.SOMETIMES RAW.

A lot of people who know I am writing books ask me, “So, do you think it is going to be any good? Well, do you?”

It is hard to tell how successful or good anything will be. And, to be honest, it makes me a little nervous. That is why I decided to do the ooooooooonly rational thing: go to a psychic. I mean, what is the use of putting in a lot of hard work if the book is going to be a flop? I could better use my time doing other stuff, like becoming a professional ballerina or flossing my teeth. The first psychic I went to wasn’t that good. I went to a student psychic. It was this little place in a mall between a video store and a frozen-yoghurt place. The psychic name was Chris. He first said to me, “You are at a crossroad and confused. There are many questions you want to be answered.” “Well, yeah,” I said, “that’s why I am here. Why else would I go to a psychic?” I should have gotten suspicious when he said, “How am I supposed to know?”

Chris said “Ooooooooo” and raised his hand in the air every time he made a prediction. I guess he thought it looked like he was communicating with powerful entities in the spirit world, but to me, it looked like he was auditioning for some talent show. I knew he was bad because he wouldn’t say anything without first consulting his book on unexplained phenomena.

His predictions were kind of vague, to say the least. “I see you’re pouring some kind of liquid into your mouth out of cylindrical objects. This object, it’s made of….. glass. After your pour the liquid into your mouth, you will no longer be thirsty.” “There is someone important in your life whose name starts with either the letter E… C… B…..F…. or M through W.” “You have a brother or a sister. Either that or you are an only child.” I told him I had a brother and a sister; he seemed proud of himself. “Your brother knows how to drive.” As a matter of fact, he does. Who doesn’t? My brother is almost allowed to fly a small plane but he didn’t mention that. I asked him about my past lives, hoping that I had been Cleopatra or, at the very least, someone who once had lunch with Cleopatra. He told me that once I had been a monkey, but that in my last life I was a spring roll at a Chinese restaurant. Now that is ridiculous, even though it does explain a recurring nightmare where I am held upside down over a dish of hot mustard sauce.

The student psychic finally admitted that he wasn’t very good. He was, however, able to predict where I would find a good psychic. The session wasn’t a total waste because he gave me a dollar-off coupon for a frozen yoghurt at the place next door.

You could tell the woman he referred me to was good because she opened the door before I rang the bell. Then she said, “You must be Daniela.” Well, that was the point I liked. Because Daniela is my name and all. Sure I had an appointment, and she could have been looking through the keyhole, but I prefer to think she had finely honed psychic powers. The psychic knew that I was nervous about writing my book. This might be because the first thing I said to her was “I am nervous about writing a book.” She looked me in the eye (or possible both eyes, I don’t remember) and without raising her arms or saying, “Ooooooooo,” she made her predictions. The good news, she said, was that my book is going to be on bestseller lists for over twenty-five years and win a ton of awards (literally a ton; they’ll actually weigh them at one point). The bad news, though, was that I was going to have to sit down and actually write the book. I was kind of hoping that elves would come in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and write a best-seller for me; the psychic told me that though it wasn’t impossible (she claimed one or two of Danielle Steel’s books were written this way) in my case it was highly unlikely. Bummer.

Then she took out her tarot cards. She wasn’t able to get a very good reading, so then she took out a deck of regular cards. An hour and a half later she had won $190 oo of me playing rummy. So you can see, she is a very good psychic, even though what she really wants to do is deal blackjack in Vegas. The good psychic would pick up the phone before it rang. Of course, it is possible there was nobody on the other line. Once she said, “God bless you.” I said, “I didn’t sneeze.” She looked deep into my eyes and said, “You will, eventually.” And, damn if she wasn’t right. Two days later I sneezed. It felt eerie. Not the sneeze, just that she predicted it.

When I was driving home, the phone rang. This was weird in itself because the psychic had predicted that I would get a phone call later in the day. As it turned out, it was my psychic calling. While we were chatting, I got a phone call from my turtle psychiatrist. A turtle psychiatrist isn’t an actual turtle; that would be ridiculous. He is a human psychiatrist who dealt with my turtle’s problems. My turtle’s name was Speedy. You just call him up on the phone, tell him what’s bothering your turtle, and he tells you how to deal with it. He is a bit cheaper than an actual psychiatrist so sometimes I call him up with one of my problems and pretend that is one of former turtle’s problems. Actually, I don’t even own a turtle anymore. Speedy passed away.

So, I called the Turtle Psychiatrist. “Well, my turtle is thinking about starting a new relationship. The problem is that this other turtle reminds him of somebody else, somebody who had hurt him in a previous relationship. My turtle had been rejected and didn’t take it well. He drank a lot of fermented turtle food and didn’t go out much for a long time. And when he did, he took out his pain on other turtles”, I said. I continued, ” Speedy had an interesting dream recently. I sense the dream. I know him well enough to pick up the dreams, but not well enough to actually help him. That’s why I called you. He had this dream that he was being held upside down and dipped into a dish of hot mustard sauce…”

The Turtle Psychiatrist responded, “Oh, I see, he probably was a spring roll in his a past life.” I put on the answering machine, so I wouldn’t get any more phone calls. I felt content. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that I have a good feeling about writing my books. That’s what you asked, right?

The other day I had an epiphany while eating a bag of potato chips. The bag was full of air, I had to burst it like a balloon to open it, and inside were only five or six crumbled chips. It got me thinking about how people fill conversations with trite expressions and phrases, creating the illusion they have said something significant, just like a deceptively puffed-up bag of chips.

Well, not really. What actually occurred to me was that snack food is a huge rip-off, but that is beside the point. My point is… and I do have one (which, by the way, is all explained in my last book – if you haven’t read it you really should, but please finish this article first) is that we no longer say what we mean or mean what we say. Do we honestly think interjecting “Every dog has its day” or replying with “Is that so?” contributes to the conversation? No, all it does is prolong the meeting, party, or intervention, cutting into time that could be better spent at home zoning out watching clouds passing by.

Than this overused phrase: “Honesty is the best policy.” Is it? Honesty is good, yes, but not always. Up to a certain point, you should be honest, but just imagine if we were all honest all the time. The world would be terrible. It would be a cold, cruel place.

“G-sus, Christine. Have you gained a lot of weight, or what? You are so puffy.” “Boy, that breath of yours is something else. I am about to pass out. Seriously, that has to be the worst breath ever.” “Has your ass always been that flat or am I just noticing it now for the first time?”

I will tell you what is really bad – going up to your friend whom you haven’t seen in a while and saying, “Oh my God, you are pregnant!” and they are not. I have done that, and I will tell you – the look on his face! He looked at me blankly and said, “As far as I know, men cannot have babies.” I tried to cover, but it was no use. “Oh, I thought I read somewhere these days they can.” How many people can honestly say they are completely honest? Not too many. That is why people in the U.S. have to put their hand on a Bible and take an oath to testify in court. Everyone just assumes that people lie. We have to say “I swear to God” or “I swear on my mother’s life, may God strike me dead!” if we really want to be believed. I really never lie. I don’t- I swear to God. (Like you have to – like God doesn’t know the truth!) Okay, I do lie at the Cardio machine at the gym. It says “Enter Program and Age” and I punch in “35” and I push Enter. I don’t want the machine to give me a workout for a forty-one-year-old.

When it comes to clear communication, these useless phrases, expressions, and cliches aren’t really up to snuff. Whatever that means. Let’s just say that people say a lot of things that are ridiculous.

For example, how about those:

1. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
2. Adversity builds character.
3. God doesn’t give you anything you cannot handle.

I have revised those saying to make them more accurate:

1. What doesn’t kill you puts you in a whole lot of pain and makes you cry a lot and want to crawl into a hole forever and live with rodents.
2. Adversity builds character. Translation: You become bitter and angry and then people hate you even more.
3. God doesn’t give you anything you cannot handle… unless God is on it and doesn’t like you either.

What’s even worse is the new trend of saying “You know what I mean?” Often, people say it after each and every sentence. “You know what I mean?” It is used so much it has become one word “YouknowwhatImean?” People who use it seem unsure if they are being understood correctly. I admire that. I always repeat back what they have said to ensure I have comprehended.

That would be me: “Now, what I think you are saying is that you are thirsty, but I am only saying that because you just said, you were thirsty, but I might have misinterpreted. You could have cryptically explained to me the genetic code of the common housefly, and if that is the case, no, Idon’tknowwhatyoumean.”

So for the good of all humankind, I suggest that we liberate ourselves from these empty expressions and wasted words. For your reference, here’s an incomplete list of phrases I kindly ask that nobody say around me anymore:

“Stop and smell the roses.” – Well, what if you are allergic to roses?

“Wake up and smell the coffee.” – What if you drink tea?

“Happy as a clam” – Okay, if clams are so happy, then why do people “clam up” when they get mad?

“For the love of Pete”, “Heaven’s to Betsy” – Who is Pete? Who is Betsy? Do they know each other?

“Take care.” – This is short for “Take care of yourself”. What does this even mean? Where’s the care? I will take it. Pretty soon it will be just “take”.

“Have a nice day.” – Cashiers and other service-industry people are forced by their supervisors to say this to every customer. The cashiers don’t mean it. What they are really saying is, “Please, I don’t want to get fired.”

“He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” – Everybody hurts flies. Someone realized the hatred of flies is so universal that they actually came up with a device to kill them. Who likes flies? Or wasps? What’s the purpose of those two anyway?

“The sun will come out tomorrow.” – Yes, but only if you are the one who wrote the lycics to the theme song for the musical Annie. In that case, the sun comes out for you every time you receive your big fat royalty check. Otherwise, rain.

“Nothing is forever.”- However, diamonds apparently are forever. They also happen to be a girl’s best friend. Hint.

“You win some, you lose some.” – Although, someone I know does have the habit of saying this one during sex.

Well, that’s “the long and short of it.” See what I have done here? I have wasted your time by using that phrase: “the long and the short of it.” If I have included it as a way to quickly wrap up this chapter I have defeated the purpose. Not to mention the words I am now using to explain this to you. On top of that, I haven’t made any sense. How can something be long and short? It can’t. It is physically impossible. You cannot be fat and skinny or hot and cold or ugly and pretty. In the eighties, my mom had this super orange wallpaper with cubes on it that was pretty ugly but is not considered retro, vintage, and cool, but that is another whole can of worms.

One thing that always makes me happy is being out in nature. I love nature. I love trees, flowers, and the feeling of walking barefoot in the grass. I spend a lot of time outside every day. I love doing yoga outside. I love to meditate outside. Sometimes I even shower outside. What I am trying to say is, that I lock myself out of the house a lot.

I love being outside. In the mornings, I take a cup of coffee out to my pond, plop myself down on the dock and do what one is supposed to do by a pond – I ponder.

I ponder all sorts of things. I ponder life and our infinite universe and how lucky we are to find ourselves surrounded by incredible forces of nature every day. And then I ponder other stuff like how do mermaids always seem to find seashells big enough to wear as bras? Whenever I go to the beach the biggest shell I can find in one piece is the size of an M&M. I will still make it into a bra, but it’s very, very tiny.

I ponder that expression “You are a big fish in a small pond”. Do fish in a pond know that expression? Do they swim around and try to make the smaller fish feel bad because they are so small? Or do the small fish know the expression “Good things come in small packages”? Maybe they swim around knowing that even though they are small they have a lot to offer, like being cute and shiny.

I can sit and stare into my pond for hours and hours admiring the stunning reflections of the sky and the clouds and the birds. We have so many different kinds of birds near the house. They are always chirping away, and I imagine them saying things like, “Oh, Daniela…. yup, she is so connected to nature. That is so rare to see in a human.” “Yeah, she seems so laid-back and cool. Look at her sitting on that dock drinking her coffee,” I imagine another bird saying. And then the first bird chirps back, ” I bet it would be so fun to hang out with her. She reminds me so much of me when I was younger. Such a nut, but so sweet.” And while they go back and forth saying the nicest things about me – I mean, it’s just so humbling – I start to think about what it would be like to fly around with them all day long, looking at our Earth from way up above, circling and gliding through the air with complete freedom. Sometimes I get so lost in the moment, that I start running around my yard, flapping my arms like a seagull at the beach. A lot of times I will even start to squawk. Usually right around the third or fourth squawk is when my neighbours start screaming at me to pipe down. They are always like, “Quiet down, lady! And put on some pants!” And I am always like, “YOU put on some pants!” because in the heat of the moment I panic and I cannot think of anything better to say. Of course, he is already wearing pants, so it doesn’t pack quite the punch I want it to, but the bottom line is he is clearly not as connected to nature as I am.

When I am not pondering by my pond, I am outside gardening in my garden. I love to garden. I find it very therapeutic. Actually, I treat it just like therapy. I talk to my plants about what is going on in my life, about my dreams and aspirations, my fears, my regrets, and how frustrated I get when someone suddenly stops at the bottom of an escalator without realising there is a whole line of people piling up behind them. I find it very to talk to my plants about pretty much everything. And the best part is, instead of having a therapist who wants two hundred and fifty euros an hour, my plants only charge me sixty.

I just read that gardening is the number one thing to do in Europe. Well, I just wrote it anyway. Who knows if it is true! What I do know is that gardening is awesome. I have a lot of hobbies, but there’s something about gardening that is different. I think it is because gardening is a hobby you can eat. You plant some seeds, you water some soil, and in just a few short months, you have got yourself enough tomatoes to make a tiny salad.

There aren’t a lot of hobbies you can eat. Like, let’s say you love to cook. That’s a bad example. Let’s say you love to travel, and everywhere you go, you try the food at the best local restaurant. Ok, this is getting weird now.

My point is, I love gardening as a hobby. Right now in my garden, I am growing tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, basil, and a whole assortment of herbs. It smells nice, it looks nice, and I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to be able to host a dinner party and offer my guests the literal fruits of my labour. As it turns out, these are very different from the fruits of one’s loins. At a dinner party, I asked someone how she was enjoying the fruits of my loins and she nearly choked on her food.

If you don’t have a garden, I encourage you to plant one. It is a fun thing to do and it is great for the planet. And you know what I always say, time and time again – if you want to add a little spice to your life, plant some dill. And learn to dance salsa.