Girls Gone Wild and other Bad Decisions

So I know back in August I promised to write a multi-part series for your entertainment about my Buddhist abbey experience. It was to be aptly titled "Abbey Adventures." Well, I tried to pull something together for you, I really did, but much to my dismay it just refused to gel.

The truth is, I've been wanting to write something vastly entertaining for you all, but I haven't been able to find anything funny and amusing to write about. Life seems rough these days, and though I've been writing a lot, it's not been particularly funny. It's not the kind of stuff you post on the internet for all to see.

Until now.

I've decided to bare it all in front of all of you. Consider me an emotional Girl Gone Wild.

I don't know if this is a good idea. Lord knows I have had a lot of really stupid, I mean like really stupid ideas lately, but apparently that doesn't stop me. Why I want to do this, I can't say. I don't know why I feel the need to vomit my guts up for everyone to see (ew). But I want to, so I will.

Plus, I'm pretty sure that nobody actually reads this thing except for my girlfriends and my sister anyway, so no harm done.

Actually, I'm going to give myself a night to reconsider.

Okay, so while I reconsider I can tell you all that I finally landed a waitress job.

After two days I've learned that it pays roughly five dollars an hour.

I had such high hopes. I was going to be able to pay my bills. I was going to be able to start paying off my credit card. I was going to join the leagues of civilized human beings again. Instead, I've learned that the shame of being a thirty-year-old woman with a $5-an-hr job burns, and not like the good shame-burn of lusting after teenage werewolves.

So to recap: my life has devolved into a combination of continuous bad decisions and Girls Gone Wild.

All I need is one of those pesky front teeth knocked out and I'll be ready for welfare and a comfy but cramped trailer.

Kittens, squash, and Shark Week

Greetings from Upstate New York! I am housesitting for some friends while they camp in the Adirondacks...well, I say housesitting, but really it's kitten sitting, which as far as I'm concerned is the best kind of sitting there is. Because what it better than a kitten? The answer is: NOTHING. Not a roller coaster. Not a bottle of wine (though that comes close). Not Shark Week. Nothing is better than a kitten.

Just to prove my point, here's a picture of the kitten with a giant squash.



So here I am in the country with the kitten, and I am realizing that because I've been living in metro NJ/PA for 8 months now I've forgotten a few things about upstate NY.

First of all, summer in upstate NY is a wonderful thing, really second only to a fuzzy kitten. It's at least ten degrees cooler than NJ and filled with waterfalls and swimming holes and shimmering lakes and cool evenings and warm sun.

Second of all, it is so quiet here. Like, a little unnervingly quiet. I think if my friend Brooke, who heralds from uber-metro NJ and wears things like leopard-print platforms and blue zebra-print bikinis (and looks fabulous in them, by the way) were here for a week, she'd slowly scratch her eyes out with boredom ("No pilates classes...no nearby shopping...heels sinking into grass...animals everywhere...must...plan...something...aaaaggghh!") There is just nothing here to distract you from your thoughts and the sounds of the summer critters outside, and I include roosters in that phrase.

So it's good to have your thoughts stacked neatly in a row, because if they aren't, they will be soon. There's no other option.

Today I will spend my day knitting and taking walks and petting kittens and trying to be okay with the silence and the thoughts it leaves me with. I'll probably pick some more giant squash from the giant garden and cook fresh veggies all day.

Big breath in...and aahhh.

If anyone wants to join me in this idyllic country retreat give me a call. I'll be here for a week. My only requirement is that you must love kittens. Or Shark Week. Either will work.

Shameless

I've hit a new low, and oh how the shame burns.

Last night I went to see the new(ish) Twilight movie Eclipse. And man, was I excited. I had the best time. But before the movie I looked around and realized that there I was, a 30-year-old woman, sitting alone at a teen movie.

I could have been shamed into leaving. But that's not how I roll. Instead I dug deeper into my pretzel-and-nacho-cheese snack and settled in gleefully for the previews.

Oh yeah. It was good. It was just about everything I had hoped for. But unfortunately it seems to have set me back about fifteen years. I was supposed to be job-hunting (again) today, or practicing, or meditating, or any number of the useful things I've been doing with my time. Instead I woke up and found I couldn't do anything but watch the first Twilight video.

But that's not enough. My newly-young, teenaged, hormone-riddled heart demands more. I have about $50 to my name, and I just used a significant portion of it driving around town looking for the cheapest New Moon movie.

Oh, I got it. And as soon as I am done with this post (and there have been lots of mistakes cause I'm speeding though it just as fast as I can) I'm gonna watch it. And it will be good.

Oh, Jacob and Bella...I know I'm supposed to be learning through Buddhism that the pleasures of this world are not real, and that if we can give up the craving we can be truly happy. But love is so bitterly sweet. How can we not crave it?

So just for today I'm going to give in to the craving of this world. I'm going to pretend I'm a teenager and swoon over this silly story. And it's going to be awesome.

And I'm out of money, so for the love of Jeebus if somebody has the books and is willing to lend them to me CALL ME NOW.

Words To Be Read By All Internet Users Throughout the Universe Everywhere

Folks, the wedding showers may be over, but a whole new form of shower is rearing it's puffy, tulle-covered head.

That pastel-and-cake-covered thing over there is...wait for it...the baby shower.

Yes, they've started, and only nine months after the wedding showers have ended (coincidence? I think not).

But you know, I don't mind the baby showers too much, mostly because I don't have to DO anything official at them like I did for all the wedding showers. Even though most of the time is spent watching the large lady over there opening presents from people you don't know, you get to sit there and chat with your friends and drink the champagne punch. Then you eat cake and get the hell out of there. You don't have to help unwrap and catalog the presents, you don't have to come up with "games" (and I use the term loosely) for the shower attendees to play. You just sit and eat. Oh yeah, and bring your gift.

It's no day-at-the-beach-on-a-picnic-blanket-with-Matt-Damon, but there are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

But seriously, I cannot wait to meet the first addition to our girlfriend group! He/she should be here within a month, and it is very exciting.

Today at the shower it was brought to my attention that certain people find this blog interesting and amusing, and I realized that I have been lax in fulfilling my duty to interest and amuse, the duty that I took on when I created Words To Be Read By All Internet Users Throughout the Universe Everywhere. I have been flirting with the idea of documenting my experience at the abbey, and I think now that I'm gonna do it! Strictly in the name of interest and amusement, of course.

So starting tomorrow I will begin a multi-part series entitled...well, I haven't gotten that far yet. But it'll be good, don't you worry.

Stay tuned! And, again, you're welcome.

Mind the Gap, Please

Watch out, you guys, cause I'm going philosophical on you today. I'm supposed to be working on my fiction writing this morning, but instead I've gotten caught up in online teachings on Buddhism. So today you're getting my (undoubtedly fascinating and illuminating) thoughts on these teachings. Think of it as a little sermon given by a totally unqualified individual.

You're welcome.

I've been feeling kind of icky lately. After my abbey experience I was so centered and peaceful. Then I got bombarded by TV and radio and computer games (so wrong and yet so right) and, well, humanity as it exists today. And I can feel my anxiety rising and my peace fading. I can feel my demons slithering and clawing and crawling their way back through my innards. I was feeling so blissfully unconcerned with my body, like someone threw water on a fire that's been burning and suddenly there's relief from the pain. But with an impending trip to New York to see my friends from the casino the demon voices have started hissing in my ear again. They tell me that I'm so fat, that people will think I'm ugly, that I'm not sophisticated enough (for what, I don't know). I've tried to start singing again, and the demons hiss their old and familiar tune, that I'm not good enough, that I'm a failure, that I've racked up this debt for nothing.

In an attempt to take financial control of my life, I've been spending the week coming up with different "profit centers" that I can utilize to actualize my talents and make money with them. I've been working on business plans galore; one for singing and acting, one for writing, and one for a sort of "creativity store" that I mentioned in an earlier blog. And it's helped, a little bit. But then I listen to a dharma teaching, and I can feel how far from my own peace I've strayed and how anxious I've gotten.

I wanted to share a particular statement that struck me this morning. The teaching I listened to (twice!) is about suffering, and the nun who was teaching on it said this:

"Wanting to be happy, wanting perfection to happen [or] occur in our existence, that means there's always this gap that occurs, [there's] always this imbalance...and so there's always this ideal state that we desire for, hope for, and envision, and then there's the real state of existence that we have to put up with. That's quite a gap."

This statement and idea gave me so much relief. I can feel its truth so strongly. Can't you? I feel it especially in its relation to my singing "career." I feel such a sense of despair and failure that my career hasn't gone as planned, as was set out for me in the trade magazines I read, in the "opera camps" I attended, in the entirety of my Masters training. The gap between what is and what should be or what I (am supposed to) want is wide, and it doesn't seem to be narrowing. As a result I feel panicked. It also works for the discrepancy between what my body actually is and what I want it to be. And I assign my very worth to the fact that I can't close this gap. I can't be what I want to be, and so I am a failure, a nothing, worthless.

I just want to be happy. We all just want to be happy. And I'm not, and nothing I do seems to really, deeply fill the happiness void and make me feel whole, except for listening to Buddhist teachings and studying Buddhist texts. And, frankly, that's scary, because what do I do now? I'm certainly not ready to become a nun, for goodness sake, and I'm not ready to separate from the things that I love, like my family and horseback riding and ice cream (though we all know where that leads) and wine and roller coasters and the beach and my kitten.

And though I now know that these "profit centers" that I've been working on won't bring me true, lasting happiness, I have to pursue the ability to make money and support myself, cause that's just a necessity, and I'd like to be able to do it in a reasonably pleasant way.

So I guess what has to change here is my mind, somehow. I need to stop feeling worthless because I can't close the gaps, and I need to start finding joy in what is. I need to Let it Be.

Maybe there's a reason why I cry every time I hear that song.

Be happy, everybody. Be what you are in this moment, and love it.

Busted Open

Hello from the other side (if you don't get that, see the end of the last blog post...and oh hell, while you're at it, go ahead and read the entire post)! I am happy to report that not only did I survive my week as a Buddhist nun, I thrived. I lost, like, seven pounds due to the mindful eating and vegetarian menu (of course right before writing this I had my face buried in a monster slice of cake. Old habits die hard). The constant silence allowed me to relate to both myself and the people around me in a new and lovely way. And the pesky clothing situation was hard at first, but by the end of my week not only was I reveling in the comfort of baggy clothing, I wasn't plucking my eyebrows or showering every day either, because those things just weren't that important. And I was happy as a clam. Well, probably happier.

I arrived back in stinking-hot Philadelphia with a new sense of peace and purpose. And then, just as I was about to return to my mom's apartment and life as usual, I sprained my ankle. Badly. I did it outside, in the rain, on, like, two steps, and afterwards I had to sit in the rain for a while because I couldn't walk and nobody was home. After a trip to the emergency room (my sister did come home eventually!) I spent the past week trying to keep my right leg elevated and being waited on by my sister and brother-in-law because I was completely incapacitated.

(P.S. Have you ever tried to carry a bowl of cereal from the counter to the table on crutches? Take my advice, just don't)

Not that it's not sort of nice to get waited on. But I had big plans for this week. I was going to find a job, start a Buddhist dharma practice, get back to working out, look for stuff to audition for, start singing again, etc., etc.

Instead I couldn't do anything. And I have a point about this. I sort of feel like "life," whatever that word means, is screaming at me to "STOP," and it will break my ankle and physically stop me if it needs to to get me to listen. I don't know why I would need to stop, but the fact is that it's happened, and maybe I should pay attention.

I'm not just talking about the ankle. I'm talking about the fact that even though I have a Masters and am highly intelligent, friendly, and professional, and even though I send in reams of applications for all sorts of jobs and even have a few interviews, I can't seem to find a job to save my life. I left my life in Ithaca and my loving and dear husband in January, and I still don't really know why (although things are slowly becoming clearer on this point). I am 30 years old and I feel like I'm moving backwards; no career, suddenly no prospects for children, and living with my mother.

So my life has already ground to a halt, and every time a try to start it up again I am forcibly stopped.

There are a lot of things that I learned about in this first foray into Buddhism that have started to illuminate why all this is happening. I'll save these insights for another blog post, because this one is already getting unwieldy! But maybe all this is happening for a reason, not some sort of cosmic reason or ultimate grand plan that I don't know about, but because of who I am in the world and what I want from it. And maybe I should start listening to the stuff deep inside of me that I've been scared to hear for so long.

Well, what an unsatisfying and esoteric way to end a post. Sorry. I'll leave you with the fact that my ankle is rapidly getting better and I can almost feed and take care of myself. Meanwhile my left butt cheek is getting the workout of its life. Things are going to be very uneven when I am healed up...

FIN

The Character-Building starts NOW

You guys, I am FUH-REAKING OUT! And the reason for my freak-out is so silly, so comically absurd. What is this reason, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

I'm going to a retreat at a Buddhist abbey on Friday. It seemed like an awesome idea at the time, but now that the time has come to start packing my bags I am having second thoughts. Early mornings, no coffee, no cake, no wine, lots of meditation. I mean, I haven't had coffee in days to try to acclimate, and I am hurting. I almost got into, like, three accidents because my head is stuffed with cotton and hurts, and I can't seem to think straight or get off the couch.

(speaking of cake, get a load of this cake my dad baked for father's day:






That's icing in there! Mmmmmm. But I digress...)

A few days ago I got a document in my email telling us what we should pack. Here's the part that's leading to the meltdown:

"To demonstrate respect for the monastic environment and to subdue our minds please bring clothing that is loose fitting, baggy of solid colors. This means comfortable clothing that is not revealing and is free of designs, patterns and logos."

I haven't worn anything baggy since I was 12 and giant T-shirts were in. Pretty much everything I wear is revealing and patterned. Hell, I'm from New Jersey, people. We don't do sloppy here, we do tight and vivid! Also, I hate neutrals. Bright, vivid colors draw so much more attention, don't they?

I realized that I would have to make a shopping trip (and I use the term loosely) to pick up some solid-colored, baggy clothing. I tried Target, but it was just too cool. I realized I would have to dumb it down.

I went to K-Mart.

I tried, you guys, I really did. But I JUST COULDN'T DO IT. I have spent my entire life working to accent my boobies. It's all I know. I tried the ugly, baggy things on but, I swear, they burned. I took them off faster than you could say "om."

I knew that this was going to be a difficult, character-building kind of vacation. I just didn't realize the pain was going to start NOW, and with T-shirts.

I did manage to pick up a few solid-colored items, but they are fairly well-cut and, well, show off my boobies. A little bit. Just a teensy bit. I'll wear tank tops under them, I swear! Oh, and though there are one or two grays and browns in the bunch, I just couldn't resist picking up some brilliant blues and greens.

Hey, they didn't actually say anything about bright colors...

So now that I'm home, am I drinking a glass of French chardonnay with an ice cube in it? You bet I am. I bolted into that liquor store like my head was on fire. I will spend tonight drinking the bottle whilst floating in the apartment pool and enjoying my last hours of decadence.

Wish me luck, everybody. See you on the other side.