Not tested on animals?

I woke up today with my eyes practically swollen shut. What the heck? My father always used to say, “Calia. Your face- your career!”…I forgot to ask what he meant by that but I never messed with it. It seemed like good advice to live by. He had always made sense before! I had used another new hair product that my hairdresser swore by…or at least swore that I needed to give her money for! I looked through the slits in my eyelids at the ingredients of the leave-in conditioner: Plant extract, eucalyptus, lilac root, walnut oil…NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS!...Gosh darn it! Before you try products on the girl whose allergy scratch test results actually warranted flying people from all over the country to see, there has got to be a fair skinned, wispy, blonde haired animal that isn't deathly allergic to walnuts that we could test it on first! Does Mr. Koala have to sing tonight? I think not!

Simple pleasures!

I woke up a little bummed out today for some reason. This never happens. Honestly, I ate a little too much sugar and it threw me into some sort of a weepy sugar cycle. Well! This was an unacceptable feeling. I looked into the mirror and thought “yuck! Girl…you need to do something!”…I reached into the drawer and found my MAC lustreglass and immediately applied it to my lips. Yep! That was it. I’m beautiful again. Thank God for MAC! Sometimes a little shine on your lips can fill your heart with the energy it needs to love the day all over again! The day restarted as though I was Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day…only about 10 days into the movie. I was walking through the day knowing what was to come and felt the answers at the tip of my tongue. I could play the piano, run, jump, produce some music, recite Shakespeare…all because of a simple pleasure I like to call “lip gloss!”…and about 30 years of training that I had forgotten I had while the sugar demon was working frantically to make me forget what I already had to be grateful for! Bad sugar! Thank you MAC!

I like to maximize my time!

Today I was driving and the people in front of me were going so slow that I decided to floss my teeth. I thought about it later and realized that I don’t know how to relax. I like to maximize every second of the day into something useful. If I’m watching TV, I’m usually working out too. The other day while I was blowing my hair dry, I decided to clean my toilet. I was leaning over with the toilet brush in one hand and the hair dryer in the other and my toothbrush fell right out of my mouth into the toilet. The more I think about this, the more I worry that I might be a little too high strung. I do get a lot done though. I’m going to experiment this week with relaxing. I’m going to try to sit down for a few minutes and watch TV like a bum. I’m going to collect data from the time spent and keep it in a journal. ie: resting heart-rate, how many times “gee…I really should be doing something useful” pops into my head, the number of commercials that wouldn’t get their point across to the hearing impaired vs. the ones that are useless to the visually impaired…the number of times the Nivea commercials come on and remind me that I’m single…wait a minute…I don’t think this is working! Oh well…I suppose I’ll just have to work on it another time – like while I’m writing a dissertation on the effects of the Tsetse fly on the vegetation of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts of Africa…and jumping on my trampoline…

Should I lie about my age?

I keep running into all these 28 year old guys who are surprised when I tell them how old I am. They gasp…and call me “ma-am”. What am I supposed to do about that? I’m not even saying that I look young. I guess I’m just really immature. On the flip side, guys my age seem so old to me. It seems like they are all divorced with that dreaded 4-letter word- “kids!” It’s not that I don’t like kids… but they have mothers. That’s a different life than I’m living people! I can’t even handle a guy with a dog! What do you mean you can’t just leave in 5 minutes for a 3 hour drive? Don’t get me wrong…I want that life with kids and a house with the everyday tasks of getting my kids ready for school, putting dinner on the table, and wiping runny noses…I just don’t have it right now. I count my blessings everyday for the freedom and amazing life that I do have. I can’t help the stage of life that I’m in and I’m looking forward to having that other life when I meet someone who fits and wants it too… but right now…I feel like a kid who’s sitting on a swing and dangling her legs in a summer breeze. Free and excited all the time!

As for lying about my age…I started working with a girl 10 years ago who was my age. For some reason, she insists that she is 9 years younger than I am now. She even did the math to figure out what year she would’ve graduated from college…honestly I can’t even make that equation work! The funny thing is that I was actually thinking of telling people that I’m going to be 50 this year so they say, “WOW! You look really great for your age!” …I’ll smile and say, “Thank you!”…cause that’s the kind of honest and polite girl I am!

It’s really hard to hide a school bus…

I went for a ride out in the country today. It was such a beautiful day and the air was just right for feeling great! I came upon a school bus sitting along the side of a back road. The driver was just sitting there on his phone with the door open eating a sandwich. I thought, “hmm…my life all of a sudden makes sense!” … What? You may say. But sometimes I get so frustrated when I hear people talking and overhear my name in reference to this or that and think “why don’t people just mind their own business?” Celebrities have this issue all the time and while I am by no means a celebrity, I have a personality the size of a big yellow school bus. When I’m in a room, people tend to notice. By the same token, it’s really hard to get away with not being where I’m supposed to be. I suppose sometimes I like to be anonymous and slip in and out of places without people knowing who I am or what I do, but that girl isn't truly me. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that you shouldn’t turn your bus off to conserve energy once in awhile, but there’s really no need to try to hide it. You may as well just sit right in the school parking lot with it and eat your sandwich proudly cause when you don’t, someone going to wonder what you’re trying to get away with!

Aspirational Regret

I was watching a really deep TV show the other night (Monk) and gained some valuable insight! The obsessive-compulsive character finally got his detective badge back after a 5-year television series about him pursuing it! He held it in his hand at his psychiatrist’s office and was disappointed. He said, “I can’t believe it. I was happy before. Why didn’t you tell me?”…Uh oh!…His Doctor replied, “it’s called aspirational regret.” Now…I only watched about 6 minutes of this episode due to my growing need to move around virtually all the time. That being said, I have no idea if this is even a real psychological term as I’m quite sure that ‘Monk’ isn’t a true story. Who knows how much research the writers had actually done on the topic. Not to mention that I think I ran into the guy who was playing the psychiatrist in a mall in LA one day and due to the fact that he seemed sane, I’m quite sure that he isn’t a real psychiatrist. All that aside, there was definitely something to it. I’ve commented on this topic before but it deserves some more thought. “Why didn’t you tell me I was happy?”…I’m truly happy all the time though there are things that I want out of my life that I don’t have yet and often those are the things that get the most attention. Recently, I ran into a guy who said over and over again, “I want to teach you to be happy and enjoy life.” It actually made me pretty angry. Up until he said that, I was laughing my way through each and every day. Clearly I am going a little nuts having absolutely no adult responsibilities, but other than hoping for some mundane wifely/motherly tasks that I believe to have a deeper meaning than working out, jumping around, playing music and having fun all the time, I’m pretty ridiculously happy. So why did he think I needed so much help to be lifted out of my crap-infested existence? Well…it was one of three things:

• He needs to try to save every woman he meets from herself in order to feel like he's making a difference.
• I have been placing too much emphasis on what I don’t have yet and people are only hearing about that.
• He hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.

Sorry…but I have to go with a combination of the three. Of course I have one main goal that I need to achieve out of life that is the only “non-negotiable” thing that I know I’m meant for- taking care of my husband and children one day. All the rest is fluff! So when people ask, “what are you up to these days?” I reply with a giggle, “writing, singing, working out.” …then I turn evil when the next question is “any new love in your life?”…I think, “oops…oh yeah…I forgot to tell you when you asked me in the previous question what I’m doing, that I got married and had a baby since the last time you asked me…FREAKIN’ LAST WEEK!”…cause I put writing, singing and working out far above the trivial stuff like, um…let’s see…any meaningful events in my life! Thanks for asking though!”…oops…see that? I got a little annoyed there for a second. So now that person will walk away thinking, “geez…she’s really unhappy. I bet she could use a guy to take her out of her misery and enjoy life!”….DARN! I was set up!…For the most part, I have gotten pretty good about giggling off well meaning people who tend to want to drag me into a conversation about what I don’t have yet. BUT- There is an underlying feeling of lack that most single people who want families tend to have. It is likely that this guy has the feelings he is voicing to me as mine and doesn’t know how else to express himself. It doesn’t really matter though. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who thought I needed saving.
So “aspirational regret?”…If I achieve the goal of having a family after desiring it for 30some years, will I ask, “why didn’t you tell me that I was happy before?” It’s a good reason to remind myself right now that I am indeed happy! I JUST WANT MORE! The freedom I have to run and play is intoxicating! I reiterate: I giggle and joke my way through every single day. Possibly I just need to try a little harder not to get into the conversations about the last few unaccomplished goals that I have for my life so people don’t try to convince me that I’m not happy right now and walk away thinking that I need therapy! We could all take a little look at what topics our energy goes to. I’M HAPPY!

You teach people how to treat you!

Have you ever wondered why some people treat you the way they do when you are constantly good to them? I have seen some guys with girlfriends who nag and yell and scream about every little thing. It makes you wonder what it is that people really want? I’m always good to the people around me no matter how rude they are. Don’t get me wrong... I have been known to throw out a doosey of an insult, but usually it is intertwined in some sort of intellectual inside joke so that a person doesn’t even know what was flung at them. The ironic thing is that the nicer I treat someone, the worse they treat me. I really never fight back. One day I had left a tuna sandwich in my refrigerator at work. In the morning, I came in to find that someone on the night cleaning crew had eaten one bite out of it and put it back. I thought, “You know…you can just have that now.”

Even the chipmunks? Now that’s not right!

Sometimes I have a strong imagination. - Okay…all the time!... I noticed a family of chipmunks living under my house. They are all sizes and run and play all day. This is a little unsettling in a way. I watched out the window while I was working out one morning and actually played it out in my mind.

Mr. Chipmunk: Honey, will you pass the berries that I gathered yesterday?
Mrs. Chipmunk: Sure dear. (squeak, squeak) The berries were ever so sweet this time.
Mr. Chipmunk: Oh munky-boo-boo. You are always so respectful of my hard work. I’m really glad that I found you and more than thankful for our little family!
Baby Munk: Daddy! Can I go out and play?
Mr. Chipmunk: Sure little one. Just watch for cars.
(I watched as he ran out from under the patio and played under my car. I'm quite certain that I will likely run him over when I leave for work...too bad too...cute little thing...)
Mrs. Chipmunk: I can’t believe all of the racket that girl upstairs is making. It sounds like she’s jumping on a trampoline or something.
Mr. Chipmunk: (laughing) Yeah right dear! She’s got to be in her 30’s. I doubt she’d be jumping on a trampoline!

Oh come on!…even the damn chipmunks think I should be in a different stage of life…crap!

The World is flat

I once read a book called “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman. In it, he painted a picture of a world moving faster than most can keep up with in terms of industry, culture, thought processes, etc… I found this very interesting due to the fact that though I’m a technology lover, I have often struggled to keep my personal values set to an old-fashioned tune. Don’t you find it interesting that a century or two ago, people met their soul-mates, who just happened to live on the farm one mile down the road from them, and stayed with each other for a lifetime? I realize that a lifetime was a lot shorter back then, but come on! I have met people who can’t stay with one person for more than a few months without wondering if there's someone better out there for them. It makes me wonder if society has gotten so overloaded with choices, that no one wants to be forced to pick one and go with it.

If too much choice is causing indecision, how can we simplify it and keep any order at all? Is complete disorder the new “order”? Again…I’m not a fan of disorder! I'm really lucky that I'm from the generation I'm from because if I had been forced to carry a suitcase to my mother’s house on “her weekend”, I would’ve had an anxiety attack! … Of course, I can’t even stay in a hotel without putting my clothes on hangers and in the drawers! I suppose that's the way I commit to staying in one place for a period of time. These days, there's not much left of “commitment" other than sticking with it while things are good! The trouble is that it can be easily dissolved when it becomes uncomfortable for us which leaves us with very little concept of accountability. Now- I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to break up with people! What I am wondering though, is if this flattening world, though it makes business opportunities limitless, is causing the dissonance in our personal quests for constantly wanting "more" than what we have! If a click of a mouse on a computer can find you a “new soul mate” who will distract you from your mundane life, possibly it’s technology that’s causing the mundane life to become unacceptable. If I had a piece of chocolate cake in front of me and I have eaten the same chocolate cake yesterday, I would still be very excited about eating it…until I see a commercial for a 4 layer chocolate cheesecake on the television. I’d set the chocolate cake in front of me aside and then run to the store for some cheesecake…cause I have my driver’s license and I can do whatever I want, when I want!…and the store is open 24 hours now!…Yippy! ...(actually…don’t tell anyone, but I would likely eat the chocolate cake in front of me, and then go to the store for some cheesecake too. Of course, I’d have to work out 2 hours extra that evening, but who cares. I like to workout!)

So again I ask, how do we maintain our ideals and values in an ever flattening world? Will what we have ever be enough while we have constant access to “better”…or I should say, “different”, than what we already have? I’m very happy to continue learning about our ever flattening world on a global, economic and academic scale! I find it amazing! BUT- I am very adamant about maintaining my old fashioned sheltered life full of family values and morals on a personal level. There’s still room for commitment and unconditional support of the people around us. The old doesn’t need to get thrown out once the new presents itself 10,000 miles away! Just because we can reach it, doesn’t mean we need to feel obligated to bring it home!

Maybe I need to stop multitasking with techno on?

This morning I was working out. My ipod was blaring my techno in my ears and I was jumping around! I felt so great! I had candles lit and was drinking my grapefruit juice and decided to water my plants. With juice in one hand and water in the other, I poured the entire glass of grapefruit juice into my ficus…hmm…this may be the reason I don’t have children yet…

I threw away all of my whites one time too. I had my techno on…jumping around… taking out the garbage… and doing laundry. Geez…it wasn’t until the next day when I realized that I didn’t have any underwear!

Forgot to stretch!

All I remember is my alarm going off and then all of a sudden I was a mile and a half away from my house on a run with my calf seizing in the most annoying muscle spasm I’ve ever experienced. It was 5:30am and I had slept well. I tend to bounce out of bed and start the day very quickly. It started in high school when it used to drive me crazy when my alarm would go off and then leave whatever song was playing on the radio at that moment in my head the entire day. Since then I just always made it a point to turn off the clock radio before the second chord is struck. Funny thing is that it still doesn’t keep the song out of my head. For some strange reason, I guess I would’ve been really good on “Name that tune!” I can name virtually any song in one note. I’m sure it’s just the instrumentation that I recognize. Oh well…leave it to the musician’s ear to have a song playing in her head all day. I usually just have to sing a chorus or two of jingle bells to over-ride it.

Oh yeah…my darn calf. How was I ever going to make it home? It was one of my favorite legs too. That happened to my hamstring once. It kept getting worse and worse. It even hurt to sit sometimes not to even mention how badly it compromised my splits and kicks! Yeah…you may think “what would a 30 something woman need with her splits and kicks?” Well…nothing really but it makes for a really great conversation piece at the country club when I’m acting all prim and proper and then when someone says something pretentious and stupid, I pick my leg up over my head and say “Yeah! But can you do this?” It usually changes the subject quite nicely.

The moral of this story is that I need to stretch better… okay…at all! I tried skipping. I bet that looked really cool! A grown woman skipping down the road…I decided that I may as well whistle too while I was at it. The fact is that I have this impulsive “forget to stretch” attitude about everything. I do it with my speech too. Before I even warm up my thoughts, I blurt out just about anything that comes to my head. An older guy at the gym was sort of hitting on me one day and I said, “I think it’s really great that you work out so much. I wish we could’ve gotten our father to do what you do.” The look on his face was one of shock. Sometimes I think guys must think that they are much younger than they are. Oh well. I don’t think he’ll be hitting on me again any time soon so in that case, the quick mouth action had the best result.

I think I’m going to try to take a little more time preparing for things for a couple weeks. Stretching, thinking, etc…Maybe it will give me better results in the dating area…or at the very least, I’ll have even more time to think of something really worth the disgust of the poor old guy who tries!

Outdoor Wedding!

As a single girl with no children, there’s a lot of pressure to dress right. I was at an outside wedding today. Well…that’s great!... Accept no matter how amazing a tent is, there’s still nature underneath…ie: grass…mud…etc… Beautiful! But what about my shoes? There isn’t a shoe made that looks good with a clump of mud on the heal! I had to walk on my toes for 6 hours! – and that really doesn’t look all that cool either. As I was galloping to the porta-mary in my dress and muddy shoes, I imagined the sound I was making as I walked. I heard that high pitched running sound from the cartoons. You remember the one that always played when Fred Flintstone ran to hide from Barney behind ridiculously small objects (which is baffling to me come to think of it…since those brontosaurus burgers were always so huge that they tipped over the car??...hmm…) …Oh…sorry… I was talking about the pressure on a single girl to look good…anyway…

Have you ever noticed that a mother, at any age, is allowed to show up with spit up down the front of her or with a curler still left in her hair? It’s just somehow acceptable. People whisper, “Oh! She has the most beautiful baby”, or “Doesn’t she look good considering?”…Considering what? It seems to me that there’s a sliding grading policy on the “considering” portion of that sentence. Come on! She has her skirt tucked into her underwear! Why am I always the one who has to tell her? …I can only imagine what people are whispering about me. “I wonder why her hair is so disheveled. Shouldn’t she be able to do better than that… ‘considering’ that she has absolutely nothing to do but workout, work and do her hair and nails?” The pressure!

Oh well!...Maybe I’m putting all of this pressure on myself. Possibly I should stop worrying about whether or not people are comparing my life stage to other people’s at my age?...or I could just get a pair of flat shoes and bedazzle them for when people have outdoor weddings!

I like things neat!

Do you know how when you live alone, things really don’t ever get out of order? Well…that’s my experience. I seem to think that if it’s just you, there is really no reason not to put everything back where you took it from. I guess I have run into people who don’t think that way but for the most part, every guy I have ever met has had some sort of affection for his vacuum cleaner. Is it just the type of guy I like?...or are guys really that into having their houses immaculately clean? I suppose it could be that every guy I’ve met has been a little gay?... I had a strange experience when I asked a guy if he was gay once…Note to self: don’t ask guy if he’s gay. No answer is really a good one. I assume when they protest that they are...then I assume that because they have protested that they aren’t. hmm…All I do know is that the ones who have actually told me that they are, are still my friends today. I’ve never heard from any of the others again. Oops…so they are then?...wait…I’m so confused.

Anyway…the neatness thing…I really think our brains function more efficiently if we are not in a cluttered environment. My friend at work was going through a rough time a few months ago so I went in as a surprise and took all the clutter from the piles on her desk and stapled it together in a nice neat pile. Much better! The thing is that I don’t think she really appreciated it…

“What you are looking for cannot be found”

The strangest thing happened today. There was a post on google from a girl who had asked if she was too old to date because she was divorced now and 32 years old. I decided that I had to respond to her. I mean…she was definitely going through a hard time and I wanted to tell her that she needed to take a positive approach and realize that the world worked in ways that would bring magic to her once she stopped worrying if she was too old, or too fat, or too divorced, or too quiet… I clicked on the link.

“What you are looking for cannot be found” – oh crap! What was this? Am I on candid camera?... GOD? Are you trying to tell me something? I’m listening! Not nice dude! I had her best interests at heart. I just wanted to help!... The link was dead…I heard the dial-tone on my biological clock. Yeah…God was mocking me with a dead link on the internet! Unbelievable! There’s gonna be so much less money in my envelope this Sunday man!

Even Oprah says that we need to let a guy open the peanut butter once in awhile…

I was just out for a run and noticed an old man struggling to fix his tractor. I immediately thought, “I have to help him.”… Well! Who do I think I am? What exactly could I do to help this man fix his tractor? Do I really believe that I have no limitations? ...Actually…the funny thing is that I do believe that. Possibly that’s my trouble in the dating area? I have gotten so used to doing everything for myself that I have actually removed any reason for outsourcing daily tasks: Take the garbage out – check! Network the house – check! Pay the bills – check! Provide unconditional love for self? – I got it…guys in the past have really sucked at it anyway! Fix a tractor?...um…no! I guess I could get the model number and download an instruction manual? Where is the engine on this thing anyway?...and why are we standing in all of these allergens? Are you people crazy? Can’t you just get your food from the grocery store like everyone else?... The truth is that all I could possibly do for this man is sing him a tune and maybe take an energetic tap solo or something…but I’m not wearing my tap shoes so that would be silly! Oh well…I guess I can’t help him. … I just ran by and waved instead.

The thing is that I did learn a lesson from this. I have made myself so complete that there is absolutely nothing left over for a man to do for me at this point. Oprah said that we need to let a guy open the peanut butter jar once in awhile. I’m going to try it! I hope they don’t get mad at me in whole foods when they find out that the whole aisle of peanut butter is stocked with open jars. I don’t really eat peanut butter… but a girl needs to practice these skills you know!

I love the rain!

Have you ever woken up to a thunder storm and felt the amazing warmth of your bed and just lay there in the peacefulness of it? I love that feeling. I love to watch the rain beat against the windows in the darkness. I love to walk outside and get completely soaked so when I come back in, I can dry off and watch the sheets of water pour off of the slick glazed streets… So what is up with people who constantly complain about the weather or how they just wish the rain would go away? Depressed and miserable, I watch them slowly walk through their day. At first I want to cheer them up…then I sort of start to giggle. What do they need me to cheer them up for? They must like to feel that way. I mean…it’s the only reason to actually allow yourself to wallow in discontent right? I think to myself, “wow! I’m so happy for these people. I am very glad that they have been allowed this opportunity to have such misery so that when the rain stops, their sense of gratification and elated bliss is so extreme. Lucky them!”…but I guess the question is, do they hate the sun too?...oh boy…I hope not…

30Something in Game Show Competition: Opponent- 20-year-old girl

I had a really weird dream last night. I was hanging out at a nightclub and then all of a sudden, in a flash, I was standing behind one of those game show scoreboards like on Jeopardy. Next to me was a cute, 20-year-old girl and in front of us was the host. He was a 34-year-old educated man who was choosing between us. The questions showed up on the board and I was allowed to choose first. This looked like it would be really doable! I finally had the upper hand. There was no way that this girl could possibly have the knowledge that I have on some of these topics!

Me: Yes. I’ll take “Heatsink fans are not just people who liked boy bands in the 90’s” for $100 please.”

Host: Thermal resistance is the difference across a structure when a unit of energy flows through it in unit time. What is it’s reciprocal?

(girl hits buzzer to answer before me)

Girl: Oh my god I’m so drunk!

Host: Oh. That was so close. Give her $50 for that answer. Let’s see if your opponent has a better answer.

Me: Thermal Conductivity?

Host: Oh no! I’m sorry. The answer was ‘thermal conductance.’

Host: Now let’s show the young lady her board of questions to select from.

Girl: Yes. Thank you. I’ll have ‘sex on the beach’ for $1000 please.

Host: heh...heh...sounds good to me! Here’s your question. The popular beverage, ‘Sex on the beach’, is made out of vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and this beverage that rhymes with “ranberry uice”?

Girl: cranberry juice

Host: Oh…you need to ring the buzzer honey!

(I ring the buzzer)

Me: Cranberry juice?

Host: No. I’m sorry.... Let’s go to you over here honey.

Girl: Cranberry juice?

Host: YES. That’s right! It looks like you win the game!

I woke up and realized that I’m pretty screwed if the game show in my own subconscious mind is even believing that young and dumb always wins! Crap. I had better re-read “The Secret!” I may have just bought myself another 5 years of bad dating luck with that dream! Darn!

Dude’s Unhappy!

I read my friend’s book last night. Wow! This was a guy I’ve known for 15 years and from what I read, I had never even met him. I owe him a huge apology. I “hung out” with him years ago and even cried for weeks when he sort of dumped me. What was I crying about? What did I want from him? I clearly didn’t know anything about him that would justify me wanting him to be with me so badly. Did I only want him to want me? What a childish girl! I like him now.

For some reason, I’ve always felt like my definition of happiness should be everyone else’s too. The strange thing is that people are happy in their own realm. His beauty lies in his artistic ability to feel rage or anger, or just simple struggles that helped him to become the most reflective person he could be. It’s his thing. I definitely like him! Who would ever ask him to change? If he was walking down the street, like I do, about to pop with laughter with everything that comes in contact with him seeming hilarious and beautiful, he would be downright ridiculous. My act is all about my dysfunction in the dating area. I walk into the break room and people want to hear my stories of how someone mistreated me with my hilarious spin that my fantastic childhood allows me to naturally place on it. What would be left if I walked in one morning and said, “I’m really happy. I met a really nice guy!”…would I be out of things to say? That’s likely! - His act- artistic, creative, thought provoking, laid-back...he knows too much about the world to have all that much faith in it...it works for him. I like him. He's worth knowing!

Trauma treatment!

…So my hair dresser convinced me that I needed this trauma treatment for my hair. I got to work and people were talking to me: “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER OF THE TRAUMA TREATMENT ON MY HEAD!” What the heck is this stuff? Motor oil? Does anyone have a hat?...though…I’m not sure that a hat wouldn’t slip right off my head... When I got home, I read the package. It said: “Hair stylist: Sell this for $50 to single women who won’t read this and don’t have anything to do with their money of any importance…ie: children, food, etc…” Well! …thank you very much!

Should I let other people’s actions go?

While I was at my gig last night, a young girl who helped a friend ruin his marriage walked in and walked up to him while I was singing. I saw it and I was disgusted. He has just gotten his life back on track and has freed himself of her after she tossed him away once she was done proving that she could take him from his wife! Not nice! Anyway…I was singing so I couldn’t really do anything about it…Oh!... I have an idea! I do have a straw and some lyric cards… so I made some spit wads and started spitting them across the bar at her hoping she’d get distracted and walk away from him. When that didn’t work, I picked up an encyclopedia from the bookshelf behind me and as I started to throw it across the room, my keyboard player took it out of my hand ….oh…sorry…he was probably right. That may have been going a bit too far...especially since I was singing at the time.

I suppose that I'm still not all that great at ignoring other people's actions. I'm going to work on this so I can spend a little more time worrying about me and not how other people's business affects me! My life and happiness really has no connection to the way other people see fit to live theirs. My mind will be less cluttered if I just allow others to screw up their own lives so I can focus on screwing up mine!...besides...shooting spit wads and singing "It's Raining Men", is really not easily multitasked!

Maybe I’m just not obvious enough…

While I was singing last night, I notice a guy at the corner of the bar who was alone. He seemed to watch me a little bit but I went on about my business. It was a huge night at the restaurant so I just did my own thing. People sometimes think that when we are up on stage, we aren’t aware of what’s going on. That’s absolutely not true! We see everything…the lady who was 60 years old in the mini-skirt, the politician who was obviously not with his wife, the 35 year old guy who always brings much older women with him and, for some reason, throws them up in the air while they are dancing? I wonder if each one of those women think they are “the one?” I’m not thinking so. We even watched one night as an unsuspecting, lonely man danced closely with a cross dresser who was definitely going through some sort of a sex change…he didn’t have any idea! What? She was six and a half feet tall and could’ve crushed him with her/his bare hands!...I sort of wanted to tell him but it appeared, from the kiss on the dance floor, that the damage was already done! Oh well…Mind your own business Calia!

Anyway…the guy at the bar…after a couple hours of seeing him sit there alone, all of a sudden, an older lady was sitting next to him…I watched her take his hand and touch his arm. Uh…wait a minute? Was she meeting him there? I didn’t think so. I think she just showed up, sat down next to him, and then took his hand. Baffling! I was singing “I will survive” and I think I actually sang “go on now go, just turn around now, I guess I move a little slow. Weren’t you the one who just sat there all alone? You didn’t think I’d notice? Are you gonna take her home?”…Then I came to…Where was I? Who was I? What the?...I was so confused. I kept singing, though I don’t remember the next few songs. I think I got them right but I kept running the story through my head. Maybe I am just not obvious enough? I mean…am I supposed to be grabbing the obviously single guys in these bars? I’d never even considered it. Was she going to have that intellectual conversation with a man tonight that I so miss?...wait…no…most likely not! Feewww…I made it to the end of the set...and back to reality. I wonder what songs we just sang? Hmm…

I still think that a flirty smile here and there is a better bet than wearing a T-Shirt that says “Hey! YOU! Take me home tonight!”…but what the heck do I know? She actually got a date…I doubt it was the quality that I am hoping to run into one day though. The other thing, in this instance, was that I wasn’t even interested in him. Maybe the moral of this story is that I have Attention Deficit Disorder? That’s probably it. Thank God I’m no different than 80% of the population of the United States! Just lucky to be so “mainstream” I guess!

Am I actually too happy?

I have to admit that I have often driven people a little crazy with my high energy and flippant nature. People who are truly unhappy have actually wanted me to disappear into the earth in a poof at times! I would smile and ask excitedly, "Do you have the ability to do that to me? …cause that would be so cool if you had powers like that!" The funny thing is that I always bring people into my life that are so miserable that their problems can’t even be measured on the miserability scale! That is quite an accomplishment! They should be proud of themselves for achieving such an intoxicating level of discord!…oops…there I go again…I think I just figured out why I make them so mad! Did you hear that? I just turned their incredible discontent into an accomplishment. Don’t I know that people who are that unhappy, are the happiest the unhappier they are? I’ve gone out with countless guys who I believed that it was my life’s work to show them that there are good people in the world and that they could be happy too! ... Wrong! My measurement of happy is very different than theirs. They don’t need me to show them anything! I don’t match them. Whatever! Why waste so much energy on people who don’t appreciate me…or want me to fall head first from a tall tree...or take me bungee jumping with chain...? One guy wrote me a pros/cons list when he broke up with me: It actually said:

Pros: You can drive standard
Cons: You dress in cute skirts all the time, you bounce around, you smile 28 hours a day
(he wasn't the smartest guy in the world- I helped him proof-read a job application once and it said under previous employment - "Whorehouse Carpet Outlet")

I threw my hand up, smiled and yelled, “ooh ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I’ll try harder!” Maybe I wasn’t quite getting the point!

God, she’s so beautiful…I just wish she’d stop talking!

I went out with a guy who actually said that about me once! I was so happy that he thought I was beautiful that I stayed with him…for 4 years! I mean…up until then I was always known as the creative, smart, funny chick! How lucky was I that I finally met someone who saw me for what was really important in life? – external beauty! What a huge compliment. I could now stand in the background, looking pretty- without a peep. I even learned how to giggle and act as though what he said was the most important thing in the world! In fact, I even practiced in front of the mirror. It went sort of like this...

Him: You need to rotate the silverware so it is used evenly because there are only two of us using it.
Me:…hee…hee…Okay!
Him: You’re going to wear that?
Me: um…no? (giggle…)
Him: I can’t believe you wore that scarf in front of one of the girls at my office. I’m so embarrassed. Do you know how much time they spend on picking out their clothes?
Me: (giggle)…I don’t think you even realize how much I don’t care about what your $7 an hour assistant thinks of my scarf! (giggle)
Him: Then I want you out of our house in 14 days…
Me: …oh crap (system reboot!)

Then I moved out and lived happily ever after…without him! (giggle…)

Mocked by the Census bureau!

Well…I got my census bureau form today. It was the size of a phone book. I originally thought , “I’m gonna just throw this away…like I do the neighbor’s phone bills when they come to the wrong address”…yeah…sorry about that, but they told me that they didn’t need any mail that came to me because they had “changed their address for everything that was important". They acted as though it was wrong that I had driven to their house to get their mail to them. So…now I just throw everything away. Is that wrong? Hee….hee…

Anyway…the census form…It wanted my level of education, how many times I’ve been married, how many people lived in the house, how come I couldn’t meet a guy, what was wrong with me that I didn’t have children yet…how many grandchildren I had??…um…That’s not nice! In fact, when I selected the single, never been married box, it directed me to skip over 5 pages to the question about whether I lived in a trailer or not. - Ouch! - It might seem a little petty, but I stuck a post-it note to it that said “how much do you weigh?”…I am quite certain that the person who is doing the data entry will stop mocking me when she realizes that her desk job has caused her to have use for my desk-er-cycle!...and...cause that was the best I could do…without getting fined $500...and judging from the fact that they had just pointed out that I don’t make enough money to live because I live all alone in a house, I figured a post-it would suffice! Then I went to the gym…again… Ha! I showed them!

Am I wearing “couples” jewelry?

I was at work today and a guy who I hadn’t seen in a while noticed that I was wearing a silver necklace. He immediately said “You’re wearing a necklace! Does that mean that you have a boyfriend now?”

...Oh no! I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to wear jewelry!

I flashed to the story about the Scarlet letter... I ran through it in my head to see if there was something I had missed when I was daydreaming about playing the piano in English class....Did the “A” stand for “accessories?” I had no idea that a necklace had such implications. That sort of seems unfair! I've really enjoyed matching my purses to my outfits over the years! ...Boy I hope I meet someone so I can wear pants and a headband again! I really don’t want anyone talking about my bad single girl etiquette!