November 2011
29 posts
10 tags
And Here We Go
I love making people laugh, saying something kind of unexpected, off the cuff or even deadpan, and having them almost spit out their coffee. I love watching that moment when their faces move from staid and composed to wide open and without cares. The crookeder the smile the better, in my book.
I also love that feeling right before you’re going to make a huge leap. Adrenaline junkies are...
5 tags
Beeeeeeep!
Remember those Roadrunner cartoons, with Wile E. Coyote? How the Roadrunner just kind of went about his business, running from place to place, while the coyote tried every trick in the book to stop him in his tracks, from a bow and arrow to some pretty heavy explosives?
Minds are like that.
I noticed today, while sitting in meditation, that every time I tried to do something —chase a...
13 tags
More, More, More
I get a lot of email each day. Between the accounts for my personal use and my business, there have to be 500 or more every single day, rain or shine, weekday or weekend. My assistant helps me go through some of it, and of course some is spam. Can’t seem to get rid of that, though we’re on all the do not email lists there are.
I don’t know if it’s the recession and...
7 tags
Redefining Hate
The news is an acquired taste, I guess. I’ve been a news junkie ever since high school. When we were asked to bring in some current event sto talk about, I usually had four or five at the ready. I just like being engaged with the world, and seeing how world events connect to each other. Before I worked in the realm of energy, I was looking for patterns.
I also love weird news, or stuff...
10 tags
50-50 World
Sometimes, I like to try a little experiment, to see what happens. I go what I approximate to be around 50% between myself and another person. Maybe this is in conversation, offering a little about myself, then asking questions about them, or maybe it’s in shouldering 50% of the burden in a relationship — its various responsibilities and demands.
Then I like to wait to see what the...
10 tags
Just Ask
Don’t know if I completely agree with the dictum “ask and it is given to you.” That’s certainly part of the formula, but not all of it. In my experience, it takes a combination of asking, asking at the right time, meaning it, and agreeing to take some concerted action toward that goal. Oh, and I should add suspending all sense of control over how “it” appears in...
4 tags
Getting Gratitudinal
For some reason, certain years are easier when it comes to conjuring gratitude. Sure, sometimes you have to get past the painful bits, the too-embarrassing-to-forget faux pas, and the “was that really necessary” recalling of let’s call them learning experiences. This year, for me, was one of the best.
Sure, there were some missteps. There was uncertainty and even the wondering...
13 tags
The Quiet
One of my favorite things that happens right before a holiday, or even sometimes during them, is the quiet that descends. It’s partially because there are fewer people around — everyone seems to be traveling to one place or another, and the city usually empties out a bit — but it’s also partially because some of the regular chatter of life dies down for a few days. We go...
9 tags
Reframe-o-Rama
It’s the best time of year, it’s the most stressful time of year. Maybe that’s unavoidable, given that we can’t choose our families. I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of opportunities to use my daily reframing over the next few months, not the last of which was today, when I figured out that I may not have the books I need when I need them to begin marketing it...
7 tags
Fragile
As if it’s not enough that we’re bags of bone and blood barely separated from the world by a thin layer of epidermis, our creator of choice also gave us emotions, which we use to color our experiences. We revel in these emotions, sometimes giving in to them or allowing them to make our decisions for us, other times running from them, drinking them into submission, or failing to...
5 tags
Guides Say Sleep
It’s hard to reframe lack of sleep. No matter if you’re the cranky type, the drowsy type or the reckless type drinking endless energy beverages to keep your eyes open, sleep is a physiological need. I tried though today, I really did.
Getting stuff done, I thought about sleep as a luxury, picturing the people in Scandinavian countries that sometimes have to endure 23 hours of...
7 tags
Effortless
I’ve been thinking a lot about trying, in the wake of the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. How I used to believe on some level that anyone, say, south of 25 was more occupied with the idea of a brand new iPhone than any actual engagement with life. I have been really glad to be wrong for these past weeks. These people, and the ones like them all over the...
8 tags
Pay It Forward for the People
While human beings sometimes frustrate me with their choices, I have a deep and unqualified love of humanity. I love that we’re complicated, that things in our lives aren’t always neat. I love that we’re fucked up one minute and so deeply caring in the next. I love it that we’re unpredictable.
I have built my life around helping other people, which I view as helping...
10 tags
Now They Are
You know when you were a little kid, and everything seemed like a ghost? Lights on the wall, the moon, creaks on the floorboard — even your night light could seem haunted and magical. I had really vivid dreams as kid, seeing them almost projected onto the walls of my bedroom. Some nights I was afraid to move, if the dream was scary, while other nights I could run around and cavort with...
7 tags
Maybe, Maybe Not
I love the fact that after fifteen years as a meditator, stuff that used to big the crap out of me, make me lose sleep or scream out the window of my car at people, seldom bothers me. It’s not that I try to be all calm and spiritual — far from it. I’m probably not that enlightened, to be able to pull that off. But as I put in time over the years, I found that it just wasn’t...
10 tags
Some New York Wisdom
A little over a week ago, I was in New York to pitch my book to film & TV people. It was a quick trip, but I basically love any time I get to spend in New York. It’s a crazy, vibrant city and I love the energy there as long as I don’t have to live there (been there, done that). I finally got a chance to take some of the photos I took off my phone today, with my favorite being this...
11 tags
Love My Work
What other job can you do casually, setting your own hours and forging your own set of ethical rules, from a small office with a pleasant assistant who actually likes her job and inspires you to do better as well? Where can you exercise the right to care about people openly and help them (hopefully, if you’re doing it right) to solve complex life problems, move on from pain, and create new...
6 tags
Wonky
Energy was a little wonky today, a little off. Went to Fahey/Klein gallery in West Hollywood to see the Ellen von Unwerth exhibit and while normally, I like her work a lot, it doesn’t seem to have evolved much over the years. It’s still got that vaguely S&M, Berlin in the 1930s look about it, with half naked women chained to radiators and the like. Eh.
The skies were gray and...
8 tags
How Am I Not Being Wise?
Went to see Martine Batchelor speak at Against the Stream last night, and man am I glad I did. I’ve not been there as often as I’d like in 2011, due to an extremely busy work and travel schedule this year. My business has really expanded, as has my client roster, and I’ve been taking as many classes as I can in the interim, gathering more skills and adding to my various areas of...
7 tags
Who Has It Better Than Us?
I’m not much of a football fan. It’s been a long time since the game was anything more than a bunch of refrigerator-sized dudes crunching against each other. It lacks personality, results in too-often ignored head injuries, and reinforces a hyper-masculine culture that thrives on war metaphors.
Enter Jim Harbaugh.
Former coach of the Stanford team, responsible for its turnaround...
9 tags
WOO HOO!
I can finally let the cat out of the bag, the news I ‘ve been trying to be good in not telling anyone before I promised I would. My book, SEARCHING FOR SASSY: AN L.A. PHONE PSYCHIC’S TALES OF LIFE, LUST & LOVE, won the recent Hay House Pitchfest in New York, which means that I get to meet Paula Wagner, former producing partner of Tom Cruise and (super yay) executive producer of one...
9 tags
Exciting News, But Not Yet
You know when someone tells you something really great, and you’re not allowed to tell anyone? It’s like a the greatest secret ever, and even though you may have been the best secret-keeper in the world a few minutes ago, as soon as you hear this information you’re all of a sudden the town freakin’ crier. You’ve got to tell someone … anyone. So you flip through...
10 tags
And Then Again
Time to think about fall where I live, as the weather gets cooler and thoughts turn to warm drinks in the morning and naps in the afternoon. My workout routine is changing, as I add more restorative yoga and detoxing stuff to my regular cardiovascular work, weight lifting, hiking, walking, Pilates and dancing. My diet is changing, too, and as I take a brief break from writing, I’m thinking...
9 tags
A Beautiful Mind
I first read Hunter S. Thompson’s words in high school, which is probably a good time for a shy but searching young woman to be indoctrinated into the ideology of righteous rage. I can’t say that he influenced me as a writer, OK maybe slightly in the search for authenticity of experience. But he seriously influenced me as a thinker, caller of bullshit and feeling being.
Today my...
6 tags
Transitions
I don’t go to a lot of funerals. I suppose I’ve been lucky that way, that most of my friends, family and even colleagues have managed to keep on living, some well into their 80s and 90s. I had a few brushes with death in my twenties, when many friends died from AIDS and drugs, but thankfully that period came to an end. Today, I attended the funeral of a close friend’s mom, and...
7 tags
More Brains!
When The Walking Dead began airing on AMC last year, I was first in line to see it. Though I’m not much of a horror person , generally speaking, I thought the idea of combining zombies with an apocalyptic survival story seemed intriguing for cable. It was a little smarter than the average show, and featured a likable main character trying to get back to his wife and son. Good foundational...
7 tags
Executioner of Dreams
We all know them, those people who seem to enjoy bitching and moaning so much that they’re not content to piss all over their own dreams. They need yours, your neighbor’s, and half the population’s as long as these fuel the fire inside them. These executioners of dreams are sly. They hide in plain sight, as friends, mentors, family members and ordinary people we all have to deal...
9 tags
Reunited & It Feels So Good
I can’t get that smarmy Peaches & Herb track from the ’70s out of my head today, for some reason. Maybe one of them is going to bite it, or I’m going to be reunited with a person or idea from my past. Hey, it could happen. I’m not going to stress about it.
I’m in full-on planing mode today, which happens in the life of every creative person, at least if...
6 tags
The Beautiful & the Fake
For the past 143 days, I’ve worked on reframing my daily reality, finding one beautiful thing, or one thing worth thinking about a little more deeply among the events of life. I’ve seen sadly beautiful things, beauty that inspired me and spurred my own creative work, and even tinily beautiful things that made me giggle with joy.
Mostly what’s changed for me is that I see...
