Quit Being an LB

When Phyllis Nefler calls a parent meeting for Troop Beverly Hills to concoct a plan for selling cookies, her best friend, a glamorous romance novel writer, laments, "If all you're looking for is money, then why don't we all just buy a thousand boxes of cookies."
Phyllis says, she thought of that too, but realized it defeats the purpose, which is much more than raising money, but teaching your kids not be an LB.

Thats a term my brother taught me, "LB" which stands for "lil' bitch," and is generally used to explain someone who is acting like a whiney asshole, and is bringing everyone down. When I was young, my brothers, sisters and me would lounge in front of the TV for hours. We'd rise from our state of rest only for fresh-from-the-oven bagel bites. When my dad would come in the house after work, we'd all go tense because we knew he would never get on board with this scene of inactivity.

And he wouldn't. He'd usually look upon his fleet of lazy children, silently scowl, walk into the other room, and we would get the false impression that he is totally cool with us spending our Saturday on an eight hour TV bender. Minutes later, he'd walk in the room and command, "Turn the TV off. You need to move the wood from the front of the house to the side of the house."

Then we'd all moan under our breath, taking out our frustration on each other, with a shove and "get out of my way" shout, and then start a work line where we'd spend the next two hours walking chopped wood from the front of the house to the side of the house, for no reason except my dad doesn't want his kids to grow up and be LBs. Weeks later, he'd come home and ask us to move all the wood back to where it was stacked in the front of the house. And so on.

I'm with my parents this week, sleeping on a blow up mattress with my two kids. A fourth of the mattress' air escapes when I put the cap on it, and there is a slight leak somewhere because after a couple hours, we are all sleeping on the floor. George wakes up frequently throughout the night screaming for no apparent reason then to test my strength in containing any involuntary reaction to be abusive. I practice visualizing us back at home, where he is in his bed, and I am in mine, sleeping soundly. But waking up in the dry Carson City desert, after sleeping a couple hours on the floor of a room that's last seen a vacuum in 2012, my throat and nose clogged with dust bunnies, I guzzle eight cups of water and then onto coffee and take on a day which has become much less active now that my kids are old enough to keep themselves busy, running around like a pack of wolves with their four cousins.

Last Christmas there was always something to do; snacks to make, potty mess to clean up, something to organize, or a tantrum to extinguish. Yesterday I was so hapless, I spent eight hours laying around and eating. I went to bed traumatized by the dud of a day I had, and said, "Im going to read a book tomorrow. I can't go on doing nothing!"
Yesterday I took two long ass walks. The first was with my brother and sister's families. The second was an emergency walk, I initiated after watching George waywardly wander through the room, leaping on furniture, looking like he was going to climb the TV stand with the hope of body slamming the coffee table. I could have carried on, eating a dozen more mini powdered donuts while staring at the ceiling, but he needed to run.

As we started down the path I chatted with my sister on the phone. We hung up, and then George and I walked, looking for rabbits. When we reached the end of the path, I reached in my pocket for my phone so I could get a picture of him with the city background. I put my hand in the deep pocket and pulled out a knitted cap, two sets of gloves, three little kids socks, and Starbucks napkins, but no phone.
I knew I had the phone when we started on the walk, so it fell out somewhere in between here and where I hung up. I regretted buying the camouflage otter box case because it was only fourteen dollars on Amazon, knowing if it were case side up, it'd blend into the brush and dirt. I found the phone glistening in the dirt right around where I hung up. George and I high-fived, then I went to take his picture, but the phone died as I opened the camera.
We then came upon a family of deer. There was about eight of them, and they looked huge, motionless, staring at us. I picked up George, and was a little frightened, as we said, "Hi deeeer," creeping away. I couldn't shake the image of them walking towards us, then quickly charging, a short distance stampede. The path soon turned to cement, and we entered the neighborhood. I turned around and saw a little deer peek its head out from behind a stone wall to look at us.

This morning, after George woke me up, we joined the bustling part of our family thats on East Coast time, I grabbed a book from the shelf, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Harletts seem to be the most useful tool of the time, and proclaimed, "I will not eat any of those fucking corn syrup donuts, or guzzle diet coke like it's water." A couple hours later my mom came out of her room singing, and I reiterated how I couldn't be a glutinous couch dwelling jabba the hut sloth today. She shook her head at me, dismayed, and said, "You stop being a complainer, and lay down on that couch and relax."

I know what she meant by "complainer" so I sucked it up, grabbed some donuts and fell into an armchair, tossing the book to the side and started watching rain drops hit the window and ground.

5 days late

Will I ever stop crying

My period is five days late. I have pms symptoms and wasn't feeding into the possibility of pregnancy too much, so after I thought of the perfect baby name, and how we'd arrange the kids room, and how my car needs more space, I figured I'd pee on a stick. Then I could start in on the baby registry.

It came back negative which I knew deep down because I have that warm cramping feeling I get before I start. My period is just being a butt head because it wants me to carb load for all of 2017.

After work Tuesday I grocery shopped and had 10 minutes to kill before picking up the kids so I got a bagel and drove around eating it. Ten years ago I held a very firm stance that car-eating is barbaric, impatient, and terrible for digestion, but now I think of it as a mini vacation; quiet, peaceful and delicious times where I can be alone with my thoughts and food.

The night before last I felt like Rosemary's Baby's mama when I cooked up a pound of beef with an onion and began chowing down from the skillet with a 17 inch plastic mixing spoon. Standing over the stove with food dripping from my mouth, I felt like a famished cave woman who just happened upon a dead possum, and the thought entered my mind, perhaps this is more than PMS, and I am with cave child.

If there was ever a movie to avoid in the height of PMS I watched it last night. I had to practice seat clenching self control in the theater watching Manchester By the Sea, and as I went thru ten Starbucks napkins I found in my jacket pocket, wiping snot and tears from my face, I had to swallow a tennis ball of cement in my throat so I wouldn't start wailing in my fit of hysterics. If I knew what the movie was about, I wouldn't have watched it.

Around 3 am I woke up to the gate outside my bedroom being blown open and then crashing into the latch but not catching. It went on for a while, and let me sit and think about The Saddest Movie Ever Made. I found myself crying in bed, at 3am, from this movie. Can I say I was traumatized? I think the only way to treat my condition is by sad-eating a meatball sub.

Sitting in bed and crying about a movie at 3am made me disoriented this morning when I woke. I told my husband, "Kiki has to sleep in, she has her dance recital tonight and needs to be on top of her game."
He said, "It's 7:30," like it was noon, and I rolled over. Then he said, "Don't you have a final this morning?"
I flipped the comforter off me, threw on my clothes, and whisper-yelled, "Goodbye," so I wouldn't wake up my daughter as I ran out of the house.
Now I'm, sitting in front of my class, as they take the final exam I nearly slept through, and started my period without any of my period gear. My morning is is a walk in the park compared to Manchester By The Sea.

Although Manchester By The Sea had a significant impact on me, and can win all the best actor/actress awards, I hope Hell Or High Water wins best movie. That was a fucking great movie. Sing Street is my favorite movie of 2016, but like how The Namesake was robbed in 2007 (Never Forget) I think Sing Street won't get it's due recognition by the Academy (I'm saying that last part in a drawn out nasally voice, The Acaaademy.)

After this test, I'm going to pick up meatball subs, and watch Sing Street.  Then hug my kids for, oh, I don't know, maybe the next 17 hours.

The Price Im Willing To Pay For A Remodel

I’m planning a remodel on the kitchen. Presently, it is a small galley kitchen, and we’d like to extend it on one side, and blow out the wall blocking it from the living room. A construction/design team came over to the house; we discussed what we want and what we're able to spend.

This last part, although it was a five minute discussion, left no impression on them as they left to draw up the plans because when we got the budget last night, it's almost 50% greater than what we initially told them. I’m planning to take this estimate, give it to my kids to practice their safety scissors, then sweep it into a bucket, pee on it, and leave it outside for the skunks to have a confetti party with.

All I could say was, “You got to be fucking kidding me!” Two times during our meeting with them, they made my skin crawl, so perhaps I manifested this overblown estimate from the get-go, with my negative perception. Firstly, when they came over to talk about the plan, and we mentioned the budget, they said, “We have a guy…” (anyone who starts a sentence this way is trying to run a job on you) then followed it up with, “Who offers same-as-cash loans.”

I said, “Bitch, get out of my house. I thought I hired a fucking contractor not a loan shark.” Nah, I didn’t really say this, I just gave a patronizing smile and rolled my eyes because I put too much passive in my aggression. The designer brought this guy up again during our plan review, and brought up another payment plan option for purchasing appliances through a showroom they know of.

After hearing this second attempt at having us go further in debt, I wish I would have stood up, taken this lady by the shoulders, and started shaking her while shouting into her face, to make it perfectly clear, “I am not taking out more loans and payment plans to pay for this shit. It’s cash, or nothing. Strapping more debt onto my belt is the last thing I want, in fact the absence of more debt trumps having a better kitchen.”

I get it that everyone is trying to make dat money, but whats the point in discussing budget if its not taken into consideration, whatsoever. Then something happened that really infuriated me, the contractor, after my husband told him this is way too much for us to spend, he said, “Let me take a look at it again, and see what I can do.”

That reply, that fucking reply, has led me to say, “He’s dead to me!”

Why did he send over an estimate that can be shrunk down? I don’t like the way he’s conducting business, it should be the fairest price from the beginning, no fat to be trimmed from inflated costs because the customers using a same-as-cash loan (what the fuck does that even mean?)

It reminds me of when I called Comcast to cancel my service because I was paying close to a car payment for cable and internet. I spoke with the representative, and he said, “How about you keep your plan, and I’ll make it a hundred dollars cheaper?”

I was shocked; “How about you back pay me then the $100 a month I’ve paid you for the last year too.” It shouldn’t be legal that some people pay $80 for the same service another person is paying $200 for. If price were based individually on how much the customer is willing to spend, then I’d rather not do business with you.

Our kitchen is not is bad shape, its just small and secluded. I’m still happy, its not like we aren’t eating. The kitchen functions fine. We can take our home improvement money, and use it in other ways, like put in a swimming pool to help us through the agony of Sacramento Summer, or pave our driveway that is 1/3 dirt, or buy a new sofa since ours has surely soaked up a gallon of milk by now, or paint the walls that are tagged up with crayon and grubby hand prints.

Before I paint the walls, the kids better make me the craft project with their handprints, and the poem about how those dirty handprints on the walls are just temporary. It goes something like this: 

Yo Ma, don’t get your panties in a bunch 

This hand print is from my peanut butter lunch

One day I’ll be a grown up too

You’ll stare at this print and think of your boo

My house is relatively small square footage. I think this is a plus because it means less shit to clean, and the kids are always within hearing range. But thinking of return on investment, it would actually be ridiculously stupid to spend that kind of money on a kitchen remodel in a house our size. I am certain the contractor is aware of this fact, which is especially annoying. The value of our house currently and the value of our house after remodeling should be directly related.

You know the real estate motto, “You always get back money you put into your kitchen and bathrooms.” Well, that wouldn’t be the case if we put 40K into our kitchen. Based on square footage, we wouldn’t be able to sell our house for it’s current value plus 40K. I’m sure there is some real estate or house flipping terminology for that, but I’m just going to call it common sense.

I'm fired up, but it will burn out soon. If the estimate comes back and is still asinine, I can cool my jets by thinking of that new pool I'll be jumping in too.

Hairy Loafer

Im faking asleep for the sleeping-selfie effect

Thanksgiving is a holiday where it’s easy to realize how thankful I am for my wonderfully cozy little house because I spend three to four days sleeping at someone else’s.

At 6:45  on Thanksgiving I headed upstairs to our guest room, and put George to bed. Even though he cried and said he needed to go back downstairs, he was snoring by 7. Then I had to bring in my daughter and get her to sleep. While reading to her, I dozed off.

I drank a latte at 3, so when my eyes cracked open at 9, I felt spry. I wiggled free from in between the kids, and browsed a bookshelf. I found a little book called “The Big Secret For The Small Investor” and I thought, this is perfect, I’ve wanted to learn how to play the stock market. I read the first two chapters, and then started having wildly entertaining daydreams that pulled me completely from the text. 

I became ecstatic at the prospect of becoming a successful investor and my future wealth.  My mornings would be dedicated to reading financial Times, drinking coffee and making notes on all my daily stock trades. I would get really fucking rich, like one-eyed Christian Bale in The Big Short.

I wouldn’t be overly flashy, initially. But after a while, there’d be no reason to hold back, and I’d buy everyone those ridiculous hairy Gucci loafers for Christmas. 

They’d all look at the stupid shoes, angrily thinking how much they'd rather have the cash. Then I’d shout surprise! and give everyone a fat check and an accompanying hairy loafer gift receipt. They’d forgive me for the lavish waste of money, and we’d drink Coors light.

hairy loafers cost $1,800 (stupid AF)

I was reading about calculating Present Value, and drifted into another daydream where I’m working at a glass desk with three computers. I’m wearing a silk robe with fur trim, thick rimmed glasses, as well as a phone headset. As I’m reading the screens, drinking coffee and flicking a ten inch cigarette into a massive jade ash tray, I’m chatting on the phone, “Alright, bitch, I got to get back to it. Time is money, gotta spend money to make money, buy low and sell high. Give my love to the mister,” Then I look at a computer screen and watch my bank balance increasing faster than a rocket ship speedometer.

Soon after, I realized this book was boring me, and the idea of being a wildly successful stock trader seems way more interesting then the process of becoming a wildly successful stock trader.

I returned the book to the shelf, and picked up Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection. It is hilarious, no day dreaming needed. I was trying not to laugh out loud and wake up the kids, or at least not laugh louder than Kiki's snore-purr, but that made me bottle up the laughter, causing my body to convulse, simulating a tiny earth quake on the pillowy bed, and shaking the kids. 

Kathy was a later-in-life slut, and her stories about fucking random dudes were hilarious. I only made it to chapter 5 when I passed out, but I couldn't help being intrigued after she talked about housewives being the majority in her Santa Monica Community College acting classes.

The next day when I started looking at class schedules, I had to give myself a slap on the face, Alicia, focus on one flower at a time, fool, or you'll never get your garden to grow.

I'm back to Sacramento, and my razor. Another thing I need to be thankful for, and should never forget to take on vacation. I wouldn't make it another day without needing to find myself a cave to hibernate in. Now I know, five days makes linoleum go to shag.

Whenever I return home from being out of town, I hit the ground running with a fresh perspective and pent up motivation. We put out all the Christmas decorations, started laundry from the trip, set up my teaching lessons for Tuesday, and am planning a writing schedule for the week. 

There is one thing I haven't  managed to get to. No one is calling me a loafer, but they certainly can call me hairy. One flower at a time, here!

Come Again

I asked Kiki what she wants for Christmas, and I shit you not, she said, "Minnie doesn't just share her bows, she wears her bows, a proud sponsor of Disney Jr."
I replied, "Well, you need to get more creative! Or at least a bit more specific."

Last year we bought her a plastic monstrosity advertised on Disney Jr. She still plays with it, but it satisfies the Minnie Mouse quota of household toys, and we don't need another toy in the house reminding us of Garbage Island.

I'm buying a new Play Doh press. The old one broke from making Play Doh pasta hours a day. It's been a nice reprieve; I'm able to sit at the table, drink coffee and talk, without being ordered in a bratty Disney Princess tone, to squish out a fresh batch of pasta. I had to put a kibosh on the Disney Jr because it makes my daughter act like an abusive megalomaniac. All those Princesses and their lack of consideration for anything but a chipped fingernail corrodes her mind.

We also watch the Pixar Movie, Inside Out. There is a funny bit where two characters sing the-song-from-the-gum-commercial, that goes like this, "Triple mint gum will make you survive." But when Kiki sings it, it sounds like this, "Triple mint cum will make you survive." I have corrected her enough where the problem should be fixed. "No, girl, It's G-U-M, Gah, Gah" Then she asked if my grandpa didnt eat his Triple Mint Gum.
After looking up the song online, the to actual lyrics, "Triple Dent gum will make you SMILE."

Lately the things I hear on TV don't match their intention, and thats even if I'm hearing it right. Like the news. I sat on the couch on election night and thought, they are really hamming this up. I said to my husband, "I wish they'd fast forward the two hours and stop dragging out this charade, so we can just call Hillary the winner and get to bed."
He looked at me over his laptop, "I don't think you're understanding. Trump is winning."

After a while it started settling in. I read a report, in the aftermath, saying Hillary was yelling and throwing things as she became aware of this unfathomable defeat by The Great Orange Hype. I was too much in shock to yell or throw things, and sat there, laughing like my straight jacket was being cinched one notch tighter.

The beautiful news anchors on NBC all pooped in their pants as they tried to make heads-or-tails of their inability to capture the pulse of the US. One anchor said, she regretted calling Trump supporters "The deplorables" and the others confirmed there must have been some error in their polling methods.

Clearly, the mainstream media has no idea what is going on in this country, or they don't care. They are having too good a time pleasuring each other in a verbal cirle-jerk. There is this leftist notion that cops should have to go to college because, they think strapping someone with 100K in debt will lead them to making better decisions under pressure. But maybe the opposite should be done with journalists in this country. Journalists, who go from college to grad school, to UNPAID internships, should live awhile as working class.
Journalism is a profession only the wealthy can enter. Entering the field requires working unpaid in places like NYC, an impossibility for anyone whose parents aren't bankrolling them. These people, with their soft paws, paint the picture of how things are in this country, and they do a piss-poor job of it.

I was hoping an apology video would be made where we get to watch a panel of NBC news anchors chowing down on their soiled diapers from election night, but I haven't seen any of that. I have seen them discussing fake news sources from Kazakhstan or some shit, and how all people who didn't vote in protest of Bernie are responsible for Trump. Again, they're not realizing, this is exactly what they wanted, because they were anti-Hillary. The news is calling this sect of the rust belt "uneducated" which is their transparent synonym for "stupid." I don't think the news has quite learned it's lesson. For every word they utter, they should be listening to five more. By blanketing the rust belt as stupid, they're, once again, failing to gather insight into this population.

Right now, mainstream news are basically pissing gasoline on a fire since portraying this group accurately is not as exciting, or clickable, as having KKK as a headline (and fuck yes, I think people need to protest against KKK, racism, sexism and fascism.)

But prioritizing sensationalism, comes from a place of entitlement because they're not living in these communities that are impacted. From their cozy leather swivel chairs, they proclaim, it's an abomination, let the people rise up. So they play footage to unsettle the nation, but not a single fleck of riot-ash blows into their insulated neighborhoods. For example, google Standing Rock or North Dakota Pipeline, you won't get a CNN, NBC, Huff Post article till you're five pages in, so they're intentionally ignoring the issues of Native Americans because it won't get the endearing response of a Dear Dad letter from a girl who wants to stop her dad from voting Trump. It's like they can't stop pandering to themselves, Narcissus gazing in the pool.

When I was at the gym the other day, an ad for Brian Butt-Brains Williams came on. I thought, Wow these fucking networks really have their priorities straight. They let down an entire country with their shitty election coverage, and then make drama-school drop out Brian Williams the lead anchor of a nightly news program. Drama-school drop out, go back on suspension, no one wants to see you're lying ass.

Until the mainstream news decides to produce progressive, constructive and an accurate depiction of the US, all people who turn to them as a resource are being misled.
Just like how we get to point our fingers and laugh our asses off at Barns And Nobles, and eventually all other big-box stores, as they go bankrupt because Amazon is putting them out of business the same way they killed all small businesses in the nineties, we will be equally unsympathetic when network news close their doors because people look elsewhere for reliable coverage.
I don't think the delusional main stream news is penetrable. They'll be turing off the last light in the building, dismayed by the "uneducated" working class who weren't able to open their minds enough to indulge in the perspective of an upper class white liberal.

I can't even take solace in their impending demise, since their blues will be short lived as they speed dial their brethren for another leisure career. None of this changes the fact that Clinton lost, and that is the hardest pill for me to swallow. Maybe I'm projecting my frustration towards the narrow minded media. Im not buying into the Great Orange Hype, and I'm certainly not forgetting all the stupid shit he said.

Hillary had a fireworks display planned for her acceptance speech to symbolize busting through the glass ceiling. I had a great tweet planned too. I was going to write, "Now we can put all this pussy grabbing behind us, and hopefully never mention it again." I was skeptical of the timing of the Access Hollywood video, and thought it was part of an antifeminist conspiracy woven into Hillary Clinton winning the election. Whoever thought holding on to that video till last minute was a good idea should be forced to eat one of those poopy diapers too.

I've heard a gratuitous cry for Michelle Obama to one day run for president. To which I shake my head, of course. Listen up, you're compliment is backhanded. A woman can, and will become president, and she doesn't need teed to be the leftovers of her husband. We'll do this again, and she will win.

She should start advertising now, on Disney jr. The brand loyalty will clench the election, even after proclaiming she can grab anyone by the pussy, or dick, if thats her thing.

I Dream Of Oranges

Ease My Mind

Friday night I dreamt of pulling a bag of peeled oranges from the bottom drawer in the fridge. I wanted to give them to the kids, but then noticed they were covered in black spots and rotting, so I threw them in the trash. After reading dream interpretations of oranges, I was excited. Oranges are a sign that something great is going to happen. But mine had those little, teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, rotten spots.

Last week I saw a psychic healer, the one whose book I read, Journey Into Grace. In the book, there were a couple cases where she cleared evil entities from people, and of course my boundless paranoia needed to know if there was something lurking within me.
The session started by us sitting on a a giant bed, and I told her a couple of my deepest secrets, shit that weighs on my mind. She was laying on her side, with her hand holding up her head. I felt at ease, considering what I was saying. After the chat, she started her healing by standing over my head. She then knelt, eye level with my head, and chuckled, saying I have an interesting energy. We talked about things she was seeing as she worked her way down my chakras. 

At the end of the session we sat back on the bed, and had a discussion. After easing my mind, by letting me know there aren't any evil entities, she asked how I felt. I replied, good, my auto-response, but after thinking about it, I answered, I feel sad. And I strangely did, like really, really sad.

She said that is normal. In fact, she said I might find myself randomly breaking down into tears the days following our session because she brought up so many repressed emotions.
She then reassured me my goals are inline with my destiny, and told me, "You have such a quirky, funny energy, and your so soft and intelligent." Flattered, I smiled and said thanks. I felt like saying, "I bet you say that to all the ladies!" while flipping my wrist.
I admitted, maybe I just needed to tell someone this stuff, and she didn't deny that. She gave me a list of books to read, and asked if I want to join her feminist yoga club.
The days following, I shed random tears, and felt somewhat disconnected. In the end, it was therapeutic. I'd compare it exactly to therapy. I'd also compare it to a 5th grade slumber party, but only the part where everyone huddles up on sleeping bags and spills their secrets, without any fear that comes along, like Why'd I say that to big-mouth Marge!? She's going to tell EVERYONE. Fuck! I was under the influence of an extra-large Slurpee, I didn't know what I was doing! Whaaaaa!

After two days of being a curmudgeon, my husband asked if I'm depressed. I let my inner-goth-child shine, when I retorted, "I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough."
It occurred, Saturday night. When we went to dinner, and I told him about an idea for a story. As I started talking, more and more came to me, and I spun a great little web right then. JK Rowling once said the quickest way to kill an idea is to talk about it, so when I started to tell the story, and my husband's eyes glazed over and he said he was confused, I chose to ignore his reaction, and said, you can't kill my idea, and took to paper, where I'm translating it from this glob in my head to a cohesive story, following a timeline.

Today I'm starting a Master Cleanse. Since hearing it's going to rain Halloween night, I decided I might as well eat the candy I bought for trick-or-treaters, and our turning into The Icecream People, has made my skin look like a hormonal teenager, pimpled as fuck. I need to shock my system, and then get back to a non-dairy life.
A friend posted a picture on Facebook from our freshman year of college, and my skin looked absolutely radiant. My twenties, although it was a time I neglected to deal with my emotions, was a time where I treated my body like a damn temple. I don't think I ate a piece of cheese between the ages 19-29.

This morning I woke up from a strange dream. I was in a room with a bunch of people, everyone was sitting on couches that were set up in an oval formation. A friend of mine, who died shortly after college, was laying with his head in my lap, and we were talking about how he's changing his ways, to be more healthy and safe. It was so fun and casual, but sad when I woke up, since the changes we were talking about was how he died.
I don't remember crying about his death then. I decided to move. Thats how I dealt with things. When life got complicated, I just made a fork in the road, and went in a different direction.

Having kids is melting my frozen heart, in addition to melting away any regard I held toward dairy intolerance. About my oranges, and how they were not exactly a pristine omen of prosperity since they were speckled black with rot. It turns out, dreaming of fruit that is not fit to eat, is a sign of a project which has not yet been started. Which was quite perfectly timed with Scorpio entering my house of creativity, and my great idea for a 90's homage femme thriller that lightening bolted into my brain when I started talking about Lifetime movies on our infrequent night-out-on-the-town Saturday night.

We defied trends, since last week we saw a Pixies concert. Twice in one week, its unheard of. When we got home, I said, I have a lot in common with Black Francis. My husband said, Oh really, whys that? And I said, We both always have whores on the mind.

In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Hero is compared to a "rotten orange." A shameful insult because no one wanted to be called a whore back then. (Leave it to the old-timey-to-modern-translation-experts, but orange = whore)

Were all whores to some degree, taking that metaphorical dick for money. Hell, traditional whoring is in my lineage, but being a rotten whore is an entirely different thing. 

The oranges in my dream were already peeled, and to me thats a great sign, It shows Im not trying to hide whats within my mind. To look at an orange, and its promise, delicious fruit, but then peel it and find its rotten, and inedible, there is an accompanying feeling of loss. 

The mind, hidden within our physical bodies, is potentially blemished. We don't see this mind, that continuously gets misclassified as the brain, but there is the fear of the unknown, unseen, and much like my concern over evil lurking within me, I want to be sure the whores in my mind don't poison the entire thing. My mind's little rotten spots make me quirky, give me a bizarre sense of humor, and can make me feel a little too sad at times, but without them, I'd be a ridiculous bore, and that, to me, is by far the worst fate, a thousand times worse than adult-acne. 

The best thing to do with rotten oranges is plant them in the ground, so more oranges will grow. Many of those oranges will end up rotten, as well, but they too need to be replanted. Nurturing the rotten orange, perhaps that has been the meaning of these last few nights. Either way, I've started my project, I'm dealing with emotions I stuffed away, and I'm always holding onto the prospect of great things.

My greatest thing, pigged out.

December Alicia

Dreamscaping

The Bee Gees' I Started A Joke has been playing on repeat in my head for at least a week. It started after watching the first episode of the new HBO series, Divorced. Sharon Horgan's Catastrophe is such a great show I binge watched it in one evening, so I knew I would love Divorced before I even started it.

I played I Started A Joke during a dance party with my kids, and George loved it, because it is one of those songs that leads me to dip him and swing him around like a monkey, but Kiki was perturbed. "It's a sad song," she complained, "Turn it off!"
"Sad songs are the best songs!" I said, quickly amending, "In moderation." I know from experience, the after math of listening to too much Elliot Smith, that a debilitating depression can settle in one's mind after wallowing in someone else's misery.

HBO isn't on board with the new major players of media content, Amazon and Netflix, and they still piecemeal the episodes, one a week. So I'm left empty handed for the rest of the week. Usually it doesn't matter because my library books and magazines are stacked two feet high on my bedside table, so I'm committed for every evening till the end of time. But I can't read when I'm on the treadmill. The spiders's webs hanging from the rafters in my dark, humid and over crowded garage, loose their appeal after a couple minutes, and I started watching Sex In The City while I run.

I haven't re-watched these episodes in quite some time, so I'm having a revelation on how anti-feminist this show is. It's like reading Bridget Jones as a thirty year old as opposed to a twenty year old. I didn't realize then that BJ was calling, oh about 80% of females fat fucks, and I didn't realize then that SITC relies too heavily on the perpetuated fear that women lacking a man are lacking in themselves. Miranda is the only one of them with a clear sense of self, and whats so hilarious, is she has a butch haircut and always wears unflattering business suits. Miranda is in butch drag since she fails to suffer the same levels of desperation as her cohorts.


The other night I had a dream that two of my aunts were making fun of me, so I stuffed cheese down their throats and smeared it over their bodies in retaliation. I'm not sure what this means, but my best guess is that I am concerned about people's negative perception of me, although I could never confirm if a negative perspective actually exists. It would always only exists within my own perception of their perspectives. Thats a doozy. But there has been this nagging issue in my life where I get very upset when being judged by others.

I'm reading Miracles Happen: The Transformational Healing of Past Life Memories by Bob Weiss. It is a compilation of stories people tell about their past life memories. Some of the stories are much better than others. My favorite is from a woman whose husband died. She dreamt about being with her husband around the turn of the last century, they longed for each other, but didn't end up together because he became a monk and her a nun, so they both lived sad and lonely lives. In her current life, they lived happily together. After having her regression, she writes it off as a figment of her imagination. She meets up with a friend who says, "I have something to tell you, and it's going to sound very strange. I had a dream where your husband came to me, and he said, 'Tell my wife she lived 900 years ago, and that I am a dolphin.'"
The friend told her this convinced it was gibberish, but the woman was taken aback because it was not gibberish at all. It turned out her husband was a fighter pilot and early in their marriage he went on a mission, and told her before he left, "In case I get captured, I want you to know that any message you receive will be from me so long as it contains the message, 'I am a dolphin.'"
Chills, right?! I think this story is the Pièce De Résistance of all the stories in the book.

There is not a cataclysmic turn of events after one diagnoses their present fears based on past life experiences, time doesn't cease and their lives become a melting pot of all experiences. What does occur, is the healing of mental trauma, phobias and or chronic pain. So nothing quite as exceptional as one would hope.

I think my concerns with reincarnation and the past life theories is just the size of our population at present time compared to a thousand years ago. Does this mean that many people existing now are soul-less, or could it mean there is soul duplicity; where a soul exists within many beings simultaneously, and filters these lives from each other. Or maybe more souls are being created. Or maybe souls are split. I could think of twenty things here, but will spare the listing.

Last night before I went to bed I decided I'd ask for guidance since I'm reading about dreamscaping also, so I posed a question right before I fell asleep.
I woke up twice in the night and felt very warm on my shoulder, like someones hand was there. I had three dreams. In one, someone I know had a baby, in another, someone I know dies, and in the third, I was getting naked to take a shower in a crowded RV, I was trying to shut curtains around the shower to get privacy.

There was definitely no solid answer to my question, and I felt terribly unsettled after dreaming about a person I know dying. I conducted some Google research, and the death could indicate pregnancy, which is funny since I followed the death dream up by dreaming about a new baby.
And the RV, and trying to hide behind the curtains for privacy, that must be more concern about shielding myself, and not wanting to be judged, more like not wanting to feel like I am being judged.

The last three weeks I've felt over scheduled. I read that this full moon is difficult for everyone, and I'm no exception. I wake up and have the sense that every minute of my day is accounted for, and it gives me that infinite feeling in my chest. Like Im weighted down. I just go with the flow, but its been daunting. After soccer ends this week, and my poorly thought out Saturday class ends in December, I'll be back to living my life without a rigid time schedule where a 15 minute daydream disrupts my entire day.

The reason Im having to run in the garage is not just the rain, but because the ten minute drive to the gym would make me late to pick up the kids. My schedule feels like a string of standing up dominos, where I have to delicately maneuver through the day or I'll knock the entire thing off track. I don't like to spend my day feeling so robotic and pressured by a time schedule, but this feeling came at a perfect time, as Im reading this book, because just last night there was a section on staying aware of the greater purpose and meaning, and not being distracted by the sometimes overwhelming day-to-day grind.

Basically, it's the old adage, Don't sweat the small stuff, or the big stuff, and appreciate the things that make me feel good; like double dosing on SJP, which sends unhealthy messages about smoking in moderation, and thinking about how I'm different now from ten years ago, and how I'm different now from the Alicia in my dreams, and how Im different now than the Alicia who lived before me or after me (either of which I have yet to come across). So right now, when my schedule is demanding, I'm happy, and yes, it has a lot to do with Alicia two months from now. December Alicia looks like she's managing things just fine.

Whose In Charge

The footage of Donald Trump is not surprising but it's the timing I find peculiar. This level of egregiousness doesn't just fall from the sky, or rather, become excavated from the Access Hollywood archives, at this juncture in the race.

Making Trump the republican candidate then releasing the video one month before voting, this is strategic, and, possibly, interesting. 

Interesting because there is now obvious intention in making him the republican candidate.

This entire election has played out like a brilliantly orchestrated drama. It's almost too good with the DNC scandal, Melania's speech, and now this video of Trump "grabbing pussy." 

As America votes for the first Female president, we as women, need to ask ourselves why this charade, pitting her against a vile sexist, was plotted from the get go because Trump would have been ruled out last year with the release of this video. He had to become the candidate, he had to be Her opponent, so there'd be no forgetting who has the dick in the room.

We couldn't just get a female president. No we need to get a female president while simultaneously being degraded. It's the workings of the oppressor. You'll be granted this achievement but never once will you forget who you really are, not man.

The momentous occasion of electing a woman president is backhanded by  FORCED sexism, and the timing of this video proves it!

Big Plans for Turning Five... And Six

Today is my daughter's 5th birthday and I've been crafting my ass off for the past week to prepare for her upcoming party. I tend to over promise, but since I come really close, she is always overjoyed.

When my daughter was three I told her I'd take her to Paris to celebrate her fifth birthday. In August, I became a bit itchy around the collar when I realized she is a bonafide student and I'm a bonafide teacher, who have to adhere to an academic calendar, so we can't just drop everything to stroll around the city of love hand-in-hand.
Although the landscape was looking quite grim, I didn't completely abandon the dream. However, last Friday I accepted the reality. I said to my husband, "I don't think were making it to Paris on Monday."
He cheered me up, and said, "we'll just have to celebrate it when we make it there."

This is true, and so we will. My daughter, like me, has an elephant's memory. And so she never forgot about Paris. We spent quite a bit of time talking about how we'd celebrate, and even when we weren't talking about it, I'd picture it in my mind.
Her thin mop of white hair tied in a top knot on her head. She wore a faux fur leopard jacket and I had on a chic black moto leather jacket . We both wore oversized tortoise shell sunglasses. I imagined us sitting at a bistro table enjoying lovely cups of coffee for me, and hot chocolate for her. The Eiffel Tower is in the background and pigeons pecking at bread crumbs are in the foreground.

I suppose I should have bought her the jacket, and maybe the dream would have come true.

Her Actual party is Wizard of Oz theme, and so I painted her a Pin the heart on Tin Man game. It took me an entire day and ten dollars in supplies. I stole the idea from a product sold on Etsy for $4.95. Thats the thing with crafting, it costs much more than just buying it (and thats not even compounded with the fact that time is money) but it feels so good to be the creator, it's worth the added effort.

I also told her I'd make all her friends little Dorothy aprons, and after getting the patten and examining it, I had to modify it to a pinking sheered skirt apron. Ten of those turned into another day-long effort. The morning I started to make them, I called my mom who said, "Stop what you're doing and go buy that shit at the dollar store." She let me know, it will end up in the trash regardless of my craftsmanship, to which I had to defend my crafting, and tell her I don't care, I'm making them.


This morning we had to rush to her school for her birthday celebration. We sat perched on teeny tiny plastic chairs, and she circled the sun holding a globe in her hand. After each rotation she told her friends what she did when she was one, two, three and four, and then she told them what she is going to do when she is five.

She told her friends she is going to learn how to read. We've let her know that after she learns to read she will be able to stay up as late as she wants reading her books. Now, she has to rely on one of her parents, and if either of us are in a state of exhaustion, then there is a good chance we'll be snoring in her face before we make it though a three page chapter in The Wizard of Oz.


It timed out perfectly that tonight, on her birthday, we get to read the last three chapters. I'm expecting Dorothy will get to go back to Kansas. The book is so much different than the movie, but equally exceptional. What it lacks in musical genius it makes up for in it's brilliantly spun tale.

They (and by they, I mean Big Hollywood Hot Shots) should stop making every Disney movie into a live-action, and make a live-action of the true Wizard of Oz. Perhaps this is what I can promise for my daughter's sixth birthday.

She won't mind when I can't deliver, because I'll blow the news to her as were adjusting our berets while sitting next to our transportable art easels we've set up along the Seine where we advertise to paint people's spirit animals for three Euro each. Who am I kidding, we'll do that shit for free!

Let's See It

"So you got something you want to show me"

Today at the gym, the man with the staring problem was being especially annoying. I chose a treadmill in the empty row that gave me a good view of all the hanging flat screen TVs. Minutes later a woman came to the treadmill next to mine, where she walked at a snails pace. Her hair was wet, like she just showered, and combed it, and she was wearing jean cargo pants, with her keys dangling from her belt loop by a carabiner.

Right when I came into the gym, his eyes locked on mine like a fucking heat sinker. I nodded to him as I pulled my equivalent of the hotel do not disturb sign out of my purse, my headphones, and stuffed them in my ears.

As the woman next to me and I occupied the treadmill section he was at an arm machine facing us, continuing to stare, in a very rude manner.

My daughter stares at people in the changing room, and we've had talks about giving people privacy. She is very interested in naked people. An old Japanese woman swims every day, and after the kids do their pool time, we see this woman frequently in the locker room. Kiki is fixated on her. I tell Kiki, "Privacy please! Don't look at people as they are changing."

The woman always acts like she doesn't notice, which is difficult since a couple times I've looked over at Kiki after getting George dressed, and she has her hand over her eyes but opened her fingers in a v shape, so one eyeball is exposed, looking at the changing woman.

The last time we saw her, the woman dressed, and hobbled by on her cane. She stopped in front of Kiki, looked at her and said, "You are very interested in me, aren't you?"
Kiki looked down at the ground, and didn't say anything.

It didn't take the man long to make his way over to the treadmills, and of the empty row, he chose the one next to me. When the woman next to me finished her stroll. I tried sending her an ESP message,  "Please don't leave me next to him." because I had a feeling he was going to try and talk to me.
She didn't pick up on my mind message, and left.
My headphones remained in my ears as I wiped the machine down, and picked my purse up off the floor. As I turned, I heard him say something. I couldn't tell you what, maybe something about my distance, or perhaps about how I cleaned the machine, but I just chuckled and shouted "bye," to emphasize that I am listening to loud music, unaware of the world around me. I walked away, mildly ashamed. I didn't want to give him free laughs.

Last night, as I read to my kids the word chuckle came up, and I explained to them that this means to be amused, most of the time when laughing at your own joke. They thought that was funny.

By laughing with him, I contributed to his problem. I need to ovary-up, like the Japanese woman, and ask him, "What the fuck are you looking at?" It's not like I'm in fine form when I'm at the gym. I usually look like ass.

There's one woman there who I call Hot Mom because, just as you'd expect, she is super hot. Aside from her body, giant butt and tits, she has the necessary confidence. She usually power walks on the treadmill at a 45 degree angle, and then does squats in the middle of the gym, at this point I chuckle to myself because I think of Ned Flanders.

I wonder if creepy staring problem man would have the balls to go sniff around Hot Mom's crotch. Based on her disposition, I'm pretty sure she'd whoop his ass, so maybe he knows his audience. I look passive enough to dish out free laughs at his bizarrely inappropriate way to engage in conversation.

I can imagine the retaliation though, for me calling him on his shit. He'd say something, like don't flatter yourself sweetie, then spew an onslaught of insults at me. In order to protect myself from that type of self-esteem damage, I'll keep up my MO of completely oblivious with my music too loud to ever hear what he's saying.

I can already see how a conversation with him would play out. He'd blow out a bunch of gratuitous compliments, so I'd feel rude telling him to fuck off. His intentions are confusing though. His staring at me is forcing me to look at him. This entire charade is a way for him to make me acknowledge him, most likely as Man. The quickest way to squash this would be to appease by saying, "Ok, just show it to me. Pull it out so we can get this song and dance over with."

Then he'll pull it out, and hold it in his hands. And I'll say, "Well, that is exactly what I was expecting. You are such a Man." Then he'll be so pleased with himself he'll chuckle, and I'll get back to not being disturbed.