The Grass is Green on Both Sides of a Gray Fence

I’ve done it. In the first month of this year, seven days after my 40th birthday, I have met the man I am going to marry. Guess who it is? It’s Zipper, from my last blog entry. No, silly. It’s the homeless guy I met at Ralph’s grocery store earlier today. He thinks I’m pretty. He asked me, “Why are you so pretty?” Of course he said this after he told me he was hungry and needed some food and asked me if I could buy him some. I offered to buy him an apple, but he said, “I don’t like apples. I want a donut.” Then, that’s when he asked me why I was so pretty.

What’s sad, is that I have really bad luck with offering apples to homeless guys. I always seem to have apples, they are my on-the-go-food, and I am not afraid to offer them, obviously, but homeless folks don’t seem to want them. One time I offered this other guy an apple (maybe he was homeless, maybe he wasn’t), who was begging for change outside of Taco Bell, and he didn’t just have a thing against apples, he hated all fruit and told me as much—with zeal. Then, he gave me a dirty look for offering him something so healthy. He wanted Taco Bell, damn it. How dare I?

And today, I offered an apple to yet another homeless guy, even before I got to Ralph’s and got buttered up with flattery (this other homeless guy stands on the same street corner day in and day out right in front of the coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway and 7th Street in Long Beach) and he didn’t have anything against apples, per se, he just couldn’t eat them. No teeth. But, at least he was gracious enough to smile his toothless grin and thank me. Now him, he deserved a donut.

What I have concluded from all of this, is that when a homeless guy asks you for food, he doesn’t want an apple, and when he asks you, more than once, “Why are you so pretty?” what he is really asking you is, “Why won’t you just get me the F’n donut, biach?”

Will the real man of my dreams please step forward? Da dada da tada…behind door number three we have Mr. Adorable Italiano (who is also from my last blog entry). “How can that be?” you say. Mr. Adorable didn’t ask for my number, you protest further. This is all true. However, my friend Willamina convinced me that I shouldn’t leave well enough alone, even when I fervently suggested that I should. She said that I owed it to the love Gods to pull one of those same-time-same-place moves, and that I should get my tooshy back to the breakfast joint counter where Mr. Adorable and I met, and I should give him a chance to show up and ask for my phone number.

Sounds desperate?

I couldn’t agree more, which is what I told Willamina along with saying, “I don’t think Mr. Adorable is it, Willa.” But, given the fact that I’d also shared with her many other things that the psychic told to me, aside from telling me that I’d meet my husband this year, Willamina made me promise that I’d humor her and…just friggen do it! A promise is a promise. Plus, when two people remind you that you need to learn to be a girl, a friend and an amazing psychic, who, by the way, predicted another friend’s marriage, you start to take heed.

It was hard, hearing Willamina regurgitate to me, again, what the psychic had confirmed, that men are afraid of me. Not afraid of me like I’m going to eat their head off of their shoulders with my metamorphic, alien, giant-sized mouth, but afraid of me like they don’t think I need them so they feel emasculated by me. It was probably necessary that I be reminded, because it’s kind of, um…true. I know I can be scary independent.

I’ve never been good at being the damsel in distress. My mother told me that when I was a little girl if I was sick in the middle of the night I would sooner get up and change my own sheets and put the dirties in the laundry than letter a whimper loose and ask anyone for help. The only time I climbed into my parent’s bed when I was a kid was during a massive lightening and thunder storm. Let me tell you, I still remember that monster storm. If one like it hit again, I’d be looking for someone’s bed to crawl into right now.

What’s sad, is now that I am an adult I know that asking for help is an amazing strength to have, but, among all of my strengths, that is one that is underdeveloped in me. This I am trying to change. We accomplish more when we work in solidarity rather than solitarily.

That said, it is probably true that most men don’t get the impression that I even want a man in my life. I got it when the psychic said that while it is essential that a woman gets in touch with the goddess side of her nature, and taps into her strength, beauty, and sensuality (while maintaining her brains), that strength can sometimes become a weakness if she does not let others, namely in my case: a man, give her their strength back.

Allowing vulnerability is good. I have never denied the gift of a friend’s strength in my life before. However, it’s been a long time since I’ve met a man who has enough of his own emotional strength that he is not afraid of mine. Again, I am not saying I am the epitome in emotional wherewithal, but I do know that, for better or worse, I have spent a lifetime being strong for others. Somewhere along the way I learned how important it is to let others know that they can count on you. That characteristic has, in many ways, become predominant in my nature, among other characteristics that do not spell out: I-will-let-you-help-me to a man. I am sure that some of my breakups have also left me with some residual armor I’m not conscious of. It’d be stupid to assume that many of the men I’ve encountered are not picking up on that.

Thankfully, in recent years I have felt a lot of my energy shift to a much more open, available, and vulnerable space where men are concerned. But, I can imagine that before this inner alteration, which almost always has to happen subconsciously before one becomes conscious of it, the previous energy, which has left so many men with the impression that I’ve got it all figured out, has prevailed. The men I have encountered have likely thought: This chick is taking care of herself and others. She doesn’t need me. The problem is, no matter how good I am at looking after myself, that doesn’t mean that I don’t also want someone to care for who can also watch over me.

That’s why when I saw Mr. Adorable walk into the breakfast joint I felt I had another opportunity to be a better flirter, to be a better, softer girl. I wasn’t going to go wearing pink or anything, but… Alright, I’m am so friggen lying again. Mr. Adorable never showed up. But, I did finally figure out why I lie so much. It has nothing to do with a blow to the head as I’d previously ascertained. It also has nothing to do with me being an actual liar, because I am, in reality, a pretty darn honest person.

It’s as simple as this: I’m a writer who has never written the truth before. Meaning, I usually start out with the truth, as most writers do. I draw a basic story from the truth and utilize the emotions that follow. Then, in much the same way that a painting speaks to me as soon as I put the first stroke of color on the canvas, the story calls out to me. It asks me, like the painting does, not just to create it but to listen to what it has to say for itself. The color in my paintings and the words in my stories, they talk to me. They tell me what they need and where I should go next. I listen.

But my life, this telling the truth as it is happening business, it seems to require that I become somewhat of a reporter—a teller of chronological events—rather than an imagine-ista who get’s to listen to the whispers of hue, saturation, and nuance, or who gets to cast out a word or a sentence and see what kind of an adventure fish takes the bait.

Before this blog, I’ve never done that, this going with just-the-facts thing. Maybe I have done it, reported stuff, in my emails to friends, but not as a writer. Going with only the truth in this blog is still strange as hell to me. It feels like putting bacon bits on vanilla ice-cream. BTW, I don’t even eat bacon or ice cream. There’s too much salt in bacon, which is bad for my blood pressure, and I am lactose intolerant. So? See how difficult this is?

And, the whole truth is…this life of mine, it ain’t the movies. No one’s life is. We don’t get what we want in approximately 1 ½ to 2 hours—standard movie length. In our lives, there are no ten minute introductions to all the pivotal players—heroes and zeros. We cannot count on the meet-cute (boy meets girl) playing out in the way Hollywood contrives these encounters. No. Our got-love/lost-love, got milk/get drunk, it all plays out as successive steps getting us closer and closer to the lessons the universe wants us to learn in order to fulfill our ultimate potential in this life. Which is why we totally miss out on the 90-minute build-up of the rhetorical: Will they? Won’t they? When we know, stylistically and statistically (because it’s a romantic comedy, duh), that: They will!

So just get on with it, already. Hurry up with the stock argument, the fight, the misunderstanding AKA: the turning/breaking point, and get to the last 15-20 minutes of resolution that ends up in a kiss, a marriage, or at least a car driving off to Mexico, and role the damn credits. Then, we can throw our popcorn tub and empty soda cup onto the ground just underneath the seat we borrowed for a bit, because someone’s getting paid to pick that crap up, and we can go home to our lives where, if we’re telling the truth, may not be as tidy or as interesting as the diversion we just paid almost ten bucks for.

And that, my friends, is why I find myself constantly staring down the what-really-happened path, while my imagination, that big story fish, which says, “Hey! I’m over here. You could say this instead!” and gives me a run for my money. I find myself wanting to take you on a journey far less pedestrian than the goings-on in my life.

But, as you’ve seen, I sometimes have my amusing moments. Take Zipper, for example. I’ve never made a puppet out of a man before. Telling you about Zipper in my last entry has a little more grab than what happened today. Today, I took the same-time-same-place challenge Willamina indentured me to, and I went to breakfast with my friend Chloe (I needed a beautiful buffer of a friend to go with me, thnx Chloe) and I waited for Mr. Adorable (well, I meant to wait, but I got so caught up in my conversation with Chloe I honestly did forget why we’d gone there for breakfast in the first place), but Mr. Adorable didn’t show up, my oatmeal was cold, and my toast was soggy.

At least it never felt right that Mr. Adorable was my man in the first place, so I didn’t feel let down.

It would have been far more interesting if Mr. Adorable had shown up, though. That’s why, for a sentence or two, when the story begs to take me somewhere else, as this one did, I always want to go with it. Except, this is not a story, it’s my life. I have to keep reminding myself that. So, what I’ve been calling lying is really just imaginative creative writing. However, I am going to make a deal with you. So that you won’t start to think that I am forever the girl who cried wolf, I’ll try not to be imaginative for a while.

Something I do not have to make up, is that when I, in passing, said to someone I work with that I was going to meet my husband this year, I was looked at as though I was, indeed, an incredibly pathetic, desperate woman and not at all the assured, spiritual, self-fulfilling-prophecy of a positive woman I liken myself to be. So, to set the record straight, I have few things to say about that. (Not that that negativity-cow, who I barely know, who broke into my conversation with a real work-friend to interrupt, and look at me weird, is going to read my blog, anyway, but it’ll make me feel better to get it off my chest.)

First, let me explain, in more depth, why it is that I have been mostly single for so long aside from wanting a really wonderful man for myself and being unwilling to settle for less. About seven-ish/eight years ago a friend of mind said that I should enjoy being single and not having kids. My first reaction to this statement, even though I’d spent most of my life being single as opposed to being in a relationship, was to cry.

I was in my early thirties. I’d just broken up with a man who’d wrangled half of my identity from me. I was searching for someone else to give me that identity back. I had no idea that looking within would do the job better than any man could do for me. And, I believed that I might never meet the right man in time to have kids. In short, single made me sad. I was good at single. It’s what I’d mostly done. But, I didn’t want it for the rest of my life, and my break up with the man I’d given half my identity to had me believing I would be single forever.

Then, miraculously, three years later, I took the friend’s advice. It didn’t happen over night, and I never meant to enjoy being single, because I thought it was impossible, but for that three years I began to ease into it. I had started to take pleasure in being on my own. Accepting my single status, without knowing how long it would last, was foreign at first. Again, the whole reason I’d always been single was because I was unwilling to settle, not because I wanted to be alone. And, although I was still afraid of being alone forever, I was no longer afraid to be alone for months on end anymore.

Ultimately, whatever fight in me there was against being single started to diminish. I still didn’t want it; but I was getting better and better at it. Then, something switched in me. I began to enjoy it—really enjoy it. I began to relish having the bed all to myself and sleeping in. I started to realize that my company was not only pretty damn good, my company didn’t require me to put make up on or wear a bra.

I always got to watch what I wanted on TV or at the movies. If I didn’t want to cook, I didn’t have to cook. If I wanted to eat bad, good, or somewhere in the middle, no one was going to argue with me or tell me if I was pack’n on a few pounds. I was the only one seeing me naked. I was spending my money and my time how I wanted to spend it, and I was working on the most important relationship of my life. I even realized, through my spiritual growth, that if I was meant to have kids I would have them. If I was not, I wouldn’t. Either way, I was okay.

That acceptance surprised me most. There was a time all through my late twenties, and in my early thirties, where if you’d asked me if I would be fine if I never had kids, when all I’d ever wanted to do was to be a mother, that I would not have been able to answer you through my tears. You would have taken my bellowing emotion as a definitive ‘no’. No, no, and no. I was not going to be anywhere near okay if I did not have kids.

Now, I don’t even know if I want kids anymore. I am not just saying that, either, as I am still surprised that it’s true. I haven’t stopped loving kids, or being a mothering person, there are just so many more days now in my life where it no longer makes sense that I would have kids. I’ve not become selfish. I’ve become accepting. Admittedly, there are days I’ve so wholly embraced the freedom being single offers that when there is something else I’d rather be doing, or I’m tired, I sometimes get mad at my plants because they need watering. That makes me realize that it’s okay if my life remains simple.

But, there is a middle ground to every path. And, as I’ve explained, I have been on both sides of this journey before I found myself anywhere near a centering point. I’ve been scared shitless that I might not find someone in time to have kids, and have, as such, thought that the grass is indisputably greener when you are standing on it with someone else. I’ve also felt unsure if I even wanted to share my quiet, hermetic state of self-love, and, probably, self-safety, and, definitely, total freedom, with someone else. There is something empowering and magnificent about finding a patch of beautiful green grass that doesn’t require anyone else to stand on it for its beauty to be revered.

Now, I’m where I should be. I’m here Now.

I think eventually, hopefully, every person finds themselves discovering that the fence that divides the grass is just as nice as the grass on either side. That’s where I’ve turned up, on the fence. I’m in that place where most days life’s big questions don’t always have to be answered and all laid out in black in white in order for me to be happy. Going with a little gray, with a little it-is-what-it-is, otherwise known as riding the fence, isn’t such a bad thing.

After all, the grass is only as green, on either side of the fence, as the love and care you put into tending your field. If you never recognize that it is your acceptance, or your inability to embrace That Which Is, that is determining whether you can embrace your life and move forward, it is quite possible that you will remain stuck in the mud complaining without any grass in sight. Happiness is a state of mind not a patch of grass.

Okay, enough with the metaphors. The point is, I found out for myself, in the way I could interpret it best, that whatever the universe lays out for me is what I am going to be happy with because…that’s my path. This understanding has allowed me to peacefully reside in the midst of what-is and come-what-may.

It is from that place that I realize I am ready to share my couch, and the remote, and share my time and my Being, if that’s what’s in store for me. I now have a wonderful life to share. It hasn’t changed much, but how I see this life of mine has, and that’s made all the difference in the world. But just so we’re clear here, the sharing of the bed part is seriously going to be a bitch. I suck at sleeping. We’ve established that. Been this way since I was a kid, and it’s only gotten worse with hormones. So, having someone in my bed who might move their pinky toe a nano-fraction in the middle of the night, thereby waking me up out of my not-dead-but-barely-resting state of sleep, ouch. That’s gonna hurt. But, I’m ready to rally. Let’s do this thing.

So, what I was getting at this whole time, is that negative work cow can get fried. I know what desperate looks like, and it ain’t me. It’s been me, and I’ve been it. That’s how I know it ain’t me no mo’ and hasn’t been me for some time. The me-me? I’m a ready me. I now know that I’m more ready now than I was before when I thought all I needed was someone for me to adore who would love me back even more. (Corny rhyme. I know. But it made the point.)

It’s nice becoming the kind of ready where it doesn’t matter if I meet him this year or in another five years. Whenever I do meet him I won’t expect him to be anything but imperfectly perfect and I won’t expect him fill my divots. There aren’t any holes in my grass, thank you. I got my gaps covered. I might expect him to like apples, though.


One last note, and this is totally unrelated, but I had to share: Chloe and I also went to see the movie Avatar today. It is now one of my favorite movies. It has everything I love in a film: An epic love story that transcends boundaries, a tale of majestic heroism, an out-of-this-world display of science-fiction special effects and gorgeous cinematography/computer animation (it was like a liquid dream, some of the color in this film), and, most of all, a beautiful and spiritual story line with a message in one of the sub-plots dear to my heart, which is that everything is connected. The Na'vi people, they even greeted each other by saying, “I see you.” Oh, that sucked me in good.

Go see it.


Keep being fabulous!

Know Who You Are

I just got done watching the movie “Taking Woodstock,” directed by Ang Lee, which is based on Elliot Tiber's memoir, and there is a line in the movie I had to share.

The actor playing Elliot (Demetri Martin) asks another character in the film (a Trans named Vilma played by Liev Schreiber, who also played Sabretooth in the "X-Men’s Origins: Wolverine" movie), "Does my dad know? You know, what you are?" Vilma answers, simply, “I know what I am. That does make it easier for everyone else."

GREAT line. Great Advice. Know who and what you are. I am not sure what kind of reviews the movie got, but I liked it, and even if I didn’t, it would have been worth it just for that line!

It's Good to be 40. It's Good to be seen!

Here we are, post my 40th birthday celebration (which was on the 23rd), and post my actual birthday (the 24th), and you should know that I got so drunk that I fell and hit my head on a street curb and ended up in the emergency room with a concussion. Not really. I did, however, get buzzed enough that I turned some poor guy into a human puppet. (I’ll get to that later.)

The great part is…it’s official. As the title of my blog entails, I am a member of the fabulous 40s. BTW, I am completely aware of the fact that the title “The Fabulous 40s” is not only lame, it's also obscenely generic. Ya gotta admit, though, at least I’ve got 10 years worth of material where unless the 40s become frightful, which I highly doubt, no title change is required. (Ah…can you smell the convenience?)

Most of my favorite people were in attendance at my birthday celebration. I made out with some pretty awesome loot, too, and the booty is still coming. (Thanx, Ava, for the Victoria Secret schtuff! I am gonna shmell so good.) Truth be told, I am not usually about the getting-of-the-birthday gifts. In fact, I often give presents on my birthday as a way of letting the people who show up for me in life know that it is the gift of their friendship that I am most grateful for. Yes, I am proudly that sentimental. I like to think that I am also smart enough to know how fortunate I am. But, why not get gifts? It was, after all, a milestone of a birthday turning 40. That said, I got some pretty dang-cool jewelry and the surprises that came my way were even cooler (is that a word?). Okay, they were bitchener. (Worse?)

My friend Vican didn’t just bring her amazing smile, she, and her hubby, Ward (although, unfortunately, Ward didn’t come as he was home sick) gave me the neatest one-of-a-kind art ring. It looked like a bunch of jade grapes, only the pomegranate-shaped beads were configured in more of a circular cluster, much like the many art-deco cocktail rings I’ve seen. I just love that my friends know my jewelry taste: funky and chunky and/or simple and unique, but almost always sliver, beads, seeds, Lucite or leather, but never (EVER) sparkly, girly, gaudy or gold. Of course, gaudy is up to the eye of the beholder, and some might say that my taste does, at times, lean towards the Bohemian chichi, but the eyes on me ain't behold'n no gold. (Gold is fine, just not my style.)

Mine eyes might take in some sparkly, eventually, as a little dazzle is necessary for one of the rings coming my way, but that's where the simple-for-that-kind-of-sparkle will likely prevail. Princess cut, please. Platinum should probably also make an appearance, but ornate, for that? Nope. No can do.

(I know. That was seriously among the most retarded-est of tangents. Who do I think is reading this: my future husband?)

My friend Rena, who gave me the gift of a beautiful sliver and earthen-red beaded bracelet (and brought a yummy cake loaded with candles for my birthday wish), was the one who got the party started when she bought me my first drink, a dirty vodka martini. I knew the party was getting good as soon as everyone began to make more and more toasts and I started to notice some slurring going on, which was, um, all me. In hind sight, it might have been a wiser choice to turn down the 2nd dirty drink (the restaurant’s free contribution to my 40th celebration) and stick with my usual libation of choice: red wine. Not to worry. In no time at all, after I deftly mixed my liquor choices and made the switch to red wine, I drank myself sober. Which is either the truth, or I just quit noticing that my tongue was wrapping gauze around my words.

No matter, by the time my dinner guests started reviewing the different pictures of me (at various ages), which one of my best friends, Emily, and my sister, Lyn, had brought to lovingly roast me and thereby entertain everyone else, I think the whole group was slurring a bit. They might have been spitting up a little, too. How could they not? Seeing a picture of me from the late eighties sporting Pamela-Anderson-type-bleach-blonde hair, Rod-Stewart-type bangs, and donning a satin-purple-type women’s suit jacket (with I’m-a-friggen-foot-ball-player shoulder pads) is enough to make anyone lose it.

But it’s great, you know? All my friends are now privy to some of my awkward stages. I’m sure everyone feels like my dork-ish-ness helped them bond. (You’re welcome, friends.) But, I ask you: What’s wrong with a 2nd grader who has a bad parted-in-the-middle hair cut, who is wearing tortoiseshell glasses that make her look like a mosquito, and who is missing a couple of teeth? That’s how they were doing it in the mid-ish 1970s. (This means I’ve always been cool.)

My sister Lyn had also worked with my friend Fae to put together a birthday card for me. What made this card so wonderful, and I highly suggest doing this for anyone you love (as it made me feel incredibly special), was that they were putting the card together as the night was playing out. Fae had each of my dinner quests take a Polaroid picture with me, and then Lyn would insert each of these snap shots into a ready-for-it slot within the card/scrap book that she’d pre-made. She then had each friend sign their name/note next to the photograph. How awesome is that? It’s about as great as the questionnaire was that Lyn and Emily had also put together.

What sort of sucked about the questionnaire (well, was a little embarrassing) was that I didn’t know all the answers to this fun little exploration into me. I had to ask my sister and Emily for help. What I loved was watching my friends trying to cheat to fill in their answers, thus attempting to prove that whatever group they were working within was the group who knew me the best. There is no better feeling than watching people working dis-honestly in union towards piecing together pieces of you, especially since there were no prizes. The cockles of my heart were better than warmed.

More than anything, having my sister Lyn and Emily put that questionnaire together, and seeing that they were able to come up with things about me that were funny and quirky, and unique to me, and having so many people show how much they’ve also noticed who I am, and what I am all about, well, it made me feel honored. I felt incredibly loved and cared for. Everyone in the world just wants to be listened to, just wants to be known and appreciated, and, more than anything, seen. And there I was, sitting in the company of a table full of people who were essentially saying, “We not only see you, and love you, we’re enjoying doing so!”

Another wonderful gift I received, even before my birthday celebration, was a CD compilation of many of my favorite songs, and many songs that remind both Jen and Emily of me. Wow, that Jen and Emily worked together on this CD, and that Jen burned it, when Jen hates doing shit like that as much as I do (computer-home-administrative type things), brought me to happy tears, which my poor friend Mari had to endure as I opened the CD while on the phone with her. Man, I am such a sap. (But, thnx, again, Mari, for such a fun pre-birthday call to set my celebration weekend in motion!)

The point is: It was an amazing birthday.

Blessed. That’s what I am.

Again, I really would suggest doing the questionnaire and/or picture thing for someone you love on their birthday, or for any special occasion. It's such a gift. But I'd leave out the dark crack spot in their life, which is, pathetically, why I probably didn’t know all the answers to the questions about myself. It’s all that crack cocaine I did, so many of my memories got blacked out. Alright, that never happened. I wasn’t a crack head; I was a drunk. Okay, I’m lying again. I was never a drunk, nor am I now. I'm a perfectly functioning alcoholic.

You know what? I bet I really have sustained a blow to my head. Not the drunk-hitting-my-head-on-the-curb thing I lied about at the onset of this blog entry, but some other blow to the head entirely that I am not recalling. That would not only account for my inability to remember certain events about my life, that my sister and one of my best friends is apparently able to recollect, it might also explain this perpetual pension for lying. (Just a thought.)

After my birthday dinner most of my loving crew went home, but I had Emily, and my friends Winn and Rick, willing to hang tough with me and get one last drink. (We professionals like to maintain a good birthday buzz.) The problem was, when you get four people together who are in their late 30s, and one who has just turned 40, no one wants to stand in line or pay a cover just to get one last drink. So, we stood on the sidewalk instead, just outside the bar that was to be our last option for having no line or no cover, and we pouted. We would have gone into the bar, but it was closed; hence the sidewalk loitering and the wondering what to do next.

Our pouting group of four was immediately joined by four more pouters (two couples) who were also unwilling to stand in line for their next/last drink. Then, what started out as eight annoyed people became a party. Not five minutes later, two twenty-something girls happened upon our sidewalk soiree, and these inebriated gals (obviously not professionals) offered us up a cheer. “Yes! Yes!” we encouraged them. And, while they were barely able to maintain their balance between kicks and squeals, they weren’t half bad. The exuberant support emanating from car passengers and the honking of the passing cars’ horns inspired continued spirit from our cheer captains.

Then our little blitzed-cheer-o-matics were off. Gone in a poof with our cheerleaders was the apparent wife of one of our two fellow pouting couples. Not to worry. Turns out wifey number one was a fake wife. She’d only just met, and latched onto, the brother of the wife belonging to couple number two. (Still with me on this?) To put it another way, another snockered reindeer girl, besides our cheering Donner and Blitzen, fake wifey, was roaming 2nd st./Belmont shores, and when they had all first happened upon us (my birthday group) and we had asked her (fake wife) how long she’d been together with brother (fake husband) she lied. She said, “Five years,” and brother, Mr. boozed-up, went along with her, even though they’d only met not but five minutes earlier. Imagine that: Someone making shit up. Odd.

As if that all wasn’t enough entertainment, more was to come. Next, and what is perhaps the strangest part of this social sidewalk gathering, I somehow managed to give my number (cell phone and home number, no less), to some zipped-up guy who, trust me when I say this, not only did NOT want my number, he ran off down the street to get away from me.

Welcome. We now get to the part of the evening where I turn a strange guy into a human puppet. How could this ever happen, you may find yourself asking. “Easy,” I’d answer. First, add to the mix two more newcomers showing up, who we will call Zipper and Party Guy, who had proceeded towards the same closed club that had us all dwelling on the sidewalk in the first place. Then, add me telling Zipper and his friend that the club was closed (I was honestly just trying to do them a favor so that he and Party Guy wouldn’t waste their time trekking up the stairs to the locked club door). Mix in a little more Party guy, who was a cup full of lacking-all-apparent-respect for Zipper’s soon-to-be-found-out tight-ass personality, and said, “Hey, everyone. Zipper here has a boat. Why don’t we all go party on his boat?”

Zipper, he didn’t like that. He shot Party Guy a look that could choke baby ducks. That’s when I, trying to side with Zipper, and let Zipper know that I was feel’n him (that his Party Guy friend had no right to invite people to a boat that wasn’t his own), went over to Zipper’s sweater (which was zipped midway to his chest at this time) and proceeded to zip it the rest of the way up, and (making a voice which was intended to be Zipper’s), I said “Dude? WTF? I’m not letting these strangers onto my boat. What are you thinking?” Then, because that wasn’t already enough of a gross infringement upon Zipper’s personal space, I zipped his sweater almost all the way down, and said, “Nah. Just kidding. You know what? Let’s do it. Let’s brings these jokers onto my boat and party our assess off. Who cares if they could be thieving ax-murderers. It’ll be fun.”

I should have stopped there. But I didn’t. I zipped his sweater back up, and said, “Dude! Seriously! Why would you invite a bunch of sidewalk freaks onto my boat? How irresponsible can you be?” And, because this was not one of my finest moments, I went for the zipper yet one more time and I zipped that black, cable-knit, Banana-Republic look’n sweater of his right on down, again. Then, I said, “You know what, man? I change my mind. Let’s all go party on my boat. The liqueur is on me.”

What’s worse? While my friends know I am an ass, who loves any opportunity offering a laugh, and know I am also a diplomat, who loves just as much any occasion to play mediator/devil’s advocate, and with this knowledge were therefore laughing at me, hysterically, Zipper thought everyone was laughing at him. He was so butthurt that before I recognized that I’d turned him into a human puppet he’d high-tailed it out of there and had made it two blocks away before I even knew he was gone.

Who could blame him? In hind-sight…certainly not me. Yet, my charade had somehow convinced Party Guy that Zipper and I were a match made in heaven. Party Guy even said, “Oh, shit. You guys are perfect for each other. He needs to marry you!” So, Party Guy decided to call Zipper via cell phone and then he asked me to convince Zipper to come back. Now, feeling a little regretful that my sense of humor sent someone packing, I was more than happy to oblige and offer my heartfelt apology. Only Zipper wasn’t answering his phone. So, Party Guy thought it would be a good idea to hand his phone to me. That’s when he said, “Give him your phone number.”

In my infinite-liquored wisdom, I complied. It was, however, also my boozed brain that had me wondering if the cell number I was relaying of mine was even correct. I thought: Better give him my home phone; I think I can remember that one. Then, just as the last digit left my lips, my brain went kerplunk, and I said to Party Guy, “Dude!? What am I doing!? Your friend does NOT want my number!”

So? Think Zipper will call? Me neither.

That’s okay. In my defense, Party Guy was pretty cute, too, and he appeared to be Italian, so my lopsided reasoning had me thinking that by giving Zipper my phone number I was, in effect, making it accessible to Party Guy, the Italian. And since Zipper wasn’t Italian, Spanish, or Greek, and though I am usually into Scottish/English looking boy-next-door types, like Zipper appeared to be, last year a psychic told me I’d be marrying a man of one of those descents (Italian, Spanish, or Greek, which we will hereafter refer to as the ISG-Trifecta) so Party Guy was, probably, in my buzzed stupor, the real digit target. I hope so, because I’d hate to think a little buzz makes me stupid enough to thrust my number upon the un-wanting

By the way, can you see now that I may not be the self-fulfilling-prophecy lunatic I might have appeared to be when I said I was going to meet my husband this year? A psychic helped me get to this self-fulfilling place. It was here that told me I’d meet him my husband-to-be this year. (Wait. That probably didn’t prove my rationality.)

Coincidently, an Italiano is just who sat next to me when Emily and I went to a late Birthday breakfast the very next morning. A Mr. Adorable Italiano, that is. Sadly, Mr. Adorable didn’t have the same idea as my psychic. Sure, he flirted with me, made it obvious that he was single and didn’t have kids, asked me a zillion questions about myself, used his deep, sensual, chocolate-brown eyes to smile at me before the corners of his mouth polished off his every grin, and, he finished half my jokes and most of sentences (leaving me to believe that if I was not going to marry this guy we were, at least—by way of our synchronicity—going to have hot sex for a couple of months), but then he…to my dismay…didn’t ask for my number.

No sir. When Emily got up to go to the bathroom, giving Mr. Adorable what she, too, believed was an opportunity he’d appreciate (to ask for my number without the witness of a best-friend watching on), he didn’t bite. Instead, he got up, extended his hand, smiled an even more devastatingly charming grin than all the previous ones he’d been torturing me with all morning, and said, “Leven, it was really nice to meet you and your friend Emily. I have to take off now, but Happy Birthday…you and your friend are really funny. Thanks for a really entertaining breakfast.”

That’s when I started to wonder if he meant that Emily and I (me especially), were like clowns, funny tasting (hard to swallow) and not at all funny-charming, like with brilliant senses of humor. So, as he walked away into the sunset, I consoled myself with the fact that either, A. I was just too much woman for him, or B. He was probably only eager to leave because he was on his way to watch the 2010 Super Bowl play offs (he’d said something earlier about going to his friend’s house to do so). Since I didn’t even know who was playing, or that the Super Bowl play offs were going on (until my dad told me that morning when he called to wish me happy birthday), I assured myself that Mr. Adorable was not my man. Imagine. Me with a football love’n man? An artist with a sporty? A writer with a meat-head? Makes no sense at all.

Okay, so he was the furthest thing from a meat-head, as he was quite charming, witty and intelligent and smelled like a wonderful mass of GQ come-and-get-me potion (and there’s absolutely no problem with him liking sports), but work with me on this bruised ego.

He wasn't attracted to me. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t mean that I am unattractive or funny tasting. A couple of weeks ago a guy who works at Lowe’s in the plumbing dept. thought I was plenty appealing. He even gave me his business card and told me that I should, and I quote, "Call him anytime. ANY time." So there is really no reason for my ego to be bruised, right? (Yeah. Still a little bruised.)

Plus, as my friend Shane, who I am happy to report came to spend the rest of my actual birthday with me, said, “What is meant to be will always find a way.” While she may have said this in reference to the fact that we are both so elated that we've recently reconnected via Face Book (we were best-best-BEST friends in Jr. High and lost touch when I switched High Schools), I see no reason why this particular saying cannot be applied to the situation with Mr. Adorable. Obviously, he was not my meant-to-be, else he would have found a way.

There. That’s done. I’ve tucked Mr. Adorable nicely into an Everything-that-does-or-does-not-happen-happens-as-it-is-or-isn’t-supposed-to-happen box.

And that, my friends, everything from being surrounded by all my amazing friends on the 23rd, and spending the 24th with Shane (which included another fabulous birthday dinner and an amazing/fun girl chit-chat session ‘til 12:00 am), to two near misses with cute boys, is what I call an amazing birthday weekend!

I felt so utterly blessed by it all that I was bursting with joy the whole time.

It is because I felt so seen and so loved, that I want you to know that you are seen and you are loved, too. I see you. Yes, while it may seem like I am taking liberties when I say that I see you, I want you to know that I mean it. I really do see YOU! Hence the picture that I decided to upload: Me seeing you.

Alright, I know what you are thinking, that I chose that picture because it disguises me enough that it allows me to maintain some of my anonymity so that no one I work with or no one who doesn’t know this is my blog can recognize me. You got me. However, while you’d be incredibly astute in this line of thinking, I also really liked the idea that the picture I chose to represent myself in this blog would also serve to symbolize one of the things I have written about, and will continue to write about, and that is that in one way or another…we ALL see each other.

Even when we jeopardize our emotional survival by forgetting that we’re all connected, we STILL see each other. We still bleed the same blood, laugh the same happiness, experience the same energy, fear the same fears, and long for the same love.

And, you are probably also thinking that if you do not know me, and we may never meet, how can I ever see you?

I can because I believe that the truth of our connection continues to remain the truth—that we are all intertwined and carry within us a deep knowing of this universal alliance to the same energy—and that even though we may not always recognize this truth in our present circumstance(s), this truth persists. This truth gives me great comfort, and I hope it does you, too.

Keep being fabulous!

Why not help yourself?

Okay, so I lied. I am totally cheating with that chick's boyfriend (you know, with the dude who has been cheating on the chick who sent me the email asking me if I was dating her boyfriend, but I said: No) and the sex is so hot!

Um...not really. Again, I am NOT a cheater! But this is my way of catching you up, or at least making you curious if you didn't read my first ever blog entry on 1-20-10. Yeah, it's a meaty first entry (I already admitted that) and it's cruel of me to tease you like this, but it had to be done...me with the whole trying-to-catch-you-up-by-getting-you-to-read-the-first-entry-thing, and me being such a tease. Sometimes a girl just can't help herself.

Oops. Now that I think about it, I have lied twice. First, just now, I lied about lying about cheating, and then I lied about being a cheater. But, don’t worry, I didn’t cheat with email-chick’s boyfriend. I actually cheated with another guy, well, with a boy, and I was the one in the relationship at the time. I cheated on Johnny Deeten (actual name revised) in the 7th grade and it was because Johnny was a bad kisser. He was. But I was young, my moral compass wasn’t fully developed yet, and our relationship had only really been going on for one week and two days, so I can’t hold that against myself. We barely had time to bond.

Plus, in hind sight, it probably wasn’t Johnny’s fault that he was a bad kisser. We only kissed just the once by his locker after school, which means we had absolutely no practice to get good at it (and everyone knows that even if you have chemistry practice makes the va-va-voom go, go, GO!), and we were, after all, only in Jr. High and totally afraid that a teacher would come around the corner at any second and catch us mid lip lock. (Poor Johnny, he forever holds the distinction of being my bad first kiss and the only guy I ever cheated on. Rotten luck.)

At least the cheating I did was was only going to the movies with the new boy, who, because he was in the 9th grade, so ROCKED! That was big doings at that age. That’s dating an older man. Oddly, the pattern of dating older seems to have stuck with me. I’ve been dating men in the same age range, 33-40ish, since my early 20s. Now, I've just finally gotten to be that age.

What I do not intend to lie about is how completely and utterly exhausted I am today. I am why-is-this-world-so-cruel-that-I-have-to-be-awake-right-now tired. Why so tired? Can you say butthead neighbors? Actually, they are only a small fraction of the problem, as I was having a difficult time sleeping before the loud bang came from their apartment at 3:00am.

Don’t you hate that? The clock strikes 2:00am, then 3:00am (then a bang emanates from the assholes next door!), then there goes the clock, glaring red numbers at you, shoving it in your face that it is 5:00am and you still have barely slept (then you have to go to the bathroom, because your bladder is more awake than you are), and then, finally, but not happily, after going back to bed for only two stink'n, ding-dang hours, the clock strikes 7:00am and the alarm goes off.

Oh, how this tired of mine today can SUCK IT! I would have taken a nap, but then I’ll sleep crappy again tonight and I must be slept up for my 40th celebration tomorrow, which is bigger doings.

Anyway, turns out, as you can see, I couldn’t wait to write again. I may not have slept last night, but the day, yesterday, leading up to last night was AWESOME (can you hear the stoners singing this awesome out loud!) and I had to share a little.

No, nothing substantial happened. I didn’t meet Mr. You-Are-So-Gonna-Give-Me-Good-Love’n yet, or anything. I just had the day off from work unexpectedly and did things I don’t usually get to do, which leads me to another question I have and to today’s blog topic. I doubt that I’ll come up with the answer, but that’s not really the point. (Is it ever the point to rhetorical questions?)

My question is this: Why don’t more people take steps, even if they’re small, in whatever direction they feel would benefit them the most, and however they feel they’d be most comfortable in doing it, towards self-help?

Okay, actually, I sort of know the answer to this, and it makes me sad for people, and you probably know the answer, too, especially if you are one of the folks who isn’t seeking to help them self. So, let’s not discuss the completely tough stuff right now (or discuss the mechanics of a life and a history that can weigh so heavily upon a person that taking even one breath of air requires tremendous effort—so forget picking up a friggen self-help book) and let’s move on to leaving this question in the rhetorical pile, that way we can, at least, loose or find ourselves in the rhetoric.

I admit that I can remember in my early 20s scoffing at a friend of mine (only in my head, of course) because he read self-help book after self-help book, everything from: Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People to every sales book, every get rich, get smart, get healthy, get un-jacked, get whatever book he could get his hands on. And what I thought was a sign of weakness then (my real spiritual path didn’t start until my mid/ladder 20s), I now see, and realize, was a sign of great personal strength, individual investment, and self love.

Plus, who is laughing now? As a result of his empowerment, he, this self-help-book-love'n friend of mine, who only has a high school education, now owns a fourplex rental income bearing property (as well as his own beautiful home and luxury boat), and was able to build up and then sale a very profitable mortgage business which, even in this economy, he still draws an income from as part of the deal in the sale.

Now, I am not saying that money or possessions should be the goal or end result of any personal growth path, as money is a byproduct (a derivative) like so many other things that are secondary to the source, much like high-fructose-syrup pales in comparison as a sweetener to the good and natural sugar found in fruit. But if money, or any other harvest from a crop, is what a person wants for themselves, they better get on with the planting of the seeds, which needs to come first, before they think they're a-gonna reap the benefits from that growing season.

Incidentally, I’ve since read Mr. Carnegie's book, which essentially presents very fundamental techniques in handling people and getting them to like you, and it is one of the most powerful tools I could recommend to anyone who wants to excel in their professional and/or personal relationships. And trust me, it’s so not what the title seems to entail, and what I thought it was before I read it…a please-like-me-so-I-can-feel-better-about-myself manual. It’s so much more, as is the case with so much of the self-help available these days.

The best part? You no longer have to feel like a gapped soul when walking into a book store to fulfill/purchase your every self-help delight from some low-waged, college kid cashier who seemingly appears to look down his nose at you when reading the title of your literary investment; the internet has saved the day once again. It provides anyone, who so chooses, an abundant and anonymous resource to help themselves! (Anyone ever heard of a little on-line book store called Amazon dot com?)

If you are wondering why, on my wonderful gift of an unexpected day off (BTW, my crew all got sent home from work due to beyond inclement weather as the Orange County/LA beach cities were on tornado watch—go figure) that I started to question why more folks don’t seek self-help, it is because I spent this day off of mine watching a Dr. Wayne Dyer PBS special.

BTW, if you are unfamiliar, Dyer’s web site describes him as, “…an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development…”

Anyway, I was so filled with gratitude that this day had given me the time to watch and enjoy this 3hr special that had been beckoning me from my DVR for a while, that I started to wonder if others get as tickled as I do when the things life has to offer come packaged so nicely.

That’s when I came to the conclusion that aside from a smattering of societies other spiritual trekkers, and many of my friends (which is probably yet another reason we are all friends), there ain’t enuff of this earth’s population go’n on a spiritual journey or tune’n in to watch a PBS self-help type program. The numbers of conscious-life-living students are climbing, true, thanks to my gals Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres, and to many of the other famous and strong women who are helping to put the word out (lay the proverbial first bricks) that people need to get on board with finding their true purpose. But, otherwise, no, a lot of people probably don’t get as jazzed as I do when I get a freshly bubble-wrapped book, sealed in a box and/or manila envelope, delivered which promises to open up further the world of balance and simple joy this journey has, thus far, offered me.

But, if you are reading my blog, chances are…you do get it and you are on a journey of your own.

Well, you could also be checking in because:

A. You know me, well, and are therefore curios to see if I, during a moment of extreme passion or conviction on a particular subject, can manage to keep my pseudo trucker's mouth at bay and not let a gaggle of four letter words loose in my writing. Those who don’t know me personally will be happy to know that I've trimmed the fat off my cussing/punchy expressions by at least 40%, which kind of makes the mouth on me more nutritional, even low-fat, if you please.

B. You want to find out if my self-fulfilling prophecy that I will be meeting my husband this year falls flat, which would be so not nice of you. I need all the positive mass-energy I can get to assist me in get’n a regular-life-long-lover/best friend in place. (Seriously, I am too old to be a slut and I haven’t had any in a while, so it’s high time I got me some that has a little paper work attached so when the go’n gets tough there’s more incentive to work it out.)

C. Or, you, as I said before, are, indeed, already on a spiritual path of your own and don’t mind being reminded that there are others out there. (Check. Check. Is this mich on?)


As you may have surmised, I didn’t exactly answer why it is that more people do not seek out self-help. But, whatever the reasons are that some do, while many do not, I am going to ask a favor of you. It’s a big one, but an easy, small one, and it would behoove all of us to do this favor for ourselves, the world, and everyone we love.

So, this is it, what I ask of you…in whatever small ways you can, give the gift of self-help. By example be that gift by looking within to find the joy and the happiness that comes from understanding that we are all divine creations deserving of the limitless abundance and love that is already within us. Yes!, it’s there, and using all the self-help material and tools available (again, we all know my self-help drug of choice is any book on metaphysics/spirituality) can help us get there. Remind yourself and others that we are meant to learn from each other, from not only those who are miles ahead of us but from those who are mere steps behind. Each of us has a lesson to teach and to learn and we all have something to offer which can help return us to our true selves, our essential nature, which is love.

So why not help ourselves, help someone, anyone, to gain the cooperation of the divine and manifest the gifts of life. It all starts by realizing that the power to do so is already there within us. Nothing is impossible. (I’ll even list some of my favorite books below that may be of interest to you or someone you know to get this favor on its way.)

After all, I've been thinking…why would we want to insult creation by being negative and giving in to the excuses of why something is not possible? Everything is possible. How could it not be? If everything is connected to the whole and that source is limitless, then why would we impose limits on our lives? Why would we let fear, the opposite of love (as there are only two emotions: love and fear) be the ruler of our lives. Love is a better option. It starts with loving ourselves.

Classic Self Help (and books anyone would benefit from):
• “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey
• “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale

My favorite metaphysical books:
• “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle
• “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” by Eckhart Tolle
• “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of “Your Dreams” by MD Deepak Chopra
• “Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao” by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
• “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom” (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz


Well, that’s it for today. The big 40th birthday celebration is tomorrow. Half of my guests probably won’t make it due to the weather, but I gotta say…that’s okay. Whoever shows up is who is supposed to be there and that’s who I am going to have one helluva time with!

Go turning 40!

Keep being fabulous!

So, here I am. 40 and Fabulous. Or Am I?

Yes. That is just one question, and one sought after answer, among many other questions—which may or may not have answers, or may or may not have anything to do with being 40 or fabulous—for which I intend to be the basis of this blog.

That pretty much leaves everything up for topic, doesn’t it? Okay. Good. I never was one to color inside of the lines. Although it might be interesting if, during the course of this blog, I figure out whether it’s taken 40 years to become fabulous or if I’ve been fabulous all along and it’s just taken me 40 years to realize it. Hmm…maybe it’s both. (That didn’t take long. Problem solved.)

Anyway, knowing myself (and by the length of this first entry you’ll get to know me in no time at all), me thinks being a single gal at 40, and everything that entails, will likely emerge as a prevailing theme. It is the “everything that entails” part which I suspect will get most of my attention. After all, is it not the trappings of life that we focus on? Those day in and day outs that hurdle us through or bog us down? They seem to take up most of our attention. Wouldn’t you agree?

So, while being single does have a lot to do with how my life is ordered, it is each present moment I always seem to be the most focused on and ultimately want to write about. You know, it’s the bad day or the good one, the amazing week that’s flown by or the rough month that’s taken its toll, and it’s the great job or the shitty one (which, incidentally, I am currently residing somewhere in the middle of the super-to-pooper job scale).

But, before I go on to explore one of my most recent curiosities, which is figuring out what it is that makes up the difference between those women who can’t be alone versus those who can, I want to talk about what I believe to be a similarity in all women and that is: we have perpetually obsessive natures.

I recently read that we, as totally unoriginal human beings (this includes men and women), only really think about 10 thoughts at any given time. I undoubtedly read this from one of my Eckhart Tolle books, as I am completely addicted to the spiritual teachings he offers, but it could have been in one of the many other books on metaphysics and/or spirituality I’ve been reading or have read over the years (these books/concepts are starting to blend, which may be proof that I am going in the right direction). The point is, I am not sure where I read it, but I think it is important that you know that I was paraphrasing my understanding of this concept, and regardless of where I got it from, I also want you to know that I’ll do the what-I-think-it-meant-to-me thing quite often. Therefore, I apologize in advance if your understanding of any related concept is different than my own.

Anyway, what I took this to mean is that we think our 10 same thoughts, which appear to be different, and which might run the gamut from thinking about our relationships, our spouses, our children, our friendships, our money issues, our job problems, and/or our fat assess, and we think these same damn 10 thoughts over and over and over and over and…ugh! It’s like our life is wearing a bad scarf and all we want to do is obsess about that scarf. The scarf is fraying. It’s an unattractive shade of red, an orange-ish red—the worse kind of red for all skin tones. It’s out of date. People are staring at the scarf. Worse scarf day ever! Might as well be wearing a scarlet letter.

I’m no different. Whether I’m obsessing about a bad scarf… Wait. Actually, I wouldn’t do that. As an artist, the last thing I’d give any obsessive brain power to is something that I’m wearing. I’m a pretty good dresser, and even if I am not, I don’t care. Plus, once I stopped throwing away all the clothes that would meet my three to six sizes bigger or smaller age/hypothyroid weight gain/loss fluctuations, and decided that I deserved to have a closet packed full of clothes that I love, no matter what my weight is, I stopped wasting brain power on wondering if I look good or if my ass looks fat. Chances are…my ass probably does look fat—all the time. But, I don’t have the energy to care about that so much anymore. I’m all growd up now. That’s why 40 already feels good. Who gives a rat about that extra cellulite in the scheme of things? Really? I’ve finally figured out that those dimples in and around my thighs aren’t the road block to getting a good man. (As a side note: I plan to meet the man I am going to marry this year, so if you stay with me on this blog long enough you might enjoy going along on this journey with me.)

Getting back to our 10 thoughts, I’ll admit that I often stay focused on and obsessed over other proverbial scarves in my life. Everyone does, and they’d be lying if they said they didn’t fasten themselves to one thing until another thing swoops in and seems to require more of their attention. This new thing will usually carry with it a bigger and better promise for crazy-making. As such, WHAM!, a new revolving-door of 10 same thoughts starts anew. Yay! We suck. Can’t stop thinking about that thing, can we?

Of course, nothing in our lives needs this much our attention. But we can’t stop ourselves. We forget that our worrying is essentially negative prayer, inviting more negative energy in, ultimately perpetuating what was, before, just a situation, but what we’ve decided to turn into a problem (because we can’t stop obsessing about it). We also think our obsessing makes change possible. Wrong. Turns out, as I’ve read in those many spiritual/metaphysical books I mentioned earlier, it’s easier to just accept things as they are, and see them for what they are. Then, from that vantage point, one can begin to embrace the change that’s coming, which is often inevitable, or they can accept the lack of change and realize that it is only through acceptance that change is possible. Change is, after all, only one letter different from chance, but if you are not willing to take a chance on changing, or unable to accept where you’ve come from to get to where you are going, well…you might as well go back to your current same 10 thoughts and keep on keep’n on with spinning your wheels. (Let me know how that works out.)

The other reason I wanted to be able to focus on what’s going on at any given moment in this blog is because it is all the good, all the bad, all the ugly and the beautiful which make up the main events of our lives. When we’re in it, whether we’re drowning or winning the race, or whether we’re conscious or half asleep while our life is carrying on (and most of us are sleep walking), it is all those tiny little moments, the right Nows and the right Heres, which are making our memories and therefore making us who we are becoming.

Have you ever found it curious, though, how once we’re out of a situation, over that guy, or on to that next job, we reduce it, him, and/or that gig to just a chunk. We immediately forget the nuances from which everything is made. We go on to say things like “Remember that horrible job?” or, “Remember that hell-and-beyond of a break up I had with that one guy?” We don’t even give him a name anymore. We don’t have to. Our friends know who we’re talking about.

But when we were in the middle of it all he had a name, we called him by it, and he was our obsession—our everything. We talked about him so much that we had to call 10 different friends just so that the stories we’d exhausted seemed different. They weren’t. Our complaints about all the what he dids and what he didn’ts weren’t different, either. Nope. Nothing about him or what we said about him changed, that is until we finally ditched the crap-hole, then we began repeating how full of crap his hole was.

The point is, our basic day ins and day outs, from relationship highs and lows to our financial woes, are not only pretty much the same, so seem to be our thoughts about it all. That’s why I want this blog to be a lot like daily life. It’s ever changing—like it or not. We’re all the same kind of obsessive, whether we’re conscious of it or not. And, every bit of it all is completely wonderful, though we usually say it’s not.

Plus, even though the title of this blog is “The Fabulous 40s”, and I am sure becoming 40 and beyond will play into my opinions, I don’t want to focus exclusively on age itself, or on what becomes of us during the coming of age. Frankly, that’s boring, and, outside of all the normal things I would expect to feel as I've gotten older: more wrinkly, more saggy, more bumpy, poochey, and occasionally grumpy, I don’t think age is the issue for most things. It is, after all, only a number and being 40, or rather turning 40 (as my birthday is not until the 24th of January this month) already feels like one of the nicest suits I’ve ever worn. Well, that is when it comes to the spirituality I’ve acquired, the peace of mind I’ve gained, the sense of self I’ve fought for, and the rights I’ve earned to not give a crap when I don’t want to. Oh yes, 40 already feels fabulous.

Although, I admit that I am having a hard time processing the fact that I now have high blood pressure (stupid family genetics!), accepting that estrogen is only one of my hormone enemies (I recently went off the pill to deal with the high BP and can I just say: CRYING FREAK!), and dealing with the general lack of sleep that seems to come with getting older—which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with late-night partying. Man-o-man, if all these sleepless nights could be attributed to the sort of activities I engaged in during my twenties, um, yeah…probably wouldn’t still be single. I’d at least be knocked up with some sort of child support and might own realestate.

Anyway, getting back to what it is that makes up the difference between those women who can’t be alone versus those who can, which is my first official blog-type subject, I have to say that all along I have thought that the difference has to do with age, with maturity. But, I don’t think that that’s it anymore. You see, in case you are wondering, I happen to be one of the girls who can be single and likewise would rather get plugged by plastic and batteries then give up my cave, or an ounce of my precious time, for a meaningless romp with some Neanderthal, and my age has little to do with it. I’ve mostly always been this way.

Yup, I’ve never been one of those girls who would rather be with and complain about some jack-hole then be on my own. A lot of my friends are that way, too—able to be alone—including my friend Ava (no real names here, folks, as this is my blog, not my friends' blog, or anyone else's, and I want to respect the privacy—even if I intend to write about them). Ava and I even discussed this whole concept the other day, which is why it is on my mind. She, like my best friend Jen, would both sooner rip out their own eyeballs than settle for some guy, or even some friend, who isn’t enriching their lives in some way.

What’s weird for me is that I’ve always known that I’m choosy. I’ve dated too many wonderful men not to be (I’ve just unfortunately been a victim of the right-girl-right-guy-at-the-wrong-time thing more than I’d like. And, no, I am not kidding or lying to myself. More than anything, timing is key.) But what I never realized, that is until Ava and I were talking about it, is that I really have absolutely no problem being alone. This dawned on me when, during the course of our conversation, I started to say, “I can understand how some women don’t want to be alone or can’t be alone, it’s just that—” Then I stopped myself, and I said, “Wait a minute. I don’t understand it. I honestly don’t. I never have.”

That’s when Ava and I tried to figure out what made us different, more independent if that is the word for it. Why is Jen different? (Jen is married now, BTW, but back in her single days she never wasted her time on losers.) Why, we wondered, are some women, put aside the occasional one night stands and the short lived and/or intermittent booty fests we all engage in, more capable of being alone than others? How is it that some women are more able to make it through one, two, three year gaps between relationships whereas there are the women on the other end of the spectrum who can barely manage a week or two of going it on their own? Why do some, for that matter, overlap? Which is, no matter how you look at it, still cheating—even if you are trading up for a lesser asshole then the current one. (And no, I have never cheated on anyone in my life. I have been cheated on, though.)

All that Ava and I could come up with is that the women who do not have a problem flying solo seem to have a couple of things in common. The first thing they share, and what is probably the most important thing, is that they like themselves. They genuinely, seriously like their own company. They also seem to be on a spiritual path. Now I don’t mean that they’re religious, although women who are religious seem to be better at being alone, too, as they have faith that everything in their life has a reason, a time and a season. But, there is a difference between Spirituality and Religion as I’ve come to understand it in my own life.

Spirituality, to me, seems to be a search for the truth, regardless of where the truth comes from. People on a spiritual path seem to be looking for what connects them to the whole, to the ultimate truth, and they seem to be comfortable accepting that the truth is the truth regardless of what everyone thinks or believes is the truth. In other words, the truth exists as itself independent of belief and those on a spiritual path are seeking out that truth. Whereas those on a religious path, in my experience, seem to be more comfortable being told what the truth is and being given a set of rules to live by that governs that view (that religion’s view) of the truth.

Now I am not saying that one is better than the other, religion or spirituality, or that my definition of either is correct or even good (yeah, I’m that diplomatic). That is up to the individual. I am, however, saying that while choosing how you view or search for truth in your life may be different, having some degree of truth (something higher that connects one to the whole) in one’s life, be it through one’s spirituality or one’s religion, seems to account for a very basic difference in whether someone feels alone in life whether they are with someone or not. More often than not it seems that the people who do not follow a path in life which provides them with a faith that connects them to something larger than themselves not only have a hard time being alone, they don’t like who they are with when they are alone: themselves.

This may not be the case all the time, and my intention is not to offend those without, but I am going to take a leap and say that it is probably the case most of the time. And, when I get an email out of the blue from a total stranger, asking: "Are you dating my boyfriend?" it makes me wonder who (or what) happened to this gal's sense of self worth that she ended up with, or stayed with, a guy who has brought her to sending such an email to a stranger such as me, and, I wondered: Does this gal at least have a sense of spirituality in her life to get her through this?

Yeah. That recently happened to me.

Some gal, out of the blue, contacted me via my private email, which I have no idea how she got my info (probably from breaking into her boyfriend’s email. Go, girl! Get your power back one way or another!), to ask me if I was dating her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, by the way, is this guy from High School who I friended on FaceBook, like months ago, with nothing but platonic intentions—no different than how I friended many of my other High School friends I lost touch with when I switched high schools during my sophomore year.

I told her I was sorry to hear that she was going through whatever she was going through with him, but while her BF (boyfriend) might have many wonderful qualities (obviously cheating on her for the last 6 months not being amongst them...SNAKE-TIRD), I have had another kind of man entirely in mind for myself so, no, I was not dating her boyfriend. I also congratulated her on what appeared to be her getting her wits together and being smart enough not to continue on with a man who did not have her best interest at heart. Though I was concerned that her wits, nor her desires to walk away from him, were completely intact, which is why I reminded her that we all deserve the very best for ourselves and need to remember that we are worth it. Then I recommended that book "He's Just Not That Into You."

When she wrote back and said she’d really needed that advice, and said I was a doll, then she preceded to say that she was “…so tired of this drama,” and “I can’t believe I wasted four years of my life on him,” I was pretty sure she might need another earful and was glad I hadn't offended her or pissed her off with the first earful.

Okay, truth is, I couldn’t help myself. The whole reason I set out to write the book I am writing (yeah, slipped that in, huh?) is that I wanted to build a character that would ask women, like this gal, to ask themselves who they are. This book of mine isn't strictly to do with dating, or even cheating men (although those things are covered), rather it mostly focuses on the main character's coming of self. It’s about this woman’s journey to find out who she is and why she does the things she does. (This character is kind of a slut, but I love this broken character of mine). This sort of exploration, obviously, would include looking at one’s dating B.S./history, along with addressing a lot of one’s childhood crap (hello, we could all stand to lose a little past luggage). But this character is so much more. She’s, well…she's all of us! All women. It is through her coming of self that all of the usual emotional suspects and/or life's trials become present in her journey and it is through her journey that the reader is asked to look at their own life and start their own journey.

So, if I’m honest, I saw this this gal, who appeared as lost as I've been in the past, as one of my first readers. Sure, I’m single so one might think I’ve got nothing to say on the matter, that I am the furthest thing from a relationship expert. But that’s not the point. I’m not unhappy. She appeared to be. She seemed miserable, in fact. And, I wouldn’t stay with a cheating boyfriend. She’d been doing it for six months. And, sure, I have my moments where life can do a big SUCK IT, but all in all, I love my life and, without a doubt, I love myself. Yet, it turns out, most women don’t—especially if they’re single.

So, that’s why I thought it would be a great idea to borrow the hell out of my friends' stories, their dating lives, their childhoods, my own...etc., to construct this main character for my book. And, the experience of writing this book has afforded me the opportunity to do a lot of research on the patterns all of us women engage in when it comes to our interpersonal relationships, especially with men. As such, I've also become even more invested in my sisterhoods (if that’s possible) and in the wonder that is us, that is women. That is why I couldn’t help myself but to remind this girl of what she apparently forgot: We women are wonderful, loving, and resilient creatures! Even though we're also pretty stupid and screwed up sometimes.

I went on to tell this gal how the co-author of the book, He's Just Not that Into You, was, as I understood it, a self professed, and then converted, man-slut/cheater/not caller-backer/etc. He only changed when he met the woman he was "into", which is his now-wife of several years. I also told her about the movie that came out, with the same title, and suggested that she give that a watch, too.

Incidentally, it seriously is a great movie to own for any girl who has a pension for telling herself crazy stories and hoping she'll be the exception to that dog-tird of a man and a great movie for any girl who needs a quick one-and-half-hour reminder and/or in-your-face-therapy session because she doesn't have time to read the book again. Because, after all, don't all of us girls tell each other, and ourselves, out of both delusion and love, that when some brick-head is treating us badly that he'll eventually behave for us...because we're the exception?

Reality check: DREAM ON ! We are not the exception until we are the exception. Period.

The truth is, as the book and movie point out, in different fashion, the exception is the exception. Meaning, when a girl is the exception, she doesn't have to do a thing. She'll know, by the way that she's being treated (like she deserves) that she's the right girl for that guy at the right time. Most guys will think the woman who is their exception is more special than the other gals who were not. They'll think she's more something. In some ways she will be. But, mostly, in many ways she won't be. The real difference, and what the book and movie will not say, but what I've come to learn through my research and experience, is that the man just grows up and the girl who's there when he's done getting his pile together becomes the exception.

Yes, men wake up on their own and get ready to treat a girl right when they're ready (when all their emotional ducks, work ducks, life/financial ducks are in a row) and nothing a girl can do for a man wakes him up for him. Trust me on this one. I was with/dating one of the most amazing men ever, years ago, and he just wasn't ready. Then, years later (we’d remained friends) when he started dating this other gal, I asked him, "Is she your WOW, the one you've been looking for?" And he said, and I quote, "No. You were the biggest WOW of a woman I ever met. I was totally in love with you. I don't even know how her and I ended up married. We were just friends, I was at a better place than when I was with you, and..."

Bla, bla, friggen bla!

There you have it.

That was just one of the times I was the right girl with the right guy at the wrong time. I was with a man who treated me like gold, made me feel more seen, more adored and more loved than many women will ever get to experience in their lifetime, and when he lost his job and other things had happened (not having anything to do with our relationship) it all went Kaput. He moved eight hours away and went back to school for more education. Why wouldn’t he? Men identify themselves with their jobs and his job was no longer. So…our relationship? Done.

So, see? Even a great guy can be NOT the right guy. And trust me, this guy, my WOW, he was the gold in standards.

The point is, as I explained to this girl (yes, it was a terribly long email that I’d written to her, much like this first entry for my blog, and she probably wanted to flip me off) some men are never ready. They're the ones we need to walk away from. They are the men who start treating a woman badly so that she'll kick him to the curb because he's too lazy to end the relationship on his own. Sad, but true. Most men do not want to treat a woman badly, but they can't help themselves (because they haven't grown up yet or the woman they're with isn't the one for them in their minds (which is no reflection of her) so they get sloppy. They get caught, they keep getting worse, or they keep getting anything to make the girl do their dirty work for them: the breaking up. Or, they keep treating a woman how she'll let him treat her: Shitty. If a girl stays, that's as good as saying: I'll put up with your behavior and give you a cookie for crapping in my lap.

I even told this gal that sometimes a woman might wonder which guy she is with, the right one or the one who needs to grow up. Regardless, she shouldn't wonder. Once a guy starts treating a woman badly, it's time to leave.

To make certain that I did not alienate her (totally piss her off by being the stranger who seemingly is smarter than her, when I am not, just older and willing to put up with less shit), I admitted that I, along with my dearest friends, have been every girl we've all been when it comes to men. I've been strong. I’ve been stupid. I’ve been pathetic, amazing, jacked, whacked, and hopeful. I've lied to myself. I've done worse to myself. And, I've done better.

More than anything, though, I told her that I am a girl's girl and a sister to my friends now and to those I'll ever meet so she could contact me if she needed to. I also told her that before I am anything to any man I am a friend to my friends. I've finally learned in life that the saying: The man who is worth your tears will never make you cry is so true that I've also come to understand that the man who you'd put before your sisters would never put you in a situation to do so!

The last thing I said to her was that she shouldn’t feel that she had wasted time with her BF. I said, “I'd hope for you that you change your mind. I'd hope that you won't see your time with him, with any man, or your time in any situation (bad or good) as wasted time.”

I knew I might have sounded like one of those overly granola spiritual nerds, but I do believe, with all my heart, and told her so, that every moment we live is a moment to learn and grow from. Without all the moments that come before our next moments, we'd not have all the experience, tears, joys, and, well...all the equipment and wisdom to deal with those next moments coming.

Everything in life is necessary and completely connected.

Think about it. Maybe I was the stranger she needed to contact; the one who she needed to think was dating her BF to get her to the next place she needed to be to move on or move in a different direction. I wasn’t there to judge her. I'd never judge anyone. Shoot, none of us should have anyone in our lives that would judge us, anyway—friend or stranger.

I left her with something to think about. I told her: Whether you're next move is with your BF, or away from him, what's most important is that you decide to do what is best for you. Just promise yourself that you will not believe that you can change your BF, or any man, or love him enough into changing. It doesn't work that way. The choices are always: Accept him as he is, flaws and all, or decide that the flaws he has are not the ones you want in a man.

Then I started to think about how my last serious relationship was about nine years ago. Yes, there have been lovers, 3-9 monthers, 1-2 daters (not worth of the 3rd date), but while that might seem sad to a lot of women, I've been happy and true to myself. I know that if I've had great guys in my life before (not just Mr. Gold Standard, there were a couple others, too), there will be others and eventually the one I'll marry. I'd rather wait until I'm 50 for him than spend time with anyone who subtracts from me rather than adds to me! (Although, again, I can’t really explain it, and I feel corny for saying it, especially if it does not happen, but I really think I am going to meet him this year. I can just feel it and it feels amazing.)

Well, that’s it for today (as if that wasn’t a lot). I’d love to say I’ll be back tomorrow and hereafter daily or at least commit to blogging a paragraph or two once weekly, but I can’t. I’d like to be able to, at the very least, offer up some kind of a writing schedule you can count on. But, as I am starting this blog in the middle of also editing/working on the final touches of my book, and haven’t even given my book the commitment it needs, and since I am officially writing into an abyss, I cannot commit.

Although, my next entry will likely show up, much like things in life do—in its own do time (which will probably be after my 40th birthday). Um, duh. Who wouldn’t want to write about a 40th birthday?

Happy New year.

Keep being fabulous!
Levan