But I digress.

Locked up in an emotional shitstorm since Monday (which demarcated one year since Jason died), fueled by the joys of not sleeping and some pervasive stomach virus that’s made solid food an elusive pursuit, I really needed to see those words this morning. You – the lady who sent ‘em to me – you know who you are. So thank you.

I’m slapping myself.

I’m a huge fan of lists (which is causing my literary agent an undue amount of consternation), so there are two lists I’m going to make today. It’ll make the slapping easier to administer. THINGS THAT ARE EASY and THINGS THAT ARE HARD. Let’s go.

THINGS THAT ARE EASY

• Wallowing
• Whining
• Pissing
• Moaning
• Complaining
• Blaming
• Hiding
• Sulking
• Avoiding
• Following
• Denial
• Shame
• Liking
• Missing

THINGS THAT ARE HARD

• Changing
• Smiling (especially when there’s no reason)
• Fixing
• Owning
• Facing Truths
• Leading
• Acceptance
• Crying (you would think this would be in the EASY column, but it ain’t)
• Burning Things to the Ground
• Loving
• Forgiving (especially ourselves)
• Celebrating
• Honoring

Go ahead and put the word “ourselves” after most of those phrases.

And the different between the EASY stuff and the HARD stuff? Everything on the HARD list requires that you give yourself permission to do it.

So what’s the deal with permission? Seems to me that everything on the HARD list is pretty awesome. And yeah, I even like crying. I’m a sap. I will cry at sappy movies, viral videos, and kitten pictures on the internet. Go figure.

Anywhoo – permission. Why the fuck aren’t we giving ourselves permission to do the things we need to do? Why are we wallowing in places filled with Cheetos and bad porn when we could be out in the real world where brie and sex live?

Grant. Yourself. Some fucking. Permission.

That’s all I’ve got. I know what I’m doing today – and it involves moving a metric ton of things out from where they don’t belong so I have room for the things that really matter.

Me? I’ve been slapped. Maybe you have, too.

PS: Enjoy the koala bear having a bath. Can I get a non sequitur up in this joint? Holla…

Yes, this is what $20m worth of flight simulator looks like.

Which brings me to Hawaii

While the pile of shit I’d been living in was comprehensible, my sleep has not been. After hitting the send button on Thursday evening and summarily jettisoning my manuscript into the Road to Publication ether, I slept for 8 hours. I woke up on Friday in a bit of a fog, wondering what the hell had just happened. 8 hours, my own bed, no pressing deadline. Incomprehensible. Inconceivable, even.

It was unnerving. Yet, I set about the process of getting my life back after letting it run me for quite some time. I spent the weekend surrounded by people I like, who make me feel good. I laughed. I decided to run six miles (no explanation). And on Saturday evening, I got to fly a $20m full-motion Boeing 777 flight simulator. I took off, flew, and landed all over the world. And here’s where we talk about Honolulu.

Being someone who’s pretty comfortable in the back of an airplane, I’d never really put much thought into what goes on up front. I mean, shit – as long as everyone’s sober and they get the plane up and down without incident (evident by my typing this post, I’ve flown sans incident), I’m right as rain. Let me tell you: it’s an entirely different world when you’re sitting in the cockpit of a flight simulator that costs a gazillion dollars and tasked with taking that thing up into the air, flying it and putting it back down on the virtual ground without making headlines. I didn’t have any real expectations of what the experience would be like when a friend invited me along for the experience and left with any expectations I had blown out of the virtual water surrounding Hawaii.

First and foremost, I did not crash. And before you get all judgy on me for being proud of not crashing a “fake plane,” there’s a reason this thing costs $20 million. It’s real airplane parts. Real equipment. It’s what the pilots that fly you and me all over god’s own creation train in. And when your hands are on the controls and you’re told you’re at rotation speed and to pull back on the yoke…oh, and don’t crash…it’s not a fake plane.

Side note: I’d gone into the experience with a somewhat cavalier attitude, sporting a pair of black high-heeled boots and declarations that I’d be playing the role of the Jet Blue flight attendant for the evening. In retrospect, heels are super crappy footwear for controlling rudders. In case you were wondering.

Over two hours, I got to take off and land a huge fucking plane at three airports around the world. We started in San Francisco and ended in London, and my last turn at the controls was a takeoff and landing in Honolulu. Well, right after I took off, the awesome guy (he really was awesome) running our simulator decided to blow one of my engines.

I believe I squealed at an eardrum-piercing volume (like a GIRL) and let a “Shitballs!” fly (which the simulator operator was apparently amused by, not having heard that particular turn of phrase before) and summarily had to get my shit together so I didn’t crash my “fake airplane.” Let’s just say that there is a “pause” button in the simulator (for which I am thankful) and I never ever thought I’d be so worried about crashing a “fake” airplane.

But I was.

Which brings me to what we believe is real

Having lost so much of myself over the past few months, it was incredibly cool to go face-first into a total nerdgasm on Saturday in the flight simulator. Sometimes life brings us experiences and opportunities we never imagined we’d have and when those come along, you just kinda have to grab on and believe what’s happening. Kinda like climbing into a fake plane, y’know? We could fight them or treat them with less respect than they deserve (which is what we tend to do way too often, I think) or we could believe. We could give them their propers, embrace that we have no idea how it’s all going to turn out, and just smile a shiteating grin ear to ear while we figure out how to fly a plane with one engine.

What we perceive to be real is, more often than not, exactly what’s going to be our reality. So on Saturday, I had a near-miss with a $20 million plane over Honolulu and it made me think for the better part of the weekend that remained about what I paint as my reality on a daily basis.

When I see my life as overwhelming, guess what? It’s going to be overwhelming. If all I can think about is panic and holy fuck what was that noise my plane just blew an engine oh godfuckingofallhamstersdammit, how much energy do I have left to deal with the situation that needs dealing with?

Which is the problem. We spend more time on the emotions attached to our situations than we spend on the situations themselves.

See, for two months, I’ve been freaking out about ignoring my blog audience. Overwhelmed, on book deadline, short on sleep, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to put it all out there and post as often as I felt I owed you. Here I was, writing a book where the primary focus is on brand personality and understanding how to build a brand for the people who will pick up what you’re putting down, and I was ignoring the people who were already picking it up. Fuck me, right?

Realities are what we choose. No more, no less. If you put yourself in a world where 98% of your attention is diverted away from you, you’re going to lose you. When you tell yourself that you don’t have time for you, it’s guaranteed that you won’t. You’ll probably also start to resent yourself if you (god forbid) take a moment out for yourself because what kind of asshole does that?

So on Saturday, I flew a big ass plane and didn’t crash. And for the rest of the weekend, I worked on shifting my perception and sorting out what my reality truly is instead of what all this bullshit I’d let in told me it was. I never thought I’d get mad wisdom from a flight simulator experience – goes to show you what I know (and what any of us know for that matter).

And back to you…

You’ve been here for the past 358 days of what’s been a crazy ride – the year since Jason died. On October 31 last year, everything I thought to be reality was indiscriminately shattered and I was left to pick up the pieces. At first, it was like shards of glass cutting my fingers each time, giving me a little “fuck you” for even trying. And now almost a year later, you’re still here. As am I. A better me – a much different me – than before. I’d venture to guess that your lives are much the same – different and better. Maybe more one than the other. We should all be a bit more skeptical of our perceptions, as they’re just as influential and have the power to derail a well-lived, meaningful life as the things we consider to be real.

Our perceptions can be delusions and our delusions…well, they can be perceptions. I think the best thing I can do is take more time for myself and cut myself some slack. Give myself the time to sit and think about what’s important and why I feel this way. While a one-engine-down commercial airliner at your controls doesn’t really offer the luxury of pondering, I can do better about treating everything in life as if there’s a decision to be made, and now. And when you cut yourself just a little bit of slack, you just might find that you get to walk around with sore cheeks from smiling so much from an experience you never thought you’d have.

So thanks for hanging in there while I had a distorted perception of my reality, when I forgot that y’all are the most important aspect of what I get to do for a living. The single best part of the whole weekend is, aside from being “back” for all of you, knowing that if I’m ever on a flight where 80% of the passengers and crew had the fish, I can raise my hand when they ask if anyone knows how to fly a plane.

Because I can (just a little bit). And bonus? I also speak jive.

The bitch is back. See you Wednesday – I think it’s time for a fresh Bitch Slap. All in favor?

I wouldn’t change my life for the world.

I’d never have it any other way.

I couldn’t love him/her more.

Yup. Complete and total bullshit.

I’m winding-up one of the craziest weeks of my life today, having just turned in the book manuscript for Book #1 with my writing partner at 9pm last night. Hold the applause, as that just means that today, I’m back to work on Book #2, which is due on October 15. It was a brief moment last night where, following the “send” button, I took a deep breath and felt as if I’d just abandoned a puppy. Never fear – the puppy came back this morning and started yapping about Book #2. But I digress. Back to bullshit and the shape of things.

There are only 3 things I’ve ever wanted to be (professionally) in life: an attorney, an actor and a writer. As I enter the final quarter of my 38th year, I’ve kicked two of those straight in the ass (actor, writer) and realize that my desire for the third (attorney) was fulfilled with a theatre degree (which is the same thing as a law degree, just without the nice suits and social prestige). If you asked me ten years ago if I ever thought it possible to even have TWO of these things ticked off The Bucket List, I’d probably have been too busy to respond as I’d have been bored with the Job I was in and trolling Monster.com for my next conquest.

Today, I get to say that two of those things are a certainty.

So let’s talk about The Shape of Things.

Somewhere along life’s road, I was deluded into thinking I had control. I had great jobs that paid great salaries with great benefits, working for multinational corporations with well-recognized names. I had rent and mortgage payments covered, expendable income, husbands (not simultaneously), boyfriends (also: not simultaneously), friends and family.

Everything I ever wanted.

But then the day came where the universe does what it does – it knocks your big ass Jenga game down and you’re left to pick up the pieces.

And that was the day I realized that I had finally gained control. Fine – it was a few days later and something I realized after the kicked-in-the-balls sensation had subsided even though I don’t have balls and realize I would have made you uncomfortable if I’d said “clam” so I skipped it. But I really didn’t, so now I’ve gone on and said “clam.” But the net-net?

I’d spent 35 years of my life giving everyone else control, thinking I was the one who had it. That’s some kind of bullshit, isn’t it?

So now that we’ve covered puppies, Jenga and clams, I’ll share my thoughts on The Shape of Things and how many of them are just illusions.

The Farm

If you stop by this digital dungeon often enough, you’re well aware that finger pointing generally begins with my finger pointing at me. What have I made the mistake of giving away? The farm, my friends.

• When I started a business, I never realized that I was the first client I had to service every day.
• In relationships, I put everything I had into everyone else.
• I put things before my heart.
• I put money before my soul.
• I placed bullshit excuses before my friendships.
• Pride came before words that needed saying.

My 38th year is a much simpler one than my 37th or even my 27th. I bought my farm back.

See, your farm is something you can give away, but you really do have to buy it back. All of those people you ignored or hurt along the way (including yourself), those are relationships that have to be rebuilt. And sometimes that’s not an option, so you have to start over with new people. And the things – those can all go away in the blink of a Craigslist ad. An egocentric world is one ripe with illusions because you generally surround yourself with (1) people who will never tell you you’re being an epic fuckwit and (2) things, because you can’t find people who will challenge you and actually ADD to your life and things don’t argue and fit nicely into the trunk of your car.

Dispense with the things. Embrace the people. Because I guarantee you that the day you find yourself wishing you’d said something that you’ll now never have the chance to…that’s a shitty day. And who wants to feel like shit?

The Sheep

There’s such a negative connotation to being referred to as a sheep. A mindless follower of the herd. But in certain aspects of our lives, we’re all sheep. The Wall Street Journal had an article this week about the health of alpha males. Being an alpha female (shocker), I was intrigued. And it discussed how, in many regards, beta males found a greater level of happiness than their alpha counterparts, yet extreme beta males were just as stressed an unhealthy as their alpha counterparts.

That means there’s a certain peace in conceding control on occasion. Can you WIN a conversation? Can you REASON with someone who equates the volume of their voice with the validity of their argument? When it’s lights-out time, I don’t think there’s a process we have to go through where we show all of our blue ribbons and its a determining factor on where we get to hang for eternity and ever after.

What I do know is that there’s a beauty in letting someone else take the reigns on occasion, and it actually an incredible gesture to make for someone else (and yourself). It’s how we learn something new: how to play the guitar, rock climb, race bikes, use a new computer program. Conceding control opens us up to make our lives richer. Being the guy or girl who always has to alpha-out makes life for those around you a real bummer. Embrace your inner sheep (every now and then, give it a try), just not in a backwoods/make the sheep nervous kinda way.

The Barn

Not so long ago, a friend introduced me to Live From Daryl’s House. After my inner audiophile stopped squealing with glee and I’d spent days going through all of the show archives, I got to the barn. The shows are shot in a barn that’s converted into a studio and it got me thinking about My Barn – or what I’ll call my happy place.

We keep our lives so cluttered with bullshit. Old things, new things, mental things. For an audiophile like me, seeing a barn setup like Daryl Hall’s got goin’ on is like seeing a really well-made foreign film. The intersection of simplicity and style at times can be breathtaking, like a well-appointed house. But there are extremes. An empty barn is eerie. One jammed full of shit in hoarder-like fashion is just vomitlicious. Would Daryl Hall be able to produce the sound he does in his barn-turned-studio if it were filled with shit everywhere that ruined the acoustics? And how can I function if my barn – my happy place – has nothing in it?

Build The Barn so it serves you. Be able to move. Your happy place should be a refuge – shelter from life’s storms and solace even when we don’t need it. Have yourself an emotional and physical yard sale and make some room for the things in life you want most. I’m a big believer in the concept that they won’t come along until you tell them they’re welcome. I also believe they don’t want to arrive home to a dump or an empty house, but rather, the in between: a soft place to land.

So what’s the shape of things in your world?

I wouldn’t change my life for the world - But maybe you could change it for the better.

I’d never have it any other way - But maybe learning a new way could be fun.

I couldn’t love him/her more - And maybe you’ll surprise yourself one day and realize that you do.

We’re the ones who decide the shape of things, not anyone else. Go after what you want and make room for the things that matter most to have on that journey. While a nice set of Tumi luggage is grand, bring your friends, your heart and your soul. Everything else? They’ll find their way back to you because you’ve earned them. No one can take those things and milestones away from you.

Git yer farm back.

Be the sheep every once in awhile.

Build your barn.

I think it really is that simple.

So that’s what I did for my Labor Day weekend.

Beatrice Olivia the Mini Cooper and I beat it like a pre-freak-stage Michael Jackson on Friday morning. Destination? Aspen. Having lived in Colorado for nearly three years, I’m ashamed of all the places in this state that I have yet to visit. Aspen was on the list and there was a beautiful fringe benefit for the weekend: Jazz Aspen Snowmass, a three-day fest of musical delights, questionable food, overpriced beer (Blue Moon? Six bucks. Thank you, Coors.) and interminable people watching. I’ll spare you the play-by-play, but let’s go back to talking about running for a moment.

Doing what I do, there’s a blurred line that separates my Public and my Private. Some days, I don’t know which is which, but there are few things I keep in cherished reserve. Relationships, family, the nuances that bring me to tears or explode with laughter – they’re the things that people closest to me know. And sometimes it’s fucking necessary to strip down from the persona back into the person. The difference?

Personas don’t have problems. People do.

And while I don’t consider myself an illustrated guide to the DSM IV, we all come with baggage and I’m no different. The crazy thing? It’s ours and no matter how fast we run, we can’t leave it behind. If we think about it, our baggage is beautiful. While some of it feels pretty shitastic (new word, check it out) when we acquire it, we’re the only ones who can control what it morphs into over time. Which brings us to the Aspens.

On Getting Schooled on Life by Aspens

Before I landed in Denver back in the winter of 2008, I was a raging outdoor fanatic. And please -  let’s just skip the whole you moved to an outdoor playground like Denver and you say you USED to be a raging outdoor fanatic? Life got busy. It’s not an excuse. Maybe it is. But I used to spend every weekend rock climbing, trail running, kayaking, hiking, backpacking and the like and since I moved to Colorado – home of the Fourteeners…yeah. Not really a goddamn thing except riding my bikes (which became obsessive and I’m recovering) and some Nordic skiing in the winters. Not a single snowshoe trip, only one trip to ice climb. Not an expedition trip since Kilimanjaro in 2008.

And that, my friends, is some bullshit.

So this weekend, I fixed it. I was up at 6AM on Saturday morning and headed out to do a few hours on a trail just outside of Aspen. I had my gear, my super-shitty Droid X camera/phone/soon-to-be iPhone and as the thermometer on the car cried in the low 40s, I set out on what the guides said was an 8.2 mile out-and-back along Difficult Creek. Leave it to me to pick something with “difficult” right in the name.

Now, here’s the thing about hiking: when you’re nose-on-your-toes, you don’t really have the opportunity to do a whole lot of technical mind-fuck-style thinking. Your main concerns are:

• Not busting your ass in a place where you have no cell phone reception
• Avoiding critters
• Walking around piles of critter poo in the middle of the trail
• Finding a place to pee where you’re not going to drop your ass onto something that could potentially cause “itchy” to happen.

Which brings us to blueberry hand sanitizer.

When you’re hiking or out playing in the wild, I will stand by my assertion that there are three things to never be without in your pack at all times (aside from water):

• Organic fruit strips
• A Ziploc baggie
• Hand sanitizer

You gotta eat and for the size and weight, fruit strips (organic, because Fruit Rollups aren’t food) are nutrient/calorically-dense and delicious and you can mercilessly overpack in case you careen into a chasm of sorts and are stuck for hours/days until a shredded Brazilian mountain guide rescues you (this is my blog – let me have that). The Ziploc baggie is a no-brainer – it holds trash and for the ladies, our used TP. And the hand sanitizer? Great for bangs, scrapes, lacerations, contusions and gaping wounds as well as wiping-down hands post-pee. I prefer blueberry-scented, as it makes for a delightful whiffing experience when you rub your nose or next sneeze. Which will happen.

Back to the Aspens

When I’m out hiking, I’m interested most in the things I don’t get to see every day. I take pictures of what some people might consider to be odd things (and when I have a camera that doesn’t suck, I love macro lens photography). And so I’m strolling along the trail and suddenly I’m faced with this white wall of trees.

Aspens.

Smooth bark with occasional knots – if thinner and green, they’d easily be mistaken for bamboo. I’d never stood among them so I had to stand for a minute and acknowledge one simple thing: each of them had been where they stood longer than I’d been alive.

Which Leads Me to Being Schooled

So, nothing pisses me off more than people acting like assholes in nature. Leaving trash behind, going off-trail into vegetation (except to pee – this is a semi-free pass) or just fucking with what Mother Nature has been so kind to provide. I came upon a bend in the trail and realized that I was surrounded by trees where a legion of jackwagons had carved their initials into them. Professions of love, gang signs, declarations that so-and-so had “been there.”

I realized that the trees didn’t care.

While it pissed me off that these people thought that scarring a tree for life was an action worthy to immortalize their relationship that had already likely ended in a heated text message exchange, rude Facebook wall posts and un-Top 8’ings on MySpace, the trees just went on being trees.

Yeah, We’ll Talk About the Schooling Now

We all seem to go through life thinking that we’re the only ones to have loved and lost, hurt, failed or wounded in some form or fashion. Business deals gone bad, relationships gone south, people we love(d) turned shitty and the world we loved yesterday found the power to take it all straight down the tubes today. But our job – each of us – is to be a little more Aspen and a lot less woe-is-me.

When you look into the places where these jackwagons made their marks, you see a scarring process. A swelling. And a tree that’s gone on to rise above and around it that represents healing. That’s our job, right there. Because in spite of good intentions, deals well-made and hearts given in earnest

things go south.

And we can either crumble or grow a pair (along with some scar tissue) and reflect on the hurt and how we can use it to rise above.

Here I was, standing in the middle of a grove of vandalized Aspen trees, realizing that I’d been running and knowing full well that I can’t run from anything because that matched set of luggage is right there, packed and ready to take any trip I want to make.

And I found myself wanting to be more like these trees that left me breathless with their beauty – this random girl with a backpack full of organic fruit strips and blueberry hand sanitizer.

And to Digress Yet Again

It had been a long time since I’d traveled for myself and not for business or out of obligation to an event of some sort. It goes along with that bullshit about not having really gone hiking in over two years and blaming it all on life getting busy.

Life is as busy and as complicated as we make it – and that requires no explanation, as it is true. Timing is a lie. Busy is an excuse. And we make room for what and whom we want to make room for. And fuck off – I know I ended a sentence in a preposition.

On So I’m Back to Being a Person

Sunday brought another 6 hours and 10+ miles of wandering in the wilderness below Castle and Conundrum Peaks just outside of Aspen and some more great time to keep my nose on my toes and tell the shit that doesn’t matter to stay out of my head. But the Aspens, the wicked weekend of music and the act of giving myself a little credit instead of making excuses put me back where I need to be. Where I love being.

You stop by here to get Bitch Slapped by The Persona, and it seems you dig it when The Person makes an appearance from time to time. I’m grateful – there’s no other word for it. But this weekend, I figured out why I haven’t been able to write in ages.

Because The Persona doesn’t write, and that’s been a safer place/thing for me to be for quite some time. We all have our coping mechanisms and there’s nothing right or wrong about it. Until it starts to get in the way of actually living. Which for me, it had.

So today – 1,800 words and counting later – The Person is back. Yes, the slappings will continue (tune in Thursday…oh, hell yes) and the snark will be on in full force, but it was a lovely place to arrive at this weekend…the one where I told The Person it was okay to come back around.

I’m not my work.

I’m not my projects.

I’m not my schedule.

I’m a thirty-eight-year-old geek who loves great music, decent wine, better food and the occasional orange soda, hot dog and grilled bacon and cheese sandwich (not all at once – though I might have just planned the menu for my next backyard shindig). I think every house should have fresh flowers and there’s nothing in life so shitty that you choose to protect yourself at the expense of those willing and ready to offer you love. People are inherently good, you just have to look longer harder at times to find it than you’re willing. Everyone cries, and if you don’t, you should try it. And no matter how many things we have, if you don’t wake up each day feeling as if you could break or lose every single one of them and still walk out with love, strength and the balls to give it another go…

you’re doing it wrong.

Redux

Aspen was good. The music was brilliant. The nine hours of hiking I did over the weekend were a return to normal – as normal as I’ll ever be. And you know what? My normal is a fucking awesome place to be.

Find yours.

Friday morning, I blew town just as the hookers were rolling into their non-profitable beds and landed in Ontario, California. Destination? Lake Arrowhead for my friend Wendie’s wedding reception.

I’ve known Wendie since 2001 and she’s not only become one of my best friends, but she’s the co-author on one of my book projects. Since then, she’s seen me through a divorce, an engagement (and the end of said engagement) along with countless twists and turn that have brought me from San Diego to Los Angeles to Las Vegas to the place I now consider home: Denver, Colorado. And I her, yet the whole while, she’s had her adventures in Los Angeles. Regardless of geography, she’s always been there. I’ve always been there. And a year ago, she married Josh Miller. Six months ago, she gave birth to Finn. And this weekend, I got to see what I’m going to call a miracle. I mean, aside from the fact I didn’t drop the f-bomb when I stood up to toast her. I did say “ass,” however.

There are times in my life that I’ve had the rude awakening of realizing that it’s not all about me. Shocker, I know, but maybe some of you have experienced the same capsizing of your emotional boat.

The moment you realized that you had friends when you needed them – and it wasn’t to go grab a drink.

When you realized the time had come that your parents needed you (and not the other way around).

When the last bit of cash in your wallet that you were destined to use at the valet goes to a woman on the corner holding a cardboard sign in one hand and her daughter’s hand in the other.

The day you realized that someone you love could die.

This weekend, I saw one of my best friends ever dance around with her husband and their young son. More beautiful than any night we painted the town as single gals, laughing louder than during any dirty board game played in her living room and smiling so wide that I vowed to have my teeth whitened whether they needed it or not. It was a day that could care less what I wore, if my shoes matched or if I’d shown up with a date (which I didn’t). Because it wasn’t about me. And it was one of the loveliest reminders of that fact I’ve ever received.

(Beautiful story, Erika – but WTFBBQ is up with the “higher banana” thing?)

You are so fucking impatient.

During her own toast, Wendie offered up a phrase to describe how she felt about her husband, Josh. It was a phrase from her childhood, one her brother would use to explain something unbelievable or unattainable – the highest possible aspiration. He referred to it as the Higher Banana. And in Josh, Wendie said she found her Higher Banana. Among the smattering of laughter, I doubt there was a dry eye in the house (mine included) among Wendie’s friends, for those of us who know her – the consummate goofball – there was nothing more fitting than to hear her refer to her husband as a banana in some form or fashion. And it got me thinking about finding my Higher Banana.

So What’s YOUR Higher Banana?

Shit seems to roll downhill in life and when one thing hurts, another finds that’s the ideal time to kick you in the shins or otherwise beat you to a pulp when you’re down. But those moments that come along, when everything comes together and we’re pulled out of our crappy little reverie – those are the ones we live for. So what are you reaching for? For that matter, I spent a fair amount of time on Saturday night and Sunday contemplating the prospect of my Higher Banana.

You and I are the only ones who can know if we’re keeping company with mediocrity. And we’re also the only one who know the difference between trying in earnest and pulling a classic square-peg-round-hole maneuver. Finding it – it comes down to a matter of respect for yourself. Your never going to achieve what you visualize in the trees overhead if you beat yourself down and don’t give yourself room to breathe. We have to give ourselves credit. Care for ourselves and learn to care for others. Because there’s nothing in this world worth having that doesn’t take others to help achieve. Nothing.

This weekend reinforced that everything I’ve held out for in my personal life is possible and not the saturated technicolor fairy tales laid out by some Disney flick available on DVD and BluRay. It reminded me that everything I lose sleep for in my business life isn’t for naught and that it’s okay to demand more of others so long as I’m demanding just as much, if not more, from myself. It’s my job to help my clients find it, to help my friends and family understand that they’re worth it and to show people who might never contemplate it that there’s something that’s possible and it rests in the most unlikely places and people.

The Higher Banana isn’t a thing. You can’t buy it and roll around with your friends in it topless at Mardi Gras (wasn’t me). You can’t play a game of catch with it at the park with your buddies. But what we can do is reach for it. We can learn to recognize it in the people who surround us every day. We can also know when to call bullshit on ourselves when we’re doing absolutely nothing to work towards it. That’s the hardest, I think, as sitting still is a shitload easier than generating activity. And mindless activity is easier than putting the energy into getting something done. We seem to spend more time beating ourselves up about things that have passed us by our slipped through our fingers – the Shoulda, Coulda and Wouldas (and if you’ve been around here long enough, you know those are the Oulda Sisters and I hate the bitches). What if we reached higher with all the energy we spend lamenting? Who knows – your Higher Banana might be lurking, just waiting for you to grab hold.

Maybe it’s business partners or a mate. A friend or your mom. Maybe it’s a guy you don’t know too well who knocked up one of your best friends and in the process, fell head over heels in love with her and vice versa and you can’t think of any way to thank him for the happiness he’s brought into her life other than taking one extra stroll through their garden for stealth dog poo before you leave the next time. But I digress…

Whatever your Higher Banana is, it’ll make you cry a little. And that’s because it has the power to break your heart – business, love, life in general. It’s a silly shape for something we should have aspirations for and what do I care if you decide to call it your Higher Artichoke or Higher Hippogriff? It doesn’t matter a damn to me. What matters is that we bust our asses to reach it (because it’s higher than we might think), we open our hearts to everything that will bring it closer (because it’s never going to be a yellow brick road) and when we find it, we refuse to become complacent. We keep striving to fulfill our promise to the Higher Banana:

Raise a round of capital? Thank your employees and keep thanking them.

Score a new client? Thank the referral source personally – skip the email.

Meet the mate of your dreams? Allow yourself to be openly wrong, quietly right and make it not about YOU, but about an US … something I wish I’d known many years ago.

You can build any Part A/Part B sentence you like – but in the end, I guess the best we can each do is find the best way to complete the sentence. Remember that there are really so few things in life that are about a “me” rather than an “us” or “we.” And if we remember that little thing alone, we’re one rung higher on the ladder leading to the banana.

PS:

So, the wedding reception had THE best centerpieces, all hand crafted by Josh’s dad. I was lucky enough to win/bargain/cajole/guilt the actual winner into giving me this one. “Mythical Creatures Meets Country Living.” It just doesn’t get any better than this. The fact that Wendie married a man whose father came up with eight of these oddities is all the proof I need that she married the right guy. This t-shirt also reinforced my feelings. And yes, you’ll be seeing this at my wedding one day.

So I sat down and thought about the value of pissing and moaning. Turns out there’s some awesome stuff in there. Let me share.

• Solicited advice: Pissing and moaning generally yields a metric ass ton of solicited advice. With all of the unsolicited advice we get during our days, it’s kinda nice to be a whiny little bitch on occasion and find people who are genuinely trying to help you with your Private Pyle-style major malfunction.
• Repetition: Pissing and moaning is nothing if it’s not repetitive. When you do something over and over again, one of two things is going to happen. You can become brilliant at pissing and moaning and fall in love with the sound of your own nasal whine, or you can realize it’s time to stop that shit and get moving (and lower your voice an octave or two). Odds are you’re going to settle on the latter as opposed to the former of those two or your friends/colleagues will stage an intervention and tell you that if you keep it up, a throttlin’ is comin’ yer way.
• It’s semi-relaxing: Pissing and moaning takes little effort. As a result, you find time to do other things that require little effort. You can sort your silverware drawer, realize what a journalistic wasteland MSNBC is, fold laundry and take pictures of your dog. You can also catch up on mid-day naps when you should be working. I may or may not have done all of those things this week.
• Impending rash of productivity: By wasting your time pissing and moaning, you really have no choice but to become a productive sonofabitch in the days that follow. Why? Because you’re behind and suddenly facing deadlines that were two months away and are now two days or two weeks away. The shit you can get done immediately following a pissing and moaning phase is astronomical. As a matter of fact, this redeeming quality alone might prove to be the most significant of the four I’ve listed. Pissing and moaning GETS SHIT DONE…just not immediately.

So, here’s where I say I’m done with the pissing and moaning and I tell you that my latest column is up at Entrepreneur Magazine. Stop by, have a read and share your thoughts. I’m lucky to have a voice on this outlet and would love to hear your thoughts. This month, I’m talking shit about bloggers who turn off their comments along with anonymous commentators (which y’all know I don’t tolerate).

From me to you and yours,have a kickass holiday weekend if you’re in the States. If you’re across the pond, you could probably give a shit that we’re about to celebrate our break from oppressive British rule. On a side note, the British kept the best swear words on the face of the planet (like “fuckall” and “bugger” and we got stuck with “motherfucker”). Whatever the weekend brings you, RedheadWriting will be back next Tuesday full of piss, vinegar and all the stuff you love – and less of the stuff that doesn’t do anyone any good. I, for one, am delighted to discover the inherent value of pissing and moaning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have until noon to wrap shit up and get the hell out of dodge. I’m going downhill mountain biking for the first time ever up in Winter park this weekend and apparently it’s something that requires full body armor. Be afraid, readers. Very afraid.

And nine months later, after two months of not getting paid (and still showing up for work for some reason), she found herself sitting on her sofa on September 2, 2009 wondering what she would do as said real estate tech startup was out of cash, owed her money and didn’t know when it would be flush again. She called her landlord and begged for leniency (and may all the wood sprites bless her mercy) and wondered what dishes she could create from rice, butter and tuna fish and set about the chore of listening to her gut.

First, it began with an apology:

Hey…yeah – I’m sorry. We haven’t talked in awhile. I’m an ass. And I know that on the surface, this might seem like some bullshit beat-your-girlfriend-and-bring-her-flowers type ass-kissing move…and you’d be right to think that. But I want you to know that I’m ready to listen. I know I’ve tuned you out for ages and you didn’t deserve that, so if you’ll give me a chance, maybe you can teach me to become a better listener. And I’ll bake for you. Little frosted cookies with sprinkles on them – just the way you like. And I’ll stop eating at Taco Bell because I know you hate that shit. So whaddaya say?

More than anything, it was probably the no-Taco-Bell promise my gut found the most appealing. But it indulged me and offered me the second chance I so very much wanted. And there on September 2, 2009, RedheadWriting officially became an LLC in the State of Colorado and I set out on what I hope is a never-ending process of listening to my gut.

22 months later (give or take a month because I’m shitty at math. On a related note, I once told Lisa Barone that Excel is math-flavored hell…), RedheadWriting is now RHW Media with multiple team members, retainers exceeding six figures annually and I’ve earned the opportunity for my first magazine column and have two book deals. Goddammit, if one’s gut isn’t an awesome thing. And I mean that in the literal sense: it fills me with awe the wisdom held by my gut and the unselfish manner in which it chooses to continue to share its knowledge with me on a minute by minute basis.

Let me ask you this: when is the last time you’ve found yourself in a situation where you’ve had no hesitation whatsoever? I’m not talking about the decision to turn left on a green arrow or some lamesauce like that. I’m talking about acknowledging that you were in a situation that had the built-in potential to ’splode like a gerbil in a microwave but you were going ahead with it, all engines go and fuck it all because it JUST. FELT. GREAT. Yeah – when’s the last time you did that? For me, it was two weeks ago when something unexpected walked into my life and…well, the volume on my gut got turned up to eleven. I’d forgotten what it felt like to hear my gut in such a clear tone. If you want to talk about it in audio vernacular, hesitation is your gut offering feedback – you’re too close to the mic and please step away. But when you hear your gut in BOSE-quality sound humming along with your heart, maybe you’ve gone and done something right. Maybe you’ve learned something along the way.

Maybe you’ve learned to become a better listener.

That damn gut, I tell you. It’s got a wealth to share with you if you’d just fucking listen every now and then. Think of how often you keep yourself up at night, stringing yourself up in your thoughts like one of those arial scarf dancers from Cirque du Soleil on meth. We’d all get a lot more sleep if we did the easy thing: turned down the volume on our mouths and turned up the volume on our guts. In fact, something I’ve realized is that listening to your gut requires a shitload less effort than thinking. It does the thinking for you. It goes like this:

Gut: OMFGWTFBBQ – I like this more than Rush Limbaugh likes oxycontin.

You: Okay – THIS IS A GOOD THING.

*not like this*

Gut: OMFGWTFBBQ – I like this more than Rush Limbaugh likes oxycontin.

You: Really? I dunno. I’m not really sure.

Gut: Jesus of all that’s holy – DO IT.

You: I cannnnnnnnn’t. I’m not ready.

Gut: You’re ready. You’re ready like a baby’s head crowning out of a woman’s vajayjay after nine months of pregnancy and 14 hours of contractions.

You: Ummm…okay, thanks for the visual.

Gut: Whatever. I want this. Please go get it for me.

You: Yeah, well, I can’t right now. You’re just going to have to wait.

Gut: OH MY GOD – YOU ARE SUCH A PRICKASAURUS REX!

You: Shut up.

Gut: If you’re not nicer to me, I will do just that. (asshole)

See how much easier listening to your gut is? I don’t know about you, but when I don’t listen, those useless conversations go on for a lot longer than that and usually drive me to a next day where I’m wandering around like a half-eaten human post-zombie apocalypse.

Our guts know two things: danger and love. There’s no in between. Those are two absolutes. We’re experts at creating iffy-flavored BS-shades of grey and yeah, I’ll concede: there are the “okay for nows” in life. But there comes a time where what we love about those in the meantime moments turns to danger. I don’t know about you, but I’ve realized that life is entirely too short to waste my time (or anyone else’s for that matter) lingering in the meantime. I like my nows and my gut shows me where they are.

So today, as you step out into the sunlight, clouds or rain, think about your gut and what it’s telling you is now. I’m great at cracking jokes to avoid having to say something of worth that shows how I really feel, but something that my gut’s told me recently is maybe there need to be fewer jokes and more sentiment. Because when you do what your gut tells you to do, nothing’s more clear than the face of the person standing in front of you smiling back.

That smile is addictive. And your gut – if you let it – will tell you how to keep the smiles coming.

The sneeze threw my entire neck out. Apparently at 38, I’m geriatric as fuck and of the age where sneezing can cause grievous bodily harm. Hence you’ll have to forgive me if this post is a bit rambling – god bless my friends with access to prescription pain pills that do wonders for pain but fuckall for actual sleep. Right – back to the Big People Pants.

There are few things I love in this world more than being 38-years-old. My pets are (collectively) one of those. Feeling the wind in my face while on my bike? Yep, that’s another. Knowing I could have quit something but didn’t – uh huh. That’s a bit of awesomesauce on a Hells Yeah cake, too. But one of the reasons I love being the borked-neck 38-year-old I am?

I have a great collection of Big People Pants.

You can only buy them at one particular store in your area – the stores are worldwide and there’s one near you. It’s called the Owning Your Shit Emporium and it’s a pretty swank little operation. At the door, there’s a counter where you are required to check your shit at the door. Once you enter, you can wander about everything they have to offer like the Matched Luggage department (they don’t sell baggage), the Big Girl Panties section, a whole collection of western boots for people who need to Cowboy the Fuck Up. You can even pick up a few Pots to Piss In next to the wall display of violins. The centerpiece of the entire store, however, is the Big People Pants section.

While the name might imply otherwise, Big People Pants fit everyone. They come in sleek boot cuts and wide leg styles, ideal for pairing with a pair of Don’t Screw With Me stilettos.There are also those uber-trendy skinny jean styles that only look good on guys sporting heroin-chic or girls who need to eat a cheesecake or two. Khakis, cargo styles…I swear I’ve even seen shants (see definition 2). There’s no excuse for not getting a few pairs of Big People Pants on account of size, style or color – they’re 100% customizable and I’ve never seen anyone leave the store without a treasure or two.

Now, you’re talking to a gal who’s a committed bargain hunter. Nordstroms Rack, Marshalls and TJ Maxx come bearing the latest fashions but they don’t carry Big People Pants no matter how many times I bop in for a rifling through the racks. And sure – it’s fashionable to be whiny and go with the flow. Friends who bitch about their job, not having any money or how utterly deplorable their lives are – hey! Misery loves company. It’s so much easier to strut around in the latest fashions, emotionally and physically, than to take time and plan how you’re going to kick some ass and do something funky with your bad self.

And the Owning Your Shit Emporium…well, it’s not for everyone. There’s no in-store credit card and they don’t have a return policy (because they don’t need one). They only accept cash as payment in full and there are no shopping bags – that’s because whatever you buy there is easy to carry. Let’s face it – the only time you need shopping bags is to carry all of the unruly bullshit you didn’t need anyways.

So maybe it’s time to own your shit and hop on over to the store to buy some Big People Pants. There’s always a sale going on so there’s no excuses about being strapped for cash. Grabbing a pair or two never involved going into debt or being stuck with something that doesn’t fit and you never have to worry about the return policy being nonexistent because they’re guaranteed to fit! It’s eco-friendly since there are no shopping bags and even if you fill up your cart with other things, they’ll all definitely be matchy-matchy because that’s how everything in the store is designed. And if you can’t seem to find the store in Google Maps, that’s easy enough to fix. Just pull your head out of your ass – that’s usually what does it for me when I can’t find it.

But what I’ve always found the most inspiring about Ash is not only her willingness to put it all out there, but her balls to the wall determination that she’s never going back to that place again. If only everyone had the same resolve.

I do it, you do it. The problem is, we forget about it and delude ourselves into thinking that this time things will be different. Boyfriends, girlfriends, bosses, jobs, family bullshit – I tell ya. We are masters of our own demise. We can find The Same in a 50 foot high haystack, and we’ll dive in to find it even if there’s a drove of nasty ass fire ants guarding the thing (this is an especially important reference as I recently killed a two foot radius mound of them in my front yard and have no desire to get near the fuckers ever again).

We date the same people.

We get new jobs that are just like our olds ones.

We keep bailing out the ones we supposedly love because we’re too guilty not to.

How about this to start your Friday: quit it.

How about you look for the following and make some shifts that will put you on the level of someone who’s moving forward instead of in circles:

• Find someone who makes you feel good about yourself. Yeah, all that chemistry shit has to be there, but you’re never going to find anyone meaningful if you’re always looking over the fence for the Better Thing. Or if you’re one night standing it through your weekends. Or if you spend more time criticizing than you do loving. If you ain’t got anything nice to say, get out and learn to love the most important person in your life: YOU.
• Quit working jobs. Yeah, I know – sometimes we need jobs. Transitional periods are great times to have jobs. But if you put on your big people pants and sit down on the sofa for a moment with a lovely cuppa dirty chai, I’ll bet you can admit to yourself what it is that you want to be doing to tell the money to git in mah bank account. Jobs are temporary. Careers are things filled with passion, improvement, goals and victories. Sure, there are some glaring failures along any career path, but only you can choose to not go back again and use the fuck ups to move you forward.
• Say no. If you keep bailing out the same people in your life, you’re not doing them any good. And before you get all up in a tizzy, I’m not nailing compassion to a cross and building a religion around its demise. Sometimes the best display of compassion is the tough move – saying NO. There are some people who will always rely on others to get them out of a jam and never learn to walk with strength. But we can do out best to be compassionate and say no in the right way so that our generosity isn’t sending the wrong message.

I’ve hit rock bottom so many times that I’ve lost count, but the best part? It’s been a different bed of rocks each time. I’m betting Ash is the same way. How will YOU fail next? Look forward to it. Embrace it. But this Friday, tell yourself that the bullshit stops here and you’re not going back to that same old green mossy slime-covered, slip and fall on your ass when you try to walk on it place that leaves you feeling like shit. Do something – anything, really. Because the one key to getting out of where you don’t want to be is taking a step. And now, I’ll turn it over to Lindsay Buckingham, who said this back in the 70s with a simple,folksy elegance thatI could only hope to achieve one day.

She broke down and let me in
Made me see where I’ve been

Been down one time
Been down two times
I’m never going back again

You don’t know what it means to win
Come down and see me again

Been down one time
Been down two times
I’m never going back again

Really.

Really…

Really?

Really?!

While the only perceptible difference to a smart ass between the iterations above might be some dots and squiggly marks, those four variations of “really” are a pretty good example of how we punctuate out lives. We’re a culture that’s boiled communications down to abbreviated exchanges via email and text and many times, we’re unaware of how we come across in writing. I’m just as guilty as the next person and it got me to thinking – can I use punctuation to change my life?

We read aloud in our heads. The top Really becomes a response to the third Really? while the second is something we let seep when someone pulls a jackwagon move in traffic. The fourth is an exclamation, reserved for the most frustrating and inconceivable of situations (perhaps one like this). But in print, without the proper punctuation, we could read them all the same.

So today, I want to take a trip through a few pieces of punctuation and share what they mean to me and maybe you’ll find something important for yourself in here as well. Writing is inherently selfish, so the least I can do for those of you who share your time with me is give you something you can take away and move forward with, right?

The Exclamation (!) Point

A phrase I use quite often in the company of friends is, “Now this time, with feeling!” It’s usually in response to a lackluster reaction to something on their part. But an exclamation point isn’t about anger – for me, it’s joy. Unbridled joy! I laugh, I giggle, I simply can’t contain myself. When I find my head so far up my ass that there’s no reason for my annual ladybits exam that year, an exclamation point can give me the endorphin rush I need. Yes becomes Yes! Okay becomes Okay! We were so conditioned in our schooling to perceive exclamation points as yelling or something else negative that it helps me to use them more often and in ways that are meaningful to me. They have the power to change your day, your attitude. They can get you off the sofa and back into life when shit rolls downhill. Grab some exclamation points and put them in the bag with your laptop today. Apply often and liberally (BUT IF I CATCH YOU TYPING IN ALL CAPS I’LL KICK YOU IN THE NUTS.).

The Ellipsis (…)

From purely a technical standpoint, an ellipsis is three periods used in succession. Never four. Never five, for fuck sake. Three – just like Goldilocks and the three bears she performs a B&E on so she can nom their porridge. They’re the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, all lined-up so you can get a good look at ‘em. An ellipsis is the punctuation embodiment of possibility.

In writing, they’re used in indicate a pause, a breath – a signal of something to come. Use them like that in your life as well. When tempted to use an exclamation point for anger, insert an ellipsis. Breathe. See what comes out on the other side. Sure, sometimes you might still want to choke the living shit out of someone, but other times, you might begin to see things differently. My life needs more ellipses – moments where I stop and take a breath. Ellipses make the unmanageable manageable and put the requisite air back into your lungs so you can stop letting life wind you every time you see a flight of stairs. Three dots – who thought they could open doors? They can also close them as well, if that the right outcome. Embrace the possibility that comes with pause and put those three little dots to work for you.

The Question (?) Mark

I’ve saved the best for last because this curvaceous being has quite the set of balls on it (okay, maybe just one ball but it’s a hefty ball). We ask ourselves questions multiple times a day – but why do we ask?

Second Guessing: How many times have you second guessed yourself into oblivion – avoided taking any action at all because the question you posed was so paralyzing? Question marks don’t belong here. I’m pretty convinced that in these cases, we turn their volume up so loud to drown out the incessant whine of our gut (which is always in the background with the right answer and course we should follow). Guts are meant to be listened to and while the question mark of Second Guessing might be ripping out a wicked Jimi Hendrix riff, it’s not doing us any good. Grab these question marks and move them over into another category and let your gut do what it’s built to do.

Baiting: Yeah, you do it. I do it. We ask questions to get the answers we want from someone who matters to us. Wouldn’t it be better to stand confident in our own skin and give ourselves permission to feel the way we do? We’re human and will always need some sort of external validation throughout our years for some reason or another. But baiting with questions is passive aggressive and a sign that we’re too much of a pussy to go – you know, I look great. I feel great. I know I gained weight. Yeah, I should skip the dessert. I rocked that presentation. No doubt – I fucked it up. Own yourself, own your actions. Stop asking for permission to feel the way you feel with a misplaced question mark. Make them statements of fact because owning your shit is super sexy.

Learning: The most powerful of the question marks. We use them to inquire and explore. They prompt laughter when you listen to the answers or perhaps bring tears because you didn’t see the response coming and it moved your soul. When we ask questions withan open mind (instead of one that’s baiting or full of doubt), we have the chance to change our lives and the lives of others.

Sharing is the mark of a more emotionally evolved being – we crave the interaction and sense of reward that comes with being a better version of our former selves before we opened up. Asking questions gives us the chance to bring something into our lives we didn’t have but a moment ago and when asked, we have the chance to learn something about ourselves through our answers. They’re the universal punctuation mark signifying an open mind and for many, an open heart. And they’re also the Pandora’s Box of punctuation, as by answering one a myriad of others are prompted. I don’t think there’s any greater gift can we give ourselves than changing the way we see the question mark and opt to use it as a tool to bring us closer to the person we always hoped to be – for ourselves and those who matter to us most.

So how do you punctuate your life? I never thought I’d see punctuation as something that was a business tool, much less a life skill – but it’s one of the most useful I’ve ever had the good fortune of stumbling across. I owe a dinner with Emily Rapoport for this perspective that’s been germinating and am really looking forward to what lies ahead as I continue to figure out the punctuation that rules my world.

More excitement!

Infinite possibilities…

How can I do better in everything I choose to undertake?

It’s a pretty cool world in the life of a redhead this morning. And all because of punctuation.