"Hey, I like your hair. Did you change it?"

"Yeah...Thanks...I like your shirt, that color looks good on you."

"Oh, thank you...your shirt looks nice on you, too."

"Thanks...I like your necklace."

"Oh, my boyfriend gave it to me...Ooooh, I love those earrings."

"Really? They're like a million years old."

"Wow, they look like some I just saw at that store on Main St..."

"Oh, I know the one you're talking about! I LOVE that store!"

"So expensive, though..."

"Yeah."

"Well...bye."

"Ok, bye."

Just for today, I can be girly.

Yesterday, I went back to my natural hair color (SFX: angels sing).

I just couldn't take the stress and financial strain of the upkeep. Not to mention the tinge of betrayal experienced by my soul each time I looked in the mirror. Over the last few months, whenever anyone paid me a compliment regarding my hair (nothing major...just like, "Hey, your hair looks nice today" sort of thing) I would grab some strands and shout, "THIS IS NOT THE REAL ME!" Said person would then wonder why he/she had bothered acknowledging my appearance seeing as I am at war with myself and unable to receive a compliment.

Just for today, I can be a brunette.

I had a session with my Eyebrow Lady on Friday (I just couldn't keep plucking them while driving) and plopped down on her chair in exhaustion from the work week. She told me that in Iran people work very hard and, yet, unlike in America, they have plenty of energy to go out every night. But do they do Power Yoga three times a week? Didn't think so. I think I'm right in assuming that this torture is unique to Americans working out their perfectionist issues as related to body image AND spirituality ( as in "I am living SO much more in moment than blanketyblank!"). Between all the physical and mental exertion, who has time for real life experiences? In Iran there is a special night of the week considered to be particularly conducive to procreation (Thursday...odd, I know). I think what she has really been trying to tell me over the past seven years (I think I need to start taking notes) is that Americans (like me) need to have more guilt-free, unencumbered sex. No argument here...

Just for today, I can listen to my Eyebrow Lady.

Last night I saw a car with three bumper stickers, "I Love My Pit Bull," "Trust the Godess," and "Stop the War!" (or something to that effect...). What?! Who is this person? A peace/killer-dog loving feminist? It's one of my goals in life to cover my car in bumper stickers so totally contrary to each that everyone driving behind me becomes so confused and busy filtering through their mental file cabinets of prejudices that they forget to honk in exasperation when I stall at the green light because I'm still plucking my eyebrows (shame on my lazy English-major ass for this run-on sentence!...and shame on my distracted-ass for plucking my eyebrows while driving!). Maybe my bumper sticker collage will include something like "Animals Taste Good!" (I actually saw this one), and "Eat Raw!" (though, that would be painfully obvious). Or "Well behaved women seldom make history" (my father has this on his car for reasons that still remain strange and mysterious to me) and "I Heart Explosives!" (you get the picture). The truth is, I'm secretly jealous of people who possess enough confidence in their convictions to actually glue something on their vehicle about it (do you know how hard it is to get those things off?!). Not to mention the uncool factor, bumper stickers are a total rebellion against that frosty LA materialism. Even if it is a Honda Civic that I'm looking frosty and cool inside of. Ever since Burning Man Hippy Guy side-swiped my bumper with his Partridge Family-Style School Bus and I got a new bumper out of it, I have been trying to keep my bumper pristine and have become a parallel parking Olympian...but give me a few more years and I might succumb to my bumper sticker urge.

Just for today, I can read bumper stickers.

...and it was a schoolnight, too.

Lately, I find myself dancing with a short Latino guy who doesn't miss a beat. It's an aerobic workout just to keep up and after a few songs I am drenched with sweat (last night, I didn't properly dry my hair and so I had this crazy rock-star/Muppet-head thing going on, as well). I don't know his last name, or what he does for a living, but if this keeps up any longer we're going to have to get married. It's just way too much fun and my husband would never approve. Good thing he's nowhere in sight...

Just for today, I can dance salsa.

I just spoke to a friend and told her that I lost my check book last night.

"Didn't you lose it last week?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah...no, that was my wallet...I found that."

Whoops...I had forgotten to do the friend rotation on this week's psychodrama. It's fine to have a psychodrama, I just need to relay the facts out over disparate relationships so that nobody discovers the true nature of my insanity (unless they read my blog).

Last month I wrote an email to a person I was interested in contacting about redesigning my website (finally...I know). The subject line read:

"Hey, Chris...It's Chris, Chris' friend!" (I'm not making this up...I am truly losing it).

I was taught early on not to drag everyone into my problems, but what I'm realizing is that they're getting harder to hide. I mean it's not like I have an excuse or anything. I don't do drugs, I have a glass of wine or two about once a month, and I spend hours in yoga staying connected to my breathe...could it be the coffee (it's pretty damn strong)?

Growing up, I was frequently the kid left standing there when all the other kids' parents had picked them up. My father would arrive in a panic, totally having forgotten that it was his day, or a certain time. I can't say today that I couldn't see myself doing the same thing if I had kids (maybe that's why I don't). Some people contend with the war, famine, racism, violence, and betrayal...mine is the more elusive and chronic problem of disengaging from the essential act of living.

Just for today, I accept that I'm a space case.

I've had a really bad headache for the past few days that I believe has come from stretching my brain around a new project at work. In an effort to keep my head from exploding (because that would be embarrassing) I've tried a few remedies, most notably yoga and coffee. However, after a while I finally succumbed to a tried and true remedy for all my ailments which is the immersion of my psyche into the personal lives of very hot famous people...in this case, those of Brad and Angelina.

It goes without saying that there's no cure for stress quite like the voyeuristic preoccupation with the lives of celebrities. For the sake of my headache, heartache, and the cynicism that that threatens to creep through the cells of my being, I've chosen to believe in the special love that is Brangelina (why do people mix their names together like I just did? It's so annoying!). Not only are they two of the most beautiful people in the Western world (which seems to dictate the tastes for the rest of the world...I'm not saying I'm happy about it, but that's just the way it is) but their relationship seems to rise above the petty and shallow couplings of us mere mortals (aka, people I actually know). Perhaps, behind closed doors, outside of the public's nosey scrutiny (like mine) they have the chemistry of a wet match. But if that's the case, I don't know need to know about it (nor do I want to). All I care about is they project their storybook love affair onto the tabloids that I consume and, thus, remedy my headache...

Just for today, I can cure my headache.

Towards the end of every yoga class I have felt the occasional splash of water on my face or body. For many weeks now, I have told myself that this is the byproduct of someone opening their water bottle and sloshing it into their mouth with such force that it spills every which way in large droplets. Well, let's just say that DeNial isn't just a river in Egypt because tonight myself and a woman sitting two mats down from me figured out that this "water" is really the mixed condensation of everyone's sweat dripping from the ceiling...(gross?!)

After a moment, I realized that I recognized this woman from a creative networking function I once attended at Shakey's Pizza (seriously). Just then, a man walked by who she called out to. I turned and recognized him from an improv class we both took a few years ago. Here were two people who had both impressed me with their creativity at one point in time AND they knew each other.

While driving home, I wondered if consciousness is a point of attraction and if other friends and acquaintances of mine had met through avenues completely alien to my life. The experience feels oddly comforting. It's as if, in the eyes of the universe, I'm in a class of sorts and these are my colleagues. While my adulthood (if you can call it that) has often (if not always) felt like a chaotic and unmethodical (or just plain confusing) path towards middle-aged (40 minus 5 in counting...also known as 35), maybe I have arrived somewhere, albeit a place unmarked by traditional social milestones (according to the NY Times more US women are unmarried than ever before...rock on)...even if it is just a very, very, VERY musty yoga class. If I'm going to commune with other people's sweat, at least it's the sweat of people I like and respect.

Just for today, I can have an intense experience in yoga class.

Last night my good friend suggested that perhaps I'm over-indentifying with the label, "S.I.N.G.L.E,"... even if I do qualify it with "and fabulous" as stated so eloquently in Season Two of Sex and the City (LOVE THAT SHOW!)

In truth, I have a hard time walking around just telling people I'm "fabulous" (even though I am). So, why am I so comfortable advertising my single status, an act driven by my less-than-fabulous feelings about myself? Because I'm extremely co-dependent and I'm trying to connect with my "audience" by being down-on-her-luck single girl (hey, it worked for Bridget Jones). Sadly, I think I've been supported in this view by culture. Being self-deprecating can be very disarming in our hyper-active, super-competitive, 24-Hour-Fitness, $400 jeans, culture. That's why we have magazines devoting to tearing down absolutely fabulous beautiful people and ripping out the various manifestations of their humanity...divorce, addiction, and cellulite...because nobody wants to feel that their life would only be different without that weakness for Krispy Kreme (though, I, personally, don't get it...for me it's Bran Muffins and soy lattes...which will still do a number on my thighs). But it's not my job to make everyone around me comfortable.

Just for today, I'm more than just single and fabulous (though, I am that, too).

I can't believe that I've wasted everyone's time with all my whiney crap about not being with child(s) when all I had to do was go to downtown LA, rent some old, worn out, 1950's ice skates for $2 and get snow ploughing on an ice rink the size of my father's back porch, to wake up and smell the exhaust off the 110 and realize that life can be fun. Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles has this miniature (kind of wannabe...but who cares) Rockefeller center-ish plaza with this pint-sized ice rink that the public can skate around in. It takes all of five seconds to get from one end of the "rink" to the other, not to mention the 405-like traffic jam created, but it was a great time.

Just for today, I can ice skate in LA.

Whenever I feel depressed the following lyrics run through my head like a tape. The following is the most poetic description of depression (or my experience of it) that I have ever read. They are from the song "After All" by Dar Williams.

"Well the whole truth
Is like the story of a wave unfurled
But I held the evil of the world
So I stopped the tide
Froze it up from inside

And it felt like a winter machine
That you go through and then
You catch your breath and winter starts again
And everyone else is spring bound

And when I chose to live
There was no joy - it's just a line I crossed
It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost
So I was not lost or found."

It gets very uplifting later, but today I wasn't thinking about that part (it would have made me puke). I was too lost in a "winter machine" of my own creation, an empty vacuous place where I was neither "lost nor found" (can you tell I was an English major? this is exactly how I wrote papers, extracting specific phrases and words...god, I miss college...). I felt about as vibrant as the strip mall where I wandered around during my lunch break in an effort to shake myself out of my funk (big mistake). There's nothing like the site of Panda, Rubio's, and Baja to validate the sense of soulessness in America. (Warning: pretentious English major-like prose to follow...)I had no choice but to float through the motions, alive in the most pedestrian way (are you still with me?), a fellow zombie who inhabits The Gap and consumes the blood of the earth in the form of Calvin Klein underwear and cases of bottled water (it was so freakin' hot today that fear of global warming temporarily got my blood flowing).

After a presciption of yoga, therapy, and, conversation with friend, I felt better.

Just for today, I can accept depression.

I was walking with my friend today when two separate toddlers approached me. One wanted to show me her doll, and the other just smiled at me.

"My uterus is creating a gravitational pull towards babies," I told my friend. Not to get all sci-fi on my reproductive organs, but I swear there is something about a woman's fertility and ovulation that babies have a sixth sense about (they see dead people, too....so it shouldn't be surprising). Perhaps, it's the way immigrants feel about their homeland...?

I told my friend that I've given up on meeting a guy my age because the majority of these men that I meet are either married, in a committed relationship, or addicted to porn (or something equally non-conducive to a relationship). After 40 (and maybe even late 30's), it seems that many more men are single again...the marriage or long-term relationship didn't work out, and they've taken some down time, worked on themselves, and rediscovered their love for cycling and Asian cooking. But men in my specific age group (32-37), are currently in domestic hibernation with somebody (not me) having reached maturation at a socially acceptable age...So, for this and other reasons I've widened the net of dating possibilities far outside of my age box, race, class, and socio-economic background. I'm as open as I've ever been to different types of guys so long as they don't do things like send messages on MySpace that say:

"I know we are strangers and all but I was wondering if...you'd care to meet for drinks?
PS: If you agree for a drink, I want you to know I don't pay for 'her' drinks. Its 50/50. The if we start dating its still 50/50. Maybe 70/30." (I left the typos in for the full effect.)

Would someone take a look at my MySpace profile (http://www.myspace.com/searchforsanity)
and please tell me...do I look THAT DESPERATE?

In truth, though, things are not as dire as I like to make them seem (people like to laugh at the plight of desperate women and I am desperate to make people laugh). In reality, I'm really excited to date and meet new men because for the first time in my adult life, I'm not interested in a guy just because he looks good on paper. All throughout my 20's and early 30's I acted, in part, on the faulty belief that a relationship was something I could add to my resume What I didn't understand was that a good relationship is like a gift from God and while there's nothing wrong with a good job, education, and portfolio, you can't cuddle up and go to bed with them (which doesn't mean that I didn't love these guys for who they were...just that the relationships were highly dysfunctional). I've also spent enough time in Los Angeles to know that money not only can't buy love, but it (sadly) can't buy a happy childhood.

However, since I have intimacy issues that take the form of irrational judgements on otherwise wonderful prospective partners and friends,

BAD REASONS NOT TO SAY "YES" TO A DATE WITH SOMEONE

1) I don't like his shirt.
2) His iPod is full of George Micheal (and he's straight...the potential date, that is).
4) He likes me.
5) He's never been in therapy.
6) He's short.
7) He's off the beat (this is up for debate).
8) He thinks the Rubik's Cube (or enter any 80's gadget currently experiencing a retro re-emergence) was just invented (this is so magazin-ey...but how else do you say "young?").

I also wrote out GOOD REASONS TO SAY "NO" TO DATE WITH SOMEONE, but they were so frighteningly obvious (despite the fact that I had to learn them the hard way) that I was too embarrassed to publish them (and that's REALLY saying something!).

Just for today, I can blog about dating.

Tonight a loud "CRACK!" echoed throughout my yoga class, like someone had just pulled a branch off of a tree.

"That was my ankle," I informed my friend beside me.

While I try to keep to myself in yoga, by the sheer volume made by my joints in class it seems that some part of me must really need attention. It's not that nobody else creaks and cracks in yoga, but nobody is as loud as I am.

Just for today, I am creaky.

Today, I called my cable company and cancelled my HBO. It was a difficult decision and I had to take a moment to grieve this loss. It's not that I can't afford it (though, I never say "I can't afford," but "I choose not to spend money on BLANK") and it's certainly not that I don't love it. I'm like a walking advertisement for HBO. I thought I was the first one to make up the advertising campaign, "It's not television, it's HBO," because I really mean it.

However, certain things weren't happening in my life. Two, to be specific, and they both take place in bed after 11:00 pm. Yes, you probably guessed the first one. Reading. I haven't cracked a book open in the past year-and-a-half since the cable guy came and installed a box a few days after my boyfriend broke up with me. I wept in gratitude knowing that my evenings would soon be filled with high-quality distraction from the heart-wrenching pain of ending a relationship. And I was right. Instead of confronting the deep loneliness of solitude, all I had to do was hit a button, and the next two hours were spent in a coma-like haze of half-consciousness while I surfed snippets of "Enterouge," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Ponrnucopia," and the occassional 80's hit ("Pretty in Pink," "Indescent Proposal," and "Pretty in Pink" (I love the scene where Molly "Andy" Ringwald doesn't want Andrew "Blane" McCarthy to drop her off at her house because she doesn't want him to "see where she lives"... I felt similarly in high school, though, I KNOW, Mom, that we weren't that poor and our house was very, very cute). Sure, I can now lip synch whole scenes from "Pretty in Pink," recite every ringer by Johnny Drama, and I know that porn is a niche market, but my grammar and spelling (in case you haven't noticed) has started to deteriorate (actually, that's a total lie...I'm just very lazy), not to mention my attention span (I had a huge crush on Andrew McCarthy when I was ten...did I pay my car insurance?). I was beginning to get all crack-addict-y about it (if this verbiage doesn't make my point clear, I don't know what will), lying awake at 2:00 am to watch the ending of "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" despite having seen it five times and never once enjoying it. Sure, there's "Real Time with Bill Maher" (he rocks) and the occasional educational documentary ("When the Levees Broke"), but for all the programming that nurtured my mind, there were fifty bad movies I couldn't seem to turn off or that I had watched only the middle portion of ten times (I don't think I once saw a movie from start to finish).

Then there's reason Numero Dos. A friend told me that in India the government is planning on giving away TV's to control population growth. There's got to be some reverse correlation between television viewing and sexual activity...need I say more?

Just for today, I can say goodby to HBO.

Today, I called my cable company and cancelled my HBO. It was a difficult decision and I had to take a moment to grieve this loss. It's not that I can't afford it (though, I never say "I can't afford," but "I choose not to spend money on BLANK") and it's certainly not that I don't love it. I'm like a walking advertisement for HBO. I thought I was the first one to make up the advertising campaign, "It's not television, it's HBO," because I really mean it.

However, certain things weren't happening in my life. Two, to be specific, and they both take place in bed after 11:00 pm. Yes, you probably guessed the first one. Reading. I haven't cracked a book open in the past year-and-a-half since the cable guy came and installed a box a few days after my boyfriend broke up with me. I wept in gratitude knowing that my evenings would soon be filled with high-quality distraction from the heart-wrenching pain of ending a relationship. And I was right. Instead of confronting the deep loneliness of solitude, all I had to do was hit a button, and the next two hours were spent in a coma-like haze of half-consciousness while I surfed snippets of "Enterouge," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Ponrnucopia," and the occassional 80's hit ("Pretty in Pink," "Indescent Proposal," and "Pretty in Pink" (I love the scene where Molly "Andy" Ringwald doesn't want Andrew "Blane" McCarthy to drop her off at her house because she doesn't want him to "see where she lives"... I felt similarly in high school, though, I KNOW, Mom, that we weren't that poor and our house was very, very cute). Sure, I can now lip synch whole scenes from "Pretty in Pink," recite every ringer by Johnny Drama, and I know that porn is a niche market, but my grammar and spelling (in case you haven't noticed) has started to deteriorate (actually, that's a total lie...I'm just very lazy), not to mention my attention span (I had a huge crush on Andrew McCarthy when I was ten...did I pay my car insurance?). I was beginning to get all crack-addict-y about it (if this verbiage doesn't make my point clear, I don't know what will), lying awake at 2:00 am to watch the ending of "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" despite having seen it five times and never once enjoying it. Sure, there's "Real Time with Bill Maher" (he rocks) and the occasional educational documentary ("When the Levees Broke"), but for all the programming that nurtured my mind, there were fifty bad movies I couldn't seem to turn off or that I had watched only the middle portion of ten times (I don't think I once saw a movie from start to finish).

Then there's reason Numero Dos. A friend told me that in India the government is planning on giving away TV's to control population growth. There's got to be some reverse correlation between television viewing and sexual activity...need I say more?

Just for today, I can say goodby to HBO.

I had to turn my comments off because I was being inundated with a hail storm of spam that triggered my inner-victim and made me want to cry. However, now that I realized that I can configure my publishing platform to approve or deny comments (hello!), I am receiving much less...so, uh...(shuffle)... what I'm (ahem) saying, in case you haven't guessed it already, is...would you please leave me a comment? It's kind of lonely to look at all of those 0's!!

Just for today, I can ask to get my needs met.

I brought in the New Year with champagne and the Beastie Boys at a friend of a friend's party. I think two Asian lesbians might have been hitting on me (one kept freak dancing me and the other brought me a strong drink...you decide). This morning I had lunch with a friend and showed her my Vision Board (a collage of pictures and words of things I want to manifest in the year). We waited half an hour till a waiter took our order. By his attitude and the size of the hickey on his neck, I could see that he had better things to do than to bring me a vegetable soup. This afternoon I went to yoga and jabbered on with a friend about how excited we are for 2007 to bring us things like joy, prosperity, and a sex-life.

I'm really excited for 2007.

Just for today, I can bring in the New Year!