Yesterday I Loved

"Being alone and feeling vulnerable. Like two separate themes, these two parts of myself unite in my being and sow the seeds of my longing for unconditional love."
--Mary Casey

Yesterday I was busy. I had mentally prepared myself all week to sit and relax back into the idea that my purpose on Saturday, for the most part, was to be chauffeur to my 13-year old daughter, whose social life extended from 10am to midnight, with four places to be physically and 342 places to be mentally. And because I was well-prepared for this, she only needed to visit maybe one place spiritually. That's my job. I'm a mom, and I am the only person on Earth responsible to love her unconditionally - for the REST OF HER LIFE.

That's right. Many people will love her - because she's a good person and she's smart and witty and kind and helpful and a helluva lot of fun - but no one can be held to the task of loving her unconditionally but her mother - and that's the way it is. If she were to miss the unconditional love of her mother, like many, many people out there did, she would never have the chance to make up for that again - although theoretically we hopefully learn to love ourselves that way and learn that some type of Higher Power loves us that way too - but our mothers are the most important people, ever, in our love lives. Moms are the hands-on manifestation of spiritual love.

When I worked as a retail bookstore manager and I would get called to the cashwrap because some unruly person would be complaining about some "thing" they believed they had been shorted: a discount for a creased page, an indifferent attitude from the cashier, etc.; and there would be times where I felt pushed beyond capacity. More than once I found myself actually saying to one of these "entitled" persons - "Hey, I'm sorry your mother didn't love you enough but we can't make up for that today. Do you want the book or not?" Most staff would find this outrageously funny, most customers would find this outrageously maddening and I would find it outrageously cathartic. Not the "right" thing to say, no, but certainly the truth as I see it.

I mean, why do you think all them prison dudes get tattoos that say "Mom" on them? Unconsciously they know, deep inside, that Mom is the only one that's ever going to love them no matter what nasty or unlawful acts they commit. And that's their birthright, as I see it.

When I brought Sasha into the world, I knew the minute my lips touched her forehead, right there in the delivery room, that my job was going to be at least a thousand-fold bigger than I had imagined it would be - and that I would have to rely on Something to help me find a path to follow because I didn't have anyone to mimic. My mother did love me unconditionally, as an adult, but when I was a child she was an active alcoholic and drug addict and what I remember her saying most often to me through grit teeth was, "Oh my god, you are just TOO MUCH!!!!" Hence my choices in husband and love relationships - "OMG, you are just too [fill in the blank]!" I've heard: Independent, Loud, Wordy, Funny, Blond, Flirty, Stubborn, Expecting Too Much, Expecting Too Little - the list is just stupid long.

It takes work to accept our loved ones for what they are, continuous work. We grow up to have ourselves and our tastes and we would most likely enjoy having a compliment to our person to be our partner in life. But we're never going to love them unconditionally, and they aren't going to be able to do that for us either. This is awfully hard to explain to someone who's never had a kid, because you're granted something at the birth of your child that you never had before and really didn't know existed, especially if you didn't get it from your own mom. But everyone was a kid and knows somewhere inside what their birthright was and that they deserved to be loved for exactly who they were, not for just what they did. It runs through our veins forever and ever. And if we don't get it then, we tend to look for it forever and ever again.

I'm fortunate enough to have found a Path to follow, a way to find what I need and sometimes even what I want, and most often it's through giving others what they want and what they need, if only for a few moments. Again, the smile to the sad guy bagging my groceries, my stopping for people looking at a map confused and offering my help, a hug to the barista this morning who had tears in her eyes. This giving helps me get. But I am still painfully aware, as are many of my "tribe" that I lack. And what I lack can never be made up for, it's not in the now. It's in the past.

Again, acceptance is the key to my spiritual well-being, and accepting that I wasn't loved in the way I needed to be when I was a kid will help me accept the love I do get today - as being enough. Yesterday, in between all my chauffeuring about, I took a walk to Greenlake, around it and back, and I knew I had to cry. I didn't know what about, but I knew it was there and that if I didn't find it I was going to eat yet another entire box of Girl Scout cookies and have to start searching for it all over again tomorrow. I allowed my mind to wander like my feet were doing, going through how unfair it was that Sasha's having such a good time and I'm not - no, that's not quite it - how my social life is nil this weekend - no, that's not going to do it - how I miss my mom so much - okay, that's a bit closer - and then, for whatever reason, I landed upon the beginning of my relationship with my ex-husband. And that did it.

Two lost kids we were, finding each other, hoping for the best. We had a great time, we did - I didn't marry some monster, I married a man I loved who loved me back. We lived our lives, we filled in each others' blanks and even though neither of us had ever been unconditionally loved, we were satisfied with what we did have. Wasn't perfect, but wasn't unworkable either. Good times. "What happened to us?" That's what finally brought the tears I was looking for - what the hell happened? Honestly - we had a child.

Now don't get me wrong, this is not Sasha's fault. She is probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me, physically, emotionally and most particularly spiritually. BUT, two people have to get on board with what feelings do come up when you have a kid who is entitled to get from you what you never got from your parents - unconditional love. It's imprinted, the love, the jealousy, the dysfunction - what the German philosopher Alice Miller, in her book Prisoners of Childhood, calls "the compulsion to repeat" what was done to us. And if you want to stay on your Path, you're going to have to look hard and long at what you didn't get, so you can give what you're about to give. Whoa, what a tall order!

Although many other things happened to cause the demise of my marriage, this is where it started. Having a child. And now I'm alone. Or yesterday, that's certainly how it felt - BIG TIME. I am alone, making all the decisions, weathering all the storms, taking all the responsibilities, having to find the resources, etc. I am alone and I am vulnerable and I don't feel loved.

I finally get back to my own street and by now I'm weeping up a storm and trying to stop because I've got to get back to real life and find my chauffeurs hat and act like a mom. Shit! I wanted to cry and now I can't stop. What the heck do I do now?

As I cross the street, there's my neighbor, pulling weeds and landscaping her absolutely beautiful yard. And she stands up and she sees me and she asks me if I'm okay and I can't answer without sounding like a six year old so she walks up to me and just puts her arms around me and hugs me tight. Okay, is that that Higher Power we speak of or what?

And I tell her what I'm thinking and what's come up for me and she tells me the most interesting thing: that she feels the same way. Not at that very moment, but often. "I am alone, making all the decisions, weathering all the storms, taking all the responsibilities, having to find the resources, etc. I am alone and I am vulnerable and I don't feel loved." And she's married. And she has a child. And she was raised by an alcoholic mother.

So there you have it. My evening turned around a bit, just like I needed it to, with that hug and with that connection with another of my "tribe" and I finished up my chauffeuring and watched "Inglorious Basterds" with my popcorn (much less fat than them freaking Girl Scout cookies) and I lived and loved my way through another day here on Earth.

The Path! I am grateful, although somewhat exhausted.

Proposed Intro Page

May I be relieved from the dangers of my mind
May I be safe from the dangers of the world
May I enjoy good health, prosperity and a generous heart



Navigating Lightening Bolts
Mapping The Fields of Gravity
Nancy Jordet Falsberg


INTRODUCTION


They gave my mother six months to live. It was 1998 and she was 69 years old, newly diagnosed with metastatic malignant melanoma, or skin cancer. She laughed and lived seven more years.

The women in my family have always been hard to kill.

My grandmother, Valborg, of good hearty Danish stock, lived to 94, despite her unwavering devotion to Jesus, the Book of Revelation and the daily signs she passionately shared with us that pointed directly toward the end of the world. Ninety-four years must have been one helluva long time to live with a sense of impending doom, but she did it. And without a scratch.

The Sense of Impending Doom appears to be a genetic predisposition for the women sharing in my gene pool. I am beginning to believe that my true purpose on earth is to put an end to that cellular chain of command, both for myself and for the sake of my daughter, Sasha, although she’ll probably have to carry on with my work considering what she’s already lived through in her short years here. The glass is going to be half full, dammit, and I’m not giving up on faith in that principle. I’m not going to let go of that belief no matter what happens, but I’m here to tell you that hopefully, I’m going to learn let go of just about everything else before it’s over.




I'm just grateful I'm writing at all.

Oreos In The House

How is it that moms everywhere go shopping for school lunch stuffins and stay thin? Why do they all look like Peg Bundy or Elise Keaton? Look at them lanky ladies from Laurelhurst who load up their 3.2 kiddies with all kinds of packaged fabulousness and remain a size 2. I mean, they must keep it around the house, right? Is it under lock and key and their significant others are the keepers of the keys? "Honey, time for lunches..." she yells into his shower in the morning.

Whilst he finishes shaving in the special fog-free mirror he got from the airline catalogue they kept in the first class seat pockets off his last flight to Buenos Aires on business, he replies, "Okee dokey, sweetums! Right after they finish off the Wall Street Morning Report" and turns up the sound on the waterproof, hi-def, flat screen, multi-app, GPS-laden device that shows up with the flick of a finger off the extremely clear mirror. Have you ever noticed these guys never have them little pieces of toilet paper hanging off their faces where they nicked? I have.

He comes out and unlocks the lunch locker (pronouced "Lock Air") they had specially made to match their Peruvian rain forest kitchen cabinet grouping and she loads up them younguns with oreos and cheese food and pb&j and Ruffles and he stands by, making sure she doesn't secret a bag or two off to the side by the juicer or the yogurt maker or the scale she uses to weigh her breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks on. Both satisfied that this is the case and that lunches have been successfully packed, they lock it back up. Maybe together, like two hands on one key. Awwww, isn't that a loving partnership? Okay, a bit much? I'm jealous.

I'm a single mom in the upper-poor income group who works from home. Look out. Here's my Monday: I get up and pack the lunch from the stuff in the cabinet I reserve for lunch fixins, send off my 13-year old to school. I walk to the coffee house with my dog to get my first coffee (a wake-up hangover, er, holdover from New York City living) and walk back home to breakfast, which is a granola bar and a banana, 1/4 of my caloric intake of the day. I write. Then I do my yoga tape with Rodney Yee and "meditate" as best I can. During my meditation, the double stuffed oreos float by several times - ah, not today, little black and white devils! I write some more, then search for jobs. I walk to Greenlake, walk around Greenlake, walk back from Greenlake. Upon entering the house, almost in a trance, I head for the lock-air and I eat four to six double stuffed oreos.

Dammit!! I turned up my ipod shuffle trying to drown out the calling of them, and they still got through!

I look for stuff I don't like when I shop for school lunches so I won't be tempted but there aren't that many things I don't like. I mean, you can only pack her up with lamb and okra and eggplant for so many weeks in a row before the other kids start making fun of her! Who's she going to trade with? Someone from Lebanon?

So I get her what all the other kids are getting and I try as best I can to just stay-the-hell out of it. Not an easy order, since I don't have a loving keyholder in my life without little toilet papers hanging off his nick-free face traveling to South America regularly on business.

Oops. Off subject again.

Today I'm grateful for Rodney Yee's help in stretching me out of it.

Blades of Grass and a Chandelier

Last night I dreamt that while Sasha and I were downtown helping the homeless, we got news that our house had been repossessed, was being turned into townhouses and that they were about to put all of our belongings out onto the street. The homeless and the other workers were barely phased by my panic, and I ruminated about how we were going to get there to save our things. How were we going to get home in time, we took the bus and the car was at home? Suddenly, a Vespa appeared (something I’ve always wanted), sent by my friend Darren, complete with two helmets and a note taped inside mine, which had a big hole in the top of it. He said he put the hole there specially for me so that God could get in.

I was trying to maneuver through heavy traffic and driving like a maniac, eventually needing to get on the freeway, which you can’t do with the Vespa. I kept my “holy” helmet on, though, and I kept it on throughout the entire dream, even as I got off the Vespa, left it with Sasha and began to run up the freeway ramp. My friend Michelle pulled up out of the traffic and told me to get in, hurry it up (as only Michelle can say, brisk without offense). We don’t have time for your bellyaching about the Vespa and no, I don’t care who gave it to you.

Michelle drove me back to a neighborhood I didn’t recognize, where all the “houses” had turned into white “townhouses,” plastic like the motels in Monopoly. I couldn’t recognize the streets or the houses and I didn’t know which one was mine and Michelle was getting perturbed by my very verbal shock and awe. Get a grip.

I only recognized where I lived because my friend Brian was outside, standing in waders in water almost up to his waist and helping all the belongings downriver. I got out of the car and shouted over the roar of the water, “Brian, where are my things? Where is my house?” He smiled and lit a cigarette. "Oh, I saved this lamp (my Buddha lamp) cause I thought it was kind of cool. The rest of its coming out – ah, there it is…” and out onto the river comes my couch and chairs, etc. Brian helps it all along with a paddle and says, “Ah, don’t worry, there’s more where this came from. You don’t need it anyway, Nance, it’s a couch! That is a nice ottoman, though (and laughs).”

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is in the movie Empire of the Sun where, after years in the harsh confines of a Japanese internment camp, freed British former wealthy diplomats wander about, confused and not sure where to go. They are hungry and sick and ragged. As they wander the countryside, they cross over a hill, in the middle of a great field, and all of a sudden they come upon the former riches they once had: chandeliers, gilted mirrors, French stuffed sofas, art and pianos – just sitting there like an abandoned circus, dumped right in the field, no better or worse than the blades of grass.

It so puts “things” in perspective. Their things didn’t save them from suffering a fate worse than they could imagine. They didn’t save them afterward either. They just sat there, immobile in the grassy field.

I’m not implying there’s anything wrong with wanting things – I do, and I own a few things I would really miss if they were gone. But in my sometimes panic that there will never be anything or anyone for me, I have grabbed for whatever’s in my path, without taking the time to invite the spirit within to help me really know if it’s for me. So often, what I need looks so foreign to what I thought I wanted that unless I invite the spirit in to weigh it with me for awhile, I’ll just skim right over it. But then, all of a sudden, I recognize it – and it’s beautiful and just what I’ve always wanted. Then comes the lovely, fingers-pried-off-the-wheel surrender. Wow. Who knew?

Today I am grateful to have an inner spirit I recognize and can sit with (usually).

Mammon Off the Pedestal

In the mid 90's I had a pretty much total financial meltdown. It appeared that I had gotten my life back together fairly well - I had been clean and sober about 7 years, I had quit smoking, I had recovered from anorexia which had, unbeknownst to me, become my switch-off addiction when I quit chemicals, I had a good therapist and I had a good job with decent pay.

What I didn't know was that when I quit all the other stuff, I had transferred onto the big bad mammon train. I think a big part of the reason the denial was so thick was that I wasn't spending on things visible. I had massages twice a week, a facial a week, traveled back and forth to Key West every other month, went to the theatre a lot, took many, many cabs. Again, like any other addiction, immediate gratification. Nothing owned, everything experiential. And in the end I have nothing to show for my money spent.

They (you know, them again) say that food is mommy and money is daddy. And in my case, this is absolutely true. In just about every aspect of her life, my mother was a big old package of deprivation, sprinkled with a binge or two here or there. Not unlike anorexia, which is starvation simply for the purpose of feeling the power that only hunger can incite.

My dad was sneaky and secret with money, and as I stated in my last post, to this day I have no idea how much money he made and where exactly we lived on the scale from poor to privileged. I know he grew up very poor, one of six kids with a mother that worked three jobs while his father languished in hospital with tuberculosis for 10 years before he died. I know that every Christmas when we'd open a gift that we loved, he'd point at us and say something like, "Well, you better appreciate that because when I grew up we had nothing to play with but our toes!" Merry Christmas Mr. Buzz Kill, right?

So after I dropped the starvation thang, it seems that I picked up the credit card thang. Now, I did not understand the credit thing. I filled out an application and they approved me and sent me this plastic card with my name on it. So when I wanted something I handed my plastic card over and they "ran" it and it was over, as far as I was concerned. However, a couple of weeks later I would receive a "statement" in the mail tracking my purchases and have money due to the credit card company. Say What? What the hell is that? I gave them my card and now they want money too? This is how my brain reads credit. Give it to me, thank you very much, now buzz off.

Unsecured credit, that is, buying something that cannot be repossessed upon non-payment, is processed in my brain like water going down the swirling vortex that is a drain. A tumbleweed passes through the hole in my brain where credit sense should be. I don't get it. And even when I learned how it works, I still don't retain it and cannot resist the urge to "buy now, pay later." So I don't. Period.

How did this change? I got in with a group of people like myself, who didn't have a healthy relationship with money. You can overspend, you can underspend, doesn't matter; same coin, different sides. Money's not going to save you and it's not going to sink you either. I am powerful over money, it's just green paper that's used in trade for things. I'm just powerless over knowing how and what to do with it.

See, the nice thing about booze and drugs is that I just don't do them anymore. I don't have to develop a relationship with them. I put them down and I don't pick them back up or hang with people who use where they use. But food and money are different. I have to find a way to live in harmony with both. I have to eat and I have to make and spend money. Even though my perception of them both is like looking in a fun house mirror. I learn tools and I apply them daily, every single transaction, whether they make sense to me at the moment or not.

This started as an exercise: I carry a notebook everywhere and write down absolutely every penny I spend, even for a gumball. Everything. After a month, I break it down into catagories - and see where my money goes. I make X amount and I spend Y. They have to come into alignment for me not to debt. So, with the help of others, I look at my catagories and decide what's essential, like mortgage and electricity, and what's important to me, coffee, haircut, books - and see what's not as important to me, like gumballs and more towels (just because they're on sale doesn't mean I have to buy them now for the future) and magazines (they were all over my office) and my 24th pair of shoes. Although if 25 pairs of shoes were important to me, that's okay too. I would just have to buy 4 less books or skip a haircut, etc. And I personally needed a spontaneous money category too, because I needed to feel "free" to choose something "out there." So I figured that in too. And it's not called a "budget" because that word implies deprivation. It's called a "spending plan."

They taught me how to talk to creditors, how to pay off the IRS one tiny amount at a time for years, but how to make the good faith payments no matter what. And in no time I was debt free and living like my own adult.

The key, however, was for me to continue writing EVERYTHING down EVERY day - a day at a time for years. There's a lot of magic in THE TRUTH - and I have found that the truth creates abundance. Wealth of every kind, including money, just starts to show up once I start to obey the laws of "reality." But that's another discussion for another time.

Today, I'm grateful to be freed from the fears of money and of lack. But...Abundance? I'm still working on that one - still a little too scary for me.

Mammon Meltdown

"Daddy, are we poor?"

"Nah, well...we're more like lower middle class slash upper poor." These are my father's words.

Last night while with friends, the subjects of money, jobs, and the lack thereof, and the economy came up. The mood seemed to land on fear, specifically the fear of financial and economic insecurity. Not an unusual discussion for this day and age, no?

Most of us, it appears, are either unemployed or underemployed. Maybe one out of ten of us is actually making their bills, and when people talk about credit cards, I generally hear the balances somewhere in the $20-30Ks. As the wicked witch of the west would say, "What a world, what a world...I'm melting, melting..."

I think most of us learned to relate to money at home, when we were kids. Kids watch and absorb just about everything. I mean, we all know that "don't do what I do, do what I say" is a bunch of hooey by this point, right? No matter what they taught us, we pretty much do what they did. Until it doesn't work anymore. But that's for tomorrow's post.

I grew up in a fearful, shameful, deprivational atmosphere when it came to the green stuff. There was no such thing as enough, and if someone actually appeared as though they had enough, they were assholes. And must have done something either crooked or selfish - anything that would have labeled them "undeserving" in my parents eyes. Or, more specifically, my dad's. Because no one deserved to have enough. I guess maybe if you had enough, then death should be next...or that was the insinuation.

So - we'd all be toiling out in the front yard and neighbor Jones would drive by in a new car and my dad would stand up tall, big and proud and say to my mother, "Well, WE don't have a new car!" And my mom would beam back at him, "Yeah!" ...Say WHAT? would be going through my head.

What's the matter with a new car? Well, obviously Jones is self-centered and selfish, just trying to show off and has got to be taking away something from his family. They would wait and watch, all lathered up, to find what it was that was lacking - maybe his kids had crappy shoes and were skin and bones, or he didn't mow his lawn because his mower was broken, or his roof would cave in - because NO WAY could Jones afford that new car. NO ONE who isn't dying or a pompous jerkoff could afford a new car. Everyone who is anyone must suffer mediocrity! Jones was a Mammon Monster (grandma Valborg would have a stroke!)

To this day I don't know how much my dad made for a living. If I asked my mother, she would blush heavily and say, "Oh, don't worry your head, we're not going to starve."

And then there was my mom's looney, magical thinking about money. We would go to the mall and she would try on this great, perfect dress and a look would cross her face like someone was holding a gun to her head saying, "Put it back, beotch!" She would put the dress back on the rack and say, "Well, if it's here when we get back on our way out, then it will mean it was meant for me and I'll get it. But we have to get what we need first."

She'd push us through the mall with slowly building speed, frothing at the mouth and gibbering on about where would she wear something like that and I would say, how about to scrub the bathtub (my mom wore almost nothing but dresses back then) and she would build up to a cackle and she would get what we came for in record speed and push us as fast as her little legs could carry her back to the dress and - of course - it would be gone.

Oh, the sad relief on that woman's face. "Well, it wasn't meant to be after all. Oh, well, we couldn't afford it anyway, really."

"But mommy, we just bought a dishwasher with all the extras the sales man was talking about."

"Yes, but that's for all of us so that we can have a better life."

"But daddy said no."

"Yes, daddy said no and he's going to be mad but I'm getting a damn dishwasher!!!"

Then she'd light one cigarette off another and make a martini when she got home.

So what is there between starving and a new car? And between a dress and a dishwasher? And how wide a range is this? No wonder I have no idea of the size of things or what they should cost! I buy a house at top dollar and bargain shop for toilet paper to this day.

When I got my first job at 15 as a carhop on rollerskates at A&W, my dad was proud, patted me on the back and "Wonderful! So that's it then - you're on your own!" And I laughed - but he didn't. He meant it. That was the last he ever bought of my school clothes or supplies or movies or anything other than the roof over my head. At 15. And, desperate, several decades later, when I asked him if he could please, please help me save my house for the sake of his granddaughter, he paused, sighed and said, "No, of course not." He meant it then and he means it now. When it comes to money, you're on your own. Who wouldn't be afraid?

And if you can't hack it, you should be ashamed of yourself. Cringe. And if someone helps you, you should shrink back in despair and assume the position...downward dog pose, girlfriend.

My dad had the same job for 45 years and retired to live off his pension and 401Ks. My mom held her job for 30 years and pretty much did the same. But life isn't like that anymore, and most of us are not at all prepared to know how to cope and readjust with fluctuating times. Even, or especially, our own government, for god's sake.

Changing times call for changing ideals of what we need and what we want and when each is appropriate and when the line is blurred. And that's what I'm talking about next.

But for now, I'm grateful to have suffered long enough through the internal echoing voices of my parents to know that what they thought was right about money is downright hooey to me!

Heaven and...Heaven

On this, our biggest human, commercial day of Love, I'd like to post two things:

First, to share yet another gem from the lips of my Number One Valentine Of All Time - Sasha Grace:

"You know what I think? I think that everybody goes to heaven and that all this hell stuff can be easily explained." This is what Sasha, my 13 year old daughter, shared with me the other day while she was doing her homework that she didn't want to do. I had just told her that I thought we probably just created our own "hells" for ourselves.

"I think everyone goes to Heaven. You know, in the end of it all. We all end up there together, I'm sure of it." Really...go on.

"Well, I think that what we live here, on earth, is where we make our choices, like, to choose which way we want to go. On the way to heaven." You mean the path?

"Yeah, like, there are more than just two or three. There's lots. And they have kind of tributaries, like what I just colored on the map for geography. Or if you're on the wrong tributary, you can, like choose to dig a path to the another one. Or back up and start again from somewhere else. It's more work, you know, than just taking the big river to the end, like see, the delta? But you can at least get to it if you really want to." And when is this all happening? In purgatory?

"What's purgatory?" We're Jewish.

From what I understand, purgatory is something that some Christians believe is a place that you go after you die, before you go to heaven or hell. I think you get to wait around and learn lessons or something like that.

"Oh, no. Well, kind of. But this purgatory is really Earth, where we are now. We're supposed to be learning all the lessons now, not just watching them from someplace after we die." Jeez. What did I give birth to? Gandhi? Okay, go on.

"What do you mean, go on? That's pretty much it. We are born at the beginning of this river, the source...oooooo [big smile]. And when we die we go back to the ocean, or heaven. And on the way we take the rivers, some of which are already made and some of which were dug by other people, some of which we dig ourselves." Hence, maybe digging your own grave?

"Mom! Sometimes they are the easy way and sometimes they are the hard way. But we can still change our minds any time we want, even if we're on a hard way. And, of course, you get to see more stuff if you travel down and up all the tributaries and it's kind of beautiful, even if you end up at a dead end. But you can turn around if you want, see?" She's showing me her homework map.

"Or you can just die. Hmmm...like then maybe you have to come back here again and start over until you get to the ocean." Like a board game, huh?

"MOM! I'm not done, stop getting all...makey-uppy." Okay, that's fair.

"Anyway, you mess around here until you find the ocean. But everybody always finds the ocean, that's the way it is." So what is hell?

"Hell is when you decide not to try to get out of your wrong decisions or, like, refuse to stop heading down the wrong tributary, even when it's getting more...narrow or mucky or something. Like [someone we know and care about]. They are in hell. But it's okay, even though it's hard for us to see, because they will eventually get to heaven because everybody does. Because it's water. It all finally goes to the end down here." Like living hell. Then the ocean is then heaven"

"Yes, yes, yes, go ahead and reword everything! Jeez, Mom!"


Second, one of my new favorite quotes:

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." Henry David Thoreau

Which, among its many other uses, is my answer to "How can you mend a broken heart?" And to, "What is the meaning of life?"

Today I am grateful I love.

BAM, The Last Huzzah, Part I.A(1)(c)

Here we are, BAMming back in again. I have this time come out of what will hopefully be my final blackout – to this day, anyway. I am in Elaine’s, a rather posh Upper East Side restaurant/bar about ½ block from my apartment, on Second Avenue. I am surprised for several reasons. The ambulatory days of my drinking have now pretty much fallen off by the wayside (or into the gutter, as it were) and I don’t usually leave home anymore except for work. And that’s only when I remember that I actually work somewhere, and where exactly that job is. And Elaine’s? What was I thinking – this place is expensive!

I realize that I am actually speaking and it appears that I am talking to a couple of hookers about the perils of being a working girl. Like I have any idea whatsoever of what I speak. Not unusual, really, as I pretend to be all kinds of characters when I’m “out there” but a hooker? Wow, I look out the window and the sun is coming up. Damn! Another day shot to hell.

The girls are talking to the bartender when I look down to see that I have a red dress on and there is blood all over my knee. Tch, what now? I have a mystery gash across my kneecap. I vaguely remember something happening at my apartment, something to do with the fridge…? Crap, I hope I don’t need stitches again. I look up to locate some napkins and as I do I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bottles.

On this day, in this moment, my life is about to change forever. If there be a god, he lives in the mirror behind the bottles. As I look up at myself, it occurs to me, as if a thunderbolt has struck me smack in the face, that the reason for the seemingly eternal mess I am in is – me.

This has not occurred to me before this moment, and believe you me, that seems somewhat impossible as I was 29 years old at the time. Up to this point, I honestly think that all of my “troubles” are “just happening to me” and that I am slowly but certainly diving into insanity, that it is only a matter of time before I arrive.

Who the hell wouldn’t drink and drug like I did if they were in my predicament? They say that denial is the number one symptom of addiction. Well, here I am, one big bundle of denial on a barstool at Elaine’s on July 16, 1985 at approximately 4:15 in the morning, seeing the face of god in a barroom mirror and having a bona fide spiritual awakening. BAM indeed.

I know I must have left the bar and staggered home in some kind of existential shock, because I come to several hours later, roll over and look up “alcoholism,” yet another concept I haven’t considered before, in the yellow pages. There is the number for Alcoholics Anonymous, a “club” I had heard of only once many years ago in a bar while I was talking to what I now know to be a chronic relapser. I barely remember this, but when I see it in print, I know who to call.

My first meeting was not easy. I felt like I had been run over by a freight train and had no idea what the hell I was doing, walking ten blocks in the blistering heat to find out if someone could please help me at this “club.” I got to the sign that said “Hungarian Literary Society,” like what the guy on the phone told me, and I buzzed up. The buzzer sounded and I pulled the door open and found myself at the foot of a very, very long staircase. I remember sitting down on the steps and crying because I was certain I couldn’t make it up them, when an arm pulled me up and said, “Don’t worry about anything, you’re coming with me.” I remember thinking, “This guy looks like a Hell’s Angels reject.” But he helped me up the stairs, no questions asked and told me at the top door to just find a place to sit down and hold on to my seat because I was “in for the ride of my life.” What a nut job, is all I could think. Some cliché idiot, right?

I found a seat in the back and the room was packed and buzzing with laughter and conversation. Then the meeting started and someone was reading from a clipboard. I looked down only to find that the dress that I had put on was on inside out. And covered with stains. Ugh, let me out of here, I thought. But the meeting was already going and I sure as hell was not going to call attention to myself (!) by standing up and walking out. So I sat there on my hands (to keep them from their incessant shaking) with my regulation sunglasses on and cotton balls stuffed up my nose to keep it from spontaneously bleeding (as per usual) and kept as quiet as possible. I heard almost nothing those first days, but what I did hear that Wednesday was this: “Hi, my name is Irwin and I’m an alcoholic.” Everyone answers “Hi Irwin.” Jesus, get me out of here! I can sit for an hour through anything, right? Irwin talked on and I hear him mention that he’s originally from Minnesota. Oh – My – God – I’m originally from Minnesota!!!

That Irwin was from Minnesota and decided on that day to share this is the true reason that I’m sober today - this was the first time in many, many years that I felt any kind of minute connection with another human being. And although I had no idea what was going on and wouldn’t know for a very, very long time, I knew that a connection with another human being was something that I was absolutely NOT going to walk away from. And so, a day at a time, I stayed.

On my 90th day clean and sober, a big deal for recovering persons, I was sitting in that same room and, yes, Irwin was there too, along with other newfound friends and fellows. I was proud to raise my hand and say that I had 90 days and have everyone congratulate me. Hope, something totally new for me, had tentatively arrived in my life.

After me, they called out for people celebrating anniversaries. A couple of people responded – and then, from directly across the room, I caught a glimpse of a very, very handsome man in scrubs, raising his hand to say that he had five years clean and sober that very day. The room burst into clapping and he smiled and laughed his deep, sexy laugh as he turned to his wife, who had beautiful flowing brown hair and looked very, very nice…

Yes. It was the couple I saw so many months before, on that Saturday evening, dancing their way back home with their dog and their New York Times and their light and happy lives! Please see previous post I.A(1)(b). Oh, yes it was them. And it occurred to me then, as it still does now, that they had been there that night for more than one reason, that my life did not change on the day I walked into the rooms, that it had begun it’s journey to that room long before that - as I lay in a gutter on Second Avenue and 80th Street.


That was over 24 years ago. And I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink or a drug since. Today I too am nice – most of the time – and it’s not an act. And I laugh out loud and I have danced down a block and I read the New York Times and I have a dog and I have never again seen the inside of a gutter from a rat’s eye point of view. And for all that and more, I am grateful.

BAM, A Night of Social Drinking, Part I.A(1)(b)

BAM – I come out of a blackout and I’m standing upright and dressed quite well, albeit a bit wrinkled. It’s dark and I know where I am – I’m on Second Avenue and about 80th Street or so and it appears that I’ve been “walking” north, which is toward home. Okay, well, I can live with that. I couldn’t have been too bad if I’m still dressed in my work clothes and on my way home while the streets are still pretty busy. I look down at my watch to see what time it is; I have a hard time seeing this fancy schmancy watch under the best of circumstances – so forget it now! I turn to my left, to a blurry blob of a person coming toward me and ask what time it is. Well, I never! – what an ass, it just looked at me and kept walking.

On the next block down is a Korean deli with a lit sign for Newports and a digital clock. Wow, it’s only 10:30. What’s up with that? I stand there for what seems like an eternity, trying to conjure up where I was tonight that I would have had one of them late-night bouts of insanity already, this early [I don’t know what a “blackout” is yet. I have become convinced that I am simply visited late at night by periods of insanity that no one can ever find out about and am becoming increasingly afraid that I will not come out of it one day soon]. How…disturbing. I’m not feeling so good, so I think I’ll just finish off the 9 blocks home – oh, jeez. I’m not walking so well either. So I attempt to resort to my handy “follow the middle line on the sidewalk,” couple of steps…OOPs – to no avail.

Not only have I fallen, when I open my eyes, I find that I have fallen off the curb by the side of the road. I am literally lying in the gutter. Wow, what a way to wreck a perfectly good pair of stockings.

While I’m down here I think I’m going to take a little rest. Whew, that half block was hard - and really potentially embarrassing, although I usually believe that no one sees me! I can’t believe I’ve taken to staggering without any sense of balance – I’m always in some kind of control of my legs at 10:30 at night – what the… This is just unbelievable. I think I really must need to drink more water. I think maybe I’m just super dehydrated.

And as I lie there, contemplating what’s happened that I might have ended up not being able to follow the straight line, I look up and see a simple, beautiful sight: out from the deli down the block skips a woman, her hair flowing in the wind, a Sunday New York Times Early Edition under her arm, a sweet dog on a leash and a big smile on her face. Behind her follows a man, a really handsome man in scrubs with a sexy deep laugh. He runs up, grabs her by the hand and they dance up the block with their dog, their paper and their seemingly light and happy life.

Wow, I think as I prop myself up on my elbow in my gutter. If only I could be nice. Look at her. She looks so…nice. And the guy – wow. I wonder how they just…live like that. She’s got great hair.

And I marvel again at how nice she is and I wonder if maybe I could do this “nice” thing and maybe get a nice life and be well at 10:30 on a Saturday night and get an Early Edition of the Times and maybe even read it with my nice guy and my nice dog in my nice apartment. And then we could go to bed and make love and wake up and have the energy to do it all again. Nicely. That’s it. I’ll be nice!

But that feeling from the deep, dark comes flying up and whispers in my drunken ear, nah, no way, girl, you’ve already tried that one. You can’t do nice. You just can’t pull it off, not for very long anyway. How many times have I told you, this just isn’t your life for romance. Not going to happen. Not your life for “normal” either. Just remember to keep dressing that way and you’ll be all right.

And it leaves me with a burn in my throat and a sour taste in my mouth. It’s right, of course. I’ve tried just about every act I can think of to shake this ongoing, progressive insanity that appears to be creeping up my ladder. Shrinks, anti-depressants, speed, coke, booze, acid…the list goes on. It’s just going to come when it comes.

I take one last look at them as they dance into the building, complete with the doorman holding the door open for them. Wow. I smile sadly – it is what it is, right? And I lift myself out of the gutter, straighten my ripped stockings and toddle home. Part (c), tomorrow.

Today, I’m grateful that, not only can I walk straight, I Can Snowshoe Up Mount Rainier!!

A Day In My Life As A Social Drinker, Part I.A(1)(a)

Chances. Ten years I'm working on trying to remember the name of the bar that I used to frequent, the one that filled the slot of "right after work" on my dance card, like from, say 6:00pm to my first blackout. It was over by the GM building and FAO Schwartz and The Plaza Hotel and it was a fabulous Irish dive where everybody knew my name. Or let's say they were willing to call me by whatever I told them. Kind of a social play I used to like to make, sometimes complete with accent change - ah, oui, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Yes, let's back up to waking up that same morning, or as I now know it to be called, "coming to." I cannot move my head or even twitch any of my muscles at first for fear that I will cease to exist - headache, nausea, sometimes a new bruise or two - once a newfound set of stitches! Where did they come from? I must remain still and not panic. But panic I do, and the tears of victimhood start. "How could this be happening to me again?! I have to get to work!" I finally get up, throw up, get in the shower and cry for half hour, but now from rage at god. "Why me, what do you want from me?" Why me what? I don't know, I just don't want to feel like this and I don't want to have to work and I don't want to have to pay rent or show up or breathe. You know, typical morning for a social drinker.

I get dressed in my little navy suit, the one that I wear to my paralegal job in Midtown, and grab my regulation gear for the trip to Grand Central Station: BIG sunglasses, a big duffel bag filled with laundry, a carton of milk and a couple of plastic bags. Ugh - out the door. The buzzing of the bright overhead lights in my hall make me want to run for cover, but walking is enough to have to keep going as it is.

I once had a friend that said, "If anyone else had awoken in this state they would have called an ambulance. You go to work." He's just an actor though, and very dramatic.

I climb the hill on my street and head for the subway - but first I need to throw up again and I do so in the public waste bin at the corner of Lexington and 89th. Who cares, people will just think I'm pregnant, right? I mean, I'm wearing a suit!

I go down the subway stairs being carried by the crush of people in a hurry. Ugh, again - the smells are so overpowering that I have to pull out a plastic bag and heave into it. But I'm pregnant - wait, no I'm not. I forget, did I just make that up? Anyway, I wait and here comes the train, screeching in a manner that can only signify the end of the world. No such luck. The doors open and people scramble off and scramble on at the same time and there are a few elbows that Grace had afforded me escape from somehow. The seats are full, but I needn't worry, I have my duffel bag so I can sit on it on the floor in my little navy suit. Thank god for duffel bags. Isn't that what they sell them for?

I get to Grand Central and push my way through crowd, through three revolving doors (sick) and out into the fresh air. Ahhhhh. My building is across the street. I go up and sit at my desk and open my milk. If I have milk and sunglasses, everyone knows that they shouldn't really talk to me, but they do anyway and I just find this so annoying and disrespectful. I mean, I have cramps! Oh. No. I'm pregnant? No, it's food poisoning. Yeah, that's it.

I will never drink again. Never. Ever. I will never do coke again, at least not unless I can remember to save some for the morning after. No, actually I will never do coke again either. Or snort speed. Never, ever snort speed again. Won't need to because I'll never drink again, and certainly not so much that I need to get a jolt so I can stand up and continue drinking. Never, ever, ever. God help me, I'll never drink again. Okay, at least for a month, until I can get my shit together. No way. Ach, here comes that pesky little bastard lawyer who's going to want me to do something for him. God, why me?

The sunglasses stay on, the milk by my side, and by noon I'm smoking cigarettes again - which means I've survived. Whew. I can't wait to go home and relax. But around comes 2:00, the witching hour, and off come the glasses, I order a CocaCola, light one cigarette off of another and finally brush my hair. Whoa, I'm feeling good. See - it wasn't that bad! I get the little bastard's work done, take it to his office and actually tell him a joke. He's really not so bad. I smile and wink at my boss and hum a little showtune. He comes out, hands me a little glassine envelope and walks away smiling. How nice! He must really like me!

I take the envelope to the ladies room, unwrap it and snort the lines of cocaine he's so thoughtfully handed to me and, baby, I'm ready to go. I go back to my desk and make a few phone calls to friends asking if they can join me for a martini after work at The Plaza Hotel, no, no, just one, really, I've got to get home tonight...no? Okay. Later.

That's okay. Doesn't matter. I know where to go - yep - Chances! I'll go to Chances and have one or two and then go home and do the laundry that's in my duffel bag. Right on, it's a plan!

I push through the revolving doors, ready to walk the four or five blocks to Chances and, damn, it's just too long, I'm ready NOW, the sound of the traffic and the people are revving me up and I want to be there NOW - so I hail a cab - "yeah, make that 55th and 5th." The driver looks back at me like I'm crazy, of course, because it's rush hour and it'll take twice as long by car but, "hey, move it!" and we're off. I'm happy (frantic?) and tip big and get out and up the stairs and Cliff's got my drink already on the bar because he sees me coming through the window! And here comes my really good friend what's-his-name that I see every night here too! And he's with what's-her-name that he works with! God, life is good!

So - blackout - now return to paragraph 2 and lather, rinse, repeat - daily, from this day on. Until it gets even hairier.

Today I'm so grateful to be alive, much less clean and sober.

The Days of Chronic Sighing

Sigh. It’s chronic in my house right now. If it were in style we’d be the hippest house on the block, maybe in Seattle. I sit at my desk and I sigh. I walk to get coffee, I sigh. I say hello to the neighbor and what do I do? Right, I sigh.

Sasha sighs. Say that five times fast. She doesn’t sigh as much as I do, but she sighs nonetheless. Gus, our dog, sighs more than any being on the planet, methinks. His is boredom and unrequited love, I’m quite certain of this. But Gus has a chronic condition, common to males of most species: he is in love with tail.

But – what makes us sigh on a physiological level, this is what I’m wondering. I mean, is it a sign of something you need to be tested for in an outpatient clinic; a symptom? I looked it up, albeit with shortness of attention span and three or four sighs, and looked through only two pages of Google answers, but here’s what I found, in short:

“Sighing is a spontaneous deep inhalation and exhalation. It serves to boost blood oxygen levels and fully reinflate the lung tissue. Sighing is not contagious in the same way as yawning, which suggests that its primary function is to do with respiration rather than communication of any state of mind. But it's also associated with certain moods, and laboratory rats have been shown to sigh with relief.” Ask.com

“1.a. To exhale audibly in a long deep breath, as in weariness or relief.; b. To emit a similar sound: willows sighing in the wind; 2. To feel longing or grief; yearn: sighing for their lost youth.v.tr.; 1. To express with or as if with an audible exhalation.; 2. Archaic To lament.n.” Dictionary.com

“Objectively, all that was found was an irregularity of respiratory depth and rate together with frequent (Type I) sighing; the heart and lungs were normal. Breathing became abnormal with the slightest emotional stimuli. Extreme yawning often accompanied the sighing, and this commonly caused temporary relief of the sense of respiratory oppression. Nowadays, we would consider these patients as having a chronic anxiety state, with or without panic, with a predisposition to overbreathe in response to stress. Sighing (Type I) may occur at rates of up to 25/min! We have no clear-cut neurophysiogical basis for this breathing behaviour, now called a ‘hyperventilation disorder’. However, we do know that breathing can be ‘driven’ by activation of the amygdaloid nucleus within the limbic system — a complex brain area concerned with feeling and emotions.” Some English Person’s Extremely Dull Paper [a C- no doubt]

Can I interject something here – just to appease your potential boredom? The meter reader just came by – he’s wearing a kilt and eyeliner. Okay, and no one will give ME a job! I could read a meter in spike heels and a low neck sweater, no problem, okay?! Sigh.

I love the word lament - it's so...ethnic. I lament, you lament, we experience therefore we perform lamentation. I'm Jewish and I know that we have lamented and sighed far longer than any Christian or Muslim and with much more exuberance. But this kind of sighing is sorrowful, and I'm not thinking that mine is strictly related to sorrow.

Although - I do miss my mom again, and this I go through regularly when I feel lost. Please see former post "Feminism" to understand just how much I could miss someone with the conviction of her decisions. I just wish I knew what to do next. Maybe I'll try burning my bra in the backyard, just to conjure up some of that Margie spirit. When in doubt, burn your undergarments...? I'm sure I can find an old beige one somewhere.

Anxiety's another sigh culprit. But screw anxiety. That's a normal state of being for me, even (almost especially) when I'm happy.

I guess I do have "longing and yearning." Sigh. See - there it goes again! Not necessarily for my "youth" as the boring guy above says - I wouldn't relive my youth for anything and I truly believe I'm the best I've ever been in most areas - but maybe more for the expression of that: being at my best.

But HOW?! Arrrrrrggghhh!

Stay tuned.

Today I'm still grateful to be me, even if I am not fond of my present breathing performance.

New Name, New Furniture, New Life

My ex had a night a couple of weeks ago where he found it necessary to finally push me too far, up to and including accusing me of trying to kill him in a coma. Okay, wake up and smell the stinky signs of "ain't gonna be friends for a decade or so" and "stop treating this man like he's the delicato and yourself like teflon." Or it could be the progressive accumulation of Al-Anon meetings. But I doubt it - only because I didn't detach with love, I detached with an amputational swipe. "No more!" she cries, sword in hand. I shall no longer be the recipient of your refuse, the receptacle of your trash. How dramatic!

Actually, I did it all with one little email:

"...1. I will speak with you about Sasha [our daughter] and everything and anything having to do with her.
2. I will speak with you about any lawsuit and anything having to do with any of them.
3. I will speak with you about anything having to do with the house.

And that’s about it. I’m done being anyone’s punching bag. I’m afraid you will have to work through your need to dump with someone else..."

With these boundaries I thee unwed. Along came a fantastic flush of peace, and I knew all would be well. Last week I found out that my brother's ex-wife, also a Nancy, has taken back her maiden name, which frees up my REAL name for me. And so I'm taking it back. The first time I signed it I had a rush of gratitude and a new/old recognition of a Nancy I had only glimpsed a long time ago. Go ahead, wave to that cute little blonde. Okay, she does look a little different now, but still recognizable...

All right, now I get this idea in my head that I need to sell off the "things" in my house that remind me of my former life. These "things" need to go now that I've thought of this, mainly because I don't have a job still and I have nothing else to think about. So I utilize the infamous craigslist and start listing: table and chairs (the worst offenders of former insanity) go first, then computer equipment, living room chairs (don't ask), a desk, a couch, etc., etc. Bub-byeeee. And with this money, I replace everything: table and chairs, living room chairs, etc. What did George Carlin say: "Why is it that our shit is everyone else's stuff and their shit is our stuff?" Well I am living this saying and it's feeling good. Real good.

Next I'm adding a deadbolt, just because a psychic told me to. See future post, "The Psychic Told Me There's Never Enough Locks On Your House."

At Barnes & Noble every year they have a promotion in January called "New Year, New You." I'm thinking that this year I'm having that promotion too.

Today I'm grateful to be Nancy [what's-her-name].

Love Is That Sync-ing Feeling

This subject has come up over and over again in the last week. And believe it or not, it's come up with more than five people in my life. But I'll start with one.

I have a girlfriend who is on her way to 40 and never been married. Let's call her Frida, since I'm staring at a photo of Frida Kahlo on the TV Guide. Frida thinks that having a baby is The Goal, that she has so much love to give and that she will receive all that love back as a result of giving it to this proposed child. She may be right.

She is a dating maniac, or, as I call my brother, a serial dater. Frida has a goal in mind, a position to fill and she's looking for someone to fill it: father. She wants to be a mom. So, she kind of interviews these guys, checks them out, checks them off, moves on to the next. Again, I do not stand in judgment, necessarily, with her methodology - I just wonder where the love went.

Frida also has a man in her life, we'll call him Diego, who has recently been soulfully connected with her, who would practically harness the moon for her. He does not want children, and he's sure enough about that that he got a vasectomy years ago. He's a good person, he just wants to work as hard as he can to be the best he can be and to love his life, and to share it with his companion/wife. He does not believe he can do this with kids in his house. And, thank god, he doesn't just do it anyway, because the world certainly doesn't need any more delinquents on the street; delinquents being created by persons who don't want kids in their house but have them anyway. Or think they want them and then find out that you have to take care of them 24/7 for at least 18 years. Right? Hey, it's my blog!

Frida is certain she loves Diego with all her heart but wants to have a kid. So she has decided to "find a father" and let this man go by the wayside. I guess she feels she needs part of her heart back, so she'll take it all. I asked her what she was going to do with the rest of her heart after she finds the father of her child. She says she'll consider giving it to him if he's worth half of what Diego's worth. Wow. Is it a tiny bit chilly in here?

I have another friend, what should we call her? How about Aveda, after the hand lotion on my desk. Aveda is married to...Tully. They have a great marriage, having traveled the world, skiing, surfing, homeowning, friending, caring, etc. Tully wants kids. Period. He was raised catholic, comes from a big family and believes it's his thing to do. Aveda is reluctant. She loves her husband tremendously, as does he love her, and they have what I would definitely want in a marriage - a true partnership with another human being. Very cool.

So Aveda tells me one day that because she loves Tully, she's agreed to get pregnant. But life isn't that easy, of course, and they have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years now. Everyone's been tested and everyone's fine and the extra ooompfs have been added to make the guys swim faster and the eggs drop farther but, nope, no go yet. They are about to start IV therapy, which is about $10K a pop and has no guarantee at all whatsoever.

And what, pray tell, has happened to their loving, thriving relationship? It's gone to hell in a handbasket. It doesn't appear to me that either one of them knows what result they're looking for anymore, other than the little "plus" sign after Aveda pees on the stick. No traveling, no parties in their home, no neighbor kids over for desserts that they used to try out and games to play afterward. No. It doesn't look to me like they even like each other any more. So even if they do get pregnant, they will not have the heart to do for each other or for their child what needs to be done - LOVE each other with all their hearts.

Interesting last minute observation: Frida had an abortion many years ago. And Tully's girlfriend in high school had an abortion too. When I ask either if they think this has anything to do with their hard-driving pursuit to have a child, that remorse might creep into this picture, that they think this could be absolution, both say - NO! Just no, then the conversation changes.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one. But I'm here to tell you that it doesn't work anyway. I know.

My friends Aveda and Tully are hanging on by a thread these days. I know Aveda agreed to try until she was 45, but they've both become compulsive eaters and couch potatoes in their unhappiness. Aveda tried as best she could to encourage Tully to finish his degree online and get his teaching certificate - to become a grade school teacher and love as many children as the Power That Is would put through that school over the years and maybe stop the obsession for a "blue-eyed, redheaded version" of himself. Alas, he is too depressed now to even answer her. Where did the love go? I wish them well.

I read a statistic recently that married persons that decide to have a child before they are married at least 7 years have a 72% chance of ending up a single parent. The divorce rate is astounding.

I would like to think that if I fell in love with someone who did not want kids, it would be because this might not be my incarnation for motherhood. I tell you, I would like to think that if I had what my aforementioned friends once had, I would hang onto it and water it and nurture it and grow it and love it with all my willing soul. And hopefully I will one day.

Today I'm grateful to have been through what I've been through and to have come a little closer to knowing what I think love is. As my mom said in her last days in hospice, "It's all about relationships, it's all about love. That's It."

Bank of America Bites

Once a week, every single week, for the last year:

Ring...ring...ring...

"Hello?"
"Yes is David [xyz] there please?"
"No, he doesn't live here anymore. Who's calling?"
"May I speak with a Nancy [xyz] then?"
"This is actually THE Nancy [xyz]. Who's calling please?"
"This is Bank of America calling..."
"Do you have my file pulled up in front of you?"
"...I am required by law to tell you that we are calling in an attempt to collect a debt owed..."
"I know, I know, can you pull up my file please?"
"...in the amount of [fill in the blank], owed since..."
"I speak with you guys every week..."
"...January of 2009."
"...and tell you the same thing. Please just pull up the file..."
"Have we yet given you the numbers for HUD?"
"...and read it so you can - what?"
"The numbers for HUD and [some other gov't agency]"
"Yes, of course, you give them to me once a week. I've already got a workout in the works with BoA and if you'd just read my file..."
"I have that you are past due on your mortgage in the amount of [HELP]. What manner of payment will you be using today to remedy this delinquency?"
"Hahaha!"
"Hello? What credit card will you be using?"
"Listen, pull up my file and I'll talk with you. Just read it and I'll wait."
"We also accept certified..."
"READ IT. I'll wait."
"...bank checks and certified money orders."
"Well, I've been saving up my Welfare checks for a couple of months, will you take those?"
"Pardon me?"
"Listen, just a take a minute and read - ok. Here it is. We bought this house, my then-husband had a catastrophic illness 3 months later, wound up in a coma for four months, I lost my job, he's legally blind on a stomach tube now so obviously he lost his, I'm looking for work and not finding it, you gave me a Making Home Affordable loan and reneged on it and now I'm waiting to hear back from a woman who's handling our workout."
"I also wish to tell you that this call is being recorded for the purposes of..."
"HELLO!?"
"Well, that certainly doesn't stop the collection process. You are still in arrears."
"Have you ever heard of Lisa [abc]. She is working on our loan."
"I am not with the department that refinances. I am attempting to collect a debt."
"Do you guys never speak with each other?"
"The department you speak of is more than likely in Pittsburgh. I'm in Texas and I would like to know what form of payment you will be using today."
"Well, Texas explains a lot."
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing. Please hand me over to your supervisor if you're not going to read my file."
"All right, your file in now up on my screen. Oh. My. Well. May I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Need a little time NOW, don't we?"
"I'll be right back. Please hold."

**WTF, where do they get these jingles that play on a loop like this? Is there someone who studies these things somewhere, testing them on lobotomy patients to see if they play them over and over a hideous number of times they will be able to get them to fork over their life savings?**

22 MINUTES LATER

"Yes, Mrs. [xyz]? Are you still there?"
"Of course."
"I see that you were delinquent on your loan modification paperwork."
"Here we go. Are you listening?"
"Of course."
"... - You made a deal with us. You sent paperwork to me. It needed to be signed in front of notary. My ex-husband is severely disabled and I could not get him to a notary until the last day of the time period, which by the way was too short, like stoopid fresh, aight?"
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing. I called your number and spoke with Kathy. Do you know Kathy?"
"Maam, there are any number of people here who..."
"Oy, never mind! I told Kathy that the papers were going to be late by less than a day and she said, "GO GO GO," to the BoA by my house, have them signed, notarized, etc. So that's what I did. I had the guy fax them to you and I also Fed Exed the originals the same day."
"And?"
"And you cashed my first payment check but sent back the paperwork saying that it was several hours later than the cut off period so the deal was a no go."
"Right. How would you like to pay off your arrears."
"Don't you see the note in my file from Kathy saying that it's okay for the papers to be late?"
"Yes, I see the note. But we didn't honor it. How will you be paying today?"
"Give me your fucking supervisor."
"Please hold."

**Mindless Muzak Again**

"I sent a note to my supervisor with your situation. He is not in at the moment. I would advise you to call back our 800 number and speak with a supervisor in a couple of hours."
"Have you lost your mind? I'm not calling back the 800 number. I'll go postal - you have him call me."
"We don't do that maam."
"You just did. You just now are...never mind! Can I ask you, why did they cash my check for the new amount for the mortgage if the deal is off?"
"Well, maam, it is a check."
"You cashed it because it's a check? Like generically speaking?"
"It was a check made out to us. We cash those."

"What's your name?"
"My name is Mindy."
"Well then, bub-bye Mindy."
Click!!

Rinse and repeat next week. Today I am grateful to still be squatting in my own home.

This Is Why I Am No Longer Married, Part Negative One

Here is today's thought for the day: "Unhappiness is 99% selfishness."

Wow. Take a moment to let that one settle. Simple and yet...TRUE. Except I would probably bring the 99 down a couple of notches, to like say 98.3%. Just because it's my blog and I can if I want to.

I married an unhappy guy. We met, married and lived in New York City in the 90s where being discontent and disenfranchised was hip and part of the East Village/CBGBs mentality. He was the first seemingly "available" man I had ever met. He looked right at me and held my gaze, which is not easy for me to do. He told me he liked me and that he thought I was funny in the very first conversation we had. He said he would call, he told me when (the next day), and HE DID (holy crap). He did not attempt to make me jealous when he felt insecure by checking out or flirting with other women. When it came to me, there wasn't a game in the console slot of his person - he just dived in head first and, I guess, hoped for the best. How attractive is that, I ask you?

It was scary too - I needed a lot of help from my girlfriends. But wow. Such a compliment, a man who is blindly willing to trust that you're a good enough person not to stomp on his heart; who moves forward despite all the wiggy freak-out that shows up in one's head with new beginnings. Sounds about perfect, right?

Yet, if disgruntlement with the world at large was the badge of the very hip, then he was the Sheriff of the hipster posse. Okay, I was hip, but I wasn't very good at it. My glass has always been half full, even though I wore all black, berets and smoked with a cigarette holder. He was MASTER of hip, particularly when it came to disgruntlement. His glass was half empty - wait, no - three-quarters, dammit! People sucked, places sucked, things sucked. And, according to him, all of it sucked on purpose, like a plot to victimize all suckees. Just to fuck with your reality.

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? I'm really not. Here's a regular day: We get up, it's too cold and the super in our building has made it that way because he's anti-semitic. We get dressed and the dry cleaner has not sufficiently cleaned his shirt. They don't like him because he doesn't tip. We walk to the subway and it screetches too loudly, because our tax dollars are used to line the pockets of the mayor so that he can take his mistress to the opera.

Are you feeling like tuning out? Because we're not even to work yet. The coffee guy put sugar in his coffee because he's jealous of his good looks, the elevator's too small because they didn't know how to build them in the 1940's, the bosses hate him because he knows the right thing to do before they do, blah, blah, blah - lunch. Which sucks. Meetings suck, rides home suck, dinner sucks, etc. I think that's probably enough for now, because in simple remembrance of these days my fingers have become depressed and are not willing to continue typing to finish out the example day.

In the beginning, of course, I attempt to counter all this suckiness by suggesting simple explanations or derailing the downer. The super himself is Jewish, I have never tipped the dry cleaner and grape juice stains for life, the mayor broke up with his mistress. Hey, look, the sun's out, there's your best friend, they cleaned up the park. But these things that I think are going to soothe and help make positive situations out of negative ones are lost on him and actually make him despise me for my light touch.

I think what's most amazing about my part in the whole marriage is that I couldn't see this simple fact for well over ten years: My ex is very, very comfortable in his discomfort - and really doesn't want life to feel any better. It would totally negate everything he has ever said and thought and he would then feel lost or like a complete horse's arse. But a curmudgeon he is and that is what he'll stay. And I wish him well in his preferred state of unhappiness.

Today I am grateful that I can hear the surf and feel the wind on my face and love my friends and family - and maybe even a man again, if only from afar. For today anyway.

Sleep Junkie Withdrawal, Night Six

Wow. I am by nature a sleep junkie. See former post "Sleep Is My Drug Of Choice." It’s taken me several decades to finally have any kind of sympathy for friends of mine who complain of insomnia – something that’s really never been a problem for me for more than one or two nights, tops. And yet, here it is. Payback’s a bitch.

I do not like this, Sam I Am. Nope, not at all. I called my daughter by my dog's name. Sasha sounds nothing like Gus, nor do they resemble each other in the least. Drove through a red light because I got lost in my own singing TO A MILEY CYRUS SONG (I'm truly insane), only to have a mom with triplets in a van follow me, demanding that I pull over, which I didn't. Mainly because I don't appear to have a very good command of the English language right now and what the hell, was she going to do - make me walk a straight line while touching my finger to my nose?

Oops, maybe I knew her from high school and she wanted to say hi...? Nah.

I met with a colleague today at Barnes & Noble to talk about setting up self-employment and about the book I'm writing. We sat in those comfy chairs that you sink down in (the ones that probably have cooties in them) and I caught my head bobbing while she was talking, like, with a little bit of drool burbling down from the left side of my mouth. I sure wish I would have taped that meeting. And, ech, now I'm itching all over...

I'm exhausted, ready for bed, it's 9:30, right? I will fall asleep around 11:00ish and the quality will be somewhat light in nature and then 2:30 or 3:00 will come and WHAP, I'm done. My eyes flip up like curtains being yanked open by a drawstring and that's it. I read, I write, watch TV, I play Samurai Sudoku, and, let me tell you, my fantasy life is getting a freaking workout, you know?

These visitations from the P.M. Wide Awake Fairy better be over soon or I'm going to end up sitting at Game Night with my friends in a wheelchair grunting spittle-laden answers from a dark corner of the room.

I just want to take this opportunity to apologize to all my insomniac friends who have attempted to get my attention with stories of their suffering while I ordered yet another cup of coffee at dinner, smiling my way home to bed. This sucks.

Today, I can't wait to be grateful again for sleep.

My Apple Did Not Fall Far From My Tree

Dora The Explorer:



That's for those of you who may not know or remember our little Hispanic friend from television on Nick Jr. She is a little cartoon girl, traveling with a monkey "Boots", a map that sings, a backpack with a hyper-smile and googley eyeballs and is perpetually being followed by a creepy looking fox named "Sniper" who hides in trees and bushes, etc., trying to steal from her. The map sings to her about where to go and she has to clear a bunch of obstacles along her way. She is always alone and is more than likely about five years old. When she arrives at her destination, she sings a lot, in both English and Spanish, and we never really find out why she's so happy about where she has found herself.

For her composition classes, my 13 year old daughter, Sasha, chose to write her theory on Dora and read it in front of the class:

"Dora The Explorer's story: At age five, Dora's parents were both drug dealers. They were illegal immigrants in the USA. Her parents got caught and deported, so she runs by herself to deliver the drugs for them with the help of Boots and Backpack and the Drug Map. She imagines her inanimate friends talk to her cuz she is extremely wasted, from smoking her own stash. Swiper, the fox, is an undercover cop trying to confiscate the drugs and the map and arrest Dora to return her to Mexico to stand trial with her parents."

Okay. Did I hear a phone ring? Why, yes I did. "Hello, Ms. [Eckstein Middle School teacher]. Yes, this is Sasha's mom. She what? Well, heh, heh, wow, isn't she just a creative kid? I'm sorry, what's that? Oh my, well, that's unfortunate timing, isn't it? No, I doubt that she knew the presentation of her story was going to be on the same day as the Seattle Police's school assembly on drug and alcohol abuse. Yes, well, 7th graders will laugh at just about anything, won't they? No? You don't think so?..."

You're catching the drift, right?

I've often wondered whether I've been saving for college or rehab - both of her parents being in recovery make which shore she will wash up on a bit of a mystery. Either way...at least she's got a head start with a sense of humor...?


Today I'm grateful to have already been there and done that.

Bravo - To The Only Game In Town

I have a friend who's just gotten his heart broken. This is how he says he feels today in a note:

"Some people have suggested that I "get back in the game." Apparently, getting back in the game means dating a bunch of people. "Playing the field." On the ground that means shredding 4 or 5 or 10 hearts. Then, apparently, I can decide that number 3 is the gal for me. News flash! A shredded heart will never open to you again. "Once bitten, twice shy" is not a pretty song lyric, it is an accurate assessment of our survival mechanisms at work. I'm not getting back in the game. I guarantee that anyone who suggests you do is not in a healthy relationship. Or they have not thought through what they are saying. [...]"

Certainly understandable, as it was yesterday or today that he felt rejected. My other friend then said this:

"Or maybe, they have learned that a broken heart does NOT actually kill you even though you may think you will die because of the pain. Speaking from the place of having my heart broken so many, many times, I am so profoundly glad that I have the ability to try again and again because the ONLY way I can truly experience GOD in my life is by loving other people and being open to love. Moving through life's trials with an open heart has been my goal the past few years. Sometimes it works, sometimes not...but it's so much better being open than closed. This too shall pass....Courage does not come from the lack of fear, but the ability to keep moving through the fear. [...]"

Bravo to my beautiful friends, yes?

The human heart's an amazing thing. I have found that the more heartache I've gone through (of every kind), the more love I have to give. Maybe not right at the moment it breaks (and no, it does NOT have to shred, not unless I decide to dive head-first into MY PAIN), but in the healing process. And the healing process includes just that - giving love; to my friends, my family and even to the depressed-looking guy packing my groceries. And then comes the AHA! Love comes right back at me, in the form of a smile from a previously sad face, being included on a trip to a mountain with friends, an unexpected visit from my brother.

The other thing that I've learned is that love often comes in a package I don't necessarily recognize. Because I've had such a preconceived notion of what it is that's going to Completely Satisfy my Love Requirements. The right height, the right background, the right age, the right gene pool...

I married what many would (and did) consider the right package. Attractive, well-educated, ambitious, creative, witty, ready-to-get-married. And it didn't work. Shit happens. Whether you like it or not.

And sometimes I think about how much I may have missed out on, having made my list and checked it twice and setting my ideal firmly of what I think I am supposed to be holding out for. How sad, not only for me, but for those who have wanted to love me but couldn't get in.

Which may be why our hearts continue to break. To crack them open wider and let the real love in.


I am not resigning from the game - oh, no! And I really don't think the game is probably all that hard. So I pray, on a daily basis, to see what is right in front of my face. Because I truly believe that all I need and all I want is well within my reach. And more than likely, it's just too easy for me to take seriously.

Bravo, I say, to life - to the only game in town! For this I am grateful.

Gusgus In The Can

Dogs. You can't live with 'em...and yet you can. Or CAN you?!


My dog's name is Gus, sometimes Gusgus, sometimes Gustauvo and then again, sometimes Brigitta (from The Sound of Music. I flatten his ears on top of his head and make him sing, "So Long, Farewell, Aufweidersein, Adieu." No animals are harmed in this performance). And I am convinced that Gusgus is my stoner brother, Gary, reincarnated.

My brother Gary was sweet, very, yet definitely not a rocket scientist. Gus=same. Gary had red hair with blond running through it. Gus=same. Gary could talk you into giving him your dessert. Gus=same. Gary smoked pot daily. Gus=I suspect same. I'm putting a tail on him. So to speak.

Gusgus insists on making himself known whether he's in the room or not. If he doesn't think he's getting enough attention, he goes into the bathroom. Since the door only swings one way, and he can't seem to remember this, once he's in the bathroom he can't get back out again. So he whines - stuck in the can again. Wow...so did Gary.

Gus needs to make sure he's known even if he's not in the same city, state or zip code, really. He runs about depositing hair everywhere, particularly on clothes and most particularly if they're black. This hair does not budge, not onto the average sticky roller or the magic lint-away. I couldn't even get it out from between my teeth the other day while I was interviewing at Target. Hmmmm, how...anti-cultural...? Please see former post. You know which one.

Gary had long red that hung all the way down to his bum. So does Gus. Gary took medication every day. So does Gus. Gary used to kick me under the dinner table when he was high, trying to get me to laugh with him. Jeez! So does Gus!

Gary was my best friend, who loved me no matter what. So is Gus.

Today I am grateful to have him...back.

I Shall Return

Wow. I'm back and I have little to report, really.

Other than to say this: I feel like life bitchslapped me through December and backhanded me into the blank wall that has been January thus far. That pretty accurately sums it up.

And this is where I've been. Staring at craigslist with bullseye target eyeballs, wondering what to click on next. Stunned - post Target, Hanukkah, Christmas, a birthday and a really bad date. Really. Bad.

But I am back. Look out January. I am fully dedicated and legally medicated and ready to take life on again. And for that I'm grateful.