On The Road Again

Willie's tune seems to be my theme song lately, though I like to think of myself as more a Born to Run type of girl. I'm off to NYC, where I am sure there will be much discussion about Israel, Lebanon, and the general sad state of the world today. I'm bringing my laptop with me, so I'll try to blog from my hotel room. But I say that all the time, and I never do.

For a peak at the trials and mishaps of a struggling novelist, check out the link to the left for Bourbon Decay.

Googling to Feel Better

When I travel, I spend long hours sitting in airport terminals reading magazines or eavesdropping on conversations. The writer in me turns on when faced with long waits in a public place. One thing I’ve noticed, is that people like to talk about what they are angry about when they are waiting. They are angry about flight delays or the trip behind them, perhaps the trip ahead.

When I returned home, inspiration struck and I Googled the words, “I’m Angry.” It turned out to be an interesting experiment. What the search yielded were many links to blogs where bloggers had written the words, “I’m angry.” There are many angry bloggers out there, let me tell you.

Some were touching. A parent was angry at losing a child. Most had to do with broken hearts, particularly scorned lover. “I’m angry that he left me for a whore.” “I’m angry I spent so much money on me and she left me for a ripped hard body.” “I’m angry that I made him my obsession for four years and he dumped me like a used carton of milk.”

Republicans were angry at Liberals. No matter what Republicans say about Liberals, one thing is certain: they hate liberals more than liberals hate them. Maybe that is why they keep winning political offices.

In my Google search, the word “Hate” kept cropping up. Hate is a strong emotion, there are times when it is stronger than love. I have had to work with certain people over the years that I have truly hated. They are without merit. They are demons in human form, albeit, they are not very attractive humans. The thing I hate about these demon/humans is their inability to see themselves as they are, their incapacity to take responsibility for their shortcomings.

Point is, those people make me angry. Maybe when you are in a stable relationship, rather than obsessing about your love life, you obsess about your work life. Your annoyance with your coworkers becomes amplified when you are content with the rest of your life. I got curious just how many people out there felt that they either now, or had in the past had bad coworkers. I Googled, “I hate my coworkers.” 4,920,000 hits came up. When I Googled, “I’m angry,” I got 43,400,000 hits. Lots of people hate their coworkers, but even more are angry in general.

Madonna once said something along the lines of “Life is too short to be bitter and I’m too short, too.” If she didn’t say that, it would have been a good thing to say.

So tonight, as I write this, I’m not really angry about anything. Life, like me, is just too short.

Grumpy in Vancouver

Greetings from Vancouver, a very clean city. When you live in Vegas, traveling to other cities can pose a rather annoying problem: most are not 24/7. Las Vegans tend to do well in New York, the City That Never Sleeps, but up here in pristine Vancouver, you tend to forget that you can’t get a drink at 11:00am (not that I drink at 11:00am. My husband does, sometimes, but that’s another post) or go shoe shopping at 10:00pm (yeah, okay, I do that).

The thing a desert dweller like myself can’t get over is the water. It’s everywhere. This city loves fountains, and they have some spectacular ones. The only place I’ve seen with fountains this pretty, and abundant is Rome. But the ones here are modern, of course, as Vancouver is a baby of town compared to creaky old Rome. Can a person have fountain envy? I think I do. When I first moved to Vegas four years ago, I remember laughing because even the gas stations had fountains, one in particular was rather large and garish. Then, we started realizing that, gee, we live in the desert, and there are nearly a million of us, so perhaps we might to conserve water. So bye-bye fountains.

It’s true what they say: Canadians are a friendly lot. Their cheeriness punctuates my bitchiness. I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West in this town. I’m all in black, I don’t want to greet complete strangers, and I really don’t want to make room for this in crowded elevators. There is another convention in this hotel beside the one I’m attending, and I don’t know what these folks line of work is, but good lord are they annoying. It’s easy to recognize them. They wear little brown badges that hang from lanyards around their neck. They pile on charter busses to go do group activities, like gondola rides. I have no idea where they go on gondola rides, and maybe they are talking about gondolas that take people up mountains, as opposed to the Venetian smelly canal kind. Either way, when they go on their gondola rides, there is a line to get on the elevators. Numerous times, I’ve been sandwiched in with these friendly people, who talk loud when they chit chat about gondola rides, and we stop at every floor because there are more people waiting to pile on. It never fails, two or three cheery jackasses on the elevator – almost invariably in the back, call out, “hey get on, we’ll make room. The more the merrier.”

Yesterday, I had had enough, so I responded with, “No, not the more the merrier. This is ridiculous.” A woman with a frosted hairdo, the kind that you get at the hairdresser and then have to sleep in for a week, gave me a look, then turned around to her husband and made a face indicating, “What a grouch.” Of course I’m a grouch. I have a fat, bald man standing on my feet.

I’ve come to realize that being polite can be rude when multiple people are involved. If Dick and Jane are on an elevator with the entire membership of the Elks Lodge, and the car stops on a floor and Dick and Jane say to the three people standing in the hotel hallway of that floor, “Hey, get on!” then they have been rude to the Elks Lodge, but polite to those people.

This kind of behavior is an oddity that I have only seen in Vancouver. Maybe it’s the fact that this town is so clean and cute that it brings out the best, hence the worst, in people. I’ll tell you though, it’s enough to make you want a drink at 11:00am, or even 9:00am.

The Other Beck

I just finished watching Glenn Beck on CNN. I've never really watched him before and I really don't know anything about him, other than he is a conservative who thinks that the latest middle-east development is the beginning of WWIII.

Honestly, I have to admit when I first heard what Israel did, the thought crossed my mind. I haven't tried to think about it too much, because, yep, I'm shallow. I'm also scared. I also tend to over-react, so I hope that Glenn Beck and I have this in common.

Work tends to get in the way of me getting to obsessed with matters of the world. For a change, I'm glad I have a hectic job that keeps my life unbalanced. Later this week, I get on a plane and fly to Canada, a place that seems like a fitting retreat in the middle of a war crisis. So I won't be blogging, but I will be reading the papers and watching the news. I have a feeling the Lebanon war will be a big topic of this blog in the upcoming weeks.

On a lighter note, I have not commented on W saying the "S" word in public. A lot of people take this as proof that his faith is all show. Uh-huh. It took him uttering a four letter word to prove that? I've said it before and I'll say it again. The guy uses Jesus as a marketing tool. It's an old trick used by lots of folks. Having said that, I don't see how saying the stronger version of poopy makes anyone less faithful. But that's why religion can be so silly, or dangerous, as in the case of what's going on in the world these days, and for that matter, what has happened throughout history.

Brittle Bones and a Fragile Mind

I think about Sin a lot. I’m not talking about biblical sins, cheating on your spouse, murder, lies – hey, those are in the Bible, right? I haven’t been to Sunday school in thirty years. I’m talking about your run of the mill bad habits that these days are considered sinful. Drinking too much wine. Guzzling caffeine. Eating French fries. Neglecting exercise.

Okay, those things aren’t technically sinful. But I know I shouldn’t do them. Three years ago, I got a dexa scan, which showed I had ostepenia, the precursor to osteoporosis. My doctor prescribed 1500 milligrams of calcium a day. She told me to cut out coffee, limit alcohol, do weight bearing exercise and eat healthy.

I have a stressful job that requires lots of travel. Do you have any idea how hard it is to eat healthy on the road, much less avoid wine at mind-numbing business dinners where the only salvation to the evening is a good buzz? Then, of course, the next morning, I’m exhausted from the late night entertaining, so I drink either coffee or everyone’s favorite industrial waste, Diet Coke. On top of that, I don’t stay on top of my calcium and truly, sincerely, do not have time to go the hotel gym as my days begin early and go straight through to night.

When I return home from these trips, I’m often on a health-kick binge fest, though I can’t seem to eliminate the caffeine, no doubt, because I am one of those people who wake up at 3:00am and ponder the previous day while fretting over the upcoming day – plus I throw in these memory games I play with myself to prove I don’t have early-onset Alzheimer’s, such as, “what was the name of that boy I dated for three months when I was in the 11th grade? It was during that phase where I had blackheads on my nose.”

If you play, you pay, the saying goes. Today I went in for another dexa scan. Over the course of the last week, I’ve avoided wine, I did an hour of weight-bearing cardio each day, plus yoga, and I took 1500 mgs of calcium, you know, because that would rebuild my bone density – wouldn’t it? But alas, I could not avoid my beloved Diet Coke, though I did compensate somewhat by drinking only half a can and also had green tea, which may have caffeine, but is supposed to be good for something else, I don’t know what. I can’t keep up with the prevention methods of all the disease I may have or may get.

I won’t know if my T score has gotten worse till Monday, maybe Tuesday. In the meantime, I’m googling Osteoporosis like a hypochondriac who just learned about a new life-threatening disease. So far tonight, I’ve google Osteoporosis and Ambien, Osteoporosis and Elliptical machines, Osteoporosis and yoga, Living with Osteoporosis, I’ve got Osteoporosis – now what?

Don’t hold me to this, but I may now be an expert on Osteoporosis. Or insanity.

The World Does Not Speak English

Contrary to popular belief, the world does not speak English. I’ve learned this the hard way, by getting lost in a foreign country. One of the rudest things one American can say to another American, who is about to travel abroad, is, “Oh don’t bother trying to learn the language. They all speak English.”

I went to Hong Kong. Americans I knew who traveled there said to me, “Don’t bother trying to learn any phrases. They all speak English.”

These people were, in the words of Red from “That 70s Show” “Dumb-asses.” Hotel clerks speak English. Taxi drivers do not. Waiters in dives do not. Store clerks do not.

In an email once, I mentioned to a “friend” that I was learning Spanish in anticipation of moving to Baja one day. She wrote back and in a condescending tone, told me, “Don’t bother, sweetie. They all speak English.”

Tell that to the dozen people I tried to speak to in restaurants this past weekend, from the bartender to the waitress. Or to the three different guys we stopped to ask for directions.

“Que?”

It is arrogant to think that the world speaks English. The world speaks their own language, and those lucky enough to be educated in a foreign language may speak English. They may speak French. As Grandpa would say, “Thanks to us, they don’t speak German.” Unless, of course, they are German.

Belated Happy 4th of July

I stood on my balcony last night and watched fireworks go off all over the Valley. Our house is relatively high up for Las Vegas, so I get a great view of the entire southwestern and southeastern part of town. All over, you could see orbital flashes of red, green and blue. Vegas can be a rather bland looking town if you take out the view of the Strip, so to see the sky just over the City lit up like Tammy Faye's face was a nice change.

Fireworks are one of the best things in life -- as long as you are watching them. I can't say I enjoy hearing stories about kids and rednecks who get their fingers blown off from them.

Like many other 4th of July holidays, yesterday was one of those magical rare days that I will always remember. The 4th is probably my favorite holiday. It's warm outside, it's almost always sunny -- except for the 18 years I lived in San Francisco, then it was always foggy, but still magical. There's always wine and good friends involved, which means there are always stories to tell.

The odd thing about the 4th is I don't recall one holiday ever where there was a political debate at any of the celebrations I attended. On a daily basis, we are a country that complains about not only the other political party, but our own. The only debate I heard yesterday was whether to drink chilled red wine or mojitos. Our little gathering was a democracy. An equal number of people had wine versus mojitos.

Maybe the 4th of July is a bit like Christmas. You know -- everyone is nice to everyone else for a day. On the 4th of July, we put our politics aside and are simply Americans, not Democrats or Republicans.

Good thing that's over. Let's go back to being nasty to each other. Real fireworks are fun, but come on, so are the verbal ones.

Good God, Not a Woman!

Anger has been simmering inside me for a couple weeks now over a certain current even, and it has reached a boiling point. I’m talking about the Episcopal Church’s recent election of Katharine Jefferts Schori to the role of presiding Bishop.

My mama raised me Episcopal. She had been a Catholic all her life till she met Daddy, a Methodist. They decided that rather than one having to join the other’s faith, they would decide together on a new denomination. They chose the Episcopal Church. My father, a staunch Republican, was oddly drawn to the Episcopal faith because, as he said, “of all the churches, it’s the most liberal.” There are two things my father loathed in life. Unions and Baptists. And fans of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, but I’ll save that till football season.

If you are not overly religious, the Deep South is a tough place to live. My mother was religious. Daddy just sat on the fence when it came to God. He didn’t want to burn in hell when he died, but at the same time, a lot of what he read and heard about the Bible seemed like “fairy tales invented by sober people.” Hey, those were his words, not mine.

So though I took after my daddy – I hated the Bulldogs with a passion and much preferred the Ole Miss Rebels, who Daddy thought were the closest things to angels on earth – Mama made me go to church every Sunday. Sometimes, to be sociable, I would go to the church of my pals, be it Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist. Those are your choices in Vicksburg, Mississippi; at least those were the choices of the kids I hung out with.

Nothing made me miss the Episcopal Church like going to someone else’s church. Everything out of the other preacher’s mouth was “Jesus” this and “Jesus” that, which may not seem unusual as it is church, but in my church, there was more talk of Saints and the G himself. The other churches weren't all fancy and gilded like mine. And their choirs were too “kumbaya” for my taste. Our choir was more like an opera than a choir, with sopranos and baritones and the somber but dramatic organ pumping out Phantom-like notes. But I enjoyed Reverend Saul’s sermons. He always told amusing stories about someone long dead and historical, and every sermon was an allegory that made you think, “Hmm, maybe I should stop talking bad about people.” The service was polite and well-mannered, no clapping, no, “let me here you say ‘Praise Jesus’.” It was very ceremonial, almost like a nutty secret society for rich men wearing purple robes. I liked it as far as churches went. But the Episcopals haven’t faired well in this evangelical country of ours, mainly because they were too stuffy and not “Jesusy” enough. Hey, I just invented a word.

As soon as I turned 18, I stopped going to church. I have no proof there is no God, and I have no proof there isn’t one, and frankly, I get more spiritual comfort from a raucous Saturday night, which leaves me exhausted on Sunday morning. Sometimes on airplanes I pray, swearing I’ll be good if He or She just lets the plane land safely. Once, I had a cancer scare, and I prayed: “Dear God, if I’m going to die, please let there be good meds. I’d like to go out with a nice buzz.”

When I heard that the Episcopal church had elected Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop, I felt proud to have been raised Episcopal. I love the idea that out of all the ignorance and hatred that spews out of the more Evangelical faiths, the Episcopal Church elected a woman as their top dog. But not all is well in the pulpit. Not only is Jefferts Schori a woman, but a couple years ago, she voted with the majority of Episcopal bishops to approve the New Hampshire Diocese's election of V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. She has allowed the blessing of same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese.

In other words, she’s a liberal. You know, like Jesus.

So now six U.S. dioceses already have rejected her authority. Many church leaders predict that by the time she takes office, about five more, for a total of 10 percent of the nation's 111 Episcopal dioceses, will have joined the rejectionist camp.

Daddy died in 1995. He hadn’t been to church in about ten years – maybe on Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, but I think he did that for the reception afterwards at the Reverend’s Rector. I really don’t believe he would have had a problem with the election of a woman to the head of the church. He may not have agreed with her views on gays, but he would have said it was none of his business what other people do.

Jefferts Schori was trained as a scientist as well as a theologian, she entered the priesthood late in life, only 12 years ago, after an initial career as an oceanographer specializing in octopuses and squids, who evidently treat her better than members of her own church. Her husband is a retired professor of theoretical mathematics, and they have a daughter serving in the Air Force. The Bishop isn’t a slouch and neither is her family.

She got in big trouble during a sermon recently for referring to the “Mother Jesus” in a sermon. In her response to criticisms of heresy for referring to a female Jesus, she gave a learned disquisition on medieval mystics and saints who used similar language, including Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila. "I was trying to say that the work of the cross was in some ways like giving birth to a new creation," she said. "That is straight-down-the-middle orthodox theology.

So take that you dumb-asses who won’t tolerate a brainy, gay-loving woman with squid cooties leading your church.
The Episcopal majority is concerned about the split, but I say, “let them go.” There are plenty of bible-thumping, women-hating, gay-loathing denominations that will have them. If Daddy were here, I know what he’d say. “Try the Baptists.”

The World’s Best Hostess?

Parties in Las Vegas are a scary occasion, right up there with the 2000 and 2004 elections. When I get an invite, particularly from someone I don’t know well, or someone under the age of 40, I often find myself making excuses. “I have friends in town,” was a once oft-used excuse until hosts started saying, “oh hell, bring them. We have plenty of Cheez Whiz for everyone.”

I grew up in the South, the place the rest of the world thinks as white trashy and redneck, and granted, there is a lot of that. But one thing any Southerner knows how to do well is throw a simple party. Southerners are friendly people by nature, and they like to please. I don’t know why we are that way, but in an area where racism is more in your face, the need to please divides racial lines and results in one of life’s most coveted talents: the ability to throw a damn good hootenanny.

Even if the alcohol is bad, the food simple and the conversation focused on Church and George W. Bush (damn those Southerners for help electing him twice), any Southerner knows that the moment your guests walk through the door, you have food waiting and you shove a drink in their hand. There’s music playing in the background and the lighting is not too bright as you don’t want your aging female guests to feel like they need to cower in a corner hiding their crow’s feet (okay, that’s just me, probably).

I have been to three parties in a row in Vegas in the last month. At the first party, I waited a half hour before I was offered a drink, and then it was a Coke – not even diet, mind you – or Fetzer wine ($6 at the grocery store). I may be Southern, but everyone knows I lived in San Francisco for 20 years. For God’s sakes, I have standards when it comes to wine.
There was nothing to munch on while we waited for dinner, which consisted of ribs, rice, corn and potato salad. So no care was given to the beauty of the meal (all yellow and white, unless you count the bloody ribs I didn’t eat) much less the variety, all starch. There were kids running around screaming, and no nice background music -- just some annoying DVD playing for the toddlers. I left as quickly as I could.

The next weekend, at another party, there was music and thankfully, no kids. There was a bar set up and food laid out. However, the only thing the host served was red wine. I poured myself a glass (the hostess had directed me to the bar) and after taking a few sips, I set it down on what I took to be a secure surface, but it wasn’t. The wine tipped over and spilled all over the white carpet. I immediately started apologizing and trying to sop up the stain with a napkin. The hostess ignored my apology and laughed only when another guest suggested that she serve her guests wine in a sippy cup. She then implored the other guests to go outside while me and her husband were left to tend to the mess I had made. Granted, I was not going to leave the mess, but those were her words about me, “the mess she made.”

He had a steam cleaner and the stain came right up.

Last weekend there was a good party with good food and good wine, however the lighting was bad and everyone was asked to take their shoes off. The host allowed the guests to huddle off in their clicks, rather than encouraging mingling. A good Southern hosts will drag you by the hand if she has to and get you involved in a conversation with a stranger by starting off with an funny story to break the ice: “Hank here once got so drunk that he didn’t realize he had parked on the train tracks. A train came along and when Hank woke up, he was ICU! He didn’t know how the hell he got there! Isn’t that funny?”

So last night, it was my turn. I threw a party. I deliberated over the menu and the guests list. It had to be people who would get along if brought together, or if clashed, would clash in interesting friendly ways, sort of the opposites attract theory. I fretted over the musical selection and lost sleep trying to come up with one perfect drink that would do well in 107 degree weather (at night) as well as compliment the food.

I invited my friends over. The lighting was good. The food was good. The music was good. The mojitos were great. I had several of those. The guests clicked and talked. And then I noticed something. I wasn’t talking. My guests were doing all the talking. They clicked too well and I was too pooped from all the planning and preparation to join the merriment. I tried to interject a funny story, but the dialogue was flying back and forth rapid fire, like a Gilmore Girls episode. I couldn’t get a word in. I was Luke, the dull boyfriend. Everyone else was Lorelai, the cute mom.

Then, I realized one of my guests was staring at me. Actually, she was staring at my mid-section. I looked down. My shirt had hiked up and a fleshy roll of belly was sticking out over the top of my skirt. I pulled my shirt down and thought to myself, “gee the lighting in here is a little bright.” So I waited another ten minutes till there was a tiny, microscopic pause in the conversation and I moved everyone outside by the pool, where there the pool and yard light gave the night, and me, a soft illumination. I hid in the dark, nursing my mojito and watching my guests have a great time.

Even the best laid party plans have their downside. You can throw a party where everyone is having a great time, but you’re left feeling exposed with your belly fat hanging out. You’d complain, but everyone is too busy having fun to listen, and all you want to do anyway is sleep.