The Husband Store

A brand new store has just opened in New York City that sells Husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance. “You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors and the value of the products increase as you ascend the flights. You may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.

On the 1st floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 – These men have jobs.

The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2 – These men have jobs and love kids.

The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely good looking.

“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help with Housework.

“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it!”

Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads:

Floor 5 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak. She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the sign reads:

Floor 6 – You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opens a New Wives store just across the street.

The 1st floor has wives that love sex.

The 2nd through 6th floors have never been visited.

Confessions of a Jelly Donut Filler

Jelly Donut Filler. How’s that for a job title? And as a resume builder.

I bet you didn’t know a real live person puts the jelly in the jelly donuts. But it’s true. I know. I was one of them . . .

Not counting my enslavement to the family business I was born into, my first real job was working for a donut factory. While most of Detroit was cranking out automobiles of inferior quality, I was making America proud turning out the best artery clogging donuts money could buy: bavarian kreme, chocolate filled, strawberry delight, berry berry glazed, and lemon burst. You name it. I filled it.

Mrs. Knudson, a woman who wore her hair in a giant beehive and enough makeup to make Tammy Faye Baker look like a natural beauty, owned the factory. Her right hand man and head donut maker was Howard the pervert.

This is how things worked. Howard would finish making a tray of, let’s say donuts destined to be chocolate filled, and slide it assembly line fashion down to me. Now, you may have noticed, donuts come in different shapes and sizes. What you probably don’t know is that fillings come in different weights and thicknesses too. Using a machine with stationary tubes affixed to the front, it was my job to determine how much of a particular type of filling was appropriate for the size and shape donut under scrutiny. Then adjust the machine accordingly, hold one end of the donut on the proper tube, chocolate in this case, and push a lever with my foot.

If you screwed up the calculations, which I did often, you ended up with either too much pressure in the tube or too much filling. The jelly would ejaculate right through the opposite end of the donut and splatter all over your chest. Needless to say, I went home most nights looking like an impressionist painting. On some of my more artsy nights, Howard would tell me . . . well, let’s not get into that.

One night Howard got mad at me and told Mrs. Knudson about my many screw-ups. She fired me without batting even one of her many false eyelashes. That was the end of my donut-filling career. Thank God!

All of this happened a long time ago, of course. And I’m sure, donut filling by this point has gone high tech, or possibly it’s been outsourced to India. But just in case, could you give the little minimum wage donut-filler a break and just order a plain old-fashioned donut to go with your grande latte for once?

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Just Wanted To Say Hi

Sorry, too busy to post right now. My father-in-law passed away. My nephew needs help moving. And my mother had a relapse. It rains in threes right?

Will be back soon!

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Fire Your Shrink

In the book “Writing the Mind Alive” by Linda Metcalf and Tobin Simon, the authors propose a method for finding your authentic voice, called PW writing. At first, I thought, Oh, this is just good old-fashioned journaling in a new dress. Then, I realized that wasn’t the case. I get it. They’re talking about morning pages as described in the book “The Artist’s Way”. But that wasn’t right either. Okay. A form of writing meditation? Well . . . no, not exactly.

In PW writing, everyday, same time, same place, one begins in a ritualistic manner: lighting a candle, turning on music designed to alter your state of mind, settling in to listen to your thoughts with paper and pen ready. Once the mind starts to talk, write down whatever you hear. When a key word or phrase is heard and written (as identified by the hair rising on the back of your neck test), you ask “What do I mean by _______?” and write out your response. When you do this, you are inquiring (without judgement) into the emotional or psychological sense the word or phrase has for you.

The music suggested for this practice is Baroque, with the work of Bach highly recommended. Composers of the Baroque era wrote their compositions with reaching a higher power in mind, not such a bad backdrop for this type of work. Additionally, the steady beat tends to match the rhythm of the human heart. Thereby, helping you to connect the mind, body, and spirit as you write, not such a bad idea if you want to sound authentic.

After the session is over, four questions are reflected upon:

1. What thoughts were heard, but not written? (any student of therapy knows avoidance or resistance makes the existential alarm go beep, beep, beep)

2. How do I feel now? (and during the write)

3. What larger story is this write a part of?

4. What ideas came up for future writes during this session?

After committing to the practice of PW writing for one week, I see there is something that sets it a part from other daily sutras. During my very first session, I thought I was writing about giving back and contributing to world peace, and within minutes of asking the PW questions I was crying about a gift I’d given my parents as a child that was dismissed by them as unworthy. The bigger picture being that I was writing about rejection. Surprisingly, I thought I was over that stuff a long time ago.

That’s what the power of honest inquiry while connected to the cosmos can do for you. Let you know you’re So, So, So, Not Over It, that is.

Time to fire your shrink, improve your writing, and find your authentic voice. “Writing the Mind Alive” is just the book to help you with this.

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A Texas Cowboy Joke

A Texas cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture
when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses
and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, “If I tell you
exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me
a calf?”

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, why not?”

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects
it to his Sprint Air Card and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where
he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, to get an exact fix on his
location , which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports
it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds he receives an email on his Treo that the image has been
processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MS_SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel
spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and after a few minutes receives
a response.

Finally he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech,
Miniaturized HP Laser Jet Printer and finally turns to the cowboy and
says, ” You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”

“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says the
cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on
amused as the young man stuffs the animal into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what
your business is, will you give me back my calf?” The young man thinks
about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

“You’re a Congressman in the US Government”, says the cowboy.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even
though nobody called you and you want to get paid for an answer I already
knew to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter
than me you are and you don’t know a thing about cows…

This is a herd of sheep.”

“Now give me back my dog.”

The Way A Woman’s Brain Works

This is an easy to understand diagram demonstrating how a woman processes information and makes decisions. Each blue ball represents a thought. Don’t ever let anyone refer to you as one dimentional again!

My Dream From The Other Day

The dream is in black and white with shades of gray. It has a mysterious, flowing feel to it, similar to those Calvin Klein Obsession commercials on TV. My state of mind throughout is one of mild concern or slight puzzlement, but I’m not afraid or anxious.

In the dream, I’ve just awakened. I’m trying to decide what errands need to be completed for the day and in what order. I’m living in my mother’s house, although it looks nothing like my childhood home. I’m the caretaker of the house, but not of my mother. My mother does not live there anymore.

The house has many windows covered with long, white, sheer drapes. There is a cool breeze blowing the drapes about in a serpentine manner throughout the rooms. My two sisters are sleeping on the living room floor in sleeping bags, although they look nothing like my real life sisters. We do not interact with each other, that is, until a car pulls up in front of the house.

A large older woman is driving and a smaller, younger woman is in the passenger seat. I can see them peering through the large bay window next to the front door. After a moment, they drive off down the street, taking a right around the corner. I fuss at my sisters to get up and staighten the messy room, because I suddenly remember the house is for sale. These women must be coming for a showing later in the day.

I look out one of the bedroom windows, and think I see the car driving along the side street, taking another right when it reaches the corner. Anticipating the direction the car is going in, I run to the back door. I realize the back door is open, unlocked, and in reality a front door. Puzzled, I come to the conclusion that the house in fact has two front doors. I lock this door and then run back to the first front door. I realize this is open and unlocked as well. I feel concerned that there may be intruders inside. They may have taken something from the house. Maybe my purse. That’s where I keep my drivers license and credit cards. But then without physically checking anything, I realize nothing is missing. I have been alarmed about nothing. All is well.

The dream ends.

If anyone has any ideas about what this dream means. I’m open to suggestions.

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It’s A Meme

I was going to post my dream today, but then I got tagged by the wild child, Candace.

Here are the meme rules:

1. Post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players start with 8 random facts/preferences/habits about themselves.
3. Those who get tagged need to write on their own blog about their 8 things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to list 8 others that you have tagged.
5. Leave the tagged a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged.

Here are my random 8 facts/preferences/habits:

1. I’ve developed (through observation) my own theory of evolution. Women evolved from plants. Men from apes (Darwin stole this idea from me). Engineers from minerals.

2. I love brussel sprouts. And I am perfectly okay that I am the only one on Earth who does. This is because as my inner child tells me I am secure in who I am as a woman.

3. I just can’t seem to stop giving my life savings to the Whole Foods Market.

4. There’s just something about those Asian men, and in particular the Buddha.

5. Anyone in a white coat scares me: doctors, dentists, nail technicians, Clinique cosmetics sales girls.

6. I don’t trust banks, investment advisors, 401K plans, etc. but in this society (without better alternatives) it’s hard to operate without these systems, so I put up with them.

7. I never laugh at anyone else’s phobias, because except for the grace of God go I.

8. My husband has threatened to divorce me if I don’t stop buying books and plants.

Here are the 8 that I have tagged:

Amy
Rabbits
Herbs
Al
Climate
Pledge
Earth
Wildlife

Sympathy Dreaming

I’ve been writing this story about a repressed young woman who uses her dreams and their analysis to help her find greater passion in her life. I was doing some research for the story and came across this book “Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill” by Jeremy Taylor. Jeremy says:

1. Dreams always come in service to the dreamer. Their purpose is to either make the dreamer aware of something she doesn’t know (and needs to); or to shake her into action about an important issue that she is aware of, but hasn’t taken the steps to resolve. In a sense, there is no such thing as a bad dream.

2. Dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life’s problems. Feeling stuck in your life, relationships, or your work? Try keeping a dream diary and analyze it regularly. Priming the pump works. It leads to breakthroughs.

3. Dreams have multiple layers of meaning and significance, which are played out symbolically: they are stories told through metaphors that mean more than one thing at the same time. One meaning always reflects the dreamer’s unique personality and life circumstances. Another may reflect the dreamer’s physical health. And yet another may be a commentary on the status of the society or the culture the dreamer lives in.

Reading this was fascinating, and I would like to start analyzing my own dreams, but I never remember any of them. It’s been months, maybe years, since I’ve had a dream that I can remember. That is, until Kat, the character in my novel had a particularly disturbing nightmare. After writing the scene, I felt flooded with sympathy for her and went to bed feeling a bit sad. Much to my surprise, I awakened in the middle of the night with a dream of my own!

It was a remarkable and mysterious dream. I plan to post it as soon as I get it written. Hopefully, someone can help me interpret its meaning as that still escapes me. It may be sympathy is a powerful human capacity that helps the sympathizer as much as the recipient. Perhaps we all need to engage in more of it.

Here’s to Bigger and Better Sympathy Dreaming,

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Cowboy Pearls of Wisdom

Out of the Mouths of Trail Riders, Ranchers, and Herders (Not Babes): Practical Advice For Everyday Life.

1. If you’re riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and again to make sure it’s still there with ya.

2. Don’t squat with your spurs on.

3. If you are thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering someone else’s dog around just in case you’re wrong.

4. It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

5. Always drink upstream from the herd.

6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

7. Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

I think we can stop rain dancing in North Texas. Mother nature is trying to tell us that outcome is assured! Indeed, she gets to ride last on any trail.

Here’s to Sunnier Prairies and Drier Meadows,
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