Let's Be Blunt

My mother always told me that if I didn't have anything good to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. Lucky for you, I have something good to say. Lucky for me, only 7 people will read this which drastically reduces the number of people I will offend today.

A few days ago, I read a status on Facebook that surprised me. A friend, a high school comrade, was casually commenting on the 2012 Democratic National Convention... commenting with passion. Embedded in his casual-but-passionate comment was a statement that I took like a knife to the chest. Or maybe it's rammed in my back. I can't tell. I never saw it coming.  

I admire and respect my co-graduate. I'll be honest and admit I was secretly crushing on him back in the day. Twelfth grade English. Dr. Leeman's class. I was sixteen, probably the school's best speller, and a starry-eyed admirer of the boy with the beautiful black hair who sat in front of me. I didn't know how to flirt with any amount of finesse, but I kept at it. Every day. All year long. I finished my high school career with a D in English. Curse those stars. Curse that beautiful black hair.

To paraphrase the comment that bothered me in his post, he mentioned he couldn't trust or respect anyone who didn't believe in God.

Personally, I consider myself to be Agnostic because I have trouble believing in a personified deity, but I don't have any issues with believing in an undefined higher power that I really can't comprehend or contain. Now get ready to un-friend me on Facebook - I dig New Age.

Ready for the blunt translation?

Wicca: The Religion

I can almost hear the questions rolling around in your head.

I like the idea of nature and the energies of the universe lighting my path. I don't believe in the devil, or sin, or hell, or fire and brimstone. I acknowledge the fact that evil exists in the world, but I believe that such horrors are handled through Karma and reincarnation, rather than exile to a fiery pit. I believe in the Threefold Law - what you put out there comes back at you threefold. The threefold return on a good deed is awesome. The threefold return from poor behavior? Not so much. For this reason I'm careful about what I do and how I act. Wicca is an Earth religion. Instead of worshiping in a church building, I prefer the outdoors. Your Ten Commandments is my Wiccan Rede - an outline of rules on how to live. Your prayer is my spell. Sorry, spells have nothing to do with magic. I can't walk through mirrors or turn my enemies into frogs. Please don't ask me how I know this.

I was born and raised deep, deep inside an Irish/Italian Catholic family (I have the family stories to prove it), and I used to think 'I can't be an atheist or agnostic or a pagan or a witch or a buddhist or a ... , my mother will kill me.' But here I am, an American-style practitioner, celebrating seasons, cutting through religious jargon and abstract concepts, buying cauldrons... just kidding... and I find my only animosity toward Christianity (or any other religion) is to the extent that its institution claims to be "the only way". It's not. If you can't trust me, trust Google. It agrees.

Satisfying the Monkey

Have you ever had one of those delicious moments when everything in your life seemed to click; when out of the blue someone or something entered your life, turned your situation completely around for the better, and life seemed limitless? Have you ever had a dear wish come true?

Me either. Just kidding.

A few years back, I convinced a friend to fly to Colorado with me to ‘achieve transmission of enlightenment, to taste totality, to see into our own nature, to gain knowledge by dispelling the darkness, and to find the middle path’.

That’s right, I dragged Chrissy’s ass to a meditation weekend with a group of twelve eager Buddhists, armed with a great thirst to clear their minds and attain an elevated level of self-knowledge… we’re talking Zen level.

What I really wanted was quiet. Chrissy wanted the free flight to Colorado.

Speaking only for myself, and in spite of my motive, I believe I learned exactly the lesson I needed to learn [at that time in my life]: I have Monkey Mind, and that little tike has a lot of energy.

The Big Buddha in charge explained, in short, that our thoughts are clutter, mere illusions. Our mind jumps from thought to thought, stirring up emotions that wreak havoc. The result: a general delusion that becomes a horrific false reality.  

Well I spent the entire weekend with that raging monkey running circles upstairs, wreaking that havoc, making me delusional… Oh, Lord…

Well, Big Buddha went on to tell us that we need to shed the illusions, that the reality is that there is you and your mind and it doesn’t matter your history, and it doesn’t matter your future, right now is what’s important because this moment is the moment you exist – it is your moment of existence.

SOLD.

(…however…)

(…and here’s where it gets delicious…)

I like the idea that ‘this is my moment of existence’, but I think I like what my monkey is selling more. I am open to evolution. This doesn’t mean I leave who I am behind; it means that I am more than I was. And I like thinking about my future and feeling as though I have some control in carving it out. I used to be a huge believer in fate.  What an incredibly romantic notion, and so easy to express as absolute truth through rose-colored hindsight glasses, but how depressing to think that you can work so hard towards a goal, and if it’s not your destiny, if it’s not fate, then you worked hard for nothing. So again, I like what my monkey is selling. I don’t cling or grasp to the vines it swings from, I don’t attach myself to false hopes, I simply enjoy, and appreciate, the inspiration of my monkey. And so I feed it. Every day. It likes chocolate. 

Make no mistake, I am THAT GIRL

I have a new neighbor, and he's going down!

I live in an apartment. You know what that is, right? It's a building that forces you to not only share square footage, bathroom shower pipes, and the only covered parking space within two miles from your front door with a complete stranger... but with his friends, too. Yeah. An apartment.

I'll admit, I haven't lived in an apartment in more than 20 years, but Jesus H. Christ, I remember how it's done. I know when screaming at Nelson, I need to do it from the closet because the clothes muffle the pitch. I know to disconnect the smoke detectors after 10 PM so if I am burning something in the kitchen, the neighbors don't have to dress and leave their half of the house in fear of fire (they can just burn, but whatever, I'm careful). And I always, always, always close the blinds when a good song comes on - no one needs to see this white girl bump and grind!

My new neighbor, let's call him Jack (as in Jackass, but I don't cuss anymore), loves his music. I just can't figure out what the heck he is doing with it - he plays it for 3 or 4 minutes, shuts it off for a couple more, plays it again for another 3 or 4, shuts it off again, and he does this for hours! It's on, than off, than on. I probably wouldn't care that he never listens to a song all the way through, but it's so loud that my floor vibrates - and I sit on the floor a lot. He does this till his friends come over. Then the door banging begins. And all of this goes on until approximately 3 AM! It is so annoying.

Do you know the restraint it takes to NOT stomp my foot on the floor! It takes a bunch of restraint! I'm always so close, but I never do it. Nelson laughs and tells me it's because I'm not that kind of girl.

Well I am a girl who works out, and this morning was no exception. Even though the floor vibrated until about 2:30 AM, I worked out... in my bedroom... right above Jack's... at 6 AM... sharp.

• shadow boxed for 15 straight minutes - ducking, slipping, pivoting, on my toes, bouncing, breathing, constant moving
• followed with 45 minutes of weights, jump rope and burpees
• feeling energetic so I threw in 100 jumping jacks
• all done to "This Is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan, cranked, on repeat, for an hour. Good song.

Two Inches of Spite

I'm dating an educated man. Know what that means for me? It means I never win arguments...

This past weekend, the man and I were suffering through a moment of "you're annoying me/no I'm not, you're annoying me" when it dawned on me, he really is annoying me!

I'm not sure I remember how the arguing started (of course I do), but I remember him smiling (when he shouldn't have been), nodding his head (as he shouldn't have done) and moving the living room furniture around so that he could perform his victory dance (which he didn't deserve).

I also remember thinking "we need cable." PBS and two Spanish channels just doesn't cut it when you make that dramatic move to prove "I'm not listening to you, La La La."

For the next 10 minutes, I sulked.

For the rest of the night, I fantasized. Little did I appreciate, at the time, that my mind is an instrument of great power; a weapon more powerful and accurate than a pellet gun shooting cans and cardboard boxes lined up against a brick wall for target practice and execution. Can you see the cans spinning out in agony? I held that power, not in the form of a gun, but my fantasies were just as deadly.

The next day, I visited the hairdresser.

In the words of my good friend, Winnie, "...all guys like long hair..." !

Freud was right - romantic love IS enigmatic

I planned a year of living scandalously. I was determined to keep men in my bed - and out of my heart.

Let me start at the beginning... five years ago...

...I was divorced, turning 40, and determined to own my own heart - with a little carefree fun thrown in the middle. It was on a warm, sunny Friday morning that I changed out of my ragged sweatpants and rejoined the land of the dating.

Then it was that following Monday that I put them back on.

Now I can't say I've spent much time beating my fists on the pillow wondering why I can't find love, but I have harbored an unnatural amount of hope, believing that the one is out there, just waiting to meet me. For a while, I believed he'd meet me in line at Starbucks, but after a year, I realized I was still single, checking my calendar for upcoming Law & Order marathons, and a raging caffeine addict. 

So what's hard about dating? All of it.. the rules, the do's and don'ts, the mind games, wearing high heels...  and I'm going to give you proof. My story can either begin with the virgin scientist, the hair model, the cowboy, the Mormon, the pharmaceutical rep, or the convict with the misdemeanor rap (in my defense, I only dated him for a few hours). Let's begin with the pharma rep... and Mariah Carey...

According to Mariah Carey, a love story is simple: boy meets girl, looks in her eyes, time stands still and two hearts catch fire.

No? No.

Seems in order to attract a guy (enough to be asked out on a second date anyway) you must learn the mysterious inner workings of a man's brain. Did you know "professionals" write books on how to date men? They call it a "contemporary dating culture." There are books on shelves that actually map out a step-by-step plan on how to win a man's heart. Rows and rows of books, I tell you. It's dizzying. I've been reading for days on how to be so irresistible, that now I can hardly keep from dating myself!

Where was I?

So I went out on a date and guess what I did? I broke the rules. I broke almost every one of them in chapters 1 through 7. Then I broke one from chapter 9. That one was fun. No lie.

I guess it's lucky for me my date didn't know about the rules, otherwise I probably wouldn't have scored a second date (especially after the chapter 9 slip).

Here's a couple of the rules:

*be decisive
*don't be readily available
*dress appropriately. look feminine. men like their women to look feminine.
*allow him to pick you up for your date
*know how to order your dinner at the restaurant - including dessert
*don't check your makeup at the table
*know what topics are appropriate for "first-date" conversations, and which ones are not

Here's how I broke them:

Him: Are you free this weekend?
Me: I'm always free on the weekends. (that is "readily available" sounding, isn't it?)
Him: Want to get together and do something?
Me: Sure! Definitely! (I was going for "enthusiastic")
Him: What would you like to do?
Me: Absolutely anything. I'd be happy just meeting at Circle K. (Circle K is the gas station, and yes, I really said this. What I wouldn't give for a genie in a bottle...)
Him: Let's not meet at Circle K. How about we meet for a drink or dinner? I can pick you up.

-----Skip Ahead-----

I meet him at the restaurant instead of letting him pick me up, after all, he could be a serial killer luring me into his SUV, or just a horn-dog looking to get busy for the night, which, by the way, isn't allowed until AFTER chapter 11. I arrive at the restaurant he chose because I just couldn't decide, and I'm wearing a pair of Levi's and a shirt covered in giraffe spots. If ever I was the epitome of femininity, it was this moment, walking up to the restaurant in Levi's and and giraffe spots. Throughout the evening I apply and re-apply my Carmex. I do this at least 17 times, but I'm pretty sure he only caught me 14 times. Appropriate conversations include no ex-bashing, but I can't help myself. No talking slutty, and again, I can't help myself. No asking about the future. "Do you ever think about getting married again" just slipped out. I swear.

I'm going to stop here. Even I've decided to never date myself.

So how did I score that second date? Got me. Maybe he happens to like lonely giraffes with soft lips that hang out at Circle K.

But just to give you a little hint on how I messed up that second date: we were getting cozy, we were enjoying each other's company - not chapter 11 worthy, but almost - when he stopped, looked in my eyes, and quietly asked, "Are you really wearing a sports bra?"

Can you spell nowonderyouredatelessonfridaynights?