TALES FROM THE DORK SIDE

HOW DIRTY AM I?

2012-01-26T12:58:00.000-08:00

I’m just a few hours post colonoscopy, and I’m wondering whether the path to enlightenment involves routine scoping of the buttocks. As I write this I am - maybe for the first time in my adult life - not full of shit! I can see clearly now (the poop is gone) and I am as peaceful as the Dalai Lama which may, admittedly, have something to do with the Versed Fentanyl involved in having your colon scoped.

Drugs are good, but I was a tough one for the nurse who sedated me. I REALLY did not want to be actively involved in watching a hose snake through my colon but I am a hopeless lightweight and didn’t want to spend the rest of the day drooling on the couch. Give me one beer and I’ll dance on your table. A little Versed and I’m asleep for days.

Sarah, this smart nurse, figured it out and I was sort of awake for the whole nine yards (or six miles, or whatever ridiculous amount of colon lies coiled within us) and once or twice, at “the corners” I felt pain and she shot me up with some stuff but here I sit, just a few hours post roto-rooter and I feel like a freaking fountain of wisdom, which clearly I’m not. As they propped me on my side (a really vulnerable position when the doc has his hose ready) I mentioned that I was going to write something smart assy on my ass to which the doc replied,

“Geez, it’s been a while since we’ve seen butt art.”

Cowboy Bob reminded me that I am building credibility towards this Buddhist chaplain thing and perhaps ass art was not in keeping with my Zen traditions but who knows? Those guys can be a hoot.

Speaking of hoot, look for my colon on You Tube because the doc videotaped the procedure since I have an unusual condition that’s not at all dangerous but completely opposite of what most people have. In my colon, I have “pseudo-polyps” go figure. This means instead of the little things bulging out, mine bulge in. Anyway, my colon might go viral so stay tuned.

But all this talk of shit and being free of it makes me wonder about my housecleaning skills or lack thereof. How do you know if your own house is dirty? I mean, I step into “cat houses” and almost faint while the humans who live there are unaffected by the eye watering pee smell. Does my house stink? (Remember that line from “Rocky” when Sylvester Stallone is trying to get his cross-eyed girlfriend from the pet store up into his apartment?) For the most part, everything at my eye level – 5’3” – seems pretty good. Don’t look up, and don’t look down. But does my house stink? I have no way of knowing.

Who are these women who clean corners, “valances,” drawers and whatnot? It just doesn’t interest me. My first husband, an Irish Catholic, told me that yes, I clean but not with love. Jesus, I thought, I gotta clean with love? Never saw him scraping week-old jelly off the counter by the way. Men of course have different standards regarding housecleaning which generally have to do with supervising. Recently, Cowboy Bob’s sister was coming to visit so Bob decided to do a walk-through and nitpick at me about stuff like why there was laundry detergent spilled by the washer. Things of that nature. Then he declared that we needed someone to come in and clean once a month which at first humiliated and then elated me. Fuck it! I don’t “love” cleaning and I hardly even “like” it. I will never be one of those women who appreciate a shiny toilet. Please do not try to “eat off my floors” as if under any circumstances that’s a desirable goal. Eating off floors is for dogs and sometimes guys.

By the way I once saw Cowboy Bob wipe the kitchen counter with a pair of underpants. He’s also been known to wash his boots in the kitchen sink and blow his nose in whatever laundry might be in the basket. And from him I’m supposed to take cleaning advice? I don’t think my house stinks but how would I know? Apparently, we all get used to the smell of our own poop, to the point where we think it doesn’t stink! Isn’t that amazing? We must filter out our own stench and often that of our kids and pets, the source of odors that could stop a truck and make a grown man weep. I think this is a Darwinian thing.

One more leap here, from Darwin to Cro-Magnon man a/k/a Cowboy Bob who listened attentively to the nurse’s discharge instructions for me today (no driving, no using the stove, no signing of contracts etc). When she asked are there any questions, he replied:

“Who’s gonna cook my dinner?”

Good thing we can’t smell our loved ones, right? Or maybe one man’s poop is another man’s roses. We can’t seem to judge our own level of stink or cleanliness. That’s what friends are for, so stop by sometime, take a whiff; and don’t hesitate to tell me – ever – when I am full of it. But it’s not today.

Fat and Happy

2011-12-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

I just want to say out loud how much I love fat people who are happy, fat people who are good with their girth, big and proud, fat and happy. I love fat people who embrace their fatness like a warm blanket, feeling snug and wonderful while all the skinny folks scurry around freezing their asses off exercising. We carry this belief that fat people can’t really be happy, because they’re fat. They must be “crying on the inside” or “hiding” under the blubber. I think we’re wrong, in a big fat way.

A while ago I was triaging a corpulent guy in the ER. When I asked him what happened, he smiled, shrugged, and said,

“Fat guy fell down.”

“Dude,” I said, “Can’t you make up something better than ‘fat guy fell down’?”

“Ok,” he was humoring me, “Fat guy fell down chasing bear for McWhopper.”

I’ve been afraid of being fat all my life, and here comes this guy just loving his big ole self. My oldest son Billy has been an amazing role model for love-of-large-self. After he got out of the Marine Corps he announced he was “done exercising until the age of 30” and damned if the kid didn’t just stop doing everything and get his girth on again. Billy was “big boned” in his early twenties when I took all three boys on an all-inclusive resort trip to Jamaica. The first night there, on the beach filled with beautiful people, the emcee asked some of the men in the audience to “come up here and do something to make the women scream!” Billy joyfully strode up to the stage, lifted up his Hawaiian shirt and made his belly fat undulate like a tsunami. The women screamed, all right.

How can you not love that?

I'm a little tired of all this talk about exercise and nutrition, and I’m mostly sick of myself and my own obsession with strength and exercise and “looking good.” At the end of his life, Jerry Garcia is purported to have said something like, “If I had known how bad I was gonna feel, I wouldn’t have done all those drugs.” I’m starting to feel the same way about exercise, as I wake up every morning creaking like the Tin Man when Dorothy stumbles on his rusty frame in the forest.

“Oil me!” my joints yell as the alarm goes off.

What if all this hooey about exercise is just bullshit? I’ve been a runner for 35 years, an athlete, and a big mouth proponent of exercise but I think I’ve been duped and maybe - I’m just saying - maybe I should have been on the dang couch smoking joints rather than on the mountain hurting them. I had a great friend, a crotchety Italian lawyer guy who smoked cigarettes, drank excessively, and ate whatever he wanted. He believed you were born “with a pre-determined number of heartbeats” and if you exercised, you used them up too fast. When any one of his organs started to fail, it was his plan to pick out a “healthy young guy in India,” give him “lots of money and a year to live” and then just harvest what he needed.

Outrageous and morally bankrupt, but it sort of catches your attention, doesn’t it?

Why do I fear fatness? Why can’t I embrace the idea like Santa Claus, Chris Farley, and Billy? Are fat and happy people really just crying on the inside? I don’t think so. I think plenty of them are enjoying the hell out of life, eating whatever they want and not freaking exercising at all. That sounds delightful and maybe if I had led a nice sedentary life I wouldn’t wake up feeling like I’ve been mugged. Like Jerry Garcia, I just plunged full speed ahead in my youth, not with drugs but with exercise and adventure – running thousands of miles, biking, hiking, skiing, going to the gym. The list of my folly is endless. And now I’m 55 and paying the proverbial Exercise Piper, especially since I took up ice hockey, for the love of God. You know how we accuse men of being stupid by thinking with their “little head?” Well, I don’t have a “little head” but I apparently have a “young head” that’s just as delusional as any penis. My “young head” thought being an ice hockey goalie at my age would be fun!

Getting old is a dirty, hairy secret. Nobody talks about it. So when I started feeling like the Tin Man I went into work and asked my co-workers – most of them much younger than me – why I hurt all the time they looked at me like they were doing intake on a mental patient.

“Because you’re….OLD?” Marianne said rather loudly, like you do when talking to an old person.

Oh no! I’m getting old!

Aging is really awkward. Weird shit really does start to happen, like after 40 when an alien inhabits your midsection and after 50 as hair grows in odd places. When you’re a young ass whipper-snapper all of this is hilarious. Then you actually get there and it’s just stunning. I’m just starting to get it.

When I met Cowboy Bob eight years ago on a pack trip, I came upon him one day working diligently to get a piece of leather saddle strap through a grommet (that’s a hole, folks). I voiced my skepticism and he looked up, spit out his tobacco, and did that gnarly bad boy smile thing:

“Ain’t nothing can’t be done with a little patience and lubrication,” he said.

While that sounded pretty sexy now it just seems practical and maybe Bob wasn’t talking about sex at all, but about getting old – patience and lubrication is what I need right now. I’m starting to use oil, just like the Tin Man, to lube up my joints, help me breathe better at night – because yes, now I snore for the love of God – and even grease my intestines. I have the lubrication, I just now need the patience.

I’ve been running for 35 years and it’s just time to stop. Enough already with the abs. I used to love it when people told me I was “ripped” and slobbered about how good I looked and what great legs I had. Vanity. Insanity. Inanity. So I looked good and wasn’t fat. Do you have any idea how freaking hard it was to keep my body in that kind of shape? For what? A few compliments? Although it really does feel great to work the body hard, I think in all honesty I was motivated by fear and desire, those buggers that bring us suffering at every level. I cared that I looked good because I was afraid of being alone – fat and alone I guess, which now often sounds like the very definition of bliss. Fat and alone. Ahhh.

I think I am ready to almost let it go to hell in a handbasket, with a burger. Of course I’ll still do stuff I love outside, like skiing and biking, but it’s going to be about loving the outdoors and lighting up my insides, not my quads. I’ll do more yoga and enjoy it, and probably snore during shavasana. But no more War Against the Belly – clearly middle age has won and I don’t want to grow old being one of those people who complain about pain all the time.

Whoever started this bullshit that “50 is the new 30” ought to be tarred and feathered. 50 is freaking 50. That’s all. Nothing less. The body hurts after half a century mucking around and there is no going back. My teacher at Upaya, Roshi Joan Halifax, is nearly 70 and she’s gorgeous! No make up (often no hair), and a robust body that still treks the Himalayas, Roshi Joan is embracing aging because she’s getting wiser. She glows from the inside out and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t use a lot of fancy skin products, being a Zen priest and all. I think she’s totally tapped into that deep well of inner beauty we all have, the one I’ve been running away from for 35 years. Roshi Joan radiates love and exuberance and I don’t think she gives a rat’s ass about her abs.

That’s my model for aging, not some 60 year old trying to look like a 40 year old. For God’s sake: 50 is 50, 60 is 60 and someday dead is just dead. If my girth grows consummate with wisdom and happiness, well then bring it on. Maybe fat and happy people are way evolved, and know something the rest of us run from in terror. Maybe they know that the body is just a bag o’ bones, a temporary earthsuit that houses a magnificent spirit; not some temple to be worshipped and revered but just a thang - something to walk around in while we laugh and love and feel joy. So you can hurt this body doing wild stunts of athletic extremism, or just be the fat guy who fell down. On the mend, I wonder who’s happier?

PUCK ME

2011-10-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I miss Philly so much, my hair hurts. I mean, it’s beautiful in Colorado and I can play outside till I drop but I don’t so much feel the love out here. It’s not a hugging kind of state; people keep their distance and sort of rub your arm “warmly” to show affection. You buy a Jersey tomato from a street vendor on Walnut and he’ll pinch your fucking cheek and wrap his beefy arms around you. Don’t even get me started on how nice these people are in Colorado. Perky, with big smiles all over the place. Sorry, but I’m jonesing for the grumpy, the cranky, the edgy people in Philly who will yell something about your mother’s sex life if you stop short at a red light. Out here, it’s all Happy Jesus Day! and oh, hey, sorry you felt compelled to stop short! Enough with the fucking natural beauty and food that they eat right out of the ground, for God’s sake.

I miss the “F” word. Sometimes I’ll watch Sopranos reruns just to remember the music of the English language as it’s meant to be spoken. George Carlin was right about the versatility of the “F” word – it’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s an adverb, an adjective and probably even a fucking gerund and/or gerundive. And yet out here in the Rocky Mountains, it’s verboten.

Feeling itchy for my peeps I came upon a perfect solution. I got this wild hair up my ass that if I can join a women’s ice hockey team I’ll have a socially acceptable reason to act pissy and aggressive and curse. I can’t skate all that well, but we could work around that. Sports is a great outlet for violent tendencies, of which I have many. I mean, take football. It’s large men in tight pants beating each other up. That’s a beautiful thing.

So I see this flyer about a women’s hockey team in need of a goalie and I make arrangements to try out. I’m 55 years old but I guess it’s time to change it up again. In anticipation, I decide I better try to skate. I’ve never even worn hockey skates but apparently they’re kind of curved and I wasn’t halfway around the rink before I went ass over backwards onto the ice, my head bouncing like a rubber ball. Some midget asshole little kid was doing figure eights around me as I lay there, foaming at the mouth.

“Lady, you okay?”

I wanted to tell him to kiss my ass but out here that’s apparently politically incorrect. Geez. So I crawled over to that blessed wall in the hockey rink, hung on for a few seconds until I remembered my name, and acted like I meant to crack my head open, just to see. A few days later this nice lady and a volunteer guy goalie coach were strapping 40 pounds of equipment onto me. I actually had to wear a cup! Wow, it kind of felt like having a penis and suddenly I just wanted to have sex and eat. But it passed, and we covered every inch of my body with giant pads. I looked, and smelled, like the Michelin Man.

Now I don’t exactly know what the Michelin Man smells like but I’m guessing it’s similar to the inside of hockey pads and gloves that are shared by lots of stinky sweaty people. But the real challenge was not just standing my own immense odor but actually getting onto the ice in 40 pounds of pads and acting cool, because there were people on the ice; grown-ups who could play hockey were doing those little hops and jumps and casual 100 mph whiz things. I stood there, looking at the little doorway onto the rink. There was no turning back now. I stepped onto the ice, and just figured fuck it. I’m a dork. I’m a 55 year old lady who wants a reason to say the “F” word and sweat with a bunch of like-minded girls. I’m going to go stand in a little goal and have people hurl hard rubber at me. I stepped out on that ice like I owned the place. I glided real cool to the crease (goalie skates are – thank God – flat and wide; like ice skates with training wheels). I let these nice people shoot the puck at me and I felt like the Hulk, dude, just like bullets could bounce off me! It was awesome. So now I’m on The Storm, a bunch of swearing, skating 50 year old women who apparently enjoy organized violence as well.

It’ll be fun to be part of a team again. I think that’s another thing I miss about Philly. Those people are insane about sports, about “their” teams. They play pick up football in the street and there are leagues for old farts everywhere. In Steamboat, it’s all about the Olympics and personal achievement. Geezus, back east I used to play soccer with guys who would smoke cigarettes on the sidelines. I miss the overt laziness of the East, the I-don’t-give-a-shit-that-I’m-fat kind of thing. Maybe I’m getting old, but that kind of attitude is starting to sound good to me these days. Achievement is overrated.

Marie, the captain of my new team, told me I better stretch my groin plenty before the first game. I didn’t even know I had a groin. Dang, it’s fun to try new stuff. Have a blessed day but if you wear your fucking Yankees hat anywhere near me, we’re gonna have a problem.

Mad Buddhist Sex

2011-09-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

Recently I spent 16 days at my Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, sitting in silence, studying, and going to class from 7am to 9pm. Since I’m studying to be a chaplain I was asked to face every major fear and weakness about myself I could possibly imagine. I lived closely with 40 other people on the same path, day and night and let me tell you, the whole catastrophe bout drove me into the arms of the devil. Stressed, exhausted and monumentally frustrated, I walked in the door after my time of reflection and study and said to my wide-eyed husband:

“Cowboy Bob, get in that bed." I was serious as a heart attack, "NOW!”

He did as instructed and dang, made a dishonest woman of me once again. Later that evening I had a big honking glass of red wine and got drunk. So how’s that for enlightenment? I come back from a Buddhist retreat and morph into a drunken hussy. Cowboy Bob, who fears that I will leave this wordly life and go lick rocks in solitude in the Himalaya one day, was thrilled beyond words at my slovenly response to spiritual stress.

“When you going back there?” he asked, already looking forward to the next hedonistic reunion.

I told my friends at work about this and they just roared with delight. Seems everyone wants to hear about spiritual folks falling off the wagon so to speak but the thing is I’ve never been on a wagon like that. I have tried some asceticism – denial of worldly pleasures – and okay, life is just less fun that way. During the retreat I fessed up to a visiting Zen Master teacher that I sort of missed my wild child days, when I was wantonly violating some precepts (like commandments only without the big tablets), mostly in a non-destructive way. Wow, I sort of got a smack down right in front of the whole class:

“Nostalgia for samsara (personal suffering) is the greatest poison,” he said while looking at me sternly.

Now damn, I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good thing but later a bunch of people came up to me and guiltily revealed that they too perfectly understood that sex, drugs, and rock and roll were a freaking boatload of fun. One apologized on behalf of the teacher for offending me. I wasn’t really offended, just nonplussed. I’m going be honest about this spiritual journey of mine and if that doesn’t set well with some folks, so be it. After 14 days of struggling 14 hours a day with these kinds of issues I had about had it.

“I’m sick of my feelings,” I moaned to my friends who were nodding in agreement, “And frankly, I’m sick of yours too.”

I didn’t commit to the Buddhist path for about 10 years while I read, studied, and struggled with it because I was afraid that if I became a “real” Buddhist I wouldn’t be any fun anymore. But then I started looking at the really “real” Buddhists, like the Dalai Lama for instance, and realized those guys and gals who honestly get it are freaking smiling and laughing all the time! Can I be myself, my Philly-born Jersey-girl Italian, semi-swaggering, often-cursing with the f-word, Mighty Mouse “self” and still be a Buddhist? Or do I have to become solemn and saintly, the kind of person no one invites to parties because they’re afraid of sinning right in front of her? Will I ever be able to sing karaoke with a lampshade on my head again? Sorry, but these are crucial questions for me because way too many “spiritual” people are just plain boring and who wants to hang around someone with no life in them anyway?

Though Cowboy Bob was delighted with me returning not saintly but horny the truth is at my age sex is only really jazzy if I’m pissed off. I mean, most of the time I’m like my dog, Chopper – sort of fat and happy, walking down the street with my tail just wagging at the whole show. Chopper doesn’t care about humping anything (well, yes, he’s got nothing anyway) and generally in order to get all worked up about this sex thing I have to feel some level of that kind of energy – frustration, pissy-ness, maybe even revenge or something like it. I explained this to Cowboy Bob as I picked up the clothes strewn all over the bedroom. Yeah it was great, and yep I sure used your ass but as I roll back into being content don’t count on this craziness continuing. And I was full of that crazy energy when we met 8 years ago, full of that desire to have sex, sex, sex and show a man how attractive I could be. Now, that’s kind of fucked up, right? So yes, it was fun, but it was all grasping as the Buddhists say. Grasping, clinging, wanting, needing – the ingredients for samsara soup.

I’m going to dust myself off from those incredibly difficult weeks at Upaya and rejoice in the deep-down humanness that allowed me to respond in some good ole fashioned ways. Can’t remember a glass of red wine ever tasting better and the sex just plain reset my whole nervous system, thank you. I’m okay with being regular, with being deeply committed to the idea of relieving suffering – my own and others – while staying feet firmly planted on the ground. Hell, lampshade karaoke is a shallow and temporary relief of suffering, as is every moment of laughter and love we managed to create here. I refuse to get all cerebral and academic about spirituality; I will stay gritty and rooted in this fabulous world with all you awesome, flawed, beautiful, pain-in-the-ass people who walk with me.

So I guess I have answered my own question. Yes, I can be a “real” Buddhist and still be me. I can grow in clarity and understanding of suffering while being hilarious, light-hearted, loving, and fun. Serious spiritual people give me a wedgie. I vow to never get my panties in a bunch about anything for very long, and I will continue to look back on my unenlightened Wild Child with great love and affection, even if the honchos don’t approve. This might give other people hope that they can wholeheartedly pursue a spiritual path and have and be fun too. Shoot, otherwise, why bother?

INTELLIGENT DESIGN MY ASS

2011-09-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

I just celebrated my 55th birthday and yes, I am indeed turning into a weepy man who can’t wear a belt. This is all part of what the Catholic nuns used to call “the miracle” of being a woman. The first “miracle” started when I was eleven years old and I remember thinking: “Are you kidding me? I’m going to BLEED every month?” To all the good-hearted (and sometimes really mean) fundamentalists who preach the notion of “creationism” and “Intelligent Design” as code for “God made the world and everything in it, in seven days no less” – I have a few words for you including: menopause, periods, mosquitoes, prairie dogs, and gruesome diseases.

Gilda Radner, the queen of Saturday Night Live in the 70s, created a character named Roseanne Roseannadanna who was a loud, ignorant, opinionated and somehow loveable mensch who would come on “Weekend Update” news show and rant like this:

“What’s all this I hear about endangered feces?” Her hair stuck out horizontally and she spit a little bit, “From what I can tell, there’s feces all over the place!”

And she’s right. There’s feces all over the place. There are also so many useless life forms I’ve lost count. Whenever I ask somebody about why bats exist they say “To eat mosquitoes.” OK, I’ll bite. So why do mosquitoes exist? “To infect innocent kids with malaria,” they’ll say, “So thank God for the bats.”

Intelligent design my ass. Whoever put this whole planet together and stuck us into these ridiculous earthsuits ought to be shot. Not only are we zipped inside skin which holds together a bunch of gross organs doing “remarkable” gross things but we’re surrounded by cute but useless organisms like badgers, prairie dogs, and Sarah Palin. And every one of these damn things, except Sarah, is on the endangered feces list.

Like a badger, Sarah is cute and guys across the board love her because she’s, well, so “fuckable.” Cowboy Bob once explained that “there’s two kinds of women in this world: the ones you would (have sex with) and the others.” Wow, how’s that for depth? Yet I married the guy – he married me – I guess because I’m in that first category. What I love most about Cowboy Bob is that he actually says things that most men have the smarts to censor. Like yesterday, he asked me if I thought I had Tourette’s Syndrome (an interesting brain disease that involves random barking and cursing). He thought I was asking too many questions. Now, most regular guys would think such a thing or at least say it quietly but there was Bob, while having lunch with me by the river, just being his uncensored self.

Back to Sarah and Intelligent Design, which she promotes. Do you remember in 2008 when she was nominated for Vice President and the whole Republican National Convention erupted in mighty cheers for this woman? All those old, rich white guys suddenly became feminists! It was a miracle. Thank ya Jesus. Sarah believes the world was created about 10,000 years ago and dinosaurs and people shared the earth at some point. The Republicans wanted to give this woman access to the Red Phone. Now you tell me about Intelligent Design. Listen, the Dems are not much better. A post mortem on any one of these guys from either side of the aisle would likely show a great deal of air space.

A gnat flies up my nose as I write this, and I’m sure there’s an ecological reason for his existence, along with those huge wormy parasites that get inside your skin and guts when you visit very hot places with jungles. I won’t ever go south of Arizona, which has its own brand of menaces in scorpions, snakes, and Harry Reid. See? The whole species/feces thing kind of runs together after awhile but what’s amazing is that despite these scourges inflicted on us by nature and our bodies, we get up every day – often rejoicing – and do it again. Walk the earthsuit to the bathroom, (always a pleasure), feed ourselves, engage in conversation, look at the sun, breathe in the big sky, go to work, laugh plenty, and eventually tuck the whole thing back into bed.

I went to a fabulous class at Upaya called “Zen Brain” where a panel of neuroscientists explained about the new research that shows how plastic our brains are, how much we can change and grow and be happy and make things right. Their science suggests that we are robust, resilient creatures who are much more inclined to compassion than rage – believe it or not – and if rage is our “go to” we can train otherwise. We have come along way from the knuckle-dragging Cro Mags (well, most of us have) who lived on “fight or flight” but even those cave dwellers felt love for their babies and each other. That’s hopeful, right? So in the midst of grousing about bats and menstruation I wake up to remember that it’s gross but kind of fun being human; that I know what it feels like to hurt badly and I know we heal and recover. It’s our specialty. And no, I don’t have Tourette’s, Cowboy Bob, though if anyone can make me bark and curse, it’s you honey.

The Girlfriend Mafia

2011-07-24T11:42:00.001-07:00

I just dropped off my two college girlfriends at the Denver airport after our Third Almost Annual Wet Dawgs Reunion. There is nothing that renews my soul like hanging out with chicks who have known me since the 70s. It’s like bathing in the River of Jordan, sometimes almost literally.

We are the Wet Dawgs because our first attempt at this connection was grandiose and we decided to climb Mount St. Helen’s which is pretty much like walking on the moon. It poured for hours and by the time we got back to our base camp and piled in the car we were a little cranky and smelled exactly like wet dogs – thus the name. Rain followed us closely on the next reunion in Liz’s neck of the woods when we decided to spend a weekend pampering ourselves in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The weekend included a day at a spa where we wore big robes and put cucumbers on our eyes. When it was time for massages a very large lesbian woman named BARB stepped into the room and said,

“Who’s Phyllis?”

Man, she kneaded my back like it was bread dough and though I wish it was the endless rain I felt the truth was BARB sweated on me the whole time. I was an uncomfortable Wet Dawg, getting massaged by a sweaty lesbian.

This year it was my turn to host the Dawgs in Colorado and I no sooner hit I-70 West after scooping them at the airport than we unloaded. Within 20 minutes – this is typical of women – we had discussed Diane’s creeping menopausal depression, Liz’s fear of financial devastation, and my endless Cowboy Bob stories.

“I’m trying all the natural stuff,” Diane leaned in from the back seat, “But some days I just can’t take it anymore!”

She paused.

“Give me the FUCKING HORMONES!”

We applauded both her commitment to doing the natural bullshit first and then caving in to the tried and true medical way. We compared our menstrual histories, and horror stories about the 50-something female body.

“What the hell is this belly?” I asked while speeding down the highway and grabbing the alien that has taken up residence on my navel.

“I got one too!” Liz chimed in.

“Look at this!” Diane said as she undid her seat belt and whipped up her shirt.

This is why we love our girlfriends, especially the ones who have been around since about the Civil Rights Movement. We have been through divorce, death, trauma, tears, babies, men troubles too complicated to touch, and now we are aging together, probably badly.

“I’m so afraid of being a burden on my children,” Liz shared as we stopped for gas, “I mean, what if I get that MLS disease?”

“A real estate illness?” I asked, “You gonna die from a house listing?”

“No!” she responded, “That disease named after the guy, you know.”

“Yeah,” Diane chimed in, “He played football or something then couldn’t breathe. How would you like to have a disease named after you anyway? What was his name?”

And so on.

I assured Liz she probably wouldn’t contract MLS and she then revealed that her blood pressure was out of control to the tune of 250/134.

“Geezus!” I almost ran off the road, “You’re gonna stroke out! Who’s gonna wipe your sorry stroked out ass anyway?”

“See, that’s why I worry,” she said, “But it’s okay. I got medication.”

She pulled out a semi-garbage bag.

“I give up. I take meds. I even have a pill splitter.”

We spent the weekend biking, running, hiking, eating pizza, sitting in the hot springs, catching up on the kids, siblings, and two remaining parents that we had followed for decades like a mysterious soap opera. After one hike Diane piled in the car looking like a mentally unbalanced Annie Hall. She was sweaty, her skirt slightly askew, with the wide brim of her hiking hat folded way up high on her forehead. The look was accentuated by flip-up old lady sunglasses. I started the car and stared at her.

"Yo Diane,” I said, “You look breath-taking.”

She tossed her head back.

“But not in a good way.”

I’m not sure why or how they put up with me and I am astounded they still like me. I’ve been nothing but the smart ass for 35 years, the Village Idiot, the Court Jester, pointing out the inanity of all of it, of us, of life. When Diane unfortunately confided that she thinks about death “every five minutes” I rolled my eyes.

“For the love of God Diane,” I extolled, “You are gonna freaking die. Get over it.”

For some reason Liz thought it was wise to reveal the fact that she didn’t know how to swim. After 35 years you still find out this kind of stuff. I was shocked.

“Oh, come on!” she said cheerily, “I doggie paddle!”

As if this was something to be proud of. Previously I had volunteered to take care of Liz when she was old but I rescinded that offer as soon as I heard about the doggie paddling. Later in the weekend, though, I relented and again committed to being there for her to wipe her drool and pull out old lady chin hairs.

“The guys will be dead,” I announced, “And there will be no health care. Nursing homes smell no matter what you do, so we need to have a Red Tent.”

This is a concept named after a book by Anita Diamante about Jacob’s tribe of Israel. When they would set up camps as they wandered endlessly, (because the guys wouldn’t ask for directions), the women would raise a Red Tent, just for women. When the menstruated or gave birth, they all shared the red tent, calming fears and sharing girl wisdom. This is my vision for old age, me and my girlfriends in some house somewhere, a modern day Red Tent. The last one standing gets the house, I think, and nobody will be allowed to be too talkative or obnoxious. We will just be old lady girlfriends, eating and farting our way into the sunset.

See, what guys don’t understand is that girlfriends are like the Mafia. In utero we pinky swear across the cosmos to our soon-to-be-BFFs that we will take a bullet for each other. We sort of take an oath that we will bring secrets to our grave, and never break The Girlfriend Code. In The Family of girlfriends we can say anything, do anything and still be universally embraced and loved. No outsider can penetrate the Girlfriend Mafia because there just ain’t no mountain high enough. The only “heat” we pack is menopausal and we don’t carry guns, just pouches.

When my girlfriends are miserable, I wallow right there with them. In my mind and heart, they can do no wrong. The Girlfriend Mafia will never, ever be invaded by guys and we will never forgo our life of crime, usually involving story-telling and overeating.

Cowboy Bob was extremely gracious and even engaged with my friends when they were here but he was mystified by the depth of our love and acceptance, the ease we have with each other, the joy we find in our friendship. As we roared with laughter over coffee, he’d just stare at us, unable to get the joke. I don’t think men have anything that resembles the Girlfriend Mafia and they might be a little jealous of so faithful a circle of love. Funny, we get married thinking the guy will be our best friend but soon realize – to our horror sometimes – that they’re really not all that interested in our “feelings” and whatnot. This is where the Mafia comes in, where you can escape to the Badda Bing that is the refuge of hard core females and just let it rip.

I will take their worries and secrets to my grave, I would gladly lie down and die for any one of them and yes, I may end up being the last one standing in the Red Tent, having faithfully and cheerfully wiped their old lady asses, even Liz, as she doggie paddles her way out while succumbing to MLS.

Right Speech, Jersey Style

2011-07-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

Last week I met a woman from Colorado who was going to marry a guy from north Jersey. She was scared.

“Those people are mean!” she said.

Now she grew up in Colorado where folks are right friendly but will shoot you dead for stepping on their property. I asked her to explain.

“Well, when I was back there in the grocery store I offered the lady ahead of me in line my shopper’s reward card,” she explained, “And she snarled at me!”

“Mother of God,” I said, “What are you doing talking to people in the grocery store?”

I’m serious. You freaking shop for food in a grocery store. People in Colorado use it as an opportunity to “visit” about the kids or the crops or whatever. This is like a guy who reads on the john. It’s not a library, it’s a bathroom. And it’s just disgusting to read on the toilet. Do what needs doing, flush and go. Reading on the throne is as bad as blabbing in the vegetable aisle.

“What else?” I asked my scared friend.

“They honk as soon as the light turns green.”

“How long after the light turned green did you step on the gas?” I was taking her deposition, old school.

“About a nanosecond,” she said defensively.

“Well what do you expect hon? Green means go.”

She looked sort of defeated and for the sake of the marriage I decided to offer her some advice. East coast folks are good people. Out here everyone smiles and gives you sort of a “Happy Jesus Day”! one-finger wave as they drive by but don’t ask for a favor or a shoulder to cry on. Back in Philly, you want the shirt off my back? You just gotta ask, asshole.

“Listen, sister,” I was feeling generous, “Here’s a secret. In Jersey you can say anything you want. Think of that – anything you want – as long as you end with a shrug of your shoulders and an innocent “Hey, I’m just sayin’”.

She stared at me through her tears.

“I’m not kidding. Your new mother-in-law? Try this. ‘Hey Ma you’re puttin’ on a few. (Pause, shrug) I’m just sayin’”

All the friendliness in Colorado gets on my last nerve. In the hospital if I see a patient with a Yankees hat on I’ll tell him “No health care for you, buddy,” and since Yankees fans love to be hated they always give it right back. I took care of an Italian guy from north Jersey visiting Steamboat. He said,

“These people look at me and smile,” he sounded like Marlon Brandon, “And I think they want my wallet.”

That’s why I taught my kids two important safety rules: (1) never make eye contact with anyone, and; (2) never eat anything that grows directly out of the ground. Eye contact can provoke gunshots and you can just wait for food to hit your grocer’s freezer before eating it, okay? People out here pick ferns and mushrooms and shit right out of the ground and fry them up like it was nothing! By all rights they should all be dead.

Bob and I had a big pre-marital argument over chickens. We were living in the middle of East Butt Nowhere and he announced that he wanted to “raise chickens.” I told him that was a deal breaker.

“Why do you think they call them ‘fowl’?” I said, “They are disgusting. And I guess you want to be all Cro-Magnon and chase them around and chop their heads off and whatnot.”

“Well, yeah,” he responded, “That’s part of it.”

“It’s me or the chickens, boyfriend,” I was laying down the law.

He paused, thinking it over. I am not kidding. And there are times I wish he’d picked the chickens.

We also had a big argument one night over the Second Amendment. We’d been together more than a year and it was time for him to come back east and meet my Philly peeps. He didn’t want to.

“Why can’t they come here?” he whined

“What are you, the fucking pope?” I asked, “There’s like seven thousand of them. They should charter planes to come kiss your ring?”

“Alright I’ll go,” he conceded, “But I’m bringing my gun.”

“You can’t carry a gun in Philly or Jersey,” I was talking to him like he was in fifth grade. I leaned in close “It’s illegal, Cowboy.”

Whereupon I got the Second Amendment Lecture about the Constitution and Philly and criminals. I rolled my eyes.

“Bring your gun, bring your credit card,” I told him, “’Cause I’m not bailing your sorry ass outta jail.”

This direct Jersey Speak has really worked for me. When I was raising three teenage boys as a single mom in south Jersey (south and north are two different countries, really) I was scared and they were reckless. Boys are crazy. They love to play on the roof and throw footballs across traffic. They drink, they screw and break stuff. Raising teenage boys is like running a zoo. You open the door to the bedroom, throw in some raw meat, and retreat in fear. As men-in-training I knew they had the attention span of a gnat, so to get a point acroos I had to be fast and I had to be clear.

“You get one get-out-of-jail-free card,” I explained one night at dinner as they ate spaghetti like animals, “I’ll help you with the cops one time. After that, you’re Bubba’s bitch.”

Fabulous parenting in less than 10 seconds. They stared, open-mouthed, cogitating on a large man named Bubba having his way with them. I could have lectured them till the cows came home (whenever that is) but one image worked like magic. They each cashed in their Get Out Of Jail Free Card, and that was that.

When I finally did get Bob’s royal behind out to Philly my brothers arranged an intimate dinner for him with 17 of my closest relatives. This is one of my favorite stories. We went to Ralph’s in South Philly where they only accept cash and there are huge, long tables with gallons of Pisano wine. It’s so loud in there someone could drop dead and they’d find him in like three days. So me and the Cowboy walk into Ralph’s and of course Bob’s wearing blue jeans and a ten-gallon cowboy hat and my cousin Renee is squeezing his ass like she’s checking the tires on a new car.

“Oh Madonna!” she elbowed me, “Good job!”

When we all sat down poor Bob was like chum in the midst of a feeding frenzy. Huge plates of pasta were being passed over his head; fifteen people were talking at once. Cousins were yelling questions at him and then not waiting for an answer. Big tough cowboy was taking his Philly welcome with a deer in the headlights look when my brother Domenic, a good foot shorter than Bob poked him in the ribs and said, with a mouth full of meatballs,

“Yo Cowboy Bob,” he kept shoveling, “You hurt my sister I’ll fucking kill ya, alright? Pass the parm.”

Bob’s eyes widened. He wanted his trusty sidearm, but mere bullets can’t hurt the love of Italian siblings. My brother Tony, a surgeon, chimed in from the other side,

“And Yo Cowboy Bob,” he smiled, “I’ll take things out of you that you don’t even know you have.”

Tony shrugged.

“I’m just sayin’.”

By the time Bob came back for another visit he’d spent enough time with me to understand the culture of Right Speech Jersey style. Dom threw a party for us at Pappy’s Pig Roast in Marmora New Jersey. All three of my brothers were there, including darling Joe, and they spent an awful lot of time dancing in a lewd fashion “Brokeback mountain-style.” At my last family reunion Bob was raising his wine glass and yelling with the best of them, banging the table and singing the Eagles’ fight song.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I’m just sayin’.

Kill or Be Killed

2011-06-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Ocean City there was an ax murder across the street; the whole nine yards involving chopped up body parts being put into a cooler and dumped in the ocean. This was interesting, but not too alarming as murder in Jersey is well, not uncommon. But the troubles seem limited to criminals, ne’er do wells and hostile lovers (as in the case of my neighbors) and the rest of us just went about our business. The cops and felons had guns, often shot each other, and that was that. I never felt unsafe in Philly or Jersey. Then I moved to rural Colorado where even the six year olds pack heat and if something doesn’t work it gets shot, period. I was repulsed and fascinated and scared shitless by this new world order cause sometimes I didn’t work too well. Shoot a horse with a broken leg, shoot a dog that chases cows, shoot a Jersey girl that uses the “f” word a little too much.

The other night at dinner we were listening to the screeching and squawking of these ugly birds we call “camp robbers;” non-descript avians that scream like teething babies and poop indiscriminately. Bob had had enough and his Colorado colors started to shine.

“I want to get a bee bee gun and shoot those mothers,” he said.

Pretty typical dinner time conversation for a guy whose motto is: “There’s no problem that can’t be solved by high explosives.”

“You want to shoot the birds,” I was trying to clarify.

“Yep. Pride myself, all my life in killin’ what needs killin.”

That’s an interesting thing to pride yourself in, wouldn’t you say, but I know this is just Bob-speak and I’m pretty used to it because the guy is adorable and funny and I know there’s a heart in there somewhere. He has a tendency towards catasrophizing and exaggerating as in “The glass is not half empty OR half full. It’s shattered in pieces and we’re all gonna die!” To comfort someone he might say, “Don’t worry. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.” Now that I’m really a committed Buddhist I had to raise an objection to him shooting these inconvenient birds. The Colonel immediately got grumpy.

“You used ta like helping me kill stuff,” he moped.

This isn’t exactly true but there was that day about six years ago when we were living in the middle of 5000 acres in a one room cabin. His big cowboy form filled the doorway one fine September morning as he stepped inside, declaring:

“I feel like killin’ something.”

“I’ll drive,” I responded, without a thought.

What the hell? How did I suddenly become Bonnie to this guy’s Clyde? Thelma to his Louise? Guess I wanted to test my mettle by aiding and abetting the shooting of prairie dogs. I had never seen anything get shot before and yep, I was fascinated and volunteered to drive Rusty (every cowboy has a truck, a dog, or a brother named Rusty). It was pretty gruesome. Those little prairie dogs come up out of the ground and put their hands in “prayer position” as we say and then get shot. That was the first and last time I jumped on the killing bandwagon but not the last time I thought about killing something.

Chopper and I went up to a remote trailhead in the Sangres later that spring, to hike up to a lake, just the two of us. Parked at the trailhead was one other car, with a lone guy in the driver’s seat, staring at a tree. He was bald, but for this straggly brown hair coming down from the side of his head and my creep-ometer went wild. I started off up the trail and realized he could follow me, using the mountains as a trap, and rape or kill me, so I went back to the car to get my gun. I strapped it around my belly, walked back into the woods, and imagined the whole time how I would aim for the center of mass.

A few years ago I gave up my gun, gave it back to the Colonel who was happy to add it to his collection, and became more conscious about killing stuff. People think Buddhism is all about catching the errant spider in your laundry room and setting him free outside. That’s bullshit. I wish it was that easy. Buddhism is about not killing anything – someone’s spirit, your partner’s ideas, your kid’s hopes and dreams. Pretty sure I kill more stuff with my mouth, my wild, unchecked speech, than I ever did by squishing a bug. Pretty sure that hitting the “send” button on a mean-spirited e-mail is not that much different than pulling a trigger.

I think I enjoyed anger and verbal killing a little too much. When I was a lawyer it was sort of fun to watch people (other lawyers usually, maybe not considered “people” in the human sense) squirm. I’m smart and funny and that’s some powerful stuff when combined with my Italian heritage where anger and yelling was like mother’s milk. There came a point in my 40s when I realized it was either booze or Buddhism. Coulda gone either way.

So Colonel Cowboy Bob is reluctantly resigned to not shooting the birds on our deck because I reminded him that, like these birds, he’s going to be loud and inconvenient someday– in fact he already is on a regular basis – and I don’t shoot him, though in my less enlightened moments it’s probably crossed my mind. It’s simple logic, but with a man you have to stick to the easiest path from A to B and if you want to make a point make it about them, and they’ll get it.

And don’t think for one minute that I’m some serene Buddhist because I gave up my gun and I try not to kill stuff. Actually I can’t have a gun, especially in my car, because I’d probably shoot some old lady for braking too fast at a stop sign. Same reason I never hit my kids. I’m sort of afraid that once I let that tiger out of my tank there’s just no going back. Knowing my Inner Felon I can sort of laugh at her, recognize her flushed and agitated face when she shows up, and ask her kindly to just put down the gun, and have a seat. Maybe a diet coke. Relax, sister, it’s really not worth it.

OF BACK FAT AND BABY SHOWERS

2011-05-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

It’s been gray and rainy for about 73 straight days here in Steamboat and everyone’s a little cranky. It’s like living inside Tupperware. I’ll be 55 next month and AARP is hunting me down like a wounded deer. I’m pretty sure it was actually AARP that found Osama. I still get my period but I have the enlarged middle of a matron along with chicken skin and back fat. When I walk the dog in the park I think people take pity on me when they smile, like “Oh geez, her life’s going down the toilet.”

So I foolishly decide to try to talk to my hubby about my existential anxiety which is the kind of stupid fucking decision a gal makes after 73 days of rain. The car is always a good place to talk because it’s like we have them hostage. I did that with my boys, teaching them to drive. “You need a licensed driver, son. Your ass is mine.” As they white-knuckled their way through stop signs, I’d be having the “sex talk” exhorting them to “Always put a helmet on that soldier!” and such. They were a hostile but captive audience, like any guy in a car, so I decided to broach my crankiness with Bob when we were pulling out of a parking lot in town.

“I’m really feeling kinda blue,” I said softly, “You know, not really like myself.”

“They shouldn’t allow left turns out of this parking lot,” he responded.

Mother of God, what was I thinking?

I recounted the story later that day at a baby shower, sitting on a couch eating avocado chocolate mousse with my girlfriend homies from the hospital.

“Phyllis you dumb ass,” Martha said, “You should have used the phrase ‘blow job’ in that sentence. As in ‘I’m depressed, want a blow job?’ He’d a heard you, trust me.”

“Damn right,” Betsy chirped in, “He’d be like ‘Oh yeah, depressed huh? This’ll make you feel better.”

Dang, it’s like men go to Knucklehead School at night and all learn the same shit. When I was walking through the villages of Nepal the men would be outside their huts, laughing and smoking while the women slaved in the fields and carried huge loads of stuff around. So, my informal anthropological research shows that male blindness is a cross-cultural phenomenon.

What to do about the blue, about back fat, the AARP-inator, Bob’s male brain, my endlessly functioning uterus? I don’t drink, but I probably should. I pretty much stopped in my 20s because I’m a happy stupid dancing drunk – cheap to boot – and will gladly jump up on a table to shake my money maker at a moment’s notice. Some inhibitions are good, like keeping your shirt on in public, but there are days I miss how much fun it could be to just be an idiot.

When I was very young and married to Husband #1 he was in the Lion’s Club – you know, the AARP crowd that does good things and wears funny hats. Well, I was 23 and had to be a “Lion Tamer” when I went to their dinners and really, heavy drinking or suicide was the only way out. We even went on a Lion’s Romp to the Poconos one weekend and of course the old people didn’t want to ski or anything so I got loaded. That night, at the Lion’s Ball we sat at a table way in the back when some horrible singer came on stage and everyone started talking.

“Oh, come on folks!” she chirped, “Just give me a chance!”

It was noisy in there and I was very drunk and with the righteousness of an idiot sot I stood up, slammed both palms on the table and said in a really loud voice,

“Fuck you! We don’t have to listen to this shit!”

In slow motion, 400 Lions and Lion Tamers turned around and looked at me. You could hear a pin drop in that ballroom. I swayed but held my ground. Drooled a little, probably. We were asked to leave that night, but I subsequently got invited to a lot of parties.

On the way home from the baby shower I decided to drown my sorrows in a book store. A little blue book grabbed me, titled "F IN EXAMS: The Very Best Totally Wrong Answers." I opened it, and soon was snorting in the aisle. Here's an example of the biology questions and real answers from high school kids:

"What is a fibula?" A little lie.

"What is the highest frequency noise that a human voice can register?" Mariah Carey.

You get the idea. And I laughed until I hurt and people were looking at me probably with pity again; I'm sure my back fat was jiggling but it was better than any beer or bong I would have picked up in my 20s. I bought the book, went home, and the sun popped out. Me and Chopper went to the park, and all the neighborhood kids came teeming out onto the streets riding bikes and skateboards, kicking soccer balls. My neighbor, holding her one year old, waved the baby’s hand at me.

"Hey, you're starting the garden!" I said.

"Yep," she replied, "The lettuce is yours for the picking."

And that's the way it goes, folks. The agony and the ecstasy of being a human bean. As Roseanne Roseannadana used to say: "If it's not one thing, it's another." Tupperware skies, left turns, girlfriends and chocolate mousse; chicken skin and kids on bikes. My neighbor offers me lettuce not yet even grown and I get to start all over again.

Honey I Dyed the Dog

2011-04-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

Are humans really at the top of the food chain? If so, I am definitely at the bottom of the top and if I was just one level lower on that food chain for sure I would be chum for the dumbest of whatever species was directly above me. So many things have just been incomprehensible to me, stuff that looks easy and fun for other people like cooking or shopping. I’m not even sure I’m a real girl in this genus humanus because I could never do lipstick (“You put it on, lick it off, and put it on again?”), my girlfriends had to cheerlead me through menstruation, and I’d rather watch football than, well, bull riding. But it’s close.

My black lab Chopper – like many dogs – is a complete reflection of me. Dumb as a rock, and bordering on the chum line for his species. He is the canine equivalent of the Village Idiot, but he does have this Jesus-like quality that brings little kids out of their houses when he trots down the street. “Chopper!” they exhort, arms flailing, “Chopper’s here!” And he is, right there, in the moment, not a thought in his head.

So the other morning when I opened the door at 5 am to let him back in the house and he brought with him a stench so foul it made my eyes water I knew my dog had let curiosity get the better of him and he pissed off a skunk. Now skunk stink is so odious it makes your worst baby diaper smell like fresh baked chocolate chips. It is horrendous, and once it’s on the dog, he brings this cloud of smell into the house, onto your jacket, into your car. You get the picture. I stepped into the ER to start my shift that morning and the nurse said,

“Holy shit! What’s that smell?”

Don’t you love it when you step in a room and someone says that?

I knew I had to attack the odor problem head-on and I also know that in domestic tasks of any kind, even those involving simple cleaning mechanisms, I am notoriously a dork. So I immediately solicited advice from the girls I work with because they are real girls and know everything.

“OK, listen carefully,” Rachelle instructed, “You get one quart of hydrogen peroxide, mix in a quarter cup of baking soda, and a little drop of detergent.”

Double double toil and trouble.

“Then you wipe your dog down with it. Make sure he’s wet first. Let it stay on a bit, then rinse it off.”

She looked at me, and I stared back, vacant.

“You understand?”

“Got it,” I said, running for the nearest pencil and paper because I can’t retain my phone number for 30 seconds let alone the recipe for de-skunking my dog.

So that afternoon I made the concoction and brought Chopper out onto the driveway where I proceeded to bath him with this mixture while he looked at me with the eye-rolling impatience of a teenager. I let the stuff stay on him, then proceeded to clean out my car, vacuum the house, and wash my clothes.

Somewhere in the recesses of my pea brain I guess I thought it was okay to leave hydrogen peroxide on a black dog because, as I’ve said, I don’t know anything about anything especially hair dyeing. A couple hours later I looked at Chopper, my 100 pounds of Dumb Love, and I realized I had dyed my black dog brown. Sort of a rusty brown, in a big stripe from the top of his knucklehead, sideways across his back.

I dyed the dog. See what I’m saying?

What’s the point of a skunk anyway? You don’t eat their meat or wear their damn fur and they don’t eat other stuff of any significance except maybe voles which are also freaking useless so what the fuck? Why are the even IN the food chain except to make their enemies smell like rancid electrical fires? Who thought this up? Intelligent Design? Are you kidding me? What’s so intelligent about skunks or bats (oh, for God’s sake they eat mosquitoes. Oh, okay, that makes up for them being hideous nocturnal blood-sucking upside-down-sleeping vermin)? And why do women bleed every month, as long as we’re talking about it? Honestly, when religious people want to argue Intelligent Design I have two words for them: skunks and periods.

I guess I’m glad I’m at the top of the food chain, barely. And speaking of devolution of that chain in relation to odious things, my best friend says she knows her husband is really getting old because he started naming his farts:

“Whoops, that there’s the broccoli!” he’ll say, or “Whoa! Green beans!”

“What in the name of all that is holy makes him think that’s okay?” she asks pleadingly, “Or, God help me, attractive.”

I shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t know honey. You’re barking up the wrong human.”

So a useless skunk sprays unctuous pew all over my unsuspecting black lab, who ends up being dyed brown by his loving owner who could never wear lipstick and still, after 42 years, resents her monthly scourge. Her best friend has a husband who’s headed giddily into that happy old man stage where flatulence seems a cause for celebration. I don’t really think we’re at the top of the food chain. I think all the other species just feel sorry for us.

I Know Nothing

2011-04-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

I used to be a nosy son of a gun. If a whispered conversation was happening across the room, I was like a junkie needing my information fix. I was all up in everyone’s bid-ness on a macro level (reading PEOPLE magazine and following some diva’s tan lines) and a micro level (who’s dating my plumber?). This insatiable need to know was genetic and ethnic, because Italians believe that if you’re born into the family you are grist for the mill, baby.

In an Italian family, with 953 close relatives, your information flow is managed by a hierarchy of aunts and uncles who tell you who to date (Italians) who to hate (non-Italians) and when to mate (on your wedding night!). Most of this unsolicited “advice” came either at Sunday dinner or funerals, both of which were populated by huge numbers of people I didn’t really know, often dressed in black and always loud. I remember as a teenager being at the funeral of some unknown old guy I was apparently related to, when an ancient aunt elbowed me in the ribs, pointed out a handsome kid across the room and exhorted me to DATE HIM! When she was informed that this guy was my first cousin and such a coupling may negatively impact the gene pool, she yelled at me to GET AWAY FROM HIM! It was all very confusing, but colorful.

Without cell phones, twitter, or facebook, information in an Italian family still seemed to travel at the speed of light. If my baby brother Joe had a watery bowel movement, within seconds some aunt would be knocking at the door with herbs to put in the gravy (yes, the baby ate spaghetti). Nothing was sacred or private, and no stone was left unturned in my life which wasn’t really mine but the family’s.

The Catholic Church also managed my information flow, telling me what to believe, what to do and when to do it. I had a lot of questions, of course, about why there was suffering and how this all-loving God could, for instance, let a 5 year old die of leukemia but I eventually understood the Catholic guidelines to all this stuff. There are two answers to the question of bad things happening: (1) Free Will (we like to kill each other!) or (2) It’s A Mystery (reference childhood cancer). I was advised that I was a sinner from the git go and pretty darn arrogant for wanting to understand The Mystery of God’s Mind.

So I went off to Boston College where I drank a lot of beer, danced on tables, and felt happy to be out from under the microscope. At least I was no longer subjected to details about the dietary indiscretions of others.

And then along came Facebook.

Dang, it’s like having a virtual Italian family. People I didn’t like in high school can now find me and – God forbid – “friend” me. I can find out who spent the night on the john with the trots, who found a really good used cookie sheet at a yard sale, when somebody’s college kid is coming home, and how cute the neighbor’s baby is. Or not.

So I’ve taken control of my own information intake, finally, and I’m sort of like the military with various levels of security clearance. See, I’m on a need-to-know basis about everything and as it turns out, what I need to know ain’t much which is great because I forget most everything anyway. If I’m like most humans and only use 10% of my brain power I’m sure not going to waste that itty bitty cerebral space on Charlie Sheen. Everything falls into the following categories:

• Need to Know
• Don’t Know
• Should Know But Don’t
• Don’t Wanna Know

The whole man-woman thing basically falls into that last group. I used to want to understand how men see the world, what they “feel” etc and now I realize that the good nuns were right about some things. It’s a Mystery! The other night my husband actually picked up a pair of underwear off the floor and blew his nose. That’s incomprehensible to me. A Mystery.

When I was younger I was embarrassed about now knowing stuff and as a lawyer I often had to pretend to know things I didn’t but at 54 I just no longer give a rat’s ass so an awful lot falls into “Should Know But Don’t.” When people ask me a question I no longer act like I know what I’m talking about. I’m more like Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes (remember him?) “I know NOTHING!”

It’s great to finally be in charge of my own information process, although a little disheartening to think of all the time I wasted trying to know stupid stuff and understand the incomprehensible. Much as I detest Facebook I still sign in once in a while, just in case something valuable is happening but mostly it seems like a place for people to whine and be smart assy or write boring details about what appear to be boring lives. Then there is the occasional person who uses Facebook to give a head’s up about homicide or suicide. Man, seems we have lost our way.

So I have about 90% of unused cerebral space to work with and there’s no more clutter about Jennifer Aniston or whether my neighbor is drinking too much. I kind of like all that empty space with nothing much in it, and clusters of people in whispered conversation now make me want to run the other way. I’m no longer nosy and thank God my life is no longer the subject of family meals. Although there’s not much I know or want to know right now I expect I’ll know even less as I get older.

How cool is that?

SHIFT HAPPENS

2011-03-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it’s a small thing. Tonight I discovered that I need to wear my WalMart reading glasses while cooking, otherwise I might chop off a finger. Sometimes it’s really a big thing, like 9.0 on the Richter scale. Any way you slice it – a finger or the world knocked off its axis – shift happens.

I’m a big fan of shift. In fact, I have an addiction to change. If things get too status quo I have to mix it up. In my younger decades, this meant changing husbands like underwear and morphing from a mousy married 24 year old mom to a law student, litigator, high school teacher, writer, cowgirl, EMT and now Buddhist chaplain student. This proclivity for shaking it up used to drive my friends and family insane.

“ But I’m just like Madonna!” I’d exhort my buddies at the 4th Street Café, “Every five years I reinvent myself!”

“Yeah,” cranky Steve would reply, “But Madonna keeps getting better.”

Touche, Dude. Keeping it humble.

Speaking of big shifts, I just returned from a two week intensive at Upaya Monastery in Santa Fe where 18 of us showed up bright eyed and altruistic for two years of Buddhist chaplaincy training before ordination in March of 2013. One of the best things about going to Upaya is the fact that I get away from Bob’s snoring. That’s not very evolved, unless you’ve ever had to sleep next to a fog horn. I checked in to my little adobe dorm room, a double, with my roomie’s bed about a foot from mine. You guessed it. She snored like a sailor. Here’s another big fat truth: You can run, but you can’t hide.

So that inner earthquake of spiritual evolution is endless and pretty funny. In the words of Ram Dass, big deal Buddhist teacher for decades: “If you think you’re enlightened, spend a week with your family.” Go ahead, try it. Family presses buttons like a girl scout on a doorbell. Folks who consider themselves “spiritual” sort of get an ass-kicking at Thanksgiving when drunken Uncle George is yipping about “homos” and your Mom is apologizing about your job, hair, your behavior, or “that fat roll.” Nothing worse than self-righteous spiritual folks, eh, and family brings you right to zero on the humility scale. Think you’re enlightened? Feel the shift happen.

People at the hospital where I work are already making fun of me – while truly loving my changes – calling me “Rev” and asking for healings, which I will in fact do, for a dollar. My brother Dom who still calls me Fathead, is now resigned to calling me Reverend Fathead. Like Rodney Dangerfield, I can’t get no respect but I don’t care, because in my earthsuit, there’s one thing for sure: shift happens.

Some days, even here in Paradise/Steamboat, it seems like there’s suffering all over the place. This beautiful ski town has the highest per capita rate of suicide in all of Colorado. So, there’s that, as well as the normal range of yucky behavior brought about by the demon rum, people on the brink of financial ruin, and some guy at the hardware store complaining, loudly, about “them Mexicans.” And then just when you get to feeling despair, The Brotherhood shows up in town. Now The Brotherhood is a national group of black skiers and ever few years about 1,000 of them descend on lily white Steamboat, and for a week they remind us how to be happy, how to have fun, and how to really work an outfit. Shift happens, and God bless The Brotherhood.

Shift is happening in my body as we speak, as things descend towards the ground. My neck turned to chicken skin, things sag, and dang what the hell is going on with my potbelly anyway? The Chinese Buddha figure has a big fat belly and a huge smile. In fact, the little Buddha guy I have on my window ledge also has both arms wide up in the air, like Touchdown Buddha. Happy as can be in his big, fat belly, loving the moment. If you’re over 50, the present moment is all you have because….what was I saying? Shift happens, eh?

Change is great, and even the cracking and falling apart of the world, or the economy, or our government is not such a bad thing. When politics causes everything to grind to a halt, maybe people will soften up and start helping each other more. And while an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown seem like an improbable trifecta of disaster there’s this letter of a survivor from Sendai, Japan where the writer talks of food and clean water showing up on what’s left of her doorstep. Seeing things crumble and get swept away right in front of her here’s what Anne Thomas concludes:

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent. http://www.odemagazine.com/blogs/readers_blog/24755/a_letter_from_sendai

Any way you look at it, shift’s going to happen over and over. Might as well open your big Buddha arms, breathe out that big Buddha belly, and welcome all the good shifts to come.

HALF THE SKY

2011-02-24T07:02:00.000-08:00

This is not going to be a very funny blog, except in a Ripley’s-Believe-It-Or-Not kind of way because the poverty I saw in Nepal these past few weeks wasn’t funny, just absolutely shocking. I went with a medical team from Centura Health (http://www.centuraglobalhealth.org/) and the whole thing really rocked my world, which was exactly the point. It was time for me to see Third World poverty with my own eyes.

It takes about two days to even get to Nepal, the other side of the world, and somehow you actually “gain a day” as you cross the Pacific; don’t ask me how that whole international date line thing works I just know that beautiful women in long silk dresses on Singapore Airlines handed me food and hot towels the whole way. And though the whole deal is about 26 hours of flying I can only thank God for Ambien. But if I slept and ate well on the way, arriving in Katmandu I was about to get the awakening of a lifetime.

Describing the Katmandu Airport as “chaotic” doesn’t come close to communicating the noise, crowds, dirty, and craziness. I mean, you can watch this stuff on movies and TV but seeing it with your own peepers is a whole different show. Once we figured out immigration and the money system (I changed $200 for what seemed like 8 million rupees) we collected our bags – 22 bags for 11 people, as we each had a duffle bag filled with medical supplies. I loaded some on a cart, headed for customs when some small brown guy grabbed the cart, shouted something incomprehensible to me, and took off clear past the harried uniformed customs officials who had no control over the insanity. This would become a theme in Nepal – no control over craziness.

On the ride from the airport to the hospital I could not take my eyes off the streets. Imagine hordes of people everywhere, cattle, goats, and mounds of trash. Throw on top of that hair-raising traffic, unimaginable pollution, and the occasional filthy stream. Nepal is at once incredibly beautiful and filthy. It is a sharp study in contrasts, where smiling happy people live in squalor. And somehow, in one of the world’s poorest countries, my life was immeasurably enriched.

Sheer Memorial Hospital in Banepa, Kevre District, Nepal http://www.scheermemorialhospital.org/ is a faith-based English speaking hospital that serves a hugely needy population of several cities around Katmandu as well as out-lying villages. On my first tour of the place my mouth fell open: That’s the ER? This is where they operate? A plastic milk bottle for a sharp’s container? Barefoot patients and doctors in flip flops? These are folks who work with what they’ve got, which isn’t much of anything. As I spent more time in the ER that week I sort of got used to the fact that there was one blood pressure cuff, and not so much as a wash cloth to wipe the mouth of a sick patient. I got used to it.

I was supposed to join a group of 30 Nepali nursing students and doctors for a four-day trip to the villages to provide clinics and basic health care but the Maoists decided they didn’t want that to happen. I’m pretty sure they don’t like Christians and I know they don’t want people to be happy and free so they leaned on the hospital with vague threats of a “problem” if the busses rolled out. So, they didn’t.

Plan B had me working in the ER as our OR team performed surgery all week. This was a gyn mission, geared towards helping women with uterine prolapse. This is a huge problem in Nepal, affecting over 250,000 women who give birth and then get right back to hauling unbearably heavy loads. Eventually their uteruses just slip right down, sometimes out. Hysterectomy is the only cure and our team performed 18 surgeries that week. Women in Nepal suffer terribly. They are expected to work in the fields all day and do all domestic chores. Their mothers-in-law are strict and relentless and the rate of suicide and attempted suicide among married women is extremely high. Once the do get married, they age decades. I held the hand of a woman having surgery and we just looked at each other (patients were given spinal anesthesia, and awake and scared). She looked 50, but was actually 32.

I told you this wouldn’t be a funny blog.

But oddly, the Nepali people are calm, happy, and nearly always smiling. Family is tight and important; they bring patients to the hospital and are expected to stay and take care of them. The nurses in the ER seemed unaware of their plight and maybe this is the key to the happiness I saw in the midst of such poverty: From the Day One, Nepalese know only poverty. They don’t realize they are terribly deprived of the most basic human right to clean water and good food. Of course they suffer – vast numbers of women try to kill themselves by drinking insecticide – but this is all they know.

One day we hiked several hours out of Dhulikel to a monastery called NamoBuddha. That morning, the clouds had descended over the village and the Himalaya rose majestically into the sky. So beautiful, yet so filled with suffering. There is literally no trash system in Nepal. The government is a cluster of 18 political parties who can’t get their collective heads out of their asses (some things cross all national boundaries. Politicians everywhere are idiots). No system for picking up trash, no place to put it, so it is thrown helter skelter, everywhere, or just dumped into the rivers. There is no sanitation, so people pee and poop outside. The “public toilets” in towns and squares are squalid, horrible stinky holes in the ground. This is why you can’t eat the fruits and vegetables or, God forbid, drink the water.

Katmandu held the allure of exotic Indonesia once upon a time, and was a haven for Potheads-Are-Us. Though there is amazing art and architecture to be found there, you can’t really see much through the smog and smut of the sky and streets. I wasn’t sure this was a country capable of getting me out on a flight on time, or at all. The airport waiting room was like a tuberculosis ward of hundreds of people where harried uniformed airline employees ran around yelling incomprehensible things. I did manage to find my way out, to Singapore, to San Francisco, and finally home to my Rocky Mountains.

So I’m back, forever changed by the faces of Nepali people and my “own eyes” vision of Third World poverty. Apparently, it’s not politically correct to use the term “Third World” anymore. You’re supposed to say a developing nation, but if Nepal is “developing” I’m not sure what it’s “developing” into so I’ll stick with Third World. I made a promise to adopt the Sheer Memorial Hospital ER and send them the stuff we routinely throw away. This isn’t much. A finger in the dyke of heart-busting poverty but it’s something. If you want to know more about the plight of women in the Third World and what you can do about it, read HALF THE SKY (http://www.halftheskymovement.org/) . That’s the book that compelled me to join this mission and maybe it will inspire you as well.

MAN MATH: Happy Guy = F Squared

2011-01-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

The other day at work I overheard a young nurse talking about her marital frustration:

“If only he had said to me ‘Janie, I’ve done a lot of soul searching and I need to work on some things.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I dropped a pile of chux and coban on an empty bed and charged over to the gaggle of young women.

“OK, listen carefully,” I said as they looked at me in wide-eyed wonder, “If ever, if EVER you hear a man say ‘I’ve done a lot of soul searching’ take him immediately to the ER because he’s having a seizure.”

They laughed at me.

“No, I am not kidding. Introspection in a guy is a sign of brain damage. There’s some screwed up neurons,” I said, “If your husband is thinking about his ‘faults.’”

There’s a lot of things men just don’t do, and ‘soul searching’ is tops on that long list, sisters and brothers. My young friends could spare themselves decades of agony if they just understood one simple equation. In order to be happy, a man needs to be fed and fucked. That’s it. No more, no less. I call it “F Squared.” Their needs are basic and don’t require any ‘soul searching.’ I am not kidding. Ask any guy about this theory.

Except for psychopaths, the Dalai Lama, and about four other guys on earth F Squared will get ‘er done. This is frustrating for women because we are, well, a bit larger than that, perhaps needing mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual growth, challenges, and development. But your Average Joe needs food and booty, and neither have to be spectacular, just available. Average Joe will spend 50% of his time looking for food and putang and the other 50% assuring its presence in the future. I think most guys get married to make sure these commodities are within easy reach. Am I simplifying? Perhaps many men are also interested in world domination but thank God most are too lazy to do anything about it.

Speaking of simple, I think it’s terrific that men are so….basic. I love men. I grew up with three brothers, had three husbands, three sons. Love ‘em. But they’re not very complex now are they? And if they tried ‘soul searching’ they’d probably find duct tape or The Sopranos reruns. Feed me, fuck me and I’ll be happy.

Bob and I had a discussion about multi-tasking the other day – something else guys don’t do well. He was extremely frustrated because he couldn’t “think about the economy and worry about shoveling all this damn snow at the same time!” Are you serious? I had a flashback of me breastfeeding a newborn while playing kitchen soccer with a three year old, cooking dinner, helping my first grader with homework, talking to my Mom on the phone and writing a brief in my head.

“And you can’t think and worry ???”

“Well, it’s not like I can’t multi-task,” Bob said defensively.

Hmm

“For example,” and he said this - my hand to God - he actually said, “I can wack off and fantasize at the same time!”

Making the world a better place.

It’s a wonder we can even share the same planet. But Bob makes me laugh and for reasons I can’t explain I love the guy to death and I just let him be Bob which is a big fat challenge many days. And he thinks I’m nuts, talking about ‘feelings’ and pursuing a Zen Buddhist chaplaincy program. I tried to explain the course of study to him one day, and we got hung up when I said,

“After the first year, I’ll take jukai vows to become an ordained student.”

He opened his eyes, as if he was listening.

“Vows? What vows?

“That I commit to following the path for as long as it takes for everyone to become enlightened.”

He looked curious for a split second, and I anticipated a follow-up question about enlightenment or the path, or more about the Buddhist precepts perhaps.

“You gonna come back from that monastery and tell me we can’t get laid anymore?”

He was serious as a heart attack.

“No, my knuckle-dragging husband,” I reassured him, “No vow of celibacy.”

“Hmm. Good.”

This is Bob showing an interest in my life.

When I talk about my plans or my path he’s thinking F Squared. How can I remain well fed and well ‘done’ while she’s on this dang growth kick? But the good news is that he has connected my contentment with his, i.e. if Mamma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy, so he’s eventually very supportive of the things I want to do because at some level he understands the interdependency of our happiness. It’s easy for me to enhance his contentment but generally he’s totally at sea trying to figure me out because for me, F Squared is “family and friends” or “freedom and fulfillment,” concepts that require more than a meal and a warm body.

I bet it’s great to be a guy, to need so little, to be happy so easily, kind of like a good dog, except when you’re wonderful wife is asking you to “search your soul” and you have no earthly idea what’s she’s talking about. There’s something touching about the effort a man will make, watching his eyes searching an internal rolodex for what he needs to do to soothe his anxious partner. They try, they really do. And sometimes they fix stuff and can be a lot of fun. How about we just let them be? Do what we can in the food and booty department and go soul searching with our girlfriends.

Wish someone had let me in on F Squared when I was in my twenties, but it’s never too late to understand Man Math.

WILL I FIND HAPPINESS AS A GUY?

2011-01-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

Had my annual visit with my gynecologist yesterday. I'm 54. She told me that as soon as I stopped “the monthly scourge” I would likely grow a mustache. Talk about your good news/bad news. I’m starting to fart more too but in order to avoid breast cancer I have to eat cabbage. There’s a whole ying/yang synchronicity to this getting old stuff. When estrogen depletes, testosterone increases. Dear God, will I start spending a lot of time in the garage?

Welcome to the Earthsuit, that panoply of odd, glorious, and often disgusting events occurring to each of us while zipped inside these things. So, women grow old by getting manly and men grow breasts and emotions, perhaps for the first time. Shoot we all end up in diapers again, sometimes toothless and bald, big babies with a past. Weird, huh?

My body’s a temple, alright - of doom. Left to its own devices, the body will stink, shrivel up, grow hair in odd places, and die. Therefore, we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep it clean and fresh-looking, an arduous, endless task to say the least. Body maintenance and hygiene is a full time job, what with all the plucking, exfoliating, scrubbing, combing, shaving, rubbing, tucking and hiding you have to do on a regular basis. Forget about keeping the damn thing healthy. Keeping it from stinking is enough on any given day. Nip and tuck it all you want, honey. Eventually, it’s going down.

But here really is some good news: it’s not the body that’s the problem, it’s just our thoughts about the body that make us crazy. Why do we even buy into our own stinkin’ thinkin’ about aging, our bodies, our boyfriends, pain, pleasure yadda yadda? We torture ourselves with unpleasant thoughts and visions. When my kids used to wake up with nightmares I’d tell them (back in the days of VCRs): Just change the tape. That’s what I’m talking about. Stop clinging to your nightmarish thoughts, let ‘em float away, and replace them with thoughts of love and happiness. Dang, it’s so simple, but we're scared to death of happiness.

So yes, I suppose I’m becoming a guy while shrinking no less, and losing bladder control. Does anyone else just find that freaking hilarious? I saw a picture of Meg Ryan the other day. Remember how adorable she was, just a natural beauty? Well now she’s got those fat-ass lips that look like maybe Dennis Quaid sucker punched her or something. She didn’t need those silly botoxed lips. She’d be a cool old lady just regular-lipped.

If it’s just our PERSPECTIVE that causes suffering, turn it around. Just hold it up to the light and change it, right? Research shows that when you change the WAY you think you can actually alter your neural pathways and ….make yourself peaceful and happy. Apparently this has been available to us forever; the Greeks wrote about it when they wore bedsheets and sat on cold marble, talking philosophy. Just open your eyes, change the way you see things, and bam – it’s all good.

Meditation has also been proven to actually change brain chemistry. Like anything else, if you do it enough and it becomes a habit it also forms a neural pathway that allows for happiness, including the release of those fabulous endorphins and serotonins. So I put my ass on that meditation pillow as much as possible, because I want to be a happy old lady, or man, or whatever.

Try it. Just once today, take one negative thought and get rid of it. Replace it with nothing, or with a different perspective. Let the good ju-ju come into your bones and cells; positive energy is positively healing. Kind of looking forward to my mustachioed old age. Bet I’ll kick your ass at Bingo.

BUDDHIST BOOT CAMP

2010-12-11T10:58:00.000-08:00

Don’t ask me why every major religion thinks they have to celebrate in December but there you have it: Christmas, Ramadan, Rohatsu, Kwanza, Chanukah – all crammed into the twelfth month. I suspect Christ may not actually have been born on December 25 any more than Buddha awakened on the eighth day of December. We make up a lot of shit here on this planet, trying to hang on, muddle through, and explain why on many days it’s so hard to be a human.

Lots of folks celebrate in December by eating rich foods, getting really drunk, and trying to cop a feel at the office Christmas party. Zen Buddhists have a slightly different approach that involves seven days of silent meditation, filled with excruciating hours of sitting absolutely still. Yahoo! Chances are you won’t see a reality TV show called Buddhists Gone Wild but I just returned from my first Rohatsu sesshin (long period of silent meditation) and I survived 15 hour days at the monastery, in total silence and it was, well, pretty glorious.

When my son Billy was in the Marines he had a T-shirt that said: THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES. This is what Rohatsu is like at first. Participants wear dark clothing, no make up or jewelry, we don’t speak or make eye contact and we sit, walk, and eat in total silence. The idea is to strip away that pesky “personality” of ours and not to invoke anyone else’s. We are just left alone, to our plain old selves, to find out what Buddha discovered after sitting under a tree for six years pondering that age old question: why does it hurt so much to be a human?

But Zen, like Seinfeld, is about Nothing. No answer, no God to lay some mysterious trip on, no relatives of God to take the heat for our “sins.” Buddhists believe only in one thing: the present moment, which – oops! – has already passed. Nothing else. Left foot, right foot, breathe. And if on any given day you suffer while you put one foot in front of the other, know that this too shall pass. Meantime, develop compassion, clarity, wisdom and life can be pretty darn sweet. That’s it.

Upaya monastery (http://www.upaya.org/) is where I’ll start my lay chaplaincy program in March and it’s where I go on retreat with my homies, in this case about 60 other people from all over who think it’s a really good use of time to do nothing much, in silence, together, for 15 hours a day. There were grandparents, young people, black, Asian, white, hefty, small – the normal array of Earthsuits. We didn’t speak at all, but I fell in love with most all of them. How does that happen? The short answer is that people generally are a lot more attractive when they shut up. But on a deeper level, your hearts just connect when you walk this way together, like the one root of an aspen grove that connects all the trees above ground.

Buddhists focus on two main tools for developing compassion, awareness, and wisdom: meditation and mindfulness. The first is a very formalized way of sitting in silence and the second is a simple matter of paying attention to what’s directly in front of you right now. The point is to tame what Buddhists call your “monkey mind” – that shrieking, aimless, noisy monkey that throws its own shit around as it swings wildly in your head. Try right now to close your eyes and sit quietly for 30 seconds. You’ll meet your monkey mind, trust me.

My mind is more like a Chihuahua dog on crack cocaine. I’ve been meditating about 10 years now and spent half that time trying to get the damn dog to stop peeing on the rug and tearing up the furniture. In Rohatsu, left alone with my crazy dog mind, I started to teach her to sit, and stay. It’s really nice.

There wasn’t enough room to stay at the monastery so I had a motel room nearby which was great because after 15 hours in deep silence I could go back and eat cheese doodles and snuggle with my comforting bad habits like e-mail and Reese’s Pieces. I’m just not that hard core yet, maybe never will be, but we chant a beautiful meditation phrase that says “May I happily take care of myself” and sometimes chocolate is just part of that. I also spent my free “rest” hour each day by running or power walking around the neighborhood. I’m addicted to my own endorphins and get pretty cranky when deprived of that particular drug.

On the last morning of sesshin we celebrated Buddha’s awakening with a ceremony under the Morning Star at 6am. Now Zen Buddhists don’t have elaborate “ceremonies” because we’re into Nothing so it’s not exactly the Macy’s Day Parade when 60 of us walk out into a field in silence and stare at the sky. After about 15 minutes, a bell rings. That’s it. The fat lady has sung, and we go back inside to sit some more. At the very end of our last hour of sitting zazen in the Zendo (temple), our teachers did something shocking and compelling: they rather blasted into the room Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. It was overwhelming, to feel that abject joy in all that silent sitting but that’s what it’s all about. As one teacher said, quoting Duke Ellington, It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. If there’s not joy in your life, every day, every minute, you’re missing the boat.

I’d like to quote another famous Zen master, Dr. Seuss, in noting that we started Rohatsu like the kids in Cat in the Hat – “all we could do was just sit, sit, sit, sit, and we did not like it not one little bit.” But then, of course, something when THUMP, and how that thump makes us jump.

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Chanukah, Ramadan, Rohatsu and whatever else is out there celebrating any and all kinds of awakening of our good selves. Egg nog and fruit cake are pretty awful separately, but lethal put together. Take care of yourself, happily, one foot in front of the other.

THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE OF A DYSFUNCTIONAL CHILDHOOD

2010-11-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

There’s a cockamamie connection between dysfunction and achievement. Think about it. I don't have research to support this, but my educated guess is that Nobel Prize winners don’t come from happy homes. Nothing like conditional parental love to get you to act like a freaking circus monkey, right? Did you have one of those parents who would sadly shake his head and say quietly, “I’m just so disappointed in you”? If you did, though it smarted at the time, you should thank your lucky stars because his bad parenting made you an overachiever.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I’m saying that I appreciate my family of origin’s particular brand of dysfunction. Out of six children, we have two medical doctors, an entrepreneur and peacemaker, a lawyer, a genius in the food business, and a social activist. Had our childhood been all hunky-dory I’m pretty sure none of that would have happened. I’d probably be happily cooing with grandkids and baking pies for the Church instead of constantly pushing the freaking envelope in every single area of my life.

Of course, the opposite is probably true as well; that is, dysfunction can lead to a family full of losers: Dorito-eating Daytona-going almost-felons who watch Dancing With The Stars and invent new ways to con the government. There’s the whole Jeffrey Dahmer serial killer issue but that’s extreme. I’m sticking with my thesis: dysfunction can be good and my guess is Henry Ford’s old man wailed on him, forcing him to invent something very big just for spite.

I worked in Human Resources for a banking institution for awhile and reviewed a lot of resumes and hired a lot of folks. Know what I really wanted to ask people? Did your parents drink heavily? An affirmative would mean an immediate hire, I don’t care what the qualifications were. Adult children of alcoholics are amazing. They work like dogs, literally, to keep everyone happy. They’ll show up an hour early and clean the toilets, never take a coffee break, and be the last ones to leave (sweeping the rug as they go). What else needs doin’? they’ll say with a smile. ACOAs work until they drop which is great bang for an employer’s buck, right? So, hey Mom and Dad, bottoms up!

But of course as the potential employee sat there during the interview, trying to hide her pregnancy or his coke habit, I wasn’t allowed to inquire about familial dysfunction and that’s too darn bad. I know that instead of alcoholic parents I’d settle for any kid raised on a farm or ranch, and often I’d try to find out where these applicants grew up, in a friendly non-discriminatory kinda way. Ranch kids are used to waking up at 4 am to slop hogs or whatever it is they do, and when cranky Daddy Rancher yells about hauling some 80 pound hay bale they get nervous and do it! More stellar employees. Now think about that “happy” kid whose parents are always positive. A lazy little SOB, I guarantee you.

Think about the people you work with. The laid back, semi-slacker types probably had pretty happy childhoods. Your boss probably didn’t. Maybe the higher you go up the food chain, the worse the childhood stories. Again, not foolproof research here; just guessing.

I read an article that said a dysfunctional childhood can actually help you find a job in a bad economy. The theory is the same as mine – weird or conditional love, parental disapproval, alcoholism, narcissism etc really give you a better work ethic! This article, though, said that in an interview you need to appear “emotionally housebroken.” You want to prove that although you’re fucked up, you’re not the crazy puppy that will pee on the rug. Not sure how you pull this off, just passing this advice around. Anything I can do to make your bleak early years seem like some kind of bonanza or, like my kids say, “We put the FUN in dysfunctional.” Not sure what it says about my boys and their upbringing but Lordy, Lordy they LOVE to work. They work any kind of job and they don’t like a lot of down time. You connect those dots, honey.

For those of you raising kids, lavishing them with praise and “positive reinforcement” quit that, for the love of God, and do a little Mommie Dearest once in a while, will ya? Do you want these kids to be employed or not? Stop your upbeat encouragement about getting good grades in school and go pop some Valium, maybe stay in bed unshowered for a weekend or so. Keeps them on their toes, I’m telling you. Think of it as on-the-job training. Happy Thanksgiving, and let’s raise a glass to all parents who are just trying to muddle through. Thanks for doing your best. The world is a better place because of your over-achieving kids.

A FLY ON THE WASP WALL

2010-11-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm quoting George Bush, in his new memoir, describing a Hallmark moment with his family:

“I'm drunk at the dinner table at Mother and Dad's house in Maine. And my brothers and sister are there, Laura's there,” he said. “And I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman, friend of Mother and Dad's. And I said to her out loud, ‘What is sex like after 50?’”

Okay, dude, I would pay like a billion dollars (fake money, American dollars) to have been at that table when The Bushes watched little Georgie hit on some lady, drunk, at Mumsy’s holiday table. I have so many questions.

First of all, this is not about politics. I ignored all the Bush years just like I try to ignore all politicians. I do remember that the old Mrs. Bush was just delightful. “Mama” Bush was so homely, dumpy, grandmotherly, not like the slick first ladies before or after her. Mrs. Bush was pretty, perhaps in a Betty Crocker kind of way, but mostly she had a large chest and nice white hair. Something tells me she probably ruled that Bush Roost though, don’t you think? So when her smarmy son gets liquored up at the summer place and drools on a female guest I’m betting all hell broke loose, in a WASPy kind of way which means she stared at him in steely silence and summoned the maid to clean the plates.

Honest to God I cannot figure WASPs out at all. First, they never talk about anything of substance whatsoever. They love to discuss the weather, and plans. That’s about it. How’s the weather? What’s your plan for the day? Jesus, it makes me want to drink gin from the dog bowl. And the nicknames! Okay, Italians have nicknames galore – Nicky “The Knife” Caledrone, Tommy “The Vise” etc. My nickname growing up was Fathead so there’s some logic and cruelty to the whole nickname thing, as there should be. But these WASPs have nicknames like Buffy and Wee Wee and Paw Paw that just baffle me. Biff? What the fuck is that? I bet the younger, sterner Mrs. George Bush was nicknamed Muffy, which is kind of appropriate for a “Bush,” in a snickering unkind way.

This is why, generally, Italians don’t really consider themselves white people. We even have a racial slur for non-Italian white people, “Medicana” (American) and it’s not about freedom and strength but more about the cluelessness of those with no ties to the old country. Truth is when a WASP does a no-no like President Biff did at the table in Maine it’s an extraordinary once-in-a-decade fall off the Mayflower wagon. When some Italian relative gets drunk and says something stupid it’s called Tuesday.

When I was 16 we visited the Old Country and met some relatives who lived on a farm outside Naples. The woman of the house looked exactly like my Aunt Clara in Philly and the man had a huge wine/beer/ouzo belly like any one of my 73 uncles back home. They didn’t speak a word of English but they acted just like my relatives in South Philly. The woman served the family while the guy sat at the head of the table, eating in silence, belching like a factory pipe until he finally reached the end of his gastronomic input and loosened his belt, unbuttoned his pants – at the table – while scratching and sighing with contentment, kind of like a black lab.

So you can see where George Bush – the drunken, fun, pre-president George – would have been right at home with my peeps in Naples. He would have turned to some fiery Italian woman and said ‘What is sex like after 50’ and she would have made three or four aggressive gestures (biting her hand, flicking fingers under the chin..) and said “Ma fungu you disgusting man go fuck yourself. Pass the parm.”

We can debate the cultural differences between a WASP president, an African American, a Catholic president ad infinitum. But the truth is – and watch this video carefully – what we really need is an Italian president from New Jersey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avw0n9b2o9U

A GOOD LAUGH AT BAD PARENTING

2010-10-31T12:36:00.001-07:00

I raised three boys and never laid a hand on one of them, not because I’m a saint. Pretty much the opposite. I didn’t want to land on the cover of PEOPLE magazine, in an orange jumpsuit, big bags under my eyes with the headline: Once She Started Beating Them…She Couldn’t STOP! Though I agree deeply with the principle that you shouldn’t hit kids, my restraint came only from the fear of being fodder to a large lesbian in the Federal Prison for Violent Women with Bad Lawyers.

When my middle son Johnny, age 4, flooded the family room by dragging the garden hose through the door “to see if the rug would grow” I knew I had two choices: just scream and beat them for two decades until I succumbed to booze and Valium, or laugh my head off. Thank you Jesus, I opted for the latter. I screamed plenty, though, of course, because ITALIANS DO EVERY THING IN CAPS and my boys claim they were simply afraid of the volume, losing brain function from the sheer noise of it all but this is what I learned. When I was six years old I accidentally broke my mother’s bottle of Jean Nate, and when I fessed up she screamed “I’m gonna break your HEAD!” which she never did but I was real careful around her toiletries after that.

I decided early on to lower my standards, get them immunized and then just let them crawl around wherever they wanted to go. I fed them whatever shut them up for the most part. As little ones, this meant a lot of Velveeta which is really more construction material than food but it worked, especially when it lodged in the windpipe if they decided to cry and eat at the same time. Lesson learned, right? And I figured if I tucked all three into bed alive at night, I was freaking Parent of the Year. These parents who worried about nutrition, clean clothes and – God help me – Baby Mozart or whatever the fuck those educational things are – these parents are never going to have any fun.

Times sure have changed and now apparently everyone’s worried about their kids succeeding in school etc. Shit, I was happy when no one was on parole. I was in DC recently and witnessed one of these ridiculous yuppie white couples that waited too long to have kids and now they’re scared to death of their three-year old. One was jumping on and off a bench in a restaurant, and screaming like an ape – having a ball torturing his parents who were both probably stuffy-ass lawyers – and the mother was like “Um, okay, Branson, you can either stop that right now or not have dessert” and the kid just laughed and spun his head around like The Exorcist. He got dessert of course.

We all screw our kids up. This is a given. The only questions are: will I screw them up as much as my parents did me, and how badly will they be screwed up? The headline of my local Sunday paper today says Mom Sees Positive Results From Giving Autistic Son Medical Marijuana. Is that bad parenting, or just plain smart? If you haven’t yet read the hilarious bestselling Sh**t My Dad Says PLEASE stop everything you’re doing and go to the website http://www.shitmydadsays.com/. This is a guy who says things to his son like, “Put the rake down. I don't wanna sit around watching you 'give it your best.' Either stop sucking or get the fuck out of the way."

There’s a book called Nurture Shock that offers a startling premise: when kids are praised constantly, they grow up to be liars. This is a troubling phenomenon with a generation of parents that worries constantly about “self-esteem” and over inflates a kid’s sense of self by never calling them to task on anything. These are the bratty, self-centered, twittering, face-booking asshole fools who think it’s okay to secretly film a roommate having sex and then post it on the Internet. Their perfection and egoism are boundless because their “loving” parents never told them to sit down and shut up.

So my boys didn’t aspire to Harvard and we don’t spend a lot of time talking about achievements and portfolios but dang they are among the funniest, most decent big-hearted people I know. Not one of them was ever subjected to a Baby Mozart video and though I didn’t hit them I was known to throw objects in the vicinity of their persons from time to time during teenage turmoil (I’ve throw a bike into a garage wall, a water bottle through a window, a shoe across the living room, and a very expensive bong into the street). They sure knew they weren’t perfect, and they sure knew I wasn’t either.

I never read Dr. Spock. Rather, I fashioned my parenting methods via George Carlin (http://harmful.cat-v.org/society/children/fuck_the_children) who gave me perhaps the best parenting advice I have ever heard:

“Turn off the internet, the CD-ROMS, and the computer games and let themstare at a tree for a couple of hours. Every now and then they actually comeup with one of their own ideas. You want to know how to help your kids?Leave them the fuck alone.”

MY PEEPS

2010-10-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

About twice a year I show up unannounced at my friend Ted’s apartment in Ocean City, New Jersey. Usually, I’m pretty stinky.

“Yo,” I’ll walk in his back door, not having talked to him in months, “I just ran the boardwalk. I’m taking a shower.”

“Whatever,” Ted says, waving me away like a Jewish grandmother. And then, more alert: “Will you be taking your clothes off?”

“Ted, it’s a shower. Yeah.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve had sex,” Ted sighs, “I forget who gets tied up.”

Ted’s 80 years old and we met about eight years ago when we lived in the same neighborhood and I was lonely and restless and he was in the local coffee shop for hours every morning, looking like Ernest Hemmingway, doing the crossword puzzle with his old friend John, also a retired cop. They had a part time painting business called Drip And Splatter and I loved them both from the minute I plopped down one day and invited myself into the morning ritual.

I moved to Colorado six years ago and go back to visit Philly and south Jersey every six months. Do you have that kind of friend where you can just bust in and take a shower whenever you want? Ted and I don’t exchange Christmas cards or talk on the phone but I know that when I’m back east, his casa is my casa. Ted is part of the circle of friends I had in Ocean City, the ones I return to just to bathe in a sea of their love. We still convene at the Positively 4th Street Café, but the circle has grown bigger and, of course, louder. It’s Jersey.

“Hey Joe!” I bark as an old buddy walks by, “You’re losing weight. What the hell? Have you had your prostate checked lately?”

“Bite me,” Joe says and slides onto one of the many hodgepodge chairs collected in the back room where we spend a lot of time in useless conversation.

I respond with the three words every person in Jersey uses to get off the hook for saying anything:

“Hey,” I shrug innocently, “I’m just sayin’.”

I love Colorado – the amazing vistas, wide open spaces, magnificent wilderness and ski areas. But the people are so nice it’s annoying. Everyone politely smiles and nobody honks their horn or gives the finger. Ever. Can you imagine the culture shock after growing up in Philly and raising kids in South Jersey? When they were little, I taught my kids that if anyone smiled and waved at them they should avoid eye contact and find a cop.

When I go home to Philly I step off the plane into an airport that literally smells like greasy pizza. There are people of all colors and sizes there, while Colorado is pretty generic white. So when I’m back, I revel in the noise and chaos, the love of friends who have known me for decades and still think I’m funny.

Ted and John are the heart of the circle of friends at the Positively 4th Street Cafe. John recently suffered a stroke and the day I came to visit was his first day back at the Café. He looked great, except for a pretty useless left arm, so I accused him of “playing the stroke card” for sympathy and pretty soon everyone joined in harassing him.

“It’s great to be back,” he smiled and shook his head.

Pretty Lisa took a few minutes to lovingly massage John’s fingers because they were swollen from lack of use. Ted watched longingly.

“Have you heard about my circumcision?” he asked Lisa.

This trip back my buddy Betsy and I spent a sunny Saturday at the Wildwood Sea Food Festival where we danced all day in the streets to my brother Domenic’s all-doctor rock band, The Rocktologists.. We tried to find something to eat but in Wildwood a “smoothie” is really a “slurpee.” Everything is battered, dipped, fried, and sugared. People are heavily tattooed and drunk. It’s a lot of fun.

Betsy’s nickname at the Café is Boom Boom, short for Boom Boom and Her Dancing Balloons. We’re told this is related to college somehow and yes, she has some chest of drawers there but a nickname doesn’t need to mean much. At the Café, there’s Spider and Tank, The Hawaiian Guy, and about ten variations on “John” including Big John, Little John, Chef John, and Johnny John John, indicating a distinct laziness on our part.

I planned my latest visit around Ted’s annual Soup de Shore Party, an October night where 70 or 80 people show up at his rambling house with all kinds of soup. We eat chowders and homemade bread under the Harvest moon. We feel connected.

These are my peeps, what the Buddhist call a “sangha” – a community of like-minded people. I have another sangha at a monastery in Santa Fe where I go on retreat and to study. There too I show up a few times a year, to just sit zazen meditation and hang out, mostly in silence, with a bunch of other knuckleheads who love the path. It’s surprising to me how similar my Jersey sangha is to my folks at Upaya. Bold, funny, loving – a real Buddhist will cut right to the chase quick as any Jersey girl, and they laugh more than any bunch I’ve met. Have you noticed that the Dalai Lama is always smiling? He gets the joke, I guess, just like my friends in Philly and Jersey who understand that life is too short to take anything very seriously, especially ourselves.

My friend Frank is a retired exec and an amazing photographer. He told me they’d trade the Eagles first round draft pick, and all the Phillies, just to get me back in Ocean City. They make me feel loved, despite my huge character flaws. Frank put together a mosaic photo of the gang. It hangs in my living space in Colorado, where the mountains encircle me just like my homies in Jersey but without the yelling. http://www.roundtablefriends.com/

Friends Over 50: Who Will Pull Out Your Chin Hairs When You’re Old?

2010-09-29T18:55:00.001-07:00

Women suffer from the delusion that if they’re married they’ll grow old with their hubbies and never be alone. Truth is, not only do the guys die first, they die badly first and we end up spending about a decade changing old man diapers when we could be learning how to salsa dance. If you should have the bad fortune of getting frail or sick before your husband does, put aside the notion that he will dote on your sick self. He will golf, and put you in a home.

A girlfriend would never do this.

“Hey, will you come by the hospital when I’m old and sick and pull my long grey chin hairs out?” I asked my buddy Carol.

“Of course asshole,” she said with her usual nonchalance, “And I’ll try to do something to get that old person stink off you if possible.”

“Above and beyond,” I said.

Carol and I once drove together from New Jersey to Colorado, like a middle-aged version of Thelma and Louise, without the sex or violence. That basically leaves two old broads driving around in a car, but we’re simple folk and that was fine. I was 48 and had quit my job and sold my house. Had no real plan, but I was going to Colorado to be wild and free and mate with a cowboy. Carol was worried about me.

“You’re an idiot for the most part,” she intoned as my planless plan progressed, “But I’m here for you.”

Carol is wire thin and about six inches taller than me and we look silly together. I’m all earth-dark, muscular and lithe like a cat while she’s sort of bone white, scrawny and gangly with bleach blond hair and a “screw you” attitude that inevitably endears her to men, especially those drunk guys in the bar who love to hear her hold forth on any manner of insubstantial subject. We are improbable, all right, and impossible to screw with when teamed up. Brutal honesty and loyalty are the hallmarks of our bond.

“You can’t bring much on this trip,” I told her, “I don’t have room for your shit. I’ll have my whole life in that car so we can afford you space for maybe a paper bag with underwear in it.”

“No problem,” she replied, not skipping a beat, “It’s a three day trip, right? I’ll only need one pair of underwear anyway. You just turn ‘em inside-out.”

How can you not love her? So on June 19, 2005, after checking the air pressure in my tires under the watchful eye of her doting husband, Carol folded herself tightly into the passenger seat of my little Honda, squished like a slinky, uncomplaining, and we set out on our adventure. With my cheap and steadfast buddy by my side I felt safe.

We agreed that we would be sick of each other in no time. This is the cool thing about a friend you don’t have sex with. There’s nothing at stake. It’s honesty and love, as pure as it gets on this planet. Arguing about who would get to be Thelma (or Louise) and thus sleep with Brad Pitt, we hauled ass east on Route 70. Carol and I know that we share a destiny, and that this trip was just a blip on the radar screen. I have promised to take care of her when Roy dies and she gets old and saggy. It’s the “who’s gonna change my Depends” conversation we’ve had on several occasions. With no kids to catch her in old age, Carol needs that safety net. Her love and loyalty will not go unanswered. I will change her Depends.

By Sunday evening we had made it through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and most of Indiana. Terra Haute looked inviting, what with the strip malls and a Super 8, so we called it a day. Plopping into a booth at a local Applebee’s for dinner, I couldn’t help but be astounded at how innocent all the kids seemed.

“Hi!” the bouncy waitress yelped, “My name is Mary and I’ll be serving you tonight!” as if serving us was exciting, fun, an adventure of sorts.

“Jesus,” I exhaled after she left skipping off to the kitchen to get our salads, “What’s the matter with the kids here? Nobody’s wearing body piercing. I don’t hear the ‘F’ word. The girls have their bellies covered and the guys are wearing pants that stay up.” I stared around warily, “Are we in the Twilight Zone?”

“Get used to it,” Carol snapped closed the little dessert book she’d been reading, undoubtedly discerning recipes for Bonzo Blueberry Pie, “This is the Midwest darling. The kids here say grace before meals. They have pep rallies where no one gets murdered. You’re not in New Jersey anymore.”

I was a little nostalgic let me tell you, for those murderous pep rallies. Fresh faced kids who obeyed all the rules made me nervous. I’d rather know the animal I’m dealing with. I could only hope as Bouncy Mary came hopping back to our table, pony tail swishing to the music, that she would find loud and crazy somewhere in her life.

The next day, Carol continued to educate me on life in the Midwest. We had a lot of time to waste watching highway so she determined that I needed a lesson on the proper name for all manner of livestock. This excruciating diatribe took place as we drove through Kansas, the Never Ending State.

“You think cows are cattle don’t you?” she queried, eying me suspiciously.

“Oh for God’s sake yes of course I do asshole.”

“Well, you’re wrong my friend,” she gloated, as if I cared about the nomenclature for leather. “Ha. Very very wrong.”

“Oh great. Do tell,” I said. It was 10:15 a.m. and we were in Kansas for the love of God. Talk about your personal hell.

“A cow, my friend, is a female. So is a heifer. Bulls and steer are guy cattle. Bulls have balls, steer don’t.”

“Wow, it always comes down to that, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Can you just not make this about sex for once?” Carol responded. She was serious as a heart attack regarding this cow lecture so I sat up straighter and tried to be a good listener.

“Okay, all that leather is cattle,” I repeated. “Out of the four categories of cattle, three are ball-less. The bull is like a stallion. Cows or heifers are like mares in the horse world and steer are gelding, those poor guys who lose their testicles early on. See, it is all about sex. Why do we have to emasculate cattle and horses? Because left unchecked, all species would be running around getting laid all the time. Nothing would ever get done. I think it’s kind of the animal equivalent to our obsession with money,” I was on a roll. “If men didn’t have a reason to leave the house, why I think they’d sit around all day whacking off, don’t you?”

Strapped in her little seatbelt, my lanky friend managed to turn full body towards me, jamming her spine against the door. She just stared at me until I had the heebie jeebies. I was a little worried about getting yelled at, because I had taken her lesson in animal husbandry and denigrated it into an indictment of all living things. I accelerated a little, thinking I could get through this god-forsaken Kansas a little quicker and then we wouldn’t have to talk about cows versus bulls anymore. But Carol was nonplussed by my conclusions. In fact, she was intrigued.

“I think men would whack off for a while,” she said thoughtfully, “And then go to the garage and do stuff with duct tape.”

Carol and I will no doubt go a long time without seeing each other. Neither one of us is a great phone talker and Carol has some intractable principal about not using e-mail so our communication will be sparse to say the least. But this I know: in six months or a year when we spend some time together somehow we will pick up exactly where we left off – best buddies forever, the same two friends who have been through birth, divorce, and death together. She is my wing man and I am her co-pilot. Like Thelma and Louise, we would drive off a cliff together if we had to, likely arguing the whole way down.

THE REAL RULES

2010-09-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago the New York Times bestseller was a crazy little book written by two women called The Rules. It purported to give women a quick ten step process for getting a guy, as if this is a good thing. They forget, of course, that we also “get” diseases, fined, hooked, and lost. The other faulty premise of The Rules is the caveman concept of “man chase woman.” Okay, whatever. It was a best seller so that tells you something.

One of the authors subsequently divorced and I’m guessing that the women who nabbed their man fifteen years ago by employing The Rules are probably popping a lot of Valium right now, screaming at their preteens, using botox and liposuction and wondering what went wrong. I’m a 54 year old Alpha Woman, three times married. Let’s compare The Rules to The Real Rules: First, The Rules top ten. This is not a joke. This book exists and plenty of women have read it:

1. Be a creature unlike any other.

The authors advise: “Don’t babble, breathe slowly, walk straight.” Like counseling a mental patient.

2. Show up at parties, dances, and social events even if you don’t feel like it.

“Realize you may not meet Mr. Right naturally” so, set about meeting him unnaturally and shave your legs when a good book will actually give you much more satisfaction.

3. It’s a fantasy relationship unless a man asks you out.

Then, it’s real?

4. In an office relationship do not e-mail him back every time he e-mails you unless it’s business related.

“Once every four times is a good rule of thumb.” Hello? Is any work getting done in this country?

5. If you are in a long distance relationship he must visit you at least three times before you visit him.

“Reminder: on the first three dates we don’t have sex with a man.” First of all, who’s We? Secondly, it goes without saying that in 1995 there was a plethora of great fourth dates.

6. When considering whether to use dating ads you should place the ad and let the man respond to you.

Again, basic premise: Man pursues Woman. The authors also advise that you don’t talk to the man you’re hoping to capture nor do you make eye contact with him. I think they saw this on “Animal Kingdom.”

7. If he does not call he is not that interested. Period.

Pretty sad that this needs to be a Rule but having been that frantic chasing woman, I’d say this is the best advice these gals dish up.

8. Close the deal – Rules women do not date men for more than two years.

My mother used to call this “shit or get off the pot.” Again, the assumption is that marriage is the end-all be-all. Talk to these Rules chicks after about three years of watching Mr. Right eat Doritos in front of the Packers game while wearing black socks and underwear.

9. Buyer beware: observe his behavior so you do not end up with Mr. Wrong.

Sweeties, they’re all wrong in some way because we’re human. See The Real Rules, below.

10. Keep doing the RULES even when things are slow.

When you can’t catch a man like lake trout, the authors coo: “Take care of yourself, take a bubble bath and build up your soul with positive slogans like ‘I am a beautiful woman. I am enough.’

I am not kidding. This is what they advise in terms of self-empowerment and esteem. Personal hygiene and some bullshit slogans you’re not allowed to say to a man.

Now, as any woman with a lick of sense will tell you, here are The Real Rules:

1. Men are not women.

While this should not be a big surprise, it is the number one reason we get frustrated with guys. Men really don’t care about your feelings. They want to watch football, have fun, and talk about themselves. Why are we constantly trying to change them?

2. The success of your marriage is directly proportional to the quality of your girlfriends.

Want to have a fulfilling relationship with a man? Have great girlfriends. Do not try to make a man your girlfriend. Let him be a guy – an interesting creature to say the least – and pour your heart out to your girlfriends. Everyone wins.

3. If you are looking for unconditional love, try another species.
A dog or a horse is a great start.

4. Don’t mistake a relationship with a man with some sort of spiritual soul quest.

The former can lead to hell, many times over. And the latter, quite literally, to heaven. This was my #1 personal best mistake.

5. Men are like dessert.

Not necessary, but great and even delicious. However, your LIFE is the banquet. Your life is the meal. Dessert is just a topper.

6. You cannot “have it all.”

This nonsensical notion arose in the 80s and 90s, with the vision of the briefcase-carrying Mamma who could whip up a great meal, sew a coat, and be a ho in bed. One word for you: fuggetaboutit.

7. Power is interesting and attractive.

This is a very dangerous thought. We are drawn to a man’s power, whatever it is for us. Plugging into any source of “power” other than our own inside stuff is like sticking your wet finger in a light socket.

8. There is no Mr. Right.

There are just guys. Like women, they have flaws and bad habits. It’s all about the flaws and bad habits. Can you live with them? This is the only question when considering cohabitation or marriage.

9. An intimate relationship with a man can be your greatest teacher.

He will push all your buttons, make you seethe with anger, and churn up many bad thoughts. He will bring out the worst in you, so you can find the best.

10. Underneath all the bravado we all put out there, beats the same human heart.

Man or woman, alpha, sheepish, kind, blustery, mean, loving – makes no difference. The only and deepest thing we share is the unlimited source of love and compassion that comes from the human heart.

So here’s how it plays out for The Anit-Rules Woman:

Get a dog, have great friends, and let men be men. Give up on something: housework, cooking, your job, but never your kids. Enjoy guys. They are very funny and deep down want to please. They just don’t want to work too hard at it. The only power that can attract with glorious, positive results is that power deep inside yourself. No man, no relationship, wedding ring, or bank account is ever going to provide happiness. Make your life a banquet and feel good if you skip dessert.

POST COLONOSCOPY SEX or "Ouch, move that!"

2010-09-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

When you’re young you take sex very seriously, what with all the sweating and trying to make yourself sound and look good. All that bumping and humping actually becomes pretty hilarious as you get older. You can’t hide the cottage cheesy skin around baby pouches and a guy can only spend so much time on his knees after 50. The grunting is more about joint pain than pleasure, and the Big O refers to osteoporosis, nothing more.

The act itself is ridiculous whether you’re young and firm or 64 and flatulent. It’s absolutely goofy, what we do to each other. Come on now, who among us hasn’t had that moment in time when you’re huffing and thrusting and suddenly you think, “What the fuck am I doing? This is RIDICULOUS!”And it is. But the great thing about getting older is you realize it’s stupid and do it any way. That just makes it more fun. Plus, you need to get more innovative because of the barbaric medical procedures you will doubtless undergo after the age of 50, as in, “Don’t touch that, the doctor just stuck a hose up there!”

Some guys like my husband will try to play the age card to get kinky.

“Hey, put your feet up over my head,” he said the other day.

I just looked at him. I mean, what the hell.“

Why?” I asked with suspicion.

“Because we need to practice in case some day I have knee surgery!”

How’s that for lame, no pun intended. It’s no longer passion that enflames sexual positions; it’s post surgical considerations. I work in a Day Surgery unit and most couples over 40 couldn’t care less about when they can get it on again. They’re pretty tired of each other. Many times, a wife will bring a hubby in for a simple procedure, pull me aside and say,“Hey, if I give you a few bucks, can you keep him a couple days?”“Lady,” I’ll say sympathetically, “It’s not a kennel. But I feel your pain.”

Speaking of pain and colonoscopies let’s talk about mammograms for a sec, shall we? If men had to get tested for penis or scrotum cancer by having their wee-wees put between two slabs of cold metal and unceremoniously squished here’s what would happen. Science as we know it would grind to a halt. One guy would have his penis or balls smashed and word would get out to the entire Male Universe immediately. Research on real diseases would grind to a halt.

“Geezus!” the men would say as they knocked over test tubes to get to work, “We’ve got to find a cure for penis cancer RIGHT THIS MINUTE!”

All it would take is one guy to have the testicle equivalent of a mammogram and that would be the end of it. But women subject themselves to this every year, rather cheerfully, because we think we have to. Scientists are mostly all guys and while we’re getting our boobs smushed they’re watching football.

Sex is silly, folks, no matter how old you are or what kind of shape you’re in. We waste a lot of time and energy thinking and worrying about sex when it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Bob and I went to the Smithsonian Zoo in DC this past weekend and there in the Great Ape House was a typical domestic scene. The guy ape was sitting around, scratching himself and eating. The mom ape was exhausted, lying in a hammock with a baby crawling all over her. The only thing missing from this scene was ESPN. We haven’t really evolved that far, at all. So if you read some article about people in their 60s and 70s having “a great sex life” keep it in perspective. It really only means they’ve learned to work around the joint pain.

OUTING ASSHOLES

2010-09-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading The No Asshole Rule , Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t by Stanford business professor Robert Sutton, PhD. You’re probably shocked by the title, and you probably know EXACTLY what he’s talking about. Out of all the points and principles in the book, here’s the two that knock my socks off:

1. Negative energy far exceeds the power of positive energy. So if a negative person is in the room, on the bus, at your dining room table – his or her power will swamp the positive energy of ten happy folks;

2. We put up with assholes. All the time. On the bus, at work, at our dining room table. We let them get away with uncivilized, mean-spirited, obnoxious bully behavior.

For the sake of the timid let’s use a variation of the internet word for asshole which is asshat. I kind of like that even better. And we’ll refine it further to just hat as in “Geez, my boss is a certified hat.”

We’ve all had hats for supervisors. As a waitress, a secretary, a lawyer (wow, what a surprise), a cowgirl, and an EMT I’ve been barked at, bullied, treated with contempt, told to “do your fucking job,” screamed at in front of other senior partners, treated like an idiot, a dolt, a “stupid woman,” and admonished to just “go home and make babies.” Welcome to the American workplace. In fact, as a lawyer I often worked in employment discrimination cases. Harried people would call me up, frantic about their jobs. They’d say:

“I work in a hostile work environment!” – this being the newest tort of the decade.

“So do I,” I’d respond. “If your boss treats everyone like yesterday’s cowshit, it’s not a hostile work environment. It’s just another day at the office.”

Of course most of the hats I worked with were lawyers but I have to say that in my short time in the teaching profession I never encountered a certified hat. Never had a supervisor treat me badly. But in every other workplace from the courtroom to the hospital to the restaurants or the corral – big fat hats everywhere.

Sutton advises people to just get the hell out of hat environments and I agree. I’ve quit jobs because of the nastiness of people around me. But what about life in general, those hats we encounter all the time in daily life outside the workplace? Aside from family – and hey, it’s family – why do we put up with hat behavior?

I just finished a stint working on a political campaign. Here’s what politics comes down to: the other guy is a flaming hat but you’re not allowed to talk about it. It always comes down to which hat gets the most votes. Always.

You’ve seen hat behavior in the grocery store line, at the post office, at the traffic light. We’re afraid to call people on their nastiness because we could get whacked but you don’t need to be aggressive about outing an asshat. My son Billy lives in Seattle, a notoriously civilized city. He taught me to reframe “the finger” we had so refined in Jersey. When a driver in Seattle pulls a stupid move – and it’s not often, because they are generally aware and laid back – you don’t flip him off. Instead, you just give him a thumbs down.

I love that. Thumbs down. Bad move. As a human being, you are failing.

We ought to make it our business, of course, to be kind. We should consciously perform acts of charity. We should act and speak civilly, and encourage laughter and love. And we should out assholes, every chance we get. Nicely, of course, but clearly and directly. “Don’t scream at your kid like that. Ever.” Or when some hat is giving a teenage clerk a hard time, we look at her nametag and say “Norma, you’re doing just fine, honey. Ignore this guy.” Things like that.
Outing assholes is just as important as being kind. I read that the Dalai Lama does not suffer fools; and remember the money changers in the Temple? Jesus let them have it. Snakes, vipers, devil’s food. You go, Jesus.

Next time you see bad behavior, and that may be about ten minutes from now, think about standing up to the bully – safely, calmly, and from a place of unshakeable fearlessness. You’ll give other people courage and you’ll feel better too. We can’t let the asshats get us down. And two thumbs up to you, friend.

BORN BAD

2010-08-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

I killed Jesus, okay? It was me, not the Jews. As a seven year old, when I first became aware of my murderous nature, I was baffled as to how I even got the guy up on that cross (though I’m told Roman soldiers apparently did my bidding) but Sister Mary McMurphy assured me, in no uncertain terms, that Christ died for your sins Miss Coletta. This was 1963, the year Kennedy was shot. I’m certain I had something to do with that too. Forget the grassy knoll. It was that cross-eyed second grade kid in the third row at Mater Miseriordia Academy, thinking about eating a hot dog on a Friday.

And it’s not like I killed him quick. I made him suffer first. Sister McMurphy’s eyeballs would bulge through saggy sockets, her forehead – tightly locked into some kind of warrior headgear – would glisten with sweat.

“Because we are so sinful,” she’d shake her helmeted head slowly, “The soldiers whipped and beat him as he lugged the huge cross up the hill. They mocked and scorned him.”

Only a second grader, my vocabulary was pretty limited by life experience but I had a vague notion of the whole “mocked and scorned” thing, having lived with my impish despicable brothers all my life. At this point in the Suffering Lecture I’d start to get a little queasy because I knew He was almost at the top of the hill where the worst was yet to come.

“So they put the cross on the ground. It’s full of splinters, dry and old.”

Man, she could get descriptive,

“They spread out his arms,” she’d slow her cadence, “And bang big huge rusty nails into his hands. Then they put his feet together – one on top of the other – and banged huge nails in to hold him there. Can you imagine?”

Oh Lord yes I could, we all could. Poor Lisa Petroni, who threw up every day at lunch time anyway, would just slink in her seat at this point, pale and quaking. And after November of that year I couldn’t seem to separate the flashing images of Jesus getting nailed and Kennedy taking a head shot. Sister McMurphy seemed to enjoy the Suffering Lecture because it made us Suffer and we deserved it.

Looking at Jesus, hanging there so forlornly in what appeared to be Depends, I can only imagine him grumbling with his last breath, “Damn that little girl from Philly. Damn her and her evil thoughts about wanting to beat up her brothers.” It’s only the thoughts that make the murderer according to the dogma. I don’t have to actually eat a hot dog on Friday. I just have to think about eating it and up He goes, up onto that splintery tree all because of me, how much I hated my brothers and loved hot dogs.

At 3’10”, not close to a decade of existence yet under my little belt, I was also confused about coveting my neighbor’s wife (Mrs. Beckwith was kind of mean and a little on the chunky side) but I’m sure somewhere inside of me I could do it, covet that is, whatever that meant. Yes I was a bad, bad bad-ass seven year old, hardly ever a line leader and a murderer to boot. How do you shake that rap at all, let alone at seven, when learning to tie a shoe can lay you out for a week? Sister Mary and all the other, bigger Catholics did a good job of making me feel like rock slime, grateful most days that I didn’t end up in the slammer for what I did to Him.

I couldn’t really ask anybody questions about why this Great God would create me at all let alone flawed, cross-eyed, and evil. Why bother? Why stick me in an earthsuit and send me down to a place where mountains explode and huge tidal waves suck up thousands of miserable poor people in diapers? I did wonder a lot about this as I filed into the cafeteria where Miss Maranzini would yell – every damn day – “only ONE garls (she was German or something), only ONE!” It didn’t matter if it was food that was supposed to be in a pair, like two halves of a freaking peanut butter sandwich, there she was spouting deprivation and for the love of God why would I deserve two of anything anyway? Truth is I was afraid to ask the Bigger Catholics these burning questions and I was barely managing to hold on at all because I had skid marks in my underwear and my brothers tortured my stuffed animals in front of me just for giggles so worrying about the state of existence was low on the priority pole.

Two decades after I sat staring cross-eyed at Suffering Jesus I left Mother Church for good. Seems that same uterus that bled monthly somehow also prevented me from being good enough to offer Mass or hear confessions. This was as confusing to me as the hot dog on Friday issue. What does meat on Friday have to do with God? About as much as my having fallopian tubes has to do with being a priest. Or rather, not being a priest. Being worthy only to wash the vestments, not wear them.

So now I sit zazen and embrace Zen Buddhism completely. Nobody accuses me of murder and we face suffering head-on, collectively. Instead of blaming seven-year olds we try to cultivate compassion. This makes me feel more like a decent human and less like a felon. Although Buddhism has struggled with sexism, there are no regs that prevent me from enlightenment, or teaching, or doing whatever I please in the system. There is no male god, no tribe of male apostles, no stories of women relegated to cleaning the Temples but not worshipping there. I don’t miss Catholicism, and as long as we’re in confessional mode, let the record reflect that I never really ate a hot dog on Friday. I just sometimes thought about it. But if a Hot Dog Thought can land me in the slammer for eternity, there’s no way I’m going to tell you what I think about Republicans. May God have mercy on my weak-ass soul.

STUCK IN MY EARTHSUIT

2010-08-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have never been cool and I’m pretty sure that’s not a quality that develops in your mid-50s so chances are I will remain a dork until I die. I’m okay with this.

The other day I saw a really chubby kid, maybe 13, with reddish hair. He was struggling with his backpack, hanging out at the edges of a horde of kids waiting to get on the bus. Man, I thought, it’s hard to be a human.

Isn’t it kind of funny that we’re all here, stuck in these earthsuits, trying to figure out what the hell is going on? And nobody really knows, yet we all hold forth about this and that, blathering about our beliefs, our emotions, blah blah blah. Honestly, what the fuck?

I have a degree in Theology from Boston College because I really, really wanted to understand God and the world and my life purpose. Turns out it all comes down to this T-shirt.

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

Taoism: Shit Happens

Hare Krishna: Shit Happens, Rama Dama Ding Dong

Hinduism: This Shit Happened Before

Islam: If Shit Happens, Take a Hostage

Zen: What Is the Sound of Shit Happening?

Buddhism: When Shit Happens, Is it Really Shit?

Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit Happens"

7th Day Adventists: Shit Happens on Saturdays.

Protestanism: Shit Won't Happen Again if I Work Hard Enough

Catholicism: If Shit Happens, I Deserve It

Judaism: Why Does This Shit Always Happen to Me?

Jehova's Witness: Knock Knock "Shit Happens"

Unitarian: What Is This Shit?

Mormon: Shit Happens Again and Again and Again

Rostafarianism: Let's Smoke This Shit

That's it folks. That's all we've got. It's the best we can do. Shit happens, and I'm trying to figure out why. My other favorite T-shirt says simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. My parents would be dismayed, would in fact roll over in their graves, if they knew all that college tuition came to this.

I just finished running my husband’s campaign for Congress. Took a year of my life and gave it my all, even though I despise politics. He lost the primary, but basically kicked a lot of ass, Republican ass, which counts for a lot more in my book. I’m out of politics for good and forever. I’m going to spend my time ruminating on stuff, studying my Zen Buddhism, wondering how I can help educate girls in Third World countries, hanging out with my dog Chopper (a hundred pounds of Dumb Love), working at the hospital, and smelling the roses every damn day.

It would be great if you would hang out with me. The journey is always more fun when you’re with your posse. A Posse of Dorks. Watch out, world.

MY BIG FAT ITALIAN FAMILY

2010-08-22T14:01:00.001-07:00

When I first went to one of Bob’s family reunions about six years ago I was aghast. We walked into the house he and his sibs had rented for a week by the beach in Florida and I couldn’t believe what I saw. His mother – a regal figure – was seated on the couch. Next to her, a neatly dressed young woman was working with her, doing a jigsaw puzzle.

“What the heck is going on?” I whispered to Bob. “THIS is a family reunion?”

Where was the yelling, the hordes, the smell of gravy, the drunken uncle? I was beginning to see that Bob and I had some serious cultural, ethnic differences. I’m one of six of a very raucous Italian (redundant) family from South Philly. My grandparents came from Italy, with nothing, and became masons, a tailor, and shop owners. They reared doctors, teachers, and health care workers – the classic American immigrant story. Bob’s family has been here since the Mayflower. The male lineage holds generations of warriors. The females are all Daughters of the American Revolution. They are, well, more sedate.

When I first brought Bob back east to meet my gang I tried to warn him he would be hugged, kissed, poked, and probed like a consumer kicking the tires of a new car. He dismissed my warnings because he was such a tough cowboy and after all he’d climbed mountains all over the world blah, blah, blah.

“Alright,” I said as we buckled into the rental car from the Philly airport and I sped onto the expressway, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

My three brothers – my guardians and dearest male friends – had arranged an intimate dinner of seventeen Russos and Colettas at Ralph’s Italian restaurant in South Philly. There poor Bob sat at a table the length of a football field while people yelled, told stories, laughed with their mouths wide open, and passed huge plates of spaghetti over his head.

“Hey yo Cowboy Bob,” my sweet brother Domenic said with his mouth full of pasta, “Glad to meet you and all. You ever hurt my sister I’ll kill ya. Okay?”

Now Dom is about a foot smaller than Bob and not exactly a man to be feared yet I saw Cowboy Bob draw his breath in and flinch.

“Ah, yeah, of course,” he replied in his gentlemanly fashion.

He looked at me like a deer in the headlights, his turn to be aghast.

“Told ya,” I said with no small measure of glee.

My family loves Bob, of course, because generally Italians are extremely generous with love. He passed the test and has come to revel in the noise and chaos of my family reunions which are few and far between for reasons of national security. And I’ve learned to appreciate the peace and serenity that surrounds his family gatherings. There are cultural and ethnic differences that come to play in lots of the dynamics of our marriage but it’s all good. This is America, land of the free and home of the brave, where an Italian immigrant mason can build a stronghold of generations of hard working, loving citizens. I rejoice in the cultural differences in this country, while secretly maintaining that belief that everyone really should be Italian.