I wonder

/

What's it all about? I wonder.....

Being or Seeming

One of the Diggs I enjoyed today was (see list below from my Digg feed), the Importance of Being Yourself. This hit home for me yesterday in a wonderful workshop I attended at an art retreat here in Encinitas.

The theme was body acceptance, a teacher of West African Dance facilitated. We danced to the drums, did sculpture in clay and wrote and shared poems about our experience, all in am amazing setting on a hillside going down into a canyon, with beautiful plantings, art, a labyrinth, studio, and whimsical things to look at everywhere.


So you can try to look good doing things, be concerned more with form, with the delusion of perfection, with the abstract, with memories that hold you hostage, with stories someone told you about who you are and how things should be, or you can choose to dive in, let go, get wet, in the the juicy, unpredictable, sometimes messy experience called being alive.

Who we are is unique, and yet nothing human is unique. None of our secrets or skeletons are as unusual as we imagine they are.

Our pain is always evident to others, no matter how well we think we have it locked down and packed away. It leaks out, inevitably, through our tightly clenched jaws, our impassive expressions, the discordance in our words and expression.

So why not let it out? However works for you, talk, dance, cry, paint, scream to the heavens...find a good someone to hold you if you can...just don't leave it in there to damage your organs, corrode the walls of your blood vessels, twist your bowels, strain your relationships, dilute your life force.

So we can spend our life Seeming, or choose Being, albeit with responsibility and balance, and let the chips fall where they may.

If Jail is the Big New Hollywood Career Move...

is there new ironic meaning to the old phrase she ''can't even get arrested''?

What does that mean for Nicole Richie's..er, ''career''? will she get some real lift off now, with the 82 minutes of time served? She sure looks happy.

What about Lindsey Lohan's one day? Does that mean these girls are on the way out or on the way up ? What does it all mean? !

Martha Stewart got many months (for really just being unlikable), and look what it did for her! She's got a new dynasty and bigger and better than ever, she even shook off that mean rep she had, it's cool to like her now, she has street cred as well as all the moolah.

They say the jails are too full in California and they can't be bothered with these petty issues like DUIs and small amounts of cocaine possession, which is why Lindsey Lohan is getting off lightly. Maybe that is true. But are they going easy on everyone, are the jails just as full if you're average unknown offender?

I had to wonder if the police and courts had their hands full in my own area...because for the third time I was pulled over and not cited, when the officer pulled me over and told me, laughing! That I had nearly crashed into his patrol car! I had swerved into his lane (I was rushing to get to my therapist's office, and a few minutes late, I merged without signaling and he was in my blind spot..he put on his loudspeaker and told me to pull into the nearest gas station parking lot).

I did so and was resigned to a ticket, pulling out my wallet and opening my dash to get the registration. The last two times, once in June when I'd gotten a field sobriety coming back from a club (for once i was glad to be out with a non drinker and as its no fun to drink alone, had had just ONE, but the pain pills from my recent broken wrist made me woozy and the officer said my eyes ''looked funny'' thus he put me through the ritual: walk a straight line, touch your nose, recite the alphabet etc. And to add to my crimes, I was not carrying my driver's licence, and had ''rolled'' through a stop sign.

I dodged that bullet and he let me go with a verbal warning, saying since I was a local and lived nearby, he'd let me go this time.

The other incident was in La Jolla when I ran a stop sign on the way to a party. That officer also let me go without a ticket - perhaps my excessively low cut shirt had something to do with it? he could have cited me on two counts, the stop sign and not having my california license yet.

So this last time, the third, I knew I must have run out of luck.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?" He asked. 'I guess because I didn't signal?" "You almost CRASHED right into my car, if I hadn't swerved out of the way, you would have hit me!'' he was laughing, like it was the funniest thing in the world. Never asked me for license, registration or insurance. ''I am SO sorry I said. ''I just wanted to tell you that!'' he said, continuing to laugh, walking away back to his police car. I kept my wallet in my hand, waiting for him to ask me to see my id, but he never did.

I kept thinking about the show I watch on channel called, One, Black men Revealed, as a professional eavesdropper it's dishy stuff..


where some guys sit around and talk very frankly among themselves, it's a fascinating show, you feel like you're in a man's locker room hearing the real dirt.
<

Recently they were discussing the treatment they get based on complexion, ie, if a darker hued man is treated differently than lighter. They all had experiences of cops yelling at them OUT OF THE CAR, for no infraction at all, just DWB, and asking accusingly if this is their car if it's an expensive model. Was mine a DWB situation in reverse, driving while blonde instead of driving while black, or are the courts here in Southern California so overflowing with serious cases, they are looking the other way with minor scofflaws like me and Nicole Richie and Lindsey Lohan,and they have to chuckle and look the other way? Not that I'm complaining....

Sure never happened when I lived up north. They were pretty pitiless up there

Karl Rove admits to finally takes off his girdle

....Admits industrial strength foundation garments have been the true secret to his success as he throws passive aggressive brickbats over his shoulder to his former employer. No fool this Rove.



But how could a girdle possibly change the world you ask?



The firm squeezing of the girdle make Spankz seem limp and lame. We are talking old school truss, real militant lift and separating action. Let's face it. When you are relaxed, man boobs swaying gently in the breeze, gelatinous belly joyfully sprung, able to slouch and slump at will, dark plots just don't emanate with the same urgency. Think Jimmy Buffet or Jack Black. Those brothers aren't hatching world takeovers. They are just too darn comfortable.


Now when you have your man girdle on - you are loaded for bear - you're in a state of stiff frustrated Machiavellian readiness; naturally, discomfort + testosterone x power = a virtual sludge factory of dark schemes and geopolitical domination.


Plots bubble up and ooze over, squeezed out of your erect tight man tube like some vile anchovy paste ready to spread all over your Rove world pizza pie.


I know Karl; you're not really all that sorry about the food poisoning most of us got since we ate at least a slice or two (Iraq with onions, Katrina fontina, deep dish corruption, fake news thin crust), but on the bright side, without your girdle you can now eat as much of your own creation as you like and feel just as sick as the rest of us.

Denial Part II

So today, I'm at a little hip vintage shop here in downtown encinitas to replace my cracked sunglasses...and while there, spy this cute puffy little dark gray cotton shrug top..as i eyeball, looks like it'll fit...

the shop is staffed by two lanky pierced tatted 20something guys..and there are a few young women shoppers..i'm the lone ''mature'' person there...

.i ask what looks like the shop proprieter where the nearest mirror is, (none are obviously located in these type of establishments)...

i plan to just put the top on over my very thin t shirt, no need to use a dressing room ..im a bit claustrophobic....

when i hold up the shirt to myself, the dark gray and feminine gathers look amazing with my fair skin -- so flattering!! and it's cheap too!

...i love it when i find something like this..start imagining how cute ill be in various get ups, imagine it with some pretty layered necklaces, camisoles underneath, what makeup ill wear..start setting the scene in my imagination of how great ill look and ill how ill seduce some delectable guy and how he won't be able to resist my charms in my puffy gray cotton top......

...so i pull it on and notice it is a bit snug in the arms but i CAN get it on, (like it's some kind of contest).. but once on i can't get it pulled closed over my ahem, generous, bustline..

..seeing it wont close, or anything close to it..(there are a good six inches between each side).. i disappointedly start trying to take it off....start, try..tug..pull, discreetly twisting...it isn't coming off...it is absolutely stuck on my arms..

..you know when you have something in the back of you and you can't reach behind? like a zippered dress? or a wetsuit or ..you are held hostage by terrorists or ...or you acted out too much in public and the ''authorities'' had to be called and you were ''taken away'' and ''restrained'' ..or that seemingly fun S&M adventure you signed up for went a little off the track ... ??

THAT tight..

..i struggled for several moments..stopped..perspiration..embarassment...and debated ..do i risk tearing this thin cotton ..or do i risk the shame of asking this uber cool tatted hipster to help me get out of this straitjacket..

i glanced over at him and thankfully he was quite studiously avoiding looking my way at my undignified distress, even though he was a few feet away and had to be aware of it

at last *(probably 6 minutes..felt like a lifetime in shame moments) i wriggled free..hung the cute little top on its hanger put it back where it belonged, went to the cash register with my pair of sunglasses, head held medium high and went out into the bright sunday street...my eyes now properly darkened again..

Truth mirror...bulkhead musings...back home and alone..

..so wednesday coming home...i had a hacking cough, felt pretty beat up.....but i got a nice seat right behind first class and thought cool! bulkhead window on row 6 (first on first off ) and the middle is empty! score! ..with a cool lady on the aisle...no little kids adjacent -- location location location !!

..settle in with my magazines and trident splash...when comes through the doorway... a very very large woman.....she's turning this way..oh no...no no no ....the seat spillover issue...well its only a 2 plus hour flight i tell myself..

..turned out not too bad..i had to ask her to move some of her bulk so i could get the tray from inside the armrest..which must have been awkward for her..i could tell she held herself in quite a bit..i am no stick..more like a little thick! ..but to actually overflow the seat, and be seated in the middle...that bulkhead is some desirable real estate to go voluntarily sign up for that...

..i thought about several years ago when i was a bit heavier (quite a bit) than i am but was in major denial about it..i avoided scales, tape measures and full length mirrors

such denial that when i was on a plane (which wasnt often then)..i actually thought they had reduced seat sizes in an airline wide cost cutting measure..and i even openly shared my delusion with other people (on the plane, relatives..)

(it is truly amazing how far people will take their sense of courtesy -- to the extent of not correcting a frank delusion! ....i guess that's why the emperor's new clothes story is such a classic and will always hold true...people would let someone be stark nude on main street and not tell them they're nude rather than hurt their feelings or risk rocking the boat....because no one said anything to correct me -- like: the seats haven't shrunk..or plainer -- you have gotten fat... (or the more polite ''big'' ''husky'' ''large'' ''generously proportioned'' ''plus size'' , even the euphemistic, well maybe youve put on a few pounds..etc)

..and when my clothes were very tight, i actually thought they had shrunk in the wash..amazing the tricks the mind can play..

..i remember Celery and She talking about the Truth Mirror, a special mirror that was touring in Brooklyn..., had a technology that reversed the image so you saw yourself exactly as another person really sees you -- not as you see yourself in the mirror -- which is really a reversed image ..the brain goes into such shock when it sees its actual image that there is a sort of over adjustment -- you process yourself at first as more clownish and a-symmetrical than you really are until the brain adjusts-- picasso-esque..

..the woman demostrating this marvel told them many people cry and sob in despair when they realized how they were actually seen, but a few were happy -- just a few...my daughter was happy. Im sure I would have been upset because Im so asymmetrical.

(The woman was convinced Gore would have won the election if he would have only used the Truth Mirror, and changed the side of his hair part. He wasn't getting the way the public was seeing him she said. )

..denial is interesting ..and the adjustments we make to reality..i wonder what despair we'd all be in if we could absorb even the half of it ...but then we'd course correct and be better off, eh??

post tannerisms and immigration reform

..apparently tanner is none too fond of his brother elliott...i dont know if this kid is stealing all the family thunder, eating all the food, bogarting all the video time, or what..but he has gotten on tanner's bad side in a big way... tanner claims

..he *(the brother, whose name doesnt escape his lips) doesnt even have a BLUE card ..'' ..''what is a blue card?'' i ask...''well you know what a green card is, when theyre not even from this PLANET they get a blue card..'' ..(he) doesnt even qualify for a blue card...

he keeps insisting the offending brother needs to undergo a dna test to see if he's actually even human..

..i offer that since his status is so questionable and we are in roundup lock em up mode, perhaps they should call the INS... yes!! Tanner and Nate shout.. and run to the computer to google to INS. With the right number and contacts, they can get the ball rolling getting this kid sent back to wherever...

..but they got distracted by something else online and besides didnt know what INS stood for..i guess Elliott is safe for the time being...