When the topic of drinking came up the other day, I knew I wanted to write about it but immediately dismissed the idea as it made me feel naked, vulnerable, and evil, thus making me want to write about it even more.  You might get to the end of this post and think, “Damn, she has a problem,” and perhaps I do; maybe that is why I am writing this.  But maybe, just maybe, I am using this as a way to motivate myself out of a current hole or provide justification that what I am doing is okay; perchance it is a situation someone else is struggling with too.  Congratulations, you had the opportunity to peek into a small hole in my brain, but not for long as things up there change as fast as Colorado weather.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

My nineteen-year relationship with alcohol has been as difficult a marriage as any.  In the early years, I had flings, affairs, and weird love triangles with the popular players like tequila, cheap vodka, and Budweiser (so much Budweiser, my stomach aches thinking of all of the grain I consumed; had I continued on I would have been crowned the Queen of beers that no college girl drinks but me).  I have done plenty of dumb, impulsive, heartbreaking, and death-defying things that I am neither proud of nor regretful of as they have showed me what I suck at – namely holding myself back from doing something new, different, or fun.  I used to tango with tequila on the regular:  In college I was gifted two fifths of Jose Cuervo by my roommates, guzzled one down with OJ and found myself wandering the dorm halls without my contacts in, mind you I am quite blind without them.  Drunk Jamie was on the loose, getting tangled with boys who know nothing of how to talk to girls (probably still do not but have wooed women that fall into their sticky spiderweb of feminine insults because of those damn eyes), and waking up not really sure what bad decision was landed on hours before waking up with the maniacal, clinging, and pestering monster of Hangover land.  Once tequila and I parted ways, I toyed with fruity cocktails and found I had the same opinion about them as I had about the makeup-drenched and tight-clothed wannabe superheroes drinking them.  I dabbled in the less-frivolous drinks, the ones that had only two ingredients – soda and booze – which confirmed my distaste for soda, the silent killer of America, and established once again my aversion to sweet things, which clings true to my dark soul.  

As I dated the various concoctions like the floozie I am, my trusty friend, craft beer, stood by patiently, waiting for me to get my wild inclinations out, and offering unconditional love.  Beer has been a companion since the tender age of sixteen (gasp!), and it has withstood my wild ideas and harebrained notions; it loves me no matter what, and it always brings at least five to twenty-three other friends to the party, twenty-nine if you are strapped for cash and want your drink diluted.  Beer is my friend, and I am not ashamed to deny it. I delight in the strong ones, the fruity ones, the hoppy ones, the dark ones – I do not discriminate, but I do have an affinity towards the sexy Belgians as they are witty (absolutely COULD NOT help myself there, heart still pounding from the pun), well-rounded, and deceivingly complex; everyone has a type.  

My other drinking buddy is quite the sage, teaching me sophistication with a twist of absurdity; they guide me on how to fake it until I make it and they take their hairy arm, reach it into my throat, pull out my guts, and make me come face to face with my true self whenever I hang with them.  Whiskey, you know who you are.  This also includes bourbon and scotch for the classy people out there, but I am too hypnotized and head over heels to study the difference between the three.  

Put the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning.

As my husband said when I disclosed my efforts to shape up my drinking habit, “You mean to tell me that you are the only stay-at-home mom with a drinking problem?”  He brings up a good point.  

I am aware this particular habit is unhealthy and could use some shaping up, but (and I will probably always say “but” when denying my drinking problem) drinking is a recreational activity that I can fully get behind and do not plan to divorce any time soon, but rather I want to learn how to cohabitate in a symbiotic and pleasant manner.  I enjoy the taste of beer, cocktails, and any drink that contains an ethanol derivative.  I like feeling different, I enjoy (and also can get my ass kicked from) the bravery it behooves in me, it makes music, movies, and scenery that much better, and it is the only proven way known to man to get a good night’s sleep while tent-camping.  

Beware, drinking is also prone to stealing an entire day from you should you take it too far, not eat enough beforehand, or consume too much at one time.  It can cloud up a lifetime of memories and socialize heavily with its friend, Missed Opportunities.  It wastes time yet makes good times. 

And you might say I’m bad off, but I chose the road I stumbled across

I fear I took the good times too far, and rather than Drinking remaining an acquaintance, it started creeping its way into my normal routine, wanting to be buddy-buddy with my pals Parenting, Writing, Exercising, and Crushing It.  I knew Alcohol was not cool enough to hang with the top players, but I failed to stop it; I wanted to watch the car crash, and now I am ferociously rewinding the tape to recalibrate to my best self.  

My tried and true method of resetting myself from a bad habit is to withhold and realize what life was like before I fell in love.  My other tactic is staying away from the beast all together, hence why I have never tried any drug that was made in a lab because I know I would love it way too much; I do not trudge past the category of those that are grown in the ground, you know who you are.

Recently I decided to practice my method on Alcohol by forcing myself not to drink during the week as a way to experiment and taunt my addictive personality.  I wanted to see if I had self-control and also observe what cutting back on drinking would do for my health.  Routinely working out has done wonders for my health, so let’s see what else this body is capable of.  

I read a lot about writing as I want to be one someday (correction:  I am a writer).  Most writers have an alcohol problem, my main influence sharing that he remembers nothing about writing one of his books from being so doped and sloshed up.  I am aware danger lurks, I see you, Addictive Personality, and I will not let you take over completely.  It is evident why rockstars and famous people get married to alcohol as they can keep pace and metabolize most of it through head-banging and running around like they are breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law.  **Sighs, kisses two fingers, salutes the air with a peace sign, and longs to be living that limousine-riding, champagne-poppin’ lifestyle someday**  A tribute to how alcohol is praised in mass media.  

Maybe I don’t have to be good but I can try to be at least a little better than I’ve been so far

One month into my low-accountability experiment and I have failed multiple times in my efforts of not having a drink during the week.  Hell, I am having a small glass of whiskey as I edit and add rewrites to this.  I made a few exceptions, so what; everyone is allowed grace, it is the key to balance. 

My exceptions for getting to drink one to two beers during the week include winter days that exceed 55 degrees and are sunny in the afternoon, tiny celebrations of life such as my first published piece of writing work, or after an emotionally turbulent day with the girls.  That last one is not a positive action, but again, life is all about balance; back off, nobody is perfect.  Some authors are out there writing textbook motivational posts where they only tout their strong suits and energy supplements, but I write about my blind spots and pain points.  We know who is making more money, but do we know who is more fulfilled?

If we are looking at this glass as being somewhat full, as I most often do, the bulk of my goal was met – I no longer hang out with Alcohol every day, I have regained self-control, a treasure I oftentimes misplace and “forget” to let inside, and I treat Alcohol as a kickass special guest and not as a normal part of the family.  I am guaranteed to violate this mindfulness around friends I have not seen or long-distance family I have not embarrassed myself around in a while.  This cadence could change as I age, and I am comfortable tackling those “problems” as they arise.

For now at least.  

On to the next vice.

“I’m in repair, I’m not together but I’m getting there.” -John Mayer (recently resurfaced this gem of a guy and am loving the journey of hearing his smoky voice again)

This year my dog Rigby and I are turning the same age – 35 – and for the curious minds out there, of course we are planning a bomb-ass birthday bash.  But before we party hard, I wrote her a depressing love letter about how I miss my first dog and have realized that I will never have a dog as great as her, and how it makes me sad for all of my future dogs knowing they are being put up against unreachable expectations.

Rigby is my second dog and is true to her name, which comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, a sad lonely lady. Rigby is the polar opposite of Scout, and at times, I suspect she is a feline. Her anxious tendencies and intense fear of separation ensure that all of the toys in the house have chewmarks and all of my bras are carried away to Never Never Land, which resides under our bed where she hides for a majority of the day. But regardless of how Rigby perceives being the second dog, I want her to know will always love her deeply, but deep down I will always hope that she grows up to be my first dog.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Back before I died inside from a bad job and a lack of sparkle, we had a black Labrador Retriever named Scout after the protagonist Jean Louise Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.  Scout was our first baby, and she taught me to be me:  how to explore, revealing that Chicago has more countryside than I realized and that Colorado is just as beautiful as the pictures suggest.  I almost witnessed her plummetting to her death on a hike in Boulder where she chased a tennis ball down a steep ravine upon catching the scent of water and not fighting to urge to immediately find it.  I spent every pre-bedtime snuggling her for at least fifteen minutes, lathering my face in her snout and nearing suffocation from smothering my face in her thick mane; my husband missed me during those years but understood the necessity of the cuddle.

Scout was diagnosed with bone cancer when we took her to the vet for what we thought was a broken paw but ended up being a tumor-infested shoulder that burst the bone surrounding it.  A large piece of my soul was lost when Scout went into the ether, and I am still searching for it to this day.  As I put my forehead to hers for the very last time, I sat in the room and watched the universe drain from her eyes as she was infused with death.  It took me more than a while to pry myself off of her and leave her side for the remainder of eternity.

As we contemplate adding another dog to the household, I wanted to write a letter to my current, future, and past not-first dogs – all of the dogs after Scout.  Cheers to the dogs that will never be good enough but try hard to get the job done, for you are the ones that need the most love.

Dear Future Dog

Dear future dog, please slobber all over my face with your smelly, rat-scented breath.  It invigorates my soul.

Dear future dog, please run in between my legs after you lay outside in the sun for hours to imitate the feeling of straddling a large comforter thrust out of the dryer.  My inner thighs need more of you.

Dear future dog, please perform an acrobatic routine whilst making your descent off of the couch.  The sight of your butthole in my face, opening as wide as a newborn’s yawn, never seeming to close, brings me extreme pleasure.

Dear future dog, please have mercy on me when I yell at you to stop speaking, for no creature should have its voice revoked.  Barkers unite, howlers revel!  Maybe not at 5am though…

Dear future dog, please take up the entire side of my bed, forcing me to insert myself under the covers like a kid who forgot a sleeping bag and has to share.  And when I lean over to kiss you, please inhale like you took a fresh bong rip, and exhale with fury, spattering spitticles all over my face and your whiskers, and be sure to give out an exonerable sigh that resurfaces my suspicions that you really can talk. And when I finally get situated in our shared space, please get up at that exact moment, move two feet away, do a few circles, and plant yourself on my newly-bowed legs. And when you do that, please rest your head on my thigh and make me feel safe, sound, and smothered – more secure than a newly-swaddled baby.

Dear future dog, please search in the yard for slimy yet crusty tennis balls that lie near ancient piles of poop I have neglected to pick up all winter.  And when you find the goods, bring them to me and pile them in my lap like sacrifices for my kingdom, streaking my pants in the sign of the dog.  And if I fail to tend to these neon spheres of goodness, nudge them onto my shirt to make a mud-streaked ensemble, for I am now the ruling queen of Muddledtennisballland and you shall never go without a dirty ball for as long as you shall live.

Dear future dog, please gain momentum to cannonball into the water like boat being pushed out to sea. Please perform an expert, synchronized paddle routine, swim far enough where I become convinced you will run out of steam and force me to rapidly contrive a plan to save you, and on your return to the shore, please hack up what sounds like steel hairballs until you make it to safety and rush to my side to douse me in a hefty sample of the almighty pond water.

Dear future dog, please throw out my rotator cuff from using the tennis ball launcher for hours on end. I crave the pain and attention.

Dear future dog, please let your mind, soul, and body get as lost as that tennis ball you are trying to locate as you run paces back and forth in a fervent yet diligent manner. And make me wait longer than I want to while you navigate it with your outrageous sense of smell; the suspense is killing me.

Dear future dog, please scope out that massive mud puddle when we arrive at the dog park, and be sure to immerse yourself in it like a person who just found a new religion and celebrated it with a full-body bath in the spirit wat.., errr, mud. Cleaning the bathtub and carpet are two of my favorite pastimes.

Dear future dog, please put your nose on my leg when I least expect it, propelling me six feet up from thinking I was prodded with a wand made of liquid nitrogen.  Once I come back down, tap me again, this time longer since your nose will now have received the powers of warmth, transferred from my flabby thighs to your leathery snout.  I will be ready for it, and I will dig it.

Dear future dog, when you go to take your seventh nap for this day, please put your paws together like an elephant balancing on a wooden box.  Please be open to me squishing all of your paws together, and please be ok with me rubbing my face within the twelve righteous paw pads, for these are the receptacles that infuse me with life every morning – give us this day our daily corn-chip-smelling bread.

Dear future dog, please shed your coat all over my house like a Grammy-winning diva slipping out of her sequined cloak on stage mid-song.  Please store up monumental tufts that fly away like a grand finale when I go to give you a full-body scratch, and strategically place said fluffballs by a place of violent airflow, so they can catapult onto my freshly-made lunch.  I will dine like royalty.

Dear future dog, please make me believe you are human by the time you reach four years of age.  Convince me that your presence is necessary, and overtake my mind so that I could not imagine a household without you.  And at the four-year mark, please turn into a completely different canine and emerge with superpowers, extreme muscular definition, and a serene outlook on life.  Make me understand that one’s twenties are a special time of discovery and that one’s thirties are when the true self is found.

Dear future dog, please do not fear me because you have been waiting almost a year for me to bring home your sister dog, my first dog, the one who I suddenly took away one morning after a fabulous game of fetch in the backyard.   Do not be afraid that she never came back, and do not deem me evil for her abrupt disappearance.  Please trust that I took her somewhere safe where she is happy, comfortable, and well-fed.  And please forgive me for making you trust me after this, for no one should have to put their faith in a person who takes away something as important as a best friend.  People are asked to trust a fake deity on the regular, but you do not deserve to be treated as such.  You have a right to the truth. And please know that I did not want her to go either.  Dear future dog – please help me get through this.

Dear future dog, please do not fret when I come back one day with another one of you. And please be patient with the new friend as it is my way of giving you companionship during times when I cannot.  And please do not get upset when I snuggle with the new companion; you have not been replaced, you never will.

Dear future dog, please know that you are the reason I live my life.  Without you, life would be dull, grey, and unable to be traversed due to the giant, flesh-eating army of uneaten crumbs.  

Dear future dog, I love you.

Daydream Believer

As an Idealist, I sift through the daydreams of my mind on an all too frequent basis; I ponder mindless topics such as the future of our melting world (lots of post-apocalyptic prep going on in my melon), the genesis and continuation of the gigantic universe (or what happens when the computer programmer in another galaxy decides their “Human Project” just isn’t worth maintaining anymore and angrily crams Earth into the trash, salivating as our world flames up before them in the rusty can, immediately pivoting their attention to a new, foolish, primal, vulnerable planet who will succumb to any command they throw out there), or my most favorite gnat-like daydream – what will happen if I ever become famous.

Many folks would tag someone who premonishes fame as vain, egotistical, or just plain ignorant. I mean, who would give me, a whiny cynic, even one peg leg to stand on, let alone two? And for the record, I would proudly stand askew on my wooden legs if and when my current getaway sticks get chopped by the axes held by the critics of life; I would still be complaining, judging, and lecturing as my legs were consumed by pesky, greedy termites who refused to see other perspectives; I would continue to shout as the bullying fire ants, full to the brim with one-sided opinions and closed minds, devoured my opinionated and half-muscular, half flabby body. As a time traveler, I think I have been to the future, and some who are ahead of our time say you can still hear my soul screaming out about justice, humanity, and “going green” on nights when the wind is foggy and thick with pollution.

Unlike Bruno Mars, I do not want to be a billionaire “so freakin’ bad,” although the money would not hurt my venture of wanting to live in a van down by the river and travel the world, all while not going into debt.  However, as my parents sadly know from the several times they have lent me cash to help me stand up to death and taxes, being in the negative never bothered me since you cannot take it with you when you go.  Life is one big credit card, and whether my money is spent paying for that $400 finger wart to get removed for a second time (I’ve since decided to keep it because of its aversion to liquid nitrogen and its ability to withstand extreme conditions; it deserves to live on my ring finger out of its sheer tenacity) or spent to feed my children, I will persist and insist on finding a way to stay afloat regardless of the income flowing in or how many people on this globe know of my name (and potentially relate to it). 

Being famous is not a top priority to me as I write this “book” I keep telling everyone about. Hell, most people probably think I am spending my days writing nonsense, trying to become an all-star tie-dying master, and wait, where in the hell did this soap-thing come from?  The truth is, my quest to be an author of written works is simple:  I want to share my weird and outside-the-box perspective with people, open up minds, create more questions than answers, that kind of M. Night Shyamalan stuff (my heart hurts for him and the expectations he set for himself with The Sixth Sense), and potentially make someone relish a wee bit more in the highs and lows of life because when you look back on it, even the moldy and smelly stuff make life worth living. 

A funny thought that always creeps into my visionboard of fame is the world learning of my upbringing.  I scarf down documentaries on the regular, absorbing the childhoods of my favorite geniuses, trying to connect the dots on how I relate, and I laugh thinking of a scenario where someone wanted to make a film about my origins.  If anything, my family deserves to be famous more than myself; after all, they did create Butt Darts, or at least I think that is how the legend goes.

In Our Family Portrait, We Look Pretty Happy, We Look Pretty [Ab]Normal

Instead of fantasizing about what cool car I would drive, what I would stock my mansion with, or what clothing line I would represent if I became famous, my mind becomes curious about what would happen if they wanted to interview my family members – not even my immediate family, although they are pretty wild to dissect, but rather my extended family, because they are the ones my mind goes to first; I am not surprised by this as I spent the bulk of my free time with them until I was 26 and escaped from Illinois, never once looking back but checking in often on those who remain there. Having children has thrown off the balance and frequency of our visits back to the IL in the past few years, but returning to my family is like visiting with a deeply incredible friend after a long time off – you pick up right where you left off.

For the record—I have no clue who “they” are who have chosen to interview us (what kind of show are we making here anyway?), but in my mysterious brain, “they” show up one day, wanting to share my story with the world and take a tour of my grassroots. Rest assured, this thought is as surprising to me as it is to you.  After consulting with my family, this thought is not foreign.  My cousin Jill, who is a bombastic English teacher and was willing to give up an hour of her life to proofread this post, said this:

Ironically, I have often thought about this too, but in my mind it is a reality TV show.  If Reality TV would have been the rage in the early nineties when we were growing up, and in the height of the family shenanigans, we would all be millionaires…or we would have all been living in different families because CPS would have taken us out of this environment. Because let’s face it, not everyone thinks teaching children the finer points of the lime in Corona’s and shoving quarters up pants-clad back end is a proper, upstanding way to rear children.

Jill and I originate from the Caves of Sensitivity, a place only few family members attempt to traverse due to the heightened state of emotion it evokes.  

My Family Is the Centerfold

Ever since I was birthed by my mother, a wise warrior woman, I have been routinely surrounded by a tribe that fluctuated between twenty to forty assertive, humorous, and adventurous people. I write this post in the present tense because even though I now live 1000 miles away, I feel connected, close, and in tune with my kinfolk. We make an effort to meet up–vacationing, visiting, and checking in via social media. The extended family on my mother’s side resides within thirty miles of each other back in Illinois, a longstanding root that will live on well beyond my short-lived time in this world.

Not only does this group live close together, but we gather frequently, well more than the average amount as has been revealed to me as I traverse my [fake] adult years.  As Jill says, we do not need an excuse to gather.  We could decide to get together because it is snowing that day.  Someone sends the smoke signal, food is prepped, beer is bought, and before the day’s end, we have ourselves a party. 

We coerce with minimal drama while diving into tough topics like why some of us did not baptize our children (this one was me) or why one of us chose not to vaccinate our kids (this was was definitely not me, and of course I had an opinion about it), we take on activities and feats of strength that result in maximal fun, we bring up endearing memories about the large percentage of us who have passed away from the Big C and the small percentage of us that avoided cancer but departed in other ways, and we help each other scooch along the road of life with pointed opinions, blunt questions, and ribbing jokes.

I Said Leave Me Alone, I’m Just Carryin’ On An Old Family Tradition

My mom’s side is from Germany, the land of beer, grumpiness, and strong-wills; we bitch, moan, and gripe, all while holding an adult beverage, a paper plate full of various casseroles and side dishes, a sarcastic outlook on life, and potentially an annoyance to the noise level of whoever’s house we are congregating; I forgot to mention that in addition to these glowing and assertive characteristics, we are also pot-clanging loud with any activity we take on. One could sit in the room of our family parties and witness ten simultaneous and involved conversations (some of the pairs being people across the room from each other), children carrying beers to their parents like miniature waiters and waitresses, a tight game of Taboo going on, along with three people watching and becoming very involved in a sports game.  Big D, our newly twenty-one-year-old cousin who allowed me to coddle him back in his toddler years as I pretended to be a thirteen-year-old mom, is now a guru at inserting the lime in the Corona because as a wee lad this was his main responsibility at our family gatherings; he also a noise referee (I will explain later) but I believe he crossed the picket line after he realized the loud ones were the cool ones.

We handle our drinks well for the most part, but we sometimes have people who take the liquid courage too far, aka too many shots of Colorado whiskey or too many Claws (ain’t no laws with the Claws).  When people get rowdy, we banish those clowns to their dungeons; my Aunt Jan once kicked my husband out of a family Christmas for taking down too much whiskey with a fellow out-law, aka, my cousin’s husband. It was quite a year, it has to be in the top-ten holiday moments of all time, or top-twenty, because there have been so many epic memories made. Alas, if we get kicked out by the matriarchs, we (safely) move the party to another house; problem solved. We also have kind members of the team who stay sober and referee the events (one of Big D’s first gigs), tapping one on the shoulder if they get “too loud” (which is well beyond the definition of loud since the refs give us a lot of grace), telling us to “take it down a notch,” knowing this is a useless action and it only makes us enhance our boisterous talk.

I’ll Take Butt Darts for $1000, Please

My extended family likes to wash their vices down with a tall cocktail of games and fun, and the best game we have in our closet, in my humble and assertive opinion, is Butt Darts.

We play other games, like our annual lip-syncing competition on the Fourth of July where we dress up and dance to popular songs while the crowd judges our level of tomfoolery and outlandish choreography; one year my aunt jumped into the pool for the final refrain of her song, and this past year she dressed as Kenny Rogers, her husband as Dolly Parton, and they jammed out to Islands in the Stream in the best way possible; Aunt Laurie is a longtime lip-syncing champion and the type of famous you and I can only dream of touching. However, we should all bow down to my fairy godmother, Aunt Nancy, gone way too soon but always with us in spirit, who transformed the lip-syncing landscape altogether, creating an unsinkable dynasty with my godfather (aka THE Godfather), Uncle Pete. Their dynamic duos had us in tears for multiple years as we sat in the backyard, swimming suits damp, bellies full, and hearts happy. One year they performed a pristine rendition of Jay and the Americans “Come a Little Bit Closer” where they did a gender reversal; somehow to this day I cannot erase the image of my uncle in red lipstick.

We also contrived a rendition of Double-Dare that Nickelodeon wishes they would have discovered. We are good at reproducing and we managed to convince an ever-changing team of at least five to twelve kids to play whichever year we had the itch to put on Double-Dare; we converted toddlers, adolescents, preteens, and teenagers who still considered us cool into savage gladiators, battling in the ring, while the adults wagered, cheered, and booed from the stands. Yes, please dip your head into this bucket of water, one after the other, and bob for that apple.  Don’t worry about what is in that murky kiddie pool filled with water, jello, oatmeal or other varying hodgepodge of kitchen ingredients…you are just going to jump in and roll around and then get out really quickly before we tell you to move on to the next thing we think is hilarious for you to do in this game! Germs, spit, none of that matters; keep your eye on the prize. And carry that upside down cone full of water, strapped on your head, while weaving through cones. 

No wonder I am so determined.

In addition to lip-syncing and Double-Dare, we coordinate mean games of volleyball, where one year my cousin Joe’s newly-pierced nipple had a mean entanglement with the volleyball net (yikes, we had been ribbing him about the new jewelry all day, and then that happened, poor buddy), bags (aka Cornhole, screw whoever came up with that weird name), and other fads of the year or games someone came back to teach us from the Land of College. I believe we once got a massive game of flippy cup going one year, but that might have been a daydream or a blurred line I remember from college or from my brother’s wedding shower.

We slash board games too, sometimes playing Trivial Pursuit into the wee hours of the night, that is, if we can maintain a pleasant drunken state and not get kicked out by the matriarchs. One time we played a game that required you to guess the phrase from a conglomeration of other words – for example, a card would say “Way Camp Ache,” and that meant a popular slang phrase. I’ll let you figure out that one instead of spoiling all of the fun by giving the answer. Hint: It makes for an exquisite morning. Anyway, I excelled at that game because I had a toddler who spoke gibberish on the regular and I already spoke nonsense.

Last but not least, we organize the fiercest Christmas gift exchange east (and probably west) of the Mississippi. It is unstoppable, and there was a year when in the heat of the moment my cousin (notoriously of high volume) called my aunt a B#*ch so loudly I pray to this day someone captured it on video; I saw clips from this year and they were playing a rendition of Plinko on an elaborate, handmade board; you never know what games these brilliant minds will make up.

Why Do You Build Me Up [Butt]ercup?

I realize I made you read all of this before actually talking about the topic of this post, Butt Darts, but I felt it necessary to describe my mythical family before taking it to the main stage. Allow me to explain this magical centaur of a game.

Before you continue reading, please know that you might gasp, shriek, and have the inclination to report our family to the higher-ups.  As Jill said, we should have been taken away by Child Protection Services a long time ago, but we were not, and so now you have to deal with us.  I implore you to refrain from incarcerating us, as we are merely trying to have a good time. We are not harming any humans, and we do not impose our idealisms on other families, not unless you decide to visit one of our family functions by tagging along with your friend, aka my cousin, or your boyfriend, aka my other cousin. Should you be so Spartan-like with your tenacity to experience new things, come on in and see us; please know that we will interrogate you with probing and exposing questions, strong-arm you into playing our games, and poke fun at you without even getting to know you, trust me, we will see inside your soul before you depart for the evening, but we require very little “warming up.”  In addition to ribbing you at your first gathering, we will be kind and make sure you are fed and watered throughout, not make you feel like an outsider by including you in our devious and enlightening conversations, and we will make every attempt to make you giggle and want to come back. We have a sizeable following of outsiders who checked us out once upon a time and morphed into our new family members; sometimes I forget who is blood-related and who is not.

The rules of Butt Darts are as follows: You take a roll of quarters, you place them between your buttocks; Jill wisely reminded me to remind you all to wear pants while doing this.  No one needs butt germs, they are doing just fine on their own.  However, the type of pants you wear could make or break you – jeans seem to work best, but I have heard sweatpants can give you a flexible advantage.  Once you have the quarters between your ass cheeks, you waddle over to a 16 oz cup (not anything made of glass, no need to break anything), strategically flexing to hold the quarters in between said cheeks; when you arrive at the almighty cup, you release the quarters, aiming for the hole and hoping all of them made it into the cup.

Any missed quarters go into the pot, or ante if you are fancy, which goes to the last [wo]man standing who will be crowned the Butt Dart King or Queen. Somehow I feel like I am making most of this up, or getting my rules wrong, and my family is going to be so disappointed in me, but let us keep moving on to discuss the importance of Butt Darts and why you should incorporate this into future family get-togethers.

Look To the Butt Dart

Butt Darts has taught many lessons – not only do you get exercise, but you get instant satisfaction if you are skilled at the game. You reflect on your abilities – your butt did that swan dance, it got the quarters into the cup; you have champion glutes and cat-like steps, and you eventually have a chance at winning all of those quarters, which you will have to probably wash before you go cash them into the bank….or will you? We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no.

Perhaps my favorite part of Butt Darts is its lesson on vulnerability and awareness of one’s own potential. Think about it, you are having to squeeze quarters in your ass in front of many people, those on the sidelines laughing incredulously as you develop your own creative technique for getting those coins, which have now become slippery and somehow smaller than you thought judging by the way you have to clench to the right so much, from point A to point B without losing your cool or laughing too much that you let go midway and blow the entire operation to smithereens. People, this is where you find out about your true self. This is where the magic happens.

You also learn if you are superstitious, since that rusty old quarter from 1993 is the one that religiously goes into the cup after each round, dubbing this your “lucky quarter” and profusely rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger before inserting it back into the butt sleeve again for yet another adventure.  No whammies, no whammies, no whammies.

On gloomy days, I like to think about my cousin Mitchell, conducting a ninja-like dance of an unknown species, successfully carrying his butt-pocket change to the precious cup in a way that no one had ever witnessed before, taking home the gold for the evening. It still makes me laugh as hard as the first time when I saw the choreography, and no one can deny that kind of awesome memory recall.

Even though butt darts might sound strange and a vector for infectious diseases, I continuously thank my family for the courage they have given me to be myself via these games and other feats of strength. I will never forget being poked at for not dancing at a Mama Mia concert; being a shy and sensitive one in a family of bold and blunt extroverts is not always easy, but it has allowed me to learn how to come out of my shell, to express myself, and most importantly to laugh at myself often and to never take myself too seriously, because I am a dip, (and okay with it).

Jill also reflected on her life-skills obtained from our rowdy family:

I really have “no shame in my game” and I tell my students that frequently.  I am free to be my silly, singing, dancing, corny self because I do not care about the thoughts of others and I am self-aware.  I learned this through this family, these silly games, and this fun upbringing.  Be loud and proud and expressive of who you are.  So you might get kicked out of your aunt’s house for yelling at a 10-year-old…the next day all will be well; all will be forgotten and you still will be welcomed and loved in this family. (I don’t know if that was the incident with the whiskey or not–but I know Aunt Jan kicked someone out at Christmas too because Rick and Dawson (aka Big D, our family child who morphed into a twenty-one-year-old adult in a flash) stayed to play games, Dawson learned to be a smart ass from this family, was talking shit, and then someone started yelling at him for talking shit…so she kicked that person out…).  Even being the sensitive soul in the family doesn’t bother me as much in adulthood, because I know this about myself and I simply don’t care that others do too.  Learning to laugh at yourself and to be self-aware are some of the best lessons to learn in life.

For the sake of your happiness, for exercising new ab muscles from laughing, and for new glute muscles from clenching,

get out there and play Butt Darts.

It might make the world a better place, it could make you braver, and you might even learn something about yourself.

Why Do You Write Like You’re Running Out of Time?

My blog posts have been lagging a bit these days. Originally I had established this blog to help me explore the act of writing and build a healthy and productive writing habit. Here are some things I have learned about writing:

1. It is damn near impossible to write with children in the house. Case in point – I woke up early today to spend sexytime with my blog, only to open the laptop’s sleek case, gently tickle the keys to type in the password, some light pokes with the mouse to get to the blog, and then, what’s that?!? A tiny voice crying for me to help get underwear and Garcia the bear. I am a magician and I can make focus time dissipate into the unknown! My forces are stronger than I initially thought.
2. Writing for hours is difficult, sequestering those hours is even harder. See item #1 about time disruption. However, ask yourself if you could sit and pump out a colorful tale in one hour without feeling like you transported to another world. The tricky part is getting your mothership back to the real world after that hour.
3. The urge to recap is impossible to satiate (mostly because of a lack of time). Whenever I worked on a project in the corporate corpse world, I would review my work from the previous day, massaging my cranium and jolting it to recall the masterpieces created the days before. With writing, doing a total recap is not an option, or else you would be rereading your future book seventy thousand times, thus never giving yourself time to start, continue, and finish said book. Can I get an assistant over here please? Someone perhaps more willing to follow instruction than a three year old gremlin.
4. My time with writing has been one of the best endeavors ever. A profound percentage of my quests and jobs in life have been to satisfy my craving for learning, this writing journey is no different. The challenge is the enchantment.

So for now, I will continue to write. I will remain a top-notch mother who teaches my children about the simple, complex, and sometimes deceiving machines of life, and I will power on my journey of learning. Eventually my brain will explode into a million tiny ideas that will sprinkle themselves over the universe, causing others to catch the Learning Bug (forget my other post about Death Wishes to You and Yours, the Innovative Explosion is how I really want to go out).

My name is Matt Foley, and I am a motivational speaker.

Motivation is a mysterious beast. It can be alluring, tantalizing, yet a nasty little shit. I write this as I am tender and sore from a workout that I praised and cursed within two minutes of each other (I believe f*#k you was what I said this time I was doing alternate V-situps today. Better yet, the guy on the video, my pal Phil, said to me (like I knew it all along), “And if you need to take it slow today, you can keep your legs on the ground for this move.” I hear this phrase while the whole time I had been putting my legs on the ground, unaware that they were supposed to do elevated. Even more embarrassing that I had been STRUGGLING that whole time with the “legs on the ground” version. Needless to say, after that move was over, I let out a nice giant F U to my microscopic phone screen, mostly because it was a pain in the ass, pun intended, but a morsel of my heart was saying F U for getting me motivated enough to even try a move like that. Motivation, you sneaky little succubus.

I pulled a butt muscle the other day, and I would have taken that feeling over the alternate-V-sit-legs-floating-in-mid-air dance any day, any time.

But wait, there’s more. Not even three more moves into my buddy Phil’s workout, and I am doing plank jacks and sailing along like the badass warrior woman that I claim to be, cheering along with my boy, P, on YouTube, ready for the next circuit, which ends up being something as awful as “the move before that must not be named.” See above paragraphs if you need a refresher. Ups and downs, all within twenty minutes. 1200 seconds, the amount of time I allow myself to sit on Facebook each day. The 20 minutes on FB feels like a flash in a pan compared to the 20 minutes of exercise. Similar to how lunch break is always cheated while some thirty minute meetings were a struggle to remain from slipping into Freddy Krueger’s world. Sheesh, doesn’t anyone know how to have fun around here?

Bad news, team. Fun is hard work.

This is hard livin’

It takes every morsel of my energy to push through an exercise routine, maybe even more than that. I first have to convince myself that it is worth doing, which it always is, and then I have to walk past a mirror at least twice for glimpses of my metamorphosis, the small muscle tone that exists acting as reassurance that the work is worth doing. Then I have to don my attire, which I make sure takes extra long, even drawing out the speedy task of tying my shoes. Honestly, it is kind of difficult to tie your shoes in slow motion, try it sometime, the brain cannot compute. Finally I make it to the part where I gather my water, my phone, and my headphones, and I trudge upstairs, tell that damn Computer to turn on the Theater light, and I get down to business. Twentyish minutes or less. Full of cursing, taking breaks, and cheering my pathetic self on. Sometimes I get cocky and do a spicy five-minute arm workout after that, and that one always is icing on the cake. Afterwards I bask in the glory of that extra energy, the spryness of my steps, and the ability to fit into clothes I spent money on years ago, only to be looked at, not donned, peered at in a museum-like fashion during the past four years of being in and out of work in the pregnancy department. Those poor clothes. Somehow I manage to convince myself they are worth retaining in my tight closet year after year; the day I finally wear them will be the day I resent them.

The Locomotion, mixed with lethargy

Exercise is a good choice. Deep down I know I will have to continue being healthy up until the day my body explodes into a confetti burst of ideas for the future of tomorrow, but most of me wants to know if there will ever be an opportunity to let go of the jumping jacks and do the fun stuff, like being a couch potato and reading all day. My heart wants to say yes, but my head knows that constant lethargy will get me nowhere but down in the dumps. I wonder if everyone struggles like this – my inferior mind says I am the only one, but my emotionally intelligent brain is mentoring me, stating that a majority of people also struggle through and despise grueling exercises.

I used to hide from exercise like a prisoner escaping in the middle of the night. No way does it see me…..I am slinky and sleuth-like, back against the wall, keeping busy with other tasks so it thinks that I have more important things to do. It cannot reel me in today, I have better plans, a more promising day. I will walk around today, that will be good enough. That was always my motto. And then I got sad because said clothes did not fit anymore. And my stomach felt dense and of the consistency of the La Brea tar pits. Bubbling yet still, gelatinous, clogged with whatever sodium-saturated snack I decided to plunge into at 10pm the night before. Any hangover medicine turns its nose up at my practices of vice-maintenance, hangovers don’t like working hard, so why would their medicines do any different? Nothing works.

Alas, now I have built a routine, and I crave it. Exercise has become a part of my flabby little being, no matter how hard I try to shove it out of my mainframe. Now to uphold and give it the respect it deserves….

Motivation.

Mysterious. Magnificent. Melting. Mind-blowing.

Tell me, how do you motivate yourself?

I think about death often. Not in a bad way, but in a curious, insightful, peering around the corner sort of way. Recently a friend told me they rarely think of death, and this astounded me. I thought everyone had it on the brain at least daily. Perhaps I am the oddball here, but hell we already knew that. Maybe it is my raging case of anxiety that leads me to ponder the grim, dreary topic. Or could it be that thinking about death helps calibrate my mind to be more present and enjoy the moment? I will leave that for you to decide, kind reader.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Marcus Aurelius

If you ever got caught in someone’s room when you were not supposed to be in there, and you hid in the closet, and you witnessed someone getting taken out, would you watch it go down? I bet you my first born you would. We all would watch. Death is a fascinating phenomenon.

Funeral Dinners, Eyepatches, and Too Many Damn Questions

My main thoughts about death revolve around what happens next. I am not talking about what happens to me after death per say, but more about what happens to the others around. How will people react? What happens to my family? What will the takeaways be from my time with them? Will they miss me? Will I miss them? Will I even know that it happened? Will it all have been worth it? Will they remember me years down the road? Will the thought of me make them giggle or cringe?

Side note – This explains why The Leftovers is one of my favorite shows of all time. Check it out if you can wiggle some time out of your busy schedule.

Many people in my life have left this world too soon, hopefully on to brighter and better paths in the afterlife. My extended family has exceeded the normal amount of cancer diagnoses, seriously, we are oddly numb to it at this point. I have been getting familiar with the Grim Reaper since I was a tot – whether it be helping out with funeral dinners, volunteering at the hospital, or being an administrative, underaged assistant to my grandmother who took a retirement gig at a cemetery – it all has shaped me into the gloomy, melancholy, yet hopelessly optimistic human that I claim to be. In fact, I ask for the gloom sometimes, coaxing my brother to tell me a tale or two of his experiences as a nurse in the ICU (I heard a gory tale the other day, but I will spare you the deets), reading Stephen King as if my life depended on it, and becoming enthralled with scary stories or bloody flicks (currently I am watching The Knick; absolutely amazing show).

I have an idea of when this demise will happen for me, but I will hold off on sharing since that could be too spooky for people. I know what you are thinking, but no, you are not correct – I did not meet the live-version of the witch from Big Fish, and she did not open up her eyepatch, and I did not see the vision of how I get off’ed. In a weird way, I have always had a lingering feeling about when it will happen, a tickle of the mind that will not go away, and I always go with my Spidey senses.

Party On, Wayne

When I go, this is what I want. My steadfast husband already knows this (I think), but now I am holding everyone who is reading this accountable for executing the vision.

1. No funerals, only celebrations.
2. Gut-punching, soul-opening music. Maybe a live band? Music is life. This year I started jotting down The Soundtrack of My Life in a list on my phone. So far I have three songs. I will have to update this, or make a playlist. But if I go before my list is complete, just play one of my Spotify playlists, preferably Soul Men or Misery Loves Comfort and Ambition. I listen to sad music on the regular; any of my playlists are funeral, er, I mean, party-ready.
3. Delicious food. Preferably all of the snacks I love in life – potato chips microwaved with two slices of American cheese, one in the middle of the chips, one on the top (Frank calls this meal Nachos Jamie, and I dig it. I would wager that this delectable dish has at least three of the five food groups, and it really soothes the stomach if you eat it after three or four beers and at the midnight hour, binge-watching tv), definitely toss in some medium-rare filet mignons with sautéed mushrooms, medium-rare hamburgers with garlic aioli, mushrooms, and swiss cheese, French dips out the wahzoo, and last but not least, an array of noodle dishes from all over the world – Capellini with alfredo or butter sauce, Pad Thai, drunken noodles, lo mein, spätzle, mac and cheese, get it while it’s good. This list contains a plethora of red meat, I know, but the vegetarians (who I love and respect) can get down on the chips with cheese, the noodles, and the mushrooms. Make it all salty. If you already added salt, add some more, and if you cannot remember if you added more, sprinkle on some additional granules to be on the safe side. Maybe have a veggie tray there too; life is all about balance.
4. No sermon, no church, no building (unless it is adorned in art). Do it outside, do it in June or September.
5. No funeral clothing, unless said threads are comfortable, which they usually are not. Wear (or do not wear) what you want to wear. For example, I have read that not wearing a bra provides ample health benefits. Prove it. I also know that sweatpants and a t-shirt are the remedy for any sad moment in life.
6. Zero obligations. Make it a drop-in, stop-in, have a beer, stay awhile if you want, leave early if you want, kind of thing. Hell, stay at home and do not even attend if it ends up being too much trouble. The only people who have to rough it for the entire seven-day duration (that is how long this party will go, in alignment with how many days I dedicate to celebrating my birthday each year) are my family members who will be forced to set up this wacky event.
7. Spend nothing on the disposal of my body. Donate it to science, where it belongs. Too much time and resources are wasted on burials and cremations. Go eco-friendly, and allow those genius scientists a real body to dissect, experiment on, and learn from. My real hope is that I can still provide learning to people even when I am not around.
8. Refrain from being sad. If I leave this world in the next year, day, hour, minute, second, please know that I have had the best time ever. Life has been so glorious. I would not change anything, other than the fact that I never was able to attend a dog show. Fret no more, I will be coming back as a dog, and I will get to do all the things at that time.

Reflections From the Mudbath

What went well: My best friend had her going away party; new chapters rock.

What could have gone better: I am finally coming to terms with the fact that my best friend is leaving Colorado. I could have done this sooner.

What will I do differently tomorrow: I should have read more today. Instead, I went to the thrift store and got about twenty articles of clothing for tie-dye. Tomorrow I will think about tie dye…and my friend who is leaving Colorado…and…death.

Listening to: Out of the Blue – George Harrison. My favorite Beatle, and quite possibly one of the best albums of all time. All Things Must Pass. ✌️

Reading: The Institute – Stephen King. Enough said. Soaking it up.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Marcus Aurelius

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.“

Henry David Thoreau

You Ain’t Cool Unless You Pee Your Pants

This week the family realized that we were days away from a mile marker — the end of September will mark three months of being jobless (kind of), free, and focused on making life the best. Three months….feels like a long time. Some might view that as an insult to the journey, but I am impressed by the way that time slowed down.

No need to snicker to yourself and call me a liar…I know that the last three words of that last paragraph were of fibbing-quality. But let me tell you, I did find a way to at least hinder Father Time; made him look the other way for a bit by throwing a medium-rare steak in the opposite direction (Papa Time loves him some red meat), and he is probably going to come back at me with the wrath of three thousand mother bears once he catches on to my diversion.

I hate to say it for all of you wishers and dreamers out there, but time is still moving at a rapid pace; still too fast for my liking. Some days my gremlins appear to be helpless poop machines that cannot fend for themselves, and I sigh and smile as they cuddle me and fall asleep in my arms, but lo and behold, the next day they are damn near teenagers, grown inches overnight, full on adult faces, telling me they are “working on a project,” have a brilliant idea, or want to watch the next episode of a show that they probably should not be watching but found it while spending too much time on their “iPack.” (This reminds me….sometimes I question whether or not certain movies are appropriate for my kids, but then I remember that I watched Pulp Fiction around eight years old and it was life-changing. I thank my father all of the time for what might have been interpreted as a reckless act. Thank you, Dad, you have no idea how this carved me into a Tarantino-wannabe. The good parts of Tarantino at least.)

But after they display their adult-like learnings, they either pee their pants, ask me for yet another snack, or try to con me into giving them candy. And then I normalize, I breathe, and I remember that they are tiny gremlins and that I have a little bit left to cherish before they sprout weird hair and start asking me probing questions which you know I will damn well answer.

But let us pause and give a moment of silence to that one time Carmella announced to the people in the primate house at the zoo that her boobs were “coming in” just like the gorillas. Not yet, my love, the boobs are a long ways away. But not really that far away. And that, my friends, is the scary part.

Every day I wake up, thinking this is the day that my hair will be completely grey.

Father Time, what in the hell do you want to make it slow the eff down? Perchance more filet mignon?

Takin’ Care of Business

The other day I wanted to play a game with my daughter, and she told me “she was too busy.”

Excuse me?

And then it hit me – emulation is a bitch.

These past two months have been a delicate dance of Adaptation. We have grown to know our new schedules, we have become aware of our tendencies and needs, and we have attempted to keep the weeks exciting – museums out the ass, picnics galore, so many swings, not enough time. But when does the housework come in? How does that work?

Apparently in between the fun stuff, I forgot to do my chores.

And when cramming in those chores on a single day, I forgot to play with my kids. And they noticed. Instead of Carmella saying, “let’s go read a book because that is what I always see you doing,” she emulated me from my hectic days and said what she keeps hearing – “I am too busy to play.” How sad! Bad Mom Award Nominee. Proud of it, too. I have also heard “put your phone down,” which is the easiest way to help you become aware that you have a problem.

So next time you forget to have fun or get swallowed up by your screen, remember that your kids are watching, your friends are peering in, and your family is observing. Errands will always be there, like that patch of sample paint you cunningly placed on the wall of a room you still have not painted. No matter how many times you pick up the toys, empty the dishwasher, conquer the laundry monster, it will all be there yet again, ready to consume you the next week and envelope your mind while you are trying to relax and zone out.

Instead of doing chores, suck the marrow out of life. Get your ass out there and have a good time, damnit. Or else you might be connecting with our pal, Father Time, sooner than you wished, grasping and clawing for those past days where you could “forget” to do the dishes and play Play-doh instead.

Yesterday I decided to read some past content that I wrote at the beginning of my writing journey. “Beginning” as in last year, so rid yourself of the images that this has been a long adventure. Like the Carpenters, we have only just begun.

The essay was written during a time where I felt the ground shaking beneath me with anticipation and a new chapter. Although I was not sure what the next chapter would be or bring, I knew I had to follow my heart to find it, so I wrote periodically to help out my brain on paper in hopes that it would aid me in identifying what in the hell I was meant to do in this world.

What I found fascinating was the last thing I wrote, which was this:

“Written at the beginning of this journey but meant for the end of the book: When I look back on this, it might not mean much to anyone else, but it will ultimately mean that I finally gave in to the urge, and hopefully it helps me understand that this is something I can pay attention to.”

Wow – how cool.

I was speechless when I read this last paragraph. Completely and utterly taken by surprise. I can officially be proud of Past Me, because I totally knew what was up, and I was pushing myself to come out of my shell and my hobbit-hole. Hell yes I will pay attention to my writing.

That is all I wanted to share today, in hopes that it will inspire you to write a letter to your Future Self on what you really want to do with your life. And then you can go back and read it when you did the damn thing, and you can be completely and utterly proud of yourself too.

Power on, my fearless friends. I am rooting for you.

Think of a time or place that makes you happy, and then multiply that feeling by one million, and that is the tingling sense that does not come around often, but is the emotion we strive to recreate all of the time to reach Peak Delight (this is kind of like a twisted version of those pesky people who keep telling us for many dollar bills and many mind-sucking moments we can “Go Clear.” Tom Cruise fell for it, but we can innovate our own version, free of our souls being stolen from us, and without the risk of our brains getting a full round in the washer).

Many people suffer when searching for the smile and the jitters. They take it one step past where their mental boundaries were planning to go. Thus they become addicted to a happiness-inducing substance (I am no angel), turn to other people for the answer, or completely give up and fall into the wormhole known as work to mask the fact that happiness even exists. Similar to money, being happy is just as dangerous.

Being content is where the sweet spot lies. Being satisfied. That is the goal we are trying to reach if we really want to make the magic happen.

My dad’s favorite song is “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones. Listen to it, rock to it, and continue to shake your tailfeathers to it because we all go through this cycle with our lives where we find that whatever we do, we will never be fully taken with the thrill of it all. As humans we are constantly in search of the next best thing. And we uncover disappointment often. But we discover contentment more than the aforementioned emotion. Alas, finding a way to being content instead of happy is the key to really living life.

Being able to recognize that you will always want more out of life will help you realize that what you have is pretty damn amazing. Sometimes magnificence is not the case, and when things really spiral out of control, well that is when you thank Life for providing you with a grading scale.

Hey, that getting-fired-from-my-job dealio was a shitty spot to be in. I give it a 2 out of 10 stars. My life is pretty dumpy.

Let’s turn that bus around though, people!

But had I not had that 2-star situation happen, I would view most events as a 7 through 10 situation. Thank you for giving me that lower feeling of deep, droopy desolation to help me better define my lows and highs. An upside to being canned.

And that, my friends, is how you incorporate optimism in your life. Living life as a 7, 8, 9, or 10 all of the time produces numbness. It gets boring, it gets tedious, I run out of reasons to smile, happiness becomes routine, and habitual delight is a death trap to boredom.

Embrace the horrible, lavish in the misery, use the sadness to propel you into the Multiverse of Happiness. Bathe in the sadness so it makes the good times glow. Sounds weird, but it works for this starving artist who pretends like her life is a black hole sometimes just to strengthen her responses to nonsensical moments in time.

The Golden Minute

What is your favorite cozy spot to submerge in when no one is around or when you were strong enough to push all of the bullshit aside in your mind and make time for some time for yourself?

What is that time and place where your body goes limp with relaxation, completely content, balls to the wall comfortable?

In my personal journal (not this blog, although it has sort of turned into a personal writing block), I have a list of these dimensions of space and time where life was as sweet as can be. Every day I strive to travel to one of these dimensions, bonus points if I can make it into multiple, but that is sometimes a feat that requires Olympian strength that I do not yet possess but work towards constantly. Sometimes I have to threaten to send my family on a bus to an unknown land in order to get that Golden Minute, and sometimes I have to beg them to be around me to get it. It depends on the day, it depends on what hat I am wearing, and there are even days where the Golden Minute vanishes and absolutely nothing can make me come out of my hobbit hole. Not often, but it happens to the best of us.

This morning I only got thirty seconds into this entry before my “Golden Minute” vanished into thin air and sailed away into the ether like a smoky inhale and exhale at Red Rocks, but I at least got thirty seconds, better than twenty-nine seconds, eh?

What’s Your Flavor?

My guilty pleasure is sitting in one particular corner of the couch, adorned with several comfy pillows and always a quilt from my grandma (or both grandmas; both were exceptional at making lovely yet snuggly blankets), a big cup of coffee (tea is preferred but sometimes I get sloppy and forget to keep a tight inventory in the pantry from my go-to tea shop in FoCo), all of my curtains open to the south-facing lawn that opens up its throat and chugs that Colorado sunshine damn near every morning (our weather is our best kept secret, but I will be bold enough, and dumb enough, to share this tidbit with you all in hopes that you will migrate your clan out this way, at least for a small vacation, so you can see all of the gut-punching views and beautiful days that you have been missing out on all of these years), and last but not least, on the cushiony throne that I lounge upon, I always, and I do not use definitive terms lightly, I always have a book.

The finale to my Golden Minute is when my three-year old walks down the stairs, messy hair, squinty eyes, and she waddles over to me with a smile, a snuggle, and a good morning that includes bad breath and a almost potty-trained pee-soaked diaper. It is almost as good as puppy breath.

Social break:

Currently reading: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Currently listening to: Roly Poly by Mt. Joy. Just listen to the whole damn album while you are at it here. These guys (and gals) recently toured with one of my favorite bands, Trampled By Turtles. Both bands were so good they had to arrange a deal where they would swap who opened each show on the tour. No, I did not get to go to the show. Yes, I have zero regrets in life but this is one of them (not really though, there is a reason that Life did not allow me to go).

Books are Life. And You Should Too.

My husband is a Moviegoer, which is coincidental (or is it?) in that it is the name of the book I am reading at this very moment.

In my twelve years of dating him, fourteen years of knowing him, I have not once observed him reading a paperback or a hardcover. He has glamoured me with many moments of his nose deep into an article on his phone, he fills me in with world news on the regular, and he has a vast knowledge of popular culture that allows me to filter out the nonsense and focus on the meaty part of Hollywood. But never once has he dazzled me with sitting on a couch and reading a juicy paper-made item.

Yet he is the smartest person I know, and he has an absurd knowledge of plots to books and references to novels. It is mind-boggling, especially since his brain also houses specific details to all of the vehicles ever made. If you must know, he learned most, if not all, of this information from the Simpsons, and for all of you Homer-haters out there, just know that not only is the show a masterpiece, it teaches you about popular culture in a way that you might have never known. I have living proof.

The Genius of My Universe (aka my partner, husband, or person who deals with all of my nonsense and has pushed me to be my best self) also knows that the books are always better than the movies. And for that reason, he keeps me around. By combining our superpowers of book knowledge and movie references, we can take on the world one tagline at a time. Watch out, bitches, we are coming for you next Jeopardy audition.

Get It, Girl

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” 
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

My point here is to fall into your passions, learn what makes your heart get hot, and carry it out. Make time for it. Stop saying that work has been too crazy or you have been too busy or you are waiting until next week to start doing what you want to. Quit making it part of your one to five year plan. Make it a plan for the next hour or minute. Take action, and stop merely thinking about it.

The longer you wait, the less time you have to enjoy it.

For example – I try to squeeze in at least an hour of book-molesting per day, fondling whatever pages I can get my hands on, ogling at the font types, feeling up my bookmarks. Did you see that sweaty reference coming just then? I hope you enjoyed me turning books into a sexual endeavor, because sometimes it can be just that. And I have never read 50 Shades of Grey. I have zero time for pieces of information that do not further my learning about the world. Regardless, I strive for an hour per day to satisfy my need for speed…speed-reading, that is. Do not be fooled though as that hour is scattered throughout the morning, day, evening, and night like a mad egg hunt. Nevertheless, I find the time. Or rather, I make it.

And the best part about doing what you love to do right now is this:

If you become content, others will too. Create a pandemic of satisfaction.

Full Send

What went well today (two entries for today because I am feeling extra spicy):

Colette started yelping and singing when “Without Me” by Eminem came on in the car today. We have a playlist started for each of our girls that we add to whenever they react to songs. Colette’s playlist, titled Cuckoo for Cocopuffs, received an addition by the white-rapper himself. Proud of my little Coco. The Carmellicious playlist will have to be examined next.

A friend recommended a book to me while I was in my Golden Minute. The book came with many shining strings attached – it was from my favorite author, Stephen King. It was her first time reading him and she dug his style. It was a book I had recently picked up as hardcover for $4 in mint condition while thrifting (another passion). And I am almost done with my current book. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, four situations of high awesomeness.

What did not go so well: I took the gremlins to a transportation museum today, which went super well, but they would not allow me to read any of the signage, which is something that makes me happy. I must go back with more helping hands.

What will I start doing differently: I have a few books to send to people. I have been lazing on that and need to take on that task. A friend once told me that they never recommend books to anyone anymore because no one actually ever reads the books. I decided to read their book right away, and it pleased them so much. It was instant kindness. So now I not only try to send books to people in hopes they will read them, but I try to read recommendations within the year of the comment coming my way. And I loop back with the person on how the book changed my life, because it always does. And I rarely use definitives.

Shout out to everyone giving yourself a damn moment. I am proud of you.

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” 
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Chitter Chatter

Here are random responses I have received from people after deciding to quit my job and pursue a life of parenting, passion-projects, and publicizing my life (had to fit in another “p” word to keep it consistent).

Comments about parenting:

• “You won’t regret spending that time with your kids.” (Haven’t had any regrets other than I should not have put that purple marker in my pocket last week and forgotten about it when washing clothes.)
• “If you can swing it financially, it is the best decision you will ever make.” (Well I cannot swing it financially, but that does not stop me.)
• “You can never get these years back.” (Spot on. Right on. Rock on.)
• “If I could do it again, I would be content cleaning toilets instead of chasing the almighty dollar as long as it meant spending more time with my family.” (This was the gut-busting quote that took me over the edge and made me take the leap. This came from my mentor, who has kids that have rapidly grown into adults, and I trust this opinion so much because it came from someone who has already lived this part of their life and has reflected on the have’s and the have not’s.)

Comments about work and my future business ideas:

• “Sounds like you are doing art projects that I used to do in fifth-grade.” (Damn straight. Do you want a tie dye shirt or a non-functioning candle that I am still learning how to make? Or how about a houseplant that I am attempting to propagate? Or maybe some smoked cheese, or a used book or a vintage vinyl? Your choice, and sometimes I can be smarter than a fifth grader.)
• “You can always go back into leadership.” (But do I even want to do that?)
• “I am living my life vicariously through you.” (By all means. I am living mine through you, too.)
• “How is life unemployed?” (If you define unemployed as parenting two small gremlins by day, creating in the crevices of my free time, and working as a scientist by night and weekend, then I have so many questions for you.)
• “There is no money in the record store or book store businesses.” (This one came from a close friend who knows me all too well. However, she forgot one thing, I am no longer concerned about the almighty dollar. At least for today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable future. Who knows if my greed will return at a later date.)

Comments about finances

• “You will save so much money on daycare.” (See above comment about not being able to swing it financially but doing it anyway. See alternate comment about how I do not care about money anymore.)
• “If you can afford it, then do it.” (Shoo, Money. You always seem to find your way into any conversation or situation, don’t you? I have no need for your small thoughts and your made-up connection to happiness. Go use your mindless tactics on someone who gives a damn.)

A Day in the Life

It is impossible to describe a typical day for me since every day feels so different from the next. The bulk of my time is spent hauling around a shopping cart-sized stroller that seats one kid on the front and has an adventurous bench and a platform on the back for the thrill-seeking three year old. We go to and from one of the four parks in our neighborhood, we spy on the geese at the retention pond, we seek out new playgrounds and look for cool lawn ornaments to ogle at. We eat snacks, we swing, we slide, we dance to Disney songs, and we thank the musical gods on the regular for sending us Lin-Manuel Miranda and his melodious and motivational lyrics. Seriously, I think half of my mid-life crisis can be contributed to listening to the Encanto soundtrack on repeat.

I devote my soul, energy, and mind to the gremlins as much as I can. It has taken a lot to minimize my screen time (I finally took the plunge and set time limits on most of my apps), and it is a constant struggle to not focus on keeping the house clean or work on the boring budget. I have to keep telling myself that I am the responsible party for my children, and I am the Keeper of the Experiences. While none of us are capable of changing a person’s character, we can at least open as many doors of possibility as we can and show the big-minded miniatures what is out there in the world. And oh, is there a great deal out there. My word.

During nap time, which tends to be nonexistent these days, I try to make some time for myself. Tie dye has become a creative outlet, and I am really digging the fact that I get to be a scientist again, plus I get to go thrifting for white clothing and throw a sustainable spin on things. Candlemaking has been another wormhole of delight, but damn if I cannot get those wooden wicks to work. I am, however, becoming quite skilled at mixing colors, but the scents still have a lingering smell of musty old house. Hmmmmm…..perhaps lavender and cedarwood in fact do NOT have the best relationship? Moving on to more science experiments.

As a couple, Frank and I have been exploring the scene of cold-smoking cheese, and I feel as if my love for cheese has gone to a whole other level….a kind of love I did not know was even possible, and this is coming from a person who has had two babies laid on my chest for the very first time (this can be defined as the Ultimate Moment of Love). Yeah, the cheese is that good, folks. Now for those pesky FDA regulations, figuring out how to ship cheese, pricing, infusing, etc. So much to learn, certainly not enough time.

Last but not least, I have been writing.

On Writing Emails.

Come to find out, writing is something I love to do but never gave it the attention it deserved. My reconnection with writing was awakened after I did a survey at work with my team. The survey asked the team (of around 75 people), what were my strengths as a leader, and what were opportunities for improvement (a polite way to say, “What annoys me about you, and how can I be nice about saying this?”). The cheers and jeers that were sent in my direction were a tad life-changing. Lab folk are a certain type of people who do not normally wear their heart on their sleeves, but this survey was anonymous, so people were allowed to be honest, and I feel like this technique for evoking detailed feedback was somewhat effective (until someone came up with a strange rumor that I was targeting and identifying people by the responses. Wow, wish I had that kind of time).

The team gave a vehement response in the opportunity section in regards to the length of my emails, which felt were my only true method of communication to the staff since we were working in a 24-hour operation. They said my emails were too long. And they were not wrong. My emails were way too long.

Small background – We did this survey for all nineteen of the leaders on this team. This survey was a brain baby of mine that was supposed to be a 5-year project to promote self-awareness and personal growth. Over five people in this group took me to HR for this project, demanding I be stopped, the fear of being exposed was in their realm. They did not stop me, and I hope they learned about themselves after enduring this “painful” experience. The truth can be scary. I bet they are still consoling themselves on how the data was skewed or false. Or maybe it has helped them in some microscopic way (that is the dream). Oh how hard it is to be accountable.

They had other things to say about me in the survey, like my attendance was poor (this one was hard to swallow, still to this day – I was salaried, I worked 40-50 hours a week, and I did not realize I was being spied on.), I should learn the bench and technical work (fair point; training we did), I cared too much about feelings, I was too emotional. All true, all helpful.

But the emails being too long comments kept festering in my brain like a boyfriend from the past that you cannot stop wondering what in the world compelled you to make a decision as such. What was the driving force? Still a head scratcher until this day….anyway, back to the emails. I could not stop thinking about this critique on my character. The feeling was not anger, but mere suspicion and curiosity. Why was I writing these long ass emails? What motivated me to do so?

And of course, I came to the conclusion later that I was trying to write for an audience, and emails were my vehicle for having a voice. Simplifying this down…I knew I needed to have a writing vehicle in my life, and I was over this vessel being a manager role where no one has time to read nor is the coaching resonating. Work is work, and I tried to turn it into a motivational speech. Ain’t nobody got time for that. But I gladly thank whoever was brave enough to write me about my writing.

Honk for Brain Space

Part of me quitting my job was to allow my brain more space to do the exercises it truly longed to take on. And I was doing the same thing for my heart. Both of them pay me by the hour, offer great benefits, and they are direct yet empathetic to my needs. Sounds like one heck of a boss. Since I have shown them more kindness than ever, they have blossomed into colorful, sparkling fireworks that have shown me that if I trust the process, do the right thing, and care about the world around me, life will be good no matter what setting you are in. The universe is listening, and I have stories crammed in from 4-year old Jamie Pitts (the OG Jamie) that are pounding at the door to get out and boogie. And we will be dancing very very soon.

The ultimate point of this long ass blog was to be good to yourself, and give your brain some damn space. Because there is probably something there that you have always wanted to do, but never looked past the first five minutes of how to do it because there were too many barriers in the way.

I can speak from experience.

If money were no object, what would you have done for a living?

Now find a way to do that in a smaller manner without giving anything up.

Then keep on going.