Cords and Fleece

  “You know, our friend so-and-so smokes weed,” I state while driving home from work during one of our endless commutes. “Uh-huh,” Michael says, completely disinterested as if I’d said, your shirt is white. Not that I expected him to gasp in excitement (or horror), but I thought it was an interesting fact, nonetheless. Plus, it got me to thinking: me = tense and on the verge of insanity weed = mellow me + weed = sane? Hmm... “I wonder -- how does one go about acquiring the weed, anyway?” I ask. “Well,” he says, “if you put it like that you’ll never know.” Touché (smart-ass). Touché... This only hurt a little more than it should have since I still remember the day in junior high when I overheard my classmates talking about a party they recently attended. At the party there were many high jinks and getting drunk and driving while underage and gossip and someone kissed someone they shouldn’t have kissed, and so on. The following weekend there would be another party and because it al...

  Lately, I could use a stiff drink -- the kind of liquid satisfaction that comes from a book that promises to deliver life-changing enlightenment and eternal happiness, all from the convenience of my living room. As you may remember, I quit Self Help Books about a year ago. However, I recently discovered a new form of self help book and I must admit it has caused me to fall off the wagon with a thud. This new kind of self help book is more subtle. It doesn’t hit me over the head with a title like “Be Happy Now.” It doesn’t make overt promises. There are no charts or to-do lists. It is the self-help memoir . These are stories about people who have helped themselves out of whatever rut they were in and are happy to retell their adventures along the way. The not-so-obvious promise is that by reading this book, maybe I can do what they did, learn the lessons they learned, and then improve my life accordingly. I’ve read these kinds of books before, but never lumped them into the sam...

  “Did you feel anything?” The teacher questions the class (all two of us) after we perform 15 minutes of breathing meditation exercises. I’m not exactly sure what I should or could be feeling -- I imagine some sort of “chi-ness.” I shake my head. “No, nothing really.” “Huh. Maybe next time,” she says. This is what I want to say: “Actually, I found it a little boring. During the exercises I kept thinking, Let this be the last breath, please. PLEASE. Plus, my back was hurting from sitting like that for so long and I couldn’t stop thinking how funny we must look, sitting in this dark room with our eyes closed and our fingers up our noses .” Instead, I just nod and say, “Yea, maybe next time.”  

  Don’t worry -- be happy. But I don’t want to. Whoever said it was easy to be happy didn’t know what it was like to live inside my gray matter. Most of the time I’m fairly content. But there are times, weeks, months even, when contentment is nowhere to be found and happiness is a pipe dream away. (By the way, what’s a “pipe dream”?) So how do we feed our well-being? How do we generate inner feelings of happiness? Michele from The Squawkery challenged us to make a list of things we do to feed our well-being -- especially during times of extreme stress. I was chatting with a coworker the other day, and we both agreed that we drop the activities we need the most during those times. We eat poorly. We stop exercising. We don’t take time to quiet ourselves, slow the pace, and enjoy our lives. We reasoned, then, that if we make a list of things to do to “feed ourselves” (and try in earnest to do them) we’d naturally function better -- our well-being would be well-fed. Women’s magazines ...

  THE CONFESSION Hi. My name is Melissa, and I’m a Self Help Book junkie. It’s been 10 months since my last book. (applause) Thank you. Most of you are not aware that I’m a Self Help Book junkie, nor do you know that I quit Self Help Books cold-turkey about a year ago. (I’ll give you a second to soak that in.) OK, so it’s not like I robbed a liquor store, spread my legs for some pusher, or woke up in a pool of my own vomit. My addiction hasn’t cost me my job nor bankrupted my family. Fortunately for our bank account, local libraries and used bookstores provided a steady (and cheap) supply of the latest titles, so I only forked over actual dollars for books I planned to read again or for those times when I needed a “quick fix”. At this point you may be scratching your head and thinking, “And this is significant because...?” I understand. None of this may seem significant if you are not a Self Help Book “drinker”. Just as it may be difficult for a non or occasional imbiber to understand ...

  This semester I’m taking a “Vital Energy Meditation” (Qigong) class every Thursday. (I like saying “this semester” -- it makes me feel like I’m a college student and not just someone who happens to work on a college campus.) I’ve been very stressed lately, and I hope that intending to relax will lead to actual relaxing. We’ll see. I must admit, it seems to help, but I have a long way to go... During the class, my teacher plays quiet, meditative music in the background. She told the class (and I later confirmed via Google, because Google is God), that sound can be used to promote inner peace, harmonize our bodies thus opening ourselves to healing chi energy, and regulate our emotions. It occurred to me on the way to work the other day, that this was the exact opposite sound the girls were making in the back seat of the car. Maybe I should take two classes a week.  

Deep Tissue Massage: therapeutic spa treatment or the physical rearrangement of meanness? You decide. I’ve had 6 massages in as many years and Sunday I had my first deep tissue massage. As I understand it, a deep tissue massage works deep inside the muscles to release toxins that form as knots. My “toxic knots” prefer the neighborhood of my upper back and shoulders and I looked forward to evicting the bastards once and for all. I expected the experience to be painful, and indeed it was. Toxic knots don’t leave willingly... or quietly. It would all be worth it, I told myself, when I emerged relaxed, peaceful, and in love with the world. So I breathed through the pain and kept my moans to a minimum. Afterwards, I was fatigued and grumpy. Tired I expected, but grumpy ? Actually, grumpy is not quite accurate -- more like evil and ready for a fight. What happened? Is this normal? I knew I was in trouble when I found myself yelling at people before leaving the spa parking lot . My toxins wer...

To all the whores (with high-speed Internet)... I apologize. Here’s how my brain works: I write an essay about nostalgia and garage sales and I make an off-hand reference to feeling “like a dirty, desperate whore...” for selling my personal belongings and my daughter’s clothes so cheaply. Then, for the next two days, I worry about offending said whores (or prostitutes, or anyone who feels like they’re selling themselves cheaply for money). I feel like a dope for comparing my life to theirs -- even if I was just exaggerating. These thoughts occurred to me, probably because I watched Monster a few weeks ago. (Well, only part of it. That movie’s pretty hard core and depressed me greatly.) I imagine this deceased serial-killer and ex-prostitute reading my blog and thinking, What an F-ing lightweight. She has no idea... And, of course, she’d be right. I’m very fortunate to have my life and my experiences. I think about how difficult it must be for women all over the world who struggle s...

It’s pretty pathetic when my confidence comes from feeling superior to teenage girls. I’m walking towards the line at Subway, thrilled that it’s so short, when a gaggle of teenage volleyball players gets in line ahead of me. That’s OK. The line’s still short , I tell myself. But I quickly become impatient with their lack of focus and inability to make quick decisions. Instead of chatting and giving each other high-fives, shouldn’t they be selecting their bread choices? When the weary looking sandwich assembler asks them what kind of cheese they want, shouldn’t they shout “Provolone! American! Cheddar!” instead of saying the unthinkable, “Um... I don’t know, what do you have?” Didn’t they see the sign 12 inches in front of their cute little noses with labeled photographs of, you guessed it, cheese ? Apparently not. Next, two new girls walk over to the group. “Hey guys! Why didn’t you wait for us?” I knew what was coming -- they wanted to cut in line. But I looked right at them. They wer...

I need to sit myself down and have a long talk with myself. I was shopping at Trader Joe’s, hoping to find something quirky and interesting for a party at Elizabeth’s school. But I forgot -- I’m not used to "interesting". I’m used to tubes of potato chips and cheese-flavored goldfish, so I decided to go to Ralph’s where I can find Cheetos and Teddy Grahams. However, a container of cocoa-covered almonds caught my eye and was too tempting to resist. The lines were long, but a nice older woman asked if I would like to go before her. “I just hate it when you’re standing there with one item, and people won’t let you go first. Don’t you?” “Oh, well thank you. That’s very sweet,” I said and stepped in front. “Have you ever let someone go in front of you?” she asked. Clearly this was an important issue for her. “Yes, I have,” I said smiling, pleased with myself because it was true. “It gives you a good feeling, doesn’t it?” “Yes. Yes it does.” We smiled. It was nice. Soon I departed ...

Today I want to grow my hair long and straight and keep it in a braid down my back. Today I want to quit my job and take photographs of homeless people and construction sites. Today I want to wear leather and drive an amber Harley with two black leather rucksacks on either side: one containing a camera and iBook; the other containing my weed. Today I want to shake hands with strangers. Today I want to dance in the street. Today I want to take my girls out of school, dress them in batik and walk through fields of wildflowers, birds nests and garter snakes. Instead of working for money, today I want to work for trade. In exchange for a web site, story or photograph, please give me your 67 Mustang, your Nikon camera, or your dog; or a really good meal. Today I want live in a city loft with built-in bookshelves and a corner market down the street. I want to walk to used bookstores, antique shops and art galleries. I want to buy organic vegetables and place rose extract behind my ears. Tod...

I hate to brag, but today Elizabeth told me I was beautiful. Which was really good to hear, since I hate this fucking hair cut and I felt like a bitch for most of the day. It was such a sweet thing to say. She often compliments me in this way. She tells me she loves me. She lavishes me with kisses and attention. She is a wonderful person, and I’m incredibly lucky to have her in my life. But, sadly, it’s not always enough. There are times (most days, really) when my insecurities are stronger than her devotion. I still look in the mirror and want more from what I see. I listen to my thoughts and I want them to change. Her sweet words don’t comfort me. And that pisses me off. Because I really like and admire Elizabeth. She’s a smart girl, fun to be with, and she likes me . Wow! I should be on cloud nine. Often I am on cloud nine. With Elizabeth and Samantha in my life, I laugh more. I sing more. I fart out loud. I dance more. Life is a joy. Their conversation cheers me. Their arguments ma...