An ex-what...I can't say, as this was almost ten years ago when I picked relationships based on how high the guy ranked on the Lost Puppy scale [unlike now when I pick relationships based on on how high the guy ranks on the Lost Puppy scale, BUT...I'M CONSCIOUS OF IT...even while it's happening (how this helps me, I'm still not sure...but I can definitely credit therapy for this ability)].

Anyway, the point is, why do these guys continue to turn up? I live in a big anonymous city so I can shuck the past along with last year's Gap jeans. At least my last boyfriend had the decency to move out of LA (actually, according to my friends I "cast a spell" - which I was not aware of - that made him disappear into the ether...I must say, if I have this sort of power, it really might be worth my while to learn how to harness it and use it on Evil Health Insurance Companies, people who talk on their cell phones while checking out at Trader Joe's, and, yes, ALL guys who know me in a biblical sense...). But anyway, while I can make peace with the past, I'm not sure how I feel about it coming up in my face while I'm picking out an onion for my enchilada casserole...

Just for today, I can have an ex encounter in the produce aisle.

There's a moment in every partnered salsa dance between which the leader (male) executes a move and the woman (follower) receives the information by the leader and moves in accordance with that information. In the beginning, when both leader and follower are learning, these moments are long, awkward, lumbering. It's, generally speaking, challenging for American women to follow. Sometimes, it's challenging for American men to lead. However, as dancers become experienced and skilled, these moments shorten in duration and lose the akwardness. As dancers become artists, these moments become graceful and what make watching dancing so attractive. However, there is a level of experience, skill, grace, creativity, in which sometimes, these moments cease to exist altogether and the experience becomes a (Warning: big English Major word) symbiotic flow where there is no moment between...it just happens. There is no leader, no followers. Just two dancers, with one mind. Like instinct.

This is where I want to live. All the time.

Just for today, I can trust my instincts.

It's impossible. My emotional combustion usually takes the form of exhausting myself through excessive housework (and this is on weekends). It's probably hard for a normal (i.e., sane) person to imagine how an immaculately clean apartment that's astutely organized could possibly need attending to for several hours every single day. But the truth is, every day of our lives creates dirt and disorder (it's really a problem). Dust settles, pillows get out of order, clothes get dirty, dishes get used...it never ends!...And now I'm home with ALL DAY TO CLEAN...my heart goes out to 1950's housewives who were socially validated in this craziness...(at least they had husbands to try to impress)...

ANYWAY...in order to preserve my sanity, I've moved myself to Wireless Coffee Shop Land with all the other unemployed folk. I don't have proof that they're unemployed as I haven't taken a survey or anything (not a bad idea), but from the relaxed vibe of the place, and the number of Facebook and MySpace pages on monitors, I'm not getting the energy of daily grind ('cept for the beans). Is this where our tax payer money is going?!...outrageous (love being with my peeps...).

Now, I'm going to start REAL writing (aka, writing that could lead to potential profit and a higher standing in society, as opposed to the inevitable embarrassment resulting from this compulsive vomiting of personal information that gains me nothing more than therapeutic rewards - which, considering the price of therapy is worth something)...Ok, so short prayer: God, please help me stay focused and not get distracted by cute guys who are doing their laundry next door, girls gossiping behind me, coffee, myspace, email...).

Just for today, I can work at a wireless coffee shop.

Actually, I was laid off. My friend used the expression "shit-canned" and I just liked it. It's so white trash.

I'm actually excited, scared, in need of a caffeine-fix. Just overwhelmed by a new life adjustment.

My primary concern right now is health insurance. What I'm learning is that even if I were a billionaire, one irregular pap smear and I'm ineligible for the most ghetto HMO. As a society, we are truly fucked. As soon as I can find some ghetto insurance, I'm going to hop onboard the revolution that Michael Moore has started...

My goal is to blog every day during this time. Thanks for being a witness to this important time in my life.

Just for today, I can be shit-canned.

Naturally, grateful for the normal things, that are important but boring to list, like my health, my apartment, food, the health of those I'm close to...etc....I am also grateful for tangerines, antibiotics, lip liner, oxy nasal wash, the $.99 store, people who signal when they turn, Peete's coffee, salsa music, hot salseros who ask me to dance, Netflix (even though my latest movies seem to have never arrived), public libraries, Macintosh, dental floss, my high school Spanish teacher, friends who listen to my neuroses, chocolate, all the ex-boyfriends who broke up with me (thereby, doing me giant favors), the guys at webstrikesolutions who respond to my angry emails, my nerdy accountant, my friends who let me leave gyno-related messages on their voice mail, my Super Fun Chica Salsera Friends, and, my blog,

The there are the more abstract things like...

...the ability to feel.
...the ability to feel love.
...the ability to feel the pain that makes the love that much more palpable.
...the ability to have enough consciousness of the fleeting nature of life and moments that I don't spend it completely at shopping malls obsessing over $15 eye shadow.
...the ability to know when I need to go to therapy (pretty much every week).

Just for today, I am grateful on Thanksgiving Day.

WTF!...putting ads on my site is a PIMA.

Just for today, I can use acronyms.

Despite total exhaustion, an ER-worthy spike-heel injury on my foot, a hygenically-questionable sweat-induced slime state among the dancing population (it's gross until you find yourself in the same state), poorly-ventilated steam-room-style atmosphere, steady dehydration resulting from the gallons of sweat exhumed (not sure if this is the correct use of the word "exhume," I think it actually refers to cremation...I'm too lazy to look it up so I'll chalk it up to the general degeneration of reading and writing skills in our society) from my pours (but great for my skin) and the bartender who ignores me (water drinkers aren't exactly their favorite clientelle), and poor-to-dangerous dancing conditions that include a sardine-packed club with a stone floor...still, I can't say NO.. I hear a song I love, a great dancer grabs my hand...it's all over.

When I was a kid, my father used to take me on Extreme Backpacking trips that involved long hikes that inevitably led us off the trail and into often treacherous, rocky, terrain. We got lost. We got bitten. I collected rocks and dreamed of five-star hotel rooms and ballet lessons (whatever seemed "normal" to me). Have I ever mentioned that I hate Nature? (There's a reason why I live in the city). Eventually, I realized that I had a choice in the matter and, along with everyone else my father knows, refused to go on hikes with him...but by then it was too late. I was already indoctrinated into the Extreme = Challenge = Fun mentality that tows the line between interesting and self-destructive.

Just for today, I can dance Extreme Salsa.

Super Evil Flash Programmer and I caught up over chocolate cheesecake at the bi-monthly Office Birthday Meeting. I wasn't going to eat any seeing as I'll be publicly half-naked in a few hours for my inaugural salsa performance....[If I didn't invite you, it's probably because I don't want you there (sorry). Not because I don't like you, but I have no idea how I'll perform under the scrutiny of people I know seeing me dressed like a stripper, while trying to stay on beat with Beatless Shorty. Little did I ever imagine that years of therapy and pseudo-spirituality would lead to the perfection of the "sexy walk." I'm trusting that it's all in the name of embracing my sexuality and inner-Goddess...who walks very sexy.]

...but then I realized, that this is chocolate we're talking about. So, I had a sliver. And then another one (it all equals one regular slice).

Anyway, Super Evil Flash Programmer is all stressed about the $1600 a month health insurance premium he'll have to pay to cover himself and his wife. What a scam. All I know is that unless you study the insurance booklets like a mafia tax attorney on crack, you're getting screwed...I'm starting to think that when I was a little kid and wanted another piece of candy and my dad would say "No," and I'd say "Why the hell not? (except I didn't use the word 'hell')...You've had three more pieces than I've had! That's not fair!" and he'd say, "Life isn't fair,"...maybe, he was trying to teach me something...

Along with my bra, skirt, and eye shadow, I might be wearing some chocolate cheesecake tonight.

Just for today, I can eat weigh in on eating chocolate cheesecake.

Super Evil Flash Programmer is all stressed out about being married and, therefore, not available to provide the usual creative inspiration that I have, unfortunately, come to depend upon. Yet, another reason why I oppose marriage. It takes away all the interesting people and makes them like everyone else. Sorry, if I'm offending You Married Folk, but there's gotta be some compensation for sleeping alone (I don't always sleep alone, but there's not exactly an indenture on the other side of my bed...what's up with the TMI?!...must be the holidays...).

Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to help Super Evil Flash Programmer through his post-newly-wed crisis with appropriate forms of support, such as listening and offering suggestions (that are most certainly The Right Thing), but (not to get all West LA Spiritual on you), we can only be teachers, not saviors. I love how West LA Spiritual (yoga, recovery, therapy, blah, blah, blah...) so beautifully justifies and supports my ever-increasing self-involvement...

Not that I don't want to help people. I do. It's just hard to find a way to "be of service" that actually helps, rather than irritate for the purpose of easing my own conscience. I tutor my friend, Powerful Activist Woman, who works and lives in the "ghetto." She pays me to work with her, but seems remiss when I offer her my charity. I figure she's saving me from the embarrassing consequences of my own White Guilt. Really, she's the one I should be paying. I believe that most people, whatever their struggles, really just want to learn how to fish and don't want the baked salmon or lightly battered tuna tar tar that we're all trying to shove down their throats...in the end, PAW is my hero.

I am also inspired by my colleague, Miss Ironic Sunshine. She's 26 and wears a different Flight of the Conchords t-shirt practically every day, crocs, and a walk-man playing a tune by some former boy band member. She never, ever seems the slightest bit irritated, annoyed or disenchanted by life. I want a cabbage-patch doll of her (why am I turning everyone into toys?...that's twisted and weird)...

Just for today, I can find new heroes.

My sinuses were out of control. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it felt like time to surrender to my drug pushing, pharmaceutical-industry ass-kissing Republican doctor...

However, he gave me Steroids to go with my anti-biotic/sudafed cocktail. I know "weird" is a far overused word (by me), (so I'm not going to use it), but I'll just say that I can see how murders are blamed on steroids. I just felt...WEIRD (ok, so I lied...see what I mean?). It felt like something chemical and soulless was coarsing through my veins...like the opposite of prozac, manufactured anger, instead of manufactured happiness. I felt angry and depressed in an inhuman way...the way a robot might feel when snubbed...

My sinuses feel great, but that was not fun. So, much for Western medicine...

Just for today, I'm going holistic.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling depressed or a little lost, I like to go to the wedding websites of people I sort-of know who had or are planning elaborate six-figure wedding extravaganzas in some remote idyllic vineyard with lots of rolling hills and adorable Bed and Breakfast places. Ideally, these sites detail the five showers, and three bachelor parties leading up to the elaborate wedding ceremony, and followed by the home-based post-wedding party for all the po' folk who couldn't afford to shell out the cash to fly to the grand location...sometimes there are cool things like links to the plans for their eco-conscious tract home that mysteriously still supports the wetlands...

The fascination lies in measuring their seeming disconnection from reality as defined by own admittedly judgement-ridden mind. Ok, so call me a cynical wench if you must (hey, I'll call myself that), but from my urban, 12-stepped, therapy shrunken, urban, Sex and the City (LOVE THAT SHOW!) brainwashed, psyche, there's something fascinating about the blind embrace of the American Dream as interpreted through the next generation of Orange County (insert your favorite suburban mecca...I personally, am fascinated by the other side of the orange curtain...as well as the curtain itself, actually, I would like to get a pair for my French doors). Maybe it's being raised with the hippy vibes of a single mother or just my own admittedly perverse insistence on being different...all I know is that I wasn't the only who went to see American Beauty...so the question remains, just how medicated is young America? And where can I get my hands on some of that?...hopefully, they have a generic version (I have lame health insurance).

Just for today, I can be honest about my cynicism.

I had a dream the other night that my building manager gave my apartment key to strangers who, believing themselves to be the new tenants, came in and redecorated it in their own style and taste. I came home to a fantastically redecorated New York style apartment that was about five times the size of my studio (this is dreamland). Despite the fact that it looked infinitely nicer, classier, and more Pottery-Barnesque...I was really pissed. Although I yelled at these people to move all their stuff out and change it to the way it was, I secretly liked what they had done...

...maybe I'm ready for some new diggs.

Just for today, I can analyze my dreams.

In the end, I'm not really vain enough to be motivated by the sight of my thighs and butt in yoga pants.

No, the incentive to cut out the daily intake of flour and sugar (starting with scones in the morning and ending with Halloween candy that was probably inedible when it came out of the manufacturing plant back in May, and least of all now...), is my chronic sinus problems. I don't know if that makes me a better person or anything, but sometimes when I look down at my back thighs during Warrior I, I think to myself, "this flab makes me more human and, therefore, more lovable..." As much as I've internalized the self-help babble puked forward by every other person in West LA, there's something perverse about taking pride in the result of my addiction to junk food...is Madonna less lovable for having a flab-free body?

One things for sure, Madonna would certainly not wait for a health issue to plague her before she cut out anything that wasn't pure organic vegan food of the Gods. [I have a friend, Chrissy (this is her joke), who leads her life according to the WWMD (What Would Madonna Do?) principle...I confess to doing the same]. Regardless, the truth of the matter is that Madonna would not put a bite sized Nestle crunch piece of chocolate in her body (let alone five) if you paid her whatever she netted out for her last recording and touring deal (something in the kajillions).

The bottom line is if I cut down even a quarter of Halloween and Trader Joe's candy that calls my name all day long, I'll look and feel better.

Just for today, I'm saying NO to putting crap in my body.

Jewish American Salsera (JAS) is an independent, financially successful woman who, in her own words, has "landed" in salsa world to her surprise and confusion at an age when she thought she might be doing other things (like driving children to soccer practice and obsessing about college tuitions). Since that is not the case, she frequently finds herself dancing, socializing and cavorting with men she otherwise might only communicate with as they take her plate or hand her the car keys. She's not a snob, just a product of American education and privilege. She's attractive, she's single, she's got nothing better going on than salsa world...which short of domestic bliss is pretty hard to beat.

The Animal (or maybe we should call him El Animal) is a salsero who looks like his namesake. In her words, he looks and dances "primordial." He's frequently drunk and sometimes a likes to throw his partners in the air (I can attest that it's terrifying). He loves JAS, she's his "favorite."

El Animal scared JAS at first, but now he's starting to grow on her. Thrown together by a mutual passion for music in a city where the two might only cross paths in the service industry, this odd couple seem to be developing a nice, weird, sort of platonic, salsa dance relationship.

If you live in Los Angeles the lines between classes are generally pretty cut in dry. Salsa World, however, is magical, to say the least...where else would these two come together? A playground that possesses the same sort of innocent openness of childhood, in this pretty hard society, Salsa World it's a pocket of love and acceptance that seems to widen the more time you spend in it.

Just for today, I love Salsa World

I told Super Evil Flash Programmer today that I am very interested in talking to the dead these days. Not scary ghosts, but the people who cared about me who might offer me some insight and guidance on my life. I figure they have a much broader perspective seeing as they're dead and don't have to worry about things like the cable bill, cutting down on sugar and caffeine, and emotionally unavailable men (or maybe they do...I've never been dead, so I don't know...perhaps they have platonic relationships and eat clouds...). My hope is that maybe they can give me a sign that'll help me get out of the rut of self-defeating behaviors without all the trial and error...I need a winning lottery ticket on Life Direction (are you listening, Grandma?).

I told my therapist the other day that my life feels like the movie Groundhog Day (starring the beautifully pained Bill Murray). In case you haven't seen it, the character lives the same day over and over again until he gets it right on a spiritual level. Similarly, every week I'm presented with the same choices over and over again, including but not limited to:

Do I waste my time listening to Super Evil Flash Programmer explain why he can't fix Issue #43,891, or do I adopt my Holly Hunter in Broadcast News persona and risk being a cold-hearted bi-otch (as opposed to a regular bi-otch...who everyone loves)?

Do I accept the invitation to dance with Creepy Toothless Man (insert your favorite David Lynch character) or wait for a good dancer with healthy dental hygiene? (actually, he wasn't a bad dancer...just the teeth thing...).

Do I consider Relentless as a relationship possibility or continue to gracefully decline and (again), wait for someone who doesn't gross me out?

Cream or soy milk?

Gratitude or resentment?

Mac or PC? (yeah, right...as if that were a choice...).

Trader Joe's on Pico or Trader Joe's on Washington Blvd (further, but more room)?

Thong or granny-style?

Sleep in or be (even more) late to work?

Love or hate?

Revenge or forgiveness?

Halloween candy or stale Halloween cookies?

My therapist pointed out, though, that in that movie Bill Murray actually makes tiny changes every day, so by the end of the movie he is in essence a different person. In his case, he loses his attachment to fulfilling his own needs in deference to being of service to others (let's not go crazy or anything...).

Maybe my grandmother can tell me what she thinks I should do...

Just for today, I can celebrate the Day of the Dead.