Firstly, I need to announce to the world

Yesterday a customer sent me flowers!

Boys, everywhere, know this: it is never ever NOT the time to send flowers. Send flowers all the time. Unless they're a way to evade a restraining order, send flowers. Now. I haven't stopped smiling in 24 hours because a sweet sweet boy decided he wanted to make my day.

Basically, Tom had become a regular at my place of employ for a couple weeks, but the last time I saw him (after he engaged intently with a theosophical rant about inherited doctrine and unexamined longings to redeem creation, a topic I'm obsessed with at the moment) he told me he was about to move to Germany. And since he didn't get to say goodbye before he left, he called up my friend Lisa's florist shop across the road and asked her if she thought it would be okay for him to send me flowers to say thank you and let's keep in touch.

What a gentleman.

Boys, serious. Buy her flowers NOW so that when you do something wrong you will have already done something nice just for the sake of being thoughtful. My bit of advice for the day--- it seriously seriously works wonders.


I had started the day utterly annoyed with the male half of the species. Humanity is a very special mammal in that we have no visible estrus nor no annual mating season--but I swear to god, the English have a mating season, and it's right NOW. Three guys asked me out (by saying the exact same thing, I might add. Are they getting this sh*t from a script??) in the last 48 hours. When I tell them I don't have a boyfriend, they act like it's a crime against nature. They say when are you available, I say "Never. I'm single because I want to be, I like it, I'm happy this way and I'm not looking to change it so please just let me serve you food and take your money and don't ask again. THANK YOU HAVE A NICE DAY".

Gah.


So I was ready to go punch a brother, but then a lovely lad sent me flowers just to be a gentleman and it made my day.

Somebody should make a t-shirt that says:

"Hello! This is where I work. Being nice is part of my job. It doesn't mean I'm interested in you sexually."

morning inspiration...

A couple more:

Ani Difranco 32 Flavors Live

Ani when she had the pink feather hair... when I was 14 I so wanted her pink feather hair...

It's unfortunate that most of my generation learned this song from a not-very-good cover by Alana Davis (Ani is a thousand times the musician and creative spirit, but Alana had the big record label behind the music video...her only hit was a cover tune) but then I'm also just glad that young women all over america heard this song. And maybe found Ani eventually.

Sometimes your heroes in life make you want to be more like them. Ani has the brilliance to make a young woman want to be more herself. It's a special gift.




And...

Some of the best advice on art available for free


More from ponderland soon. The larger entries seem to require some mulling and brewing, rather than the traditional "feel and spew" methods of yore.

Nice to have some breathing room finally, though.

and now for something completely different...

First of all, today one of my lovely regulars said I look like Elizabeth Taylor. I think that might make today one of the best days. Of ALL time.

Now, some links to share:

This makes me almost as happy as being compared to Liz Taylor.


mildly smitten. So glad he didn't exist when I was 12.


Moving, beautiful, brave.


My gorgeous friend Jessa and her gorgeous partner Rick do gorgeous things. I crush on them.



And finally, God Bless Texas....

Wow. Just...wow.

a little much

so we all love attention. I speak for all of me unanimously. But when somebody you haven't seen or spoken to in over a year, who cannot communicate with you like a normal person, furiously checks your blog up to half a dozen times in one day it feels like a bit much, doesn't it?

On Fasting

One of the most frequent things people ask me when I tell them I'm fasting is "Why?" and in this country and at this time of year many will say, "Oh, like for Lent?"

Then I giggle a bit because I want to answer them in a stern, mournful deadpan, "As penance for my multitude of sins." or perhaps, "In memory of Him that died for me." or even, "To steel myself against the devil's tricks" or some other catchy iambic statement of pious angst. It would save me from explaining the real reasons, which are more complicated and, I'm sure, incomprehensible to most of the people asking.

The first, of course, is health. Fasting is an ancient healing practice, used to cleanse and renew the system. Giving your body a vacation from the enormous task of digestion allows it to concentrate on other things, like repairing damaged tissues or removing intestinal plaque. (see why i'd rather pretend it's for Lent?) After about day 3, your body starts a process of autophage or self-eating, and usually the body (in its infinite wisdom) picks off the old, damaged, tired cells to consume first. Of course, some muscle mass as well as fat is digested, and the metabolism slows to a crawl, which is one of many reasons I never recommend it as a weight loss method. More often than not, you gain back quite a lot of what you lose during a fast. The real medical benefit has more to do with detoxifying, regenerating, and reducing dependency on various stimulants. (not at all a coincidence, Lent happens over the spring equinox which is a particularly beneficial time to renew your body with fasting. but really most of the easter observances are pretty darn pagan).

The other set of reasons has a lot more to do with the equally ancient tradition of fasting as a spiritual tool. There is an intense solitude in fasting. When I walk around during a fast and see all of the restaurants, cafes, pubs, grocery stores and produce stalls I feel somehow otherworldly, indeed alien. There is a compulsive pseudo-intimacy in eating and drinking, perhaps nowhere more so in my experience than in England--where no one really knows what to say to anyone else without a pint or two inside them. So in the beginning stages of a fast I become keenly aware of all these social rituals and dependencies--of how cultural habits convince us that daily use of alcohol and caffeine are perfectly normal signs of civilization, how natural we think it is to associate every major holiday with massive desserts and more massive hangovers, how constant seems our preoccupation with food and drink.

Then I start to notice my own internal compulsions-- how so many of my dietary habits are a way of comforting, appeasing, rewarding or entertaining myself. How I break up the day into chunks between meals, and smaller chunks between cups of tea and snacks. How most of the time I ever give entirely to my own company is either cooking, eating or cleaning up after a meal, or sitting down for a cozy cup of tea. It's a way of *doing* something whilst getting just close enough to rub up against silence, but never really enter a state of meditation or being without wanting.

So when I am fasting, sure I get hungry sometimes (there are moments lately when my fantasies about ripe avocados dance a thin line between lustful and downright violent) ...but deeper and more intense are the emotional cravings. I feel sad or overwhelmed or tired and often my first thought is of what food or drink or treat might make it better; gradually I become aware of how of often-- like an exhausted parent frantically holding up every possible curative for a child that won't stop crying--I give myself whatever I think might make it all okay , I leap to hush and coddle even the slightest hint of wanting.

My evening calendar clears; my ambition to do anything extra wanes; gradually I am living extraodinarily simply. I do not crave the company of others; mostly what I crave is quiet time alone without bullying myself into constant productivity. Imagine being in a marriage where almost all you ever do is work or talk about work. Then you go on a date with your partner where neither of you is allowed to say anything, or watch anything, or listen to anything either. It's just the two of you, hours of inescapable togetherness without the convenience of words, the shorthand of sex, or the novelty of others. That's what this aloneness is like within, it is a profoundly intimate solitude.

So many people fast to lose weight and then they hate it-- I honestly can't imagine embarking on this process from such a state of discontent. It would be like punishing someone I can't stand by forcing them to spend time with me. Fasting is about solitude in the inner wilderness, graciously willing abstinence, and the clarifying of consciousness. I suppose in a way I really am atoning for sins, for the sins I visit upon myself when I try to quiet the cries of depression, anxiety, frustrated ambition, doubt, fear, self-hatred or simple loneliness by stuffing my mouth full of food--in that sickly sweet evil stepmother way, grinning as she says "it's your favorite, isn't it?"

It's an odyssey of inner oceans; it's a romantic cabin in the woods for one; it's a reckoning, a renewing, and an invitation to intimacy in solitude. It's a subtle adventure, and sometimes it's a private hell to hear the noise of your own cravings as you pretend that this glass of lemon water is actually a massive, ripe, voluptuous avocado -- but it also isn't forever. Within the gift of a fast is the promise of reentering the world with a new sense of what a wonder it all is-- how indeed we do not live by bread (and avocados) alone, how the monstrosity of life eating life to perpetuate life is also its glory, and how much more infinitely vast, deep, patient and strong you are than you ever imagined.

Snapshot whirlwind: work life weather fire lovers counselors friends and mice

I am awaiting a shipment of 15 bottles of pure canadian grade 2 amber maple syrup. I bought them on Amazon for 2 quid each (down from 6.50 because they expired two weeks ago. Not since trichinella convinced Yahweh to make pigs off limits has a people ever, ever been so paranoid about food. The english and expiry dates--that's a whole post in itself). My fridge is now stocked with about 20 lemons, a pound of fresh ginger, 3 bottles of maple syrup and not much else. Preparing for The Master Cleanse! and very excited. I did the program for 3 1/2 days a couple weeks ago and now I'm ready for a real go of it. We'll see...

Last night I sat with a friend discussing a broken heart, and amazingly it wasn't mine. One of my oldest friends from middle school just got her heart royally broken, by a 22 year-old pipsqueak (granted my luck with the aged elders has been no better.) It was strange to be playing Counselor Troi rather than, say, Hecuba--which is more usually my milieu. There she was, obsessing aloud about what she should say to him next to get the explanation for why he was such a dick that would make it all ok. And I had to tell her what none of her other friends had: there's nothing you can or should do. You will not get any satisfaction from anything he says, it will suck until it stops and meanwhile the worst thing you can do is try to make him do *anything*. I was the first person who didn't leap to her defense, berate him for being blind and idiotic and not deserving of her, and tell her she could have any man she wants.

Well, the truth is often we can't have the ones we want and that's why we want them. The neurology of romantic love is entirely tied up with the system of primal drives in our caudate nucleus: or "the lizard brain." We get addicted to love and it's no mere 80's hit, it's pure dopamine and norepinephrine and the crash is NASTY. It was kind of wonderful to suddenly play the part of compassionate but brutally honest friend, but humbling to hear the same words coming from my mouth that come from all good friends: "just give it time." More on the neurochemistry of romantic love soon, I'm geeking on it mightily.

Rehearsals for A Dream Play are starting to pick up some steam. I'm trying to silence the doubts, suspend my OWN disbelief, and "trust the process".

I love my job at the juice bar/cafe in Balham and I double love how much Bikram Yoga I'm doing in the studio right across the street from said job. I've found a californian oasis to call my own.

Last week I went to see a play for the first time in weeks and was surprised to hear a very, very familiar voice emerge from the shadows about 20 minutes in. One of my two London Theatre ex lovers, haunting me in Ghost Stories! It was a hilarious and wonderful surprise (as was much of the show--see it if you can!) and we're meeting up next week to catch up on the last year. It's so fun seeing how people change, or how they seem to have changed but actually they just put on a few pounds. Either way, the passing of time is gratifying and somehow quietly glorious.

Spring is springing and the weather was GORGEOUS for a week and the island transformed overnight into a place not entirely populated by xenophobic dough people. Smiling dough people is such a step in the right direction.

On February 9 a doctor looked at my MRI and CT scans and told me my right hip was just shy of arthritic and it was likely I would need a full hip replacement before I'm thirty. That night I came home and my bedroom was on fire because I had left a candle burning all day which I don't even remember lighting. My family is grieving a loss and it aches to have been far away and not to have said goodbye to my Aunt Nancy who succumbed to stage 4 pancreatic cancer a few weeks ago. We all miss her and I wish I had spent more time with her. Feelings of fragility and loss in the face of so many futures now impossible, perhaps always impossible.

My mother is NOT getting evicted, and my childhood home is not getting auctioned off by bank of america-- for now. My mother now has about a year or so to find ways of earning enough income to keep her in our family home. Prayers, digit crossing and general love in her direction always always always appreciated.

And as for me, other than some depression after the medical news and the housefire and Nancy and everything else, I'm feeling so much hope, creative juice and general optimism about the gradual making of a life here. It is strange to be so deliriously single and to be fasting from ALL of my compulsive habits--even taking a long and needed break from Art of Living. I have no overwhelming passion for anything right now, and while I don't really expect that to last-- knowing me-- I am so grateful for the emotional respite now. Life feels calm, manageable, basic and kind. The hemisphere is warming, the days are lengthening, and secret joys are beginning to whisper themselves to me again.

Everything feels fertile, generous, restful and full of possibilities. I love springtime.