"Speak my mind any time 'cause I got the master plan"

So a bunch of things have crossed my mind and my path (by way of the news) in the past couple of days.  And I realized that my choices and my opinions would probably make a lot of people be all w-t-f is she thinking? saying? talking about?  And then I thought, maybe I should keep all this to myself.  But I realized - where’s the fun in that?  

So sure, I’m probably going to catch some flak for what lies beneath, but I’m okay with that.  I’m confident in my opinions.  I mean, if I wasn’t, would I really put them out there for all the world to read?  (Okay.  Yeah.  I know.  The whole world doesn’t read my blog.  But not for nothing, they should.  It would make getting this writing career off the ground and keeping it airborne a whole lot easier.)  

But until that fine day, there’s this:

Living Alone.  And Loving It:

I read this fabulous article in yesterday’s NY Times and found myself agreeing with so much of what Dominique Browning was saying.  I have major career envy as she’s a successful writer and has had lots to say over the years.  Now I should confess that I feel some sort of bizarre connection to DB because in a former job I had to try to track down her address so my company could send her a holiday gift.  She was not an easy lady to find, but I finally found her through her agent and was able to send her the gift.  But in the process got to do a lot of research on her, which I found very interesting. And the whole process fed into my love for mystery/my secret desire to be Laura Holt/Kate Beckett/Bailey Wiggins/Alexandra Cooper/JB Fletcher all rolled into one very cool package.

So back to the article (read it!) - it’s essentially about women happily living on their own, enjoying freedom and independence.  That if we fall we will pick ourselves up.  We don’t need anyone else to pick us up.  DB writes most women who are single are living happily and loving their lives.  And there are moments of loneliness, for sure, but until we fall madly in love, we’re fine to keep living on our own.  Most of the time.  And I love the concept of MADLY in love.  Not wanted to settle for anything less.  I just found it to be such a powerful article.  Maybe because it made me feel like feeling what I feel is okay.  Is more than okay.  

And men?  Don’t get me wrong. I love men.  This is not a bitter anti-man post.  I’m neither bitter.  Nor anti-man. And some people might judge.  Go nuts.  But relationships are a lot of work.  And men are a lot of work.  (Clearly us ladies are a cake walk.  Preferably chocolate cake.)  And it’s going to take a truly righteous man to make me want to exert all that work.  But I will.  Because it will be worth it.  

Sidebar:  I’ve been watching a lot of Friends lately because you can buy full seasons for $9.99 on iTunes right now.  (Insert lack of self-control and things you can do when you live alone.)  One of my favorites from Season 1 is when the girls do the cleansing ritual to break the bad boyfriend cycle.  Phoebe is reading the “ingredients” for the ritual, as they throw things into the fire and it goes like this:

• Phoebe: Ok. All right. Now we need the semen of a righteous man.
• Rachel: Ok, Pheebs, you know what, if we had that, we wouldn't be doing the ritual in the first place.

Makes me laugh every time.  


So yes, for a righteous man, I’d do the work.  But pre-righteous, I love that I my mess is my mess.  That I can have dinner whenever I want.  That I can call peanut butter and crackers dinner.  That I can lie on the couch and watch back-to-back episodes of Revenge and fall asleep in the middle of it and when I wake up do it all over again if I so please.  That’s all I’m saying.  

And I can also live in an at-home wardrobe of....

Juicys:

I don’t care how 2002 their velour track suits are, they are so damn comfy.  I’ve been in them for about a decade now.  Don’t care if you think they’re passe.  I will say, I don’t wear them as a matching set.  (But so what if I did?  You have a problem with that?  No.  Really.  I swear I don’t.  Too Paris Hilton.  Too not “that’s hot”.)  But I love the pants.  Love the hoodies.  Love that after Christmas the Juicy site had a sale and then had another 40% off said sale. So yeah.  I restocked my overstocked closet with all new, deliciously soft, totally cozy, I-would-wear-these-to-work-if-I-thought-I-could-get-away-with-it comfies.  Love them.  Mock me if you will.  Don’t care.  Can’t hear you here in my juicy little bubble.

Jorge Posada’s Retirement:

When the news of Posada’s retirement annoucement broke on Saturday I got a lot sad.  It’s the end of an era.  I even changed my Facebook status, which I NEVER do.  That’s how bummed I am.  

Now I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been a baseball fan since I was a kid.  And I do genuinely love the game.  But I also fall in love with the players.  (And no, not in a dirty way.  Well not always.)  Back when I was little and not having any salacious thoughts about anyone or anything because I didn’t even know what salacious was, I followed the Mets with epic dedication.  I’m telling you, when I’m into something, I am all in.  

But anyway...at the end of the 1985 season this jerk at school told me the Mets were going to trade Mookie Wilson (aka my first hero) away to another team to make way for Lenny Dykstra.  (The ankle bracelet you’re sporting these days isn’t quite the same as a pair of cleats is it, Nails?)  I cried my eyes out about Mookie. I was devastated.  But then he didn’t get traded.  But he did get severely injured in Spring Training (in the form of shattering sunglasses to the eye) and I cried again.  A lot.  And then some more.  It was hard to know when he would come back to play.  (Especially with that bastard Dykstra trying to snag his job.)  But Mookie did return.  And much much later that season there was Game 6 of the World Series.  And history was made.  And I cried again.  But this time I was majorly happy.  

But back to Georgie.  I know.  Everyone needs to move on.  And it’s his time.  He’s had a good career and should end on a high.  I’m just sad that he didn’t get a better sendoff season.  There was so much drama surrounding his career in 2011 and I really feel like he was treated like crap.  He was a central part of the team for 17 years.  Show the man some respect.  In my perfect vision he gets to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day 2012 at Yankee Stadium.  He gets a standing O.  There’s a lot of Hip! Hip! Jorge!  I’d totally cry if that happened.

Tim Tebow:

No lie...about three weeks ago I had ZERO idea who this guy was.  The name didn’t ring any kind of bell.  Not even a faint one.  I’m telling you.  People at work were in awe of my total lack of knowledge.  And I like to think I’m pretty in tune with what’s going on in the world.  Or at least what’s covered on morning TV.  But Tim Tebow?  He could have been a random midwestern mayor or a an obscure inventor from a hundred years ago or the name of someone’s creeper ex-boyfriend.  Nada.

Then I found out who he was.  And now he’s freaking everywhere.  As in was just on E!News.  For the love of God.  Get off E!  You play football.  Unless you’re dating Minka Kelly and on vacay with her in Paris, don’t want to see you on E!  I seriously can’t shake the guy.  Kind of like a creeper ex.  Humph!  How that for things coming full circle?  Whatever. I’m still being haunted.  

People Who Bring Their Dogs Into Stores:

I know!  I can hear the people mumbling now.  “She hates men and dogs?  This girl is AWFUL!”  For the record, I don’t hate either.  What I do hate is people who bring their dogs into stores.  And then there are the ones who let the leashes out so Fido can mosey around while I’m tripping over his leash.  I mean honestly, if you want to bring one of those novelty dogs in your purse, that’s all you. Let Fifi poo in your Prada.  Makes no difference to me.  But the big dogs?  The ones who yip?  The slow movers who weighs more than a can of Diet Coke...don’t want to see them in Bloomies.  Or Barnes & Noble.  Or the friggin supermarket.  They are dogs.  Not babies.   But I get it.  The dog is your universe and you want to spend some QT together.  And dogs need to go for walks.  So take your dog for a walk.  Play in the park.  Or perhaps in the comfort of your own home.  Don’t take them into a dozen stores while you run your errands.  It’s annoying.  And rude.  I don’t hate dogs, but I do live in a pet free building for a reason.  It's called by choice.  

Beyonce’s Baby:

Okay, this one might be too much.  But I have to vent.  

So you had your baby.  Congrats!  And mom and baby Blue are happy and healthy.  And we’re done.  That’s all I need to know.  

Yet, I’ve heard this story more times than I count since I dragged my ass out of bed at 5:30 to go to the gym. 

It’s everywhere.  From GMA to E! to Fox.  And I’m sorry but I just don’t care to hear about it.  There’s like 400,000 babies born every day.  And I get it. You’re famous and people want to hear all about it.  I’m not one of those people.  I’m far more interested in celebrity gossip for the celebs who have at least made it through puberty.  Kids should have a childhood.  In private.  So let’s shut this story down.  

But wait we can’t.  Because now there’s all this drama with Lenox Hill and how other people couldn’t see their babies because B and Jay Z took over the whole damn place.  It’s reedonkulous.  

This story is going no where fast.  I just know it’s going to carry on for weeks to come. Will they sell their baby photos to People? Who will get the first picture of B leaving the now controversial Lenox Hill?  This story is so going to be one of the cover stories on my US Weekly.  

And b-t-w, when Beyonce shows up on the cover of some fitness magazine next month, in a barely there bikini, showing how she transformed her body from baby-weight-to-amazing-shape just four weeks!!!!  Don’t want to see it.  Not while I’m running my ass of on the treadmill trying to drop my vacation weight.  From September.  I couldn’t care less about B’s fitness tips.  

Or could I?

No I couldn’t.  That’s why the phrase is “I couldn’t care less”.  Because I COULDN’T.  

So why oh why do people insist on saying “I could care less” in one of those spastic moments?  Because it kind of loses its impact people when you are trying to say you don’t really give a crap, but in fact you are actually saying you do.  

And I hear it on TV a lot too.  And I love TV writers.  I love lots of people who get paid to write for a living and experience their dreams.  (I do not however love that Snooki and anyone else on that crap show has a book deal.)  But c’mon writers of Revenge...did you make Charlotte scream she “could care less” to her mother on purpose?  Was it ad lib? We all know Charlotte is a smart chick.  But Victoria won that round because even though Charlotte attempted to claim not to care if her mother grounded her...well....read the quote.  Apparently she could’ve cared less.

I know. I’m nitpicking.  Saying “could care less” isn’t a deal-breaker with me. More like a pet peeve.  Just had to put that one at there.  

So that’s my story.  Let me know what the flak you think of it!

And if anyone is keeping count besides me, The Great Mystery is at 84,146 and I've almost figured out how my heroine is going to figure out who the killer is.  Success!


And for your listening pleasure...my latest musical obsession.  Played best on repeat.  (Plus if you listen to this, the title of this post will make sense!)

Perchance to Dream...

I’ve been having a lot of vivid dreams lately and those incredibly deep sleeps where I wake up, feeling like I just downed a bottle of Tylenol Cold so I’m all druggy and confused and my legs won’t move. Weirder still, when I looked at the clock I found out I’d only been asleep for about an hour.  Not that I’m complaining, but there are nights when I can’t will myself back to sleep so how on earth can I be deep-in-a-Tylenol-Cold-sleep in under an hour? 

(And on a total sidebar, does anyone know when Tylenol Cold is coming back on the market?  I don’t mean to sound like a junkie but that’s the only stuff that works for me and, well, I miss it.  I read it was recalled so they could update the labels – really???  This is the line they're toeing?  I’m pretty sure it’s because some kids who were really good in chemistry found a way to turn it into crystal meth and were making a few bucks selling it around the playground.  If only I could find this playground….)

But I digress.

So the crazy vivid dreams.  It’s weird how sometimes I remember them in great detail (and on occasion am not sure if what I dreamed really happened or was it all just a dream?) and other times I can’t even remember if I dreamed at all the night before.  I’ve always found the entire concept of dream analysis fascinating, so I keep a notebook on my nightstand and scribble pieces of dreams I remember.  Some mornings the writings are clear as can be and I’ll look the dreams up online and try to figure out what the hell it meant.  Sometimes the scribble is beyond recognition and I’ll wonder what the frak I was trying to write.

But the analysis amazes me.  Sometimes the dream meanings are so dead on to what’s happening in my life that it freaks me out.  Other times I’m left totally confused.  And on special occasions I will myself to have the same dream so I can finish what I started. (I hate waking up just when things are starting to get good!)

This week’s dreams went a little something like this:

Monday night – I’m being held captive by some crazy dude who’s looking for information that I presumably have.  And he’s slowly cutting my arms and legs with a knife and I’m bleeding.  (Yes, this is one of the more disturbing dreams I’ve had lately.  Made worse by my crystal-clear memory of it.)  Maybe it’s all the Law & Order: SVU I’ve been watching or, cue the emotional train wreck, maybe it’s this:

To see blood in your dream, represents life, love, and passion as well as disappointments. To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood, signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained.  (That’s an understatement.) It may also denote bitter confrontations between you and your friends. Your past actions has come back to haunt you. (Nothing like the word “haunt” to make a girl nervous.)

A knife refers to some sexual tension or sexual confrontation. (Guess that’s better than sexual frustration, right?)  To dream that you are wounded, signifies grief, anger, or distress. You need to slow down and take time to heal.  To dream that you are wounded by a knife, is symbolic of masculine or animalistic aggression. (Huh?  I’m *so* not aggressive.  And I’ve never had a pet.)

 

Tuesday night – I was at a party at my office and both my dad and my Nana told me I was pregnant.  Evidently I wasn’t aware of this fact, but in my dream I said that must have been why I wasn’t losing weight, despite apparently a lot of time at the gym.  I begged them not to tell my mom.  (So I'm a coward in my dreams.) And I didn’t know who my baby daddy was either. 

Bravo me!  Way to get mysteriously knocked up in my dreams.  To the dream dictionary:

To dream that you are pregnant, symbolizes an aspect of yourself or some aspect of your personal life that is growing and developing. You may not be ready to talk about it or act on it. Being pregnant in your dream may also represent the birth of a new idea, direction, project or goal.

I’m not always good with embracing ch-ch-ch-changes, but I know there are parts of my life that are in a rut and could use a kick in the ass.  I have one of those quotable magnets on my fridge that says “I am still learning.”  I’ve had it up since about 2003 and it’s still 100% true.  Still learning.  Still growing. 

I have ideas in my head of what I want my next life steps to be, but realistically need to pay the bills, so this part is still gestating.  For now I’m taking the baby steps (no pun intended) to making the dreams a reality (minor apartment renovations, blogging, contest entries for starters).  And the story ideas are popping, which always seems to be the case when I should be editing my manuscript so I can send it out to potential agents, but all I want to do is write new stuff.  But this was a good dream.  Hooray for being dream preggers!!!

I was on a train.  Trains are one of my recurring dreams (though the details change from dream to dream).  I was also reading Silent Mercy before I went to bed and Alex and Chapman are on a train for a portion of the book so that could have planted the idea in my head.  Either way, I’m a train with my friend “K” from high school who, in real life, I haven’t seen in a decade and haven’t been in touch with since we were both on Friendster.  (Don’t judge.  I’m aware Friendster wasn’t cool.  We all make mistakes.)  K keeps popping up in dreams lately, as my sidekick, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Anyway…I’m on the train with K.  Apparently we’re on the run and trying to figure out how to switch trains to get to safety.  The only person on board who can help us is Drew Barrymore.  (Oh thank God!  Love her.)  Drew was very helpful, telling us we could literally jump onto the train that was slated to pass us.  And she promised she wouldn’t change the passenger list so whoever was after us would think we were on the original train. And then I woke up. 

Train in Vain you ask? (“I see all my dreams come tumbling down”). Let’s find out:

To see a train in your dream, represents conformity. You are just going along with what everyone else is doing. (UGH!  That’s disappointing to hear.) Alternatively, a train means that you are very methodical. (That sounds more like me.) You need to lay things out specifically and do things in an orderly and sequential manner. (I can be a tad bit of a control freak.) If you see a passenger train, then it relates to mental work. Dreaming of trains may also be a metaphor that you are "in training" for some event, job or goal. According to Freud, a train is analogous to the male penis. (Oh Jesus.  Of course it is.)

To dream that you are on a train, symbolizes your life's journey. It suggests that you are on the right track in life and headed in the right direction. (Good to know.) Alternatively, the dream means that you have a tendency to worry needlessly over a situation that will work out in the end. (Sadly, that’s pretty much true.  I’ve been know to worry myself into an attack of irrational thinking.  Perhaps this is one of those things I can work on ch-ch-ch-changing.)

So, it’s been an active dream week. I could certainly do without the nightmares and the creepy dreams, but have read that these are usual the result of stress and anxiety.  And interesting to work out the things I don’t want to deal with in the light of day, in the dark of night. 

But the really cool part is that every once in a while, when I’m not being attacked or having some Freudian episode, I come up with an idea, or a snippet of dialogue or a one-liner that makes its way into something I’m writing.  (One such line is the opening of my work-in-progress.)  Without fail I’ll have a moment of inspiration and I won’t have a damn thing to write it down with. (I’m particularly brilliant in the shower and at the gym.)  That’s another reason I took to keeping pen and paper, bedside.  Sometimes ideas (good, bad, strokes of genius and painfully awful) are the things that go bump in the night.  And sometimes they are the things that inspire me to write.

Has anyone else had moments of genius in your dreams or in those moments before that weird body jerk/sense of falling happens?  And if you do, do you try to jot them down in the dark?  Get up and start writing? Or just convince yourself, OMG, I’m way too tired to move/get up/write this down, but it’s such an insanely great idea, I’ll totally remember it tomorrow.  For the record, nine times out of ten, you wouldn’t remember the idea if your life depended on it. Write it down.  Every time.  Or repeat it in your head until you can get a pen in your hand to record it.

And now for something a smidge unrelated – I couldn't resist.  This is one of the many songs I’m currently obsessing over.  As if the world needed further proof that Adele is ahh-may-zing, here is a live version of Someone Like You.  I agree with the lady herself – this one brings me to my knees:

The Cool Girls Are Human Too

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve been watching my life through someone else’s eyes – kind of like I’ve been in a weird out-of-body mode where good, bad or ugly it doesn’t always seem like it’s actually happening to me (or rather, I can’t believe it’s happening to me.  See my previous “Being Brenda” entry).  

And last night was no exception.  I had one of those very weird, very magical kind of nights that only could have happened in New York City.

One of my most favorite things to do is to attend writer’s book readings/signings.   (I’m also a sucker for general discussions, seminars and panel discussions.)  Not only do I get a kick out of seeing a favorite author live and in color (where inevitably my face will flush a brilliant red, I’ll get all tongue-tied, and ramble on about how much of a fan I am. I’m now realizing that I probably come off as a total awkward weirdo.  Rats!) 

Alas, I devour their words of advice and am fascinated when they talk about their process, the craft, the struggles and the successes.  And when they tell the aspiring writers that rejection is part of the biz and to just keep at it (they did!).  To get your butt in the chair and write.  After all, writers write.  I know that’s the truth, but somehow when I hear it from Jennifer Weiner or Patricia Cornwall or Emily Giffen it just seems that much more true. 

And I can’t help but dream that someday it’ll be me up there – proudly reading from my novel, answering questions about how I write (I’m a full-on pantser) and why I write (Because I don’t know how not to write.  I’m the girl who has conversations in her head, writes dialogue in the shower and has always had a wild imagination).  And I hope there are more than five people in the room and that the audience is not made up of my parents and the people who earn their paycheck by working in the very fictional bookstore I am reading in. 

But I digress…

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Linda Fairstein speak, for the launch of her latest novel, Silent Mercy. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen her, but I’ve been a fan of the Alex Cooper series since Final Jeopardy. (And I should probably be ashamed to confess that she’s the reason I tried…and fell in love with…Chanel No 22).  They are the kind of books that make me want to write.  And any books that pay such a tribute to NYC the way hers do, suck me right in (same goes for books that do Boston the justice I think it deserves…the city formerly known as my home).

But back to Linda Fairstein – I have so much respect for her professional career, her writing talent and the time she devotes to charities.  When she talks about her work in the DA’s office and when she talks about researching her books, she has so much passion.  When she launched her last book, Hell Gate, she did a co-panel with Kate White, who was launching Hush.  I didn’t know that they’ve been friends for years and watching the two of them “interview” each other, was almost like having the chance to eavesdrop on the cool girls’ table in the cafeteria – the kind of girls I wished I was friends with (hell, I wished I was one of the cool girls). 

And while every Fairstein talk I’d seen in the past never failed to disappoint, last night took a total turn for the strange.  It was at a Barnes & Noble and as usual, there was a good crowd of people.  And all was going well until a person in the crowd started shouting at her, referencing the Central Park jogger case she prosecuted some 20 years ago.  (To note, I am not here to talk politics or to pretend to understand the intricacies of investigating a case or to claim to understand how it feels to walk even a day in the shoes of anyone involved.  I’m just a girl, telling a story.) 

Shouts quickly burst out from all corners of the room (apparently this wasn’t the first time this group performed an informal protest).  I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t drop a bit.  There’s often a police presence at her events, presumably for this very reason. (But where on earth were they now?).  And I’ve read enough crime novels and watched enough Law & Order (and lived enough life) to know that bad things happen.  I did take some solace in the fact that one of the crowd-screamers was holding a small child, so while the screaming was surreal, it seemed like it simply meant to be an obnoxious disruption. 

But Fairstein didn’t lose her cool.  Her voice never wavered.  And in between apologies to the rest of the crowd, she went so far as to invite her hecklers to share their names with the crowd, rather than to chant.  God bless the B&N event coordinator who clearly go more than he bargained for while covering this event.  He offered to usher Fairstein offstage (she refused, and I felt like I got a glimpse of what she must have been like in the courtroom) before he contacted security to remove the disruptive group.  Even members of the audience got into the mix, saying they were here to talk about books, not pending court battles.  And while the whole kerfuffle probably lasted about two minutes, it was two very long minutes of “I can’t believe I am witnessing this crazy drama.”

The event quickly got back on course thanks to Fairstein who readily took questions about writing, researching and what it was like to be one of seven women (along with about 200 men) in the DA’s office back in the seventies.  And at the end of it all, I felt like I had such a unique glimpse of a woman who is so many things (smart, funny, strong, inspirational, generous and ambitious to name a few) but who is also fundamentally human.

Happily I positioned myself just right (front row, aisle seat) so that I could promptly hop on the book signing line for my first personalized Fairstein:

And as if that wasn’t cool enough, she was also handing out bookmarks and bags of M&M’s that are imprinted with her name and Silent Mercy: 

Drama, inspiration and treats?  Does it get any better? 

Well, I’m here to say it does. 

It was such a nice night (i.e. the wicked wind and crazy rain finally came to an end) I decided to enjoy the thirty-block walk home.  And as I made my way down Third I spotted Real Housewives star Ramona and her husband Mario while they were leaving dinner and saying good-bye to friends.  I made eye contact with Mario, but quickly looked away, playing it cool, like the cool girl I am.  

Don’t believe I’m that cool?  Well, I waited a *whole* block before I texted one of my friends to share the sighting!  Maybe Kate and Linda will let me sit at their table next time.