I would just like to thank the producers of "The Swan" for setting the women's movements so far back it resembles the time when the earth was just a steamy rock of volcanic ash and two micro organisms made love by a river of hot lava. At least in times past, corsets and chastity belts could be removed in privacy, and if a man inserted a knife into a woman's body it was still considered an act of punitive violence and not an action for which a woman would well up with tears of gratitude and think that she was "finally, doing something for herself." I'm all for hanging out at the Prescriptives make-up counter with the 18-year-old girls who lecture me in earnestness about warm and cold tones, and I'm all over the Victoria Secret semi-annual bra sale, and there are times when I regret the purchase of Trader Joe's chile-lime chips (though not many), but if I ever let a man or woman pick at me like an ice sculpture or mold me like a pile of play-dough, please someone call the paramedics. I'd rather be a squishy ball of laugh lines and cellulite, than a walking, glossy, heavily medicated art project by some porn-addict who still has issues with his mother. (Please note: when I said I wanted to thank the producers, I was being sarcastic.)

Just for today, I can feel angry at the mysoginy in reality TV.

I just wanted to take a moment to experience a reality check of gratitude for my life. Despite my complaining and whining, my life is pretty damn good. While the great majority of women in this world are living in abject poverty, exploited for cheap labor, overwhelmed with the responsibility of parenthood, and trapped in abusive relationships by shattered economies, I am free to live a overly-analyzed, self-obsessed existence (which, I have to say, I far prefer to worrying about feeding my kids, getting AIDs from my husband, or keeping my $.10 a day job making shoe laces...but that's just me.) I am oppressed only by the voices in my head.

Yes, I hear voices. These voices tell me that until I'm married, My Life, in all it's confusing glory, is not yet complete; I am in limbo, living in a proverbial waiting room. Until I'm in a relationship, all the adventure of my creativity, friends, and (albeit brief) romances, is the metaphorical equivalent of sitting in the dentist's office, flipping through People, and listening to Muzak while breathing recycled air.

The REALITY is that as far as women's lives go in this world, I'm in the top 5%, if not higher. So long as I can maintain the awareness and self-esteem to tell (some) women's magazines, (many) television comercials, and (all) mysoginist men (and women) to go #%&* themselves, I am high up on the freedom ladder (an expression I just invented...see how free I am?)

Just for today, I am grateful for my life.

As lonely as I am, I know that there are women out there sleeping with warm bodies who are equally, if not more, lonely. Because nothing is lonlier than walking, talking human beings who are in an emotional coma (zombies have to be a metaphor for someone). The point is the idea of waiting around for a man, or a cat (although I refuse to become Creepy Cat Lady, it is tempting), or a child, to give my life meaning is starting to sound pretty lame-ass.

It's sort of like in "Terms of Endearment" when Jack Nicholson and Shirley
MacClaine are lying in bed and he says that the greatest moment of his life
was when he landed on the moon (or something like that...he was a former astronaut), and then Shirley MacClaine says, "this is mine...this is mine..." (which is a totally different scene from the Deborah Winger, death-bed "I know you love me!" scene, but both are stuck in my psyche like some bad drug experience). Anyway, I remember watching that scene when I was a kid and thinking, "She's gotta be kidding. That's what I have to look forward to?!" It was kind of a bummer to think that the culminating moment of a woman's life would be lying in bed with an alcoholic sex-addict. Even at ten I thought "Hey, lady, get your co-dependent ass in therapy!" (though I didn't know the word "therapy" at that time). Well, now, twenty years later...just for good measure, I've been there/done that and it's ok. Nothing to write on my gravestone (I imagine Shirley MacClaine's character's headstone would say something like, "I Slept With Him!") I think I would rather find my own ticket to the moon. And then if I meet some guy there, then great, we'll have the same greatest moment. And there won't be weirdness for me or him, or any little girls looking to me as a role model.

Just for today, I'm going to the moon solo.

It's not that I believe that women should have to work out, and get
plucked, waxed, dyed, padded, and thonged, to be lovable...but having
done my share, it's a little unnerving to go out with a guy who doesn't
seem to notice it. I don't know if that makes me shallow or an enemy to the women's movement or whatever...But for someone who analyzes life and spirituality to the point where I can't really have any normal conversations, i.e. news, weather, sports (does LA have a basketball team?) , I think it's pretty harmless to indulge in some straightforward shallow vanity. At least that connects me to the legions of women strung out on self-maintenance (it's healthier than heroine...right?)

Just for today, it's OK to be a little superficial...

There are so many Mirandas in this society (the redhead from Sex and the City who typifies the angry, bitter, hurt woman who has no faith in relationships and, yet, simultaneously kicks ass in her career - LOVE HER!), that it's hard to find women who will support me in my relationship instead of fanning the flame of Creepy Cat Lady Fear. However, my friend Mary, who has has been married for thirty years, has five kids and has had reams of therapy (because it comes in reams), told me today that I am just scared to "give it up.." (um, give what up?) and that "there are no guarantees..." (what?! after 30 years there are no guarantees?!) and how she always feels resistance when she's about to walk through the fear to "get to the next level" with her husband (after 30 years there are still other levels?!).

Mary doesn't see relationships as a place of perfection, but a journey of continual growth. WHY?! Because she's not Miranda, she's a character that never made it to Sex and the City because the SHOW ENDED once all the ladies got into commited relationships! I know I am fortunate to have this fountain of wisdom (my friend) at my place of employment, but sometimes talking to he makes me worried that the fear and confusion WILL NEVER END (because that's exactly what she says)!

Just for today, I will trust the words of the non-Mirandas in my life.

I once read that women have instincts to think circularly due to thousands of years of runnning around like headless chickens (except with heads) taking care of everyone (weaving baskets, shucking corn, scaling cliffs like Ninjas with babies on their hips, etc.). Thanks to the women's movement, and the fact that I was born into the top 1% of women free of social obligation to any family (friggin' rocks), I don't have to take care of anyone but myself (until my biological clock starts to sound an air raid siren). So, when I really have time on my hands, I like to let my day unfold via momentary gushes of inspiration.

It sounds very non-Western and non-linear (i.e., lazy), but I trust my own natural instincts (i.e., accept my "laziness"). Here's an inner monologue of how my day went:

8:00 AM - I'm awake and reading in bed.
9:00 AM - I'm asleep.
10:00 AM - I'm hungry. Inspired to get up, walk to kitchen, make toast, back in bed, asleep by 10:30.
11:00 AM - I'm reading again
12:00 PM - I'm asleep
1:00 PM - Honest to God, I'm getting up now.
2:00 PM - I'm actually not in bed, but now I'm lying on the floor and staring at the hypnotic motion of the ceiling fan.
2:10 PM - I'm writing in my journal after having several epiphanies (for instance, love is not hatred) of how I was perpetually scapegoated by parents as source of all their misery...new resolve to uphold boundaries with certain family members...
2:20 PM - I'm staring at the rug. It's been a while since I vaccumed.
2:25 PM - I'm experiencing intense, unstoppable urge to vacuum like a mofo. I worry it's too early on a Sunday, and then realize that it's mid-afternoon (but feels like morning for me cuz I've only been out of bed for little over an hour).
2:35 PM - Back on floor celebrating first accomplishment of the day.
2:50 PM - I'm spraying Resolve on stains and scrubbing like there's no tomorrow.
3:10 PM - Amazing jolt of inspiration to tackle writing project that I have been talking about for four years!
3:30 PM - Back on floor celebrating 20 minutes of hard work.
3:50 PM - Powerful surge of inspiration to put on green crazy face mask from Sav-On.
4:00 PM - First actual conversation of the day. Plans to meet friend for de-caf.
4:30 PM - Writing in journal about feelings of isolation and loneliness due to my disconnection from certain family (as well as from spending day alone).
5:00 PM - Giant well of inspiration to sweep and mop kitchen!
6:00 PM - Writing in journal about feelings of freedom and peace due to disconnection from certain family members.
6:15 PM - Cleaning kitchen!
6:30 PM - Writing!
6:45 PM - Cleaning kitchen!
7:00 PM - Coffee (at last!)! Conversation with real human being!
8:30 PM - Serious phone call with boyfriend about "issues."
9:00 PM - Issues resolved. Watching Olympics with boyfriend. Feeling inspired by 100 meter Men's race.
9:30 PM - Cleaning kitchen!
10:00 PM - Snuggling!
10:30 PM - Cleaning dusty TV (mess up picture)!
11:30 PM - Sleeping while boyfriend watches movie about giant ants.

Just for today, I can trust my circular thinking.

My friend and I went to the beach this morning and baked ourselves into a skin cancer frenzy and talked about everything under the sun (no pun intended). On the list of topics was boys (Really? How odd? Hetereosexual women talking about relations with the opposite sex...?).

The reason why Sex in the City is so popular (LOVE THAT SHOW!) is because after the age of 30 women have a biologically encoded need to talk to each other. Kind of like the way, say, horses need to run or cats need to lick themselves, it's not endemic to our survival, but it's built into our DNA because it makes life easier (and more fun). For instance, my genetic code is programmed with a biological trigger (not sure what else to call it...ok, so I wasn't a science major) that will cause me to go out and seek friends who will say things to me like, "If there ain't no ring, there ain't no thing!" Without such structures in place I might permanently remain in my 7th grade mode of making out with cute 7th graders in the garden at the latest dance party. Except now (just to set the record straight) they wouldn't be in the 7th grade and there'd be no dance party (note to self: have a dance party)...they'd be in the parking lot of a church after some form of support group meeting telling me about their emotionally distant father...

The point is grown women need each other to protect themselves from themselves.

Just for today, I can talk to friends on the beach.

I recently stumbled across Julie Klausner's Valentine to Maturity and had a moment of soul mate connectivity that seems to get rarer and rarer on this Google/Facebook real estate that once seemed as expansive as the ocean, but now feels like a children's book.

In case you don't feel like reading it, her piece summarizes the many ways in which women aspire to look and act like little girls. Generally speaking, I've never been one to really hate on women. For whatever reason, I was never the girl caught up in the narrative of women resenting each other or competing for the attention of The Dude. Ever Since high school, I maintained the worldview that women are essentially victims of a system that pits them against each other. Sort of the like the Cuba Gooding character in "Boyz n' the Hood." In high school, my friends all sort of rolled their eyes at me before prancing off with a guy who treated them like an accessory. Everyone, including myself, decided that I must be weird. But I'm cool with it now.

However, after reading Julie's call for women to dress like people who pay their own bills and read about world events, I realized that I'm not alone in feeling that things haven't changed since the Wet n' Wild days (we bought that make-up, too). It's not just through fashion that women demonstrate to the world how girlish they can be. How many shaved hooches do I need to see in the shower at the gym? How many pony tails on grown women? How many times do I have to hear women cry and whine about aging, as if it were a terminal disease? And the worst, how many more times will I hear an 35-year-old women talk in a baby voice? (I'd rather listen to a hundred acrylics on a chalk board in surround sound).

Sure, acting like a grown woman, owning and demanding accountability, may not strike some men as "hot." But turning such dudes into daddy isn't going to move any relationship forward, forget about the status of women in the world.

Look, I never wanted to grow up, either. But now that it's happened, I'm not going to bury it beneath Forever 21 (one day at a time). Doesn't mean I have to age into Miss Blankenship...

Just for today, I'm proud to act like a grown woman.