Driving to Hawaii?

I drove behind an RV with an airbrushed Hawaiian Island scene on the back.

The irony was overwhelming.

Enough with that...there's Reality to watch!

First of all: "It could be too late for the Polar Bear." Are you fucking kidding me right now?! That commercial is so weird. Yeah, Global Warming, I get it…but seriously…evolution anyone? Apparently the Polar Bear is the new Starving Child. "For just the cost of a cup of coffee…" *click*

Shame on me. I'm such a cynical Democrat.

So I've been all philosophyzy lately. It's just been on my mind. Whatever. Big Brother and From G's to Gents were on tonight and I'm thinking of something else at the moment.

Did anyone else but me ever watch America's Most Smartest Model on Vh-1? I loved that show. My newest guilty pleasure is From G's to Gents on MTV. I don't remember how I landed on this show, but it is…it's like anthropological TV for me. It may as well be on the Discovery Channel.

Fonzworth Bentley…I am so entertained.

afterlife continued...

I can't believe I forgot to tell the teacher part. If you haven't read the previous entry "afterlife," I don't know if this will make much sense, but if you have…as an absolute ton of you did surprisingly (and thank you for that by the way) it fills in a bit of the fuzzy part I got to after being up WAY too late philosophizing.

Okay, getting to the teacher part. So, let's just say you go through enough lifetimes where you continue to progress and move forward. At some point you can actually master a skill and get to be a teacher. Maybe teacher isn't the right word. Certainly most people in the world today who control a chalkboard or dry erase board (or whatever the hell they use now) would be grossly overestimated as "spiritual guides."

When you master a skill, you can hang out in the afterlife and speak to people through their dreams, intuition, gut feelings, "signs" or whatever else they call the part of themselves that guides them to a place. Conscience maybe? Conscience is not a bad word for that…sometimes I'm glad I took Latin in school. Anyway, you get to be a Guide.

When you master ALL the skills you get to come back as an Ultimate Guide (my temporary term) and be a Buddha or a Christ or an Allah figure. This is what I think.

However, my Dad totally cracked my head wide open a couple of years ago when he said that people like Hitler and Pol Pot were in the Ultimate Guide category as well. He put out the idea that there are just a few of these guys, and they play the human condition like a game of Risk or Cops and Robbers or something…and they take turns being the good guy and the bad guy!

And they're so above it all, it's just a thing, it's just a vehicle to guide. I was stunned practically speechless and couldn't stop talking at the same time. That was the most amazing thing I had EVER heard.

So, I'm not going to say that Christ could have come back as Hitler…not out loud…but it doesn't mean I don't wonder. That is some fascinating stuff right there.

And it made my whole "reason for tragedy" ideas turn into complete sense. I've always thought that tragedies were there for a lesson. When absolute horror is splashed right in front of you (and even on you sometimes) it is supposed to shake you up and make you change. It means you have been complacent for too long and need something catastrophic to wake you the fuck up for real. It changes you; it changes the world. And it was on purpose.

So, what does this mean for you? What is practical and applicable about all this in your life tomorrow? It means that you be less personally offended by the world. You take a step back and get some perspective that there's more to this than what you see with your blinders on.

Just ease up is all.

Know who people are and love them anyway.

Don't you wish people would do that with you?

afterlife

I believe in an afterlife. You could call it heaven if you want. I don't always call it Heaven because a literal, like, biblical Heaven implies a literal biblical Hell…and I don't believe in Hell at all. I just don't believe there's a fiery place lorded over by an actual red-cloaked figure accessorized with Halloween-y horns, tail, pitch-fork, etc. where people spend every minute being torturously punished. That is so impractical. I also don't believe there's a literal Heaven that's all puffy cloud soft and marshmallow sweet with L.A. weather where people sit around and bask in their supreme goodness for ever and ever. Also…retardedly impractical. (And marshmallows make my gag-reflex kick in)

I mean, what the fuck good does it do to just hang out and do nothing else but feel superior or defeated for ALL of time? None. No good whatsoever. It would be like someone finding the cure for cancer and keeping it a fucking secret. (I have to admit...while I find the irony of that possibility darkly hilarious...other sensibilities find it horrifying.)

Getting back to the afterlife. This is completely a muffin of my own design. I have come up with this after a very scientific process which has taken up 30 plus years of reading books, watching movies, talking with people, life experience and paying attention to general gut-check feelings after all of this stuff about what I think is really true.

I'm still fine-tuning it. Just like one of my kids asked me the other day, "Why do I still have to learn English?" I told him (in a Very Virginia Beach kind of way), "Dude, I'm still learning English. You are 8; you're way not done yet."

My somewhat-done version of what happens after you die feels that you are greeted by your family or people who were otherwise important in your life who kicked off before you did. I'm sure there's a whole White Light transitional garden party of some kind where you are welcomed to the next phase. Then you go through a period of assessment where the achievements and failures (oooh, she said failures) of your lifetime are addressed. This judgment includes experiencing all the good and bad you did for and to other people…as in you literally feel the all joy and pain you caused during your whole life. And you get to realize how significant that good and bad actually was on the grand scale.

For example: You made millions of dollars? Good for you. What did you do with it? Really? Hmmm.

Or: People felt honestly loved in your presence? Yay. (There's actually no downside to that. Really, from what I understand Love is just a big fat Yay all day long in heaven).

And then they basically grade you on your progress during the life you just had and you either get to move up to the next level or you have to repeat the lessons you were supposed to have learned before. This is where it gets kind of fuzzy for me.

I think you choose your parents and the family situation into which you are born and people travel in groups together. And you are all supposed to learn something from each other in the process. You are replaying or reworking relationships so everybody sees everybody else's side eventually and ultimately gets it. This is why you are just drawn to some people and not others, because they have something you didn't get the last time that you're supposed to get now. Once you do that…Yahtzee! You win.

I think that both a Master Plan and Free Will are involved. Maybe life is less like a Choose Your Own Adventure book and more like a board game. Maybe you aren't always the one rolling the dice or moving the pieces…but sometimes you are. Those autopilot times…maybe there's something bigger at work there.

Ready to be ready

Okay, so, I'm in this weird "stuck" place right now. I am circling, searching, eager to move forward, but find myself standing still for longer than I expected. It was much easier to have a "conquer the world" plan in place before the kids came back. Now I've downshifted into Mom-mode and am focused on deprogramming the boys from their SUMMER WITH DAD. We've got school supplies covered, bedtime routines in place, and sassing and sugar consumption has been replaced with "Yes ma'am" and vegetables. So what if I let them play outside 'til dark last night and watch Big Brother with me while eating dinner in the living room…it's still summer for cryin' out loud and I'm not a complete control freak.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I am trying to figure out What's Next.

I have a whole future out there to discover and at the same time I am reconnecting with old friends like crazy. I've recently gotten sucked into Facebook and am connecting with people I haven't seen in a bajillion years. But I'm having these moments where I feel like, "You're supposed to be moving forward, not back. How in the world is this productive?!"

I have the sense that sifting through these memories will unlock some code to where I am supposed to be next. Like a detective sorting through a box of evidence that they've been over a million times looking for that one piece that connects it all and solves the mystery.

I think I know who I am. I mean, I do know who I am…but there's something I'm not getting (intellectually speaking), 'cause I still feel stuck…and uncomfortably like I'm running out of time to get "unstuck." Grr.

A bright spot is that my Dad is going to see a psychic tomorrow, so in a mere 12 hours all my questions could be answered. Enough with the eye-rolling…she's really good. She described in detail my whole relationship with my ex YEARS before I even met him. I however (not being psychic) went ahead and married him anyway…damn hindsight. But the thing is…she left off with predictions for me once I hit 35. I'm 36 now and clearly not dead yet, just a little clueless. So…Help? I am ready to be "Ready for my Close-Up."

As Beck said, "Things are gonna change; I can feel it." So say I. Oooh though (insert slight wince here), that was from the song "Loser"…I don't know if that bodes well…shudder.

Fingers crossed.

Kinda Hot

I don't know what my sister was thinking when she invited me out on the boat today. Actually I know exactly what she was thinking, but she hooked me with a bait and switch anyway. She wanted me to be a buffer; in my heart I knew this. I was happily reading Nelson DeMille's "Lion's Game" but she enticed me out by inferring that another boat guest was a likely candidate for dating, even using the words, "kinda hot" in her description…that's when she hamstringed me. I am so weak.

But like I said, somewhere deep down, I knew better. I even asked her on the phone, "Why do I feel like you're marching me off to death here?" She laughed. Ha. The last time my little pirate of a future brother-in-law tried to set me up…let's just say I had a good time anyway. Forty-something with a Harley? That's cool. Is beer going to be there? Sure, why not. Just don't forget to mention that he's also stocky and bald next time.

This time he was a stocky, mustachioed gentleman who was one gun range away from looking like an easily exhausted cop. "Kinda hot?" Sister, we need to redefine our terms here, like immediately.

Kinda hot for me is a late-thirties/early forties former athlete with visible bone-structure and emotional baggage. Throw in a surfer who's smarter than he looks…? Now we're talking. Perhaps I should put this on a sticky-note for her for the future.

That dude over there, chugging Captain and Coke, eager to be divorced in two months after a 17 year marriage smells of desperation and being date-raped in the cabin isn't on my list of things to do today.

I am great at keeping those types at arm's length though (despite my stature, I can be very intimidating…it's a gift), so I was happy to be the buffer she needed regardless. I think the afternoon on the boat went really well actually.

At the Fourth Island I got sun, I met new friends, they caught 113 crabs (we counted), and the little pirate had a manta ray encounter that turned him white as a sheet (we have pictures). When we got back, we cleaned and steamed those little crabbies; we picked them and ate them with a delicious lemon-butter sauce and another sauce of vinegar, onion and Old Bay. Yum.

Today was a good day. And I will finish my Nelson DeMille book tomorrow

In response

Yes, the devil is fun to listen to but you have to know it's really you talking when that debate comes up. This revisits the whole responsibility thing. Seriously, accepting responsibility (which is completely different from "taking the blame") is very important to me.

And the angel always wins out on those sitcoms with an appropriately smug, "I told you so" sentiment at the end. Do you not watch these shows all the way through?

My angel was appropriately smug today when I went ahead with Wednesday plans and got things in order.

I suggest to women and girls of the world: Allow men to help you achieve your goal, but always retain control of your exact specifications of said goal. They're just men after all, most of the time you'll end up finishing the job yourself anyway. Own that. Play to your strengths.

My plans will be made known when the time is right. For now though, I prefer not to jinx the process. It's still in the works and I'm still not sure how it will all work out.

World domination is not entirely out of the question.

As always, I am lemonade hopeful.

Parts War

Okay, so I am in this figurative place where I feel like I have to make everything happen like yesterday, but today I was kind of content just to sit outside and read a book and then make dinner for my Dad.



I read Nora Ephron's "I Feel Bad About My Neck" today and have been trying to get through George Carlin's "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops" for about a week now. As much as I love his sense of humor and all the crazy-ass shit he has/had to say…I have only been able read for about half an hour at a time then I have to go do something else for a while before I can come back to it. It's a lot to process.




I have been trying to network in other ways as far as making the job/career/next phase thing happen, but I admit I had a plan in place today that I got too chicken to see through. Ugly pattern of talking myself out of stuff emerged again (and I even knew it while it was happening) but I couldn't stop it.




I got overwhelmingly nervous and cocooned. That is so stupid.




I am in the middle of what my mother would call a "Parts War."

A Parts War is when one part of you tells you to do one thing and another part tells you to do the opposite. You struggle with the decision for whatever amount of time, then make a choice and either reap the rewards or suffer the consequences. Granted, the Parts War reeks of schizophrenia, but it really is regular. Think of the classic sitcom "angel on one shoulder and devil on the other"…everybody deals with this at some point (or that wouldn't be such a common TV thing, right?).

The devil won today I think, because I didn't challenge myself. Grumble.

See, I sat out on the deck reading and justifying why even though I was one perfect outfit and a hairdryer away from being out the door to my future, it was better for me to just sit there and read. I was taking things in. I was learning.

Surely I would find something valuable on those pages that would help me do what I really want to do…tomorrow. And you know, Nora Ephron is a pretty cool cat. I may have not been wrong to read today.

Justifications aside, with the zodiac now in Leo we're in my natural New Year. It's a time to make things happen. For me, tomorrow is not some wistfully wished for "someday." Tomorrow is Wednesday. Wednesday is a good day to do stuff.

To quote Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no 'try'."

What pulls you to a place

Do you ever have that autopilot feeling? Like when you're driving and you suddenly realize you have no memory of the last couple of minutes on the road? There's a shocking snap to clarity and then you, for whatever reason, lapse back into that comfort zone and do it again (sometimes during the same drive).

You may end up at your intended destination, or you may end up on the road back home regardless of where you were meaning to go.

This doesn't just happen when driving, this happens all the time. And god forbid there's a cell phone involved. I'm not even adding that Stupid Factor into this equation. That's a whole other level of distracted.

For example, I spent a ridiculous amount of time circling Super K a few weeks ago. Despite my list in hand, I managed to zig-zag back and forth between the Grocery section and Lawn and Garden…and I wandered about the middle for a while because some inane thing or another floated into vision it suddenly occurred to me that I might require some flip flops or light bulbs or an area rug or…or…I didn't even know what. I just needed to look around. I am almost embarrassed to admit I was there for more than an hour…closer to two. ?!

I think I just answered my own question. I'm searching.

This jobless thing has had me wondering out loud for a while, "What now?" I think I've chosen it, the career I mean. I chose it a long time ago actually; I'm just kind of rediscovering how important it is to me. Too many things have resurfaced lately to ignore. When you've spent so long talking yourself out of your goals, it's weird to talk yourself back into them.

Once again, reminding myself to stop talking about the things I've always wanted to do and just go ahead and do them. These are achievable goals...even though they might seem like starlight wishes from here.

Everything is possible. deep breath. It damn well better be.