I need a ghost writer

When I'm a little down, tired, overwhelmed, confused, melancholy and pissie (that's slightly angry but more on the bitchy end), I always wish I could write it up prosaically and even poetically like Elizabeth.  Her writing makes me swoon and it would you too if you read her. 
I've thought of calling her, telling her how I feel and having her write it up for me. She would make it so much shorter and prettier.
Oh,  I left out crying,  it's an important feature, there has been a significant amount of that.

So, in lieu of a skilled ghost writer.....
I've been doing pretty well lately. Keeping it all "together". Except for clothes shopping which is so fucked.  I don't have a lot of cashola so I always think - I can find something really cool looking (because I'm a cool person...) on the sales rack at Macy's or at Ross or Old Navy (no one should shop there, they use slave labor) and mind you, that would be the Old Navy sales rack too, geez. But I always wind up getting home and going - god! this is a piece of shit! I wear it until it is either so shrunken or stretched that I have to start the whole process over.  I call this economizing.

I made a friend, I made a friend, I made a friend!  Why do we say made?  She is so much fun. And we get each other. That is a rare thing to find, at least for me - maybe for her too. (and you too?)  So that is a very good thing. Not that you, my virtual friends are not friends, but you're not going to call me. Nor I you. And actually she is a fellow blogger - so I am completely  wrong about the calling thing.

A very sad and truly shitty thing happened too.  Someone who I should be able to trust, wrote me an email to say that he/she would no longer be going to bestow upon me an amount of $ that would significantly improve my life.  He/she (I don't want to be too obvious here) had been, without giving me a heads up,         (because I have been sitting here alone with no word from any living soul that I should be able to trust for over a year)
stashing a little bit to help me out of the fucked situation that I have wound up in because of the difficulty of trusting the people that I should have been able to trust...... because - I said "go f*~k yourselves" in one of my blog posts in reference to a situation that was ripping the skin off my brain.  One never knows who is reading, but like all who blog know, essentially you write for yourself - caution often thrown to the winds and really that's the best way to write.  He/she is only misguided, suffering too, and who wants to be told to go f*~k yourself.  But, come on, is that really worth a smack to the side of the head?

 So be it. Life is full of surprises.  One of those surprises might just be the way you handle one of those surprises. I'm surprised at myself.

(I have no idea why I am doing that little funny thing instead of just saying fuck.  It's the first time I ever did that and I'm not sure if there is a formula for the little things.)

And, on the flip side of that, another one of those people that I should be able to trust actually did a very nice thing for me, unexpected and sweet. So trust gets renewed a bit - it's a process.

And last, but definitely! not least, I downloaded the forms to file to legally change my name!  Yes! It is exciting and scary. And it makes my heart feel like it is inching it's way up into my throat and I swear to god, I am not going to lay them on the desk and let them get buried under a bunch of other papers.  I'm keeping them right on top of the printer, right next to my shoulder here.  And I am going to look at them until I can pick up the pen and fill them out.  I'm giving myself two weeks at the outside. It's time.

Well, a little not so bad, mixed in with a little good and I'm good to go.
Next, if nothing big gets in the way, I will be writing the story of how I got to India, it is fascinating!  (because I'm kinda, sorta thinking of going back - the result of too much time to think and a lack of a good plan)

I still wish I could have put a poem in.

thought for the day

Thought for the day --

How do they clean the gutters on the top level of those three story McMansions?  That is a whole niche of a business.  You would have to have a crane, except you couldn't get it into the back or even side yard because oddly they are packed pretty close together...go figure!
Or do they just let guk pile up in there (and those stuffed gutter things only work so well) until they start to rot the roof and then they tear the whole thing down and start all over ?

Just thinking.

And to add to that: I just read that - Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf were more than probably bipolar - not bad company :)

You said WHAT?

OK, here's how it went...

My daughter is the funniest person on earth.
She is a massage therapist specializing in the damndest, greatest massage you ever had in your life!!

The thing with massage therapist is that if you don't have your own studio, and most therapists don't...it's a spendy thing, you work for someone.  A clinic, a chiropractor etc.
But the other thing is that therapists are always looking for jobs because, A - most people don't pay enough. Get this...someone was in a car accident, the chiropractor gets paid by the insurance company for each adjustment about.... let's say $165.  Then the client gets a massage to follow the adjustment and that gets paid by the insurance company at $165 too.  The therapist gets......$30 to $50.
B - When you get hired, clinics and chiro's always say...we have TONS of business! We can guarantee you a full work week, in fact we have more business than we can handle.  And then they call you at 8:am to tell you that the 2 massages they have booked for you...both cancelled.
Some give health insurance but the majority don't.  My daughter has been paying $365 a month for her health insurance, that's on the ACA (eyes crossed here)

So my daughter is looking for a job where none of these things happen and maybe some good stuff happens.  She has been a therapist for 4 years, she has done more that 4000 massages, she knows what she is doing. She constantly has people come back who ask only for her.  No lie, I'm not just being an exaggerating mom here.

So she's looking for another job. She responds to an ad, it sounds really good.  They are offering $45 an hour.  They say they can guarantee her 30 hrs. a week. They pay insurance, they give paid vacation !!!!! and there's free parking...what's not to like?
She interviews. They ask every kind of technical question under the sun, like they are interviewing for a brain surgeon.  She flies through that. (well, a couple little glitches, but my girl can charm the heck out of anybody!!) The boss asks for a massage to check her skills (they all do), usually a 1/2 hr.  The woman says, 90 minutes!  My daughter does deep tissue work, that's hard.  The woman wants deep tissue, for 90 minutes! Most massages, which are usually 1hr. long, are a variation of different techniques, so neither your muscles nor the therapist gets overworked. After about an hour, my daughter is sweating like a pig and thinking that she's going to kill this woman by breaking every bone in her body, and she say's the woman was yammering through the whole thing like this was a tea party, and of course you have to answer back and of course by now you do want to kill the bitch! THEN they sit down for the "let's get to know each other" conversation which lasts for 45 minutes where the boss lady continues to yammer on about how wonderful, cool, prestigious and prosperous her business is.  L is a little overwhelmed not to mention tired, but she wants to make a good impression. Oh did I mention that the office manager sat in on all of this and took notes...notes! for christ sake!  So the ending question was, of course, what do you like to do in your spare time..... she really wanted to impress them....

I'm listening to this whole thing with my mouth wide open and feeling for her as her eyes are rolling in her head, so I said  - well what did you tell them?
She said






I'm a bee keeper.




My daughter is allergic to bees!

Hello...

                                                                  

                                                                             

Normally I would apologize for a post like this.  Not today.    I know I don't post often.  So maybe people kind of forget that I am here.  But I am.  I have a good number of people who read me, I can see that.  I'm well aware that I should blog more, I don't need reminding and believe me, I know that's totally my fault.   I try to write more, but sometimes I get stuck.  Every time I write, I do get at least one or two comments, and sometimes more (thank you!) - so I'm not writing about you.  The thing is, I comment on a lot of blogs.  I love what you write, (good, bad or otherwise). I try very hard to let you know that I do.  In fact, I rarely don't comment, but lord knows I'm not perfect and I don't expect you to be either,  I'm only asking for an occasional hello. And if I never said anything at all to you that would be because I don't know you're there.  I don't know who you are.  (or I might be a little shy, maybe you are too)   If you visit and say something, then I can visit you and say something - sounds like fun to me. ( oww, cringe, maybe I comment on you and you never read me, cringe again)

Comments help.  At least they seem to help/matter to the people who are receiving mine, if for no other reason than so that they know I am there, for them, appreciating their effort and their words. So if you hear me, if you read me, if you appreciate what I write, a comment would really help me to know that I'm not invisible, that you see me. It would help me.  And please know that I am aware that some people don't get any comments. And some that I read don't get any comment except mine and they both seem to be ok with that.  I hope that they would speak up if they're not. If they are then I am in awe of them.... but I'm not like that.

It's kind of embarrassing to say this stuff.  It will be even more embarrassing if doesn't change anything, but what the fuck, just about everything in life is a risk .  If you have something negative to say, go ahead, it doesn't mean I'll publish it, but at least I'll hear it and consider it. The good stuff is like...well, you know what it's like.

Now I'm going to step away and think about my next post. I hope I'll write it soon.  Big breath, no matter what.

I'm going to have a good day, I hope you do too.

Liv

Celebrating in Paris

                                                                            

Well, you can probably tell from the "one way" in English that we weren't really in Paris.  But that street in particular always reminds me of France.  It is the street where my daughter and I go every year to celebrate my birthday.

I've talked about this before, how it is my favorite thing (truly) to sit in the car, with breakfast  and coffee and pastries and just watch the people walk past.  Every year we try to get the same spot, on the corner! That's the best view and best for people watching.   There is a Starbucks to the right and a very posh hotel to the left, doormen and every thing..la dee da!  And a large city square, in front of the fancy hotel, with a fountain and lots of kids playing in the water and this year there was a violinist.

Most years we get right on the corner, usually because we are down there early and it's not crowded yet. Some years we are back a space or two and it's ok , but not ideal.  Once my daughter "borrowed" two tall traffic cones and drove down in the middle of the night to "reserve" our spot...that, was cool!  But this year we didn't get started until late, sleeping in was too much of a luxury to pass up.  So lunch it was instead of breakfast.  The most best lunch ever from a place called Lardo, their motto is, " Bringing Fatback".  Get it?  And Fat was delicious! If you ever go there - get the fries with pork belly, yes, do it, you won't regret it for at least two days. Double dark chocolate cake and ice cold milk - brought a cooler - ha - thinking ahead!

We knew we were only going to get, probably, far back, if we were lucky and maybe even a street or two away from Paris.   All of a sudden Liz grabbed my arm, tight, and mouth open eyes popping,  there the fuck it was. Two o'clock in the afternoon. Saturday. Some kind of Asian conference in town - god they're beautiful, forgive me if that sounds reverse racist, but I see something so serene and calm there.  (they're probably just lost, there were a lot of heads together over unfurled maps...serene and calm heads). We pulled in and just sat there in silence for a bit. On the corner...! Every once in a while we would look at each other and open mouth laugh.  Seriously, we were giddy.

Doing this is a very sweet and simple thing for me.  I like simple.  I like the warmth of the car, the sun roof open, good food and my daughter just a foot away from me.  Icing on the cake, it was sunny.  We talk about all kinds of things. Conversations that are different, more intimate in the coziness of the car.  We've decided that it's our kind of picnic. No ant's, no wet grass, no too-cold breeze that sweeps the napkins away and keeps flipping the blanket up. No one listening to our conversations and no butt numbing from sitting on the too hard ground. Every year she say's, "Are you sure? You don't want to go to a restaurant, do something you've never done before?"  I'm sure.  I will always remember these birthdays as the best of my life.

We stayed a long time. Usually we are there for about two hours, this time we stayed for four.  It was that perfect and that beautiful.  About 1/2 way through we got out and walked over to the square and sat and watched the kids play in the water - sheer delight.  There's nothing like a two year old fascinated by a little spout of water. It's mesmerizing for kids...and us.

We left around six, when the shadows are getting long and the sunlight gets soft.  We looked at each other and sighed and said... "It's time."  Liz snapped the photo and it brings it back every time I look at it.  Special moments with my daughter on a simple birthday afternoon.  The only thing that could have made it any better would have been a lemon-drop martini in a chilled glass. But let's not gild the lily.  Simple was divine.







PS: I forgot to try to enlarge the type....ghezze. Emphasis on try, it just confounds me, so you'll have to do it yourself - you know how. And I wish to heck that I could figure out how to fill that blank white space at the top by "Slice of...".  That confounds me too, as do so many things in life:)