Almond Joy

Shhhhh. My amygdala is sleeping. Yes, that's right, my amygdala. An almond shaped cluster of nuclei buried deep within my brain. It's the emotional, overwrought part. And I would have thought that part would be right out there on the frontal lobe -- at least in my case. 


I learned of this crazy little cluster of cells when I was reading an article about better ways to relieve stress. Now I know you'll find this hard to believe, but highly paid experts have determined that working out or building something or socializing are much better stress relievers, in the long run, than donuts or martinis. Who woulda thunk it?


Okay, so what? Who gives a shit about the long run when stress is making your whole body shake and your breath quicken and your heart race and you can't shake the feeling that you are about to burst into tears? Give me a Krispy Kreme or a shot of tequila any day. Even the highly paid experts admit that an emergency dose of sugar or alcohol actually quiets that damn amygdala, at least temporarily. If you want to worry about the long run, that's what tomorrow is for. Fiddle dee dee.


I am fairly confident there are other experts out there (or maybe it's "old wives") who say everything is fine, in moderation. Perfect -- I can do moderation. This morning I limited myself to two chocolate croissants, and, no matter what time zone I'm in, I NEVER start drinking before noon central time. If I head west, what can I say? Booze for breakfast is fair game. 


Even though I am certainly no expert -- at anything, come to think of it -- I think it's fair to say that stress relief is kind of an individual thing. A good game of tennis worked for me yesterday, at least in the short term, and the gallon of ice cream I ate later kept my amygdala drowsy for a while longer. For North Korea a good old fashioned missile launch does the trick. Even if it doesn't really work out so well. Just the thought of it must have kept an entire government's worth of amygdalas at bay. And looking forward to some future nuclear launch? Those little almond shaped nuclei will be sleeping like babies. 


So I'm taking the experts' suggestions under advisement. But I remain comforted just knowing that a box of Krispy Kremes and a jug of cheap wine is always close by. 

Crazy Bitch, Silly Rabbit

I can't imagine what possessed my friend to send me this card. When I think of amusement parks, I think sweaty people with tattoos and miles of concrete littered with the detritus of greasy fast food. And vomit. Lots of vomit.

That can't be right. This is a friend who cares deeply about me, a friend who would never shovel more dirt on me as I try desperately to dig myself out of a ditch. Someone who has seen the crazy bitch part rear its ugly head more than a few times but still insists there's lots of good that lies beneath. An amazing amusement park, apparently.

Maybe she's on to something. I may not be a fan of amusement parks but that certainly doesn't mean they lack appeal. Hardly; why else would zillions of folks repeatedly spend ridiculous sums of money to wait in endless lines on steaming hot days just to get some brief and not so cheap thrills? No match, I should think, for lying on the couch watching NCIS reruns, but there's no accounting for bad taste.

I like to think I have an open mind, so I'm reevaluating my somewhat negative view of amusement parks. Tilt-a-Whirl, death defying roller coasters, fun houses. Dizzying (not to be confused with nauseating), exhilarating (without being masochistic), full of surprises? I can see how some people might find all those things a bit more scintillating than binging on bonbons while fantasizing about Mark Harmon.

Nobody needs a steady diet of crazy bitchiness, but sometimes you just need to take the bad with the good. Especially when the good is as good as an amusement park. So I'm going to let myself off the hook. Every once in a while, even the most sane among us needs to boil a bunny or two to get ourselves out of the damn rabbit hole.

When Kangaroos Fly

Every once in a while my youngest daughter comes up with something only a natural blond could say. She did not disappoint the other day, when she announced that she thought birds were mammals. At least she's pretty.

She was able to have quite an intelligent conversation with her uncle the shrink about psychological theories so maybe I shouldn't worry so much about her quaint moments of sheer ignorance. These days I worry about everything though. My precious stash of anxiety pills has been so alarmingly depleted I've taken to biting the halves in half. A quarter dose is better than nothing, and certainly preferable to calling some long abandoned overpriced psychiatrist for a refill. It's definitely not worth the risk of having him glance up from his prescription pad while he scribbles hieroglyphics at one hundred dollars a minute to notice that I am virtually foaming at the mouth, certifiably insane. I prefer to pass on the cuckoo's nest; just give me those damn yellow pills.

After all, I have a lot to do. Bills to pay, repetitive forms to fill out for my divorce attorneys, hire a handyman. My house is falling apart at the seams. Really. Yesterday, one of the gutters hung precariously over the front window until it finally became detached and landed on the circular drive, within inches of the car I had just spent lots of money to repair. There's much to be thankful for, though. I will be able to clean my gutter without a ladder. It missed the car. And there's no rain in the forecast. 

I am willing myself to believe that only good things will start to happen. My house will not start to disintegrate piece by piece. I will pay the bills and fill out the forms and the divorce from hell will be over soon. Maybe my daughter was not even entirely wrong about her classification of birds. I racked my brain to come up with an example of a mammalian species. "Kangaroos are mammals," I announced, and I was met with a stunned silence. "Well, they're marsupials, but aren't those mammals?" Still, stunned silence from my daughter and her friend. It's been a couple of days, and I still can't, for the life of me, figure out why I thought a kangaroo was a bird. At least it was good for my daughter; the torch for dumbest comment of the day was passed to me. 

Well, it helps keep me sane if I believe anything is possible. So why not? Kangaroos can certainly become airborne. I can, at least today, clean my gutter without a ladder. And even the most bitter divorces come to an end. Will I stop needing my little yellow pills one day? Of course. When kangaroos fly. And mark my words, they will. 

Rites (and Wrongs) of Spring

It took forty minutes for her to issue her first critique, but that's only because she sat in the back seat on the ride from the airport to downtown and couldn't see what I was wearing.

Yes, mom is back in town, and even though her drastically compressed spine has shrunk her well below five feet she is still larger than life. She doesn't even need to say anything. Just the once over with her piercing blue eyes, as she takes in every flawed inch of me, does the trick. The scowl is just gravy -- I don't even know why she wastes the energy.

"That skirt is a bit short," she said. Translation: You low class whore. I can't believe I raised you. It's because you married that goy. 


"It's not a skirt," I said, desperate to defend my honor as I tugged at the back to make sure it was covering my ass. "It's a shirt.  And these are leggings." A lesser woman might have accepted my explanation and moved on, but she thinks I dress like a tramp, even on a good day, and she can't hear a thing.

She nodded. I thought maybe she understood. "Yes, well you should really not be wearing such a short dress." Translation: You are beyond redemption. You might as well be a shiksa. 


Let's just say it was not a good day to forget to put an emergency stash of Xanax in my purse. Lunch was okay because I was sitting down. I tried my best to minimize the trips to the bathroom, but each time I went I could feel her eyes boring into me like daggers, taste the venom in her scowl. I considered asking the maitre'd for a spare tablecloth to wrap around my lower half (which, by then, had truly become, in my mind, larger than life) but unless the table linens were designed by Escada I was fucked anyway.

My oldest daughter joined us a bit late, looking pale despite the attempts she had made to disguise her hangover with makeup. Each whiff of food -- even the mere mention of it -- sent her reeling. Mom wondered why she had to pee so often. "Too much coffee this morning," I told her. Luckily, it wouldn't even occur to her that her granddaughter may have had a few too many the night before and had to pry her face out of the toilet when I telephoned to remind her about lunch.

"You really shouldn't drink so much coffee," mom offered. I can only imagine what she would have to say if she knew the truth.

I am hiding in the backyard now, trying to escape yet another field trip on her behalf to purchase a useless gift for our Seder hosts tonight who have pleaded, in no uncertain terms, that we bring no gifts. After years of entertaining all of us for Jewish holiday dinners, they have an entire bathroom decorated with all the pointless gifts I have been ordered to purchase. This year, I bought something useful instead -- some wine -- but made the mistake of telling her the truth about the price. "I do not bring such cheap gifts to someone's house!" I half lied, telling her they would not know the difference. Well, they would not, except for the fact that our gracious hostess is a faithful blog fan and now knows we didn't go top shelf. Just think of it as mouthwash, Cherry.

So why is it that I encourage these holiday visits, actually look forward to them. It's not just that I enjoy seeing who wins the "what color St. John suit is she wearing" contest. (I was completely off this time.) It's ritual, tradition, family time -- for better or for worse. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. By tomorrow I'll be bench pressing 350 pounds.

Nuckin' Futs

Happy Passover and Easter. Post in vault.

Singing Off Key

My favorite thing about being a manager at the yoga store was the key, the one attached to the spiral corded bracelet that I wore proudly around my upper arm. As far as self importance goes, well, it really don't get any better than that.

Today I went to the store for the last time. Reluctantly, I turned in my key, but only after I carefully examined all the cute new things that arrived while I was on vacation and took full advantage of my deep discount. It was weird, being back in the store for the first time in two weeks. I was really just a customer, yet I felt most comfortable behind the counter, near the registers. I felt compelled to tell other customers how good they looked in everything -- as if they cared about my opinion. I insisted on putting away every item from my fitting room myself, carefully stowing the hangers where only employees are supposed to go. I strode bravely into the back room to pee in the employee bathroom one last time, the one I never got around to cleaning. The toilet paper was running low, so I replaced it. I resisted the urge to straighten out some of the back stock as I made my way back out to the floor.

Sometimes I get confused; I don't know, really, where I fit in. Behind the counter or out on the floor? All these choices, and I am so afraid of making another bad one. At least I seemed to know my place in the other stores I visited on the way to my car, although I did probably hover a bit too close to the business side of the register. Each time a salesperson repeated the same words from the script I have repeated so many times in the past year, I wanted to tell her to save it. "My pleasure," said the woman in the Nordstrom shoe department when I sent her back for the umpteenth time to search for the perfect pair of wedges. Yeah, right, I wanted to say. I'm also pretty well acquainted with the script reserved for pain in the ass customers who depart empty handed. My ego is a bit deflated these days, so I purchased two pairs, just so they wouldn't call me names.

Well it's back to square one for Jill Ocean, which maybe isn't such a bad thing. I'm unemployed, have dumped or been dumped by every man in my life, and I still don't know how I'm going to afford that damn trailer. Things could be worse, I suppose. At least I have a nice tan.

I think I am going to treat myself to my very own spiral corded bracelet with a key attached, just so I can peek at my upper arm every now and then and know that I am truly important. Maybe the key will even open some new doors, help me figure out where I belong.

The Big Gulp

I woke up with a raging case of the hiccups this morning. I've tried everything -- holding my breath, drinking water with my head tipped all the way back, pouring sugar down my throat. At four in the morning, it's tough to find someone to jump out at you and scare the hiccups away, so I tried just looking in the mirror. Scary, but (happily, I suppose) not scary enough.

Frankly, nothing seems to frighten me these days. An old friend from high school noticed on Facebook that I had been to Mexico and contacted me to inquire whether we had encountered any danger. Other than the bar kidnapping incident and the death defying jet ski ride with my daughter I couldn't really think of anything. Like all the folks who did not show up in Mexico for spring break this year, I probably should have been afraid. Maybe I'm just dumb.

In all my travels to Mexico over the years, I have yet to see a machete wielding drug lord cross my path. And the rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror of every taxi I've ever ridden in make me a bit skeptical about all the reports of murderous drivers. Interestingly, the dire forecasts of rape, kidnapping, and pillaging of tourists seemed to roll off the backs of our neighbors to the north. Canadians were everywhere (the black socks with gym shoes are a dead giveaway, eh?). Hey, no insult intended; some of my best friends are Canadian. Well, two. I don't think Canadians, as a nation, struggle excessively with hiccups.

Oh what I would do to see a machete wielding drug lord jumping out at me from behind my Starbucks couch, if only to stop the pesky little convulsive spasms in my chest. The scariest thing I ever encounter these days is my own behavior. I can be erratic, irrational, filled with resentment. I can mount a full out attack one moment and melt into a puddle of self pity the next. I enjoy fleeting moments of high self esteem and empowerment, but they give way all too frequently to panic and despair. My wild mood swings alone, you would think, should be sufficient to scare the bejeezus (and the hiccups) out of me, but, as I sit here, they are just getting worse.

I had coffee with an old friend yesterday, and she confessed to having bought four new pairs of shoes this past week. It scares her that the momentary purchases seemed so important, as if they would somehow help her feel happy. She soon discovered it wasn't going to do the trick. "My whole life needs to slip into a pair of sapphire colored shoes," she said. Now that's scary. A tall order, to say the least.

I am determined to continue to be fearless. To not even worry to much about my own somewhat scary moods. Life is filled with hiccups Eventually, they just disappear on their own.