I have a very long one. It seems to be growing even longer with age. However, I'm discovering the inconvenience of putting people on it who I would like to ask for favors. I mean, it's OK if they don't know about the the shizer list, but when I've told them directly it presents a problem. Perhaps, I should create a pause button. Don't think anyone will go for it, but it's worth a try.

Just for today, I can think twice before putting people on my shit list.

…And if she isn’t and I am (cuz I’m falling in love…which doesn’t equal intimacy, but hey, it starts somewhere) does that mean I’ll never be able to land a deal to be on the cover of my own magazine every dang issue?! WHAT IF… I get so happy that I have no pain to make fun of or to drive me to new heights of success and am relegated to being a normie who can only get excited by the humus selection at Trader Joe’s (which…quite frankly, is already the case)… WHAT IF I marry my boyfriend and we’re so ecstatically happy that we give up our dreams of becoming famous writers and actors (dreams that were born as a distraction from unhappy childhoods)? Worse! WHAT IF I give up my dreams cuz I’m suddenly more interested in cooking organic meals every night for my family and making Halloween costumes from scratch, BUT my at-that-point husband continues to pursue the dream of becoming a famous actor (because I’ve martyred myself as the pillar of the family) which he fulfills (thanks, in part, to my martyr-induced undying love and support), at which point he drops me for a young starlet who has no hang-ups about success, and our kids get grow up being pedaled back and forth between households while I sublimate my guilt into a book about lost dreams (does anyone else remember “Irreconcilable Differences?” What is Shelley Long up to these days, anyway?)?!

WHAT IF women can’t have creativity, success, love, and a family?

WHAT IF I get fat?

WHAT IF Bush wins again?

WHAT IF the Olsen twins spend all their money?

Just for today, I can try to stay out of the future.

I'm falling in love. I'm also having an existential crisis about my survival on the planet. AND I just started Netflix (am watching the fourth season of the "The Sopranos" as I type...experiencing belated sadness at Christopher's heroin addiction). Because it's hard for me to know what my truth is, let alone share it with anyone (especially the whole entire world) I have been encouraged to write my true feelings by my boyfriend. Lucky for him, the truth is that I'm falling in love (with him).

While it's scary, I'm not even going to begin with the "what ifs..." cuz they always ends with "...and then I'll be left all alone to forage for food without enough money to dye my graying hair." Because I'm too tired to start in on that fear spiral, I'm going to bank on the positive feeling I have about being able to call someone my soul mate. I'll leave the question of how we're going to pay for the SAT tutors for our kids for a later date (probably tomorrow).

Just for today, I'm grateful to be falling in love.

At 12:00 PM me and Marco lined up to get our plates of food while wearing our NAME TAGS WITH THE RED DOTS (because we read the e-mail that warned us that if we weren't wearing our name tags with the red dots there would be no point in showing up.)

There was a drawing for door prizes and the only prize worth having were movie tickets (cuz I don't need anymore bottles of Two Buck Chuck). And guess who won the movie tickets?!! That's right!

Also, there was a woman reading Tarot cards. I was afraid to go to her, but everyone else seemed happy so I figured (since she works here) she wasn't going to pull out the DEATH CARD and announce that I had terminal disease, a treacherous relationship or the career trajectory Dilbert. So, anyway, I went in and I pulled out:

Past - Woman of the World
Present - Synergy
Future - Hermit, Man of Chrystal, The Magician

IN A NUTSHELL: I'm coming from a strong female tradition of creativity, etc., I'm in a relationship trying to heal all the old stuff, and I'm getting ready to lock myself in a cave (which, quite frankly, feels like what I've been doing) and do some inner soul searching (which, again, I feel like I've done that since I was 8), AND THEN (hopefully sometime soon) I will go forth into the world with male MAN OF CHRYSTAL ENERGY (which has something to do with technology) and make things happen like a Magician Godess flicking boulders down a mountain (thanks Dr. Phil for the imagery). This part I've been waiting to do since I was 8, but if there's more sould searching to do, so be it (I've waited this dang long, a few more years isn't going to waste me).

Relationship: We complement each other well, but we do things differently (uh...yeah?!). The card had swans on it and swans mate for life.

Just for today, I can enjoy Staff Social Day!

'Tis the hour of office witchcraft. That strange time when the copier starts jamming and the network goes down and everyone wonders what's really growing inside of Marco's coffee mug (that he "washes" evey day). Yes, folks, it's the unsung period of office weirdness (people who say it's 3:30 PM are just trying to leave early), when the lines between daydreams and blue cubicle walls begins to blur. It's a time when I have to focus and fight off the temptation to belt out the theme song from "Greatest American Hero" while performing my Flamenco dance moves...(there was the time when Marge was found in the nude throwing garlands out the window while shouting "Carpe Diem!"...).

Just for today, I can contain myself during the witching hour.

I spent my weekend obsessing over chairs. For various reasons, I have spent the last 6 months living without chairs. And during this time (heretofore to be known as the Age of the Chairlessness) I have come to realize and appreciate how important chairs are to my sense of human connection and the possibility of community. Now, mind you, I have a couch. So, it's not like there's nowhere for my guests sit (I also have a lovely floor...more on that later). However, there is something about chairs that ask for less commitment than a couch, that make people feel independent. Couches ask for serious intimacy. They are saying, "Come and merge with my vibe." However, with chairs people need not be afraid of getting towed into someone else's space or pheromone range. Chairs are like, "Yeah, I'm here talking to you and connecting, but I'm not finding out what you had for lunch or anything. This is fun but I might jump up at any moment and get some juice or show you my latest Yoga position."

The other drawback of my couch is that I have these beaded pillows that frequently stab my guests with their stray wires and that everyone who sits on my couch, without exception, wants to destroy (but I THINK THEY MAKE MY COUCH LOOK NICE!).

Lastly, let us not forget the important role chairs play in the functionality of dining tables. I've been eating Japanese style for about two years and while I'd like to believe it's because of my open attitude to various cultural traditions, the truth is...I WAS JUST TOO DAMN CHEAP to spend $150 on cheap dining room furniture. Which gets us to some important lessons that I would like to share in this blog. And that is this:

Lesson #1: If you buy a table from Pier 1, you damn well better buy the chairs that match (even if they each cost more than the table). Because if you don't, your dining set won't look arty and original, it'll just look weird.

Lesson #2: Chairs are an important item in community life.

Just for today, I can appreciate the importance of chairs and the intelligence of corporate entities.

I had to take my car to get cleaned because the insects that nested somewhere in the air conditioning pipes created some sort of fluid blockage (which I never bothered to understand) that had the end result of soaking my car carpet. Since my fear of mold is even greater than my fear of dirt, I decided to shell out $30 for a car wash. My experience of Los Angles car washes is that a great machine owned by The Man will wash my car, and then a posse of Latino men will work like hell to dry it, wax it, shampoo it, and shine it up. It's rare that I see any other race employed in this position. I don't know what these guys make, but it has to hover around, possibly under minimum wage. And, yet, they work so hard, I feel ashamed of my privilege of working in an office where my biggest complaint is that I'm not "challenged" enough AND I seem to be the only person who changes the water jug (Ok, maybe not, but I do change it ALOT and that thing is heavy!).

Anyway, as I sat at the car wash watching these Latino men (many of whom I'm guessing support a family of more than one), I wondered:

a) What is The Man netting at this car wash (surely, that big mechanical thing has been paid for)?

b) Am I participating in LA's underground (and, yet, totally exposed) economy? And, if so, does that make me evil or just lazy (or possibly both)?

c) Would any of these guys be interested in writing a blog?

Being so overwhelmed by the car wash experience, I actually forgot to tip the guy who brought me to my sparkling, shampooed, air freshened car. This then contributed to the high velocity shame spiral that I was riding like a roller coaster to hell. It all stems from the fear that I have had since I was conscious enough to understand the difference between what some folks saw as "right" and "wrong." And that is the fear that I am evil for....(fill in the blank).

At that car washmoment, I am/was evil for being white and privileged.

Perhaps I was just in need of my therapist or some program friend to remind me that "I deserve..." Or, the other possibilty I'm accessing some level of consciousness that slave owners didn't allow themselves to feel. I still haven't figured it out.

Just for today, I can struggle with my privilege.

The Honda dealership called to tell me that there was an insect nest clogging my air conditioning and that's why water was leaking inside. Gross.

Fortunately, there's no charge.

God bless the Honda dealership.

The truth is that I am a hopelessly cynical person trapped in the body of a Pollyanna. I've been told that my voice sounds promising to people (like Polly), but I think it just sounds the opposite of an old bitter Italian men. My boyfriend in college was part Italian and so he would imitate old men a lot. Actually, come to think of it, I think he was an old man. Some people are born old. I am told that I seem young. But I think it's because I seem unsure of myself the way young people do, so I wouldn't take it as a compliment on my skin. But the point is that it doesn't matter what I seem like, I am dark. I say all these inspiring things at meetings, and I construct profound statements because I actually feel hopeless about the human race.

I wake up every morning in dread. I feel hopeless about getting up. The magnified sounds of garbage trucks reverberating in my alley are God's way of setting my alarm clock. I work next to a construction site where the piercing beepings of trucks backing up ring in my ear every morning. My work e-mail is like a study in clutter. Forget about my yahoo account. I've surrendered to the spam. It's like we lost the war to the robots and there's nothing more to do but spend our lives deleting e-mails about diabetes, etc.

Just for today, the truth is out...

Last weekend I met with a woman who is willing to mentor me as a writer. She told me to write the truth for fifteen minutes a day. I tried to reason with her about the perils of truth telling.

"Do you want me to be assassinated?!"

"It's the price you pay for not being a fraud..."

I told her it could get worse. I could get fired from my job and expelled forever from office life where computers and, therefore, the Internet, and, therefore, my Blog, are a staple item, like corn or cotton.

But she had no sympathy.

We all know about folks like Martin Luther King Jr. and the late JC who said something that other people didn't like (like, all human life is equally worthy of love and respect...whatever!). And then there is my friend Mary who is a large African American women who goes around questioning why Black and Latino people all JUST HAPPEN to live in the same neighborhoods where falling down schools JUST HAPPEN to be wedged in between liquor stores, projects, and recycling plants. And she's had threats on her life (though, it might have been about something else)! And while I agree that some Truth Tellers may have irritating personalities (I'm sure JC was a big ole whiner)...reactions are far more extreme than they are towards irritating liars (Bush, etc.) Nobody likes it when you spake The Truth.

Just for today, I can tell the truth...cuz truth = power. Word.

Either all of my office mates and co-workers live in the Land of Normal, or they do a much better job at hiding their "irregularities" than I do. It really seems like I'm the only one who might have capability of (i.e., history) running into the office with tears rolling down my face sans any major catastrophe…

Is that because I am the designated office freak? And, yet, it's like they don't see it. They walk up to me like they came from a session with the Office Buddha. Where do I sign up?

Just for today, it's OK to feel like the invisible office freak.

I thought I was all bad-ass by swimming three times a week. But then I watched the Olympics and thought "holy shizer" those women have great bodies and must swim at least four times a week! Anyway, I found out today that this woman I work with named Marica swims ten more laps than I do! As it turns out, I'm just paddling around the water like an old lady and imagining that I'm a triathlete who doesn't need to prove anything. I didn't think I was competitive about swimming (especially since I get smoked in the fast lane on a regular basis), but it turns out I have "working out" pride...so humbling.

Just for today, I am humbled by the exercise routine of others.

I had dinner with two friends last night. They were talking about their jobs and careers and they seemed like real grown ups and everything! For a moment, I felt like I was ten and out to dinner with my parents and their friends. I almost asked one of them, "Can I order another Coke? Pleeeze?!" But I realized that I'm a 32-year-old self-supporting woman and don't have to ask anyone whether or not I want to order a damn soft drink (though, I'm trying to cut down on the carbs, so my own "inner-parent" kicked in and dampened my childish spirit...just like old times).

I was also trying to listen to the news more because that's what (I hear) adults do. Yesterday, I listened to reports about children being blown up half-way around the world and I took it all in stoic sadness and said things like, "that's so awful...hey, can I get into your iTunes?" How desensitizing myself to violence against children is helping myself, the world, or anyone, is lost on me...

Just for today, I am allowed to struggle with being a grown-up.

My boyfriend and I went to the beach where I did my best to shed years of office-vibe build up in honor of this great day. We had a great time until Issue #354AC reared its ugly head and we spent the next two hours in relationship combat out there under God, the hot sun and beach umbrellas... The good news is that two hours later when the sun was setting and people were packing up their their umbrellas (OK, so I still don't have one...), I could hug and kiss my boyfriend AND mean it! Despite my attempts, my boyfriend won't let me get away with any passive aggressive eye-ball rolling, and so I am forced to dissect the minutia of our well-matched dysfunctionality until we see the light of truth. At one point in my life, the idea that such relationships existed (let alone the idea that I could be in one) was beyond lunacy...

In honor of this day would like to send out a formal apology to those well-intentioned guys who suffered through the apocalypse of my total lack of faith in male/female relationships.

Just for today, I can celebrate labor day by laboring at love.

Last night my boyfriend told me that his therapist had been at the Santa Monica Pier the same night we were. Um...that's weird. I can only imagine running into her. Her walking up to us with a glass of wine in hand, "Oh, I've heard all about you! How's the writing going? You know, you've really projecting a lot of your own issues with your father onto my client...so, I'm glad to hear that you're getting help. Hey, good luck with that acting class!"

Maybe she wouldn't say that...maybe she'd be a professional and everything, but you can't tell me that she wouldn't THINK it (especially after that wine...).

I really like my boyfriend. And I'm glad he goes to therapy. I'm just not crazy about having our arguements dissected by someone who frequents the same social gatherings and doesn't know me from a stranger on the street.

Just for today, I can feel weird.