A friend of mine is turning thirty and dreading it, but thirty is my favorite age, so far.

Thirty is the age when you look back at your twenties and realize that you had absolutely no idea what you were doing. You were going with the flow, making plans, changing plans, realizing that plans don't always work out the way you want them to, trying to act like an adult only to realize that you weren't very good at it, wishing you could do something amazing to prove to yourself and the world that you can be a somebody, testing your "I'm an adult and I can do whatever the hell I want" status, finding out that "doing whatever the hell you want" doesn't actually mean that "whatever the hell you want" is a good idea, and swearing you won't turn into your parents.

Thirty is the age when you realize that you don't need to rebel against your parents anymore because you truly are doing your own thing. Thirty is when you forgive yourself for all the stupid stuff you did back when you were young and stupid and stop beating yourself up about it. Thirty is when you stop wanting to be somebody and just start being somebody. Thirty is when you think, "hey, cosmetic surgery isn't such a bad idea" and you stop making fun of people for having it. Thirty is when you are able to understand why people do what they do (if you take the time to try to figure it out) rather than just labeling them as jerks, so you can forgive errors more easily, and reduces lots of stress. Thirty is when you start realizing that there's more to life than making money, but you still appreciate how nice it is to have money. Thirty is when you stop feeling like you need to party every night because it's much more fun to cuddle with your loved ones (if you're not single, that is).

Oh, and at thirty, you still have enough youthful energy to get yourself as healthy as possible before you hit 40 and start falling apart. :-)

Labels: My Life

See how much you learn if you just take time to pay attention to the world...

• Looking eccentric doesn't make you interesting.
  
• Looking extravagant doesn't make you wealthy.
• Acting annoyed doesn't make you important; it just makes you annoying.
• Quoting literature, movies, television, or music doesn't make you intelligent or witty.
• Speaking loudly doesn't mean people should like to listen to you or that you are saying anything interesting or important.
  
• Drug dealers think they're smooth, but they're not.
• Drug addicts seem very pissed off when their dealer is late.
• The head chef will treat you extra well if you loudly compliment his cooking, and he'll even give you extra food to take home.
• No child can resist jumping in a puddle.
• Good dogs roaming the streets by themselves can obey leash laws by holding their leash handles in their mouths.
• If all I had to eat for the rest of my life was good bread, I'd be all right with that.
• Good olive oil makes anything taste mediteranean.
• People who hide in bushes don't look suspicious at all. Really, I mean that; it seems so natural to see a grown man hunched down behind a large potted shrub while looking around to see if anybody notices him.
  
• I have no need for a fast car and don't want one, but it's very hard to resist drooling over a Lamborghini at a stop light.
• Senior citizens who wear funky hats, mp3 players, and tshirts with liberal activist slogans are cool.
• Foreigners who try to speak English are cute.
• Children who speak foreign languages are cute and seem way smarter than I.
• Everything tastes better with cheese. (Hmmmm, double fudge sunday with cheese? strawberry banana smoothie with cheese? Cheerios with cheese? I'm sure they must be delicious.)
• A city filled with fog at night is beautiful.
• Anytime you see a bunch of police cars with flashing lights on a bridge and a bunch of cops looking over the side of the bridge, you probably don't want to be hanging out under that bridge.

Labels: My Life

I'm tired of being asked, "Where do you go for spiritual guidance? How do you know what to believe? What do you do when you have a problem and need to pray for help?" by people who don't understand what it means to be agnostic. Whenever you say, "I just figure things out myself," they just don't seem to get it. Oh, how could anybody actually come up with their own practical solutions to life's problems without a book or some illogically thinking guru or mythological story to guide them?

I'm tired of trying to explain it, so I'm starting my own congregation, and every time somebody who doesn't understand the concept of thinking for yourself asks me these inane questions, I'm just going to say that I belong to the PHOFQ. (I haven't figured out how to pronounce it yet.)

We'll all wear little question marks on our necklaces and t-shirts that say "What would a-free-thinking-intelligent-person-who-isn't-brainwashed-or-insane do?"

We'll go door to door distributing free copies of "The Origin of Species," telling people to be nice to each other just because it's a nice thing to do and smarter than doing something that will get you shot, and handing out pamphlets titled "I Don't Know" with subheadings like "Maybe, Maybe Not" and "Who Knows."

We'll sing uplifting songs, like the classic "We Wish There Were Psychiatrists in Ancient History" and "Why Would a God Needs an Army?" and the ever popular, "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle.

We'll go on a holy trek once a year to any place of our choice (because if God created the Earth, then every inch of it is holy, even the toilet; I'm making a holy trek to my couch, right now).

We'll be friends with everyone (because if God created people, then every person is a chosen person).

At least once day per week, we'll take a day off (because we're freakin' tired).

Several times per year, we'll celebrate something (because parties are fun and remind us that life is nice; yesterday I celebrated the glory of bean-dip and munster cheese with my children and danced around with my cat).

Now if only I could convince other agnostic persons that sending me mountains of money will make them have better lives.

Labels: Deep Thoughts and Philosophy

There are parts of our lives that we're supposed to forget, supposed to pretend they never happened, just so we can stay in the moment and avoid the pain of remembering past pains and the pain of missing past joys. Move forward. Always move forward, and don't look back.

But when we refuse to look back, refuse to remember, we are suggesting that everyone and everything at that time was insignificant. It wasn't. Everything has added to who we are. Every regret. Every accomplishment. Every dream. Every hurt. Everything makes us the people we are today, individually and collectively. To deny that means that we, today, are insignificant, that pieces of each of us is insignificant, that our children and friends and joys and futures are insignificant.

Remembering the past does not keep you from moving forward. Forgetting it does. Forgetting it stops you from growing, stops you from learning from your mistakes and your successes.
Forgetting it waters down the emotions, the love we feel when we're with somebody we care about, the pride we feel when we overcome obstacles, the hope we have which keeps us going. The more we forget, the more we shrink into numbness.

In that numbness, it takes more to stimulate us. We must drink more to feel giddy. We must smoke more to feel calm. We must eat more and have sex more and push ourselves to the edge more to feel pleasure. We must drug ourselves more just to feel normal. All of the quantities increase, but the quality steadily declines. And all because we forget.

Labels: The Quest for Happiness

Here's my list:

1. Mom
   best job in the world
   
   
2. Writer
   children's, fiction, non-fiction, educational, organizational, self-help, health
   
   
3. Teacher
   elementary school, middle school, high school, adult remedial education
   
   
4. Personal Trainer / Weight Loss Coach
   I would love to help other people like me conquer their obesity
   
   
5. Counselor / Psychologist
   I do it all the time already; would be nice to get paid for it
   
   
6. Talk Show Host (radio or tv)
   it just looks like fun, and you can increase public awareness of important issues; it's like being a teacher in a much bigger classroom
   
   
7. Humanitarian Aid Director
   UNICEF would be nice
   
   
8. Owner of an Animal Friendly Dairy and Egg Farm
   animals don't get slaughtered; they just change jobs; I don't actually want to work on a farm; I just want to own it
   
   
9. Owner of a Eco-Friendly Products Sales Company
   create and sell products that don't destroy the environment
   
   
10. Owner of a Vegetarian Cafe
    cafes with themes; I don't want to work there; I just want to own it
    

Labels: My Life

One of the most important things you can do to take control of your life is to make a list of your priorities, to know what's really important to you. Here's mine:

1. My kids (More important than life)
   Help them grow happy, healthy, and balanced, and let them know they're loved and important
   
   
2. My happiness and sanity
   Without it, I can't enjoy anything on this list
   
   
3. My husband
   Strengthen our friendship and intimate bond and help him feel appreciated, important, and loved
   
   
4. My learnin'-stuff passion
   I love learning new things. I love taking classes, watching documentaries, and reading how-to books.
   
   
5. My health
   Avoid illness, strengthen immunity, improve fitness
   
   
6. Financial stability
   Be able to pay for essential items: a satisfactory (or better) home, food, utilities, clothing, etc.
   
   
7. My writing passion
   Practice, improve, publish, and earn an income
   
   
8. My helping-people passion
   Volunteering, donating to charity, teaching people to help themselves and make the world a better place
   
   
9. My having-new-fun-experiences passion
   I'll try almost anything once (as long as it doesn't significantly endanger my life or health)
   
   
10. My love of the arts
    I want to surround myself with creativity and beauty
    
    
11. My travel passion
    I love being a tourist
    
    
12. Recording our family history
    To honor our ancestors and guide our descendants
    

Labels: My Life

When I was little, I was so frustrated because I had such big ideas, but I always seemed to forget them so quickly. I would try to remember, but I couldn't. I remember watching my mother make a shopping list, so she wouldn't forget what we needed to buy. A way to remember ideas: writing. That was the first reason I wanted to write.

The next reason came from a need to be heard. I grew up in a family of six. There was always so much talking. You could say something, but within minutes, sometimes seconds, everyone would forget what you said. Writing it down, though, made it permanent, or at least more permanent that air and sound vibrations were. I started keeping journals. My first was a spiral notebook with powder pink paper. My next was a little green diary with a lock. I threw those away when I was a teenager because most of the entries were too childish, the big ideas of a little kid.

As soon as I learned how to write sentences, I began writing poetry. I remember my first poem was about the Easter Bunny, but I don't remember the exact words, something about how the Easter Bunny was coming to make me happy.

In fifth grade, I loved diagramming sentences and learning about the various parts of grammar. One day, we were writing a descriptive paragraph. I decided to write about horses. I decided to just try to do the best I could, try to be poetic. My teacher entered my descriptive paragraph into the school's annual writing contest. I won a blue ribbon and a book, Knots on a Counting Rope, and my little paper went into the district contest.

I started writing poetry every day.

In junior high, I started writing stories. Most of them were love stories. When I wasn't writing stories, I was inventing worlds, amusements parks, vehicles, tools, and anything else my mind could imagine. I drew my inventions in detailed diagrams, but I knew they wouldn't come to life except through stories.

In eighth grade, I wrote a story for English class. The story was based on a very strange, ghostly experience I had in the middle of the night a few weeks earlier. My teacher entered it into the annual writing contest, and again I won a pretty ribbon. That settled it; I wanted to be a writer.

In high school, I wrote stories and poetry. I wrote essays and reports. I wasn't very good at it. Most of my work just flat out sucked. I mentioned story ideas to my friends, never without admitting that they were story ideas, and waited for their feedback. Most of my story ideas were unoriginal or boring.

After college, I took a creative writing course and threw together some short stories, but none of them were particularly stimulating. I gave up because I couldn't come up with a good idea.

I decided to focus on non-fiction instead. I wrote lots of non-fiction. Most of it expressed interesting ideas but demonstrated poor writing skills. I've always enjoyed non-fiction, but I still longed to be a novelist.

I read every non-fiction book I could get my hands on, but I was never much of a fiction reader. So many stories bored me. I loved science fiction and fantasy, but the writing in these genres often lacked the moods I wanted to experience. In college, I learned to love Shakespeare. I also learned to fall in love again with children's literature because it was face paced, and there were always happy endings. Gradually, fiction reading became a standard part of my life.

After I had children, I began telling them stories off the top of my head. I had missed diving into my imagination. I knew I wanted to write fiction in addition to my non-fiction, but I was afraid.

Then I had an epiphany. There's tons of copied plots, bad writing, scenes that drag on way too long, blah, blah, blah... Yet, those novels were published and selling. I realized that no matter how horrible my writing was, somebody would be willing to read it, and somebody might even like it. So I started writing again, knowing that I probably wouldn't become a member of the greatest writers ever list, but at least I could get my ideas into the world in a more permanent way, more permanent that just speaking them into the air in front of my children.

And that's why I write, so I can be heard, so I can feel like the things I say are important enough to be heard by anyone willing to read them. Maybe I'll get another blue ribbon along the way.

Labels: Writing

The older I get, the more I realize that finding somebody who shares your sense of humor is nearly impossible.

I am fortunate to have found a man who matches my sense of humor. Not only do we laugh at all the same things, but we strive to laugh at everything, which is a quality that I've also learned is hard to find. Even when I'm crying, he knows how to make me laugh. Even when we disagree or get frustrated with each other, we laugh. We've never even had an actual fight, and we've been together for a decade. He's the funniest man I've ever met, and that makes him the perfect man.

Perhaps that is the secret to the perfect relationship, laughing at the same things. Sure, goals and philosophies are important, but I've met many persons with the same goals and philosophies that I have, and I have no desire to make them into close friends. On the other hand, when somebody laughs with me at something, I want to spend as much time as possible with that person, at least until the laughter stops.

Perhaps that's what dating services should use to match potential couples, humor profiles. Instead of "What's your sign?" pick-up lines should be more like "What's your favorite comedy?" Instead of "How to impress women" articles in men's magazine, there should be "How to make women laugh" bits.

Labels: Love Relationships and Marriage

We tend to think of ourselves as superior to other animals, so my question is: what makes us so much better? What do we do that is more advanced than other species?

Build? Termites build structures that dwarf our skyscrapers when you compare them scale-wise. They even invented air conditioning.

Emotions? I don't know if worms have emotions, but I'm certain that dogs and cats do.

Art? Watch a few documentaries about different animals' homes or mating rituals and it's obvious that we aren't the only ones with ideas about what looks nice, which dance is seductive, and what music motivates us.

The ability to think about thinking? Studies have shown that many primates have the ability to reflect on their brains' learning processes.

The ability to dominate other species? We can only do that when we are in large groups. Even a colony of ants can kill a single human.

Perhaps what makes us different is our belief in spirituality. We imagine something more because we can't, for some reason, appreciate things as they are. We keep searching for meaning to everything. We keep trying to achieve a sense of wholeness.

Do other animals believe in spirituality? Do dolphins invent gods? Do frogs wonder if they're insignificant? Do parrots daydream about heaven?

Does believing in spirituality make us better, though? Many religious individuals seem to think so, but I don't. I think we are no better than any other conscious organisms. Nature can easily wipe us out the way we hire pest control services to wipe out colonies of termites. A lion can easily choose to kill a human the way we choose to kill a cow; nothing personal, just lunch time. I don't think we're better, just fortunate for now.

Labels: Deep Thoughts and Philosophy

It amazes me how many people want to demonstrate that they can't be controlled by external demands by doing the opposite. Ahhh, the rebel, the nonconformist, the school boy/girl who epitomizes cool. They imprison themselves by their own immature reactions. How sad to see so many intelligent individuals continuing to live life based on the opinions of others.

When you base your actions on what somebody else wants rather than what you want for yourself, you are giving that other person control. It doesn't matter if you're following their instructions or rebelling against them. The very fact that you have made decisions, beliefs, actions, etc. as a response to that other person (or people or society in general) indicates that you are actually letting yourself be controlled by them.

When you truly have control over your own actions, you become mindful of what you want and what you are doing. You act with intention rather than reaction. Know what's really important to you, not what others have taught you that you are supposed to value. Think about life, religion, science, philosophy, relationships, goals, death, etc. Challenge everything you've ever been taught. Be honest with yourself. Some things will make sense, so you'll keep them in your life. Some things won't, so you'll abandon them.

Once you find out who you are, what you want, and all of the other things people look for when they're finding themselves, you suddenly find yourself doing your own thing. When others criticize you for your actions, you are not swayed. When others praise you for your actions, you are not swayed. You do what you do because you believe it to be the right thing to do, not because others judge it one way or the other.

Labels: The Quest for Happiness

I decided to start a nifty little blog about little old me. Why? Because my fans asked me to. Because I just can't get enough of my own ramblings. Because everyone deserves to know what I think. (Whether or not they actually want to know ... well that's their problem.)

I have no plans to change the world with my little blog. I have no plans to gain fame or become a cyber icon. I just want to journal my private thoughts (likely with typos, bad writing, and pointless stories) in a very public way. If you want to read them, then enjoy.

Labels: Introduction