It’s been an interesting week so far—and it’s only Monday.

First of all, something seems to have been dislodged in my brain—that thing that keeps me from processing stuff I don’t feel like, like paperwork and phone calls (wah wah wah, First World white girl) and from finishing things I’ve started, like work. Not that I’ve gotten everything tidied up and on its way: today saw the dispensing of my DMV registration, some queries about my post-COBRA world (universal health care cannot come soon enough) and a number of other annoying/scary if smallish items, but several others are getting rolled over (again) to tomorrow, my favorite day. (Just like my favorite week, month and year are “Next.”)

I made a dent in it though, especially by my standards. And I felt so gosh-darn good about it, I decided I would spread a little of that sunshine and head over to My Country House (a.k.a. The BF’s) to visit the dog (a.k.a. Arno J. McScruff) as his master (a.k.a. The BF) is living in the Land of the Stupid Day Job for the next several weeks and poor Arnie—well, he has dogly needs.

Now, this sort of thing does not occur to me usually, and when it does, to actually do it feels burdensome. Yes, I’ll go see you in the hospital or water your plants or take in your mail, but only if I’m allowed to feel grumpy and put-upon, at least to start with. Do not let the cheery photo fool you, my Internet friends! I am a crab and a bee-yotch of the highest order, and I’ve got plenty of real-life backup on that.

But today, I’m driving the five miles from my place to Arnie’s and practically whistling. At 3:30, no less—pretty much guaranteed that I’ll hit traffic going at least one way. In fact, I think I probably was in traffic; it just didn’t bother me, so it didn’t feel like traffic. And as I’m cruising through this traffic-that-is-not, I pass a place I’ve passed 1,000 times before. No, really: this is the route I take between my place and The BF’s; I could probably drive it blindfolded. Once, anyway.

It’s a shitty little storefront restaurant—nominally Chinese, but selling all manner of crap from gyros to boba tea like every other shitty little storefront restaurant I’ve seen like it. Might not—probably isn’t even run by Chinese people. Could be Koreans, could be Salvadorans, could be Armenians: it’s that kind of neighborhood.

But whoever owned it had hung one of those bright paper lanterns with the fringe on it that you see in Chinatown stores. It was kitschy and alive and pretty, and one thought flitted through my head:

I want.

Now let me assure you that while my taste in furnishings is somewhat eclectic, it’s not so boho-funky that a Chinese paper lantern would fit right in. In fact, it would look dreadful. I know this because I’m a designer, and I make my living knowing what will look right and what will look like ass. This would be the latter, trust me. There’s not one place in my place it would look right, including outside my front door, bapping about in the breeze just like it was in front of the not-Chinese restaurant.

Instead of feeling disappointed, though, I had this amazing flash of insight into why, for most of my life, I’ve been a hopeless accumulator of crap: I want that feeling.

That feeling that a particular shirt or dish or gadget gives me. The promise that’s inside that book—I want to retain that rush of inspiration I felt when I pulled it from the shelf. Or to be the person who has absorbed and processed its contents. Or to have a piece of that author (or artist, or musician) in my hands.

Or I want to be the person who can cook a perfect omelet with that pan. Who has pictures filling frames hanging on walls that burst with life, a host of beautiful craft projects made from these bolts of fabric, a lady who has the carefree life requiring, as my old art director, Sherry Scharschmidt used to call them, “Running-on-the-Beach Dresses.”

Maybe that’s why Peter Walsh and his ilk are making so much money these days: because we all have needs we’re shortchanging ourselves on; we’re all spending money instead of time, which becomes starting instead of finishing, which becomes a heap of never-worn, never-used crap we eventually haul off to Goodwill. And, since I’ve trained myself to understand that I never will have the time—that I will rush and rush, on and on, never stopping to take a breath and do the thing or even feel the feeling—I buy the souvenir instead.

It’s scarcity thinking in the middle of unprecedented abundance. And it’s a bitch of a habit to break.

I stopped myself today, though, in the middle of a thought of buying such a lantern. Because for ONCE, I realized I wanted the feeling of serendipitously stumbling upon a beautiful thing like that, blapping around in the clean, post-rain breeze. And I can’t own that any more than I can bottle happiness and save it for later. The wet jewels you find along the shore on holiday are just dull bits of rock when you get them home; a fleeting whatever is beautiful, in part, because it’s fleeting.

I’m not quite ready to do a spend-out yet, although I’m starting to see how it might help people like me who are used to going too fast and treating themselves too roughly. For now, though, I think I’ll try something else: going slower and treating myself more kindly.

Better. Cheaper.

And takes up a lot less room in a tiny apartment…

xxx
c

Image by Geopelia via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: clutter, communicatrix, consumerism, happiness, self-development.

This is Day 5 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

When I was little, I thought I was Audrey Hepburn.

I thought we were dead ringers, in fact, and that when I grew up, I would probably be mistaken for her at the Stop & Shop (“Hey! What’s Audrey Hepburn doing at the Stop & Shop?”), wear fabulous clothes and live a life of glamor and excitement (I did sort of mix up Audrey and her characters.) Here’s what was similar:

• Audrey Hepburn and I were both painfully thin
• Audrey Hepburn and I both had proportionally large eyes for our heads
• Audrey Hepburn and I both had proportionally large heads for our bodies

Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities ended. I had imagined that because I had these things, I also possessed Hepburn-esque grace, charm, beauty and lovely, swan-like neck.

I still remember the heartbreaking day my illusions were shattered. Apropos of nothing notable, my exceptionally beautiful mother made a wistful and admiring comment about Audrey Hepburn’s swan-like neck. I smiled to myself, preening a bit, waiting for the inevitable followup: “Like yours, honey—oh, I wish I had the same lovely, swan-like neck you and Audrey have!”

Instead she just looked at me—the What? look. Then, probably (reasonably, really) thinking an eight-year-old couldn’t possibly understand the significance of a swan-like neck, she elaborated, demonstrating by pantomiming against her own neck: “You know, long and thin, not stubby and thick…like ours.”

I had to reassess. And when I did, the news was not good. I did not, in fact, look like Audrey Hepburn. I was short and bowlegged and lantern-jawed. Worse, if you looked at us side-by-side, you could clearly see that Audrey’s head was perfectly proportioned to her perfect frame; it was my head that was the gargantuan freakshow.

So really, I was just painfully thin with unusually big eyes for my head and an unusually big head for my body, like…Nancy Reagan. Or Sneezy.

Sigh.

For years, I publicly mocked and privately bemoaned my big, freakin’ freak head. The way I figured it, it was a smarter move to preempt any mockery—to own my stubby, big-headed, funny-looking-ness. But really, I wanted to be pretty. To be elegant. To be graceful.

To be Audrey Hepburn.

Two things finally cured me of this. First, reading about Audrey Hepburn’s third act—the one where she became a tireless advocate for UNICEF, traveling around the world on behalf of the children. She was no-muss, no-fuss about the whole thing, including the clothes. In one article, the provenance of which I no longer remember (but knowing me, it was People, not The New York Times) she specifically mentioned one fact that shocked me: she traveled the globe with just one “fancy” outfit—all black and all, knowing her, Givenchy, but still. One small satchel of stuff to go to all those events, meet all those people, do all those things. She wasn’t disdainful of her beauty, but it was, at this point, beside the point. She had used it while it was useful, and now she applied her additional usefulness to causes and interests which obviously truly moved her.

Second, someone—and I wish I could remember who, because I owe them a Coke—pointed out to me that a preponderance of successful TV and film actors have big heads. It was early on in my life, way before I’d thought such a career might be possible for myself, but somewhere in my own head, it stuck (hey, it’s not like I was short the space for it.) And when I finally did start acting, I knew that the combination of all those years as a copywriter + my gigantic noggin’ meant that whatever else, I could probably count on commercial acting as a source of income to get me through.

Which, as many of my readers know, I did.

So thank you, Sextons and Weinrotts, for the dominant big cranium genes. So what if I’m 7 1/4″? So what if I have to grow out my hair an extra six inches to get it into a ponytail?

So what if I am not Audrey Hepburn? Do we need another one? Hadn’t the original done a bang-up job of it already?

My big head = my big career: eight years of decent wages and great health care and tremendous life experience to get me to the next thing. To my second act.

To my third act.

Which, if I’m very, very lucky, will be half as good as Audrey’s.

xxx
c

Sketch by me for Illustration Friday. This week’s theme: Hats.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, IlloFriday, Illustration Friday, illustrations, self-development, self-esteem, thank you sir may i have another.

For you busy types, here’s the topline: the communicatrix is well rested, the happy couple is well (and legally) married and (surprise, surprise) I did not get half as much done as I thought I would on my merry jaunt up the coast.

For the rest of you, settle in. Because that last bit was the source of a lot of deep thinking over the past several days.

I thought about it as I gazed out the window at the view of all views, not doing the Important Writing I was sure the solitude would facilitate. I thought about it as I walked the six happy, hilly miles to get my cup of espresso from the village every day. And I thought about it quite a bit on the long and tedious drive home this afternoon.

One of the excellent civic truisms I learned from my ex-husband, Chief Atheist of the West Coast and World-Class Urban Driver from way back was “If you’re passed on the right, you’re wrong.” Clearly, 95% of the people on the 101 S never had the Chief for their traffic school instructor. Between the uptick in asshats and the population boom overall, what used to be a beautiful drive is now little more than a colossal pain in the ass, at least for sadly long stretches.

Get mad at the people for being in the way. Get mad at me for not being perfect. Expect things to be different without really changing. How ridiculous I can be! How amazing it is that anyone at all listens to a thing I say! How fortunate it is that I have my monthly shrink appointment in two days to sort out some of this mess!

Of course, the heavy lifting of shrinkage is done outside of the 50-minute hour. You get assignments and perspective for those 50 minutes, but you do the work on your own. Or you’d better, unless you like wasting time and annoying the pig. And I have done a bunch of mine this week, even if it wasn’t the Important Writing kind.

• I spent a day positively convinced I had back-of-the-leg cancer, when really I just had a case of too much exercise for too-atrophied muscles. Because I worry about everything.
• I spent two nights watching Law & Order marathons. Because I am an addict.
  
• I spent five nights freezing my ass off before I finally broke down and turned on the gas furnace. Because a part of me will always be 12, forced to live in my grandparents’ drafty barn of a house and afraid afraid afraid to ask for anything.
  
• I ate cookies and burritos, beans and bread, chips and corn and god-knows-what in the delicious sauce of the meal my friends Terry and Gus bought me, and paid for it all in many square yards of methane output. Because I am the spawn of the King and Queen of Denial.

That’s a lot of thinking for one week, huh? I wish I could give credit to my wonderful brain and ferocious will to change. The truth is, though, it was the house: I was staying in a magical house.

Its location is magical, certainly, poised as it is a mere 10 yards up from and 20 yards away from the mighty Pacific. Few things are as restorative as viewing a fine sunset over sea water and a cold beer.

But I think the house itself must be magic. Compared to the outsized homes of the neighboring “Yankee fuckers”–swathed in decks, crapped up with all manner of aggressively country decor, my house is a pint-sized throwback to another time–a kinder, funkier time, when four swingin’ cats might just bake a doob in the glassed-in turret (accessed via the bathtub!) or while away a rainy day playing strip Yahtzee. My house all crazy angles and dark, moldy wood–including the countertops! It’s practically decomposing before your eyes, with its long-busted pocket doors, its non-functioning locks, its stop-gap newspaper insulation held in place with brittle masking tape. So what? There was a broken recliner and high-speed internet and a view: I was ready to move in, brother.

And I’m not the only one. My fellow outcasts–the ones without yellow magnet ribbons on our SUVs, the ones who like things a little sexy-grubby-rundown, had all left pieces of themselves there. Books with loving inscriptions to future guests. A closet full of puzzles, games, and 8-track tapes. A pantry full of foods, fancy and plain, with a little extra stock in the fridge.

People leaving stuff instead of stealing the toiletries. I was ashamed of my fleeting thought to abscond with a jar of barely used peanut butter–which I’d bought myself.

Never fear–it was fleeting, and just the lack talking. The weeks and months of people not letting you merge, not saying “please” or “thank you”, avoiding “hello” or even eye contact. And I can’t blame them: I am them, on my not-so-great days. I left my own contributions to the pot: Mrs. Meyer’s Dish Soap, the aforementioned jar of Laura Scudders, a lone Sierra Nevada beer.

I suppose the real topline for this week’s adventures is Wherever You Go, There You Are. I had my Dorothy Gale experience and it was all marvelous and trippy and very, very Technicolor in nature, but now I am back in my own backyard, ready (I hope) to deal with the accumulation of rusted out cars and old refrigerators that have been piling up there.

Because I would like to have fewer not-so-great days and more dancing-around-the-house days. More laughing days. More reading, walking, thinking, skipping, lounging days. I got an infusion of good mojo from the residual juju of a thousand happy Stone Soup House inhabitants before me; now it’s up to me to get some of that good witches’ brew going down here.

xxx
c

Photo of paradise courtesy of The BF.

TOPICS: communicatrix, life, sabbatical, self-development, vacation.

One of my dirty little secrets has to do with money: I’m afraid of it.

Between role models who lived it up with cavalier disregard for cash, dying either in debt or indebted to loved ones (myself included) for covering them towards the end, and others who destroyed their health and emotional life in the pursuit of money, it’s a miracle I’m neither pushing a shopping cart nor wedged between walls of newspaper, tying used paper bags together with twine against some future disaster, like a Depression-era baby gone whack job.

While I’m not rich, I’m also not in debt, and there’s no wolf at the door. For my age and considering my nutty career trajectory, I’m actually doing well, living proof of the magic of compound interest. I socked away whatever I could as a Young Corporate Tool, living in rat-traps (okay—mouse-traps) in Brooklyn on overtime meals and happy hour appetizers while maxing out my 401k contributions. And this was back in the golden ’80s, with dollar-for-dollar matching employer funds. Yes, you heard me: dollar for dollar.

And I’ve never exactly been a slacker. I was fortunate enough to have my college paid for, received gifts of cash here and there from my generous relatives and yes, I was subsidized to the tune of $50/week for the first six months I lived and worked in New York. Still, I’ve always worked, and never lived off the largesse of a partner or spouse. There were fat times and lean, but I managed to stay afloat, buy and sell a condo, keep clothes on my back and food in my gut, have health insurance (the good kind) and, while I’ve never been one to live high on the hog, even enjoy some luxuries like nice dinners out, nice food in, travel, cars (every one of which, of course, I’ve owned outright).

So this is not the story of someone who suffered the financial equivalent of being raised in a locked closet and never knowing light or human touch until age 16. I was good, I was fine, I looked completely normal—even together, compared to some people I know.

And yet, I am so conflicted about money, so filled with anxiety and conflict and trepidation, I cannot balance my checkbook. I mean, I have, at times, but I won’t do it consistently. I’ve let money languish in low-interest accounts rather than make the simple step of moving it to a higher-interest vehicle because somehow, keeping it vague is more comfortable to me that keeping it real. I stubbornly resist getting a handle on my money which, believe you me, is not the best modus operandi for anyone, much less a sole proprietor.

But I’ve never really understood why until today, when I read something Suze “Yes, I’m Gay!” Orman wrote in her column for the March issue of Oprah’s magazine. Orman was counseling a woman who’s in a relationship with a guy who sounds kind of creepy about money, and she suggests that maybe this chick should bolt, because…

When a person can’t share his financial life, I question his ability to share his heart. The way we handle money is a manifestation of who we are inside, and how he approaches the subject signifies his love and respect for you.

I tell you, I almost burst into tears reading this. Because it suddenly struck me how much of my life I have lived in fear, how worthless I have often felt about myself and my abilities, how much better it felt to look somewhere—anywhere—else, to tap dance a little faster, instead of sitting in the feeling I was really having until I owned it and could move on.

I have a lot of work to do yet, but I feel like the worst of it is over. Because at least for this last stretch of uncovering myself, thanks to a freshly-out financial guru to the masses, I have some direction and a little more light to find my way…

xxx
c

Image by Simon Pais via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: communicatrix, fear, Money, self-development.

To you, it is a collection of keys (and affinity tags) on a key ring. (Okay—carabiner.)

To me, it represents dozens of man-hours of thought:

One ring or two? Or three? And what diameter?
Fob choice? Fob size?
What is too heavy? What is too light?
What feels good in my hands?
What feels so good I’ll forget about it?
Is that too good?
Is that bad?
What would be useful?
What would be more useful?
Is yesterday’s ‘useful’ no longer so?
Where to forgo elegance for functionality?
What is the nature of elegance, anyway?

The difference between being a baby nerd and a grownup one is that grownup nerds know to enjoy the process or abandon it altogether, because the “goal”—perfection—will continue to recede in the distance as you move toward it.

The key ring of my 20’s is not the key ring of my 30’s is not the key ring of my 40’s.

In my 50’s? There may not be a key ring at all.

And maybe that is what I am working towards.

If, indeed, any of this is a working towards anything…

xxx
c

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, communicatrix, Nerd Love™, self-development.