Wednesday, May 25, 2005

A Thought

The minute you find yourself saying to someone, "Please don't take this the wrong way, but...." you should just close your mouth, because it's pretty much guaranteed that what's about to come out of it is going to be rude, personal, insensitive, mean, or just plain none of your business. You may as well announce to the person, "I'm about to say something rude, personal, insensitive, mean and frankly, none of my business, but since I couched it in a platitude then it's okay for me to say it."

And that goes for the following as well:

"No offense, but..."
"I feel I can say this to you because we're friends..."
"I'm saying this because I love you..."
"I'm telling you this for your own good..."

Any questions? Engage brain, then open mouth.

Friday, May 20, 2005

What would happen if I

- let go of all my defenses
- lived in the present
- let myself off the hook
- put all my energy into enjoying my life
- stopped believing the things I tell myself
- loved myself unconditionally?

Would I

- quit my job
- wind up on the street
- go hungry
- become greedy and selfish
- let others run over me
- lose my self respect
- turn into a criminal
- be bored?

Risk it.

Gassho, Cheri.

You're Out of Order! Question #4

4. Is the content of your blog fiction, and if not, do you plan to reveal yourself to the "Jane" to which you write? Do you know her, see her, regularly in your life?

The content of my blog is 100% truth....dialogue is as close as I can remember, probably with some literary embellishment. As for "Dear Jane," I've met her once, and actually found her to be a very nice person. She was nice to me, at least. Then again, she probably wouldn't be so nice to me if she knew I was her husband's Special Naked Friend.

She did comment (when we met) how much she liked my perfume, wanted to know what it was, etc., so like a fool, I told her. Hint to you women out there: When another woman admires your signature scent and asks what it is, LIE. Lie like a rug. Or if you're me, lie like an Oriental rug. 'Cause what happened next is that she ran out and BOUGHT my f----n' perfume! I should have told her it was Youth Dew by Estee Lauder or some other noxious old woman scent like that.

The next week, her husband asked me not to wear that scent anymore because now his wife was wearing it, and I quote, "I keep smelling you all over my house."

Paranoid fantasies abounded in my overactive little brain -- for a while I was convinced that he had gone home with my scent on him, she smelled it when we met, and figured out that he was cheating on her with me, and was engaging in some duplicity of her own to catch him out. So I changed to my 2nd favorite scent for awhile, then a mix of essential oils that absolutely can't be duplicated, then started missing my smell. I just didn't smell like myself. Those of you who have read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins will understand.

So, tough titty, I say. That's my damn perfume, I love-love-love the way it smells, so I'm wearing it again. Hint -- it smells like the best lemon cake you ever encountered.

I have no desire to meet, spend time with, socialize with, etc., with "Dear Jane." As George Costanza would be wont to say, "Worlds collide, Jerry, worlds collide!"

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

It's started again

Dear Jane --

Your Husband and I took a long break after a long fight that happened in February. Were you wondering why he was so miserable for several weeks? It was because I wouldn't talk to him, see him, or most importantly, sleep with him.

But, well, this week, we started again. There were a few days last week when he was making everyone, all of his staff included, miserable. HE was miserable, and taking it out on the world.

So this past Monday, he and I had sex again.

I consider it a favor done for the world.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Some Media Comments

1) This outs me for the complete loser that I've become, sitting at home on a Friday night, and I swear to God there was not a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black clutched in my little tree-frog hand, but did anyone besides me catch "Dateline" on Friday night? There were Bill Clinton & George Bush (41), all chummy-like, there to discuss their Tsunami Relief joint-venture, and (I am not making this up) Bush said this about Clinton: "I will never criticize him on policy again." For a second there, I wanted to grab my copy of Friday's New York Times to make sure the headline didn't read "Peace Declared Around the World." And in a release from the White House today, Bush Sr. said (I swear, folks, you can't make this stuff up), "President Clinton was a joy to work with."

2) Since we can't escape poor, bug-eyed Jennifer Wilbanks no matter what we do, I can't resist adding my two cents to the media pile-on. One thing occurred to me when she first disappeared. Did anyone take a really good look at that guy she's engaged to? That is a scary, scary man. Sleeping-with-the-enemy scary. Am I the only one who noticed this?

Friday, May 06, 2005

The G Train

It's like Brigadoon.

It appears out of the mist once every hundred years.

But back to Jane

Dear Jane --

Before I put a moratorium on your husband whining about his relationship with you (his experience, not mine -- and yes, you and I have met, but more on that later), he used to go on and on about how "lame" you are. ("Lame" being one of his favorite words) Of course, I only got his side of the story, and my inherent desire for balance (many of my friends call it "fence-sitting") made me recognize that you probably have your side of it as well. And the truth lies somewhere in between, I'm sure.

And since right now we're talking about his side (or what he told me), I won't even pretend to empathize with you outside of the idea that if I married a guy and found out he was steppin' out on me, I would cut off his balls.

But I digress.

So he went on and on about how terrible your marriage is, how you don't communicate, how you won't even (*gasp*) say "goodnight" to him before you go to sleep. Before I dammed up the River Whine, I did ask him this one very pointed question:

"Then why did you marry her?"

He thought for a second, then looked me right in the eye.

"I thought she would make a good mother."

Me: "Is she?"

Him: "Yes."

Me: "Then don't ever complain to me again about how she treats you. You didn't hire her to be a good wife. You hired her to be a good mother. If she meets the requirements of the job for which you hired her, then you can't complain."

It shut him up for awhile, at least.

But I do have one thing I'm curious about, and that is -- if your family comes from money (lots of it, I understand), and you don't have to work, why do you? It makes me think that your job description wasn't made clear to you before you walked into that Justice of the Peace's office. Or wherever it was. I know from the picture on his desk that you didn't have a wedding -- you, apparently had already had one of those. Your current husband, apparently, is husband number 2.

Ah, in so many ways, I feel sorry for your husband. To paraphrase one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, we all get a toolbox when we're born. Some of us have lots of tools at our disposal to get through life. Many of us, and I count myself among them, got a toolbox full of bent, rusty tools, and we get through our lives as best we can. When I see a nail that needs pounding in my life, if I can't find my hammer, I use the heel of my well-worn Frye motorcycle boot to pound it back where it belongs. Sometimes I need to use a butter knife as a screwdriver. What I'm saying is that most of us manage to work it out with what we have at our disposal.

But your husband, poor guy, it seems like although he got the same understocked toolbox that many of us did, instead of using his shoe to pound nails, he'd rather complain loudly that someone stole his hammer. Or he'll complain that his neighbor has a shinier hammer than his. Ya see what I'm saying, Jane?

I think he is frequently befuddled by me and by his assistant. She is sunny by nature, and although he can appreciate it, there's a part of him that just doesn't understand it. My own nature, well, occasionally the black clouds will come along, but they're more like summer storms than pervasive bad weather. They blow through with thunder and lightning and more likely than not are gone in a short time with no hint they were ever there. To put it simply: we bounce. And he has a worldview that is so different from ours that he listens with fascination when we talk about our experience in the world.

I mean, neither of us makes a ton of money or lives a life of luxury, but we have both found lives that are fulfilled by having loving friends around us. That is what we find valuable. He has all the trappings of what would in the parlance make a happy life -- the nice house in a pretty exclusive NJ suburb (Short Hills is horse country, if I recall correctly), the country club, the lavish vacations 6 or 7 times a year, the expensive sports car, all that shit. And yet he is miserable.

To put it another way, I think in a way, we shame him.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

The Unitarian Jihad

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Shuriken of Desirable Mindfulness.

Get yours.



With many thanks to Jon Carroll.

Monday, May 02, 2005

People Of Questionable Talent Who Are Famous Despite That Fact. And One Talented Person Who Should Be More Famous

1. Michael Buble -- why is this carb-faced non-entity famous? When I was little, my mom used to give me these little cookies that were shaped like windmills...their flavor was inoffensively almond, kind of bland. Not entirely unpleasant. Kind of forgettable. Wait a second! Come to think of it, that's a perfect description of Michael Buble! Maybe the person who discovered him just had too many house reds on karaoke night at The Duplex or Don't Tell Mama.

2. Josh Groban -- another one whose fame has me scratchin' my noggin. I do know that my suburbanite-mom friend was raving about him at least two years ago, before he became the latest lite-radio shouter. But at the time I thought it was more for his tousled curls and dreamy eyes and just a touch of my friend's dirty old womanism. And has anyone noticed that his song "You Lift Me Up," is a chord-for-chord and nearly note-for-note ripoff of "Danny Boy?"

These two are perfect examples of my belief that the American cultural audience no longer has the balls to appreciate something that isn't overprocessed, packaged pap. We like to be spoon-fed everything. We even like to be told what to like.

On the other side of this, I have two words for you:

Rufus Wainwright.