It’s funny how you try to implement change, and then you remember how little your mind actually likes or adheres to the change. As many times as I’ve moved, made new friends, changed my mind about the little things, I’m amazed by how much my brain opposes and how little it remembers about the joys of growth.  It rejects it like slugs reject salt (I’m on a real slug obsession since they have infiltrated our living room – how they get in, we have no idea!).

I was so psyched about the changes since my last post, and the first week I was on a roll.  This week, however, was a different story. I have little to no motivation to write, and am filling my days reading trashy gossip newspapers and spent most of Monday in my pajamas! I have been nice to myself, however and am thinking of this week as a “get-it-out-of-your-system” week.  I truly think it’s the calm before the excitement. Every single time I have ever tried something new, I have a down period – so, I should expect this.  Of course, I don’t and I forget and this all is new once again.

In my book, I write: “This wasn’t a quarter life crisis – this was just life as I had come to know it.  Always wanting what I didn’t have and wondering if I had it better before.” I have come a long way from last year, and just have to remind myself that life is the best it’s ever been – I guess even the happiest people have their down days.

Today is a new day and I again feel refreshed. Yesterday I wrote three pages, and re-read some of my older pages, and I have to admit, it’s good. Whether anyone will buy the book remains to be seen, but I am learning so much writing it. I said to Jock yesterday, “I just want the book to be finished.” And he replied in good sport, “You got to buckle down and get to work. Nothing comes without hard work.”  And he’s right, so, that’s what I’m back to doing.

Another quick excerpt from my book to help make us all feel a little more fabulous:

“I thought of something fabulous I could do to make myself feel better…
I looked around my room.  Radio was ordinary, so I turned it off.  I could climb into bed and read a novel in French?  That always made me feel special even if I only truly understood less than half of it.  Too much hassle.
I could take a walk around Hollywood in my pajamas?  I saw a few celebrities do that around town, and you could tell they felt like they were so special that they didn’t need to dress up.  That was the ultimate “I’m cooler than thou” shocker.  Except when I saw them do that it was usually in Beverly Hills or West Hollywood – in Hollywood they were more likely to think I was amongst the other homeless vagabonds, and I would either get arrested or have change thrown at me.  Plus, I was likely to run into him, and I didn’t want to do have to explain myself.
Red lipstick.  I could sleep in my red lipstick!  Subtle, yet flamboyant and a dirty little secret for myself.  To my grandmother, red lipstick was her one weapon and protection all in one.  She never came out and said this, but I knew she saw it as a a way to show the world that she wouldn’t let the pain get to her.  I would arrive in Miami and she would throw her slender olive arms around me, plant a big one on my carefully blushed cheeks with her trademark red lips and immediately ask me where my red lipstick was.  It was as if, to her, going out in public without it was like taking a walk in the buck.  Worse than that, taking a walk without her pride.  She found power and confidence in it, and while some people may have laughed, she was the one who knew what that simple application of red aplomb gave her.
That’s what I did.  I went over to my vanity area – aptly named – pulled open my built in  drawer, and got out the tube Grandma Diaz gave me on my 16th birthday.  The Romans may have seen it as the mark of a prostitute, but Queen Cleopatra wore it as a symbol of her heightened importance and sophistication, and Grandma Diaz wore it for her pride.  I was going to wear it for my dignity and to invoke a bit of fabulousness into this nonsense evening.  The lipstick hadn’t yet been carved into the shape of my lips, so I vowed to wear it until it curved.  I carefully applied it making sure the points were accentuated, and blotting it carefully with my thumb.  I popped my lips, took my hair out of its pony tail, flicked off the lamp and strutted to my cozy bed pushing the remainder of my clean clothes on the floor and curling up next to my stuffed tiger.”