I now declare November 30th, "National Self-Help Book Burning Day."

I can't take it anymore. Any more words of wisdom about how to love and heal myself and I am likely to go postal. They all contradict each other. Selfishness is good. No, wait, selflessness is good. No wait, you're unhappy and feel like people are treating you like the bottom of their shoes after they've gone to the dog park because...you're really not giving the world enough love and it's boomeranging back to you (karma and everything). No, wait, it's because you're giving too much of yourself to the world and not enough to yourself (gotta stop saving everyone and cut down on the volunteer work). No, wait, it's because you're trying to figure out your problems on your own and not opening yourself up to the inspiration of a higher power. No, wait, the higher power told you to honestly express your feelings to your family, at which point you got lambasted by your father for the millionth time (thus, solidifying the resentment you've carried for the last 100 years. Bad higher power!). No, wait, it's because you didn't surrender your character defect of People Pleasing (and if it were removed you would have no problems telling people to f--- off). No, wait, it's because you need to make an amends to your parents for blaming them for your life since, after all, your spirit chose to come forth to this family (this one sounds truly insane). No, wait, it's because you're living in the past and not embracing the Power of Now. No, wait, it's because you're living in the Now of Yesterday because your Inner Child had a meltdown and your Inner Adult forgot to take the time to give her a hug. No, wait, it's because you forgot to say "I am a money magnet" 50 times, and fell back into your deprivation thinking. No, wait, it's because you're living without gratitude that you're way above the poverty line and in perfect health. No, wait, it's all because you forgot your meds. No, wait, it's really because you ate a muffin (and that's a LOT of sugar and flour) and have yet to accept that until you embrace veganism you carry the darkness of guilt in your soul. No, wait, it's because you're living in vageuness around your finances. No, wait, it's because you can't afford to buy a knife set from Williams Sonoma and your living room doesn't look anything like a Pottery Barn catalogue. No, wait, it's because people are born and die everyday, and life is confusing.

Just for today, I don't need to read books to tell me that.

Around the age of 7, right when I was about to make my first communion, I developed a religious/spiritual fervor (that was, in retrospect, a great distraction from my familly life) and began to compulsively pray and/or make the sign of the cross anytime I had a Bad Thought. Since I was only 7, the extent of my knowledge of "bad" was limited, but it amounted to one catechism lesson when the teacher (who wasn't a nun, but some volunteer) told us never, ever to use the words (and she whispered) "God damn." So, of course, I couldn't help but to start whispering in my head "God damn babies and poor helpless people" (I was acutely aware of disadvantaged people). I decided that the only remedy was to appoint a number of Hail Marys I had to say or times that I had to make the sign of the cross. Since my soul was on the line, I didn't let the fact that I might be sitting in a public place stop me from making EXACTLY 100 signs of the cross (or maybe even a higher number, whatever would purify my guilt). Needless to say, my mother didn't really take to sitting next to a little girl sweating bullets, while quickly moving her hand from her head to her chest, to each shoulder and back again...

"Stop that!" she yelled at me once in a movie theater.

I tried to explain the situation, that I was performing a feat that would put me on the path of redemption. However, in a fit of frustration, my mother told me that it was BAD to make the sign of the cross THAT MANY TIMES!

Not only had I lost my only means of redemption, but had unknowingly further thrust myself into the abyss of sin. Never again would I make the sign of the cross more than once in a given hour. To this day I will never underestimate the confusion of being Catholic and obsessive compulsive.

My friend Carl told me once that he gave up TV for lent (that's 40 days!) and turned his head when his aunt showed her wedding video.

However, being Catholic may have had little to do with it. There was also the time when I decided (for no apparent reason) that I absolutely had to do 100 cartwheels and I wasn't going to let exhaustion and sprained wrists stop me.

Just for today, I can see the origins of my compulsive behavior with all too great a clarity.

The holidays can be a very stressful time. For those of us without friends and relatives around whom we can show our real selves, it can be tough to live up to the images of people on television who are smiling and laughing around a fabulous table spread. What if you are poor and have no fabulous spread? What if you have a fabulous spread, but everyone around your table is so intoxicated or consumed with substances (including food) that you may as well be in a room by yourself? What if your uncle is hitting on you and the whole day is an exercise in situational extrication?

Do we all take naps after the meal from the triptophane, or is it just a way to get out of the room?

Just for today, I can keep it real on the holidays.

The irony of forgiveness is that in order to pardon we must ask to be pardoned. The irony of push-up bras is that they blow my whole feminist cover, and boy do they make a difference! The humility that forgiveness requires is nothing compared to the freedom gained. There is no humility in push-up bras. Forgiveness means that I seek to understand, rather than be understood. Push-up bras mean that I look like I have a whole lot more to offer than I actually do.

Just for today, I can forgive my father for his attitudes about women...and I can forgive myself for totally buying into the beauty standard.

I can't spend my life trying to please other people or pretending to be someone I'm not. It's challening in this world of fear and social pressure to really be yourself. Consequently, there are many things that I have denied for fear of fear of clashing with the status quo. For instance;

I never liked Seinfeld, the show always kind of gave me the creeps (and that's scary to admit).

I don't really feel pathetic about being single and living alone, (I joke about it only to comply with the standard party-line for single women in our society...until now, that is.)

I still like the smell of Polo on guys like I did when I was in 7th grade and all the guys bathed in it for our slow dance parties.

I don't like big houses. They feel lonely.

I wish I could spend $1,000 a month on clothes, but I don't care AT ALL about cars. (In fact, I think old beat-up cars are kind of cool-looking, so long as they are functional).

And, finally,....I don't like the Holidays!

(There are many more, to be sure, coming up later.)

Just for today, I own my real self.

According to the new age philosophy of Science of Mind, our whole life is really just a movie screen on which our thoughts are projected. Talk about pressure! Even if I try to not think negatively, I can't help some of those neurotic, thoughts from creeping up. For positive and neutral thoughts (if you can hack them) it's all very good. For instance, this morning I was thinking about my friend Deniece who I love very much. Later in the day I was in Sav-On, buying some X-mas lights and guess who I saw? Deniece! However, in the afternoon, I was on a walk with my friend Martha and we were walking on a street where a lot of people walk their dogs. Casually, I thought to myself, "At some point, I'm probably going to step on some dog shit." Next thing you know, it's in the crevices of my Danskos.

Just for today, I can be paranoid about my negative thoughts.

I spent the entire morning trying to remember that high-larious thing I said yesterday to my friend that I swore I would write about today. But since I still can't remember it, I decided instead to write about my co-dependency recovery dream. My friends were married (my childhood friend Betty and my friend Joe, who don't even know each other in real life). We were all climbing up a steep hill/cliff, and we were slipping and struggling, and then Betty fell and started rolling down a hill, and Joe went after her, only to find himself hanging on the cliff's edge with Betty. And I was above staring down at them and thinking, "hell, if I'm going after them," because I've spent my entire life falling down hills for people. But then a miraculous helicopter came up and rescued them, and laid them gently down and this really handsome man who ran the helicopter kissed Betty on the head.

I guess on second thought it wasn't that great of a recovery dream because I was still staring down at them from where I was climbing, instead of getting myself up the hill.

Just for today, I can look at the top of the hill.

My sponsor recently pointed out that I seem to feel that it's my responsibility to like everybody. Even if the guy behind the counter at the corner liquor store grunts and rolls his eyes if I ask for change in quarters to do laundry, I feel obligated to see that he's a "beautiful person." But why do I have to like everybody? (Because everyone is perfect in God's world. That's why!) But I don't like everything in life. I don't like it when it rains. I don't like the smell of urine on the street. I don't like cars that slow to look for parking spaces in front of me. I don't like war and poverty, and low sporadic water pressure (like the kind coming out of my shower head), and the fact that the only dark skinned people in my neigborhood are nannies and cleaning ladies.

But people are "children of God" and "they do not know what they do" (or whatever the quote is), and love heals everything and....blah, blah, blah. I don't think I have the energy anymore (or ever really did) to be this big, humanitarian, Mother Teresa type-person. I envy people who are - really! But to do this myself sends me on a path of total disconnection from reality (for me). Also, I guess I'm afraid if I don't like everyone, then I have to deal with the people who don't (God forbid) like me.

Just for today, I can find people irritating or even not like them, and (I guess) it's OK if people don't like me.

After my four dollar Chai/Boba/Iced/Sugar/Caffeine bombshell of choice wore off at around 1:30 PM, I got so tired and sleepy I couldn't even feign interest in work or polite office chit chat. It's times like these that I have no choice but to wander to any piece of grass and dive into a dreamstate where I forget that I'm a grown-up with a job and car insurance and everything. The danger comes when I forget that I'm a grown-up and the light fades, and I'm still spread eagle on the grass while the sun is setting. And then I have to return to my office with sleepy eyes and grass all over my clothes and try to reconnect with reality.

When is office culture going to get with the nap room? Don't they have those in Japan? If it works for three-year-olds, why should anything change when we're 30? I guess the powers that be know that we'll all wake up cranky and confused.

Clearly, in American culture, there is no limit to the amount of hours people can work in a day or a week (operating, as we do, in a society burdened by the harrowing guilt of the "American work ethic"). However, for those of us chained to our desks and requisite computers, I do feel there is a limit to the amount of time we can sit on our asses. Sure, I can stare at my computer until my eyeballs feel like they are going to peel out of my sockets, and I can type and move my mouse until my hands are paralyzed with carpal tunnel, but I draw the line at the amount of time my poor butt can stay in a chair! I've come to realize that I can't sit longer than five hours a day (that's added all together)!! You can take my soul, my eyesight, but please leave my butt intact. (Perhaps, it's the unsung reason why Americans have big asses).

Just for today, I can give my butt a break.

I had lunch with my friend Carl and found out that despite fact that he and his girlfriend Kathy have been together for seven years, and are planning on staying together for the rest of their lives, they have NO plans for a wedding!! I, on the other hand, who am no closer to being married than Gary Coleman is to being governor of California, have my fantasy wedding all planned out (except for one vital detail)!

For some unknown reason, deep down inside the recesses of my feminist/hippy/raised by a single mother/knee-jerk liberal heart, I want a big poofy Catholic wedding! And I don't really know why?!
To add further to the irony, wedding day daydreams stand alone in the time/space continuum of my fantasy life. For not only is there no relationship to make the planning of nuptials remotely relevant, but there is also the fact that marriage has never been and (isn't really EVEN NOW) a goal of mine. But, a "Catholic Wedding,"...that's a whole other deal. That's a Sacrament and a spiritual experience, an event (...except for that part about affirming that "Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.")
I guess we're all entitled to weird fantasies.

Just for today, I can plan my (husbandless) wedding.

Blowing my money on chintzy gifts, spending uncomfortable hours with relatives crammed in one house with unprocessed emotions, alcohol and sporadic relationship skills, stressing out about which side of my family not to offend, feeling lonelier than ever, ready to puke out Christmas lights and music every time I walk into Sav-On or Target...the Holidays are almost here!

Just for today, I can have a positive attitude about the impending holidays!

I've been shame spiraling for the last 12 hours (yes, I shamed spiraled in my sleep and dreams - especially in my dreams!) regarding the lastest miscalculation in my checking account. But shame is thinking that I AM a mistake, not that I MADE a mistake (or some such rhyming slogan, I can't remember them all). DA (that's Debtor's Anonymous) has taught me that I am not the number in my checking account or savings account, and that the universe is infinitely abundant and that I can attract financial resources like my refrigerator to my Paella magnet (my sister got it for me from Spain.)

Just for today, I can forgive myself and ask the universe to remedy the situation ASAP. Did you hear that universe?! I said ASAP!

Just for today, I can be patient with the universe.

Not to take away from the magnitude of any particular addict's story, but do I really have to wake up face down on the floor of a half-way house, in a pool of (OK, this is a GIANT cliche) vomit to experience spiritual enlightenment? It just seems like a long way to go. What about all the lost souls, like myself, who never met with any newsworthy drama in their disconnected Godless state. Never puked at SkyBar or got high with Keanu, but just got kind of depressed, let people walk all over them, and dated unavailable guys. It's no big Hollywood "28 Days," dramatic story, just your standard uninspired life. Do we get some milder spiritual awakening? Are we disqualified from writing a memoir or starting a new age self-help cult?

I guess it's far more interesting to read about the spiritual awakening of a supermodel who kicked her heroine habit and began a second career as a Yoga guru. Or maybe that's the People Magazine version.

Just for today, it's OK to have a mediocre story of enlightenment (if I even have it yet).

The Universe supports my highest vision of myself and my life. Therefore;

I am a chaneller of love, joy, laughter, and the occasional ironic comment!

I will soon find lasting fulfilling romantic love that will result in marriage and effortless procreation (after which my body will quickly regain its former shape)!

I am a creative being and am awaiting large sums of money and a miriad of speaking engagements for my "work!"

I am a great lover and supporter of people seeking liberation from the tyrannies of addictions, repressive government regimes, poverty, sickness, and bad childhoods!

I support Mother Earth by recycling (which, just for today, is enough, though not as much of some other people do)!

I relinquish all negative thoughts based on scarcity and deprivation models!

I am a child of God/Higher Power/Source Energy/What Have You and am adored by my creator!

Just for today, I believe in affirmations (is there, quite frankly, any other choice?)!

It's OK to sleep through the boring parts of church and then wake up for the good songs and communion. Am I really worse off if I miss out on the (occasionally violent) scripture readings, the hymns about the Vatican's latest proclamation, and the sober priests' sermon that he belts out (even though he has a mike) like we're sitting a mile away? (Why does it feel like spiritual people are yelling their point - in books, tapes, etc.)? I'm sure the women sitting next to me weren't crazy about my snoring, but when I woke up I felt great! Just because the Catholic church is my spiritual home doesn't mean that it doesn't bear some resemblance to the dysfunction in my actual childhood home. Perhaps the Vatican is just one big Alcoholic father. Still, I love the gory drama of Catholicism, and I'm sure my children will get over the initial horror of it as well, and may fail to find a less dramatic spiritual community.

Just for today, I can sleep through the creepy parts of church.

Somewhere along the journey of my life, I slipped out of mainstream society and into the vortex of cyber/computer/technology/non-human space. I was never one who cared for computers (I didn't even own one in college) and, yet, finding myself single, childless, and directionless in life, all fears and phobias around technology slipped away and, suddenly, spending my weekend days (ok, some nights, too. God this is embarrassing...) in my PJ's in front of my computer, drinking insanely strong Pete's coffee, and surfing the web for Java scripts, became time well spent.

The beauty of personal or non-coporate web sites (where the designers are not getting paid) that have broken links or make no architectural sense is that, we can rest assured, those designers have well-developed personal lives.

Still, I must admit that, my computer and me, we do have something special going on.

Just for today, I embrace my computer (though, I will soon be upgrading), as a distraction from the prospect of the more intimate relationships (husband/children) that I will someday cultivate...but, for today, it's OK to love my computer.

In high school I (unconsciously) took a Vow of Chastity and, subsequently, chanelled all my sexual energy into my AP classes, SAT preparation, Yearbook Executive Goddess duties, and sports (the kind for the seriously self-punishing and repressed, like, cross country. I meant business!) . It served me very well in high school (landed me at an Ivy League school) and kept me out of trouble. How I miss those carefree days!

However, when you're 31, a sexless life doesn't feel quite as carefree. While it's nice to be free of all those messy emotional entaglements (that inevitably cloud my judgement), it can be somewhat anxiety provoking when there really is no end date in sight (i.e., in high school I had the future fantasy equation of College = No Parents + Freedom + Sex).

If I start feeling too spinsterly I could always venture into that messy grey area (which I spent my entire 20's in), but (do I even have to say it)...casual sex has so many limitations (frequently lacking in quality, being one of them). Or I could patiently, exhaustively, puritanically (I'm writing in gerunds now) wait for The Right Situation or The One (though, I have to say, I really hate that expression). Sadly, this includes occasionally venturing into the excruciating world of dating. Which is all well and good if you have faith that your life will work out as planned, but this has never happened for me!!!

Just for today, I remain patiently (though a little hopelessly) chaste...(until further notice).

I prefer to think of it as "waiting for the right time," or "creative percolation" or "getting in touch with God's will (or time)," or "getting my bearings." I know some people in program say that "nothing changes, if nothing changes," but sometimes nothing changes because I am forcing My Will on the universe. Still...(if truth be told), nothing is changing in my life (at least on the outside). And while I know not to "compare and despair," and not to "compare my insides with other people's outsides," and not to "should on myself," I'm starting to think that maybe I've waited long enough for the right time, and talked enough about my Issues with Succes with my therapist, and read enough Deepak Chopra for seven lifetimes. Maybe maybe there is no right time to take risks.

Just for today, I am willing to gently let go of procrastination.

I will soon create my (possibly password protected) "Forbidden Blogs" page dedicated to those blogs that have created sufficient (if not inevitable) turmoil in relationships with certain individuals from my family of origin. What is the point of a blog if not to point out that which can not be spoken in normal (i.e., repressed, controlled, dishonest) conversation? If I knew how to speak my truth, would I spend this much time in front of a computer pouring out my heart and soul for anonymous visitors? No, I would be out in the world speaking my truth and waiting to be assassinated.

There is a reason why we live in a society of complicit silence. The dynamics of dysfunctional and co-dependent families bears no small resemblance to imperialistic countries (such as the one we live in). The truth is, all great writers make people mad. Who wants to hear the truth, quite frankly?

I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I only hold a mirror up for the world to see and I can't be responsible for someone else's reflection. If I am inappropriately mean or rude, then, hey, those are my issues and I have my own mirrors. If I knew how to get my way by intimidation then I probably wouldn't have taken the path of the quiet, self-help junkie, web-geek, truth teller. But I'm not good at making me people afraid of me (because I cower before angry people), so I must resort to blogging.

Just for today, I stand by my "Forbidden Blogs" (which I took down...but still stand by).

I was just walking down the street and this young guy asked me if I had ten minutes to save the environment. Ten minutes?! That's all it takes?! I said, "No," because either I didn't think he could possibly be serious or because I am a callous self-obsessed person (or just a burned out liberal). I think he needs to rephrase the question. Either he suffers from grandiose thinking that he's projecting onto people passing by, or there is something that he knows that government and policy makers haven't figured out, yet. After years of program and recovery from co-dependency, I take issue with the concept of "saving" anything or anybody, except maybe, myself. OK, maybe I do feel a little guilty, but don't I get any kudos for recycling? It's just really tiring being Conscious. Maybe I could return and just help him out with his language and suggest he say, "Do you have ten minutes to find out what you can do to petition Company X who blah, blah, blah, blah."

Just for today, I can be of service to Great Causes in my own way.