Sunday, August 31, 2008

Why I Hate National Holidays...

...because they make me feel inadequate. They point up the wide gulf between what my life is and how other midlife women are spending the day. Actually, there was never a point in my life when I liked national holidays. When I was a freelancer, it always seemed as if I had a deadline the day after the holiday, which meant that I got to spend said holiday bowed over my keyboard, rather than celebrating with my fellow Amuricans. Now that I'm deadlineless and actually could fire up the barbie (if I hadn't sold it at the yard sale a couple of weeks ago), I have no one to share the flippin' steak with. If you recall, on the Fourth of July I had my own private, personal barbecue. But ya know, that gets old by Labor Day. So today when I was at the supermarket, surrounded by hoards of people buying beer and hotdogs and cupcakes and chips, oh the chips, I studiously minded my own business and eschewed any festive food. And I worked at not falling into the Slough of Despond--oh woe, oh me.

Today I spent in my studio creating great works of art. That means I spread a plastic cloth on the dining room table and brought out my various and sundry bits and pieces, pencils and paints. What I'm learning--okay, I've learned it, but I keep hoping it will change--is that I like to work small and I like to work with pencils and I like to do swoooping shapes of color and I have grand ideas that rarely come to fruition. Mainly I suspect it's because I don't trust myself.

Do you really think Sarah Palin is palming her grandson off as her son? I'd like to know how she expects to parent her children while on the campaign trail. That doesn't seem to be very good for her family's values, does it? I dunno; I think McCain's VP choice is gonna blow up in his face. Today, he was touting her greater executive experience, compared to Obama, and he listed all the things she has managed, ending with the PTA.

A note to my disaffected readers: If you're going to write political comments, please do so without:
  1. any ad hominem attacks
  2. resorting to canned talking points
  3. insulting the intelligence or integrity of ANY of the candidates involved. The parties themselves--be my guest and have at it with them. As organized religion is in matters of spirituality, the political parties are the root of all evil in matters of government.

Friday, August 29, 2008

No Way, No How, No Palin

Sarah Palin is the nail in the coffin as far as any thought I might have had about supporting McCain. I really was willing to listen with an open mind next week, but his choice of Palin as VP shows me that it's just business as usual for the GOP: pick a candidate that has some personal appeal and figure you can blind the electorate to the reality of their experience and beliefs. That's exactly what they did with Bush, and they actually succeeded in making enough people believe that the most important thing about a presidential candidate was whether you'd want to have a beer with him. I'm going to misquote Bill Maher here: "The American people are stupid and they deserve the presidents they get."

I'm one of those middle-aged, educated white women who supported Hillary. I find it insulting, not to mention pathetic, that the Republicans truly believe that I'm only interested in the gender of the candidate. Palin's social conservatism is anathema to Democrats who supported Clinton. The women the GOP is trotting out who are just loving loving loving Palin are Republicans, the proverbial converted choir. The thinking in the McCain camp seems to be: well, Palin's got a vagina too and isn't that what these women really care about? Besides, we can use that "cracking the glass ceiling line with her", and maybe no one will notice that her strongly held beliefs are antithetical to women's rights and women's lives. How stupid can they be--or, better question, how stupid do they think we are. Best question: how stupid are we?

Can you imagine if McCain died in office, that Palin would be President? They'd probably spirit her away to the Tower like they did with the Two Princes, and then bring Darth Vader back to rule the land. History is filled with all sorts of vile chicanery, and this may only be the beginning. Be afraid; be very afraid.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

No Way, No How, No McCain

I wrote this Tuesday night. It is still very much where my head, mind, and heart are...

Here's what made up my mind. It wasn't something that Obama said, because we haven't heard from him yet. It was first Teddy Kennedy reminding me that my core beliefs were those held by the Democratic Party. And then Hillary tonight, laying out again the specifics of what I believe and asking if I had supported her because we had shared ideals or because I wanted her to be president. Yes, I wanted her to be president, but that is because we share ideals. That being the case, I would betray myself if I voted for another four years of the Republican way of life.

And even as I write that, I think: but is that what McCain promises? Certainly it's effective rhetoric, but is there another side to see? I'll watch next week, and listen, but at this point I already know that I dislike McCain's domestic policies. The Republican rhetoric will have to sparkle to dim issues like choice and failed economic policies from my vision.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Death and Dying - at Midlife

I was out of sorts yesterday. Just felt meh-ish, after a several week period in which I was up-and-at-em. Am I crashing, I thought. Oh no, oh woe. But then I did what I have learned to do at such times (at least when I can remember) and that is to just accept that I'm feeling meh-ish. And know that it too will pass. While I was working at achieving this pseudo-Zen state--and wishing, really, that I could have a Stepford button installed in my brain because who needs to feel meh-ish even if you know it will pass--I realized the source of my state of mind. The day before my friend M called to tell me that our friend Sharon was dying.

I saw Sharon when I was in LA a couple of weeks ago. It was a reunion of sorts of our book club and Sharon, who hadn't been feeling at all well, particularly wanted to come. She needed to see her friends. The group of us hung out as we have done so many times in the past, and we talked, really talked, 'checking in' with each other as only women who have history together can do. My check-in was to relate not only the ghastly year I've had, but also the much more promising one that seems now to be taking place.

Sharon checked in with her medical report. The doctor saw a spot on her lung and said it was probably sarcoidosis. Or maybe lung cancer. Sharon wasn't buying that diagnosis; she much preferred the sarcoidosis, which is an immune system disease that is rarely fatal. She would do what she has always done (sometimes with disasterous results, it must be said) and trust totally in Alternative non-Western medicine. She was refusing the steroids that would be prescribed for the sarcoidosis and she was refusing the second CAT scan that would rule out cancer. But oh, she was so tired, and so weak, and so very very depressed. The doctor wanted her to go on anti-depressants and until now, she had refused them as well. But we, her girl friends (some of whom were loaded up on Prozac and Effexor themselves) urged her to reconsider. Think of the mind-body connection, Sharon, we told her. How can you hope to get well without your full emotional strength. And she finally agreed. When I hugged her goodbye, it was with the knowledge that she too would soon be loaded up on Effexor and feeling 100% in just a matter of time.

I don't think she ever got that prescription filled. The next day I'm told she was so weak that her sister came to take her to the doctor. She had the second CAT scan. Stage IV lung cancer; metastasized already to her bones. She died yesterday, just three weeks after I last saw her. When M called to tell me, I thought, Aha--the meh-ish feeling made much more sense than I had originally thought.

I've reached the age when I'm starting to lose my friends, all of whom are midlife women. Not that cancer doesn't take young people as well, but I am suddenly aware of how vulnerable we all are to the ultimate breakdowns in the body. How vulnerable I am. And it makes me feel--well, very vulnerable.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Heirloom tomato sandwich with bread baked ByJane

I was going to sell my old bread maker, but first I had to see if it worked. And it does. And I ate the whole loaf in less than twenty four hours. So I won't be selling it. But I won't be making bread with it very often either. Obviously, I am not to be trusted around homemade carbs.

Monday, August 25, 2008

#DNC08 - Some tweets and more

Night One of the Democratic National Convention, America's answer to the Olympics. Every four years, we hold a major competition and the winner gets...not a gold medal, but a chance to fuck up the world. Or at least that's what's happened the past eight years.

Seriously, I'm struck by the similarity in handicapping between, say, Chris Matthews and Bob Costas. If process is what counts in this world more than product, than what difference does it make if the topic being masticated is Barack Obama's chances or Michael Phelps? Barack has Michelle; Michael has Debbie. And who might we cast as Hillary in this scenario? Probably the Chinese--that nation willing to do anything to win the gold, or so would say Clinton's detractors.

Michelle Obama gave a helluva performance tonight. Moved a lot of people to tears--or at least enough that the control room had more than one or two to pick out of the crowd. Me, I was moved to admiration--for her performance. Did it, as the pundits say, do the job? I don't know, because the job for me was done by Teddy Kennedy. He reminded me of why I'm a life-long Democrat. He made me feel proud to be one. Will that translate to my making up my mind for Obama? I dunno. I'll wait and see what the man himself has to say on Thursday night.

There is a hagiographic bent to the coverage of Obama, of that there is no question. Chris Matthews and Keith Oberwhatever were absolutely creaming their drawers over the whole Michelle Obama package. It was a little embarrassing; like watching two grown men have a wet dream in public. It will be interesting to see how their journalistic integrity reasserts itself when the Republican convention begins.

I AM SO SICK OF ALL THIS TALK ABOUT CLINTON's SUPPORTERS. Like they're accolytes in the convent of Hillary. Bull twaddle. Here's how to really screw women to the wall: set them against each other for imagined slights. Insist that they are operating on emotion, rather than reason. Demean their beliefs by refusing to acknowledge their right to those beliefs. Ask them if they're PMSing. Wonder if they have the balls to have balls. And then when they do, attack them for it.

Is it any wonder I get cranky when I'm exposed to "alleged" political coverage? And yet, I can't seem to stay away.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

It's The Economy, Stupid!

While I have been neglecting you, I have been attending to my house. Here's the story behind the headline (and oh, parenthetically, forgive me if I'm repeating myself...). My fact finding trip to LA revealed these two facts.
  1. Regarding my career as a Marriage and Family Therapist: The internship in LA would/will be a fantastic opportunity and I am still jazzed about it. Basically, they train you and mentor you and guide you and etc. etc. you in creating a private practice. Bbuuuttttt, it doesn't pay for the first three months. And then it pays a portion of the fees you take in from your clients. And you pretty much have to find the clients, which is indeed a major part of building a practice and you get lots of support, etc. etc., but it takes time. And the current economy is not one in which people, even in LA, are lining up to see their therapists. "Let's see, shall I put gas in my car or pay my shrink?" So we're talking three months without any income and then however long with however limited income.
  2. My foray into the rental market in LA revealed, as I've told you, the fact that I've passed the point in life where I'm willing to suck it up lifestyle-wise. That being the case, I would have to pay about twice what I could get for renting my house to lease a "do-able" place in LA. Ah, but you over the in the corner, waving your hand wildly: Why, you ask, don't I just sell my house? As Husband #1 used to say, "Good question, Batman." (Isn't it funny the things that stick with you decades after a relationship is over?) And the answer is that I live smack in the middle of the most depressed housing market in the United States. If I could sell my house, it would mean pricing it to compete with all the foreclosures, which (a) would mean a HUGE loss, and (b) wouldn't be enough to buy a place in LA.
So you do the math. No income plus major outlay for rent equals gross spending of capital--or as I have come to think of it, major money down the toilet.

Having done the math myself, I came to the conclusion that I must stay put until the market evens out. I have to be able to take enough out of my house to buy a condo in LA. That's not an unheard of exchange of real estate; I just need to have patience. And surprisingly, having made that decision, I am feeling quote hopeful--about, I dunno, my life or something. Which just goes to show you--something. Or not, as the case may be.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

My Date With Fabian, byJane

Once upon a time in a land far away lived a young girl who in today's world would be called a geek, but then was just known as a creep. She was tall, very tall, seemingly taller than everyone else in her ninth grade class. This was not actually a fact, given the truth of pubescent growth spurts which were just now hitting a few boys in her class. But it's the way she felt and that, after all, is what counts the most when you're fourteen.

She was, our young heroine, a girl who lived a lot in her imagination. One consequence of this--and of the fact that she was known as a creep--was that she had never been on a date. No boy had held her hand or kissed her cheek, and as far as anything else went--well, this was a land far away when such things were unheard of until you were seventeen or eighteen at least. This did not, however, mean that she had not lusted in her heart, as far as her heart knew how to lust. In fact, she had seen the movie Gidget eight times. This was not, you must remember, a time of video tapes or CD-ROMS. To see the movie Gidget eight times, our heroine had to go to eight different showings on eight different days. But such was her love for James Darren, the Moondoggie of this Gidget that she eagerly spent hours alone in a darkened movie theatre imagining that it was she and not Sandra Dee that Moondoggie was kissing. There may have been some part of this where she actually wanted to be Sandra Dee, that is, petite and blonde and Protestant, but that is what happens when you give a young girl an imagination that knows no bounds.

Now it happened that in the summer before her freshman year of high school, she spent some time in Atlantic City, staying with her mother in a rooming house owned by the mother of her father's brother's daughter's husband (this detail is only of interest to those who would like to know that said husband eventually ran NBC, but then, he was just a lowly lawyer whose mother ran what was called a cochalein. This is Yiddish for a rooming house where the ice box (yes, ice box) was shared by a number of different women, each of whom had their section of a particular shelf.

Our heroine, who we shall call for expediencies sake, J., never knew why this was one of the few she things she remembered from that summer. Another was that her mother shoe polished her white Keds, which you all must know was, is and will always be a fate worse than death. And the last thing J remembered from that time was--Fabian.
He was appearing at a concert in Atlantic City and somehow J. was going. She can't remember who with, although she thinks there might have been a fix up there by her mother and another woman at the cochalein. She has vague memories of some faceless young man who was, it seemed, the reason why J's mother applied the white shoe polish to J's Keds. But more than that is lost to time, gone with the wind, as it were. What J. remembers about the concert is screaming. She clearly sees herself standing in a mass of other young girls and screaming. She doesn't know if she screamed at the sight of Fabian or at the sound of his voice, but she opened her mouth wide and screamed. It was a primal response. After the evening was over, she was returned to the cochalein a somewhat changed girl, not the least of which was her raspy throat, and life as she knew it would never be the same.

(To Be Continued....)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

I Won! I Won! I Won!

The stars must have been aligned for me on Sunday, because I could not go wrong. Not only did I win a wonderful souvenir from Japan from Merlot Mom--which, of course, I will feature here when I get it (ahem!). But I won this
shooting water into a balloon at the State Fair. And these
in similar games of extreme skill and cunning. Aren't you impressed?

You should be, because I haven't won anything since I won a date with Fabian back in 9th grade (which gives my age away if nothing else does). I enter all competitions just assuming I will lose. And when I win, I assume that the contest was rigged in my favor. For example, I'm sure that the bowl from which MerlotMom's son pulled my name was filled with pieces of paper, all of which said "byJane." And I'm certain that I won the banana--and the car--and the shark (or is it a dolphin?)--because the person running the game was pushing a button that made my seat the winning one.

I realize that this is a rather sad commentary on my sense of self. I'll have to think about that for a while before I can offer up a shrink-worthy analysis.

Monday, August 18, 2008

A Confidential Confession

Of course, I know I'm the only person to feel this way: I love Michael Phelps. I also love Dara Torres. I love that they are superhuman and yet seemingly supernormal. I could never do what they each have done, but the fact that they've done it makes in some way and for some reason my world a better place.

I think it's the integrity of their intention that I admire. And somehow that gets placed for me alongside the Chinese in these 2008 Olympics . The Chinese, while producing some amazing results both in events and the show itself, do not have integrity of intention. Theirs is more the win at whatever cost that I normally associate with The American Way.

Funny that, isn't it. Sad, too.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

My Olympics

...is purely a spectator sport. I watch, I don't know why I watch, I don't know why I'm so fascinated that I will do nothing for that two week period in the evening but watch the Olympic coverage. I know nothing about sports--any of them, really. What I do know, however, is that I could never be a contender. I don't have the mental wherewithal, never mind what my body would do. Actually, I've been told over the years by a number of independent voices that I do have an athlete's body. My father was a professional athlete, and I guess I inherited something from him. The body type, that is, but certainly not the mental goods to go along with it. The repetition that is the hallmark of a training regime--I could never do that. I would get bored; I would whine; I would come up with a million and one reasons why I couldn't train that day. I don't know how the world-class athletes can bear the sheer tedium of swimming laps again and again and again and then again. Or marathon running: that training schedule of endlessly plowing up hills and down hills, around the block and into the countryside. I understand the mentality that goes into that about as well as I understand Chinese, which is to say not at all.

In the '80s, I did a profile of Mary T. Meagher, the famous Madame Butterfly, who still, I believe, holds the Olympic record for the 200 'fly. As part of the profile, I went to training with her one day. Oh, god, the absolute tedium of it. On the blocks, into the water, 'fly the length, haul body out of the water, walk around to the blocks and get in line to do it all over again. And again. And again. All afternoon and well into the evening. I escaped about 8 p.m., and Mary T. was still at it.

You know, it just occurred to me that I probably could learn Chinese sooner than I will ever understand how these athletes do it. Maybe that's why I watch them incessantly even though I haven't a clue what they're doing. To try to get some glimmer of what it is that drives them--and doesn't drive me.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Wanted: The Single Person's Life

Now that's a totally new concept to me. I heard it the other morning while talking to a friend who was commiserating about my burial in suburbia. "I know exactly what you mean," she said. "I had to leave the suburbs because I wanted a Single Person's Life, and the chances of my finding it outside of a city were nil to none."

I ignored the fact that her statistics were somewhere south of the Georgian steppes (I am math-illiterate myself, not to mention geographically-challenged). I was totally taken with this idea of the Single Person's Life, which emerged as a full-blown vision And since as a writer, I write, I set about making a verbal doodle of exactly what that life would be.

A Single Person's Life is one of contentment, pleasure even, in the solitary nature of day-to-day events. That is, no one else is about to crap on your fantasies or complain about the way you made the bed. If you snore, you only wake yourself. If you get up at 3 a.m. and must have a bowl of cereal, no one is there to say, "What the hell are you doing?" You don't have to wait for the bathroom to be free and the only smelly old sneakers in the closet are yours.

A Single Person's Life is one in which you star. What do you want to eat? What do you want to watch? When do you want to go to bed--and really, what do you want to do once you're there? Here, give me that remote; it's mine to program at will. Sated with the Olympics? Move on over to Flip That House or, better yet, Final Cut/Shear Genius where you can enjoy the sheer/shear bitchiness of the hairdressers without anyone sneering at your choices.

A Single Person's Life is one where you don't have to worry about whether your partner likes your sister, best friend, or the couple down the street. Nor will you ever be concerned about his or her antisocial tendencies relative to alcohol imbibed and conversations had. When you go to a party as a Single Person, you are free to skulk in the corner or flirt with the host, leave early or stay till dawn, as you wish. If you get into an intense philosophical conversation about the relative worth of free range eggs, there is no one over in the corner giving you the high sign, I want to go now. Conversely, you will never be at a company event of your partner's where you must endlessly endure the boss's sexist jokes and the rancid clam dip. If you wander by chance into such an event on your own, you can, without qualm, hightail it out at the first sign of a stale chip.

I have an image of myself in this Single Person's Life. I am, of course, somewhat slimmer than now, mainly because I actually do yoga and actually use my Pilates reformer. I am happy and carefree and entertain a lot in my Single Person's home (using, it must be said, my formerly married person's china and silver). My friends are my family. We actually like each other, which is more than I can say about my family--and therefore holidays spent together are pleasant events, which again is more than I can say about my family.

Yes, this is a fantasy, and I realize that reality does in fact bite. But still, this Single Person's Life is a worthwhile goal, is it not? It's a life in which self-actualization is completely in your control. You are who you are, without any addendum modifying you. And your life, your Single Person's Life, is now an object of desire rather than shame or scorn.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Blog World Expo

I think I'm going. Yes I am. I'm just following my heart on this blogging thing...don't know if it will ultimately make sense, but it sure makes me happy.

Blog World Expo - Home

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Food

I rarely write about what I've eaten, unless it's some superior thingie that I made and I've taken photos of it and I'm offering it up in a Martha-ish way. That is not the case with today's post. Today I am standing up in front of the group and saying, My name is Jane and I can't keep my mouth empty. You'll notice I have not used the traditional Twelve Step thingie of admitting to an addiction. That's because I'm not addicted to food. I just use it in a mildly damaging manner as a substitute for whatever else is or is not happening in my life. And don't tell me that's an addiction, because I AM NOT ADDICTED.

Can you tell I have a problem, a slight issue with the whole Twelve Step thingie? This made me tres popular in my Drugs and Addiction classes. It's not that I don't believe in the theories or whatever behind the Twelve Steps; it's that the people I know who participate seem to get, um, addicted to the Twelve Steps. They trade one compulsion for another. Is that such a good thing? Shouldn't a Program be working on getting a person to understand the source of their compulsion?

Take me--for a very good example (please, someone, take me). My compulsion to cram food of any and all sorts into my mouth today was a function of--if I keep that mouth busy, it won't have time to scream. See, that's the source of my compulsion. Now all I have to do is deal with the tiny details in my life that are making me want to scream. Easy peasy....or not, as the case may be.

So: today: I ate: a big fat piece of white layer sheet cake with sprinkles on it, purchased for a mere $2.79 at the local Raley's. The same cake, same sprinkles, is $5.99 at the Nugget, our new holier-than-thou, grander-than-Whole Foods market. Sane cake, same lard frosting, just a tad difference in cost, owing no doubt to I'm not sure what. So--I had that cake for dinner. That's how I justify it. Nine million calories--just another steak and potatoes meal, but without having to cut the meat and digest the potato skins. The cake, rather, is psychologically satisfying because (a) IT'S SWEET, and (b) it's mooshy, so I can squish it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

Now I've moved on to itty bitty baby heirloom tomatoes. Much better for me, indeed. And satisfying unto themselves, because they pop and squirt itty bitty tomato seeds into my mouth. An explosion of vegetable glory--and heirloom, as well. Good for the environment, not to mention that organic foods and family farms business.

But the night is young and I'm not done yet. Before I waddle off to bed, I've got some chocolate-cherry soy icecream waiting for me. It's soy, for chrissake. It's healthy. And then there's popcorn in my larder. Did you know that popcorn is the broom of the digestive tract? And, of course, I finish every night with a ritualistic nightcap--glass of milk and piece of chocolate.

Doesn't everyone? Admit it--let he who is without sin cast the first whatever....

Monday, August 11, 2008

Movus Interruptus

...well, it sure as hell wouldn't be coitus now, would it. Seeing as I haven't been near a coit in I don't know how long.

I've got half-filled cartons and a lack of will to finish the job. It's an odd thing that happens to me; or maybe not. Maybe it happens to everyone and no one ever talks about it. When I get out of my comfort zone, I become very uncomfortable. Discombobulated, one would say. I actually have a hard time feeling myself, and certainly I can't tell what I want or don't want. Beyond, let's say, the corned beef sandwich, rather than the borscht and sour cream.

Does this make any sense? No? Of course not. The disparate thoughts are united only by proximity in my brain. That is, I was in LA and out of my comfort zone. That I was breathing was merely a function of my autonomic nervous system (or is it the central? I get them mixed up). I am trying to describe what it feels like to be, as I say, discombobulated. It is as if I am plodding through some murky cherry jello. No, not cherry; lime perhaps. And it's jello before it has set up, when it's still mostly watery with just a bit of the jel beginning. I am able to keep on keepin' on because my brain is telling my legs to move. And I am not totally without decision-making powers in that I can order from a firm preference the corned beef on rye at Canter's Deli. And eat it, the whole thing, more bread and meat than I am used to consuming at one meal. But it goes down because I cannot feel myself and so I don't know that I am full. Until afterwards, when I am in great pain from a severely distended stomach. Not to mention great shame from having Gorged on The Whole Sandwich (plus a couple of pickles).

This discombobulation is why I don't get out a lot. I'm much better spending my days and evenings alone. Even though I say I'm not. Even though intellectually I know it's not such a good thing for a person to be alone so much. But you know, it's safer. I don't discombobulate myself. Other people do it to me.

So movus interruptus, according to the dictionary definition, is when a person says they're moving, buys moving boxes, puts things into those boxes, and then loses the will. Was it anything specific that happened when I was in LA? On my fact-finding trip (my recce, as the Brits call it)? Well, perhaps. Let me just vomit it all out there and you try and make sense of it. Or not, as the case may be.

I stayed with my friend M. She lives in the house next door to my old house. Was it weird being next to my old house and it not being my house? One would think so, wouldn't one? But I felt nothing. Nada. Zip. Is this because I am so over that house. Or is it that my feelings are such that I cannot allow them even an breath of life? I don't know. Either one is pefectly plausible and therapeutically correct, at least in terms of an analysis.

M's house is similar to the state of my house when I lived in it. Late 1920s, Spanish bungalows. Cute. Not without charm. Crumbling infrastructure. I walked around making judgment after judgment about peeling paint, jerry-rigged plumbing, sad floors. M's animals are geriatric as well, which may have something to do with the sadness. Making do.

I went to see the apartment I'd hoped to rent. It was a box with windows that faced interior walls. It smelled like a bar at 9 a.m. the morning after, in the days when we could still smoke in bars. The complex was built in the 1970s, and upgraded last year. But there's just so much you can do changing out a granite slab for formica. If you watch any of the Flip My House programs, you know what can be done on the cheap. I couldn't live there.

I packed to come home in two minutes. I drove the 300 plus miles in six hours. I am breathing again. I can feel myself. I am home. Amid the boxes.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

MidLifeBloggers.com: Want to Write For Us????

It's finally up, the never-definitive, ever-almost ready guide to

Writing for MidLifeBloggers.com: A How-to, Why, & When, etc. etc.

If you're a midlifeblogger and you want to write for us, this is what you need to do....Go look!

Saturday, August 09, 2008

The Newly Single Woman Starts Over Again

So I've been to LA--tra la! tra la! Here's what I found:

  • When I wake up in the early morning--or late night--with panicked thoughts about my life, I need to PAY ATTENTION. There is a difference between taking risks and conquering fear and going askew from where I'm best meant to be. In other words, I'm stepping on the brakes, pulling on the reins and sliding to a gravel-spinning stop with this move of mine. What I found in LA is that I'm trying to do it too fast.
  • Like it or not, living in a brand new place has ruined me for going back to living in whatever. I need my clean, spacious shower, my nice kitchen, my high ceilings. I can't bear cracked tile, crumbly gray grout, make-do bathroom fixtures. Consequently, I can't just pick any old place and move in. I'm old enough that I need what I need, and if I have to wait a while to get it, then so be it.
This thing of being in midlife and starting all over again is "interesting." Fill in the blank for what the word may mean. Actually, it changes depending on the day, time, and situation. So I'm going to chronicle it here...because that's what I always have done with my life, write about it, and because it may be helpful to others who woke up one day in midlife and found the rug pulled from under them and the floor beneath not too firm. I'll write it as it happens--and if you want to know anything, just ask.....

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Monday, August 04, 2008

A Warning...

So I have been less than attentive this past weekend for which I do humbly apologize and warn you that there is probably more of this to come. August is here. I am packing. By. Myself. And. Freaking.

When I freak, I tend to hide. Curl up in a proverbial ball and shut my proverbial eyes. If I can't see the world, then the world can't see me. Right?

But I don't have that luxury this time. I must keep moving because I am packing. By. Myself. And anticipating moving. By. Myself.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. It's the anticipation that will get you everytime. Gotta stay in the moment, in real time, here and now. Do this today. Do that tomorrow. Day after tomorrow will be what it will be whenever it comes.

And breathe. Also a good idea.

My yardsale was relatively successful in that I (a) made some money, and (b) got rid of some stuff I wanted to get rid of. The rest of it I'm shit-canning.

Molly is at Betty's getting beautified. We're going to LA tomorrow. Getting my hairs cut on Wednesday morning. Going to CGI to hammer down the internship position on Wednesday afternoon. Seeing a place or two to rent on Thursday. Further ahead than that I cannot go....