"Cherry Plum. To Prevent Losing Control."

At 3:00 pm this afternoon, I have an appointment with a chiropractor. I had a vehicular mishap earlier this week and consequently, my body, little by little, is unleashing all sorts of neat ticks, twitches, aches and pains. This particular chiropractor came highly recommended by a couple of women at work who’ve been seeing him for quite some time. I’m a little worried that this may be the beginning of a long, rocky relationship. I’m worried that I won’t know how to break up with him once I get what I want. I’m worried that it might get a little weird.

He’s not my first one, though. I went to see a female chiropractor that worked out of her home in the Diamond district of Oakland a few years ago. The circumstances under which I came to need her services were not as dramatic as a car accident. I think I just bent down funny one day and couldn’t straighten up. Ah! Don’t you love getting older? One side of her house she had converted to her office and exam room and the other was her living space. You’d walk through the side entrance and enter a little reception area, complete with a small counter, chairs and copies of Sunset and Highlight magazines. She had a small water feature on the counter. This one had a little bearded Asian man with a fishing pole.

The walls were texturized a butterscotch-yellow to convey a warm and homey feeling. So very HGTV! Is that Yanni playing over the speakers? “Yanni” has come to mean “New Age music” like “Oreo” means chocolate wafer cookie with white cream filling. The room smelled of lavender. She was a middle-aged, blondish woman, soft around the edges. She reminded me a bit of Linda McCartney, if Linda had eaten refined carbohydrates. She was a little hippy-dippy, if you had’t already guessed.

She had me fill out a new patient form that had the usual medical history questions. Do you smoke? Do you drink? Allergies? Previous medical conditions? I quickly ticked off boxes and filled in the blanks. No. No. Hay fever. None. The next few questions were harder to answer. Vaginal or cesarean birth? Were forceps involved in pulling you out? Were you delivered at a medical facility or home birthed? I write in “Can’t remember, need to ask mother.” But, I seriously doubt my mother would remember either.

The exam lasted a little more than an hour. She told me to envision a bright fuchsia dot, floating over my neck and think of the word “family”. “Concentrate on feeling of the word, without judgement.” Okay. She gave me a pair of tricked-out Mary Janes, black shoes that had the front half cut off so all you really wore were the heel portion of the shoes. I put them on, laid face down and she proceeded to do some tap, tap, tapping on the heels while she pressed certain points on my back. Was I feeling better? I couldn’t tell yet. After telling me to think of a few more floating colors and to feel a few more words, I sat up, wondering where all this would lead. She had a cabinet which housed a collection of oversized, colored plastic glasses from which she picked out a pair of violet ones for me to wear. I felt very Elton John-ish. She told me to put them on while she excused herself for a moment. She returned holding a Dixie cup of water and a book on flower essences. “Drink this,” she said. “Cherry Plum. To prevent losing control.”

We continued to see each other for several months. I wanted to believe her treatments were helping but I think I just really liked laying down for an hour each week, thinking of colors and smelling lavender. It was't hurting, in any case. I eventually stopped going when I realized I could be putting that $50 per session on something else, like new running shoes or a gym membership. When I looked at it that way, breaking up with her didn’t seem weird at all.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR - ANDRE

Lucky readers! My open invitation for friends to post their musings has been accepted by my good friend Andre! There is no end in the delight I take in learning more about him, especially since the usual context of our association takes place at a kickboxing class. One learns so much when reading his piece. Enjoy!!

My Two Cents

I decided to begin my day this morning to put to virtual paper, my first Blog! As I type this I feel a bit guilty. After all, I really should be going forth with my daily routine of doing what people pay me to do; make their dreams come true! Ah, what a romantic way of viewing my job. I can get almost dreaming thinking of it until, the alarm clock that is my phone wakes me up to my reality. Mine is a routine of juggling decisions and tasks which seemingly define the future fabric of other people’s lives whilst not having a moment to reflect on the profound complexity of my own life. But, this departure from my routine is exactly what has driven me to my Blog premiere.

I was talking with May (our esteemed hostess) last night and got to thinking, (yes I do think)! How many times in our lives to we ignore opportunities for change? We become a caboose pushing forth incidents, passengers and emotional baggage, all of our own creation along tracts of life, again our own fabrication, towards some virtual destiny which we perceive as our future happiness. That is, until some poor begotten soul disillusioned by their own self prescribed fate decides to park their vehicle on OUR tracks! Thereby forcing the derailment of our prized caboose and sending our lives into a whirlwind of change. This change that our own infallibility has caused us not to embrace, if nothing else, is invariably the doorway to growth.

Coming from a third world country, in an economy that is like a slot machine with the IMF at the helm, I have been forced to develop an adeptness for change. When ever this becomes curbed by routine albeit self-imposed, I can immediately feel the effects in the rate of my personal unfoldment. Which right now incidentally is coming to a halt and I need to make a change pretty quickly before one is made for me. You see I have this pact with GOD, the big man, my inner self, whoever! someone pulling my cords. I must have made this pact before I came into this life ‘cause I certainly don’t remember. Nonetheless it says that if I stand still spiritually I’ll get kicked in the ass by one of several spiritual masters. Now trust me, these guys can kick! They’ll put their foot so far up my ass I can taste leather! I never know who it is going to be or how hard, sometimes a nudge, sometimes a spinning backfist. Usually though if I can catch myself in time though I can examine my life and make the necessary changes before that. My father always said “Son, you can either go on your knees and pray or wait for life to take out your kneecaps, either way you’re going down unless you practice humility”. Actually it was more like “Do you want to end up selling cane on the side of the road? I don’t care either way but you better get your shit together! Sleep and eat, that’s all you do and I should have to pay for it? Well you’ve got another thing coming…”

The thing is, I think we all have made such a pact. Only some of us realize it and some of us don’t. Some people just wonder why they keep getting kicked in the ass. Well why do you ignore the constant nudging of life edging you to make the changes necessary for your growth? Why do we embrace the comfort of routine and strive for the financial freedom to just sleep and eat? Why would life reward us with that when we are in this place to grow? Two more things, one perhaps we must first learn to become one with the flow of life and embrace change, and two I’ve become too Morpheus-like in my musings and must get back to my routine. PEACE!

The Art of Being J

There are some people who I just can’t stay mad at. I’m sure you have at least one person in your life to which this applies. No matter how inconsiderate, selfish, or pig-headed they are, there’s something about them that makes it impossible for me to sustain any angry feelings toward them. I met my sweet, sweet friend, J, in college. Let me make this clear: J is neither inconsiderate, selfish nor pig-headed. I am convinced that if you were to meet J, in your generally cynical and suspicious nature, would think her natural disposition to be false, fake, somehow all an act because no one could maintain such a light-as-meringue, lemony-sweet attitude 24/7. I walk around, everyday, like a gunslinger with a permanently raised eyebrow, skepticism and incredulousness safely holstered at my sides. They’re cocked and ready to fire any time I get a whiff of someone trying to pawn something off on me.

I assure you, though, J is sincere. She will be the first to offer kind and encouraging words when you’re feeling down; she is ever-vigilant of a cloud’s silver lining; and, she is a firm believer in an ant’s ability to move a rubber tree plant. Why, I’d slug anyone in the eye before I let them disparage J in any way!

However…

Tardiness is the monkey straddled to J’s back. An hour, two hours, three hours…one never knows when J will arrive. You can’t really claim to know her if expect her to be on time. Don’t ask her to bring food for a potluck—unless it’s dessert! And don’t ask her to drive for a road trip, unless you pad your schedule at least two hours. Friends who’ve known her since high school say she’s always been this way. Yet, as maddening as it is to have a friend who is perpetually late, all of us have silently and collectively, accepted this trait. We look at each other, we look at our watches, we look at the food getting colder, we nod our heads side-to-side and turn up one corner of our mouths, and then we go about our business.

We accept and love you, J! And she knows this, of course. She’ll make a grand entrance, schlepping an overnight bag, a pillow, an air mattress and a rolling suitcase for an overnight trip. “So sorry! You wouldn't believe the traffic out there!” she’ll say breathlessly and toss out a giggle worthy of a 15-year-old. J must be a master of human behavior because how can she possibly—so consistently—push the tardy envelope without fear of being ostracized and given a collective cold shoulder? J is like a new puppy, eager to please but inadvertently knocking down lamps and vases; she’s like a 6-year-old who makes a mess in the kitchen trying to make you breakfast. I dare you to stay mad at her!

I’ve stopped trying to explain to J what they say about the pathology of people of who are perpetually late. The experts say they are egomaniacs; that they think the world will stop and wait for them; that they hold their needs above all others and are selfish. I can’t say these things to J because it simply isn’t true. When it comes to J, I have to believe there really was a lot of traffic.

Bitch-Slapped!

You know you have a bad attitude about work when you start off each day asking yourself questions like, “How much can I get away with?” and “How much can I put off until tomorrow?” and “How can I leave early?”

I’m waiting for my friend B to pick me up in her brand-new-used blue GTI. B and I work for the same company, doing essentially the same thing, except she’s been with the company longer than I have and can explain to people what it is we actually do. We’re carpooling to the Sacramento office today for a training. Yay! At least we’re not in our regular office. At least we’ll work an abbreviated day. At least we'll be back in Oakland to make it to kickboxing at 5:00 pm.

Ah! Muay Thai kickboxing at Gold’s Gym. When I had first joined the gym, I had taken every single class except for this one. Cardiofunk, step aerobics, afro-caribbean aerobics, tae-bo class….I’d make my way up from the back of cardio room and eventually end up front and center, having memorized the choreography and the dance mixes for each class. Melissa would yell out, “Watch the girl in the red T-shirt, she knows the steps!” Yikes, I’m the girl the red T-shirt, so of course, I flub up the steps right when she yells this out. Damn performance anxiety.

I walked by this kickboxing class many times before. I spy the petite spiky-haired platinum blond girl in the corner. She’s wiry and muscular and kind of scary. Doesn’t crack a smile at all, that one. Like Alice, I grow curiouser and curiouser about this class but still can’t work up nerve to walk in.

“Do you want to go with me to the kickboxing class tomorrow, you know, the real kickboxing class?” Carmen, a pretty brunette in tae-bo class, asks me one day. “Really? Sure, I’ve been wanting to try it,” I answer. I am surprised at my eagerness to agree. But upon reflection, I’m not really surprised. Carmen’s offer to hold my hand was just the impetus I needed. So often I rely on outside forces to compel me into action.

A few weeks ago at work, our Director had an afternoon all-branch meeting. Afternoon? We usually had them in the morning. Whisperings of something bad about to happen were pinballing across cube walls but that afternoon, the Director felt no need to whisper. He spoke loud and clear. Apparently, we did so awesomely bad in 2004, change was underway. Massive, painful, ugly, excrutiating change.

Let me synopsize his message for you: CHANGE. COMPLACENCY KILLS. RENEWED URGENCY. MORE INSPECTION. And if you don’t like it, thank you but buh-bye.

Father knows best after all and what does a parent who subscribes to tough love do when his naughty kids misbehave? He takes away their privileges. Suddenly, no one can work from home anymore or have flex-time. No exceptions. (But, of course, there are always exceptions, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog entry.)

I sat there, my temperature slowly rising, eyes glazed over. All I could think was Goddamn it no more kickboxing. Shit goddamned white boss motherfucker. How dare he tell me what I can or cannot do?

I received no sympathy for my S.O. “So you have to work 8:30 to 5 every day in Walnut Creek? That’s what most people have to do…” his voice trails off.

He doesn’t understand that for the last four years I’ve always finagled a way to take this kickboxing class at least three times a week. I’ve always been able to design an argument to prove that the company would actually benefit if they would allow me to continue with my class. For the last year, the flexible schedule was the only reason I was sticking to this godforsaken soul-sucking job at all.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Director doled out a necessary bitch-slap to my face. His words urging us to change for the betterment of our company incited me to change the stagnancy of my own job situation.

Thanks, boss man.

CHANGE. COMPLACENCY KILLS. RENEWED URGENCY. MORE INSPECTION. Suddenly these words, when contributing to the betterment of May V. Espeña, made so much more sense.

Faith in Man Restored

There are many things that go through your mind when you’re sitting in your car by the side of the road. I could have been crushed by a Mac truck. I’m going to make all these people late for their Valentines’ Day dates. I could have killed a car full of people. I sat in my crumpled 95 Honda Civic waiting for the second cop car to come and stop traffic so I can get back on the freeway. The first cop, an Asian officer in a yellow rain slicker, was 100 feet away with his high beams shining directly at me. I fell into a stupor while I waited, hypnotized by the lights of oncoming traffic and the sound of the rain hitting my windshield.

I lost control of my car driving home from Walnut Creek yesterday. No one’s bad, just an accident. I’m guessing I slipped on an oil slick on the freeway, coaxed out by the rain, and I just careened. My car, from the fast lane, did a 180 and I crossed all four lanes and crashed into the right hand barrier of 24, facing oncoming traffic. Wow, I thought…that was just like in the movies.

I still can’t believe I didn’t fucking kill anyone or kill myself. I slammed my head against the side of the car pretty hard and I scanned my body quickly for any visible blood. Thank God, there’s nothing. A young Filipino guy with a beige knit cap tapped on the passenger side. I rolled down the window. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine, I think.” “Do you need help?” “I think I’m going to call 911 now.” “Do you need any help?” “I think I’m fine, thanks.” He goes. A little later, a white dude comes along, except he asks if I’d like him to wait with me until 911 shows up. Under normal circumstances and if I was, say, by the side of the road, out of gas or with a blown out tire, my mind would think “Hells no, sucker, move on!”; my mouth would say, “No, thank you, I’m fine” and my hand would whip out my AAA card with an efficiency that said, See? I’m a-ok, thank you very much.

This situation was surely not part of the Monday night I had scheduled for myself. Five o’clock, leave office. Five-thirty, get home. Six o’clock, run for an hour. Six-thirty, back at home to spend the evening with my S.O. to commemorate this Hallmark-sanctioned day of love. You thought you could have your first good Valentine’s Day? Ha-ha, my mind sing-songs in my head.

“Really? You wouldn’t mind waiting with me?” asks the girl, while the woman in me takes a nap in the back seat. We’re chatting away, as I half-listen to the hold message 911 is looping in my ear. His name is Frank and he’s a young college kid going to art school in the City. He’s on his way to a soccer meeting, postponing his Valentine’s Day date till Wednesday. In a surreal way, it felt very first-date-ish.

Another dude with glasses taps on my window and asks if we needed a flare. Sure, that sounds like the thing to do. Frank gets out of the car to help him light and set it on the road. I’m dazed, still, cursing the fact that now I’ll never be able to get my run in tonight. Shit goddamn it. Beef for lunch yesterday, pork for dinner…I had way too many meat products yesterday and I really needed to run. Ah well…

I watch as Frank and the guy with glasses get smaller as smaller as they place the burning flare in front of my car. One hundred yards, two hundred yards…I have no idea, actually, how long a yard is.

This is the point where the Asian officer pulls up. We all congregate outside in the rain, discussing what exactly, I don’t remember. But after a few minutes, Frank and the guy with glasses drive off. The officer instructs me to wait in my car for the second cop car, and the obedient girl in me quickly complies.

A great many things ran through my head that night. Could have died. Could have killed someone. Could have ended everything… But three strangers came and asked me if I needed help that night and restored my faith in man.

I’ll leave you with that thought.

Costco and Valentine's Day

I was brushing my teeth this morning and thinking about the layout of my day. I’m out of toilet paper and paper towels and liquid hand soap. Mulling the possibility of getting a new bathroom rug since the unfortunate Loreal Black Pearl hair dye incident a few weeks back. I need to go to Costco today and stock up on various household items for the next year! But it's also Valentine’s Day and I suddenly have to negotiate my day a little better considering this made-up holiday. I’ve always been a pragmatist and I walk around with a slightly cynical taste in my mouth so if something makes sense to do it, I’ll probably do it, but if it doesn’t make sense to do something, I won’t. Valentine’s Day is a holiday for romantics, not pragmatists, and I wonder what’s a pragmatist supposed to do on a holiday for lovers? I put on some rose-colored glasses and look around.

This morning, I saw makeshift Valentine’s Day gift kiosks set up at gas stations and grocery store parking lots. Stuffed animals and balloons, red floral arrangements and rose bouquets, pink-cellophane-wrapped baskets with chocolate and sea scrubs. The burgeoning romantic in me says “Don’t forget your sweetie, today!” The pragmatist in me chimes in, “…if you know what’s good for you!” Ouch. Sheesh. What’s with the bitterness? And when am I going to find the time to even get a card for my S.O.?

I look around my desk at work to see if I can MacGuyver a homemade card or fashion some love token out of paperclips and colored paper. I see my sister’s birthday card, purchased in January, unsent and most definitely will arrive late now (her birthday is tomorrow). (Just because I fancy myself a pragmatist, doesn’t mean I’m organized.) I notice a Valentine’s Day card that a sweet, older lady dropped off at everyone’s cube. You remember, the kind that came 40 to a box. In grammar school, we used to decorate brown lunch bags with hearts and stickers that said “Be Mine” and “Stay Sweet” and tape them to our desks. We'd eat chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting and red sprinkles and we'd go around and drop these cards in everybody’s bag. And I do mean EVERYBODY. So we had to give everyone a Valentine’s Day card, even if we didn’t want to. Even Jason Randall, the kid who called me "fatty" in third grade. How fair. How…egalitarian.

I thought, Hmm….maybe I can give this card to my S.O. and just pass it off as mine? I open it up, hoping she didn’t personalize it. Dang! She signed it from “a secret admirer”. Well, maybe it would work…My S.O. and I have only been together for a few months. He doesn’t know my handwriting yet as I am not the kind of girlfriend who writes sweet little love notes on Post-its and hides them in his pants pockets. I’d write him a To Do list or a Things-To-Pick-Up-at-Target List before I wrote him a note that said “I wub you just the way you are!” Ew. I know they don’t sell cards at Costco. Unless I plan on sending Valentines to my 500 closest friends, I probably can’t kill two birds with one stone while I'm there. Damn. I think I need a stronger prescription for my rose-colored glasses.

A Pox on Me!

A couple of years ago I had the chicken pox. I think I may have caught it while temping at a hospital. Fucking hospital. Apparently, the sickness is dormant for a while before popping up as little hivey-looking bumps all around your body and face. This was right around the holidays when I and my entire family trekked down to southern California to spend Christmas with my sister and her family in her huge, new house in Ventura. I made it through Christmas feeling peachy and even managed to spend a lovely New Years in Santa Barbara with friends from college.

On my way back to Ventura from Santa Barbara, I decided that it would be fun to sneak in a couple of hours of “alone”time in before returning to yet another house full of people. Friends and family, I love you to death, but I needs my alone time! I ducked into a theater and caught Gangs of New York. It was packed. And later I realized, I was packing. The chicken pox, that is. Already headachy and sore all over, I thought my body was reacting to the hustle-and-bustle of the holidays, with the running around, the shopping and the eating, the entertaining. To this day, I wonder how many people I must have infected by walking into thatcrowded theater. I am officially sending out my apologies via the Internet. I’m sorry! My bad!

Feeling like crap, I lifted my arms while my sisters inspected my naked torso. They counted up the little hivey things (63) and jabbed a few with a pen, for what purpose, I’m not sure, I guess it seemed like the thing to do.

“Did Milan have cats?”
“No cats.”
“Was her house dusty?”
“No dust.”
“Did you eat anything weird?”
“Well, there was a cheese ball covered in nuts that I picked at…” That’s not what she meant, I know that now.
“Uh…then I don’t know. Girl, you’re SOL.”

So much for their clinical diagnosis. At this point, my feelings of crappiness were increasing exponentially and after 12 or so days of people all up in my grill 24/7, all I wanted to do was go home to Oakland and sleep in my own bed with my own pillows and my own dust mites. Thank God I had a plan to drive back to northern California instead of flying. The thought of possibly infecting a plane load of people would have thrown me into a guilt-ridden tailspin. Better was my plan to drive back to Oakland, behind the wheel of my parents new Lexus, hopped up on Benadryl and the sugar from a pound bag of chocolate trail mix (you know, a “healthy snack”).

If you’ve ever ridden in a Lexus, you must agree that that is one smooth ride! Driving it at 90 mph is the same experience except your foot is ever-so-lightly resting on the gas pedal. I actually felt like I was floating up Interstate 5. But in reality, I was half-asleep from the meds. By some miracle, I arrived in Oakland, casualty-free, and rolled into bed.

The doctor told me I was contagious and may be a danger to pregnant women and old people and that I had to be quarantined. “Oh God. How long?” “Till the last scab falls off.” What the hell kind of answer was that? It sounded like some lame movie dialogue: “Teacher, how will I know when I’m ready?” “When the last cherry blossom falls to the ground.” I was so miserable.

I stayed in my apartment for approximately one month and had to rely on my friends for food and DVDs. They’d buzz me, I’d let them into the building,they’d come up and leave groceries at my door and I’d talk tothem through an inch-wide crack at my front door. That was the extent of my social interaction with people. This was my ironic hell. I said I wanted some alone time…I got my alone time.

As much I think I am an independent creature, self-sufficient, don’t need anyone or anything because I hate people…depression and loneliness set in pretty damn quick. The view of my growing stomach from the laying down position on my couch became very familiar. After a while, I asked my friends to forgo bringing me real food and just drop off chocolate. Bars. Bags. Cheap stuff, expensive stuff. I didn’t care. Just bring it.A nd forget what I said about denying me chocolate no matter how much I pleaded. That was crazy talk, I was on the Benadryl and obviously delirious. In retrospect, this was not a good idea and I paid for it later at the gym, with hours and hours of working off the “pox weight”.

I wish I could say I emerged from my apartment with a renewed appreciation for life and some sort of enlightenment. But I came out more grumpy and pissed off than ever, with pock marks all over my face and body and an extra fifteen fucking chocolate-induced pounds.

Sweet Innocent Us

A good friend of mine, M, and I went to see Jill Scott sing at the Paramount Theater last night in downtown Oakland. Jilly from Philly, so she’s called. May from Oak-town. Doesn’t have quite the same flow. If you don’t know who Jill Scott is, I suggest you run out this very instant and get all her CDs. Go now. I’ll wait. You back yet? Good. Now put on her first CD, Who is Jill Scott?, Track 4, Getting in the Way. It’s about a woman, essentially, warning another woman to stay away from her man (who used to be her man but was unceremoniously dumped). At first, Jill tries being nice: Suga, honey girl fly fly away…But by the end of the song, she’s had enough and threatens a “smack down” and taking the girl out to the middle of the street to “whoop (her) tail.” Get her mad and that sweet-faced woman with delicate features turns into a pimp that’ll open a can whup ass on you faster than you can flinch. Tru dat!

Some would say Jill’s the most dangerous kind of woman. The kind you underestimate. If this were true, then all women are dangerous. Last night, I was sitting next to M in a pre-dominately African-American audience. We’re in the first row, to the right of the stage, in front of massively huge speakers. We’re waiting, excitedly, as folks file in, sharply-dressed couples, quartets of sassy girlfriends. Many women in the audience are gorgeous and soft-looking, and this being Oakland, drip with that urban, street sensibility that pulls off that tough-yet-sexy look to a tee.

I think of myself: a short, little asian woman with brand-new chunky black shoes (the kind thats popular with high school kids and the exact opposite of the super-pointy-toe style found at Ann Taylor) and M, a slim, blue-eyed, white woman with curly, dark hair and comfy, suede, brown clogs. Inside, my secret evil self laughs hysterically. Daaayuumm, we’re so innocent-looking, so unassuming. Who would ever suspect that if pushed hard enough, and I mean if our lives or our families or friends lives were in immediate and grave danger, we could probably kill anyone to protect and defend. And I’m not talking wussy deaths like slowly feeding someone poison until they got sicker and sicker and finally die. Because that would be cruel and doesn’t suggest the kind of urgency that would push us to kill. I’m talking swift and violent death brought on by our own hands, feet, arms and legs. The kind of death brought on by bones breaking and necks twisting. Does that worry you, Reader? Don’t be scared. I think that most women wouldn’t think twice about clocking someone with a frying pan if it meant protecting their one-year old from being snatched out of their crib. Just something to ponder the next time you’re thinking about stealing that parking space out from under that Soccer Mom’s nose.

Bloggin' on the DL

When I sent a mass email to my friends and family about my fresh new blog sandwich, I was touched by the sweet, encouraging notes I was sent back. Rock on, sistergirl! One sister of mine told me I should try and find work as a writer. Yes, yes…I thought, because writers are in such high demand these days! I argued: This is not the point of me doing this thing. I do not necessarily want to trick it out. I am merely trying to wring out a few precious drops of creative expression from my brain lest it dries out completely. This is just for me. I am enjoying the act of writing and I don’t need to whore it out so friggin ’fast, okay?

More than one person mentioned the flurry of news articles going around lately that spoke about people getting fired from their jobs for having blogs. Not sure what the exact circumstances were surrounding the firings (a dude from Kmart, a chick at Delta, another chick who worked at the Senate). It’s probably better that I didn’t come across them before I decided to make my own. I can’t help but think a little bit of writing, every day, is going to make me a happier person.

My Mom even called, panic-stricken, to warn me about getting fired from work because of my blogging. She never calls me. Well, hardly ever. And just for the record, No, Ma, I do not want to move to Las Vegas! I’d rather swallow glass. Phew, now I really feel like I just talked to my mother. I tried to comfort her: Mom, I’ve been fired from jobs before. It’s no big. She didn’t find comfort in that.

A friend of mine, let’s call her “Bolivia”, turned me on to dooce.com. A woman named Heather Armstrong actually did get fired from her job and looky there! Started her own website with ads by Google and everything. Heather is my new hero and is too-legit-2-quit. I can’t wait to dig in and see what I can pilfer. She posts photos every day. I think I can get fancy like that one day with my little Cannon A80. The best feature of this camera, hands down, is the movable viewfinder. Excellent for taking self-portraits. I took about 500 pictures during Christmas. Probably 300 were of me and maybe one other person.

I like Heather’s writing style. She is a self-described “Stay at Home Mom (SAHM)” or a “Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker.” She claims to do both equally well. What makes this especially funny is the sweet Hallmark-Kodak-Precious-Moment picture she has of herself with her baby’s hands gently touching her face. Awww! Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker…I likes Heather.

I can’t swear like that in my blog, I thought. My Mom reads this! I caught myself practicing self-censorship and quickly nixed the idea. I use swear words in every day language and I’ll be good-goddamned if I start to write in a high-falutin’ style that’s not my voice. The whole point of this writing exercise is to have a safe space in which to express whatever the hell I want. Unless it’s about Kmart, Delta or the US Senate, that is.

Aging Backwards

Today is my Significant Other’s (S.O.) birthday. It’s actually his fake birthday because apparently today’s date (February 10) is the date his father arbitrarily picked when filling out his immigration paperwork. I can tell you right now, I’d win the bet if I challenged my own father to remember all his kids’ birthdays. S.O. is 36 today (or sometime next month depending on whether you’re a stickler for paperwork). That’s not that old, I think. Still in the mid-thirties. Thirty-seven to thirty-nine starts to get a little sketchy because you have just wandered into your late-thirties. You’re suddenly late. Late for what? You’re moving along at a nice clip, enjoying life, still able to run occasionally, still able to indulge in a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream every now and again; you have your 37th birthday and BAM! You’re in your late-thirties. Just thinking about being late for anything inexplicably makes my heart beat a little faster.

My S.O. spends a few minutes every day kvetching about his various ailments. I have heard, that as people age, talking about one’s aching and sore “fill-in-the-blank” takes up more and more of their day. I, however, am aging backwards. I look back at my 20s and think, Honey, you couldn’t pay me to go there again! I slept too much, ate badly, was generally lazy, that whole mind-body-connection concept was lost on me. Sorry, Oprah! People who’ve known me my whole life can attest that this is true. It is! You know it is! Those who’ve only known me since I embarked on my own little time-reversal experiment just have to trust me on this one.

The year I turned thirty was pivotal. I know…it’s not a very original age to get introspective. I may as well have bought a ticket for the Biological Clock Factory tour that runs every hour on the hour for Single Women in their 30s. But it wasn’t so much I was feeling an ache to have children (which I don’t really, not right at this second, anyway) because I still felt like a kid myself. I had a desire to do something drastic and over-the-top and slightly revolutionary. I wanted to show Nature that she did not have final say over me. That I could, in fact, bend her to my will and force her to follow my new and improved Biological Clock, the one that runs counter-clockwise.

If my life was Lifetime made-for-TV movie, the actual manner in which I accomplished this feat would be depicted in montage-format, scored to inspirational and female-centric music, probably an India.Arie song. You’d see me waking up at 6 am and slip my running shoes on, which were ready to rock-and-roll by my bed every morning. That image would fade and you’d then see me chucking packages of white pasta and Pepperidge Farm cookies into the garbage, then eating healthy salads with carefully portioned chicken breasts. The montage would end with me doing a full-fledged chin-up, eyes clenched in concentration…that’s some good TV. Cut to present day.

Supposedly, women get more confident, know what they want, become more assertive at this age. I’ll buy that, I’m sold. No need to show me the studies that prove this to be true. I know it’s true in my case and for the scores of girlfriends I have that are my age. Aging backwards for me means refusing to believe my body has to succumb to the ravages of time.

The desire to bitch-slap Nature doesn’t light a fire in my belly as much as it used to. As I make myself comfortable on the big, overstuffed couch that is my mid-thirties, I’m learning to coax Nature, more sweetly, into cooperating with me in my grand scheme, with a few chocolate covered almonds every-once-in-a-while and an occasional glass of merlot.

Keeping Mushy Brain Disease At Bay

I made a commitment to write about 500 words a day, every day, indefinitely. This is because I am trapped in a cubicle for seven and half hours a day, doing a job that to this day makes me shake my head in disbelief and say to myself, “I can’t believe this is my job.” When describing what I do for a living, inevitably, ten minutes later, the person I was describing my job to says, “So what exactly do you do again?” It’s the kind of work that takes any creative tendency you may have and squashes it; smooshes it, right out of existence. Suffice it to say, my job involves ticket numbers, billing issues and ever-present feelings of futility; I imagine it’s a lot like what purgatory would be like. That’s all you need to know because even if I were to talk in more detail about the job, you’d just come back with that same question everybody always asks.

So this blog is part of my effort to, as Jesse says, “keep hope alive.” And the hope is that I manage to regain that creative sensibility I used to have say, ten years ago, before I had rent to pay, credit cards to juggle, a car note, an Overstock.com addiction. In college, I majored in English and I wasn’t one of those wafflers who changed majors every ten minutes. As a freshman, I knew English was it. What other major could you read great literature, then write about it? Then get a diploma for it?

I remember as a freshman, I used to struggle with writing the perfect sentence. I sat, with pen and paper in hand (this was before PCs and my boxy little Mac Classic), and sweated out sentences, word by word. As my college writing career progressed and the pressure of more papers to write bore down on me, the flow of words from my pen gained momentum and suddenly I was able to bang out papers pretty damn fast. Need ten pages on the Nun in The Canterbury Tales? No problem. Would you like to know my musings on the lethality of mother-love in Toni Morrison’s Beloved? Love to share with you! What about the author’s use of Taglish in Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters? I just happen to have twenty pages on just that topic.

Self-expression seldom makes it on the priority list of most people. Yet, ignoring that need in ourselves is surefire way to end up on a rooftop somewhere, picking off innocent bystanders and people who seem, by your standards, too damn happy for their own good. Hopefully it never reaches that point with 99.99% of the people out there. Unfortunately, people who lack a creative outlet participate in the routine of their lives with a dull, empty-calorie kind of feeling; I imagine, perhaps, that they cannot pinpoint the source of their malaise, maybe going through their entire adulthood without a clue as to why they’re not truly happy.

I don’t think that starting this blog will alleviate that gnawing, dull feeling that often plagues grown-up kids that are masquerading as productive members of society (like me). But, it’s my little attempt to keep my mind from turning into mush in a socially acceptable way. And, look at that! It’s 3 pm and I only have two more hours to go before quitting time!