It's Not Rocket Science

Are men from Mars and if so are they taught to bullshit there? Oh women bullshit too but there is one thing that men bullshit about way more than women. No, it's not cheating! Everyone will lie about cheating if their backs are to the wall. I can't speak to the statists of which sex cheats more and frankly I don't care to speak to statistics period. They are just so manipulative! What I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt is that men are the almost exclusive users of the following line in one form or other.

"You know me, I'm not a romantic."

"I don't do romance."

"I don't know how to be romantic."

I could go on but it would just get me pissed off. It's a lazy ass lie. Sometimes guys use it to cover up in case their efforts are deemed not good enough but the rest of you? Seriously? Why not just admit the truth? You are either taking someone for granted or you're just not that into her.

Here's why I'm not buying the "I'm not a romantic" line. It's not always about the grand gesture, however, if the moment calls for it, you would have had to be living under a rock not to see how it is done. Are there not enough movies or TV shows out there? You tube is filled with great examples. If you don't need visible instruction then look at facebook or twitter. Its out there. But then, you (guys) knew that.

Then there is romance where a Hollywood moment isn't needed. Ironcally those little moments can be more powerful than the fully orchestrated kind. Can you buy her a present out of the blue? Just a little something like her favorite candy bar. Can you hold her hand while you're just watching TV? Can you tell her she is beautiful? "You look "nice" doesn't cut it. In fact the word "nice" shouldn't even be part of your vocabulary if she is the one. Can you call her for no reason? Can you brag about her? Whether it's her painting or her total geekness with computers? Of course the key is that she somehow overhears it! In short, can you just man up?

Someone once told me"I'm not much of a romantic and you know that." Then he wrote me a love letter. He went out of his comfort zone and he told me how he felt. He was *that into me.*

Romance is not the remedy for screwing up. Not screwing up again is what you need to do! Romance is a thing you do 365 days not just on Valentines Day or birthdays and anniversaries. Romance isn't hard. In fact when you really love someone it's like breathing. You do it without thinking and you do it all the time.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

I was talking to a friend of mine, a doctor, about a sad case he is dealing with. Basically for this patient midlife looks to be around twelve. We started talking about how we should live our lives because you know...you never know. Then as my conversations tend to go we took a left turn as I started to talk about the years I spent raising my kids.

Well maybe I didn't really hang a louie. I was telling him that the years I spent raising my kids were kind of a blur. A mind numbing blur. It isn't that I don't have any memories, it's that I don't have any memories of me. I wasn't me. I was the mother of thing one and thing two!

I have sweet memories of my kids as they grew up. They made me laugh as often as they made me pull out my hair! That was a PSA in case one of my kids read this or someone thinks I'm a bad mother!

I just remember that when my kids were old enough to go out and live their lives it was like a fog lifted. I began to feel like me again. The me at this end of the adventure realized that now it gets important to do the things that make me happy and less of the things that don't. I still clean but it's not a priority. I still go to work but I'm less invested in the politics and more interested in having fun while "the man" pays me. I listen to music, watch TV like crazy, I devour books and most of all I write.

Yawn. They're contagious so go ahead! I mean yadda yadda yadda what is the point here which is the equivalent of "are we there yet?!" from any family trip taken anywhere in the world said by every kid in the world at least once but probably more!Here it is, our final destination. It may be impossible to change the dynamic of what happens to your life while you're raising your kids unless of course you can hire enough help so that *you* aren't actually raising them! However once that fog lifts take the advice of some wiseguy or rather wise guy and "enjoy this moment because this moment is your life."

See Red!

I don't do anger well. The I'm not gonna take it any more kind. I'm working on it. While I am firmly rooted in the late sixties/early seventies WoodStock generation I think something of the fifties seeped into my irrigation system. Well at least the image of women in the fifties. What? Life isn't like a sitcom? Hell at this point in time does it really matter why I don't do anger well? The bottom line is still the same.

It's not as if I'm a shrinking violet when it comes to letting it out. Those would be my daughters exact words. "As." "If." I do upset and I do frustrated and while they may appear very much like anger they are not. If they were the same I wouldn't be writing this and Webster's would be shorter by one word.

Now anger comes in different sizes and different shades of red. I'm not talking about the kind that is like the path of a giant tornado. Not the kind that pops your bloodvessels so your eyes turn red like the devil's. I'm talking about the garden variety red gardenia kind. It's when someone, your friend, your boss, your colleague or your guy does something that makes you mad. Not every little thing they do but that one thing that was wrong and thoughtless.

See red. Be angry. Not upset or hurt. You may feel those things too but let yourself get angry. I prefer my anger to come with a steel look in my eyes and a quiet voice. The yelling thing is never as effective. You yell and then you cool off and then they rinse and repeat. I rarely can achieve this quiet kind of anger but I'm working on it.

I think I have been afraid of anger. Maybe they won't like me anymore. Even I know that's just stupid. Ha! And you guys are taking advice from me! These moments are not about being "the bigger person" which usually means backing down. These moments are about saying "hey I'm worth it so pay attention."

Don't apologize for being angry. Let them apologize and when that happens, just like that, let it go!

Kindness

It started as my Facebook status. Well it started before that but a writer needs to know at what point to start a story. Otherwise we'd be back all the way to my birth on that glorious fall day! There was no Facebook then however, like that needed to be clarified! My Facebook status simply said "kindness is highly underrated."

As you can see there is no picture with this post. Kindness is one of those things that you can't hold in your hand like an object. It has no physical form yet we all know it when we see it. When we need it and there is none around we feel it as keenly as we do when it comes to us unexpectedly.

I was thinking about who I was before I wrote that status update. One of the first things that came to my mind was kind. Seems like such an insignificant thing. When we describe someone, lets say we're setting up a blind date, do we ever use the word kind? If we're bragging about our kids it's almost always about the college they got accepted to, the award they won or the job they got. Who brags about how kind there kid is? How about our partners, spouses or significant others? We describe them as really hot, or funny, or smart or all of the above. Uh kind? Maybe sweet as in he is so sweet to me he ____fill in the blank.

If you're kind you'll never have to worry if your kids will be their if you ever need them. They don't teach that at Harvard. Education is a good investment. So is kindness. Be kind so that when you have to make that call at 3am because your world is falling apart, someone, a friend, is going to pick up. If you love someone then be kind and handle their feelings with care. One day you're up and you're holding a royal flush and then one day... you're not.

Being kind is priceless because it costs nothing and means everything.

Rapcha This

I waited till all the rapture jokes died down to ponder this notion of the rapture. Actually not the rapture itself, but heaven. I mean, what's in it for me?

We've all thought about what heaven must be like. In my heaven I could walk in really high heels as if I were barefoot and Manolo Blahniks don't cost anything! Eating your favorite dessert would actually give you a slimmer body! All the pets I have had the privelege to own would be there for me to pet. On an intellectual level there would be all these amazing people you could meet. Think of the concerts!

Wait! Slamming on the breaks! The one thing we won't have in heaven is a corporeal body. So none of the examples I gave would be possible. In fact if you think about it, it would be rather like hell. Fabulous shoes with no feet to put in them. The scrumchious desserts but no way to eat them! No hands to pet my dogs. There I am standing, or rather being, next to Moses and he doesn't even know I'm there! So. no Jim Morrison playing to a sold out crowd goes without saying.

Our ideas about what heaven should be like would in fact be hell on well, heaven. Which leads me to understand two things. The reason we don't know what happens after death is not because it's some big members only secret. It's because we can't imagine not having a physical form. Even ghosts, when we imagine them, have some kind of physicality. So the afterlife should be left until after. Until then, go buy some shoes!

The Times They Are A Changing

Bob Dylan turned 70 this week. He has slightly less than two decades on me. Was that vague enough? In any case Bob isn't a baby boomer himself but he was a voice of our generation. One of the greatest voices. His lyrics stand the test of time and whether he was solo, with The Band or The Travelling Wilburys he is always relevant.

If your gonna have to turn seventy, and we all will (sorry for the rude awakening), than how kickass is it to be seventy and have lived the life he did. I don't think he led a magical life. No one does. We all have our personal pain to live through and demons to live with. Oh let me just say it. He's seventy fucking years old and he has coolness that Justin Beiber will never achieve! How do I know? I know!

So I tip my hat to you Bob old man. Good job! You are who you were meant to be!

I Want It Bad

Birds do it, bees might do it. My cat does it and so does my dog. Teenagers are great at it. My husband does it without me! So why can't I get any?

Alas the big S has eluded me. Tantalizing, rejuvenating, pleasure giving, life reaffirming sleep! I used to be good at it. I've acheived what I refer to as death sleep. Sleep so deep that the world could end and I wouldn't know it. Sleep so deep that crawling out of my subconscious to reach my conciousness is like crawling out of a collapsed Chilean mine.

The one thing I don't want is to sleep like a baby. Whoever coined that one was never an owner of a tiny human. In fact probably never in the vicinity of one at night. So no I do not want to wake up every few hours during the night although it would mean that at least I had fallen asleep at some point.

Sleep eludes me on a regular basis. Maybe Morpheus misses the hormones that used to travel my bloodstream. Sleep left when they did. My only problem is that they are never coming back, so am I meant to be Sleepless in Seattle for life? I've tried the Kama Sutra of sleeping positions. I've tried what is the viagra of sleep dysfunction which is a sleeping pill. It works but to take one every night is just so Valley of the Dolls. I'd be happy to stay out all night like a teenager because I'm awake anyway but everyone I want to party with is sleeping!

Sigh. I guess I'll have to wait till I reach old age, like old old age not chipper old age. Then I'll be falling asleep even when I'm not supposed to!