Still crying over Hillary

In case you missed it, here's the tribute video that aired at the Democratic Convention. I realized how sad I still am she won't be running our country. Barak Obama is magical, but it would have been ideal if he could have led us with her - not instead of her.

Blues at the Farmers' Market

When I find myself in times of unemployment, I make a promise to myself to do all the things I never have the time for when I'm employed. This:

a. keeps me from complete anxiety paralysis worried about how the hell I'm going to buy food and rent
b. avoids the eventual self-loathing that will happen when I'm working again and still have to muddle through the clutter in my spare room or look at the damage still on the walls from my last roommate.

It also fills the soul.

I do fail at this promise to myself, however...I know I know...shocker.

oooo the blues singer wearing the dirty White Sox cap is singing a song I loved when I was a kid - "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" yes. I was a strange kid. Not many friends. Just me, my mom's long pink scarf, and the albums in my mom & sister's rooms. Barbara Streisand sings this on her "My Name is Barbara....Two" album. I used to lip-synch and dance/perform the entire album in our living room as if I were performing for my live telecast special. "Nobody Knows You...." is belted in a grovelly bluesy manner unlike the rest of the tracks...then segues back into 2nd Hand Rose in a rousing conclusion to one of the best albums EVER.

ok back to failure and the universe taking care of us despite ourselves. I spent the past 2 days locked in my apartment not accomplishing much more than self-pity and high anxiety. I stared at my computer hitting refresh on FaceBook for about 4 hours I believe. Today Time Warner Cable is having troubles so I was forced out into the world. I have to fill out my unemployment form and all my job apps are online in my email history. I had to get to the Farmers' Market to discuss my temple CSA with the farmer as he's impossible to reach via phone or email. So life (or Time Warner & Sinai Temple) forced me out for a couple hours.

The farmer didn't come down with his crew today, but I have my laptop and Santa Monica offers free Wi-Fi if you're downtown. So I sit here listening to a brilliant blues artist camped out on the promenade next to the farmers' market. Toddlers barely able to stand are wiggling and bouncing to his sliding guitar strings and emotional southern vocals. The air is lightly puffing through my hair cooling the temp from the hot sun to make this office a perfect temperature. As I focus on my self-indulgent storytelling the singer's performance is mixed with footsteps and random snippets of lunchtime conversations. Pigeons make a stop by me now and then to grab a quick bite before continuing their food search.

It's appalling Jessican Simpson and Britney Spears are millionaires while this brilliant musician is making pennies playing for pigeons. Then again they do Pop and he does Blues so it's all fitting, no?

oo! the Chabad has arrived bringing Mitvah's on Wheels and is now wrapping tefillin on the croc kiosk workers' arms.

A young dad wearing camouflage and dreadlocks helps his daughter travel the promenade without stepping on cracks.

As much as the air and sun and footsteps and birds and babies and blues are lifting my spirits, I still have responsibilities. yes, it's true. Even the unemployed slackers of this world have commitments by golly. Time to get back home to take the girls on a walk thanking them for letting me play for a couple hours.

Feel the tingle return

My body tingles

cold shaky full warm sweaty throbbing tingly

I feel again

Nic Harcourt began his show this morning with an oldy but goody from Garbage . I sat in my office thinking "hmm this is good, is it a cover or an original?" Stepping towards my little radio propped on the back of my yard-sale chair, I continued to place the music. After pressing the volume button forcing the singer's voice to fill my living room, my body began to move.

Slowly, painfully, emotionally...my body moves again. Unlike it has in years. I'm returned to my late nights/early mornings stomping alone on the dancefloor at Avalon.

The room is dark and smoky with a faint scent of spilled beer, Jack Daniels, and sass. I'm alone in a room crowded with nightcrawlers. The sex the want the pain the glee the arrogance the hate the youth the insecurity the dread the hope the lust.

It breaks through the walls of age and defeat and fills my veins again.

I'm alive again.

Daily Kabbalah Tune Up

From the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles

There is a joke about these two shoe salesmen who travel to a third world country in search of new business opportunities.

One man calls his wife the moment he lands, telling her, "Honey, I'm coming back home. There's no hope here. Nobody here is wearing shoes, so there's no one to sell to." He boards the next flight home.

The second man calls his wife and says, "Honey, you wouldn't believe what I found here. There is so much opportunity. No one here is wearing shoes. I can sell to the whole country!"

There's opportunity everywhere. When we have a consciousness of expecting the magic to happen, it will happen. We'll find the right people, we'll move in the right circles, we'll 'bump' into the right solutions. It all starts with that opening in the mind.

Open up today. Open wide!

Kennedy Quote

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

-Robert F. Kennedy

Speechless

Daily Kabbalah Tune Up

From the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles

We all reach points in our days when we don't understand. It can be a relationship challenge, a health issue, which direction to do with our career, a difficult passage of study, a momentous business decision. We all get those 'not-knowing' moments.

The way to see with clarity is, according to Rav Ashlag, to stretch. Not physically [though a forward bend always does wonders.] But to really do something that is outside your zone of comfort, out of the norm. When we elevate above the normal course of things, the Light responds in kind.

Suddenly we understand what we are reading, suddenly we know which doctor to go to, suddenly we see what limiting belief has been sabotaging our relationships. These moments of epiphany do not come from our brains, they come from the Light.

Go above your nature today. Really stretch your tolerance or patience or compassion or belief in yourself. Do something that will build the vessel for whatever it is that's beyond you to come in.

Open letter to owner of unleashed maltese

I'm sorry I yelled at you to get your maltese on a leash as he ran straight to my 2 shar-peis one trained to kill humans, her daughter leash-aggressive-just-spent-6-of-her-1st-8-months-being-abused. I wasn't kidding when I told you they can kill your dog in one bite.

Your dog


My dog


And my other dog


You see, as you get into your black Mercedes parked in the driveway of your home on 15th north of Montana, I know you won't react nicely to seeing your little baby's guts all over the sidewalk bloody and oosing all over your vuitton bag. And I'm an unemployed artist barely making ends meet so I'd prefer to not make you angry.

I'd also prefer to not be involved in the vicious death of a maltese.

or a wealthy woman witnessing the vicious death of her maltese.

or my dog euthanized for viciously killing your maltese.

See- THERE ARE REASONS FOR LEASH LAWS. It's not a mean mean big bad bully way of controlling you and your dog. It actually has some purpose. oh say, for example, to KEEP YOUR MALTESE ALIVE. Keep him from FROM CHARGING UP TO MY TIGHTLY LEASHED-BECAUSE-SHE'S-AGGRESSIVE SHAR-PEI. or RUNNING INTO IMPATIENT MONTANA BOULEVARD DRIVERS!

Notice I have my dogs on leashes. The young leash-aggressive one has no slack and I'm keeping her close to my hip. There's a reason for this. The older one is more stable, but goodness she does get riled up when her daughter is exploding. The big one is 60 pounds. And was a guard dog for a drug house downtown before she was rehabbed. She knows better than to attack, but if the situation calls for it, she's well trained and strong. very strong.



and yet, you and I both know when your dog is mauled by a shar-pei because you let him run amock on a public street and could not restrain him from charging into my dog.... well. you'll destroy us in your grief. You'll sue me- You'll have my dogs impounded and euthanized.

and yet, you and I both know YOU were the negligent parent.

I'm sorry I yelled at you- But I'd prefer to not be a unwilling participant in a murder. Please leash little poopy pants, would you? If he's not killed by a leash-aggressive Shar-pei, he'll be run over by a car. Please.

More encouragement

Still freaking out and yet happy and calm and wondering what on earth is going on. Just realized an hour ago I'm sitting back and letting life happen to me vs. trying to be responsible and do the right thing.

Today's Tarot card is:



The Hanged Man
This card denotes the need to look at your current situation from a different perspective. The Hanged Man creates change by acting passively and accepting fate. By surrendering control and making yourself vulnerable, you will facilitate change in your life. In order to see the bigger picture, you will need to take a step back.

Panic sets in

Yesterday was a brilliant morning writing, dog walking, answering phones for kcrw, working with Chris and Tom on their shows, Gemma getting me started helping her research for her Global Gig Guide, Eric chatting Music Library with me.....all before 10am!

Came home, collapsed, met Jana for lunch- WALKED to meet her. Had a Kirin with my sushi-

Got back home- more writing, phone interview for yet another writing gig. Collapsed again.

Carved up my farmers' market bought organic, free-range, locally raised chicken for my dog's weekend meals, poured myself a nice glass of organic kosher Israeli cabernet...

On the couch drinking my wine watching Persepolis -- too tired to get pretty and on the bus to Friday Night Live...

I suddenly panicked. I still didn't regret my decision to quit- best decision I've made in years....truly outrageous and heavenly-inspired... But where will the money come? When? How am I paying for food for the dog, kitties, myself? ugh...depression sets in.....

First thing this morning I find today's horoscope waiting for me:

Today is the dawn of a new era for you. You can feel yourself shedding the last remnants of old baggage or beliefs that held you back and are eager to tackle the new challenges that await.

Me at my former job

"He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away."
— Raymond Hull

Kennedy's Miracle and Today's Horoscope

"You and your friends are working together to do something cool and you feel absolutely great about the collaboration In fact, you may decide to formalize the arrangement to do more of the same in the future."

From my earliest memories, I recall wanting to save the world. Or the unprotected. The young children. The animals.

But I'm also an artist- born into a family of musicians, dancers, painters, storytellers.....it's deeply in my blood I can't deny it. It's what powers all the cells to thrust through my arteries, veins, organs...it drives me from before sunrise until long after sunset.

So the plan, since I was ohhh about 5 years old, was to become insanely wealthy as a world-famous artist. What kind flopped from actor - figure skater - rock star - poet - novelist - journalist - photographer - painter - dancer - actor.

I accomplished all the career aspirations (ok rock star only happened as far as Victor Isaac and Dean Cameron / Jessie Marion's living rooms...) but not the crazy fame and wealth.

Because the end-goal was to use my fame and money to save the children, the animals, the peace, this has been quite defeating!

So I do what I can to help but it's never anywhere near what I want. And I sit in office's witnessing heated debates on Hannah Montana's hair or font size of footnotes on market research reports. And I wonder how these people can keep a straight face making these so important when there are children starving or being beaten only miles away from us.

I just quit my job- completely insane decision on the surface, yet my gut said "do it- it's the right move"

And I immediately face 3 women who make the world move. Adriane, 6-figure corporate VP who quit to be a dog trainer, who rehabbed my shar-pei from sickly killer dog to show-dog quality couch potato. Helen, the guerilla-tactic animal rescuer, who rescued my shar-pei despite everyone around her saying the dog should be euthanized as a lost-cause. And Parke- the brilliant woman who quit her 6 figure publishing job in Manhattan to spend 2 years developing and fundraising for an animal shelter in South Carolina.

Kennedy is the center of this universe. Helen rescued Kennedy. Adriane rehabbed her. Parke stopped me during our early morning walk to chat about dogs and rescue groups.

And here I sit writing about them. And writing about the animals. And writing about the miracles. And I feel overwhelmed by the force that comes from nowhere....somewhere....everywhere. The force that has brought us together from unimaginable sources. I am not a dog person. The rescue group didn't trust a then-unknown volunteer, Adriane. The rescue group didn't believe in the killer shar pei, making Helen desperate for someone who would take her in and rehab her. Parke just moved here from the east coast and knows nobody. And yet here we are a network of amazing women who host different skills while holding the end-result in unison.

I'm so excited for the future. And learning what's coming around the corner. It will be big. Huge. And beautiful.

A day late

Today's horoscope - a day late

You may be something of a loose cannon today, so do your best to keep your wildest tendencies under control, even if just barely.

G*d bless George

Yesterday I did the most childish irresponsible act. At the same time, it was the most responsible act I've done in a long time.

I quit my job. No notice. Not even for me. There was a project that got forgotten because he didn't bother to copy me on the discussion. So I asked (after 2 years of asking and our boss agreeing with me) that he copy me on emails with project members so we BOTH know what's going on with reports. He replied with a 2 page email rant to me. Then stormed into my office and threw a stack of papers at me.

I felt beaten up as usual. Then I giggled at the absurdity. Then I asked myself why I continued to feel it could be improved. Our boss, as usual, blamed the r.a. she hates vs. seeing my co-worker's mistake. He treats me and others like crap, ridicules dept members behind their backs to entertain other dept members. And he's rewarded for it.

So I wrote my reason for leaving and calmly walked out the door.

Ok my legs shook so badly on the way down the stairs I could barely walk.

I had a meeting across the street for what was supposed to be a part-time Sunday job. I changed my clothes but had my office belongings in a large grocery bag. How could I walk into an interview with a monster financial institution carrying a grocery bag of food, nic nacks, papers?

Bewildered, depressed, defeated, shocked I stumbled to the mall concierge who advertised "check your bags while you shop!" She looked at my bag with disgust and said "only packages purchased HERE"

In my painful akward high heel shoes and fancy dress, I stumbled to Bloomingdales and asked the salesman, George, if the store's customer service checked bags. He smiled and said "just put it here in my cabinet!"

I gratefully placed it inside but it toppled over-- oatmeal and mouthwash tumbling out. Embarrassed I sighed "I just quit my job -- I wasn't planning to -- this is my office here....my office in a bag"

George's eyes lit up and he extended his hand out to help me stand up. "you just quit your job? right now? as in moments ago??"

I sighed in regret "yes, just moments ago...I'm still shaking"

He shook my hand and exclaimed "Congratulations!!! You are VERY brave!!!"

I laughed "eh, well, brave or stupid-- I'm not sure which right now"

Nodding in reassurance he offered "no, it's very brave. Great things will happen for you. This is the way"

Thank you George for boosting my non-existent confidence right before the interview that was suddenly so important. I nailed it. Now I'll make twice what I used to make and without the selfish co-worker and the blind manager.