I have a sorry.

I love love love voicemail transcription. I have no idea what kind of message I left for my co-worker but I guess I thought I was pretty.

Hi it's me just give me a call back sorry I was in meetings holy like right after trying to email us in a meeting since like so I am pretty very least yeah mystery now it's 12:35.

I have a sorry let me check my schedule dude.

I have something at 3:30 same Brit basically free at sorry online I'm free until three so let me know just give me a call bye.

Some truths to this voicemail:

1. I do have meetings holy. I suspect this is due to my belief that Jesus Chris was in fact, a SuperStar.

2. I've always found it a mystery as to how 12:35 happens. And why does it happen so fast? It's a mystery now, but really.

3. I do have meetings with Brits. Or actually, it seems like one Brit, all the time. This is as much of a mystery as 12:35 being 12:35 and not 11:17.

I have a sorry but I have never ended a voicemail with "dude." You are wrong, transcription. And I am like, pretty.

Musical Exercise.

Tonight I came home with every intention of doing yoga and then the wine was all "I'm all nice and chilled and I've been waiting for you. Don't you like me anymore?" I hate to see libations upset. So instead I’m doing a different sort of exercise wherein I'm listening to music writing whatever is conjured up by the songs. This is brain exercise. It's a different sort of muscle memory. Don't judge.

1. So What- P!NK
I was unceremoniously laid off from one of my jobs. Does anyone get laid off ceremoniously? I imagine it involves long robes and wigs, an speech or two, possibly ending with an indignant retort, and maybe a goldfish. Mine had me in a chair with my jaw on the ground. Anyway, this song came on when I got off the train at the end of my first week at my new job. I strut-walked the whole way home and nodded at the cars in the intersection and shouted “You can’t freelance fabulous, baby!” They honked. In agreement, I think.

2. Crazy in Love- Beyonce
I'm not going to pretend I don't pop it like I got it when I hear this song, but I don't think I want a pager. I not at all hoping anyone will page me right now. Am I? Were those a thing? I think they were. I spent a long time abroad (I've almost never been a lady) and I have lost almost an entire decade of pop culture references. Once I was playing charades and I had “The Hughleys," (was that a thing too?) which I read as “Huff-leez.” So I spent my minutes tugging on my ear to indicate “sounds like” and gesturing puffing on a cigarette, looking for all the world like a chain-smoking Carol Burnett signing off for the night. My team found this hilarious and interesting, but they had no idea what I was doing. And it’s only a game but I still stomped my feet when they corrected my pronunciation (it’s “Hyoo-leez”) so they gave me another drink and said they liked my shoes. I win.

3. You’d be So Nice to Come Home to- Julie London
I may have secretly time-traveled to this year from the 1940s and/or actually lived then and live here now. You know, when it was all apartments and pianos and sending out for sandwiches and calling down for drinks. When you dressed for dinner and everything was champagne candles and meaningful looks between curls of cigarette smoke. When banter was witty and people said “banter” and knew what it meant. Because I’ve time-traveled from a black and white movie. If you’re going to time travel, do it in black and white, I always say. It shows much less dirt and you don’t feel badly about smoking.

4. Elegantly Wasted- INXS
Oh Michael Hutchence. I saw you in concert. I bought a new outfit and flirted with boys who flirted back but didn’t mean it because they, like me, were there to see you. We smoked clove cigarettes and rolled our eyes in a studied attempt at irony and then squealed when we saw you. Also, when my iPod announces this song, it sounds like “Ell-eh-gahnt-lee Wahhhhsted,” which is super funny.

5. Beautiful Day- U2
I want to run through the streets and fly in a plane and drive a convertible down Route 66 or through the Highlands and tell people I’ve been all over. But I’d leave out the part where “it’s been all over [me]” because I don't to be quarantined just for a song.

6. La Vie en Rose- Louis Armstrong
I love this song. I always have. I love the many versions of it but I especially love this one. It's playful and slow...not lazy but lingering. It's what you want to hear on a lazy, perfumed afternoon. If you are standing you want to be swaying; if you are sitting, you want to be stretching. This song sounds like what it feels like to lick a spoonful of chocolate.

7. Heaven on Their Minds- Jesus Christ Superstar
This musical is either #1 or #2 on my list of favorite musicals, depending on how I am feeling about Gene Kelly, red-headed orphans or Christmas. It is a Rock. Opera. This song has an amazing bass tab (I looked up that word). It's very seventies. Ian Gillian from Deep Purple was Jesus on the original concept album. I can't...if you don't know this...don't tell me you "don't like musicals because singing and songs and all that singing..." You don't not like musicals, you just haven't found one that likes you yet. Stop with your I-don't-like-music. Just stop.

Like most exercise, I thought I'd be able to do more, but now I'm just exhausted. This is like a pensieve of plainsong. Also like most exercise, now that I'm done I just want more wine.

I forgot to remember.

I have this pair of red clogs that I have had since college. I wore them everywhere. Yes, everywhere. I could not bear to give them up because I bought them in London and anything you buy in London, especially shoes (blue suede Doc Martens), especially in college, you cannot throw away. I had them re-soled. Yes, I had wooden clogs re-clogged.

I had them so long that I still have them. A college friend swung through Chicago recently and when I went out to meet her on the street (where all ladies of good breeding meet), the first thing she said was "Oh my god are those The Shoes?" Which is not a strange greeting per se, but I thought was a strange question because I have many The Shoes. I mean, I’m not opposed to wearing other people’s shoes...in fact I’ll ask if I can try on your shoes if I like them. In fact, the other day, a shoe-trying-on session happened at work and that is The Truth. I said "yes, these are my shoes....wha...?" and she said, "No, NO....are those really THE SHOES? I can't believe you are wearing those shoes. I can't believe you still have them!" and I stopped and started to say, "Yes, I bought these in London and I can't give them up...oh my god, yes these are THE SHOES." I forgot to remember that I wore them everywhere and now I wear them out in the garden.

Anyway, I just remembered.

I can't believe I still have those shoes.

The Glass That’s Full is Always Yours

Here’s a present I don't understand: wine stoppers. I don’t understand the message
behind them. Why on earth would anyone who knows me want to stop me from
drinking wine?

Someone once tried to explain it to me like this: “Well, you know, when you have
some left over….” And then trailed off because I had that look on my face that I get
when math. I understand these words. Individually, I know what they mean, but put
together in a sentence like that….well I just don’t understand. Is it math?

Anyway this concept of “left over wine” is sad and poignant, like an Eastern
European film that features sad children and stray dogs running through war-
torn rubble and mysterious adults saying things like “Yes. And it was.” It’s not that
they’re useless. It’s just that like those Eastern European films, it just doesn’t happen
in my house.

It’s like those wine charm thingies. How or why I would I ever forget which glass is
mine? The only reason I put my glass down is because brie gets really soft and you
have to spread it on something because picking up the entire wedge and nibbling on
it as you walk around apparently isn’t “polite” and the cheese isn’t “just for you.”

But let’s say you’re re-enacting that scene from The Goonies and you have to set
down your glass. And then someone else needed both hands to wipe away the tears
of laughter, so that glass goes down, too. Now you have two glasses and
whose is whose? Apparently this is the time those wine charms come in handy. But
you’ve got wine and you’re already charming (see: The Goonies). Rather than waffle
uncertainly and feel awkward, realize you are faced with an opportunity. Life lesson:
the glass that’s fuller is always yours.

These are on clearance because I don't need them.

Anyway, I do have several cute “wine stoppers” though. I have one that looks like
a pair of shoes that I actually want. My boss gave it to me. I’m not sure what she’s
trying to say. It’s either “if you’re going to keep bringing wine to the office, try to
save some for the afternoon meeting” OR she wants me to buy a new pair of shoes.
Nevermind. Best present ever.

May 13, 2013. Dear......

Hiya-

Yes, if you haven’t figured it out by now, you are meant to be feeding people. If by "people" I mean "me" and by "feeding" I mean "making deviled eggs for" then yes. Have you met you? Luckily, you aren't an angry-chef type at all. You're more of a "why don't you go outside while I finish why are you looking at me like that fine stay there in that chair over there, way over there, and talk while I finish" type of chef. The kind that leaves me sitting on a bar stool swinging my feet and punctuating stories with sips from my glass and random song lyrics. My favorite kind.

Tell me more about this “Claim It!” idea. So you just imagine what you want to be/do, name it, claim it and eventually, you will be/do it? I can get behind this, though I do feel like maybe The Secret is peering around the corner shaking its fist of positive thinking power at me. It’s probably just mad it didn’t own the power of pretend to make things happen. Or at least make things happier. Pretend is amazing! Anyone who has played Mad Libs knows this to be true. How many times have you misplaced a box of gods? Anyway I’m claiming myself a storyteller and I don’t think anyone will be surprised by that.

You present a valid question. Given the choice of beheading someone or not...I may be questionably sober but I am a benevolent ruler of Tailand. I would never behead anyone and certainly not for swearing, for chrissakes. You know I can't do gore and grossness. Besides, I think not being able to drink juice is a more severe punishment than losing one's head. If you cannot drink juice, what's the point of having a head anyway? It's a far more psychologically terrifying fate.

Speaking of which, I need to get to MySecondHome Depot (™ McPolish) and return some of this paver excess. You might ask why. Why bother? Why keep lifting and putting down? Loading and unloading? Why don’t you and your friend Sisyphus go and sit by the fire pit and enjoy the evening?

Silly you. I, like many an Italian grandmother, have made more than I need. I’m neither Italian nor a grandmother and that is neither here nor there. I have too many bricks. There is not enough room to twirl fully. You might say why bother but I say I’ve got at least two bottles of wine just sitting there on the patio. I can’t just leave money on the table like that.

Twirlingly,

xoxo

Jetstream of Consciousness

Traveling to a brand-new city. A little bit terrifying, a little bit scary, both in a good way. The adventurous way. The “anything/something exciting might/is going to happen today” way. Not the “I’ve got to travel to a remote South American town to save my sister from a drug cartel and I hope I don’t get lost in Cartegena because I’ve only got these heels to wear, and they’re Italian, you see” way.

I love airports. I find them exciting. I love airplanes. Planes are literally bursting with every emotion imaginable, every second of flight, even when people are sleeping and dreaming. It makes me think of all the joy, happiness, frights, sadness, elation, satisfaction and anticipation carried within those tens of thousands of people all those millions of miles. What if you made a heat map of that, what would it look like, I wonder?

Where are you going? Why are you going? What are you going to do when you get there? Or are you going home? What have you been doing? What was your favorite color on this trip? If you could give your trip a color, what would it be?

Are you scared? You look scared. Is it the flying? She looks thrilled. He looks bored. That woman looks busy- she’s not even paying attention to what’s outside her window. Why’d she choose a window, then?

How come my headphones don’t work? Why can’t I hear what’s going on in the cockpit? Those people are talking...they’ve hit it off. That guy really, really wants to talk to his seatmate. She’s not having it. No wait, my mistake, she is. She just smiled at him and I swear he melted right into his seat. I think I melted a little, too. She’s very pretty. I think it’s her eyes. Yes, according to her seatmate, it’s her eyes. Big and wide. He can’t stop staring at them, even when she blushes and looks away.

I love to drink whiskey on a plane. I’m going to take a picture when we are landing but I’ll be sneaky about it so that no one sees. Those pictures are unreal and surreal. Which is which? Can it be both? None of it looks real and for a good while I’m tempted to slip out the window and have a tea party on those clouds. Every time.

Flying is all about anticipation. It’s all “something is about to start,” tossed in with “who are these people with whom I've entrusted my life. Man, they seem cranky....oh my god, are they paid enough, I wonder?” and sprinkled with a healthy “Holy shit, I’m fucking FLYING!”

I always like the journey more. People say, when they’re trying to make a point, trying to make you feel better about messing something up or trying to get you to slow the shit down, that it’s the journey that’s important. But I’ve always liked the journey more. I like the anticipation. I like to imagine what the result will be. Sometimes it’s the same, sometimes it’s not. If I like the journey more, what does that mean? I think it means I like to travel. That’s all.

May 6, 2013. Dear...

Hiya -

Yes, you’re right. My new paver patio will be THE place to hang this summer. If only because I will refuse to leave it and hold court there. Also because I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to move again. Over the course of the weekend, I lifted and carried and threw the equivalent of 400 pounds. This is not an exaggeration, I used a calculator. You know what else weighs 400 pounds? Gorillas. Pigs. Sperm whales. I looked further and found this answer: There are many things in the world that weigh 400 pounds. An adult lion can weigh up to 400 pounds. A pony may also weigh around 400 pounds. There are even some human beings who weigh 400 pounds.

I don’t know what to think about adding a human to that list.

I like your idea of tulips in a vintage martini shaker vase. It’s like the best of happy all in one place. I’m going to plant flowers this weekend and I wish you and your giant hat could come and help me. But we both know that you and your giant hat would just spritz the table with cleaner and then sit in the shade. At least the wine would stay cold and let’s face it: that’s the most important job in the yard.

Have you received any more indecent proposals? I’m still thinking about that last one....the writer used the word “fun” six times and “adult fun” twice in a three paragraph response. First of all, thesaurus. Secondly, I am shocked at his lack of clarity. It’s very inappropriate. It really doesn’t do to be unclear about what you mean when you are dealing with a competitive housing market. I’ve compiled a list of things he may have meant as “fun” because I wish that you could respond in kind.

Voting
Talking about mutual funds
Considering vacation homes in Nova Scotia
Discussing the merits of crossover vehicles
Calling the police
Volunteering at military recruiting facilities

Note: these are not things I find fun, but I’ve never claimed to be an “adult.” Nobody I like really does.

Immaturely,
xoxox

New York is lasagna.

Do I really need to know how to drive a stick shift? How realistic is The West Wing? What if a city were a food? These are the things I think about. If a city were a food I’d live in New York because it’s lasagna. It’s saucy and cheesy and layered.

Come with me on this. I’m not thinking about iconic foods or regional dishes. Boston is meatloaf. Newport is Beef Wellington. Indy is a baked potato. I asked some friends to play this game. Chicago is definitely steak.

Seattle and Portland and maybe Spokane are granola bars, but not the chewy granola bars with chocolate chips...they are the hard granola bars that come two to a package because if you’re hungry enough to eat one and don’t break your teeth on it, you might as well have the other. I’m not sure why, though...it’s not like it will go stale. It’s like grapenuts.

We all disagreed on DC. One says its a shortbread cookie (looks tasty, is bland), I say its cheesecake (you can put lots of things on or under or in it but its a fundamentally delicious treat). Yet another said that DC is fried chicken and biscuits because it sizzles and it's delicious and southern and it’s what's under the skin that makes it yummy. It doesn't follow the rules that I made up and that are so arbitrary that I've planted several trees in their honor but I’ve allowed it.

Arizona is cornbread because I imagine it to be dry and dusty. San Francisco is some kind of fusion with wine, maybe a coq au vin made of tofu with a zucchini blossom foam.

Usually around February I think I’d like to live in California, but I am never sure. I like San Francisco, even if they are obsessed with microclimates, but I don't think I’m cool enough to live there.

I don’t like the idea of diverting volcanoes through abandoned subway tunnels (why aren’t they using the subway?) so I don’t think LA is the place for me. I’ve never really been an Orange County girl, but I am really into myself so I might fit in there.

Ultimately, living in California is living on on the edge of possibility. The possibility that any moment it could break off entirely and float away into the Pacific. And all those fires. This is why I don’t understand why it’s all no smoking, go hiking, no sugar, stay away from carbs and hug some trees. I suppose they balance it with the weed and the wineries. If you’re living in constant fear of floating away from land and/or fire, you might as well be lit.

One China, one chicken.

Who doesn’t like a good orange cheeyaken? Commies, probably. Which is funny because it’s a Chinese dish so you know…but I don’t know, maybe General Tao was all “One China, One Chicken!” and that’s that.

Then again, orange chicken is pretty Americanized. By which I mean it’s breaded and covered in a thick, sweet sauce and tastes delicious at 1 o’clock in the morning when you are standing in the middle of your kitchen decidedly unsober and eating with your fingers.

Since I can rarely be bothered to bread and fry things, I found an easy recipe. It was actually adapted from Bon Appetit and then adapted by me because, ginger. And garlic. Also shallots.

Every time I cook I almost always end up making more than the recipe states because I almost always have more of the main ingredient because I have neither the time nor the inclination to look through all of the poultry or meat or broccoli to find exact measurements when people are talking to me and I still need to visit my friends in the wine section. Anyway recipes are just guidelines. A little of this, a little of that, whatever it’s CHICKEN. Just eat it.

It calls for jasmine rice but I say put it on whatever you like. Or put it on nothing. Or put it on a plate and eat it with your fingers. It’s especially delicious cold. You know I know. Anyway, it's what's for dinner.

Never too old

First of all, I love the grocery store. I love the Super Mercado, I love the supermarché, I love the Super Target. It’s my favorite place to shop for souvenirs when I travel and it’s a great place to pwander (wander-ponder) on the weekend.

Like, what in the hell is that green spiky fruit? And what on earth is creamy vanilla casein? (Gross, that’s what. Stay away from it). Can you cook cactus? Is garam masala a fancy dog or group of freedom fighters (it’s neither but when you cook with it, sweet Jesus, if you don’t want to fight for the freedom of fancy dogs everywhere). I could spend hours in the grozzzery. I have spent hours in the grozzzery. Probably this is why people talk to me so much in the grozzery. I look like I live there, maybe.

I’m not kidding, it happens a lot….in the checkout line, in the pasta aisle, in front of the brussel sprouts. The checkout girl asks me what I’m making with the kale (juice) and the lady behind me asks what’s for dinner (chicken) and the guy behind her asks what time I’m serving (6:00). Suddenly I’ve been in the checkout line for 15 minutes and it’s not because I’m pulling my change purse from my pocketbook and paying for 3 bananas in quarters. But no one is impatient because they all seem to want to know how I’m going to make my chicken (with panko) and I can’t stop talking in parantheses. It’s like I’m having 4 conversations at once.

I rolled up to the wine aisle the other day (it’s my natural habitat) and had not even said a “hello, my lovely” to the sauvignon blanc when a sweet older woman turned to me and said she was going to a dinner and she didn’t really drink (eyebrow) and was this bottle here a good one to bring? Even though I knew she wasn’t one of my people, I do not judge (I do). She was a babushka away from being my great-grandmother and I’m supposed to say no? I don’t think so.

It doesn’t matter so much what I said (Lasagna? Red is just perfect. Yes, go with the cabernet) but what SHE said when she picked her wine. She thanked me for my help and we laughed because winos laugh with everyone and she said “Oh thank you so much. I should start drinking more!”

I thought I had never heard a sweeter thing. And so you see, you’re never too old to start drinking.

Pavers

I’ve decided, because of one thing and several others, including (admittedly adorable) play-fighting dogs, uncooperative soil and possibly a family of possums, that I should just extend my patio with pavers so that I will no longer have to look upon giant bare patches of dirt and act out The Grapes of Wrath on summer evenings. I’m not saying I don’t make a good Rose of Sharon, but I already have a giant shrub in my yard by that name and it’s beautiful. So, change the way you think about it, right? Right.

So you go and buy pavers and bricks and bags and bags of sand and your car sinks alarmingly under the weight of it all but you’re ok, you’re only two miles away and you’ll drive slowly and isn’t this SO FUN, it’s going to be AH-mazing. Until you realize that a) you have to now unload everything that the Home Depot guys loaded for you and b) you never really knew just how uneven your whole entire yard was. This whole time, you’ve been tilting East. Well I say that’s not a bad thing. Maybe we should all tilt a little more East. But anyway, pavers need to be level, at the very least because you don’t want your cocktail rolling away from you.

So the digging, the leveling, the throwing up of hands, the stomping of feet, the sitting on a pile of sand moodily staring at the wretched ground that refuses to even itself out no matter how hard you try, the tossing out of all rules, the gleeful stamping around, the pride in one perfectly level row. At the rate I’m going, I may be done by July.

But I do not lack encouragement. My very good friend offered up this: “If you lay one row of pavers, you get two glasses of juice. Since you laid 3 rows, you get X glasses of juice which is equal to Y bottles of wine. What is X and Y?”

Now, I don’t know why my very dear friend who purports to know me would ever pose such a question to me because, math. She knows very well I was in Math 101, Math for the non-math major, the kind of math that they HAVE to have for “people like me” who “use a calculator.” The kind of math they have in a classroom very close to the front door of the building so that hopefully no one of mathematical importance will see you enter or leave. The kind of math with a textbook called “Discrete Mathematics” as if to remind you to keep quiet about it. The math that causes one to lower one’s voice and looks over one’s shoulder when discussing the subject over drinks or in the hallway or ever.

I know this about math: there is the alphabet math, the shapes math and the story math. I don’t like any of them, but I sure like my friend’s word problem. This kind of math involves real life problems, like "How much wine do I need to lay a paver patio that measures 8x13 KNOWING that the measurement of 8x13 may not be correct, as it was measured with a glass of wine in one hand AND it is so uneven that a teeter totter would do neither, it would just fall over?"

Who cares about trains and wind speed and cars racing trains along dirt roads? That's not a real-life problem when you fly. When you fly, you don't have to do that story math. You look at the board that hangs from the sky and you find your city and you read the time. It's all very simple.

The solution to this word problem is also simple. I just bought a case of wine. If it’s not enough, then I’ll go back to the store. If it’s too much, then I need to talk to someone in science because I’ve flipped reality on its head and proved the impossible and frankly that is not a reality in which I want to live.

She walks on the left. So, you know what that means.

I love it when you are travelling and you get the chance to get go to two cities or states or countries in one day. You know, “Let’s go to Milwaukee for cheese curds!” Or “Portland is close enough for a day trip!” or “Let’s go to Monaco for a drink.” You know how you are.

I was visiting my sister in Boston and we decided to go to Rhode Island because we like to say“RhodesIiiiisland” like it’s one word and we’d been boozing since mimosas. Which isn’t true, obviously, everyone knows it’s two words. Also, it’s just a two-hour drive. That barely qualifies as a road trip, but I brought along some Pringles to make it official.

You know, for the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island sure has a lot of space. First, the Atlantic Ocean is huge. I’m from Chicago. Lake Michigan isn’t an Ok Lake or a Good Lake. It’s a Great Lake. I’m used to not being able to see the other side of a body of water.

But the Atlantic is huge and salty and cold-blue and wide-eyed windy. I did some cartwheels on the beach because I could and then we went for lobster rolls, because we were in Newport. I was wriggling at being so close to what I knew would be deliciosity I almost needed a straw for my wine. Suddenly, the server. And I look down to find a small hot dog bun stuffed with a rather over-mayonnaised lobster salad, lonely and frightened on a big white expanse of plate set before me. I looked sadly at my sister who just shook her head and pushed my wine closer.

It’s a good thing we had wine with lunch, because we were on our way to apply for jobs at the Astor Mansion and if a tipsy enthusiast doesn’t make a good impression on a robber baron then I don't know what does.

Ok, so it was one of those “living history” tours with actors in period costume and we paid to pretend like we were applying for jobs there. This sounds weird but it’s not. It was 1891 and we learned things.

For example, I learned that a lady who walks on the left “is no lady at all” which I now use to describe certain persons who displease me. I just say, “She walks on the left.” I have manners. I talk about people I barely know behind their backs, not in front of them. That's rude.

I learned that The Mrs. Astor founded something called the “Four Hundred” which is not unlike “300” in that there are less than 500 people in one small area who consider themselves elite and therefore better than everyone else. I still am not sure where the sandals come in, if they do.

So I totally pretended like I really was applying for a job there. Why wouldn’t you? It’s a big, giant house with huge gardens that overlook the ocean. Who wouldn’t want to live there?! But then I learned that all 5,498 windows were cleaned with newspaper (do what?) and decided the life of a maid was not for me. Imagine how many newspapers I’d have to read in order to clean all those windows. I don't read the newspaper. Not even for windows.

Five Minoots

I am still in what my friend calls the “New Year Purge Vortex.” The NYPV is not STD. It happens when you de-twinkle after the holidays…when you make space, clear the clutter, feel sad about having to put away the sparkle and then declare you’re going to make your own sparkle.

Now, this is all very ambitious as I am still in my pajamas. Also, I’m having trouble discerning between my juices. I mean, between my juiced juicer juice and my fermented grape juice. But this de-cluttering, this NYPV-ing, it can happen at any time.

Like, when you stand staring at something for a minute and suddenly it’s all “If I put this here and that there and what is that, anyway?" And, "I don’t need this at all…or that either and why do I still have this and is this a wire hanger? What the hell am I doing with wire hangers? I’ve seen Mommie Dearest 147 times. I know better.”

Five minutes later, I have half a bag of why-do-I-still-have-this ready for someone to claim (let them wonder in 5 years why they’ve received the half a bag of why-do-I-still-have-this) and I’ve organized like a ninja boss, which means I get to do the ninja-boss dance. It involves high kicks and is very ambitious.

I love it when organization sneaks up on me like that. It doesn’t have to be a big production. It doesn’t have to be a whole day. It doesn’t have to be dreaded and eye-rolled and avoided and procrastinated. It can be just five minutes. The French have a word for this. They say “five minoots.” You’d be surprised at what you can accomplish in five minoots.

So I say, the next time you’re in your closet and you feel the urge to rearrange or organize or just curl up and sleep it off (you know you’ve done it), go with it. But do come out again. There’s no reason to stay in there, no matter how organized it might be.

Say Goodnight, the Party's Over.

My New Year’s Resolution is always the same: Drink More Champagne. That’s just common sense.

Anyway, it's April and it's just about three weeks past the time that everyone gives up their resolutions because they were really good about it for at least 17 hours and then something happened, like a West Wing marathon, and they lost themselves to snappy dialogue and conversations about House resolutions and forgot to remember that they made their own resolution and now it just feels too late to re-resolution the resolution they never really wanted to make in the first place which, looking back on it might have had a better chance if they had gotten Aaron Sorkin to write it in the first place.

But let’s not get into a tired conversation about “resolutions” and things you want to “stop” or “start” doing. You can actually stop or start or continue at any point during the year. It’s not just one day of the year. It’s not actually written anywhere that you can’t.

What is more important is that it's 2013 and I have no idea what time it is. I don’t know anything anymore. 2012 ended and I thought we were supposed to end with it so I threw out all my clocks. Thanks, Mayans for the MISINFORMATION. But still, it's 2013!

You know who won’t have a 2013? The Mayans. Poor lil’ fellas. No literally, they were very, very small. Very. Small.

Ok let’s be honest. The only reflection I like is the one in the mirror. However. There are a few things to consider:

1. We survived the end of 2012 even though the Mayans thought we wouldn’t and Hollywood tried to convince us of the same.

2. There haven’t yet been any conspiracy theories about Hollywood Mayans or Mayan Hollywoods but Mexican soap operas are very popular.

3. Whatever you thought was going to happen did or didn’t.

It’s terrifying to think about getting thrown (or throwing yourself) into the deep end. You know what, though? Most of the time, you don’t drown. You only swallow a bit of water. You cough. You breathe. You shake off the water.

So. Check out the pool. Groove out. Sparkle on.