Perspective

Y’know all those projects that have been laying around?  Most of them for years?  I felt such a pull this year to get them done.  All of them.  Now!  And as the year rolled along, I got more and more frantic about it all.  I finally realized that it was that Mayan calendar coming to a close, and I was trying to finish it all up before it ended.  So I could start this new cycle fresh.  Unburdened.  Free.

I got so much done this year!  And I have a really good handle on how to knock out the rest it.  As this amazing, last year slips through my fingers and comes to a close, I am excited to spend a few minutes on something a little more cerebral.  I can’t help but reflect on last year’s resolutions and think of what I will identify as this year’s.  Health, wealth and happiness.  Isn’t that the standard?

My health is good.  I try to eat pretty healthy and have gone organic and/or local with a lot more things.  If I am gonna eat crap, I try to do it early in the day and make sure it’s really good crap.  I have been implementing exercise that I will actually do and enjoy, like bowling, swimming and horseback riding.  I take time for me and I sleep a lot when I’m not working.   I am finally scheduling with regularity the body and energy work that I need.

Wealth is gonna have to wait.  I am still trying to get a handle on the day to day… but getting there, little by little, which, as I understand it, is really the only way.

Happiness.  I was just talking to a happy woman in line at McDonald’s this morning about how happiness is a choice and something that we have to work on every day, like anything else.  It’s a matter of rethinking perspective, finding (no matter how hard you have to look) that silver lining/ the positive side, talking to and liking yourself, smiling, and the willingness to do the work.      

I spent yesterday on the couch watching an endless Law & Order SVU marathon.  These TV shows are my stabilizers, my attitude adjustment, my perspective.  Today, I did not get raped, mugged, stabbed, shot, have chemo, my husband cheat on me, or come out of the closet, car wrecked, job lost, death in the family, etc.  And even on days when those things do happen, is there not a silver lining somewhere in there? 

There has to be, for me anyway.  There has to be a reason bad things happen…  Hey, I think someone even wrote that book.  Maybe there was someone I was supposed to meet, something I was supposed to learn, the acknowledgement of how much worse it could have been/ how blessed I really am.  Because the option is so dark, angry, bitter… to just see the bad/evil/ugly in everything around… that just does not seem like a good way to live.  When I have the option, the choice, to see things with a rosy tint, why would I not go there?

Touring America, part 2

People kept asking: “Was I doing it alone?”  “Why?”  “Are you crazy?”  And then I had to think about it… driving a new car coast to coast alone… it’s just driving.  I am still not seeing the problem… It just never occurred to me that that might be a daunting task.  It seemed several amazing opportunities wrapped up in one fabulous adventure, and if TV has taught me anything, it’s that the only thing to regret is missed opportunities.  It’s not crazy, it’s an adventure.  Crazy is raising children, buying a house, starting a business... 

And it’s definitely not the craziest thing I’ve ever done… never mind the adolescent adventures.  I have to think that packing up one’s belongings and moving somewhere you don’t know anyone, have a job, or even speak the language is much more terrifying, but I’ve done that, too.

I just finished another road trip from hell and loved it all!!  I drove 1800 miles in two states in a week, half of which I have done before, half I have not, and all I could think was: Again!!  I love the road: clear my head, see new and different stuff...  I love scenery!  I had the central Cali valley, forests, mountains, several rivers, a few very different lakes, desert and vast open, empty areas.  So many textures and surfaces, all with color!!

It’s not crazy, it’s an adventure.  Remember: It’s all about perception.  I’m just driving.  But now I try to launch a product, really a kit of others’ products… I know, it sounds so easy, but this is what scares me now.  There are so many moving parts and factors…  Maybe I just need to think of it as a car on a road trip and enjoy the ride...  

Touring America

I seem to have taken the fall nail polish line a little too seriously:  the “Touring America” collection.  I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t really even have any travel plans.  Sister had a wedding back home in Kansas City, needed a babysitter and my bff in NY had never been, so we all went for the weekend to see college friends, get the family together, and eat as much beef as we could manage before getting back on the plane. 

But that was family, and since I didn’t have an actually vacation planned,  I went out to New York for almost two weeks to hang out, shop for my birthday, spend some time on the Jersey Shore, see some friends…  it was wonderful fun!  I was starting to feel really decadent after buying both $35 purses and visiting the most amazing, Asian chair-massage, again.  And there was a hurricane!!  Well, not really, but I was the last train out of the city before they shut it down.  There was enough rain to flood the only road out of town where we were staying farther north.  Little did I know that the snowball was just starting down the hill…

Instead of getting in the plane to fly home and get to work, I suddenly had a week off and the opportunity for a new car, so I got in my new car and drove home.  Yes, from NY to LA.  Holy crap, a new car!  With more than one working speaker!  I took my time, covering 300-700 miles a day, staying with friends when I could, totally enjoying the ride and scenery… I can now jack my phone and computer into the stereo!  My own music in the car?!?  I was either going to blow out my ears or my speakers.  And I was transporting gear for a friend that included a mixing board…  I had so many fantasies about bringing that Macky up to the passenger seat and just mixin my way West! 

But they all questioned me…

Driving

I’ve almost always had a car.  It’s incredibly hard in the Midwest to get around without one, and as it turns out, in California as well.  It’s also a huge safety/comfort factor for a single girl, especially when I was promoting at clubs—stupid, drunk people… of which I am now one.  Ha.  I always bond with my car… I can reach anything in it without taking my eyes off the road or hand off the wheel.  At least in more extreme driving situations; I do drive about half of my long distance, straight-line travel with my knee.  Years of pizza delivery and road trips…

I like to drive.  I don’t mind my boyfriend over four hours away in Vegas.  The flight may only be an hour, but is strictly scheduled and with all the getting there and checking in and waiting to dock and getting out, it’s almost four hours anyway.  Let’s see, spend that time rushing around so I can be restricted and with weird, other people, or just roll on my own flexible choice, with quiet time to myself or time to talk to friends.  Or to talk to myself.  Baha!

When I am on the road, I like to think the truckers and their gods watch over me.  I try to respect them and the road, and I am cute and all.  Sometimes in cases of weather, night and crazy, mountain roads, it’s just easier to follow taillights of the guy in front of you… That would probably be a smarter idea if I actually knew the guy in front of me.  But sometimes it’s just easier to follow the taillights if you can’t see and don’t know what’s coming.  Wow, kind of like life…

Hurricane season!

Growing up in Kansas City, I always loved tornado season… hot, lazy summer evenings with so much electricity in the air you could feel it in your stomach, the sky turning heavy, nauseated pastel oranges or greens…  And then, the sirens… that’s when the party really got started!   Mom went under the work bench in the basement and Dad wandered around the house, usually ending up in the middle of the back yard watching the lightning.  I always loved standing with him under the exploding sky, feeling dangerous, probably because you could hear Mom screaming how dangerous it was, from inside under the bench.  As an adult on my own, I still love the lightning and storms, I can watch them for hours, but the one time I actually saw funnel clouds trying to form, I spent the rest of the evening in the bottom-most place, screaming.  So brave I am…

Living in Kansas City (which is, by the way, 30 miles from the exact center of the country), my family was all about any kind of vacation that involved a beach, affordable, off-season pricing and as a bonus, Mom’s birthday!  Consequently, August was perfect, and also hurricane season… a factor that seemed to make it more fun for all of us!  After all, hurricanes were just wet tornados, and didn’t seem to bother Mom as much.  Hurricanes, like tornados, always seemed such predictable weather...  Really, if you just watch the radar, you can see it coming… Just take cover to be safe until the eye passes, and then hang out in the back yard watching the lightning.  We found that we preferred storms in the south of Florida, as they contributed to fabulous shell finds, versus the wild and beautiful North Carolina, where the storms really get scary. 

So my family would travel to Florida’s southern gulf side for hurricane season, on purpose.  Daddy would set his computer up on the breakfast bar with streaming weatherchannel.com so we could plan our day… or at least the next few hours.   One time we took earlier flights to beat the hurricane that was hammering our vacation house.  Poor sister didn’t get out early, got as far as Atlanta, and then drove the last 10 hours through the middle of the hurricane to get there.  So, yep, we ran straight in to it, on purpose.  Or at least as far as we could get… our island destination was essentially destroyed.  We stayed as close as we could, in a hotel full of electrical and construction workers.  We did at least have some great, tiny shell finds and cashed in on some great sales and lunch specials…

A couple years ago, sister and family, La and I went to Mexico and stayed just north of Tulum, in Akumal, for 8 days.  We just wanted more than a week… This all you could eat and drink resort was one giant Corona moment after another and so completely peaceful.  We all had most amazing spa services at the hut in the coconut grove before the volleyball net off the beach.  Our favorite palapa sat between the water’s edge and the bar equipped with swings and a ‘no shoes or shirts required’ policy.  Next to that was the ‘borrow a kayak’ hut.  At the end of the week, the moon was almost full, and you could actually see the turtles digging their nests and laying eggs.  Those suckers are huge!!  Go figure, as soon as we got back home, the hurricane hit. 

As summer and August approach, I get more excited about planning my vacation… gulf-side Florida or deep Mexico?  I can go either way, as long as there is thick, wet air, vibrating with electricity and the possibility of a storm.  Thank goodness I nap, because I spend most of these vacation nights watching the storms…  And now, turtles!   

now.

They always told me I should write a book.  I’m not really sure what it should be about…  They always encouraged me to keep a journal.   One that would surely be found and read upon my untimely death…  Until the statute of limitations expired, I just couldn’t have that, so I rarely wrote things down.  I focused instead on story-telling… at least that was just heresy and would never hold up in court.  Baha!  Now They wish I did radio…  I just don’t get it.  But I’m always willing to play along and make new friends…

So, to start blogging seemed the obvious answer… but what to talk about?  Nails?  Fashion?  Really?  I talk about that stuff so much that I either need to just have a curriculum and start teaching, or be asked direct questions… Maybe I should just talk about ridiculous things, like spas and martinis and hot, young boyfriends… feelings, itches, irritations and impending menopause… it might get ugly…

And really, how hard can it be to write some stuff and post it up?  But I have been stalling this for months… this is actually the third, completely different draft.  It’s not like I’m shy, I just can’t get a handle on it...  Aren't new experiences fun?  My Emily, www.supermodelblogger.com, assured me that when starting a blog, nothing would explode and only ten people would read this anyway, so I should just get on it.  Like a retirement fund, better to start early!  Oh baha ha!  She is my inspiration…

So, questions, anyone?  Anyone?  Beuller?  

Xxo  b

It begins...

More to come.