name as one of our nation's most embarrassing Yankee leaders to date. How could this possibly bode well?

I'm not going to describe Nixon. The photo to your left is not her (although the first thing she said to me upon shaking my hand was, "I am not a crook"). She is actually a lovely young woman with a lavender crewcut...who has no idea how or where to slather and fold the foils as necessary for the lightening of hair (she started in the back!). And let me just wrap this up by saying that, because I let Nixon do my hair, 85 dollars later it looks exactly the same as it did in the mirror this morning. There shall be no glory in my crown today.

However, let it be said that because I do know quite a bit about haircolor processing itself, and after watching Nixon "do" my hair, today I am extremely grateful to have any hair left at all.

No Lipstick, No Dancing, No Movies - Oh My!

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying." - Kurt Vonnegut

Grandma Valborg used to bring us to big stadiums filled with Unadulterated Believers and heavy men with large circles of armpit sweat, shouting over microphones, "Bring your sins up the aisle and throw them onto the stage! You can still be saved! Do it now, while there's still time!" My mom would get drunk (how? did she have a hip flask?) and I would hide underneath her skirt.

Many, many years later I was to find out that Valborg started life out as a Jew hiding in Denmark, making my mother Jewish and me too. Please see future post, "Oy, What A Relief It Is."

Which is what made her unflagging, vehement faith in fundamentalist christianity even more whack. And yes, it was whack even without that information.

No lipstick, no dancing, no movies. These were not only some of the "commandments" my mother grew up with, but apparently, according to Valborg's church, they are also confirmed in the bible somewhere. I remember asking where, specifically, since around Jesus' time and before there was no Revlon or cinema yet. And I seem to remember dancing mentioned in an upbeat, rather positive way (you know, unless it was around a golden calf or some other false idol...). My grandmother would look toward the heavens, shake her head, and make that sound, the one with the tongue that is so hard to replicate in writing: "tch, tch" or "tsk, tsk." And, of course, she would not answer. She was Danish! Please see future posts, "If You're Scandanavian, Please Raise Your Children Italian" or "The Silence That Is My Father."

Also, according to Valborg's church, no one but they are going to heaven. As a kid I understood this as having to do with the three aforementioned commandments. She feared, often verbally, for all our lives, filled with things like the The Twist and Lipsmackers and The Dick VanDyke Show. Or worse yet, full length features, like Singing In The Rain. When one of us got sick, the mourning would begin ahead of time, in preparation for the time to come when she would never see us again. "Ever!" she would weakly wail.

My Mom would smirk and take no heed, and I have to give her credit - these antics must have dragged up countless deprivational childhood scenes on her internal screen: of her father, Walter, having to push her out the back door while shoving a buck into her coat pocket, telling her to go ahead and go to the movies with her friends; of going to the school dance under the guise of attending a bible study; of chapped lips.

I bet leaving home was more of a relief to Mom than it was to most - and having her own home even more liberating. For whenever Grandma came over for dinner, it seemed to me that Mom would put on her full makeup regalia, turn the television toward the dinner table, flip the channel to a movie (any movie), and do the Charleston while dishing up the plates. While this could have had as much to do with the diet pills/methamphetamines she took daily, it sure looked to me like it was in direct response to them auditorium revivals we were dragged to where Grandma would beg her to go up to the front and throw her cigarettes onto the stage. Where Mom would get mysteriously, contentedly soused and my brothers would duck under the bleachers to dodge the flying spittle of the unquestioning believers while I hung onto my mother's leg, hoping to get home in time for Get Smart.

Today I am so very grateful to have had my mom as a mom. For even through all the dysfunction, confusion and sometimes tragedy of my childhood, my mom taught me, among many of life's lessons, that to be myself was the most powerful thing I could ever want to be.

The Fabulousness of Disappointment

My closest friend once told me that I've earned the right to be disappointed.

What?! - I mean, is she pissed off at me, does she feel I should suffer more (as if!), did I wink at her husband again? (I have Tourette's Syndrome. Please see future post, Tics, Clicks and My Inability to Retain What You Just Said.)

No. She meant it. And positively.

The theory goes: if I can just readjust my habitual look through my own life's prism, shift just a tad over from the dread view to the view of anticipating the best, or even just something good, out of a possible situation, or person, etc., then I will have spent the majority of my time feeling warm and fuzzy hope. Instead of the usual crappy-ass "oh well" gloom I have been so programmed to believe in, even before anything happens, which supposedly protects me from the Big Fall. Or maybe protects me from feeling stupid for believing something good could happen. But why stupid, and in front of whom?

If I can do this, believe this...thing, situation...can actually happen, then even if everything goes to hell in a furious ball of flames, I will still have enjoyed the majority of my conscious time on the way there.

I mean, if you're going to fall off the cliff, may as well have fun on the run up to the edge, right? And maybe you won't fall at all. Maybe you'll just leap through the air only to land lightly onto the next plateau.

Which brings to mind another of my sage's [old] sayings about me - "There she goes again, kicking and screaming her way from one plateau of joy to the next." That could really use a painting to go along with it, don't you think?

Today, I'm grateful for disappointment.

Adventures In Social Cocaine Use, Exhibit A

Those who know say that the number one symptom of addiction is denial. Those who follow those who know say that denial "ain't no river in Egypt." I've had the fortune to be able to very intimately explore and challenge this "knowledge," and to later write reams of confessional about these very experiences in an attempt to rid myself of the shame and earn the right to have the hole in my septum rebuilt. See future post entitled "Okay, Was That Considered A Nose Job?"

My place, in the '80s, where everybody knew my name, was on East 58th Street and First Avenue in New York City: Hartley, four-star dinner, five-star clientele, really big brass bar. Denial had me throw in the "'80s" part I'm sure because after all, didn't everybody do coke in the '80s? Certainly everyone I knew. Please see future post, "Everyone I Knew In The '80s Has Done Time."

This was back in the more social, ambulatory days of my use, when it still seemed to me that I was the coolest thing walking. Cocaine gave my ever-diminishing capacity to drink LEGS, and baby that discovery made me very happy. I appeared very happy back then anyway, and why not? I was living on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan, making more money than g_d, with a quite obvious knowledge of the important designers to wear, people to know, places to be seen. In fact, I was certain that it was only a matter of time before I was discovered. For what, I don't know, because I didn't really do anything to be discovered for, but in my celebrity-dotted life and my chemically-addled haze it seemed certain and inevitable that someone would finally realize who I really was!

Friday night at Hartley: I had scored a particularly beautiful glassine envelope filled with the purest, pretty white snow from my favorite bartender. And I paid the last pretty copper penny I had for it too. Paycheck received that morning, paycheck gone that night. But, hey, you should have seen the outfit I was wearing. These things count when you're broke!

So I saunter back through the restaurant, wave to Max on my left, retort over to my right "Oh, Penelope, you're so bad!" etc., and head for the ladies room, psyched, yes pumped - I can't wait to get into that stall!

Ach! It's full! Well, I'm just going to unfold this little envelope at one end, kind of, hmmm, you know they don't really unfold except for in the middle, but maybe I can juuuuuuust scoop a little bit onto my mutantly long fingernail and get us a little toot while we're waiting, right? Maybe not.

First, can I describe the skirt I had on? Here it is, and although that is not me wearing it (long legs?) it easily could have been (flat stomach!):


Yes, it is important to the progression of the story: it was a hot little number, kind of a cross between Madonna-loose and the Thompson Twins-cute - tacky as hell, though not for its time. Notice it's velvet.

So I'm a bit "tipsy" and struggling to secret a little snort of the primo stuff up my nose while I'm waiting for the stall to open up and, oh my! Ooooops?! The whole envelope opens up and empties down the front of me. Crap!! It's snowing down the velvet!

Well, what does a girl do? It's early in the evening, I've spent everything I've got, I need to keep drinking even though I'm already drunk (please see future post "My Name Is ______ And I'm An Alcoholic") and I'm in dire need of a pick-me-up so I can go on looking "hot(?)" enough to get the bartender and other assorted persons to buy me drinks. Okay, the answer is obvious to me, but if it's not to you, I'll just tell you. I lift my velvet skirt up over my face and begin to snort it. Can you believe the luck of wearing something with such a dense and grabby nap to it on such a clumsy night as this?

The woman who was occupying the stall (remember I'm still out in the public part of the ladies room) comes out to find me leaning up against the sinks with my skirt up over my head, sounding like I'm taking a test for asthma. "Would you mind if I wash my hands?" I lean forward, peeking out from my skirt and say, "No, certainly not." Then I drop my skirt halfway down and offer, "Coke? There's an awful lot here!" I pull it back down completely to show her.

She smiles big, and without a word, drops to her knees and begins to snort and lick my skirt.

Yes, well, together we huffed up as much as we could, brushed as much more as we could back into the little envelope, had a bit of trouble leaving the ladies room for want of a break in our high-speed conversation which touched lightly upon just about every subject known to mankind - all this while women were coming in and out of same said ladies room.

What might this have looked like to them? Hmmm. Probably like social cocaine use. I'm sorry, did I mention this was the '80s?

Okay, so today I'm grateful for not cocaining anymore.

On Being (Somewhat) Passively Stalked

Wow, I'm crabby. I just told my daughter that even an ape can load a dishwasher the right way; you know, cups and bowls facing DOWN? Oy, just observe the sprayers!

Besides still having a bitchin' toothache and still no insurance, I am disturbed by this sense I have of being stalked. Like most things out here, it is being done in a way that is not direct - no bulb flashing, no obvious drive-bys during daylight hours, no screaming for my autograph or stealing of my garbage - wait, who am I? Oh, sorry, I get confused with the rock star I am in the shower.

No, this is stalking in the passive-aggressive style; the sending of semi-direct, in-the-know messages through shared electronic media and/or through having your own expressions spoken back to you out of the mouth of a friend, yet attributed to said "stalker."


This label makes me nervous, so let's call this entity Celery With the Fluffy Leaves On Top, or better yet, just Celery.

Remember in school when another kid would all of a sudden show up with your haircut (worse=color), your boots, or nowdays perhaps your tattoo? You go to the mall and, surprise, they're already there, shopping coincidentally in the store you were going to? Then they're in line two people back from you at the food court, because, hey, they like tacos too?

Well, okay, you decide why not? We can sit together. And because they tend to be so many places you go, you speak to them more regularly than you used to, and they seem to be okay. You hang on occasion until one day they come over to help you with your homework. This person likes to help your mom a lot, too, and finds reasons to help mom even more, later, making plans for another day in the future. Maybe your friends come over as well and now become acquaintances with this person.

Then one day, you are home alone and stuck - stuck on your final paper, supposedly your best of the year. Frustrated and feeling like you're worthless because this used to be your best subject but now, now you find yourself bereft of words that used to come so easily - argh - and this person just happens to stop over. And what do you do? You feel ultra-lost so you...let them read your draft. And then let them actually make comments. Little did you know then, that you were making a grave error in judgment. That this could be possibly misunderstood as copyright.

Several of your friends soon start to drop hints: "Did you know that you and Celery have the same jacket on today?" or "You know, I saw Celery the other day at Sports Authority buying night vision goggles." Or they come right out and tell you, "Hey, Celery froths around the corners of their mouth in your presence. That person's been known to froth excessively when they're about to have to move on to another city - again. No one knows why, exactly, but take good care of yourself. Just saying."

You don't really think too much about any of this (except to note that the tic in your right eye starts up again) until the day you see the froth for yourself. "Listen Celery, I think my term paper is getting a little too much spittle on it for comfort and I'm sorry, I know I listened to some of your ideas, but I did write it myself and, you know, really, it's mine."

Celery doesn't take this too well and stalks off. Stories start making their way back to you that you stole Celery's words away, promised a byline, reneged. And you need to look hard at this, because after all, you thought it was homework for god's sake, what have you done? Celery calls and makes grand references to books you've written together (not) in places you've never been, during years in which you don't remember ever even knowing Celery. Holy crap! Do you think Celery may be missing a couple of chunks?! Celery insists that it was more than just homework and that you know it. When you attempt to tell Celery that Celery should maybe just leave you alone for awhile, Celery dips, and jumps straight into the Ranch Dressing.

Am I getting whack here or what?

You try to be nice, but it just makes things worse and soon you've actually had to threaten to get a restraining order because Celery is just a tad scary at this point.

Celery is now a "friend" of several of my "friends" and continues to do and say things that Celery knows will reach me, or show up places that Celery knows I will be, believing that I will somehow accept that Celery, even with Celery's ever-evaporating H2O, is the vegetable I want to have in every salad.

And I say, "YO! CELERY! I DON'T EVEN LIKE SALAD!!!"

Which is why I am so freaking crabby - again, today, after observing something that was directed at me that wasn't directed to me. Alas, I believe I will have to be the bigger person here, say what I need to say when I need to say it and let Celery figure out that Celery wants a big salad-lover and not a writer-of-words like me.

Today I'm grateful to have dodged a bullet in human form. Hopefully.

P.S. Of course, I did apologize to my daughter...

Some Thoughts On Fallout From Militant Feminism

Although I do consider myself a feminist, feminism means something different to me than it did to the generation of women before me.

My mother literally burned her bra in the back yard (it was a Cross-Your-Heart, and only one of a vast, pointy collection of hers) as a sign of solidarity to The Cause. While I thought then, and still think now, that this was a groovy act, I also think the impetus behind it was a bit askew. Back then, in the early 60s, it was a sign of audacious rebellion (I guess because the inventor of the bra was a man, German Otto Titzling [yes, really!]). She even stopped drawing on her eyebrows for a month!

Before she burnt her bra and left off her ever-surprised, Joan Crawford brows, my mom performed in an absolutely fabulous, whacked-out way. Our house was so clean you could perform major surgery in any nook or cranny you could find. She wore her beehive hairdo complete with the right amount of AquaNet (A LOT), her starched Donna Reed dresses even while scrubbing with her hand-sewn aprons tied behind her, and her red (later Laugh-In pink) lipstick at all times. They had coffee parties every day at rotating houses on our block and all the women would show up coiffed with precision, directly after they had popped their "diet pills," which we now know to be dexadrine amphetamine (heh heh, it would get LOUD in there). Recharged and ready to go, they'd head back home to finish raising the 3-6 kids, make dinner and mix up the martinis for when daddy got home.

Honestly, other than the 3-6 kids part, it really doesn't sound too bad to me. I mean, I like a clean house if I got nothing else to do and I used to be a fashionista label-ho with a love of all things chemical (liquid, pill or powder). And martinis every night with a man I love who's bringing home the bacon don't sound like it would hurt much either. However, not everyone felt like that, and in reality, there wasn't a lot in the way of freedom to choose much else in them days, unless you wanted to be a school teacher. And for me, the freedom to choose, whatever the choice be, is what being truly alive is all about.


In my mom's time, in order to be Pro Women, you had to be Anti Men. Women needed a collective target to focus their inequality on, kind of like the U.S. needed Russia and the Communists during the Cold War. But I think man-hating (yet another Cold War?) was a continuation of a dangerous precedent for all Pro/Anti movements - and is something that caused women to have to pay dearly in our relationships. Why do we have to be Anti-something to be Pro-anything else?

These somewhat militant beginnings, even though we had to start somewhere, anywhere, to get the momentum rolling, have cost us the loss of a considerable amount of unconscious peace with our differences as men and women, which differences are so necessary for a well-rounded humanity. How about if we could have just owned our own "complicity," which alone would have begun that energizing empowerment that comes with owning your own crap, and "recruited" men to our unique way of seeing the injustices that inequality in pay and choices really creates? Sales in our favor couldn't have been THAT hard, especially if we approached it in a way that they could hear us, rather than pointing the finger.

I think love and family have had to pay an even greater price. But it's time to eat, so see future post, More Fallout From The Bitch Versus The Bastard Era. And, Why I Think Divorce Runs Rampant In America.

Today I'm grateful to be a conscious woman in my time. Next generation may be a little easier.

Life Amongst The Encapsulated, Part One

I'm struggling a bit with my compulsion to be pissed off at stupid people. Oh, yeah, and with telling them that I think they're dim in oh so many ways too.

It used to be that when I would finally express my opposing opinion to someone about something they had done, I would feel proud of myself for having "stood up" for what I thought was right. And it was a perfectly valid thing to kvell about, having not been able to say much for years (other than blurting what Elmo would not be allowed to express on Sesame Street), mainly because I didn't know what I thought - I just knew what I felt!

Blurting frustration was actually cool when I lived in Lower Manhattan, because there it was the cultural norm to let loose a torrent of expletives at someone, feel the catharsis, then move on - "next!" A friend or even non-acquaintance at work would yell at you at 4:00 and at 4:10 ask you if you needed a coffee because they were about to make a run downstairs. Life made so much more sense to me then...

But here in the Pacific Northwest? Not so much. Yet I have learned to adjust, and actually feel I have found a happy medium between yelling and politically-correct nicey-nicey. What triggers flipped this again-found compulsion to "tell it like it is," My Way?

One is that I got fed up with my ex-sister-in-law and finally expressed what's the what for me - because I became willing to totally burn that bridge if that's what was necessary to maintain my sanity. But instead of catharsis, I find myself triggered back into blanket resentment of all things passive-aggressive. And now I can see them EVERYWHERE (because I'm looking for them, right?). Sounds like my happy medium tool needs honing, doesn't it?

The other is that anyone originally from the East Coast can only expect themselves to be able to take so much of the detached, Pill People before having to spend a bit of time in the "Move It Along, Center-of-the-Universe Person" penalty box.

Tonight I'm at PCC after walking Greenlake with a friend. PCC is an mid-scale, public food co-op where everyone but me knows that you're not going to find beef chili in the soup aisle. Because PCC people don't eat beef, or if they do, they will not admit this whilst amid these four organic walls. So I walk, I look, I find other things I want, feel a bit silly for a moment for thinking PCC would carry Hormel Manly-Man Chili, and then get on line to pay. In the Express, Five Item lane, because I have five items and because I'm a little late picking up my kid.

And of course, tonight I find myself behind the most granola of women; younger than I am with wild gray hair, stuffed up under an undyed llama handknit cap, no make-up, Gortex organic compost farmer suit (complete with aroma) and all her own "Buy Local" recycled cotton grocery bags (which I have too, okay? I just forget to bring them with me!)

First, let me explain the aforementioned term "Pill People." Many times, everywhere certainly, but very predominant here in Seattle, one comes across people who appear to operate as though they are the only people on stage with no audience present. Much of what they do in public is done as though they live in their own capsule, that they needn't consider what affect their actions (or NON-actions) have on other people. They are encapsulated.

I won't EVEN get into the driving here - see future post Life Amongst The Encapsulated, Part Two.

Back to granola chick. She has four items - check - she bags them herself - check - in her own bags - check - should be an express transaction, right? Wrong. When she is done bagging them as though each and every item needs thorough inspection, followed by a little squeeze of grandmotherly affection and the arrangement and rearrangement of the balance of the sack, with the label facing toward the cashier, she pulls out a large cloth bag from under her coveralls, carefully unties the three different pull-ties she's got closing the bag and finally, after rummaging a bit, pulls out a little cardboard folder. This is where she keeps her coupons. It's thick as a brick. She flips through each and every one, individually, stopping to lick her finger after each, and finally finds one. Okay, not done. Flip, flip, ooo! Little appreciate noise with adoring look, flip, flip two. On and on, three, four, five. She has four items and five coupons. She puts the bag back under her coveralls and we think she's done. Even the extraordinarily patient organic cashier is clearing his throat and breaking a sweat at this point. She then begins to pat herself down in an attempt to find the pocket she left her PCC Member card in. There's a lot of pockets in a Gortex organic compost farmer suit. The cashier picks up the phone and calls for an express backup cashier. Doesn't phase our girl.

I cannot go on, seriously. I cannot tell you how she pays in cash and feels the itch to find exact change. Or drops it once she does. Or how I don't change lines because I know that once I do, she'll be done and I'll have waited and raised my blood pressure for nothing. And so I finally lose it and qualify for the penalty box:

"Move It Along, Center-of-the-Universe Person!"

You can hear a pin drop. No one agrees or disagrees, they all become still and stare. And there I stand, having busted their capsules wide open.

So I smile, because that's what my mom taught me to do when you don't know what else to do, and I leave.

But I did know what I wanted to do. Buy my groceries and go home. Times like this? I wonder where home really is.

Today I'm grateful for at least the IDEA of restraint and progress made thus far.

How Is It That Denial Got Such A Bad Name, Anyway?

Today I'm grateful for sleep.

Sleep is my drug of choice. I’ve often heard the expression, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Okay, well I’d like to examine the “vitamins” they're popping. I also think it’s a matter of the luck of the swirl of your gene pool, or a predisposition to vital life forces. Maybe next incarnation.

Part of the wonderfulness of sleep is the time right before you fall and the time right as you awaken. Niiiiiiice. Cozy like the womb.


And One could say my love of sleep is simply caving in to my hankering for voluntary denial, which I’ll concede to. So I say to One, then you’ll have to add in your iPods and iPhones and eBooks and (some) sex, to name a few more avenues to inner space travel. None of which I have at the moment, but there's always hope...

Except for the eBook. Never! Please see future post, "My Love of Things Tactile."

I digress. Sleep worship abounds in my house, my bedroom a TajMahal to it. I have spent more time and money on the pursuit of REM perfection than almost anything else in my home. Tempurpedic mattress toppers, memory foam neck support pillows, high thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, poofiest Swedish comforters, FengShui-correct calm and creamy green walls with accenting very thick window treatments, Turkish robes and Saskatchewanian-made white noise machine - it's a veritable United Nations of yumminess.

Honestly, be not discouraged. Got a problem with sleep? Give me a call. But not after 11pm or before noon.

Let It Go, Loser

Today I'm grateful to be somewhat more sensitive to others than I used to be (a/k/a to not be an asshole).

When I think of the top ten things I've ever hated people saying to me, I think somewhere in the top two has got to be "Let it go."

I knew a Britishman in New York who used to encourage me to speak my mind only to turn around and say to me, "Oh, for God's sake, stop swimming upstream! Just roll over and float!" Even though he was a loathsome philanderer, albeit married to a bitter woman who refused to be happy, at the time he was my "friend," and I didn't know any better than to speak completely to anyone who asked me how I was. Later I learned the phrase, "Bite me" and I believe that ended our conversations quite thoroughly.

"Let it go" is not something you say to someone you care about. You may as well say, "What a stupid thing to think about!" or "I just asked 'what's up' because I want to LOOK compassionate, not really BE it." Or "I really just want sex - can you obsess on your own time?"

If, the next time you're listening to someone you regret having asked a question of, you find "Let it go" floating around your neural pathways looking for a place to exit, please, for the love of god, get creative - think of a preface before you unleash this cold and thoughtless phrase. Something like, "Wow, I'm sorry to hear about your predicament; sometimes we just have to try to find a way to LET IT GO eventually." Right?

Because I believe that if they could let it go, they would.

Whomever Introduced Size 0 Into Our World Should Be Shot

Today I'm grateful to have acquired a modicum of body acceptance.

Fred Meyer is having a "sidewalk" sale (which is actually in the parking lot, behind barbed-wire...?) and I need shorts - shorts that really fit and don't trigger my personal busy signal, "tight waistband, tight waistband, tight waistband" while I'm walking in them. Or sitting. Or driving. This internal, infernal noise tends to make conversing with someone outside my head virtually impossible. Anyway, I flip through the racks in my usual size, looking for Gloria Vanderbilts, my ace-in-the-hole affordable brand for when I just want to be comfortable. Gloria cuts for the curvy girl. The waistband is usually too high, but not tight, so I can work with that. I mean, nothing's going to be perfect while a girl's still on welfare, right? So - into the dressing room area and, having had a successful week on Weight Watchers, I'm feeling pretty sleek, even though it's only been three pounds shed. Those first few are really energizing! Not exactly my fighting weight, but since I split with my husband I don't fight anymore anyway (yipee!!).

And there in front of the mirror, trying on a pair of jeans, stands a young woman with her mother behind her. I know they're related because they look similar, maybe 30 years apart. And because mom is scowling in disapproval as daughter is looking at herself in the mirror with a meek, apologetic look on her face. They are both full-figured, plus-sized women but the mom is just a teensy bit smaller , which apparently she thinks gives her some kind of superior one-up. The daughter says, "I don't know, really, I guess I just don't look very good in jeans. Or even pants, really." Her mother huffs and smirks, says nothing and shaking her head, sits down in a chair. The girls eyes get a little on the watery side.

I can't help it, okay, I gotta say something. Because besides just wanting her fat-headed mom to get a grip and do her god-given nuturing job, her daughter's butt looks GREAT in these jeans - and I tell her so. "Nah, I think those make your ass look great. Real women are supposed to have curves - we're not little boys! You know who cuts jeans really well for us? Gloria Vanderbilt. You should check it out." Daughter shyly beams at me in the mirror and says something quietly like, "wow, thanks, maybe I'll see if I can find..." And there sits mom, vein pulsing hard on her temple, turning a dark shade of pink. Of course, I smile sideways at her. Again, can't help it.

So I go into my own dressing room to try on my Gloria Vanderbilt's - perfect fit. And it just so happens that they're a size smaller than my last ones. Not that this matters, of course...but it may help to bring my blood pressure cholesterol down, oui...? So programmed!!

I have learned, over many years, to embrace my curviness for the most part, despite all my years in New York City, land of the fashion-laden, bony bulemic. Acceptance has not been easy in this regard, as Twiggy and all the gay-men-fashionistas of the 60s ruined it for all of us. Did you know that this trend started because designers thought people were paying too much attention to the models on the runway and not to their clothes? Oy - how out of whack did that throw womanhood?

I've only had one boyfriend who thought "skinny" women were attractive, and when I met his mother I knew why - the poor woman ate saltines and cheese at Thanksgiving while we chowed down on a beautiful meal she had prepared for the extended family. But men have always told me that they want a woman, not a little boy, and that for the most part, they know that what we see on TV and in print-ads is relevant to about 3% of women in the world.

I just had to learn this for myself. My mantra on my bad body days is simply, "Don't look down." Because as hard as it still is to know how I feel sometimes, I seriously will never know how I look. And life is just too damned short!

Process du Change be Ugly Sometimes

Pissyness, in my book, is an absolute necessity to true and lasting change. For me, it's the sheer resistance of one (or two) of my interior committee members knowing they're about to be fired - for good! I have to remind myself that butterflies look like coughed up mucous while they're morphing.

I don't know how the hell to write in this thing

What kind of a forum is this? Blog. I'm a dialoguist by nature and, while that is not a real word, this doesn't feel like a real form either. I have friends and acquaintances and lawyers and doctors and social workers and caseworkers and, actually, even a bag boy at the Safeway - all of them, every time I open my mouth, tell me this is the next wave I should surf. So here I am again. And I don't know WTF to do here. It seems to create too much percolating interior judgmentalism.

But it is what it is, right? So I guess I'll figure it out.

So Here It Is

Okay, so here It is. It is what It is. I'd like to describe It with a bit more flair or fancy words, maybe make It sound attainable and articulate It with more precision, like maybe I know more than the next being. But I don't know that I do. What I do know - and this is from hanging myself back out on the line to dry, again and again, after lathering myself up into a good froth about It more than a few times - is that It is what It is, that's It's going to be what It's going to be, and that we're not really going to know any more about It until It's over.

That is, if It really ends.