I’m having a major case of blog block and I don’t like this prompt.  Life should be worth living because it is not because the people in it make us want to do so. 

I’m too tired to explain further. 

I used to be shy about the thing I wanted to do in life but I’m not anymore. The thing I hope to do in life is write a book.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but something I never shared out loud.  Because sharing it out loud would mean I’d have to try and do it and actually doing it scared the crap out of me.  I don’t know why but it did.  What is it about creative pursuits that make them so scary? I’m sure if I muse around enough I’ll come up with the answer to that question but not today.  I don’t feel like it.  Instead I want to talk about the two things I need to do to get me closer to my goal of writing a book. 

The first thing, oddly enough, is that I came to terms with the day job.  Working full time is a necessity of life.  But turning your job into something you do for mere survival, which is how I often see my full-time job as a paralegal, turns work into drudgery and daily drudgery is the main ingredient for full time misery.  In the past several months I’ve made an effort to embrace the work I do full time and really care about it, rather than see it as something that I need to do simply for the paycheck.  And you know what happened?  I found that I felt like writing more!  You want to know why?  Because creativity lives in the soul. Full time misery caused by daily drudgery sucks the soul.  And a sucked soul is bad if you want to write. 

Once I got busy at work and my soul in order I moved on to the next thing which was to establish a regular writing habit.  Remember back in November when I did NaNoWriMo?  The goal was to end up with a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  I didn’t make it but I did end up with a 26,000 word novella.  More importantly I got into the habit of writing daily.  For a while at least.  I’ll admit that the writing marathon of NaNoWriMo burnt me out a bit so I had to take a break.  During that time I read lot of books on the Victorian era am am ready to start my next project.  The subject:  an historical romance about a feisty spinster who runs a home for wayward girls. 

Now then, how about that book? 

It happened last night.  Jerry was out of town and I was coming home by myself after working late.  (Yes, all that bitching about Jerry being the one who’s always working long hours and the second he leaves town my workload triples.)  Mrs. B raced me to the door like she always does.  Already weighed down weighed down with my purse and other loot, I grabbed the slippery pile of CVS ads out of the mailbox, stuck my key in the door, turned the knob and walked in the house.  I took the key out of the door knob.  I had the key in my hand and when I walked into the house and when I dropped the slippery pile of CVS ads on the countertop the key was gone.  Gone!  It was no longer in my hand.  It had evaporated into thin air.  I swear! 

I panicked.  What the hell happened?  Did I black out or something?  I frantically started looking through my purse.  I sifted through the pile of CVS ads.  I picked each piece of newsprint up and jiggled it, expecting my house key to fall out or something.  I crawled around on the floor. I looked under the welcome mat – 50 times!  When Jerry called from his Las Vegas hotel I was outside in the front yard peering in the grass  weeds with a flashlight. 

“I lost my house key!” I wailed.  After I haphazardly explained that no, I wasn’t locked out of the house but rather was simply crazy and didn’t know what I did with the key once I got in the house and then assured him that I wouldn’t burn the house down next, I hung up the phone, turned off the flashlight and went back into the house.  And then without even realizing what I was doing I stuck my hand in the side pocket of my gym bag and viola!  The key fell back into my hand. 

All this to say…what?  Well…if my gym bag hadn’t been weighing me down none of this would have happened.  See?  Working out is a real pain in the ass! 

I’ve been watching old episodes of Ally McBeal on Hulu Plus.  Remember that show?  It was great.  But it’s not the topic of this blog post.  No, the topic of this blog post is an evil hair myth which I’ve been hiding my entire life and a scene from Ally McBeal reminded me of it.  As a daughter of a hairdresser I feel it is my duty to get the truth out into the world about hair and I’m about to reveal one of the most evil of all myths about hair.

First the scene in Ally McBeal which has compelled me to get the truth out.  (And even if I was able to find it on YouTube I would be scared to share it due to copyright infringement paranoia.)  The scene took place in the Cage Fish Associates unisex bathroom wherein Portia DeRossi lets down her hair which was normally kept in a tight, neat bun which looked something like this: 

Out of the tight, neat bun flowed Portia DeRossi’s long golden platinum blond hair causing the jaws of Courtey Thorne Smith and Peter McNicol to drop.  And once again another exploitation of the world’s biggest myth about hair.  A myth which today will be revealed by the Lady Jessop: 

Releasing a tight bun does not result in flowing waves of beautiful hair. 

First off, wearing hair in a tight, neat bun requires a million bobby pins and a ton of hair spray.  In fact the longer and softer the hair the more bobby pin and hair spray is required.  Because long, beautiful, soft hair does not stay up in tight, neat buns.  To let hair down from a tight neat bun you need to do more than just pull a single hairpin from the back, like they do on TV.  And once you do remove all million of the hairpins the bun will start to unravel but because of all the hairspray you will look something like this:

The same thing goes for motorcycle helmets.  All those commercials where the mysterious black leathered motorcycle driver pulls up and then removes their helmet and viola! a beautiful woman with long flowing hair is discovered beneath?  Big fat lie!  Motorcycle helmets are hot as hell and they make your scalp all sweaty and once you finally get the thing off all that comes out is a flat dull mop. 

Got it?  Spread the word. 

My friend Lynne DeVenny nailed it (as she often does) when she once said that blogging without comments is like talking to yourself.  So true!  I love to get comments on my blog.  Every notification I get in my email is like a special treat that gives me a momentary “oh goody!” 

Wait. Scratch that.  Not all comments give me a momentary “oh goody!”  Some comments just make me automatically hit the delete button. 

If you’ve ever entered a comment on this blog you might have noticed that the first one didn’t show up right away.  That’s because my blog is set up so I can moderate comments before they get published.  First time commenters go through an approval process where they sit in my WordPress queue so I can identify the person as “approved” or “spam.”  Once you have been put on my approved list your comments go up automatically. 

Theoretically this means I can censor what people say.  Please know that I would never do this to a real reader.  Everyone has a right to their own opinion and is free to express it.  Except spam bots.  Since they are not real they don’t get the benefit of my censorship policy except for here where I will share with you some of the comments that didn’t make it to my blog.  And yes, I will l give them some undeserved privacy by not sharing their email address so they can’t get spammed. 

Let’s start with this comment I received concerning a post I wrote about emptying ink pens and filling spiral notebooks.  Charles found this very useful and seemed to think this might cure his acne. 

This bot was so touched by what I have to say he was speechless. 

Sometimes “people” try to impress me with their vast knowledge in legal matters and cobweb sites?  Don’t forget to click on that link for great travel deals in China! 

Janis tries to give me encouragement as well as a little constructive criticism.  Thanks Janis. 

And this one is so damn inappropriate it’s funny. 

Comments anyone?

In addition to having a policy of no regrets, I am also not one to hold a grudge.  Anymore.  There was a big  grudge I held on to for a long time and let me tell you, letting go felt great!  I highly recommend it. 

The grudge I had was against an ex-boyfriend.  Probably a common factor held by many “grudgees” but I’d say this guy really deserved it!  He did something that really pissed me off.  I won’t go into details but lets just say that California Penal Code 487 (Grand Theft) was involved.  Needless to say I broke up with the guy.  And for years after that I was angry as hell.  I spent the later half of my 20s devoted to this guy, thinking he was the love of my life, thinking we would get married, only to find out one day just months before I hit the big 3-0 that he had been doing illegal stuff for years right under my nose.  I wasted prime skinny years on this asshole and it pissed me off! 

I spent the next few years feeling completely miserable and the grudge I held for my ex-boyfriend was one of the main reasons why.  Eventually my anger subsided until it was nothing more than a tiny little bump.  But it was still there.  I could feel it. 

And then one day I had a revelation.  I remember the moment even.  It was a lovely Spring morning and I was driving to work over the San Mateo bridge.  I found myself thinking about the ex and the thought was “Gee, I hope he turned his life around and is in a happy relationship.”  I gasped out loud when I realized that the grudge was gone. “This must be what it feels like to really forgive someone.”  I thought.  It felt wonderful! 

And the best part was a few months later I met Jerry. 

The other day was carpet cleaning day at Jessopland.  We consider this to be a joint activity but really Jerry get all the glory of running the beast machine.  I get to “help” by holding the cord. 

While the carpet cleaning project was technically inspired by a pile of cat puke left by Mrs. B, I decided to call this New Year’s cleaning and therefore got inspired to do a few other projects including the very satisfying activity of vacuuming up dust bunnies from under the bedroom furniture.  I also did a plastic-ware audit, a heartbreaking activity in which I bring all my plastic food storage containers out of the closet and match them up with a lid.  Stray pieces which can’t be matched up get tossed.  For some reason I always end up with more lids. 

None of these activities ever seems to take more than a half hour and I always feel accomplished when I’ve completed them.  It’s a great way to start out the new year.  I think I’ll continue today with washing out the garbage cans and oiling the wood tables. 

Do you do New Year’s cleaning?  What are your projects? 

Just in case you haven’t heard it already, I am not a fan of Christmas.  I liked the holiday as a child but sometime during my freshman year of college I realized that the best thing about Christmas was getting a few days off work.  Twenty-six years later Christmas has evolved into a month long ordeal of spending money, rushing to finish work projects and crankiness brought on by the stress.  And the extra days off work?  Those get eaten up by wrapping gifts, cleaning, cooking and driving all over the place to visit family and friends.  I know it’s supposed to be the season good will and charity and celebrating family togetherness but by December 26th I am so burnt out with putting myself before others that I don’t even know who myself is anymore. 

So now I like to say that my Christmas is December 26th.  In many countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom they celebrate Boxing Day on December 26th.  From what I can gather it is a bank holiday and similar to Black Friday in the U.S.  The origins of the holiday and it’s name are unclear but my favorite explanation goes back to the Middle Ages when after feasting all day on December 25th, the manor lords would pack all their leftover in boxes and hand them out to the serfs who got the day off.  By the Victorian era, the tradition evolved to one where household servants were given their bonuses on December 26th and, I assume, the day off work. 

Get the idea here?  Since I feel like a servant for most of December, on the 26th I take the day off from all responsibilities and eat leftovers.  It’s beautiful.  And sometimes I even get a bonus.  Like yesterday when Jerry went out to Grocery Outlet he brought me back these: 

He also showed me this which made my holiday complete: 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! 

Well that didn’t take long.  Already I regret embarking on this 30 Days of Truth project.  Maybe this is what I need to forgive myself for.

OK, all joking aside, this topic has actually gotten me thinking about something.  No, I do not have some big horrible regret I’ve been carrying around for years that I need to forgive myself for.  Not that I haven’t done a lot of stupid shit in the past.  Believe me I have but all the stupid shit I’ve done in the past is done and I’m not one to hold on to a regret.  I gave up on regret a long time ago when I realized how damaging it can be to one’s state of mind.  So because I have no regrets, I don’t really have anything I need to forgive myself for. 

I’ll tell you something I do have though, and that’s an inner critic.  My inner critics is the bitch voice inside my head who constantly tells me I’m writing crap.  Turning that bitch voice off is kind of like forgiving myself isn’t it?  I think so and last month I was able to do it. 

I’m talking about NaNoWriMo.  Remember that month long novel writing project I said I was going to do?  Believe it or not but I actually did it!  Well, kind of.  I didn’t end up with a 50,000 word novel but rather a 26,422 word novella.  It’s not exactly what I set out to write but it was more than I have ever written before.  And I was able to do so by devoting a couple of hours a day to writing with the bitch voice in my head turned off.  And that in itself was a huge achievement. 

Will I be sharing my 26,422 word novella with the world?  No way!  Even without the bitch voice in my head I know that thing I wrote last month is a huge piece of crap.  Most of it doesn’t even make sense since the characters seemed to take a life of their own and about 5,000 words in the storyline completely changed.  But still I did it and it wouldn’t have been possible if that bitch voice had stayed in my head. 

So thank you NaNoWriMo for helping me forgive and turn off the bitch voice that lives in my head. 

Now that we are well into the holiday season I can share the first of my Paralegal Chronicles which is technically a Christmas story. 

It happened at the firm’s holiday luncheon which was held every year at some fancy-assed San Francisco restaurant, always a different one because we got thrown out every year.  The thing that got us thrown out that year was a flaming drink, prepared by a bartender who thought it was okay to serve to a drunk lawyer who in turn thought it was okay to consume the drink before the flame burnt out. 

The shocked paralegal sitting next to the drunk lawyer, who hopes that 16 years is an acceptable amount of time to go by to finally come public with this story (considering the statute of limitations it probably is), still remembers the circle of blue flame around the drunk lawyer’s mouth.  Luckily there was a quick thinking associate close by who knew that fire was included in the short list of occasions when it’s appropriate to throw a glass of iced water in your boss’s face.

Five minutes later we were all standing outside the fancy-assed San Francisco restaurant deciding where to go next.  

Like all good Christmas stories, there is a goodwill-to-all-men and  gift-giving aspect to this one.  In the weeks leading up to the luncheon I had been fretting about getting a gift for the drunk lawyer as his was the name I had chosen for the Secret Santa giveaway.  Now all my problems were solved and a few days later on Christmas Eve he was presented with a fire hat from Toys R Us.