Sunday, November 15, 2009

Schvantzes-a-Swinging!

Through some kind of bizzaro osmosis I seem to have picked up an inordinate amount of knowledge of Jewish culture and religion. Maybe it was in reaction to my very-much-a-gentile-Grandmother's wish that I would someday marry a "nice Jewish man". Maybe I figured I should be prepared in case her wish should come true! No matter how it came to be, I have made good Jewish boys very happy with my knowledge.


This may be why a friend of mine in Florida, SL, called to giggle with me about the fact that he heard that someone from his temple threw a swing party. He wasn't giggling about the swing party part of it, rather it was the idea that everyone there was of the Hebrew extraction. So far he had come up with these following guidelines for the All-Jewish Swing Party:

1. No one would bring alcohol, as no one would want to spend the money on it.

2. It is held at someone's house because why spend the money on a hotel when you have a perfectly good house, plus you can show off your new kitchen remodel.

3. No booze, but the food would be amazing and abundant.

3a. And would include a really spiff smoked fish platter.

4. Once the sex started, someone would walk in a room and say "What! You call that eating pussy? That's not how you do it! Here, let me show you!"

5. Other quotations might include "No! My wife doesn't like to be fucked like that! Why are you DOING that! Just do what I tell you to!!" and "Did you see what she's wearing? That lingerie is totally vredne! I wouldn't be caught dead!"

6. Next to each bed there would be a pretty ceramic dish with a complement of nail files for the ladies to use during.

7. In addition to the social rooms and the play/sex rooms there would also be a Mah Johng room!





"Other people have a nationality, the Irish and the Jews have a psychosis"
-Brendan Behan

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Blissful Headway

Two rooms done and organized.

More items to the curb for pick up tomorrow.

More artwork hung and items arranged artfully.

Headway is being made. Massively.

If things go as planned, tomorrow I will be done with one more room, making three of six totally done.

Done. As in deep cleaned and sparkling and ready for Christmas decorations to descend upon them in heaps of glittery glory!! *squee!*

This is my reward for all the hard work - the fun of putting all the pretty things in their place. That, and I needed my laser level today for hanging some pictures and I knew right where it and the Hercules Hooks were and put them right back when I was done.

This is the bliss of giving in to my inner need for clean and order. :D



"If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living."
-Joseph Campbell

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Good, Bad...I'm the one laughing...

The other night I went out to the movies with two of my girlfriends. It was not a big night out by any means. We had hot dogs and mac and cheese for dinner and then we went to the dollar theater after. The three of us, however, could have a party in a great white void, so we were pretty wound by the time we got there. Then, F dropped her cup of salt for her popcorn (Yes, a small cup with salt in it - we're setting aside for flowers for her first Myocardial Infarction.) while bending over to get the bottle of water she dropped and P nearly dropped her drink while helping F, then they just about both fell over because they both bent over again at the same time....all I could say was "Hey Moe!" and we just about peed ourselves there in the theater lobby. If there had been a rake or a push broom nearby one of us would have stepped on it.

The shaggy haired teenaged boy behind the counter was completely non-plussed. I guess gaggles of crazy women are the norm for him or he was too stoned to laugh. Either way....poor thing. (I did offer to sweep up the salt myself but the manager told me no.)

We laughed all the way to our seats and then it just got worse as we sat down and arranged ourselves. We yammered for the whole time before the movie and laughed our asses off at ourselves. We even updated our Facebooks and Tweeted about what we were doing.

After a bit, there were a bunch of college age kids behind us and a bunch of high school kids in front of us. I think we may have scandalized them with our "behaviour" during the movie - we were literally howling with laughter at points! (BTW, if you haven't seen "The Hangover" do yourself a favor and GO!)

I know we scandalized them a bit as we got some "looks" every once in a while. Those all knowing teenager "looks", the one's that say "OMG! How can you act like this!! You're OVER 30!! " I'm sure we annoyed the piss out of them. Points to us!

Yet, I really wanted to say something to them, especially the girls in the crowd. I really wanted to pull them aside and say "Look, you're gonna think this sounds nuts now, but I want you to know that I really,REALLY hope you have girlfriends like mine when you are older. Ones you can laugh right out loud with, and be stupid and crass with no matter what. Because those same women are the ones you know you can cry with and get angry at your life with and they'll be there no matter what. I really, really hope you go to the movies and get real loud someday, honey."


"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning"
-Unknown


(Also, special points to you if you recognize the phrase used for the title as a slight bastardization of a movie quote!!)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

a post!

Quick entry cuz I keep falling asleep early this week!!! gah!!

I am inundated with opportunities of late. Some for travel, some for play, some for relationships-all mine for the taking. The only preventatives from leaping on them all is time and money.

What a wonderful difference in my life from just two years ago when I felt so isolated and boxed in by a failing marriage and failing mental health. What a blessed release the divorce was for me. What a fabulous life I am now leading.

More later on the first opportunity I am grabbing!

"He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed"
-William James

Sunday, November 8, 2009

I spent last night in the arms of an old friend. We have known each other for going on twenty years but last night was the first time we'd ended up naked together.

The sex was great, but what was even better was that it felt so...normal. Just an extension of our already established love for one another.

It was a very tender thing to finally be able to express that.


"Love unexpressed is a crime against the heart"
-Unknown

Saturday, November 7, 2009

House Blessing/Self Care

Today is a fine fall day!! Most likely one of the last we will have in these parts. I have opened the windows in the house to let in the breeze - no matter that it has that crisp edge to it, like the taste of a honeycrisp apple on your tongue. I want to gather in all that tang and sweet into my house one more time before the cold of winter takes over on the wind.

I am STILL cleaning and organizing. I am struggling to reframe my thoughts about housework - to think of it not as "work" but as "blessing". I am being semi-successful at this.

Right now I am sitting in a mostly finished living room - only dusting and carrying out of items to the curb to go - and I love the peaceful feeling I get in here. There is laundry in the washer and dryer, becoming clean and pretty again. After the next load I will have sweet scented sheets to put back on the bed. These are all wonderful happy-making things.

What is difficult is acknowledging that I am not the best at doing this kind of work while not using that as a reason to berate myself for being a failure of some kind. It is simply a statement of fact: I do not upkeep my house continuously.

I even had to revise that last sentence to take the judgment out of it! Originally it was "I am not good at housework". No. That is not true, because when I do it, it gets done very well. I do not do it all the time. The latter IS true and there is no judgment in that sentence.

When I can get beyond this judging myself business, then it is easy to move on to statements that are also true: I feel happy and peaceful when my house is straightened up because I know where things are and where they belong. I feel anxious and overwhelmed when things are cluttered because my things are in disarray and I do not know where they are.

Getting beyond this judgment of self and getting down to how I actually FEEEEEL about my home and the state in which it resides has been helpful. Knowing that I am far more happy when things are done leads me to do it more often.

So silly, those voices in our heads that berate us and keep us from doing what truly makes us happy. I am not perfect at combating them, and I don't know if I ever will be, but I am learning and growing and telling them to shut the hell up more and more and more.

"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete"
-Thich Naht Hanh

Friday, November 6, 2009

a post!

No update yesterday. A friend needed cheering up and I thought that was more important than a blog. More later today!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

NaBloPoMo and more

So I just found out about NaBloPoMo!!! (National Blog Posting Month), and while I don't know if I have a whole novel in my head, I know that I can commit to posting every day this month. Unfortunately, I found out about this AFTER I had already skipped a day of posting for the month so I can't win any of the "fabulous prizes" given out because it is November, but that's okay. I didn't want to win anything, I just wanted the challenge of writing every day. So here I am, posting daily for the month - and hopefully beyond.

I've got a lot going through my head today.

I am dealing with a bit of sub drop. Okay, maybe more than a bit. It's not been debilitating because I was ready for it and set myself up with letting friends who would understand know about it and leaned on them (am leaning) for support. It's been a long time since I've played so much in so short a time. It felt so good!!! But afterwards I know I go inward to process, and without that support net beneath me I can go too far in and get depressed.

A lot of the processing I have been doing during this round of introspective sub drop is about relationships. I know for sure that I am not ready to be in anything serious right now. Any time anyone tries to attach ties to me, or corrall me in some way I am as skittish as an antelope on the back end of the herd. To me, Ms. Relationship Builder, this is telling. I need time. I am forming more and more a picture of what I want out of a serious partner as this time goes on. As much as I want someone in my life, I am glad I can recognize that taking time with myself will only make things better in the end.



"Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say."
~Sharon O'Brien

“You can't stop loving or wanting to love because when its right, it's the best thing in the world. When you're in a relationship and it's good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.”
-Keith Sweat

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Things I've learned while living on my own, in no particular order:

1. I now say "One, please" instead of "Just one" when going out to eat by myself. "JUST one" sounds so...sad. While "One please" sounds a bit more together and less pathetic.

2. I own a shit ton of books. Really. Good lord. Where the hell do they all come from? And how do they keep multiplying!!?? I could open my own lending library folks. And yet, I still love holding them all in my hands and rereading them all. Its like revisiting old friends. I've considered a Kindle but I might have to get TWO in order to fit in all the books I currently own plus new ones I want (j/k....kinda....)

3. I still can't finish a drink to save my life. Ever. I leave a trail of half full glasses behind me. No matter how hard I try I am constantly picking them up and bringing them back to the kitchen to dump them out. I am ONE person in this house and I go through almost ALL the glasses in the house every five days or so. Crazy!! I hope whomever I live with next can deal with this, because it is a lifelong trait that ain't going away! LOL!

4. I hate doing dishes.

4a. But I can get them done in fifteen minutes if I set a timer and race. So, not bad in the grand scheme of things.

5. I like my bed but making a king size bed on your own kinda sucks. I have a knack for it now though. :)

6. I do a lot of laundry, but I am doing better at not having piles of it this way.

7. I like my closet organized by color.

8. I own a lot of shoes. And this is a good thing. *squee*

9. I both love and hate that I have no one else to bitch at about housework. It's all me, baby!!! I gotta train the cats to vacuum and dust.

10. Despite rumors to the contrary, I am actually doing really well living on my own. I like it. I'm not scared at night. I don't have to sleep with a light on or the tv on anymore. I have my own safe space to be in that is all mine. It's rather nice coming home at night to that. Sure, life's not perfect, but then again, who's is??


"You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with"
-Wayne Dyer

Monday, November 2, 2009

Clubbing the Inspiration Fairy

(Alrighty, I'm attempting the MWF thing again here folks. Bear with me while I see if I can do it...)

It's November...which, to me, heralds not only the onset of holidays but also the onset of many of my friends hunkering down over their keyboards and participating in NaNoWriMo. (National Novel Writing Month). They try to complete a novel in one month's time.

I hear a lot about word count goals missed, achieved or surpassed. I hear a lot about coffee fueled nights near the end of the month trying to catch up and finish before the last day comes and goes. I have to say, I'm a bit jealous of all this.

It's an open thing, I could totally participate if I chose to do so. But...butbutbut....the cold hard truth is that I have no idea what in the WORLD I would write about. I have no muse pressing down upon me with enough ideas for a whole novel. I have NO plot, no character that compels me to write about them THAT much.

I've been told many times that I need to keep writing, that it's in me to be an author, that I have something to give to the world in print. Meanwhile, I keep waiting for inspiration to strike or at least sidle up to me and give me a nudge.

I love writing, I love expressing myself through words. It makes me feel happy to sit and play with vocabulary to get the exact meaning I want to convey out of a sentence. I just don't know if I have a novel in me yet.

To that effect, I am going to do my own version of NaNoWriMo. I just want to write every day. I am not terribly concerned with what I'm writing, just that stuff is getting put down on the page. Maybe, if its coherent stuff I'll post it here and share it with you, my three regular readers. LOL!

Who knows, maybe I'll write myself INTO inspiration for a novel.....

"You can't wait for inspiration> You have to go after it with a club."
-Jack London