Very Interesting....

There are points in time when we find ourselves in "unjust" circumstances...
(or rather, what we DEEM to be unjust)..
In any case, we generally tip-toe around the issue for awhile, in deep contemplation,
so as not to ruffle any feathers until we've reached some modicum of equitable conclusion...
At which point, we determine how to best remedy the situation....
This is a scenario that EVERYONE finds themselves in from time to time...

Here's the REALLY fascinating thing:
(See if you can wrap your minds around this!)

I have found,,,over and over again....
that there is ANOTHER "Bone of Contention" scenario ...
floating around somewhere in our own, PERSONAL atmosphere....
that is the EXACT, 360 degree counterpart to what we are experiencing now...
That we have ALWAYS, but ALWAYS , been on the "other side of the coin"...

Hence, we have the very keen ability to REMEDY 'said' conflict....
by simply using our organic, EMPATHETIC mechanism...
by putting ourselves DIRECTLY, and of course FIGURATIVELY!,,,
into the other one's shoes for just a moment....

"Become the observer..."
Wise words...

Question.......

Question for the posse...

Hypothetical:

If you were 99.9% convinced that someone was a WITCH...
do ya think maybe it would NOT bode well to piss them off ???

'cause ya'd have to CONSTANTLY be watching your back, right ?

(Just a hypothetical!)

Is she sleeping ??

Is she sleeping?
Resting ?
Where are her parents ?
Does she HAVE parents ?
Is she dressed up ?
Why does she look so clean ?
Is that a smile ?
Where are all the people ?
How old is she ?
Is that a skirt ?
or..
a DIAPER maybe ???
Who is the little girl with the gigantic beach ball ???

And then.....

something happens....
a bit of news...
something of REAL IMPORTANCE...
something riveting....calamitous actually...
And you are stunned by what you're hearing...paralyzed really....
So much so,,,,
that it SHAKES everything else into sanguine, broad-based perspective....
I mean...
life can turn on a dime...
Lets face it....
Life can turn on much less than a dime...
And what's left ??
After all of the unrest and in-fighting...
the name-calling and the rage even....
What's left after all that superfluous hoo-haa is spent ?
Just your own perspective really...
A view, by the way, which requires relative examination and introspection...
And someone that you've loved for years has been diagnosed with uterine cancer...
And all you want to do is HELP HER...But how ??
And she's FINE, by the way...
because she knows GOD...
And interestingly..
it's YOU that is devastated by the news....
But you know GOD too, right ??
And the sun continues to shine ....and winter continues to plow forward......
And that's the beginning and the end of the story...

Old Friends...New Lovers....(a RUN-on jumble of adjectives and parodies)

And then....
Out of THIN AIR...
JUST when you'd given up on PRINCE CHARMING appearing....
JUST when you were considering,
 albeit fleetingly,
the concept of actually LOWERING your insanely, high standards....
in order to allow some MEDIOCRE bloke in out of the cold,,,,,,
a VISION...
Well...
NOT actually a vision...
more like a MEMORY...
a veritable MUSCLE MEMORY...
comes right back up in your face.....
But this MUSCLE MEMORY GUY has actual PRESENCE...
He is NOT a HOLOGRAM..
He's real....
all that dark flesh and rich, RED blood....
He's real.....
And you are awakened..... STARTLED.....SHOCKED even....
by the Baskets full of HOPE which his VERY appearance has benevolently brought with it....
He reaches into his travelers' knapsack....
and pulls out a small statue of a FISH....
tied with obscene amounts of RED RIBBON...
 A gift !!
for YOU !!
He begins to read you his OWN poetry,,,,at which point you remember his UTTER BRILLIANCE...
I mean.... GANDHI could've learned a thing or two from this guy !!
And so it goes....

Fascinating beings we are....

We can literally hear WONDERFUL, POSITIVE feedback and accolades about ourselves EVERY day....
But ONE NEGATIVE JAB....ONE LONE INSULT...(from some 'crazy', small town bumpkin actually!)...
and we throw veritable lifetimes of positive feedback out the window...just like that...
and choose ONLY to believe the ONE NEGATIVE....
What's up with that ?
Why on earth would that be our reaction ?
And this is a broad based problem...
Seldom will you come across a person with such a SOLID, on-point view of themselves,,,
that NO SOUR WORDS can EVER crack a dent in their esteem and honor....
But more often than not,,,,
the VICTIM of a LONE INSULT will fall to their knees in despair about the shallow, 
non-profundity which was proffered...(actually HURLED,,,, at them earlier!)
Why ?

Continues to amaze me....

It defies every rational cell in my head...
it REALLY does....
 that someone can TURN 150% in such VICIOUS and MANIC ways.....
But beyond that....
that somehow...somehow,,,,,
 they TRULY, irrefutably,,,
 believe that their behavior has been impeccable...impenetrable....
that they are RIGHTEOUS even!
That they are VICTIMS of wrong-doing...OVER and OVER again.....
"Professional Victims", I call them....
People who view themselves from their fantasy, puritanical towers....
PERFECT PEOPLE...beyond reproach...
"GOD's people"...
HAPPY people...
Yes,,,,SO HAPPY with their lives...
We've always suspected that people who
CONSTANTLY make declarations about how AMAZING and LUCKY their lives are...
are really pretty miserable underneath the shield of FAUX-BRAVADO
At first....yes.....
 they seem so benevolent and sweet and funny...
and charming and WONDERFUL to be around....
And you are THRILLED to pieces to have found them...
And SO WHAT if their declarations of self importance and worth seem a tad arrogant...
Right ?
I mean...
Who cares, right?
The sheer SIMPATICO between you is rampant...no question...
But relatively shortly thereafter...
LITTLE things begin popping up...
little annoyances...little inconsistencies....
And you CHOOSE, in these moments....
to ignore them....
wanting fiercely and profoundly to believe in the person...
But KNOWING somewhere in your heart.....that they are BAD...(KNOWING that they are BAD!)
And then...
just like that.....
 they suck you back in with their melodrama and their intrigue and their mysterious ailments...
And JUST when they have your FULL ATTENTION,,,,yet again,,,,
they TURN.....Yup.....
They become distant and creepy...
And it seems like they've completely forgotten ALL the things that brought you together in the first place...
They seem to have forgotten WHOLE CONVERSATIONS even...
They seem,
dare I say it aloud....
like SCHIZOPHRENICS who've been released from the asylum for the day...
And they begin to INSULT and BADGER and even THREATEN you...
They become full blown VIPERS....
STREET VIPERS...
And they make stupid, ireversable mistakes in their moment of hysteria...
like telling you, for example,
 (IN WRITING!) that the policemen in town are THEIR OWN PERSONAL HENCHMEN...lol
and that they will follow any and all of their personal orders...
regardless of legalities, rules, etc.
I'm sure those cops would be THRILLED to hear about that particular statement!
lolol
And then suddenly....
 the soft, round, cherubs that you once fleetingly THOUGHT they were....
 turn into UGLY, NASTY gutter rats....
right before your eyes...
But at that point,,,,you're SO OVER them, that it's ONLY an annoyance...nothing more....

Waiting for the other shoe...

It occurs to me,
of late,
that we waste vast amounts of time....
NOT in the pursuit of SUCCESS...
But rather....
in the pursuit of FAILURE....

EVERYTHING that we do,
or rather...
that MOST of us do...
EVERYTHING that we strive for....aspire to,,,,
MUST,,,
according to some dinosaur who wrote the
 "How to succeed..." book...
be peppered with at LEAST.....at LEAST.....
one or two or more CAVEATS....
escape clauses....
WAYS OUT when the INEVITABLE occurs...
when the OTHER SHOE DROPS....
In fact....
we spend WHOLE LIFETIMES
""""HEDGING our bets""""...
For GOD's sake...
there are entire FUNDS set up with the SOLE purpose ...
of """HEDGING"""...
So...
Here's a suggestion from your humble Blog Mistress...
How 'bout...
just GOING FOR IT ?
How 'bout you lose the fear entirely ??
EXPUNGE it.... ERADICATE it...
How 'bout we move FORWARD in BARE FEET ???
This way...
There's NO SHOE to drop !!!!
How 'bout believing...
with EVERY FIBER IN our MINDs AND BODies....
that we WILL succeed ???
What would THAT look like ??
Food for thought on this cold, winter day....

Creativity, Chemistry, etc...

One simply cannot MANUFACTURE creativity....
It must somehow be a pre-existing condition....
Perhaps the "creative one" was born with it...
Or...
It's possible that the individual trials, tribulations, and overall "happenings"
brought with them a kind of "vision"...an EXTRA SENSE....
Same goes for chemistry...
Chemistry is not 'packaged' on an assembly line of "particularly chosen" characteristics...
"GOOD ON PAPER" should NEVER be mistaken as
 "GOOD ON SKIN"...
Although...
certainly...
the two are NOT mutually exclusive....(We can hope!)
Dating Sites are set up with columns...actual COLUMNS....
 of "eye color" and "height"....
and "movie preferences"....
and "IF WE LIKE DOGS"...
I mean....REALLY???
LIKING DOGS  will somehow reserve a place for us upon the MATRIMONIAL PEDESTAL ??
How's that workin' for ya ??
Just sayin'....
Creativity, as well,
 CANNOT be SUMMONED as if it were a garcon in a chic bistro...
No..No...
It takes a particular SOUND or COLOR or AROMA even...
to ignite that spark which will turn out a great PAINTING or NOVEL or CONCERTO...
Oh, yeah...
The CONCERTOS are just FLOWING out of me...
What am I saying ???
Simply that I am NOT an "ON DEMAND" channel...
I cannot be jarred, canned, wrapped....
as if I were a foreign delicacy....
I cannot be ordered around, summoned, or commanded to CREATE...
OR...
to LOVE, for that matter...
It MUST be ORGANIC...(at least for me...)
That's all I got...
Happy Sunday, Mi Compadres...

It was raining....(NOT a metaphor...)

pouring actually...
And she, as per usual, was driving....
There was traffic...(THIS was UN-usual...NOT !)
and she was listening to that Bruno Mars song about the SEX being something spiritual....
She LOVED that song...
She was thirsty...parched....
It had been one very long, tedious day....
And she was doing the RECKLESS thing that people do these days...
She was TEXTING while driving...
ICK....
She HATED when people did that....
But SIGNIFICANT, LIFE-ALTERING things were going on that she simply HAD to
respond to immediately !!!
That's how fatal accidents happen, right ?
So ...
you've got the picture of the rather mundane circumstances of this particular moment...
I should tell you now that the sky was kind of a dark, grey-purple....
It was 4 in the afternoon on this winter day,
so that the blue cloak of evening was quickly appearing in the sky,
coupled with the very ominous, dark weather....
She had been talking to GOD these last several days...A LOT...
asking for HIS majestic hands to carry her....
for HIM to essentially wrap her in HIS omnipotent light and power...
to, (let's be honest...), GUIDE her....
BECAUSE...
in spite of ALL of her enigmatic, "UBER-MENCH-"  hoo-haa...
she was kind of lost...
And for some reason, unbeknownst to her,,,,,
she was not receiving the EXPECTED response...
For she had been in this kind of moment all too many times before...
and she had ALWAYS felt HIS response rather immediately...
The concept of FAITH was not really necessary for her to embrace,
or so she "believed"...
as she had had rather EMPIRICAL evidence that GOD stood beside her always...
Perhaps, in reality, FAITH was so completely ingrained in her DNA,,,
that she just took it for granted....
Nonetheless....
she wasn't feeling GOD now...and it bothered her terribly....
So...
She stopped at a convenience store to buy an iced tea...
And here's what happened:

An older woman...
with kind of reddish hair and a round, kind face...
appeared from somewhere in the small store...
(Strange that she hadn't HEARD the woman's footsteps as she approached....)
Clearly this woman was a customer as well....
The woman smiled at her...a BEAUTIFUL smile...an ANGELIC smile really....
a STARTLING smile...
difficult to put into "anthropomorphic" terms somehow....
There was light around the kind woman's head...
The word "HALO" crossed her mind as she looked into the beautiful, caressing eyes....
She noticed then, very ODDLY, that the woman wore no shoes...
in WINTER !!!
in freezing, cold temperatures !!
in an "On-The Run", gas station, store !!!
in New Jersey !!!
She will never be able to tell you what this "ethereal" being was wearing...
It escaped her completely somehow...
The woman spoke...
It was not English really.....not ANY familiar language at all actually...
It was the sound of "gurgling" really....of "water and air"...
But the message which she delivered was CLEAR as day....
"HE IS WITH YOU...."
A BLANKET of COMFORT and RELIEF was suddenly "wrapped" around her...
TIGHTLY...MAGNIFICENTLY ....
She turned for just a moment to pay for the iced tea...
When she turned back,,,,the woman was GONE...
(with no sound),,,,
GONE...VANISHED...
as though she'd never even existed....
But the feeling of ELATION....of PROTECTION....
stayed with her for the rest of the evening...
And she KNEW, beyond a shadow of doubt,
 that GOD had answered her....

Shabbat Shalom....

Where on earth did he come from ????

He swept in.....
He just swept right in....
like he was SUPERMAN...
Yeah,,,
JEWISH SUPERMAN....
And get this.....
He understood EVERYTHING without me having to explain...
without the need for all the arduous, historical referencing..
like a freaking PROPHET !!
Yeah....
like he'd known me ALL his life or something....
Oh, wait !!
He HAD !!
But where did he come from ?
Which galaxy ?
Which pod ?
Are we TWINS separated at birth ?
Who is this masked man ???
How does he KNOW so much ?
He makes BRISKET,,,
And get this...
Ya ready ??
HE EVEN BLEACHES HIS TEETH !!!
I'm NOT kidding !!
PINCH ME !!!
I must be dreaming....

Picking Apples......Another Metaphor....

So...
We go to an orchard...
an APPLE orchard...
And this orchard is FILLED with myriad types of apples...
There are GREEN, sour ones...
and RED DELICIOUS ones....
There are PINK LADIES...
and GOLDEN ones too....
And the aroma of the apples all blended together in this particular orchard is WAFTING through
the air....
an almost heady fragrance actually...
The sky is a brilliant blue...
and the warm sun seems to reach out and hug you as you meander along...
You have only ONE basket with which to pick the apples of your desire...
That is the rule in this orchard...
Let's call the orchard EDEN....
Only one basket per "picker"....
And so...
you begin to circle EDEN....
You realize quickly that EACH tree is different.....
There are not rows and rows of mundane same-ness...
Oh, no...
NOT in EDEN....
And it dawns on you in this moment that you really know NOTHING about APPLES !!
So...
How can you possibly choose ???
Your stomach rumbles as you have not eaten yet, in anticipation of the ORCHARD VISIT.....
(even though your DOCTOR has advised you to
ALWAYS eat breakfast before going APPLE PICKING)....
Suddenly, you feel overwhelmed by the daunting task of choosing apples to fill just ONE basket...
Somehow the lovely, warm sunlight has slipped away and left a vague fog in its wake....
You realize, to your horror....
 that you can barely distinguish one apple from the other through the thick, unrelenting fog...
In fact, you can't even see the entrance of EDEN any longer !!
Suddenly, the beautiful apples become bats and rats and other rodents...
hanging upside down from the branches of dark, foreboding trees....
You cover your face with your hands in order to shield yourself from the onslaught of rodents...
And as you do so, you drop your ONLY BASKET....
EDEN has become a maze of horror and darkness...
You begin running....fast....trying desperately to EXIT the place....
You awaken with sweat and tears having drenched your goose down pillow.....

Rubbing salt on the wound...a METAPHOR....

The flesh is raw...open...oozing even....
And he stands there....lingering just above it...
with a large container of KOSHER SALT in his gnarled hand.....
And he is TEMPTED.....OH, BOY....is he tempted !
to just pour the whole freakin' ball o' wax directly onto that lesion....
and then just to sit back in his big-ass, leather chair...
and watch as the pain and agony take itself right up to its highest level of human suffering...
He fantasizes, in fact, about causing the demise of her "gorgeousness"...
That face....her quintessentially, beautiful face......writhing in sublime delirium...
distorted almost beyond recognition......
He realizes at that moment that he is ravenous.....
He pulls a MATZOH BALL out of his designer pocket...
chomping at the bit....
He thinks to himself, "Thank GOD I remembered to bring my MATZOH BALL.."
"wheww"
She watches as he devours the PURE BALL of CARBOHYDRATE....
She finds it quite revolting, but says nothings, for fear that he will then retaliate with his SALT....
Just then....
his cellular phone rings...
and he walks out of the room, his voice loud and raucous as he forgets everything
 about her,
her face, the wound.....
and gives his FULL, BERATING attention to the poor sap on the other end of the phone...
Clearly the sap has wronged him in some way...
She seizes the opportunity to exit before the concept of her pain is re-visited by him....
She gathers her skirt around the wound to stop the bleeding....
And as she sprints toward her exit, she grabs a spare
band-aid  from the Faberge egg on the foyer table...
FREEDOM.....at last......

She's there... La Signora Elegante ....

Yes, it's true that she lives far away...
across tumultuous and vast waters....
almost across TIME somehow...
the 'timeless' beauty....MARIANA...
The Italian 'ROSE'....
spreading her enchanting fragrance and
 magnanimous intellect in an upward direction.....
Upward....toward what can only be known really as the
"STARLIGHT KINGDOM"....
She gazes upon us with those 'knowing' eyes...
those 'haunted', lovely eyes....
always deep in contemplation and never-ending retrospect....
HOW can she help ?
WHAT can she do ?
to artfully make this world better ?
The thing which escapes her uncanny wisdom, ironically...
is that her very EXISTENCE makes EVERYTHING better....
She is a GIFT to all who are fortunate enough to venture across her path...
May her BLUES forever become PINKS and YELLOWS....
The Grande Dame...
MARIANA (Rosa)

The heart wants...

It's tough to actually quantify and qualify what it is that the heart wants...
But I do know this:
When it's REALLY what you want,,,, you'll KNOW....
For in the end of the day, we are all quite simple to dissect and understand....
After having pierced the veil of "socio-aesthetic" brouhaha...
 having drilled down deep to the bare bones of each and every one of us...
there lives a child...an ingenue...
a "blank tablet"....
ready to be splattered with multi-chromatic paint and ink and "air brush"...
ever-ready for expansive PHOTO SHOPPING....
for elaborate enhancement even...
But the very "blank-ness"...the embryonic state from which we begin our lives....
(I HATE the word "JOURNEY"!)
just sayin'...
That state of unyielding potential.....
carries with it the basic, underlying , non-negotiable need for LOVE...
There is NO ONE who is immune to that base need....
It can likely be hidden beneath layers of concrete and mortar ...
the materials which have hardened and solidified over time...
It can seem insurmountably impenetrable as well...
In fact, attempting to break through the layers will undoubtedly leave the person with the
'emotional sledgehammer' in hand......
 feeling exhausted...defeated even....
But those who can CRACK the layers open...
those who can get in underneath the Teflon-like exterior of the person in question,,,,
well......let me just say....
there are rich, ebullient, red waters down inside that well....
filled with life-force and nutrient and color...
and GOD....

What's my message after all this pseudo-esoteria ?...you ask ?

Simply that LOVE is the REACH...the gold at the end of the rainbow....
and that it CANNOT be PRODUCED manually...
AU CONTRAIRE....
But if you are fortunate enough to FIND it...
ALCHEMICAL HAPPENINGS will most definitely occur....

Old Friends, Butterscotch, and Love....

We sort of remember them....
out of the corner of one of our eyes...
way back in the recesses of the folds of eyelid and skin....
Sort of...
It's like taking a photo...
It's blurry...out of focus....
but THERE....
And we try, albeit fruitlessly, to bring the old photo into focus....
But alas.....
we fall onto our ass.....
while chewing on a butterscotch treat....
Did I mention the butterscotch ?
It, too, is out of focus....Brown, Chewy, but not SHARP and CLEAR....
And Suzie is "nursing" today....ALL day...
way yonder in Tualatin...
So....there's nobody to ask....
We've got to summate all by ourselves....
wrapped in a cocoon of Cyber Space and potential LOVE....
And that's all I got.....

He said / She said.....

And she said...."BLAH BLAH BLAH"
And he said ..."WHATTTT ??!!"
And then she said more..."BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH>>"
And then I said, "Wait a second here!"
"I smell a rat..."
And then she said, "Do you smell a rat??"
And then......I KNEW...
SHE was the rat !!
Yup......SHE, with her "Blah Blah Blah"ing.....
Too many words....
Too much information...
Wayyy too curious...
Wayyy too defensive....
I should've guessed it right away...
Wait  a minute .......I DID guess it right away  !!!
No...I KNEW it right away......
So plans were made...
And ultimately....
The proof will be right there .....in the pudding.....

Is she BLUE ?

Is the woman in the painting BLUE ?
Is it a color or a mood ?
Is she receiving a gift ?
or...
perhaps,,,,
 'GIVING' one ?
Does she like frozen yogurt ?
Does ANYONE like frozen yogurt ??
Is she a red head ?
a brunette ?
Do people still say BRUNETTE ?
Why did she switch over from RED ?
Was she too VISIBLE ?
too FLAMBOYANT ?
Does she wear SOCKS ?
UNDERWEAR ?
Are her breasts BIG or SMALL ??
What do we really KNOW about the woman in BLUE ?
Is she in PAIN ?
Is she HAPPY ?
Is ANYONE happy ?
Was she divorced ?
Is she on a date ?
Does she kiss with her tongue ?
or just her lips ?
Are the lips INJECTED with some form or other of botulism ?
WHERE is the scene taking place ??
Is she ME ?

We hold our breath...

and count to 1000 ...
in the hopes that our TEMPER will be somehow 'tempered'....
that our need to RAGE will somehow de-flate in those few moments of just pure paralysis......
And yet...
as we exhale...finally...
we find ourselves, to our own chagrin and disappointment,
still ANNOYED beyond words ...
Perhaps not as entirely enraged as we had been before the countdown.....
but still holding our respectable own in the "anger" department.....
So...
What are we to do ??
Do we..
A)  Just let the person HAVE IT ?
     (no holds barred) ?
or....
B)  Find some other way of making our point known ?
     of being heard with perhaps a bit of a modified arsenal ?
or....
C) Just BUCK UP and not say ANYTHING ?
(perhaps taking some fabled "HIGH ROAD" ?

We consider our options for 45 seconds or so...
And then....
 We just non-negotiably  THROW DOWN....
hurling jagged 'objects d'art' with our tongue at innocent (or NOT so innocent!) standers-by....
The proverbial gloves are off...
The gauntlet is lain down....

And we YELL and SCREAM and CALL NAMES...
And we INVOKE and EVOKE and PROVOKE all at once....

And then....
as exhaustion and some semblance of relief
take over after our long-winded and articulate display......
we are done....
And we've finally told OUR SIDE of the story....

So we lick on an orange Popsicle....and we MOVE ON....

And so it goes.......