A Little Trip

Going on a little trip tomorrow. I fully expect to be seated next to this woman:

A man, a zebra, and a parrot all go to a bar.

Only it's not a joke...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120523/NEWS/305220087/-1/SPORTS12/Man-zebra-parrot-truck-charged-OWI

and it ends like this:

I assure you, clicking the link above will be worth it.

A little morning motivation from the interwebs...

Me and Honeybadger

Here's a statistic for you:  90% of people fail to keep their New Year's resolutions. I just made that statistic up, but I bet it's close.  That would hardly be a shocker since we do it every year and still pick the same thing to try the next year.  I figure probably you've spent several sleepless nights wondering how I'm doing with mine and since I want you to be well rested, it seemed like the six month mark is a good time to update you.  Here's the original post on my New Year's resolution to trust my own gut this year: http://strangerlori.blogspot.com/2011/12/resolved.html and after I re-read it, I realized it was more appropriate that my adherence to my 2012 motto, "I don't give a %^$* what you think" was really probably the more important other half of it, so here's that link too:  http://strangerlori.blogspot.com/2012/01/might-be-time-for-new-motto.html.  You don't need to go back and read it to follow along, but there it is.

To be honest, I am certain that "I don't give a $%^@ what you think" will never be an instinctive sort of statement for me both because I've spent 40 years letting your gut take the place of mine and because I just like knowing people like me.  I'm okay with that, but it's been so important for me to at least try the phrase on for a while and I'm getting pretty good with it. You've no idea how completely icky it feels to press "PUBLISH" on a post that means ANYONE ON THE WHOLE WIDE INTERNET can now know that I fell down the stairs or that I acted a fool at the circus (not giving you the links to those, you will have to work for it).  

Here's how my writing process usually goes:  Finish a post, re-read, fret, check spelling, fret, take a shower, make changes, fret, finally say, "I don't give a $#% what they think, because this is me and they don't have to read it and I'm okay if they don't like me", go downstairs, re-read, make this worried eeek face:

and then hit PUBLISH and remind myself I'm okay.  And then immediately run into someone at Walmart whom I barely know who says "I read your blog" and die a little. The good news is that my response time to actually landing on my motto is much shorter than it used to be.

But writing to you is not the only arena of concern in my life. I painted some birds I liked and some I wasn't proud of and decided that I didn't ask anyone to like them or purchase them and folks can go paint their own damn birds if they want. That felt pretty good.  Some times the same thing goes with what I wear and what I do with my time.

So at the 6 month mark of letting my gut be my guide I can tell you that I'm getting pretty comfortable in the driver's seat of my own life and so is everyone around me.  Just like everyone else, though, I need the occasional reminder to let my motto be a guiding principle in my decisions. We still have 6 more months to go and I'm not gonna be in the 90%!

But inspiration often comes when you aren't searching for it, and while I typically avoid watching the little Youtube video posts on FB (I'm just too busy with the stalking parts of FB), thankfully my friend reminded me of the Honeybadger video circulating and you can't be surprised that I now have aligned myself with this hateful (and foul-mouthed) creature.
 Note to mom and Olivia:  you are not allowed to hear the sort of language contained in this video so YOU STOP right here. I will know if you didn't.  

So I'm not quite to Honeybadger status, but I'm way closer (and hoping not to cross the line into eating cobra). Check back with me in 6 months, though, because anything can happen. 

Real men wear pink tutus

Have you seen this wonderful project? I love that it has taken off!

www.thetutuproject.com

Weekend Recap

I've always said that I don't have a lot of SKILLS or specialties, but
that I possess an extraordinary ability to pick good friends.  That's
not to say I've never made a bad call on the investment of friendship
(book deal!). I have, but by and large I have a great, small set of
people I trust to show myself to in a very real and honest way.  This,
I think, is a must do on your bucket list. Shoot for 5 (so that you
can have a lunch partner most days), but settle for 2 and that's a
good life really. Start early, also, because it's a long project.
When I am accepting new applications for friendship, I have a lot of
things to consider. Potential new friends are put through a battery of
tests which range anywhere from staged crisis calls to a probability
calculator to determine if she might be a "drive me to cancer
treatments when I'm old" candidate. You think I'm kidding.

Anyway, shout out to Kenny for watching Olivia because my (very
qualified) friends Allison and Susan were able to join me at the beach
for a few days.  We cover a wide range of topics in not very much
time, but because it's important, we stay up later and talk, talk,
talk until our throats hurt.  These two women are beyond wise and
hilarious too so it's a thrilling weekend.  This year's Summit Talks
covered everything from farmers markets to the horrifying particulars
of aging that we are now hearing about (what the hell is a bladder
tack???).

A lot of good conversations start with the phrase,  "I read this
article..." you know. The particular article Susan mentioned was on
Fracking, which is actually short for Hydraulic Fracturing (for the
extraction of natural gas from the earth) and you know more than I do
about that, but in a nutshell the article detailed how very ill folks
who'd been working nearby a fracking site had become and continue to
become.  Here's the exact transcript:

S:  Who's idea was this fracking anyway?

L:  Some man. They like to dig holes and release natural gases and there you go.

A:  Wonder what would happen if women ruled the world.

L:  Well, we'd just say crap like, "OH MY GOD, Did you see how she was
fracking?"

S:  Yeah, "Her frackers aren't even real."

A: "Fracking slut."

If you had been there you'd have something to add, I bet.  And so we
had a discussion of the reality that we ladies aren't so kind to one
another. Bullying isn't exclusive to elementary schools, friends, and
where do you think they've learned this manipulation and envy?  But
the worst part of it is that what we'd all say we needed most from the
world: to be truly known and valued by someone, is exactly what we're
actively keeping ourselves from when we spend our time with friends
who treat us badly. This is why, when she was 3, I taught Olivia to
say, "GET OFF MY PROPERTY" on her playhouse porch with arms akimbo.
It's an essential life skill to be able to send the mean ones away.

Twice recently I've received emails with the phrase, "I knew you
wouldn't judge me" in them and at least 4 times this month  I've
heard, "I wouldn't want anyone to know this, but..." in regard to the
activities, difficulties, complete failures of their children and
marriages.  Now I understand the need for discretion and think it
ought to be used way more than it is (I mean, the DETAILS of your sex
life on FB exhaust and embarrass me), but that anyone would have to
fear her friends' judgement and gossip at a time when she desperately
needs support makes me terribly sad. I want to say, THESE PEOPLE ARE
MOST CERTAINLY NOT YOUR FRIENDS, if you can't share with them your
heartbreak and your excitement for fear of criticism and envy.  Or
maybe you do what I used to do and you've not tried to show them
something of yourself and you'd find that they'd be delighted or
RELIEVED to lay down their perfect picture and are just waiting on
you.  We looked at it through different lenses and landed on gratitude
that we have each other.

Our conversation moved on to the best way to make guacamole and the
joys of discussing sex with your children.  Just 4 days and it was
over, but what a great thing to feel the exhale that comes with
relaxing into an environment that suits you with friends who only want
the good stuff for you. So that's my wish for you today: that you'd
have someone you can show all of yourself to who's earned it and that
everyone else would keep their fracking to themselves.

May as well just dance

So I had a great girls weekend for Mother's Day. The thing about Mother's Day celebrating is that I can never figure out if that's the day you're supposed to NOT do anything motherly or if that's the day you're supposed to show your kids you can be the best of mothers by letting them make horrible messes of breakfast in bed so that you can then thank them through your gritted teeth and start cleaning.  If those are the options the best thing I can do is leave town.  

Naturally we spend a lot of our time away from the children talking about the children. When we feel like we are not doing it well, we fall back on the It Takes a Village thinking that basically is code for OH MY GOD THIS IS TOO BIG OF A JOB FOR ME PLEASE CALL IN REINFORCEMENTS, which, if we are honest about it, is why we LOVE school.  The problem is, this is probably what's happening at your carefully selected private school:  

But if you don't rely on them, they are just stuck with Uncle Eddie as your only back up and here's what HE teaches them:

I guess lock picking (notice how she glances around like she's on the lookout) is not such a bad skill, but since you know I have visions of prison sentences it doesn't sit so well with me.

Anyway, it's true that we can't raise these kids without some sort of community and I like the It Takes a Village idea so long as all the villagers have received background checks and don't subscribe to any porn websites or alien abduction theories.

The thing is, for all the worrying we do, the kids I see all seem to be pretty neat young people with their quirks and difficulties that will either be overcome, turned into something awesome, or translated into some treatable condition for their therapist later anyway. So the moms and I concluded that, if you are doing a sufficient amount of worrying over them, if you are enrolling them in endeavors with or without you that generate curiosity and enrich their imaginations, exposing them to the occasional failure and lots of kindness, then the kids are probably gonna be alright.

Now, who's up for making a video of us dancing behind them?