“Go West,” Young Heathen

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211H

So… I’m heading West in my covered wagon. Okay, fine – it’s a shiny black Beetle convertible, and the soft top keeps the wind out much better than those flaps of old. But those are just semantics.

For those who didn’t know. Surprise! My Inner Nomad is ready for a change. I’ve been in Cleveland for almost 9 years now and I’m approaching my limit, itching for something new, that North wind of Chocolat fame is a-blowing.

And I have no idea where I’m going to go.

I’m reminded of Joan Didion’s book Where I Was From. Her ancestors seeking a new adventure in covered wagons through the Oregon Trail and Donner pass, meeting death along the way. Didion’s family carried their treasures; Rosewood chests, flatware, a hand mirror- if memory serves. I think about what I will carry in my own “covered wagon”; my beloved pup So-Kr8z in his doggie car-seat, 42 boxes of books, and a passel of memories from my time here.

If you read my previous article you’ll know that dreaming of my home in San Francisco caused me to break out in a hell of a rash. I don’t think this means I won’t end up there, I’ve just realized that I can’t cling so tightly. In fact, I got an email from the Universe post-rash that caused my morning coffee to spurt from my nose:

“Uncertainty, Melanie, only means I’ve yet to decide how to surprise you best, based upon all you’re thinking, saying, and doing.” ~ The Universe

Wow! I love that. And… as Lissa Rankin says, “Sometimes we ask for a Pinto, when the Universe is trying to give us a Rolls Royce.” Who knows… maybe I’m asking for San Fran and the Universe is trying to give me Europe.

So, I’ve stopped worrying about the “hows” and the “wheres” and am focusing instead on the “what I want to feel” in this new place of mine.

I’m only sure of one thing, at this point: I’ve started packing.

Are You Missing the Most Important Steps in Creating Your Vision Board?

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I have a rash and I can’t quite figure out why. Do I have an infestation of the dreaded bed bugs currently humping their way across the Midwest? Or… (bear with me here), could it be the way that I envision my dreams? Is it an allergic reaction to the dust on my Vision Board? Or, perhaps, it’s my inner critic causing these hives?

For months I’ve been daydreaming about my home in San Francisco. Each night, before I fall asleep, I picture the color scheme of my kitchen, where my Wolf stove sits, the dear friends laughing around my dining room table, and the commissioned artwork that hangs above my fireplace. So when the ball dropped into 2011 I didn’t worry too much about updating my Vision Board. I was busy working with Lissa Rankin on a product for Owning Pink and I was “visioning” my dream home every night anyway. Not to mention the fact that there were big gaping holes in the success of my Vision Boards of the past. My understanding of “The Secret” had been that you cut out your little pictures representing what you want, paste ‘em up, and forget about them altogether. Hence the dust. Read more

Painting a Life: A Work in Progress (Or So I Thought)

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This is a story about a half-painted bathroom. That might sound really dull, ironically much like watching paint dry, but bear with me because this is also a story of how a half-painted bathroom represented my state of mind.

In October 2002 I took a gargantuan leap of faith and left my ten year marriage, packed up a U-Haul with 2 boxes of photo albums, 31 boxes of books, a single, stained twin mattress, and drove 1,721 miles across country to Cleveland, Ohio.

My friends, my family, and my husband thought I was nuts. Many were sure that I’d found someone else, a few thought I was going through a mid-life crisis at 33, still others just shook their heads and never were quite able to understand it. I’d be included in that last group, hitching my hand up in the air to be counted. Read more

How To Be Alone

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I’m about to get real, folks. Really real.

I like to be alone. I’m not simply saying, “I like my alone time.” Nothing puny like that. I’m saying, “I utterly love being alone.” I take a lot of flack for this — from society, from those whom I love, from therapists around the world spouting “connection” and “human interaction”. I have frequent conversations with myself wherein I ask, “Am I normal? Is there something wrong with me?” When I allow myself to buy into society’s spigot of “norms”, I’m pretty certain that I’m whack. Except then I feel that rush of joyful bliss that makes me giggle out loud when I’m all by myself and all of those theories flush right down the drain.

The How

Make Thanksgiving dinner the night before Thanksgiving because you simply cannot wait and you’re not expecting company anyway. Prepare only the foods you love, mainly those with a sauce of some sort. Prep your $1100 mattress for a canvas o’ culinary goodness and feast on roasted turkey with sage, whipped mashed potatoes drizzled with real butter and smooth, creamy gravy, baked yams with bubbling brown sugar sauce, and Waldorf salad swimming in sugar syrup, minus the gross bananas. Watch Disney movies while you eat and spill blobs of said gravy onto said mattress. Lay there after your gorge, feeling like a sixteen year old boy who just lost his coveted virginity in 3.2 minutes. Sleep in the wet spot. Read more

Auld Lang WHAT? On Friendship

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Auld Lang WHAT?

Zine? Sign? After a bit ‘o Googly magic I found that the song that has perplexed me for nigh on forty years is an ancient Scottish ditty and, roughly translated, the phrase “Auld Lang Syne” means “times gone by.”

Boy do I hear that.  Where has the time gone?  Monica and I have known each other for 31 years.  We met on a blustery day (I’m assuming it was blustery because Cheyenne always seemed blustery) in the 4th grade on a gravel-strewn school yard.  I was a gangly girl with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and dark green velour pants while Monica was tall (and made taller by her clogs), dainty and feminine at 10 years old sporting frilly dresses and lacy shirts.  Despite our different fashion senses (okay, actually I didn’t have a fashion sense) we became fast friends.  The Universe tore us asunder in the six grade as my mom packed up my Holly Hobbie room and Monica and I clung to each other sobbing and covered with collective snot before I too was pried away and loaded up in the U-Haul. Read more

Books & Baby Ducks: Patrick Rothfuss, “The Ultimate World Builder”

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Books and baby ducks, yep, yep.  I discovered this chock-full-of-amazing combination last year while “virtually” stalking one of my favorite writer’s blog.  (Okay, “stalking” is a strong word, I just happen to visit his blog once or twice a day to ensure that I don’t miss one single word that might have fallen from his mind to his keyboard in the six or so hours since I last visited his blog, that’s all.)  When I came upon this delightful combination I felt as if I were the first person to drop a chocolate chip cookie into a glass of ice-cold milk; I had to share it with the world.  The veritable made-of-awesome-builder-of-amazing-fiction-worlds Patrick Rothfuss himself, was running his annual Worldbuilders fundraiser through Heifer International and my toes curled with joy: Books and Baby Ducks. Read more

Amazon.com Promotes Guide To Pedophilia… Say What?

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205H

I’m scared shitless.  I’m about to go First Amendment on you.

For years I’ve been writing about ice cream trucks, trips to the salon to regain my Mojo, and my super-pup So-kr8z, but I’ve never tackled something controversial or political. Even writing about the intimate details of my endometriosis just feels personal and safe to me. My dabbles into “politics” consist of refraining from using the “F-bomb” during conference calls and voting from home in my electric blue, polar bear jammies in September. Suffice it to say the level of my discomfort in writing this post is palpable, but screw it, here goes.

Last night, as I lay in bed in the aforementioned pajamas, chawing on snacks, listening to the CMA awards (and remembering, when a song came on about cancer, why I don’t listen to country music anymore), I wiped the tears off my iPad in order to peruse Twitter and found the most appalling thing I had ever seen. Read more

Hair… Not the Musical

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121H

I wore my hair down the other day; it had been about 8 months since I’d done so.  My classmates at CSU said things like, “Whoa, your hair is really pretty, I didn’t know it was so long.”  Or, “you should wear your hair down more often.”  These were awesome things to hear, and I might admit to having done a casual hair flip, but inside I was ready to claw my face off. The wind was blowing, as per usual, in the vortex of the quad and the pale pink Mac lip gloss I had applied earlier that day was acting as a magnet to my hair.  Every strand was stuck to my lips until I looked like a blond crazed version of Cousin Itt.  Loose flyaways reached up and tickled my face so that by the end of the day I ended up with a trail of fingernail ruts across my nose from the scratching.

Why do I have long hair then, you might ask?  Dorothy Hamill, trauma, and a 4th grade promise, that’s why. Read more

“Living” with Endometriosis – Part Deux

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A more fervent “What. The. F-ck?” has never been uttered.

I’ve long held the belief that our physical illnesses are correlated somehow with our mental processes. For years I’ve maintained that Louise L. Hay is right on the money and is a healer way ahead of her time. While I will admit that I do struggle with her affirmations at times, I do pull out her trusty book when I have an ailment and meditate on what might be going on within me. 99% of the time I can see it as clear as a crisp autumn day.

Yet despite my knowledge of my dis-ease, despite three surgeries, despite a post already written about “Living with Endometriosis” I’m back, yet again, wondering what lesson it is that I haven’t learned; what it is I haven’t grasped. Read more

Beauty 1001: Satin Finish or The Real Me?

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I’ve just scrubbed my face with a mini loofah and slathered copious layers of lotion on my skin.  I feel dried out, despite the forty ounces of cream I’ve applied at $100 a pop.  I mean dry; as in my skin feels like it’s been lying dormant in a crypt since the beginning of the pharaoh age.  I look in the mirror and I see bloodshot eyes with slate colored circles underneath, little webs of red lacy blood veins cover the apples of my cheeks, and tiny new wrinkles have been etched around my eyes with a mini chisel by efficient little Age Elves while I slept.

And of course, I need to leave the house, like ten minutes ago.  I need to take my pup for a walk.  “Toot Sweets”, as I affectionately call him, has been cooped up all day, and earlier, when I bent over to clean the bathroom floor, he actually tried to shove his squeaky toy… (never mind, different post.) The question is, do I really want to waste a half hour of my precious time putting on make-up for a 45 minute walk in a park where I will carry a lavender scented purple poop bag and likely see no one, unless I don’t wear makeup? Read more