The Two Orgasm a Day Diet




I want you to get off. More.

In your bedroom. In the living room. In the boardroom. In all the rooms of your life.

This can be a metaphor - seek pleasure, find fulfillment, it’s the only sustainable way to work, nurture, and live – or it can be literal:

Have More Orgasms.

Women Are Hungry

Nicole Daedone thinks women are hungry. We’re not satisfied. We’re craving. We’re studying and working and mothering (our kids or the world) and continually operating with a pleasure deficit.

It’s true. We are.

But I don’t think it’s only women. I think The Pleasure Deficit explains unsatisfying consumerism and mindless materialism and even the outlines of our macro-economic woes. I think that most of us don’t know how to take care of ourselves and we’re attempting self-care with false luxury rather than conscious satisfaction and intentional indulgence.

In the last few months, I’ve peeked through a window into a manly-man world where men work intensely physical jobs far away from home for long periods of time. They live in camps or out of generic hotels, and when they’re not working they indulge in steak dinners, drinks, women, toys, trucks. In old-boy speak, they work hard and play hard. And while most of them get into it with the idea that they’ll do it for one or two or three years and then get out with a nest egg or capital to do That Thing They’re Dreaming Of…

…many are still working in the camps nine, ten, twenty-five years later.

With no money in the bank.

Because when they get out of the camp they blow the money on hookers and blow, and, if they’re one of the lucky ones, child support for kids they adore from afar.

It’s easy to gaze at this from a distance and say, well that’s just dumb and undisciplined. But I think that cycle is an attempt at self-care. It’s the dark side of self-care. These men put out all day long, seven days a week, for months at a time without a break, without having anything enriching coming in to balance the expenditure. They’re away from friends, family, and community, and the very nature and logistics of the industry shears off those attachments – and sources of care. They can’t pursue hobbies or artistic endeavours because they’re working-eating-sleeping. Work camps are not designed for other-care (and the opportunity for other-care is important because it’s an antidote to depletion, depression, and electric, predatory need) or self-care.

And so when the project ends, they emerge from the camps like bears blinking in the spring sunlight. They’re hungry. Summer will be short. And they can buy some pleasure.

Collect ye berries where ye may. (To the virgins: make much of time.)

And so the consumptive habits and indulgences and cycles of work-camp-life are an attempt at self-care, an attempt to replenish depleted reserves, provide pleasure to an exhausted, emaciated, unsatisfied soul.

They’re hungry. We’re hungry.

So that’s soul-stifling life in an oilfield, mineral exploration, or a work camp.

But how much of ‘regular’ life and feminine experience is set up like a work camp? We produce and produce and produce: babies, books, spotless kitchens, spot-on meetings, spotty marriages.

Nicole Daedone is right. Women are hungry. We all are. Our whole world contains a whole lot of hungry ghosts. And when she – we – say “hungry”, we don’t (only) mean for food. We’re constantly craving creation, sustenance, pleasure, fulfillment, meaning. We want to feel good in our skins, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our classrooms, in our bedrooms, in our camps, in our communities, in our world.

That doesn’t mean we want (only) to be stroked. We want to stroke. To contribute. To create. To connect. To care. To please and be pleased. To ameliorate the pleasure deficit.

But. Gratification isn’t entirely the answer. Quick-fixes and instant gratification can lure you into a spiral of compulsion and remediation wherein you’re constantly compensating for the enduring lack in your life.

(You know this is your life if you’re living for the weekends, vacations, the 5′oclock glass of wine, NBC, chocolate, hook-ups, daydreaming about decorating the imaginary condo you’ll live in when you finally summon the courage to leave his ass.)

When the bright spots in your life sunless life are exhaustible resources, consumed then finished, it’s time to seek meaning and invest in sustainable self-care.

BUT. Instant gratification gets a bad rap. When you’re pursuing a goal where the pay-off is distant – like building that nest egg, publishing that book, realizing that dream – daily or at least regular doses of reward are essential. Pleasure pay-offs wed you to your divine purpose.

Sustenance is the answer. Sustainability is the answer. Orgasms are the answer: you can always have more, with a partner if you’re so blessed and choose, or with yourself.

Masturbation is more effective than medication. (My sweetie would have me introduce a caveat here: sometimes the effects of depression prevent you from getting off, in which case, my two-orgasms-per-day prescription won’t work, so please do see a doctor.) I swear vigourous and frequent self-pleasure was how I survived this summer’s long and dark depressive episode.

And it’s not just a coping mechanism in times of trouble. Orgasms in gorgeous times have gorgeous results, too.

Get on The Two Orgasm a Day Diet. Please.

But the Two Orgasm a Day Diet is not a program of deprivation calculated to starve your body into size-two submission. Instead, I’m using ’diet’ as a way of being, what you feed yourself, in all senses of the word. And I’m using ‘orgasm’ to represent gratification, bliss, blossoming, fulfillment.

Because that’s what has happened for me. Two and a half years ago I wrote a mortifying first blog post:

This blog is a personal and social experiment. What happens when an overweight, broke, semi-lost but pretty smart single mom decides to rewrite her life in 18 months or less?

In short, my plan is to write, reflect and act my way into a life of purpose and passion. I’d love it if you would join me on the journey.

And then, after I set it down, I set about doing IT every day. Writing -

- about sex, money and meaning.

Trying to get more of all of ‘em. Trying to write and and love my way into my dream life.

And I did it. Because I did it every day. I wrote. I published. I asked. I lived. I made mistakes. I stopped collecting mistakes. I took risks. I experimented. I admitted my desires – an impassioned life and sex life, a writing career conducted from the comfort of my living room, a man, a baby, adoration – and I indulged them.

I followed the tracks laid by my unrelenting desires. Desire is powerful. It won’t be denied.

And so it is sustainable. Feed it.

This is why I write about sex and why I say sex is my yoga. Ecstatic, authentic sexuality is a place of transcendental learning, indulgence, communion, commitment.

And that’s powerful. That’s power. That’s the mofo fountain of life, baby.

And so, to really step into your glory in every aspect of your life, feed yourself some delight. Every day. At least twice a day. Get on the Two Orgasm a Day Diet.

You can do it metaphorically (‘delight’) or graphically (get thee many cataclysmic orgasms). Either way gratifies me. Deeply.

Just please send me your stories to include in this new series.

Try The Two Orgasm a Day Diet for a week, two weeks, a month, a lifetime. Then tell me – no, tell all of us - how you fucked and loved and cared and created and came your way into a life that satisfies rather than satisfices.

October 31, 2011 | filed under: Bodies, Meaning, People, Personal Development, Sex

12 people have we need you too.

confessing my secret fear (it’s probably yours too)




Last week I posted a slide from my Pecha Kucha speech. I posted it because I can’t not quote it. That’s the state of my world and my ego: I quote myself and I do so on a daily basis, because this thing I’ve said needs to be said. Over and over again.

And so I say it over and over again. Over and over again I tell people – my clients, folks in the bank line-up, my children, hapless event-attendees (1,500 of them!), and now you - that the conditions for creativity will never be ideal. And that’s why that point made it into a speech slide and a blog post. (And many a lecture, solicited or not.)

And please trust and believe I’ve learned this by walking – and resting – on the hot coals of inaction and artistic non-production for oh, eight-to-ten years.

Excuse me while I kiss the sky. And the ground. And anything else that will show my gratitude that I’m not there any more.

(Need a kiss? C’mere lover boy.)

Because all those not-ideal conditions are life. And if you let life be an excuse for not living life, then you’re going to watch a lot of television but you’re not going to do much else. And I’ve got stuff to do. And you do too.

And so does Kate Harding, who leveraged a successful blog into a popular book (Lessons from the Fatosphere, with Marianne Kirby) and is now a political commentator at Salon. And in my piece last week I linked to her essay, The Fantasy of Being Thin. Reading that essay was a long sigh of yesssssssssssss for me. You don’t have to be fat or even not-thin to appreciate it. In it, she writes:

Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has. It’s not just, “When I’m thin, I’ll look good in a bathing suit”; it’s “When I’m thin, I will be the kind of person who struts down the beach in a bikini, making men weep.” See also:

  • When I’m thin, I’ll have no trouble finding a partner/reinvigorating my marriage.
  • When I’m thin, I’ll have the job I’ve always wanted.
  • When I’m thin, I won’t be depressed anymore.
  • When I’m thin, I’ll be an adventurous world traveler instead of being freaked out by any country where I don’t speak the language and/or the plumbing is questionable.
  • When I’m thin, I’ll become really outdoorsy.
  • When I’m thin, I’ll be more extroverted and charismatic, and thus have more friends than I know what to do with.

….To someone fully wrapped up in The Fantasy of Being Thin, that doesn’t just mean, “All the best evidence suggests you will be fat for the rest of your life, but that’s really not a terrible thing.” It means, “You will NEVER be the person you want to be! All the evidence suggests you will never find a satisfying relationship or get a promotion or make more friends or feel confident trying new things!”

….Because I didn’t just have to accept the size of my thighs; I had to accept who I am, rather than continuing to wait until I magically became the person I’d always imagined being. Ouch.

That is, of course, a pretty normal part of getting older. You start to realize that yeah, this actually is it, and although you can still try enough new things to keep anyone busy for two lifetimes, you’re pretty much stuck with a basic context. There are skills, experiences, and material things you will almost certainly never have, period. It’s a challenge for all of us to understand that accepting this fact of life does not necessarily mean cutting off options or giving up dreams, but simply — as in the proverbial story about the creation of the David — chipping away all that is not you.

…Accepting my fat really wasn’t the hard part. Accepting my personality — and my many limitations that have jack shit to do with my thighs — was. But oddly enough, once I started to do that, my life became about a zillion times more satisfying. I found the right guy, I took up yoga, I started taking my writing more seriously, I stopped apologizing for taking vacations in the U.S. and Canada instead of somewhere more exotic, etc. And lo and behold, things got a lot more fun around here.

The Fantasy of Being Thin is about waiting for ideal conditions. And the conditions for creativity will never be ideal, dammit.

And, of course, it is a fantasy about being thin.

Let me tell you about Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha is the weird viral event that no one really owns but that takes place in many cities across the world. Organizers in each city invite a handful of people – creatives, cultural influencers, artists – to speak about their work and what inspires them. Each speech consists of 20 images that display for 20 seconds.

In Vancouver, where I live, Pecha Kucha is wildly successful. There’s an event every month and it almost always sells out. This is quite a feat, because the Vogue  theatre, where Pecha Kucha is held, holds 1,500 people.

And at the end of last year, thanks to the generous and flattering recommendation of Danielle LaPorte, I was invited to speak at Pecha Kucha. I was honoured. I was flattered. I was terrified. I wasn’t thin enough to stand on stage in front of 1,500 people.

So I didn’t respond. For days. Until the understandably frustrated but still gracious organizer sent me a crisp ‘are you in or out’ message.

I said yes but I almost said no.

What stopped me from saying yes right away, as I should have? That persistent, perditious fantasy of being thin makes me believe I should wait to make public appearances until I am skinny.

What stopped me from saying no?

Oprah.

Imagine if Oprah turned down her talk show until she was thin. She would have spent twenty years waiting for her career to begin instead of working on that career and becoming truly excellent at what she does.

I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to wait to create. I’m not going to let my fear of some uninvited body commentary stop me from growing and glowing. I’m going to – and I did – accept my fears as legitimate and then do what I need to do. Instead of fighting my fear, saying it is unreasonable, and then fighting with myself because I’m such a flawed, fearful creature, I love and accept my fear. And here’s the thing: in the society we live in, weight commentary is the norm rather than the exception, even for people within the range of “acceptable” body shapes (which I am not). So my fear was reasonable. What’s not reasonable is waiting to be acceptable to other people to be acceptable to myself.  So I accepted my fear and I wrote an incredible speech and I practiced it in the bathtub, in the car, in bed. Because, as Danielle LaPorte writes, preparation is love. Because I knew that even if someone says something awful, there are other people in that audience who need to hear me and who will be lit up by what I have to say.

And there were and they rewarded me with whoops and cheers. It was incredible. I was incredible. I could feel the floor through my five inch heels. I was one with that stage.

And, at the after-party, there was some uninvited body commentary. It went like this:

Well-meaning and strangely charming dude with beer in-hand: You know, I get what you said about cleavage being the space between, and that’s literally what it means, but when you were up there explaining your definition of cleavage, did you ever wonder if maybe people were just staring at your breasts?

Me: I certainly hoped so.

——————–

I’m all about making room for your fear. Accepting it and acting in concert with it. Fear-loving, not fear-busting.

And I’ve written a (free) chapter about fear-loving. It has 39 pages + 5 exercises. You can download it here and I’ll be delighted if you do.

January 31, 2011 | filed under: Bodies

25 people have we need you too.

Giveaway: Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth




I came cold to Geneen Roth’s “Women, Food and God.” I have not read any of her previous books, not even her famous “When Food is Love.” I did not see her on Oprah. I’ve never been to one of her retreats. But obviously her work is making a dent…and I’m interested in women, food and God, so I thought I’d give it a go.

It was good. I underlined a bunch of things.

“There is a madness in obsession, yes, but its value is that it drowns out the madness of life…being awake without being drugged by food, alcohol, work, sex, money, fame or in denial…is asking a lot.”

“…we compulsive eaters wouldn’t have an obsession with food if we believed that life was tolerable without it.The glitch here is that it’s not life in the present moment that is intolerable; the pain we are avoiding has already happened. We are living in reverse.”

Good, right? I thought so. I exhaled and said, yessssss.

Eating, like any pleasurable activity, can be used like a drug. Eating is pleasurable and that’s why we have cliches about heartbreak and ice cream. When you feel bad, you look for ways to feel good. Yummy food delivers that quick hit of pleasure.

And that’s emotional eating – when we eat to satisfy psychological (and, argues Roth, spiritual) hunger rather than biological need. Emotional eating, then, can be problematic. It can be a way to control the uncontrollable (life), deny pain and cope with trauma. And relying on food for pleasure can lead to weight gain and excessive weight is associated with a number of health risks – not to mention social consequences.

I get it. I’m not arguing it. I get it intuitively and personally – but I’m somewhat skeptical about the way we structure eating as a relationship. I’m wondering something: do other cultures stigmatize eating and enjoying food the way we do? Eating – for sustenance and for pleasure – is basic to human hardwiring and yet we manage to transform it into a character issue with moral and social repercussions. As Lisa Turner writes, “We are alternately tormented with food porn and then chastised for eating it.”

Would we be worried about “emotional eating” and “food obsession” if we didn’t have a fat-phobic society? If we could happily eat pie all day every day and never gain a pound – or we could gain weight without losing social status, privilege and fuckability – would we be going to retreats to address our “issues”?

I’m wondering if the way we worry about being obsessed with food is just fundamentally weird.

I wondered it when I read this book, and I keep wondering it each time Oprah confesses her sins and shortcomings. She’s an “emotional eater”:

“I know this because I’m in the midst of trying to transform myself from a compulsive emotional eater who submerges her feelings in food into a person who actually feels the feelings, deals with them, and doesn’t repress it all with offerings from the fridge.” – “What I Know For Sure”, Oprah Winfrey in O magazine, September 2010

When I read this, I couldn’t help but wonder: if Oprah was one of those magical creatures who can eat anything and everything without gaining weight, would she still be confessing her apparent weakness? And would we view her differently? I have a friend who is a size two and eats a lot and no one tsks-tsks at her or worries about her “issues”. It is kind of charming – look at that little woman EAT! But if a fat woman does that – eats for pleasure – she’s got a problem. An addiction.

And so when Oprah gains weight, she confesses, apologizes and tells us she feels like she let herself – and all of us – down. Because obviously she has a food addiction she’s got to kick AND a moral responsibility to be thin. Don’t we all?

When we think like that, we forget who we are and where we come from. We forget why food tastes good – because it tells us to eat more, and our earlier selves needed to stockpile reserves of fat and energy so as not to starve. Now, of course, we’ve got the same hardwiring as our ancestors – eat eat eat! – without the threat of famine. Add to that a food industry bent on selling us manufactured foods that aren’t any good for us but taste great…and yes, as a society we’re getting fatter. What I don’t get is why we’re so ashamed of that – it is just a formula, calories in versus calories out rather than a ticket straight to hell to burn eternally – or why we internalize eating for pleasure or weight gain as a personal failing. Rather than a neurosis, obesity seems to me to a collision between our hardwiring to eat stuff that tastes good so we’ll have reserves of fat that ensure survival during  lean times and a new (historically speaking) environment where starvation isn’t terribly likely.

Pragmatics and skepticism aside, I still liked the book. Roth does point out something important: we invest in many activities and behaviours that don’t serve our spiritual well-being. That’s true, and that hurts my heart. (I heard the same thing in Church last week, and I teared up then, too.) Eating for pleasure, and enjoying food isn’t the issue, but having a life that is so difficult to cope with that food becomes your main source of pleasure is tragic.

And so it seems to me – and of course this is Geneen Roth’s point – that the problem is the life and the pain, not the food or the weight.
————————–
Want to read Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth? Tell me in the comments that you want the book. I’ll put all your names in a hat and draw for it on Friday. I’ll mail the winner my copy (if you don’t mind a few yellow underlines).

PS This really is my copy. I bought it myself.

PPS Hat tip to Katy Widrick for connecting me via Facebook to Lisa Turner’s Huffington Post piece (All Worked Up: Our Obsession With Food)

September 7, 2010 | filed under: Bodies, Meaning, People

29 people have we need you too.

Years That Ask and Years That Answer. Stories, Ends, Beginnings, Fire, Moon.




Some of us hover

while we weep for the other

who was dying

since the day they were born

- “Stay” by Lisa Loeb

For ten days, a phrase has followed me around like a hungry kitten, mewing plaintively, quietly roaring, threading itself around my ankles, feinting, shadowing me. It wants to be fed.

Two Saturdays ago Lianne Raymond talked to me about women and community and creativity and art-hunger. She said, something is dying to be born.

Something is dying to be born.

It seems such a female thing to say: the flesh poetry of experience. A secret language traded between intimates of the violence of birth and glory of delivery.  The wrenching of asunder and the joy of embrace. A story beaten in the pulse of mundane responsibility and cosmic love. Goddesses and bitches and sisters and women. We know this story. It is the story of generation.

It is the story of Kali, goddess of destruction, eater of time, protectress and creatrix.

It is the story of Eve. Of Lilith. Of my feminist friend, Ronna Detrick, who walked away from a church and a marriage but knows with her body, her mind and her faith that all of her leavings have led to profound findings.

It is the story of money. Of power. Of God. He who giveth, taketh away.

It is the story of sex and passion and love, all of which can destroy lives and create them. Women throw themselves on the pyre of love and of loss and say burn me up.

It is the story of Bertha, the mad wife in Jane Eyre who burns down Thornfield, and of the haiku necessity of ember, flame, and ash:

barn’s burnt down…now i can see the moon.

It is the story of cold, clear winter moons and of truths washed clean by icy, white light. It is the story of Foucault and forgiveness, of brooms and brushed floors, and revolution.

Revolution: 360 degees: all the way around. Return. Circles. Cycles. Seasons.

It is the story of winter and of spring, too. Of years, because there are years that ask questions and years that answer.

What – or who –  is dying to be born in you?
__________________________________

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December 8, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Love, Meaning, Money, Sex

20 people have we need you too.

Bratz. Be Still My Angry Heart. My Inconsistent Approaches to Female Sexuality. My Daughter. Myself.




Bratz. Be still my angry heart.

My daughter has one Bratz doll. I don’t love it. Someone else gave it to her.

My daughter has one Bratz t-shirt. I don’t love it. Someone else gave it to her.

My daughter went to a book swap at school and traded in her Franklin and Dora books for a Bratz book. I did not love this.

I made a deal with her: she can keep the book. She can look at it as much as she wants and take it wherever she goes, but I will read it to her only once, and it WILL be followed by a feminist sermon.

It wasn’t so much as a sermon as a Q&A.

Baby Q. Why don’t you like Bratz?

Mama A. I don’t like Bratz because they dress in a way that is not appropriate for young girls and it seems like they’re trying to be women instead of kids. I don’t like Bratz because they show their stomachs to get attention. I don’t like Bratz because there are better ways to get attention, like being kind, making art, helping people, solving problems, discovering things, being a good friend, excelling at school, playing sports, singing songs. I don’t like Bratz because in that book all the girls do is go shopping, worry about looking pretty, and chase boys. I don’t think they are a good example for you. They don’t show you how wonderful it is to be a strong woman with many interests and skills.

Baby Q. But you like Beyonce. And she shows her stomach. Is Beyonce a brat?

Mama A. It is part of the performance. The main show is her talent. I think. Maybe.

This isn’t a simple issue to address. I’m not sure how to address it. I’m pretty sure I did it wrong, because later my daughter showed me her Bratz doll wearing a dress, a parka, and jeans and said: Look, Mama, she’s not showing her stomach! She’s not a brat anymore!

Shopping, vanity, parties, boys, slut shaming, sex and politics and feminism and women being dispossessed of their sexuality. Sex and spirituality. Reverence. Whore.

I’m  inconsistent and conflicted.

I’ve been accused of ‘prostituting your cleavage‘, my blog is named Cleavage, I sell a PORN tshirt, I write about pretty much everything through the lens of sex and yet I’m tsk-tsking about Miley Cyrus. And Bratz.

Why? Because the message about sexuality that I get from Bratz is that it is a commodity. Saleable. I am not in love with the message: be Paris Hilton! Only brown! And get that boy! To buy you things!

I think it is not a great example of femininity for a five year old. (Or any year old.) Yet images of women rockin’ their sexuality truly rock my world while stories of slut-shaming make my head explode, twice.

I want to shield my daughter from a world with fangs and a desire to take something from her that she doesn’t even know she has. I know that vampire, personally, intimately, bloodily. I bear the scars.

But what is it that I am trying to protect her from, exactly? From predation? Exploitation? Mistakes? Tears? The only way to get to empowerment is to run that gauntlet. It takes time and false starts and pouring your sexuality into the cups of unappreciative others before you abandon that bottle. Before you surrender to yourself and own it.

Maybe – as young people and young women – we grapple with the seeming imperative and challenge of adapting ourselves to society and as adults we stop apologizing for ourselves and just be in the world, as we are.

I think that’s why we have therapy and the word ‘cougar’.

I don’t know. I don’t have a fully fleshed out theory or paradigm to tuck my child-rearing – and my child! – into. I just think that the centre of the “how to be authentically feminine and sexual in a world that consumes and diminishes female sexuality” question is also A Grand Life Question: how do I navigate the constraints and dictates of our society while questing for authenticity?

It is a big, worrisome question. But what worries me even more than that question is this one:

Did I just slut-shame my five year old?

———

image: callme_crochet via flickr

December 3, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Meaning, Sex

9 people have we need you too.

My Soul’s 4am is Penelope Trunk




Recently I ‘fessed up that criticizing Tyler Perry gave me many a sleepless night.

So, after my confession, can I rest easy?

No. Now, in the 4am of my soul, I’m anxious about Penelope Trunk.

Penelope Trunk is educational. Entertaining. Fearless. She drove a casual, politically charged tweet like a bulldozer through the abortion debate.  I cannot possibly love her enough for that.

Back in the day, feminists – including some big deal, famous women - signed a petition that said “I had an abortion” and braved the consequences for believing that these life-and-death decisions underline and are the basics of women’s freedom.  

They did this because the consequences for being ’out’ about abortion can be dire. Still. Ask Dr. George Tiller.

And Penelope Trunk blogged about it. Personally. Politically.

And that’s not all. In addition to being brave, Penelope Trunk is substantial. Sometimes it feels like there aren’t a lot of substantial bloggers out there.  The medium lends itself to lazy, off-the cuff opinions and reactivity (pot, this is kettle, you’re black). 

Penelope researches her stuff and research takes time. I know. When I decided to write a not-lazy, not-off-the-cuff-opinion piece, it took me six weeks to complete six interviews and write the resulting piece for Write to Done (forthcoming. Really. I promise. I turned it in, and everything.)

Research makes your work better, like a good bagel: dense and chewy.

I think people miss the depth of her analysis because they’re distracted by the oh yeah I had a one night stand with a salesguy, blogs without a focus are a waste of time (Dear Penelope: I focused. Please love/read me now), leverage sexual harassment and her general prickly contrariness.

I love those things. I love that she refuses to shear off her woman-y-ness  and button-down her sexuality to be perceived as professional. I also love her  unwavering conviction that assholes who call a woman a bad mom

- a) for working; b) enjoying work; c) complaining that taking care of your kids, whom you absolutely love and need like air, is hard or sometimes tedious work (it IS) -

are, absolutely, undeniably, sexist hypocrites. That is just the rule.

And I learn things on her blog.

That again: I learn things on her blog.

Penelope Trunk quotes Daniel Gilbert a lot. He’s a “happiness researcher”. I took that to Google, as I am wont to do.

My happiness research google-tilt-a-whirl led to Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project – another substantial blogger, who toggles between epiphanies on the cross-town bus  and Victor Frankl – and just a general, serious love-on for thinking and writing about what it means to be happy and sometimes counterintuitive, simple ways to do and be that.

Later, when I asked around for published authors to interview and Danielle LaPorte suggested Gretchen Rubin, I (a) knew who she was and (b) was ultra-excited about interviewing her. And she agreed.

(To be interviewed. Not to be my Jiminy Cricket. There was no explicit permission around that.)

This meant that when I made my pitch to Write to Done, I was able to  say “I will be interviewing Gretchen Rubin (and Leo Babauta, Danielle LaPorte, Erin Doland, Chris Guillebeau, and Josh Hanagarne)” which pretty much guaranteed the pitch would be accepted and lo! the pitch was accepted.

So, indirectly, Penelope Trunk introduced me to Gretchen Rubin who participated in my forthcoming How To Get a Book Deal guest post that will hopefully increase my blog traffic. This, in the blog-o-sphere, is like handing me wads of hundred dollar bills or giving me a sensual massage. Deeply appreciated.

Reading Penelope Trunk helps my writing career.

Oh. One more thing.

Before I started blogging, I read Penelope Trunk’s provocative, quality, quirky, truth-telling blog and thought,

I want to do that.


November 21, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, People, Power, Sex, Work

5 people have we need you too.

Sensual Massage and The Art of RSS




Do you know what I think about sex? Do you want to?

I think that sex is healing and restorative. The power and pull of sex goes beyond gonzo porn sex. That’s for amateurs.

There have been times in my life when the physical connections and experiences created between me and a partner have been so profound that I have felt healed. Transformed. Lightened. Nourished. Inspired. Like my muse came to visit – and stayed.

It is not just sex that can do that. So can massage. Sexual Touch. Communion.

Sensual massage, say hey!

I’m not the only one who thinks so. There is a whole sector of healers who do this kind of work. I googled it. I love Google, but not in a sexual way.

Okay, maybe a little. But it is complicated because Google is only my virtual lover.

Turns out there are people who are sexologists and others who give sensual massage

- just massage, no actual penetrative sex, and the happy ending is not the point. Apparently. But I can tell you if I was spending hundreds of dollars for a massage, I EXPECT some sort of guarantee –

who operate under exactly this theoretical umbrella. That sex can be healing. That sometimes people need sexual healing. Marvin Gaye, say hey!

My gentleman caller is a masseuse. (Not that kind, but yes, I am a very happy/lucky/healed woman.) I thought he would be interested in this information. It is his field, after all. Sort of. Massage is. Not the other part.

So I called him to share my googled adventures and insights into his profession.

Kelly: Baby, do you do sensual massage?

Gentleman Caller: Do you want me to come over?

Kelly: Not me. Well yes, me, go get in the car, but I mean have you ever? Is that a service you offer? Putting your fingers in orifices that don’t belong to me, for pay? Have you ever considered it?

Gentleman Caller: No.  One time a guy grabbed my hand but that’s not what I do.

Kelly: He grabbed your hand? That’s it? I think you don’t understand the concept of sensual massage.

Gentleman Caller: I understand. I don’t do that.

Kelly: Would you get paid more if you did?

Gentleman Caller: I should fucking hope so.

Kelly: Like how much?

Gentleman Caller: I don’t know. I’ve never looked into it because I DON’T DO THAT.

Kelly: Oh I’m great at market research. Hold on, I’ll google it.

Kelly: (Shrieks out loud) HOLY SHIT baby you should totally do this! You could be a six figure masseuse! I’ll write you a testimonial!

Gentleman Caller: Are you recording this? Again? Is this going to end up on your blog? Because my mother might read your blog and I’m not up for that phone call. This stuff is private.

Kelly: You might want to talk to her about that. My mother stopped reading after I wrote that you and I have OUTRAGEOUS SEX so by the time I got to the PORN shirt, she was out.

And just so you know, your mom’s not on my email list and that’s how I feel good about myself so if she cares about you and you care about me then you should ask her to sign up so that I can feel good about myself.

Maybe she’s on my RSS feed.  Can you ask her what RSS reader she uses?

And that sounds like water running, not a car engine. Are you in the bathroom?  Whatever goes on in the bathroom does not make appropriate background noises for phone calls. Have you no sense of privacy or propriety?

And don’t be so persnickety about my blog. I’m promoting you!

Gentleman Caller: You’re pimping me.

Kelly: Well, that too.

___________________________________

Note to The Bloggess: I’m copping your style. I love you so much.

Note to Gentleman Caller’s clients: He does give sensual massage, but only to me. So he says.

Note to Gentleman Caller’s mom: Your son is not a sex worker. Your son is a virgin. I don’t know how his son got here. Magic?

Note to YOU, my dearest reader:  I ain’t too proud to beg. One of the ways I measure my self-image, which is notoriously wobbly and externally-based, is by how many people sign up to receive my posts by email.

So if you like my work or pity me or are in any way worried about my fragile flowerishness, then please sign up. Thank you. I’ll love you long time.

Or, my Gentleman Caller will. I’m working on his new business model and I’ll be sure to send email updates about that.

See? You should totally sign up. There might be coupons.


November 10, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Love, Money, Sex, Work

12 people have we need you too.

Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems Mo’ Babies. Yes Please.




I have three not-so-tawdry secrets:

  1. I love hip-hop.  Good hip hop, bad hip hop, hip hop that used to be called rap, highbrow, lowbrow, gangsta, spoken word, hip hop appropriated by suburban white boys with chips on their shoulders (shout out to Beastie Boys and Eminem, and I swear you haven’t lived until you’ve heard the BareNaked Ladies perform NWA’s Fight the Power), inspirational, political, even the stuff that is hand-wringingly misogynist (hi fiddy) – all of it. Almost. Apparently not everyone knows this. I told my gentleman caller this, recently, and he was surprised.  He said “That’s something I didn’t know about you.” Really? The gratuitous Tupac references and dogged defense of Kanye‘s jackassery didn’t give it away? Don’t even get me started on Jay Z or Missy Elliot and the force and methods with which I love them (obscenely, preferably naked). And Common? Mos Def? Desdamona? The Roots? I die. D.I.E.
  2. I paint. My gentleman caller did not know this, either. Really? My paintings are EVERYWHERE in my house.  How could you miss it?  He said “I think it was because I was looking at your ass.” That makes sense. All is forgiven.
  3. I like money. I’m not terribly materialistic, except that I am.

I admit it. I like money. This is a bit of a surprise to me. I like to think that I don’t like money.

For example, I am a bit of a minimalist. I have four dinner plates because if I have any more, they will end up dirty, in the sink, even though I have a dishwasher. It is probably full. Don’t judge.

All I really need is four dinner plates.  If more people come over for dinner, they will have to not come over for dinner. This is okay, even optimal, because I don’t do parties.

Yet somehow it has transpired that I am hosting a party in two weeks and someone has been assigned martini-making duties, and this is a problem. I own but two Martini glasses, mostly because that is as many as I can hold in my hands (I have two) at any given time.  This means I do not have enough martini glasses for my martini-making, martini-drinking guests, especially if they want to use both hands. I think we will have to take turns drinking martinis.  What would Leo Babauta do?

(I’m going to have a bracelet made to reference whenever I have a minimalist dilemma like this: “What would Leo Babauta do?”)

(I just posed the question to him via three-part tweet. If our guru sends word down the mountain/Guam, I will keep you informed.)

Back to my point. I don’t like to have lots of crap in my house. It makes my head explode. Sometimes I even take down all my paintings just to gaze upon uninterrupted swaths of wall. It gives me peace.

This minimalist philosophy coincides nicely with not having a lot of disposable income. I don’t want to buy a lot of stuff, which is great, because I don’t have a lot of money to buy a lot of stuff.

(I like what just happened there – it is all very theoretically and practically cohesive. No cognitive dissonance there, at all. This is rare, for me, so let’s take a moment to observe/celebrate.)

Thank you. Onward.

Yesterday I had an epiphany about money.

Two, actually.

Last night, driving home from work, I heard a song by K-Naan, who is a Canadian, sometimes hip-hop but mostly pop artist I really like. I’ve been following him FOREVA and he’s just starting to get some serious commercial traction.

(See what I did there: I just established a lil’ artistic snobbery/authenticity. I don’t like K-Naan just ‘cuz they’re playing him on The Beat. Noooooo, I liked him when he was unknown, unpopular, and starving! I can pick talent even before it is mass-sanctioned! I must know about music! But let’s be honest: I know nothing about music. I am a music mutt. Listen to it all. Like most of it. Indiscriminate. Will hump anyone’s leg. Are we still talking about music?)

The song is called Wavin’ Flag and the chorus landed with me:

When I get older

I will be stronger

They’ll call me Freedom

Just like a wavin’ flag

Those simple lyrics ear-wormed me and made me remember my hypothetical baby.

I once had a boyfriend (I know, you’re SHOCKED). We talked about getting married and having a baby. We would name our imaginary baby Justice.

Justice would probably be a girl, but she could be a boy, if she wants to be because Justice is a profound, beautiful, aspirational and gender-indeterminate name.

And then people started naming their kids Apple and Moses and Blanket and I decided that Arthur and Gertrude were the way to go.

(My children are so lucky they have a father who talked me out of that. Also, note to my father: Arthur is a beautiful, bad-ass name worn by only the chosen.)

And that boyfriend and I broke up, babyless, anyway. He is married now and has a new baby named Prince Magic My Dad is Hot but Not Very Nice To Women Zuma.

Back to my epiphany.

For the last 1-3 years, I have been trying, mightily, to make peace with a dream. I have been trying, more than mightily, to let that dream go. To breathe it into a balloon and release it into the sky. To let that dream fly away.

That dream is a baby.

Recently, a psychic friend (a real, in-person, unpaid psychic friend, not the 1-800 kind) told me that I have two unborn babies waiting for me. One is a dark-skinned, dark eyed, short little boy who is very energetic and mischievious. The other is a light-skinned, tall, skinny, quiet, shy girl.

Tears rushed my eyes and tracked my cheeks.

Here are my deets: I have two actual kids and one is only school age by minutes. If I had a third child, and, after a reasonable amount of maternity/parental leave

[We Interrupt This Sentence for a Digressive, Sarcastic Political Rant]

In Canada, maternity/parental leave is paid at 55% of your income for ONE YEAR. I love Canada, but not as much as Sweden, where it is 80% for sixteen months. In the US, I believe, maternity leave is 5 minutes and six seconds at 0% of your income – I could be wrong –  and then, after you leap out of the delivery room to rush back to your job,  you can get fired for expressing milk in the bathroom on an unauthorized break. But oh, don’t forget, breast is best, you bad working fired mommy you.

[We Now Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Sentence]

returned to work (because I have to AND I choose to), after paying for daycare for three  kids (two real and one imaginary) and our house, I would have negative five million dollars left for food and other discretionary expenses like heat and electricity.

So – setting aside all ethical dilemmas about being a single mama, raising a kid without a father, and having kids when you don’t intend to raise them because daycare is the devil but school, which is just institutionalized, government-funded daycare, is just fine – it is just not financially possible for me to have another baby. Dream or no dream.

Heart’s desire and soul’s yearning, please shuttie.

Doesn’t that suck? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all make our dearest, secret dreams come true?

I imagine this is a decision-point faced by many. It is not only me.  I imagine lots of women and families confront the finances/dream dilemma.

So I’m trying to let it go.  It is pressingly urgent that I let it go, because I’m thirty-sex. I mean thirty-six. If I don’t let it go, then I have to do something about it (like, say, find someone who loves me and wants to be a family with me and lure him into impregnating me, and I think my gentleman caller just un-called) pretty quick. Like in the next five minutes to three years quick.

So I was listening to K-naan and hearing how they call him Freedom, much like my imaginary baby would be called Justice, and thinking, for the millionth time, that it is really important for my sanity and my bank account and my career plans that I let that dream go.

Because it hangs me up.

  • It makes me worry about things not in my immediate control.
  • It is simply not up to me, only, if I find an appropriate partner and fall in love and get married and landscape imaginary back yards and structure my life to be conducive to pregnancy and babies and so on.
  • It forces me to date and be date-able.
  • It distracts me from the the things I can actually work at and have a “energy/talent in = success out” formula. Like writing. Like my career. Like vacuuming.

And then I was thinking: I should write about this. I should write my way through this. I should publicly let my third-baby-dream go.

Then I talked about it with my gentleman caller. I was thinking out loud. I was working my way to letting it go. I was claiming to let it go.

And as I was doing that, epiphany!

I am not letting it go.

I am holding on to this dream. The partner and the infrastructure may not be there. The finances certainly aren’t. But it is my dream and my imaginary baby and I am going to cradle it a little longer.

I betcha Madonna didn’t have this issue. She’s got loads of cash so she can just go around adopting un-0rphans willy nilly at any old age.

And as I thought this, epipany #2!

I am a good mama. My kids are happy and well-loved. I want to have another baby and that baby would be lucky to have me, and us. I simply need to have, and make, more money.

So I will.

Which is why I hereby admit I like money and want a whole lot more of it.

Because, let’s be honest, the point of money is ecstatic, meaningful survival and dream-realizing. The point of having lots of money isn’t so you can have loads of dinner plates or martini glasses.

Leo Babauta knows that intimately, personally, deeply, which is why Zen Habits is so popular, and, in a related development, Leo Babauta has SIX MILLION kids. I mean six.

The joy of money is that it allows you to live, happily, sufficiently, and well with the family of your heart and your choosing. That’s the gift of money.

And I’m going to go get some.

Justice, I’m coming.

November 7, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Family, Love, Meaning, Money, People, Work

19 people have we need you too.

Mind Over Matter *Cough Cough*, H1N1 is Only A Metaphor, and The Skool of Life




Srinivas Rao is a most unlikely surfer.

He has – in his words – zero athletic ability and comes from a high-achieving, academically-oriented family. His sister is in medical school. He just graduated with an MBA and for the last six months he’s been struggling to find a job and to find himself.

So what did he do?

Three things. He started surfing, volunteering and he started a blog.

That’s my kind of summer. Srini might be my kind of guy.

So when he asked me if he could interview me for his podcast series on up-and-coming bloggers, I said sure. I mean, I’m awkward and I am not sure I meet the base criteria for ‘up and coming’ but I can talk paint off the wall. How hard could it be?

You’ll find out. Srini interviewed me last week when my girls had H1N1 but I was denying that I had it too.  Because that’s mature.  Magical thinking ALWAYS staves off viruses.  Illness is only a metaphor.

Gawd, it is like I don’t even read my own polemics.

So Srini interviewed me and I coughed and hacked and sneezed and snuffled all the way through the interview.

Really, I shouldn’t even promote the damn thing because I won’t be listening to it for if I do I will DIE of mortification which, for your information - speaking of diseases and metaphors - is an actual disease, according to my swiss-cheese ego.

After loudly dying of tuberculosis, mid-sentence for six thousand years during the interview, I whimpered “I’m really sick” (I’m so professional like that).

Srini replied, as though he hadn’t noticed that I had coughed through my answers,

“Oh, that’s right, you have swine flu.”

To which I responded, in outraged, deluded horror:

“No I don’t! My kids have swine flu! I just have a cold.”

I told you I was deluded. Also, that is not a direct quote. I told you I CANNOT listen to the podcast because my pride will not allow it.  In my own version of events, I was charming and witty and seductive and coughed so quietly and discreetly that it was almost charming and witty and seductive.

I’m sure we all know how it really went down.

Or, if you don’t but you simply MUST know, go take a listen. It is at Skool of Life.

While you’re there, check out my guest post on the F-word and children.

Please note that any coughing you hear during your reading of that piece is coming from you and I take no responsiblity for it at all because despite what you’ve heard – that H1N1 is transmitted telepathically and through telephone wires and only the good folks at Purell can save you - you cannot catch H1N1 from text.

Also, it is not Ebola, people*.

*Lindsey at A Design So Vast coined this phrase and I bandy it about shamelessly and often. I often pretend it is my own, too.
November 5, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Meaning, Work

1 person has we need you too.

The Gift of H1N1. It Is Not Ebola, People.




I was going to write a piece about the hidden benefits of the hysteria around H1N1:

  • that people are freaked enough to do the right thing, which is stay home
  • that people are calling their doctors or health hotlines as soon as they notice symptoms to get advice
  • that people are doing  research about flu shots and H1N1 shots and making educated decisions for themselves
  • that people are paying attention to health alerts
  • that companies – like the one I work for – are distributing health alerts, scheduling flu shot clinics, encouraging good handwashing practices and handing out antiseptic handwash and making it easily available in common areas
  • that companies are telling workers to stay home if they are sick
  • that companies are hiring hazmat teams disinfect the offices of people who are sick with H1N1, making them feel like they have ebola, not the flu.

Okay, maybe not the last one. But true story.

I was thinking that there is an upside to the H1N1 hysteria: that our employers are being proactive and making sure that people know it is better to stay home.  That, somehow, companies were taking the health of workers seriously. That people know they have ‘permission’ to do the right thing. (I wish that non-salaried workers were getting paid to take time off because otherwise, even if they want to stay home, they often can’t because they need to pay the bills. I don’t know how to fix this problem.)

That we are taking our health seriously.

So, yay, H1N1 hysteria!

But then I was up all night, sandwiched in my bed between two snoring, hacking, wheezing, whining, feverish agents of infection.

My kids.

This is what you’re supposed to do when someone in your family has H1N1:

  • Keep your child away from others to stop the spread of infection.
  • At home, keep your child away from other people in the house.
  • DO NOT share eating utensils, drinking glasses, washcloths, towels, beds, pillows, etc. until everyone in the household has been free of symptoms for five days

This is what I did:
Brought both of my sobbing, hysterical, coughing, infected children into bed with me and held a sweaty baby in each arm all night.

As I laid awake between my two fire/virus-breathing baby dragons, imagining every wheeze and cough spraying infection into the air and into me – I had some great imaginary symptoms by 4 am – I connected with the ancestors.

This is a parent’s dilemma throughout the ages. The plague. Measles. Various contagious fevers. Deciding how to handle viruses and infections and diseases that are highly contagious through contact and, back in the day and still in lots of parts of this world today, have a very strong chance of killing you and your entire family.

What do you do?  Do you stay away, or do you hold your suffering, contagious baby?

I held my feverish, infectious babies.

And thanked the gods and goddesses of all religions and all places that  it is only the flu.

October 29, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Family, Love, Money, Work

1 person has we need you too.

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