Attention, Friends! Due to cell phone minute constraints I will no longer be available for extended chat sessions between the hours of 8:00 am (I think) and 9:00 pm....UNLESS, you're a Verizon carrier. All others, it's not that I don't like you, it's just that I foolishly thought I could live on 900 minutes a month (ridiculous!). Please be patient, as I am planning to upgrade to the next level of minutes next month. However, if truth be told, the only plan it seems that would appropriately work for me would be one with an allotment of minutes that exceeds the actual number of minutes in any given month(more than 2,678,400). It seems that I have an allergy to the very idea of limitations (and caffeine), and am helpless in my attempts to lead a life without them.

Please bear with me. Thank you for your patience.

Just for today, I can accept my own limitations.

I got a really nice e-mail from a friend/reader-of-my-blog who wrote about taking new chances with his life. I felt happy to read it because it mirrors what I'm going through in my own life. I have never felt more terrified and excited and depressed and hopeful all at the same time. But I think this is the way life is supposed to feel. It's not supposed to be a routine driven by the timely consumption of lattes and Krispy Kreme donuts. Life, when lived properly, is perpetually uncertain, surprising, and revelatory.

And if you really want to know just what I'm talking about, try being self-employed (if you aren't already). OR, if you've mastered the aforementioned task, try pursuing your deepest desires. Both are teaching me to live in the present moment like never before.

Just for today, I am boldly stepping out into my life.

I'm getting a little tired of people referring "The Power of Now" to me (that and "The Da Vinci Code").
[Sidenote: It's hard to find good reading material these days. I'm either assaulted by the ovewhelming number of books at Border's or Barnes and Noble, or I'm referred to the same five books that everyone is reading. If everyone is talking about a book, why do I need to read it? It's already been fully digested into the culture and will filter into my psyche ANYWAY. Why do I have to know what everyone knows?]

That said, I'm thinking of writing a self-help book called, "The Power of No" (because I think there's more power in "no" than in "now," and I'm willing to go head to head with Eckhart Tolle (sp?).] It's going to be about my journey through self-employment. I'm hoping it has a happy ending in which all good things happen to those who say "no" to work that is bad for them (i.e., soul-killing, draining, etc). But I don't know, yet, because I'm in the midst of the journey myself...

Just for today, I believe in the power of no.

I took a bag of clothes to the Good Will today and I hope it will be my last time there for a long while. I watched a special about the used clothes black market a few weeks ago (I think it was on "Dateline") in which it was explained that Americans dispose of more clothes per year than any other country (it's something like billions of pounds of clothes). These items get sold on the black market all over the world. So, the Ann Taylor blouse that I, fortunately, outgrew when I lost weight a few years ago could, in all liklihood, end up on a woman in Nigeria. It's not that I mind a Nigerian woman wearing my old blouse, but the whole process is just such a gross testament to my own overconsumption.

Losing weight is one thing, but most of the times I get rid of old clothes because I don't like their "energy." They remind me of an old boyfriend, or a time when I was feeling particularly bad, or they just reek of 2002. (One time I bought furniture from a guy who I eventually dated and let's just say that furniture energy is not quite so easy to change.)

The point is that I'm ready to learn how to change my energy without shopping. My ideal self would discard clothes that are unusable and only buy new clothes when I absolutely need them (my plan to buy clothes only made in America lasted all of six months). I don't want to make any promises I can't keep, but I'm willing to learn to curb my overconsumption.

Just for today, I can change my shopping ways.

I had an interesting B.I.T last week (Breakthrough In Therapy) in which I realized that I sincerely believe that there are people out in the world who not only hate me and who are actively plotting ways to try to hurt me. While I'm sure there are people who don't particularly care for me, my fantasy is that these people are driven by a hate so powerful that they are willing to pass hours, days, weeks of their lives working on a campaign to destroy my credibility throughout the world in order to make my life as miserable as humanly possible. And try as I may to prove otherwise, there is such a substantial grain of truth in their story that I may as well accept that my efforts are futile and that I should resign myself to a life cooped up in my apartment eating frozen chow mein from Trader Joe's (although, I will cook it) and watching Sex and the City re-runs while snuggling up to my cat.

Just for today, I can have breakthroughs in therapy.

A hundred people doing yoga in a small hot room, does not a good smell make.

Being the karaoke whore that I am, I stayed out late last night waiting with baited breath for the MC to call my name so myself and my friend Tom could sing a truly lame rendition of "Suddenly Seymour." We spent the whole song trying to catch up with the changing color of the words on the screen. We were far better when we first sang it and, at that time, I literally didn't even know the song. In an ideal world, they would have a warm-up room where the slightly less drunk karaoke-ers could go and hum a few bars and get reacquainted with the tune. One thing I've learned, there's more to a song than the chorus. But such is the mystery of karaoke...where one fears to tread that is the song one must sing...

Just for today, it's OK that I don't sing perfectly.

Last night a guy I know approached me and, in all seriousness, said:

"Stella, I don't mean to make you self-conscious, but your hair clip is supposed to go on top of your head."

Now, let me stop right here to say that in the past I have been naiive or insecure or enough to indulge control freaks like this for whole minutes of my life. Precious time WASTED on the fragile egos of men who vent their unconscious anger towards their mothers onto any woman who doesn't spend every waking moment desperately pursuing the hopeless endeavor of looking like Supermodel X on the cover of a magazine (who herself doesn't even look like Supermodel X on the cover of a magazine). Minutes of my life wasted...

So, in an effort to amend these wasted hours of my life, I asked him:

"According to who?"

"You just look lop-sided to me," he said. And then, with an expression of concern, like he was doing me a big FUCKING FAVOR, he said "You look asymmetrical."

"Well, I'm sorry, I didn't get the memo that informed me to mold myself into your vision of what you need me to look like..."

And I left, THANK GOD, having wasted only seconds.

Now, I am not, by any means, saying that all men are like this. I actually have a lot of faith in men and as of late I have met some high quality men who really give me hope.

The other day I was speaking to a male friend and at one point in the discussion he said, "I realized that my anger towards my wife was really due to my own reactions to my feelings of inadequacy." Wow! Forget the dreamy eyes or nice arms, men who say things like this are like Brad Pitt in "Legends of the Fall" to me now. (Please note: I have no interest in this or any married man.)

My point is that just as my feelings can range from bitterness to hope, so to do the men who correspond to those feelings live and breathe out there in the world.

Just for today, I can wear my hair clip on the side of my head.

Which, I must say, is not the same thing as getting "my freak ON." That would be fun. A freak OUT is not fun. It's a "the sky is falling", "where is the script of my life?", "this is not my beautiful house" sort of thing. I'm usually scheduled for at least one freak-OUT every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at around 3:00 pm. I was speaking to my friend Jane's boyfriend at a party on Saturday night, and he mentioned that she has a freak-out every few days at 3:00 pm ALSO (what a coinkidink). I suggested that we schedule a talk at this time, as those of us adjusting to the life of self-employment need to stick together.

It's not that I want to freak out, but on a certain level (and I tried to explain this to Jane's boyfriend), these feelings are part of my "process," and if I don't indulget them once in a while I'll live in a prison of my own creation for the rest of my life.

Luckily, I'll be in my shrink's office at 3:00 pm tomorrow.

Just for today, I can accept my "process."

Yep, the inevitable has come to pass. I spoke to my mom tonight and found out that the day has finally arrived when every last member of my family has entered therapy. It was only a matter of time, really. But life in the 21st century has made it's needs known. Forget about college funds, as soon as I have a child, I'm setting up the therapy fund. College may have helped me seem socially acceptable in certain circles, but therapy makes me FEEL socially accepted in my own society.

Just for today, my clan is in therapy.

This freelance writer life-style is totally spoiling me. I'm forever ruined for office life.

If I had to go back to an office-job, I would totally fail at the social etiquette. My office-chat skills are sinking to an all-time low. I'd never know how to act at office birthday parties after the Cost-co cake and Cherry Coke sugar bomb has worn off. Am I forgetting how to take coffee breaks? Am I losing my ability to send off a chain e-mail on a whim....?

Now, if I need a break I just walk over a few feet and plop back into bed. You call this work? No, I don't. It's criminal, really. On some days I actually make money and the only reason I left the apartment is because I wanted somebody to notice my outfit. Yes, I have already written about the 24-7 work week and how I enjoy it far more than the civilian 9-5 life. But what I haven't mentioned is how downright WEIRD I am becoming. Or, WEIRD-ER I should say. It's just not natural to not have to get in your car and drive to a desk where you can plunk down your coffee-mug and stare at your computer screen as it starts-up and think to yourself, "Why was I an Art History major?"

It's just kind of un-American for each day to be different and special and unique and not your own version of Groundhog's day.

Just for today, I am developing into a freelance writer.

I went out to a birthday dinner party on Friday night for my friend who was turning 40. As it turns out, the entire party was over forty, except for me. In the face of a minor personal crisis, it was nice to know that at least I have seven years to go till I have to contend with that trauma. Only one of the five women at the party was married and a mother. She sort of bummed us out with her talk about how she has no time to be creative, which was a giant buzzkill to any remaining fantasies I might have about the state of Married Motherhood. That and the fact that my belief in romantic love was recently decimated, I'm starting to get really cozy and comfortable in the prospect of living an eternity in the state of single childlessness (sans the cats...cuz that's when it gets depressing). Strangely, it seems like the older I get the less friends I have who mope around about being single and childless. Maybe it's because we all have at least one Stressed Out Married Mother in our lives. They're great for a solid reality check when you start to worry that the hole in your soul could be filled by a baby. No, you still have that hole, it's hearkening is just muffled by the cries of your child...

Just for today, I am content with my single life.