One questions I ask myself the most these days is “Why?” I pause and wonder sometimes, why certain things happen or happened, or why others just seem to work or go well together. We have an average of 60,000 thoughts per day even though I…
Everybody talks about intermittent fasting these days and it grows rapidly in popularity. What is intermittent fasting and how do you do it? Are there benefits and who should avoid it. Interested? Read on. What is intermittent fasting? In a nutshell, you basically eat the…
If you have no clue what to do with the rest of your day, start by making your bed. No need for expensive Chanel clothes. Just have style and get red lipstick and red nail polish instead. Smile and stand up straight. Trust your intuition and always listen to your gut. Don’t remake the bed after your partner made it. Except that a man won’t understand if you “feel” a certain way or cry out of the blue. Except that he won’t ask if you are okay all the time.
Leave a party when you feel like it. Be patient, good things take time. Do not worry about the jobs you did not get. Other possibilities and opportunities will appear out of nowhere. Perfection is not the point. Just be brave and strong. Don’t avoid things or opportunities just because they seem too big or too adventurous. Don’t live in fear of the Duolingo Owl. Take good care of yourself. Balance and moderation are key.
Be yourself, no matter what. When you have people over for dinner, don’t try to impress them. Make simple, delicious food and keep in mind that no one is grading you. They are all just happy you cook for them. Leggins are not pants and flip-flops are not shoes. Always keep in mind that if a friend tells you a secret about another friend, she has told another friend a secret about you, too.
If you have an urge to keep telling people you do not have a problem with X, Y and Z you do have a problem with X, Y, and Z. Whenever you order food and there are two or three plastic forks in the bag, you are definitely overeating. Look at yourself (or dance) naked in front of the mirror and blow yourself a kiss before you leave the house.
Watch porn like a lady if you choose to and do it without feeling guilty or being embarrassed. Be polite in extreme situations and chew your food with your mouth closed. There is etiquette for the insane: they wave at you, you wave back. They say hi, say hi back. There is etiquette for phone solicitors: The friendly way to stop them from calling is by saying, “Thank you so much for calling, but I have just murdered my [whatever you feel like] and I am currently digging a hole.” Don’t ever feel bad to say “no” and then find yourself in worse situations just because you were afraid of being rude or you simply wanted to be nice and please the other person. Never ever works in the long-run.
And lastly (is this a blog post on its own?) : Airplane etiquette or am I an
It is not okay to eat Buffalo wings, Indian food or any other strong smelling stuff (that you bring from home) on a plane. Consider other people. Air gets filtered and circulates on the plane, but c’mon. You will survive eating food served on the plane for once.
I am about to congratulate everybody who sits next to me because I am probably the most considerate person on this plane. I keep calm in stressful situations but you better check in your carry-on bag that is way too big. Do not stuff it in the overhead bin for too long while people wait in the aisle and try to get to their seats. I am still calm.
Do you still try to stuff that bag in the overhead bin? Honestly, nobody really wants to help you stuff your bag in that bin. They all think you suck and you should have checked that bag in. What is so bad about waiting ten minutes for your bag to show up on the baggage claim conveyor belt? Don’t bring handbags that look like a laundry sack. You won’t be able to fit it under the seat in front of you so now the stewardess (oh, sorry: flight attendant) has to carry your sack and find a place in the overhead bin somewhere far away from your seat so you now walk around and take things out and put others in immediately. Still calm.
Check-in, security check, sitting in your seat waiting for take-off: Wait patiently and read a book. Maybe be on your phone and check or update your Facebook status and see how many people like it. Don’t do anything else.
On the plane and ready to take-off: Oh, wait. Hear that? The woman in front of me just called someone on speakerphone to say that we all just boarded. Nice! Oh, it is her husband. Now they discuss what he is going to eat tonight. He really misses her already and cannot wait for her to come back home. In the meantime, the baby behind me starts to scream but that is fine. Babies do that. The pilot is making an announcement at the same time: “We are grounded for another hour because of ice and snow. Sorry for the inconvenience!” The woman on the phone screams that she wants to speak to the FLIGHT ATTENDANT OR THE PILOT NOW BECAUSE SHE NEEDS TO BE AT THIS VERY IMPORTANT MEETING.
I strangle her with her seatbelt and throw her out of the emergency door. Before that, I take off her high heels. Who gets on a plane with high heels on? Size 6. Perfect for the baby to play with.
I am indeed the most considerate person.
There was no clown (or balloons) in the sewer on this rainy morning walk to school. I did not see the ghost that haunts the house next door. A construction worker did not climb over my balcony peaking through the windows but was actually on…
Mother’s Day is on Sunday, May 12th. Today, my son’s school invited to a Mother’s Day Tea Party which turned out to be such a lovely event. I may have wiped away a tear or two when the kids sang songs and told us moms…
“True action, good and radiant action, my friends, does not spring from activity, from busy bustling, it does not spring from industrious hammering. It grows in the solitude of the mountains, it grows on the summits where silence and danger dwell.” – Hermann Hesse
I have two daily routines. One that is ideal, perfect and everything goes as planned. And then there is the second routine which is messy, real, and just simple daily reality. In my ideal routine, I sleep super well, come straight home after school drop-off and start to write right away. Productivity is optimized while distractions are minimized (meaning phone and notifications are off). I am in this state of flow, full of energy and to- do lists are checked and hammered off. I have a pretty clear picture of my ideal routine and how I work best, however, many times this perfect routine does not work.
I used to tell myself that if I really want to be a dedicated writer, I have to get up at 5 am every morning and start working. Getting up early is hard for me. Also, I know I would not stick with this routine for a very long time. Procrastinating or my love to sleep in are one thing, but some days just inevitably go off track. Distractions happen, plans need to be changed or other responsibilities pop up unexpectedly. Sometimes my body and mind just do not want to cooperate with my great plans for the day. And this is okay, too. To expect nothing or not too much and to banish the feeling of guilt makes the day run much smoother. Life happens and there are many moments in a day when my best intentions are not met. I may plan my morning a certain way but receive an email that changes my life completely. You just never know.
I stopped beating myself up over things. What I cannot change, I don’t worry about. I have been through a pretty rough year so far and it is time to showcase softness and to be kind to myself. Instead of beating myself up over things or feeling guilty I rather measure when I treat myself well while putting rest and space on a pedestal.
There are times when hard work and discipline are essential. But by creating a little headspace and trusting myself, I quickly recognize that sometimes the work will get done when it gets done. It is important to take some time off and use it for spiritual growth, inspiration, and restoration and also essential to treat the body kindly and with respect. Often, things do not work out as expected but this does not mean I am a disappointment. I embrace the moments when I am able to find flow and manage to juggle disparate priorities. I enjoy the times I go off track but make sure I find myself back wherever I need to be.
There was a woman in my class at school who is afraid of everything. Especially germs, deadly viruses, all viruses actually and dirt. She covers her seat with plastic bags before sitting down. Or this: The other day I overheard a story a woman told…
“I always read a lot. I read the same amount, no matter what season it is. I read every night. When I’m on book tour, I’m on airplanes all the time, so I’m always reading. People say, ‘How do you have time to read?’ Oh,…
I got into a heated debate with someone the other day about whether a desire to change your partner makes you a shitty person. My argument is that it does not. My friend however implied, in so many words, that it did. I clarified that I did not want to change A LOT, only some things. Just a few! For some reason, I felt that my admission was uncouth, but I still believed I am speaking the truth many people in a relationship felt. My friend stood her ground. “You are not supposed to want to change the person you love. If you ever feel the desire to change them it means that you don’t love them.”
Me: “Okay, point taken for now. You do not want to change a person. So, let’s shift the conversation to sex in a relationship!” I started slowly. I asked my friend how she feels about movie sex. She responded, “Usually, it is pretty squishy and unreal. Whenever the sex scenes last more than five minutes it seems weird and I hit forward on the remote. Nobody has sex like this, right?!”
This time, I agree with her. Nothing gets me yelling at the TV faster than weird sex scenes. Honestly, most movie sex scenes are an insult to real sex everywhere I think. I don’t take personal offense but c’mon. Hollywood sex is mostly unrealistic and just horribly clichéd. Porn usually makes no sense and is good for just one reason but this is clear from the beginning.
This made me think about the most outrageous movie sex myths that seem to have prevailed. Maybe a screenwriter reads this blog post and realizes that it makes sense to excommunicate dumb movie sex scenes immediately so people stop thinking that good sex is supposed to be anything like this. My words may cut surprisingly deep. Be aware. A chilly air may pass between the reader and me but this is normal because confrontation and talk about sex makes people jittery.
[Please apply the above logic to the following scenarios]From Zero to 100 in 2 seconds. Meaning that there is this idea that there are literally no steps between wanting to have sex and being in the middle of it. This should not need any explanation really but no man can unzip his pants out of a sudden and start having sex. Usually, there are steps involved in this f****** process. I mean this literally.
The woman- asking- to- use- the-toilet-bursting-through-the-door sex. This myth usually requires no foreplay in movies and nothing gets my eyes rolling more than a couple bursting through the entrance of a house, knocking things over while making out and of course furiously taking off the clothes still worn. WHO IS DOING THIS? Or better, who decides that this is sexy?
The romantic mutual backward bed crash flip. A happy couple, so in love, falls, naked backward onto a bed (of course white sheets) in tandem. Doesn’t this seem so difficult? Second, what if someone left a knife on the bed? But more importantly and third, WHO DOES THIS?
The extremely romantic removal of clothing. In movies, removing each other’s clothing seems awkward. The pants get tangled around the ankles or they almost suffocate each other removing a shirt or t-shirt. Unless you are Christian Grey (50 Shades of Grey). Enough of these unrealistic undressing standards.
Sex is not just “jamming it in”. This is probably the worst and most egregious faux-pas because whenever I watch a movie and see a man jamming himself into a woman quickly and for the entire length of a sexual encounter is the worst. In my opinion, this just grossly underestimates what sex should entail. I do not know how else to say this more poetically but 1) sex is just not putting a thing into a hole and 2) other things need to be touched for the woman to experience an orgasm, duh! Which brings me to my next point:
The female orgasm. Here is a question: How come 100% of movies depict women experiencing orgasms from p-in-v sex when only 25 percent of women even can? I am trying to avoid the word penetration here because my parents are reading this, but I must point out that women in movies are coming WAY TO MUCH from p-in-v sex and many times even at the same time as their partners. To be honest, this is not happening that often (or ever) either. Oh, and I hate the word intercourse.
All or nothing. Communication is an important part of life and especially when having sex. I think a couple should talk to each other and share their desires and wishes. So what do sex movie scenes usually show us? Awkward soundtracked silence or repetitive grunts and “yes oh’s yeeeeees’s”. There is an in-between, you know?! Let me remind you in case you forgot: it is an exchange of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Wild, huh!
All night sex and/or let’s do it again sex. The couple in the movie, all sweaty, moments after finishing and between heaving breaths say, “Let’s do it again!” and they roll over and get back at it. NOT HAPPENING. And it sounds very bad and tiring. I am not saying that no one does this but…. actually, I am saying that. No one does this. At least some time to recoup, ideally several hours…. and then, ideally you are cuddled up together and asleep.
And can or should I change someone? I believe that maybe full, unbridled acceptance (flaws and all) is ideal to a fault. But I also think it is possible to accept someone while at the same time supporting their betterment, and the betterment of the relationship for a period of time. You don’t want these issues to linger on for years. There is a difference between supportive encouragement and critical punishment.
I care a lot about many things. I worry a lot, too. Especially as a woman, I think I am more prone to care and worry. But to what extent is it healthy? Honestly, I know people who truly don’t care about many, to me,…
