New Year’s voodoo magic

As a kid I was rather superstitious. Not like ghosts and curses, though I’d be damned if I engaged in a Wiji board or played Bloody Mary. I tended to look at the world through signs which would be there to indicate whether it was to be a good day or just an excuse for me to stay buried beneath my blankets.

According to this logic, 2009 should have sucked. There were break-ups of both the romantic and friend variety, career rejections and disappointments, shootings, lay-offs and tragedy, not to mention a regularity to my life, which at any other time would directly equate to monotony and angst.

If I was watching the signs, I would have taken spending five hours on the morning of New Year’s eve as a sign that 2009 should be damned and 2010 didn’t look much better.

Luckily, I don’t see the signs anymore and despite how many Facebook comments I read about 2009 being the worst year ever, and I realize that for many it was, I just can’t help but feel truly blessed when I reflect on my good fortune.

It has been the best year of my life. I feel like beaming, despite the exhaustion and the cold and the ridiculous duress of the gregarious stranger who tried and tried to extricate my car from the snow, only to be sent flying on the ice from a lack of traction after he worked up a shower’s worth of sweat, which flowed from his brow into his eyes as he meekly apologized that he did not think there was anything more he could do to help.

My friend Meagan and I have been talking a lot about PTC or present time consciousness. I think it is a term she picked up at some life coaching seminar. I think it just equates to being in the here and now. I told her that in 2009 I kicked the shit out of my goals. I had written them down and crossed them off, but I didn’t dwell in the future, as has been my tendency, instead reveling in the here and now. For that reason I don’t feel like I can take total credit for being a goal completing bad-ass. The universe played its part.

Okay, maybe part of me still is a little superstitious. Maybe it has just been a shift in the way I access that all that voodoo. No more looking for signs on why the world is out to get me. Instead I am putting my hopes and dreams for the future out into the universe and working hard to be open into the opportunities of life as they present themselves, taking stock in the fact that the signs from the universe are not in the annoying obstacles of life, like a car being beached on a block of ice but in the strangers that are willing to come from nowhere in an attempt to help you out.

I hope 2010 offers us all the opportunity to find our perspective and those moments that show us how blessed we really are.

The anatomy of a crush

“So you didn’t finish telling me about the crush,” V said while downing the great last meal - buffalo chicken wings, waffle fries and PBR, our last weekly ritual before two months without my NSGGBF.

“Oh, I am over it.”

“But it just started last night and you were all up in arms about it.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t crush that often and when I do it is usually very short lived.”

“The life span of a fruit fly?”

I would have said that of a lighting bug locked in a mason jar without air or escape but that is just me and maybe that says too much.

It is true though that crushing has really never been my thing, not in the traditional sense. Typically I get an idea about someone, vet them through my mental gauntlet and by the end of their thirty second run in my brain they are decapitated.

I suppose it is not as gory as it sounds but it is as rigorous. As quickly as I can become intrigued by someone I can find a reason to get un-intrigued. I realize this is sick and something I should probably address with my therapist if my work ever changes back our insurances to something that would make it affordable.

I ponder, my hamster doing a fifty yard dash on the wheel in my brain, “Would they fit in with my family, could I have a conversation with them about art, have they ever voted for a Bush?”

There are far more shallow lines of questioning like could I ever see myself attacking a plate of Buffalo wings in front of this person or making the type of perverse jokes that makes V say, “This is why you are a way better friend than you are a girlfriend.”

This goes on as long as it needs to, which sometimes is no longer than it takes a pretty blue-eyed boy to ask me how tall I am.

If on the rare occasion someone makes it through this mental scouring, then it is just a waiting game. I sleep on it. See if it is there in the morning. I figure if it is, then I will be forced to deal with it and dealing will most likely require a palette of make-up and wax for more of my body than should be legal. Luckily, it doesn’t get that far too often.

On this occasion it lasted a whole 48 hours. V was disturbed. I was unimpressed.

Crushing is one of those things in life that just doesn’t happen that often. It requires a certain level of anonymity, of mystery. Not like being friends with someone and slowly developing feelings, at least not in my definition. It just pops up out of no where like a chemical reaction. I fear I have to know people a little better to even notice they are alive - something I suppose I should also discuss with my shrink.

It was entertaining, however, despite being short lived. I can’t remember the last time I had an actual crush...high school, I think. It was a fun ride, one that has left me cheering, “Again, again!”

Holidays Survived

All in all, the holidays had little to no fall out. No tears were shed. Damage to my vehicle was minimal. In an unprecedented occurrence, a six day stay with the family did not involve a single hang-over and bed times were, on average, no later than 11:00p.m. central standard time.

I was slightly delusional from the constant influx of Alka-Seltzer into my system but I suppose that was better for me that some other self-medicating options.

I was worried the break would be too short. It was just long enough. I even made it to church - kind of.

I did manage to get one slightly inappropriate Christmas gift and one that only appeared to be inappropriate at first glance, though it turned out to be innocent and addictive.

I ate too much and worked too much for a vacation but the two somehow evened each other out. Many movies were watched and books on CD listened to.

There were lots of hugs, though there is always room for more of those.

The holidays came and went without much brew-ha-ha, which was just fine by me. There will be plenty of that in the coming month.

I will be glad to usher in the new year, thankful for all the blessings I had in this one.

Now I am sleepy, tucked in my bed, without any sugar plums dancing in my head, ready to settle in for a long, "the holidays are over", nap.

Country Girl

You know that expression, "You can take a girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl." Well, I get that it isn't supposed to be literal but I am beginning to think that the breadth of the metaphor spreads wider than I originally believed.

Growing up I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on their farm. I was the consummate city girl, afraid to get dirt, afraid to climb trees and yet there I was about as rough and tumble as I ever could be.

I still remember chasing frogs with my cousins and capturing them in a two gallon paint tub. I definitely didn't touch the frogs but I went along for the ride.

I think the older I get, the more my country roots start to infuse my city girl sensibilities. I am no longer afraid to get dirty, I might rank fishing amongst my favorite new past times and there might be nothing more peaceful than hiking along a gravel road at sunset, listening to the sounds of cicadas and the wind blowing off the corn fields.

Spending time in the country has always held deeper meaning for me. In retrospect, I didn't spend as much time with my grandparents as I would have liked and while we might hold seriously diverging political views gramps and I can always bond over the topic of love.

Grandpa has been trying to convince me that I need a country boy for I don't know how long. More specifically he has told me I need to find me a man who will go out and catch me a fish and bring it home for me to clean and cook up in a pan. I am pretty sure I told him something like, "Grandpa the chances of me cooking anything are pretty slim and if a man brings a fish into my home, he can clean it his own damn self."

I often wonder how much of what he says my grandfather actually believes and how much of it is just to drive me crazy. The only area I never doubt his sincerity is when he talks about my grandmother.

Both my dad and step-father are pretty doting husbands but never in my life have I known anyone who loves their wife as much as my grandfather. It is hard to recount every time he told me how lucky he was or how amazing she is or how she is the beautiful young girl he married all those 50+ years ago. He still flirts with her and occasionally pinches her on the ass, which I must say is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen.

A couple of years ago, before I left for Russia, I took a special trip to go visit them. We went to a sheep festival – because what else would you do on a scorching hot August afternoon.

I was hoping that grandpa might have some advice for me, in my latest relationship debacle, advice a little more hardy than, "You need to find a man with dirt under his finger nails."

I turned on my video camera as grandpa sat down with a vanilla ice cream cone and probed, "Okay gramps, Whadda ya got?"

He pondered this a moment and then said, "Aww honey, I don't know. I just hope you can find someone as good as Mama, cause after all she is the best."

Again my apologies

Seriously. It is difficult enough to lead a full and productive life without wearing yourself into the ground, let alone trying to find time to write about it.

I really appreciate that people read my blog. It would be pretty self-indulgent just to write it for myself and I forget that I have a certain level of obligation to get stuff up in a timely manner.

My friends and family, however, keep me reminding me of this.

"It has been 11 days since a new piece on the man fast. Sad face."

Damn those task masters.

I promise I have not abandoned the blogosphere. I just haven't been parked in front of my computer much lately.

Actually, I have been writing even more than usual on content for The Man Fast. It is just that the content has been for my show, The Man Fast, which will be held January 15-17 in the Crossroads. I guess I could post the musings here but then how could I encourage people to traipse out in the cold of mid-January to see me perform it live?

Not a neck

My dad buys maps of every city I live in so I can call him if I get lost and need directions. My step-father bought me an ice scrapper and stashed it in my car. My god-father sat with me in the emergency room while I screamed from my reaction to the morphine. My grandpa will always be the man who rescued me from a tree when I got caught on a branch and was hanging by my underwear. My uncle called me every day during my stay at our family's cabin to make sure I was alive and our country neighbor came over in the middle of the night when I got the flue on the fireplace stuck and filled the house with smoke.

Some women have daddy issues and for a while I guess I thought I did too. But I have come to realize how very lucky and how very spoiled I have been by the father figures in my life.

The bar has been set high. I have been well taken care of and well loved.

These men, in addition to all my cousins and friends have made me a real champion of the opposite sex. Sure I may bash the ones who cyber stalk me or booty call me at two a.m. or never ever seem to learn tact, but really I have got to say, guys are pretty great. Different, mind-boggling, but great.

I think sometimes guys get a raw deal. It isn't an us against them situation. It is easy to just say "guys suck" every time one screws us over. But then I feel guilty. Maybe it is a Catholic thing, but I can't cast off the whole lot just cause of a few run-ins with Mr. Wrong.

This weekend I sang in my cousins wedding with two other great men in my life, young men, my cousins. I was so glad I had that opportunity to perform with them and share music, something has always played a large role in my family's life.

It was beautiful and a wonderful celebration of two people I love very much.

The only part of the wedding I didn't thoroughly enjoy was the sermon by the minister. It was the whole, "He is the head of the household. You are the submissive 'helper' thing." I guess he tried to rationalize it, misquoting Moonstruck (it is actually My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I think) "The man is the head of the house, but the woman... the woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants."

I come from a family of strong-minded loud-mouthed women. Submissive really isn't in our DNA. The very suggestion of it tends to make some blood boil.

I could actually feel seething coming from my hippie cousin behind me and my godmother to my left. It was hard to swallow and no matter how many good intentioned men try to make that passage of the bible work for me, it is never going to happen.

Luckily, I feel like I have grown up in a family of men who get that, who understand what I believe the whole "head of household" thing to mean – men who take care of their families, love their wives and respect their communities. Men who tape car keys into my gas tank so I don't lock myself out of my car – which I did today leaving the hotel after the wedding today, with the car running.

They don't expect me to be a "helper to her husband". They have raised me to do fine on my own. Even I know how to dial a locksmith.

They are great men. Like my god father who leaned over to my cousin Maggie during the wedding and said, "Don't listen to him," they remind me everyday how many great men are out there and one day I might find one that won't mind marrying a head instead of a neck.

Just don't expect to hear that passage at my wedding.

Best Moment Ever

I made my cousin a CD of his performance and played it for him on our drive to the wedding.

He said he had never heard himself before.

We listened to those three songs for an hour.

It was the best ride ever.