Day of the Odd Bod

Two days ago was Norwegian Independence Day here in the Great Pacific Northwest, complete with a parade and those zany little Shriner guys in their fez's and little cars zooming about throwing them orange candy peanuts at all the little tootsies. Happy Lutefisk to you and yours.

Before that was Cinco de Mayo, more candy - and Mother's Day, more candy - and before that Easter, where that bunny that looks like Jesus rises from the cave and brings baskets of CANDY to one and all who shall not die but have everlasting life... ? And before that the celebration of the cocoa plant, St. Valentine's Day (see former post ).

Well I'm here to inform you that today has been newly dubbed as Day of the Odd Bod on the planet where I live. It's filled with fun house mirrors and bad posture, anything, ANYTHING to accentuate what we do to ourselves with all that flippin candy. This holiday was created on the day of New Releases at the bookstore where I work when the book entitled "Big Belly Fat Cure" hit the bestseller tables - and every kind of bod known to mankind hit the bookstore in search of this miraculous tome. I couldn't keep enough copies on the floor. It has a lot of pages and a special coating on the cover, along with a spiral bound spine so you can easily fold back the pages if you so happen to find a before and after picture that "does it" for you. And the basic premise of this cure is?:

KNOCK OFF THE SUGAR!!!!

In about 150 stunning pages.

Ugh. What a nightmare. I really couldn't live with myself if I went into detail on who came out of the woodwork in search of this cure, it would just sound too wicked and the karma fairies might come back at me with something unspeakable. Suffice it to say that I felt like Twiggy standing there by my little counter, and I'm up about 12 pounds right now myself.

No body wants to take responsibility for what they put in their mouths, myself included. We just want a free ticket to chomp with abandon, having no price to pay in the end. But there is a price indeed, and it's usually in that gut that we look down at in shock and awe, like, "where did that come from?" Well, it wasn't that bunny or Cupid's fault, right? I mean, would Jesus hold a gun to your head and make you eat? Surely not, I say unto thee.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take a hard look at this candy nest I've been digging for myself and see if perhaps there's another, less destructive way to find my comfort. I'd like to feel a bit healthier and more streamlined next year on Day of the Odd Bod.

But tonight I'm grateful that I still have Willy Wonka's Runts to finish off. Sigh...

Seemingly Slim Pickins

If fear burned calories I'd be anorexic.

Last two weeks condensed: Broke, stunningly bored and bewildered with idleness, after reaching out again to friends and former co-workers I finally landed a job. Back with my former employer of the retail nature, I find that not only are things there not the same, but I am not at all the same either. The last time I worked full-time retail I had a husband and another income coming in - and an overflow of coping juice in my lifetime supply pool to wash over me should I find myself in any situation that called for it. My pool ranneth over.

Today my little puddle be cracked and dry, and I pray daily not to have to cope with anything bigger than a bad hair day until the coping rains come back and fill my reservoir again. Instead I got a retail schedule that would leave me home only when Sasha's not here and at work when she is. Thirteen is hard enough, but 13 and still in the throes of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is monstrous. Take that and add in the absence of any parental unit for over a week and what do you get? The emergency room on the evening of the fifth day in a row that mommy doesn't come home until after dark.

Poor Sasha was so agitated and desperate that I barely recognized her and I found myself in a fear that I have never experienced before. Kind of like the opposite of the day she was born, when I found myself in love in a way I had never before experienced. Holy crap, I have proven to myself that I can take just about anything, but when it comes to my kid - I become frightened and lost. No messing with my kid, Universe, I can't take it.

So she's been home for a week, flat on the sofa and I have attempted to show up for my job until today. This is simply not going to work.

If I could get away with drinking, believe that I would be wasted in a heartbeat. For certain.

But - I am 24 years clean and sober and supposedly have my wits about me, so I know that of all the choices out there for me, that is not one of them. Crazy, right? All that time and all I still want is my bottle to comfort me? And that freaking bottle is singing so rowdy right now that it's awfully hard to get around it to find whatever else my choices may be.

So what now? Hell if I know.

Today I'm grateful that it's Friday and I get to go to my home group and simply sit and take in other people's sprinklings of sanity. It may seem like a small thing, but it's the biggest and the best I got.

American Idle

I'm the new American Idle. And I've hit rock bottom in my esteemed position.

Princeton defines "idle" as "not in action or at work." Well, duh. Then I get to yourdictionary.com and there you have it: "having no value, use or significance; worthless; useless idle talk; vain; futile; pointless an idle wish." Oh - why go on?

I haven't posted for lack of anything to say. I have been thoroughly idle. Until today. I got a job - yes, after three years of holding the crown, I am about to relinquish it to the lowliest of bidders - would you like that with or without thorns?

Funny, when you're a kid you think, "I can't wait to be an adult and not have to go to school and take all this crap from people and make my own decisions." Then you get to be an adult and think, "God, I wish I didn't have to go to work and take all this shit from people and let someone else make all the decisions."

And so you lose your job. At first it's kind of cool. You get unemployment, and then you extend unemployment and then you start in on your savings, knowing that's not going to go down too far because, hey, you'll get a job. And you sleep in every morning and then go for a walk with the dog to get your coffee and wave at all the neighbors pulling out of their driveways for their various employments and think how lucky you are to have your "freedom" and not have to take any shit from anybody or be strapped into a cubicle somewhere downtown or make any stupid decisions. Like what to do about nuclear disarmament or what font to use for the Earth Day bus poster.

And time goes on and you've read several books and taken a couple of day trips and cleaned out the closets and done some landscaping. Because you have an adult conscience, you think maybe you should start checking out craigslist or the Times for jobs. And you warily apply for a couple because you don't really want to go back too fast, just stretch your search muscle a little and no one replies. So you go to LinkedIn and Monster.com and a couple of other networking sites and enter some information and then lie back and read another book. And no one replies.

Hmmm. Savings is going down. So you make a few phone calls to friends in "the biz" and ask what's up and who's where and find out that there's layoffs going on everywhere - Liz from PR had her hours cut in half and even had to get a job at CostCo bakery starting at minimum wage and 4 o'clock in morning just to pay for her heating bills. Joe Schmo from Research got cut totally and just started auto mechanic school because he couldn't find a job anywhere.

Okay, never mind, don't stress, what have you always done before? Hit the streets, shake some hands, sell yourself and get a job. I mean, it's always worked before and I really don't want to have to cut into my 401K or sell my car...

There's nothing in your field. And there's nothing in anyone else's field either. And you find yourself hitting the pavement with your resume - but no one wants to see it. Because they're all hiring "online" now - "No, I'm sorry, you can't speak with a manager. We only take applications online." And you get all kinds of emails saying you're overqualified or that they thank you for your information but they are going "in another direction" this time.

So you go to temp agencies and register and they have no work at this time. Geophysicists are now becoming temporary typists and PhD-holding teachers are receptionists. Call again tomorrow. And then next week. And then next month.

And your savings is gone and now you have to sell the car and cash out your 401ks and there goes your kid's college fund and the tiny inheritance (it seemed big once) from Uncle Bob. Sell a few pieces of gold maybe, an old 50s designer chair? Now you find yourself standing on line at the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, the only one with all their teeth, waiting to take a number to talk to someone about food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Your grandfather would roll in his grave! And your daughter asks you, "Mom, are we poor?"

Past due notices, pre-existing-conditions-not-covered issuances, disconnections, foreclosure and a $10 check from great-aunt Lena are the only things you get in the mail anymore. Forget about the root canal, baby, you got to eat!

And so on and so on. Not to mention that subtle attitude from certain "friends" who aren't really certain you've made a true enough effort.

So what DO you do with your days now? Well, how much can you clean? And then how much can you maintain? How many walks can you take? How much does a class cost, how much can you read, how many weeds can you pull - where are your friends?

At work.

And so, after three years of widdling your life down to within a two block radius and a spot you've been staring at incessantly on the bedroom ceiling - you find a job. And where will you be next week?

At work.

Welcome to America Today.



I'm massively grateful for my new job.

Blind Along The Walls

Here's my day. I awake to the sound of my dog having yet another grand mal seizure. It's 5:00am and Gus has not emptied his bladder since 9 last night - until now. All over the kitchen floor (at least this time it's on the tile floor instead of the silk Persian rug) and then, if you've ever seen a dog seize you know this answer, he commences to drag himself through it over and over again. Complete with mucho frothing from the mouth.

Can you tell I'm getting used to this? I've documented his seizures and apparently this is going to happen every 2-3 weeks, ad nauseum or ad infinitum, whichever comes first. Because if nauseum comes first, I'm not sure what my decisions will boil down to. But I'm not there yet. So be it.

I clean up Gus and the kitchen for about an hour and then attempt to calm Gusgus, who is blind for about 1/2 hour, hence he paces along the walls, until he drops from exhaustion and then I try to fall back to sleep on the sofa. But Gus insists whining and licking my face at the same time with his pewy mug. This is not working.

Sasha, my absolutely NOT morning-oriented teenager, gets up for school and whines and badmouths the state of...everything, then paces along the walls until she leaves for the bus (okay, not really the "along the walls" part.)

I'm tired and I have no coffee. I must have coffee. I harness up Gus and ride him to Diva, where he proceeds to raise the hair on his back and snap at two small children, well-dressed in their regulation plaid Catholic school uniforms. Their well-coiffed Catholic mother flits about along the walls and tells me in so many words to train my dog. Okay, not along the walls here either, but she does flit and spit Catholically-correct fire at me.

I get home and have to get the papers together to meet my ex-husband for our next, most current notarization experience - we have yet another mortgage offer from Bank of America, this time at a lower price and as a result of the intervention of Senator Patty Murray. This should be a red-letter day for me, no?

And yet I find it necessary to pace along the walls, yes, along the walls because I want to be as blind as Gus is after a seizure and even more desensitized because I have to "see" my ex and endure what I know will be the regular recitation of the reasons I'm going to, in his weekly words, BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY. Sometimes I can actually find it funny now, because it's become absurd in its roteness, but many times I cannot control how I will feel because I don't have control over all 54 people who live inside me, particularly the ones who remember what it's like to be put down regularly, both in childhood and other past "relationships," for various pathological reasons, several from people who threatened my BURNING IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY. Please see former post , among others.

But I do meet him at Bank of America and the receptionist signs us up for the next available bank exec and then makes the mistake of having us take a seat in the same waiting room as several other innocent bystanders. He sits across from me and begins his regular recitation of my failings, complete with names and dates and other assorted details and I grunt an answer rotely on occasion just to see if this time he will stop (what's that definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? Yep.) and finally I cut him off, giggling somewhat hysterically to the semi-horror of the innocent bystanders who have been listening, and I say, "Jesus, man, wouldn't this make a great scene in a really shitty play? Like Mamet, you are!" To which, again to the horror of the innocent ears not three inches away, he shouts, "Fuck no! Too wordy!! Mamet would cut to the chase!" To which we both laugh and then are totally silent. The room feels blown away by the insanity, like the persons sitting with us appear to want to get up and pace along the walls.

It is all executed and done in perfect silence, at least on the part of him - he signs in front of the notary, he flips the papers back in my direction, he leaves. It is sufficiently dramatic to win at least a Drama Desk, with maybe even a nod from the Obie's and I should feel thrilled to have had my mortgage cut in half, yes?

But no, I cry on the walk home because as he has pointed out I'm a loser who still does not have a job to pay for this and I never will since I am about to BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY, only about half of which I really believe, but since I can't pace along the walls I have to at least cry to relieve the tension. I can pace when I get home right?

No. I get home and it seems Gus has gotten up all the way up to the middle of the dining room table and snagged Sasha's Easter basket, which was filled with chocolate. And its contents? All gone. Anyone know what 25-30 pieces of chocolate do to a dog? Generally speaking, it throws them into a seizure. But we've already had one of those today, you say? Yes, but I don't think Saint Gustavo, Patron Saint of Mutt Seizures keeps count nor shows mercy.

I call the vet who, of all things, laughs, and says I'll have to stay close to Gus FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. But I have appointments and errands? Gus will have to go with me FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. There shall be no escape nor respite.

I take Sasha (and Gus) to drop her at her first appointment across town and I think, jeez, it's nice out, maybe we'll go to Magnuson dog park close by and I'll let Gus out for a little spin. It's nice out today, sun shining, birds singing.

We get to the park and the first person we run into is...my ex with his dog. He's also there with his dogwalker "friend" who's 20 years younger and 20 pounds lighter than I am. "Tee hee," she says. Joy. Five minutes later, the heavens open up and we are drenched, me and Gus, while the ex, his stick girl and his designer dog drive off in heated-leather-seat comfort. Me and Gus pad back through the monsoon, slide back into my 21 year old vehicle with the door that won't shut all the way and the window that won't completely close and we head off to pick up Sasha. But not before I slam back into the bumper of a brand new Toyota. And I think, great, let's call the police now that it reeks of wet-dog-who-has-peed-all-over-himself in here.

But we all get out and and - Aha - made of rubber! I get my 13th dirty look of the day, smile back and thank the Patron Saint of Bumper Makers, St. Come-On-An-Hit-Me-Sucka. I pick up Sasha, who immediately points out that she is thoroughly disturbed by it reeking of wet-dog-who-has-peed-all-over-himself in here. Perhaps her father should have picked her up? Ah, the beautiful silence.

I'm tired. There have been no further seizures. I have not had any demonic spirit show up to DRAG ME TO HELL yet. Is there a conclusionary lesson to this essay today? No. I'm just grateful it's all over.

Greetings From The Empty Vessel

It's three years ago this week that life as I knew it completely fell apart.

I walked into the extra bedroom where my then-husband was "sleeping" and found him in a state that no human should ever have to experience, either as a condition themselves or as a witness to such condition. He had a fever of 107, was yellow-ish green, his neck was swelled out to his shoulders, he could not open his crusty, puffed up eyes and when he tried to answer my question, "can you stand up?" he just blew sheets of the inside lining of his mouth out in large bubbles.

That's as much as I will graphically describe - except to say that when he finally did answer me, he reached in and pulled his lip off, taking his earlobe with it as he tried to move his hand from his face.

This was a catastrophic, toxic response to a prescription medication that years later a court would find both the prescribing doctor and the drug company NOT RESPONSIBLE for. I am attempting to write a book about the whole experience, but as one can imagine, I do get stalled out and stare at the wall for hours at a time without realizing time has passed at all.

But for this post I'm going to stick to what happened to me. This was my life three years ago this week: I was a wife and mother living in a home that we had just paid top dollar for in a great neighborhood. Our combined income was up to a couple hundred thousand a year and rising. We had two luxury cars, 3 401k's, a substantial savings, even moreso because my mother had left me a small inheritance. I had a career that I loved - other than being a writer myself, I managed the 3rd largest grossing Barnes & Noble in the country, and had for about 8-9 years. I was up for promotion. My then-husband's career was skyrocketing, selling land to builders and buildings from the land. Our daughter was a straight-A student who was one belt away from a black belt in karate, something she had worked toward for about 6 years. We had just bought a French bulldog and she was a little tiny expensive bundle of energy. I was clean and sober 20+ years.

David was in the hospital in a coma for almost four months. Despite the odds he lived. But one must remember that there are states that are worse than death, and he was definitely in one of those for a long, long, long time. Sometimes I don't think he's passed through it completely even now.

Our marriage was precarious to say the least – hence the aforestated finding him in the EXTRA bedroom, i.e. HIS bedroom. But I would have stayed that way indefinitely I think rather than face change because: we had a child together; we made a lot of money together; nobody has a perfect marriage, so said my mother (yeah, a future post on the Relationship Theories of Marge to come); I was too lazy to do anything about my unhappiness and; blah, blah, blah fear of the unknown.

As one can imagine, and I will not go into it here, our already broken marriage could not withstand the rigors of the attempts to heal from a state worse than death and we split.

So – over the last three years I have basically lost everything that I could possibly use to naturally describe myself – except that I am still a recovering alcoholic and a mother. I can’t even say that I’m still blonde, because stress turned me grey and I pay a high price for that blonde now.

I lost my marriage, I lost my job and my career, I lost the income from my husband’s lost career, I lost my mortgage, I lost my healthcare coverage, I sold my cars, I cashed in the 401k’s, I spent the inheritance and the savings. I lost belief in a god of my then-choosing, I lost quite a few friends (future post on Are People Afraid That Tragedy Is Contagious?), I lost my dog to my ex-husband, I lost my concentration, I lost my mind. But not really, because when you’re a mother you don’t have the luxury of insanity.

No more wife of an rising star, no more wife, no more manager, no more future district manager, no more homeowner, no more free-to-get-sick person, no more safe driver, no more financial security, no more credit rating, no more writing person, no more Scary-Ass God believer.

Three years now I’ve been a single, sober, unemployed welfare mom.

Whatever It Is That Runs The Universe has seen fit to make me an empty vessel.

And that includes ridding me of the voice of that Scary-Ass God.

You live through enough, and there's not much left to be scared of. And for that I'm grateful.

NOW

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Abraham Lincoln


Okay, first of all, can I just say that if your last name, or first for that matter, was "Dick," wouldn't you change it as soon as you could? Can you imagine having the name Dick in middle school? Ay, the horrors! Okay, I'm done.

Almost 25 years ago I made a commitment to reality, whatever that turned out to be, by getting and staying clean and sober. And I have done the best I can...or HAVE I?

It's all relative. First it was booze. Then it was drugs. Take them away and it was anorexia and food obsession, which, by the way, will never be perfected as I have to form SOME kind of relationship with food to continue to exist, said relationship also striving toward a healthy reality. Face that, then it's "romance" or as some would say sex, again, not total abstinence but...sane or "healthy"? Face that, then it's money and finances. Again, more of the same.

So let's see now, we've got AA, OA, AlAnon, DA. Oh, and I quit smoking. Without an A.

Now, there have been many, many other sometimes mucho fun and, alternately, somewhat destructive things I have put in the place of these obstacles to the facing of reality, but most of them wouldn't kill me eventually. The one I'm bumping up against most right now is fantasy land. Again, something that won't kill me and doesn't need to go away completely, but right now it's got my laundry piling up and the cupboards bare.

How did I become unpleasantly aware of this? Last night I was with a group that was talking about "self-care" and I could feel myself get really twisted and annoyed. I thought, "I don't relate to this namby-pamby crap anymore, this kindergarten of the basic spiritual search, and I don't feel like sitting through my ABC's again. I know how to take care of myself and I do and blah, blah, blah, hmmmmmm...I'd like to lose some weight [because I've noticed all day that my waistband has been cutting off my circulation] and I wonder if that guy [I was thinking about all day] will call [and we can do what I was imagining] and I wish my hair would grow out longer [like I pictured it looked all day] and I think ...." Non-stop.

Somewhere in the speaking going on around me [while I was thinking], interrupting the busy signal I was creating by chronic self-absorption, a guy I know said the words "self-indulgent" and "alienation." Wham! Back in the NOW.

Here I am again, in the running for another overhaul of my spiritual ABC's. There is such a world of difference between self-care and self-absorption, and I've been living pretty much in the latter. How do I know? I look in between those brackets and see what I've really been up to [all day] versus what's on my to-do (self care) list!! I got a lot done on the Planet Nancy this week, but here on Earth I still need to do laundry, go grocery shopping, get dog food, make a doctor's appointment, set up a dentist appointment, fill out a camp scholarship form and job hunt. Take a shower, read a book, play a game, write a story, make a phone call, have coffee with a friend. All self-care. None done.

I believe in fantasy and I think there's definitely a time and place for it in everyone's life, even daily. But like the definition I found of self-indulgence: "to yield to desires and whims of, especially to an excessive degree, to allow unrestrained gratification (i.e., indulged herself with idle daydreams) - if I can put it into practice in between big chunks of actually living my life it might add to instead of take away. I think it's called pulling oneself back into "living in the NOW."

I am a compulsive thinker by nature. Always have been. Much of the time I know I'm doing it and I'll indulge, even when the phone rings or the doorbell sounds. It doesn't do much for my real world, at least the way I practice it thus far. But wouldn't it be great if I were a compulsive writer-downer of my compulsive thinking and then a compulsive promoter of my compulsive writing down of my compulsive thoughts? Would I need yet another program, I mean other than Quick Books, to add up all the revenue to be made?

Today I'm grateful that learning, particularly learning to be me, is a lifelong process.

Hand It Over Big Guy!!

Hey Universe - Just give me what I want!!



I'm not going to word or reword it over again so that I don't ask for it with the wrong stipulation in it so we have to go over this all over again. You know what I want. Just give it to me - what's the big deal? Does everything have to have a lesson in it? Does everything have to be about teaching me something or about Who's in charge of the Universe and Who knows better than whom? I mean, I'm even capitalizing for You!

Just give me what I want!!

Things are getting a little cruel here if you ask me. I don't know what to do and You sure as hell aren't giving me any hints, or if You are they're in such teensy little places that only the fly in my office can see them or they're so high-pitched that only my dog can hear them and quite frankly, I don't speak fly or dog and I don't want to! Do You find this is still necessary after all this time? Get a grip!

Just give me what I want!

I know what I want and I'm tired of pretending that I don't so that You can have room to fit Your opinion in. Fuck humble. If what I want is so completely screwed up then let me find out on my own, would You?! I can handle the highly improbable pain of disappointment and/or failure - You of all Beings know that as You've graciously allowed me plenty of opportunities to test that theory - so hand it over to me to unravel on my own then!

Just give me what I want!

Or maybe You could see fit to just give it to me straight, free and clear, without the need to untangle or unravel. Maybe what I want isn't screwed up at all and maybe it really is the right thing for me and I can handle all of it and I can live a life like so many other people seem to around me - how the hell am I ever going to know if you don't

Just Give Me What I Want!

What am I grateful for today? You Already Know!!

Milk Carton Girl

This morning Sasha was laughing when she asked me, "What's that look on your face?"

"Whaa....?"

Today I'm...lost. You know how when you reach a fork in your road and you could either go to the left or to the right? But you'd really rather just keep going straight? But there's no path there?

Can't I just hike down the middle?

Well apparently not. Because then I just get farther away from ANY path. And I have a day like today.

Today Gus had two grand mal seizures and I spent part of the day cleaning up after them and then getting him settled back into reality. I didn't like the seizures, of course, but I liked having purpose. And it made Gusgus smile.

Then Sasha needed marshmallows to make Rice Crispy Treats. I hate going to the grocery store, but again, I liked having purpose so I went. When the stock kid asked me if I was finding everything okay, I asked him where the Cris Rispies were. He must not have been from here because he laughed and pointed at me with a political incorrectness reserved only for the East Coast.

I raked half the yard. Then I swept half the house. I tried to read twice. I couldn't even nap. I tried that two and a half times. I needed to walk the lake later in the afternoon and I really didn't feel like it - but I did and it had purpose - yet everyone appeared to be smirking at me. Really - strange because I kept thinking about Chauncy Gardner from that movie "Being There."

Later, I walked by one of my neighbors who was making wooden planting boxes, you know, them organic vegetable-growing kind. What I refer to as "survivalist" gardening. We talked a bit and I said, "Jeez...those are amazing" to which he laughed and said, "they're just boxes, Nance, anyone can make a box" and I said, "no, I can't seem to get anything done" and he asked, "why can't you get anything done" and I didn't want to get all existential on him so I just sighed and said I meant in the organic sense, which he thought was very, very funny.

I guess I must look funny when I'm lost. If this goes on much longer I'm going to put myself on a milk carton.

Maybe someone will find me...?

Today I'm grateful to be...to be...to be. I guess...

waiting...waiting...ladidah

My friend Bob just wrote that his morning meditation stated: "Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities." He went on then to say, "Apparently what I had in mind for myself wasn't big enough. (Again). This isn't a bad thing...I just don't have the answer...yet."

Oy. Well I'm in the same place and today it feels like a bad thing. I know feelings are not facts, but they're feelings all the same and I'm working as hard as I can not to finish off a one pound bag of Willy Wonka's Runts in pursuit of relief from my non-factoid sensations.

Here's what I'm waiting for: A call from the mortgage banker regarding my possible workout or impending foreclosure; a call about at least one job that I'm up for after not working for almost three years; a return call from the IRS; a call from a...guy; a spark of inspiration to go on with the book I'm writing, though lord knows I'm writing it anyway in as stilted a fashion as I've ever written, etc. There's more but I don't want to bore you. Or me for that matter!

With regard to the bank and the IRS, I have done all I can, or at least all that I know of, to clean up my side of the street and the results are going to be up to them and whatever it is that runs the Financial Universe. Oftentimes it doesn't feel like the same Higher Power that I'm acquainted with, am I right?

With regard to the ...guy, I am fully aware that whatever anyone thinks of me is none of my business and I certainly can't cause or control feelings in anyone, so...maybe I'm not aiming in the right direction again...? Do I really care about this particular ...guy, or am I bored?

With regard to the book I'm writing. Well, that's the way it goes, right? Look how long it's been since I've posted here, for god's sake. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not and in the times in between you just continue writing and wait for IT to be back so you can go back and clean it up, right? Thanks for listening.

Okay. Now. With regard to the j-o-b. This is where Bob's statement hits me right between the eyes and, although it makes me want to run screaming into the night, it also has the effect of a kind of loving warmth - the one where you know you're not alone trudging the road to happy frakking destiny. Yes, frakking, and I like it because I think it goes better with "happy" than "freaking."

I know, in my heart, that I don't aim high enough. I know this. I've been told this since the 1st grade. But I don't know what to aim at. Here's another of my favorite quotes:

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."
C. S. Lewis

So, in my reasoning, if I could only figure out what's higher than heaven, I'd aim at it and everything would work out...peachy?

It's a tough economy right now, true, but it's a tough world for us underachieving potential overachievers. A lot of us have been coasting in neutral for so long that to crank it into second or third is going to hurt like the dickens and probably sound even worse. But I'm so willing to hurt and to sound like my gears are going to grind themselves into liquid. I just can't get a grip on the frakking gearshift!!

One more quote and I'm done. "You know what my problem is? My problem is that I can have absolutely anything I want - I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT!!" Alec Baldwin's character in Miami Blues.


I'm so grateful to have a tribe who lovingly and warmly knows what I'm talking about. Most of the time. Suggestions are welcome.

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.