Tag: Humor

Sometimes You Gotta Say Yes.

Published on by Mary Gelpi12 Comments
.

Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when it hurts. When it would be not just easier or more convenient to say no, but less painful, less exhausting, perhaps even, the healthier option– even then, sometimes, you gotta say yes.

As my role as the “sick girl” has slowly developed over the past few years, I’ve noticed how often and how easily I’ve begun to say no to things. And that’s mostly for the sake of my livelihood. I don’t have the endurance to do the things I once did, nor do I have the resilience to bounce back if I overstep the boundary. There’s an invisible line with illnesses like this; one that not even the sick person can see, and it doesn’t make a sound when you overstep. Not until later, when it’s too late to take anything back. So, you pay for it. And you start to feel your way through it, constantly guessing whether you’ve gone too far or done too much. It’s about as easy as pin the tail on the donkey in the dark, with booze. But this solid body of mine, as broken as it is, it always lets me know if I’ve infringed on that boundary. Always.

The last few days have been crappy. Not Colorado crash crappy, but, crappy. There have been a few 26 and 27 pills a day, days. Which I’m learning how to be OK with. Even sick days, where the most you do is brush your teeth, are OK too. They have to be. It’s interesting what this illness turns you into; a spectator where you once a participant. I often feel the quick pace of the world spinning and everyone rushing by with their busy lives, and then there’s me…just kind of, standing lying there. I miss being busy. There’s something comfortable about always having something to do, someone to see; there’s an importance about it. I notice now how different my to-do lists are verses my to-do lists a few years ago. 1. Wash clothes. 2. Pick up prescriptions. 3. Buy new notebook!

I’ve begun examining my life a little closer lately, and am putting a lot of thought into how I spend my time. It’s really crazy to think that I can sort of do what I want given that I don’t have a full-time job or any REAL responsibility besides my health and my dog Monty. (Although I don’t know, one might call my constant correspondence with the Walgreens pharmacy a full-time job in and of itself. For real though.) The thing is, since I can’t hold a full-time job right now, I don’t have any income. So that’s the first damper on “Doing what I want.” The second damper is, duh, I’m incapacitated most of the time. If I had my way, I’d be going, and doing, and meeting, luncheoning, and painting and creating and…you get it. Saying YES a lot. I’d be one of those busy people with alphabetized spice racks and really organized DVD collections. And I’d run half marathons for fun! BLECH. Scuse me, I just puked thinking about running a half marathon. Anyway, that’s not my life. Most of the time I feel too exhausted for showers and everything I buy at this point is on someone else’s dime…so it’s really teaching me a lesson in humility, appreciation, and grace. Every night I pray that I will be able to pay back everyone who has been so gracious in taking care of me. And I solemnly believe that day will come. One day.

In the meantime, I have a lot of something that many people don’t: free time. And whether I’m sick or not, it’s up to me how I spend my time. I find myself feeling bad a lot about not having a full-time job and not being able to support myself. I was used to having  a job and independence define me. But, I think that’s pride and the ego getting the best of me and I constantly have to remind myself that if I could, I would. But right now, it’s not where I am. So how about instead of feeling shitty on top of feeling shitty, I try to make better use of my time. I decided I’m going to read as much as I can, write as much as I can, and start looking at this free time as a gift instead of something that “happened to me.” A lot of people would love time off from work, to be a spectator, to read for the sake of reading. To be honest, not having something to do is harder than you’d think. We’re kind of a culture that tends to define ourselves by our work. I guess I’m redefining both my purpose and the definition of that word. Is it still considered work if you’re not getting paid?

This week has been rough health wise, but today I was sick and tired of being sick and tired more than I was actually sick and tired. SO, I said, screw it. I took a bath, got dressed, and went to the park with Monty. Not because I felt like it, not because it felt good even, but because I needed to get out. Sometimes I do the things I would do if I weren’t sick, just for a little while. I can go outside. I can throw a ball for Monty and finish reading my book. I felt shitty the whole time, but mentally I needed it. Chances are, I’ll pay for it tomorrow. But it’s one of those weeks where I felt like I would be paying for something tomorrow whether or not I did anything today, so I went for it. Every once in a while, it’s nice to feel like things are on my terms. It’s my way of giving the illness the middle finger. And you know what? It felt good! Screw you sickness. Today, Mary Gelpi SAID YES.

So confident.

OK so maybe I am really over-glorifying my little trip to the park. But, I have to keep myself in check. It would be really easy for me to say no to anything that required leaving the house or socializing with people. I can feel the crotchety 80-year-old inside of me getting way too comfortable. I remind myself that I am 28. I need to stop being so opposed to meeting new people. (Dude, I hate meeting people. Also, I’m terrible at it.) I have to be OK with going places sometimes, because I think our souls like a change of scenery. I need to not automatically say no, even though my experience gives me that tendency. Sometimes I will pay for it, yes. But there’s a price to be paid for constantly saying no, too. So I’ve got to find the middle. I’m still young, and I need to start acting my age. Before I know it I’ll be drinking Ensure and wearing Oopse I Crapped My Pants. And then meeting people will be REALLY hard!

You know what else I did today? Bought a new notebook. That’s my favorite thing to buy. I’m very particular when it comes to notebooks. It takes me a while to pick one out and I sit there in front of the shelf of books running my fingers over pages, opening and closing it, taking measurements and looking like a crazy all the while, but I like to take my time. I can’t have things like paper texture or wide rule lines interfering with my writing. Anyway, I found a good one after going back and forth between two for 10 minutes. This is typically what I do when I buy anything. I’m very indecisive. So I’ll buy one, and then go home and think about the other. It’s terrible. Anyway, I’m trying to work on that. So I’m going to do some writing. And then some reading. And then I’ll do it again tomorrow I guess, in a park, and throw the stick for Monty. Because that’s what my life is right now, and it won’t always be that way. Maybe it’s not about  being important. Maybe it’s just about being.

Health, Happiness, Yes.

*To all my family and homies in New Orleans, my thoughts are with yall. Although I’m pretty sure most of you are drunk and having an OK time. Stay safe.

Is Happiness a Choice? A Book That Challenged All My Notions, and Won.

Published on by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

I think my favorite present to both give and receive is a book. And not an e-book, not a kindle or a tablet thingamajiggy. A real, tangible book with pages to flip through and words that you underline and notes in the margin that you come back to later. There is something necessarily palpable about a book for me. Maybe I just really like turning pages, but I don’t think I’ll ever make the switch to electronic literature. I know it costs us trees, but I kind of feel like a tree would be happy to be a book. If only trees could talk. OK, anyway, I received a book from my mom for my birthday, and I’ve been lost in it for the last 4 days. I kept telling myself I needed to write, but my urge to read was stronger. I had to finish it before I could do anything else. I think it may be one of the most important books I’ve read as of yet.

.

“The Untethered Soul” is written by Michael Singer and I’d never heard of it or him until I began reading. The book is 181 pages but is densely written and covers everything from consciousness to identity to happiness to God to death to Christianity to the Tao. I really don’t know how he combined all of these topics so succinctly and covered them with such perfect simplicity, but he did, and it all made perfect sense. Every word. Sometimes I’d read a paragraph over and over, not because I didn’t understand, but because it felt so good to read the words. It was like light would suddenly pour in the room, and with each page (each TANGIBLE page) I felt more clarity, maybe even more happiness. At least more awareness of it. There is such a wide variety of topics he covers and methods associated with them, but he ties them all together seamlessly to teach one huge and vital lesson; to know yourself, and to find bliss. It will be difficult to summarize the whole thing up on just one page..this may need to be a two parter. So I’ll just cover a few topics that really captured me.To begin with, you can’t fix the world. You can’t fix other people, and you shouldn’t try. But you can become the purist and most open version of your Self, and that is your gift to the world. You will be the most successful and biggest help to humanity by knowing yourself truly, and waking up–becoming conscious. So long as you are unconscious, reacting to external factors, hiding behind fears and anxieties, letting that voice in your head dictate important matters, you cannot be of help to the world. You are stuck in your mind, and so you can’t go any further or higher up than that. Not until you wake up.

Like Tolle, Singer writes pretty extensively about how to answer the question “Who am I?” …a question I constantly ponder but feel my answer always comes up short. I am Mary Gelpi. Well no, that’s a label given to me by my parents. Take it away and I’m still here. Who am I? Who is the Self? It was more poignant and enlightening to hear him explain who we are not. Some we’ve been over before. Ready? You are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions. You are not the things that happened to you. You are not a gender role. You’re not even your personality. And here’s the big one: You are not that voice in your head. In fact the journey to discovering your self (which is who you are) involves the attempt to eliminate that voice. In other words: telling it to SHUT. UP. And in the meantime if you can’t get it to, DON’T LISTEN TO IT. For the love of GOD don’t listen to it. Think how many times that voice in your head has been wrong…a lot. But we continue to reach out to it for advice and guidance as though it were an intelligent shrink. It’s not, it’s noise. Just so we’re clear, I’m not talking about voices plural in your head. That’s another disorder altogether and we don’t have time for it. I’m talking about the voice in your head that is constantly chattering. If you stop reading this right now and look around the room, just wait a few seconds and listen. It will begin talking. About anything. Stupid things. Funny things. Memories. To -Do lists. It’s noise. It’s a lot of noise that isn’t really propelling you in any direction on your mission. This attempt was among the original purposes of things like meditation and yoga. It wasn’t to pray or to exercise–it was to find inner stillness, the center. The center is where “You” reside. Behind the chatter, judgments, and noise is your soul or spirit, or whatever you’re comfortable calling it. It’s quiet there. It’s the part that doesn’t die. It’s the center of your consciousness, or what Zukav called The Seat of the Soul. (Also, another awesome book) So this is how the book begins; with the search for the self and a map of where to go to find it. Once you’re able to pull back the curtains on all the things that don’t define you, you begin to feel and hear the real you. Your higher self. Perhaps he puts it most accurately with this definition: the simple awareness of being aware. Or..You are not the thinking mid; you are aware of the thinking mind. 

“When you contemplate the nature of Self, you are meditating. That is why meditation is the highest state. It is the return to the root of your being, the simple awareness of being aware. Once you become conscious of the consciousness itself, you attain a totally different state. You are now aware of who you are. You have become an awakened being. It’s really just the most natural thing in the world. Here I am. Here I always was. It’s like you have been on the couch watching TV, but you were so totally immersed in the show that you forgot where you were. Someone shook you, and now you’re back to the awareness that you’re sitting on the couch watching TV. Nothing else changed. You simply stopped projecting your sense of self onto that particular object of consciousness. You woke up. That is spirituality. That is the nature of Self. That is who you are.”

 There was one chapter that I re-read a few times, because it really challenged my notion of happiness. It asked this question, which I find myself constantly asking: Is happiness a choice? I have always believed that we are susceptible to our circumstances, therefore happiness isn’t really a choice because we aren’t in control. We can’t help it when bad things happen. But Singer absolutely disagreed with that, and I’m pretty sure he beat me. Just because we aren’t in total control doesn’t mean our happiness isn’t in our hands. If our happiness isn’t up to us, who is it up to? Other people? Circumstance? Conditions? No wonder we’re not happy! You can’t rely on anything or anyone else to cause your experience of happiness. It is entirely up to you. If you make the commitment to be happy, it is to be unconditionally happy. But, that means acceptance of the present. That means erasing your version of what you think your life needs to look like in order for you to be happy. That’s something a lot of people don’t want to give up.

I know what you’re thinking: What if my family dies in a plane crash? What if a bird shits on my head on the way to work? I can’t help that! Of course there will be challenging events in your life, you already know that or may have already experienced them. It doesn’t mean you don’t grieve appropriately and process the hard times. But it also doesn’t mean that you stop, that you can’t be happy again and continue to live a  beautiful life. (Just ask my mom, she was widowed twice, but has once again found happiness.) That’s part of the commitment. You have to accept what happens in the present, deal with it accordingly, and release. Keep going. There’s no hanging on to the past allowed. It will never change by you clinging. There’s no cringing about tomorrow allowed either. You’ll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes. And think about it. Does you reacting and getting upset and yelling change the fact that a bird shit on your head? No, it doesn’t. Clearly our reactions are not only silly, they’re unintelligent. They serve no purpose. They’re just noise.

Your definitions of desirable and undesirable, good and bad, all come about because you have defined how things need to be in order for you to be okay. We all know we’re doing this, but nobody questions it. We think we’re supposed to figure out how life should be, and then make it that way. Only someone who looks deeper, and questions why we need the events of life to be a particular way, will question this assumption. How did we come up with the notion that life is not okay just the way it is, or that it won’t be okay the way it will be? Who said that the way life naturally unfolds is not all right?

This is still a challenging notion for me to process, but I know it’s right. This is not to say that making unconditional happiness your mission is easy–it isn’t. It’s probably the hardest work you’ll do. But I’ve decided to take this mission on. I certainly have the time, don’t I? Maybe we all do. But we fill it up with a lot of stuff. A lot of Kardashians and O’Reilly Factor and arguments and anger and work and chaos and noise. I think it’s time to slow down. Time to go IN, not out, and find that little nook where our soul is, and try to please it. What more important work could there be? Chopra says that this is a recreational universe and that we were meant to have fun here. We weren’t meant to suffer! So I think it’s time to play. Today is August 22nd. It’s my dad’s death day. Death birthday? I wonder if they celebrate the day you die in Heaven the way we celebrate birthdays here. Anyway, my dad was one of the happiest people I knew, and that’s what everyone else had to say about him–How positive and kind he was. This book reminded me of him and his constant disposition of joy, happiness, and love. I’m going to start my work toward consciousness and inner peace with him in mind and this book as a guide, or at least a solid starting place. I highly recommend The Untethered Soul if you’ve been searching for a deeper purpose or listening for a higher calling and need a little help getting started. This is a really good road map to begin with.

My favorite line from the book: It is actually possible to never have another problem for the rest of your life. 

Health, Happiness, and Real, Tangible Books.

*My favorite underlined phrases from the book. :)

What it means to live spiritually is to not participate in this struggle. It means that the events that happen in the moment belong to the moment. They don’t belong to you.

The only way to inner freedom is through the one that watches the self. 

It’s bad enough that your happiness is conditional upon your own behavior. When you start making it conditional upon other people’s behavior, you’re in serious trouble. 

It is not life’s events that are causing problems or stress. It is your resistance to life’s events that are causing problems or stress. 

If you want to understand stress, begin by realizing that you carry around with you your own set of preconceived notions of how things should be. 

Imagine if you used relationships to get to know other people, rather than to satisfy what is blocked inside of you. 

When a person is dealing with their own fears, anxieties, and desires, how much energy is left for dealing with what’s actually happening?

The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that’s the only time everything will be okay. 

When I Thought About Adulthood, This Is Not What I Expected

Published on by Mary Gelpi26 Comments

In two days I turn 28 years old.

I’m thinking about that number 28. I’m thinking about the word “adulthood” and whether or not I’ve reached it. The number sounds like it belongs in that category, but my life doesn’t really feel that way. I don’t recall exactly what I thought life would be like at 28, but I know for sure, this is not what I expected. I always thought I’d be married with kids by now. (HAHAHA.) I expected adulthood to be so organized and grown-up and filled with smart people who had the answers and knew exactly what they were doing. But I see now, adults are often lost and they don’t have it all figured out yet either. They still get shit-faced and throw up sometimes. There are still social hierarchies and corresponding dramas. They still make mistakes and are learning their way through it. My mom still encourages me to eat vegetables. And I still fantasize about my wedding day and love Disney movies. There are a lot of things that I thought would be different, that aren’t. And there are a lot of things I didn’t expect to still be doing, that I am…

I didn’t still think I’d be…

*Eating at the kids table at Thanksgiving and other family events. I am wondering at what age I will graduate to the adult table. I’m going to celebrate so hard on that day.

*Sitting on a bathroom counter in my pajamas popping zits in the mirror, or what I think could be a possible zit one day and subsequently wrecking my face.

*Calling my mom with questions when I catch a cold…(which is now just me walking into her room, you know, cause I live with my parents now…)

“Wait do I need a decongestant or an expectorant?”

*…Living with my parents.

*Taking bubble baths. Still prefer them to showers…any day.

*Borrowing all my sisters clothes.

*Still getting excited as hell when Christmas comes around.

Yes.

*Turning off my bedroom light,  running lightning fast and jumping into bed so the man underneath it can’t cut my feet.

*Getting questioned about my outfits by my mom. “You’re sure you want to wear that to dinner?”

*Talking to girls about boys and boys about girls. It’s been the same conversation since high school: girls are kind of crazy, boys are kind of dumb.

*Watching The Little Mermaid and singing “Part of Your World” really loudly. Every time.

Part of your WORRLLD!

*Giggle when any of my friends say the word penis or talk about one. It’s shameful. I know.

*Be thoroughly entertained by bubbles. (Especially if Monty is around)

Did someone say bubbles?

*Having my grandma play with my hair.

*Wondering the meaning of my life. Thought I’d have it figured it out by now..

…None of these things did I expect to be still be partaking in and/or enjoying at 28. When I was in middle school, I remember telling a friend that I wanted to be married by age 22 and having my first child at 24…basically because it just sounded good. I was 12, and stupid. But truthfully, it was an arbitrary goal anyway.  When I was young, I thought that was the meaning of life: To grow up, find a husband, and have babies. And maybe it is. Those are still things I want. I hope to marry a best friend and not blow it and I’ve always dreamed of becoming a mother. But now I see there is more to life than that. I think. I actually have no idea. I just know that right now, in this moment, it’s not my time to be a wife and mother. It’s a time for me to get healthy and stronger, to find some certainty, get to know myself a little better, trust myself a little more, and become who I am meant to be. Joseph Campbell says that “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are” and I think so many things in the last year really threw my identity around and left me slowly piecing it back together, which I will continue to do. I trust that the things I want will happen in time, but I am careful not to put aside happiness while I get where I’m going. I am right here, so right here is where I should be happy. I have high hopes for 28. I never expected that at this juncture of my life I would be where I am, and in truth, this is not what I would have chosen. But the fact that I didn’t choose this, I didn’t seek it out–makes me trust it more. I was headed in a completely opposite direction, and yet here I am. It tells me something else was at work.  I am done questioning it. I am done being mad at it. I’m ready for the next chapter. Bring it on, 28!

Health, Happiness, Twenty Eight.

Let’s Talk For a Moment About Perfume Commercials

Published on by Mary Gelpi11 Comments

Remember your first perfume? Mine was Malibu Musk, age 10. It came in a can the color of wildberry pop tarts and looked like it could emit either aerosol liquid or cheese. The smell was exactly as it was named; tropical and musky. Something that would probably make me nauseous if I smelled now. But when I was 10, I doused myself in the stuff. I loved it.

Musky.

But, this isn’t a post about perfume. It’s about perfume commercials.

It’s happened more than once. I’m watching some intellectually stimulating show like The Housewives of Orange County or 16 and Pregnant when it starts; the television advertisement for the latest perfume I’ve got to try. Or smell. I get that ad execs must have to really rack their brains for these commercials, because they are trying to effectively sell a product based purely off your preference and sense of smell; a sense that as of yet, we haven’t figured out how to transcend through television. So I guess in some attempt to compensate for the void in technology, they decided to just confuse the shit out of everyone. The commercial will typically involve prancing A list actors, trench coats, flashes of light, weird indie music, and sex. Lots and lots of sex. OK so it’s not confusing. Sex sells. I get it. But every time one of these commercials comes on, it doesn’t leave me thinking of sex. Instead I kind of feel an intense urge to giggle. And not like a sexy laugh either–That nervous, Michael Scott giggle, and something tells me that is not the reaction they were going for. It’s not even just the production, it’s the names of the perfumes themselves. Angel. Guilty. Covet. The whole shebang. It’s kind of how I feel about the underwear I buy from Victorias Secret–Where one day I’m folding laundry and I realize I have underpants that say “University of Pink” on the butt. (True story) I get what they were going for, I just don’t think they got it right. What would Donald Draper say if he saw these? Who would he hit?! Here is the most recent one I saw that had me super weirded out. Exhibit A:

OK so the takeaways here:
Mediocre actors make even more mediocre singers.
Eva Mendez lives in the future where subways look like aerodynamic toaster boats.
Something about circles?
This Angel Perfume stuff apparently gives you an orgasm when you smell it. WIN!

Remember when Sarah Jessica Parker released her own scent? It was called Covet. And the commercial was really bad.

The Takeaways:
Did she really think she could get away with stealing that big ass bottle of perfume? That thing is GINORMOUS.
Those eyes at the end?–Those are what you call Crazy Eyes. (See also, Ramona from NY Housewives)
That last scene reminded me to lock the doors.

Here’s one for Gucci’s “Guilty”

The Takeways:
Someone is definitely guilty here..of LIGHTING MY CAR WHEELS ON FIRE.
I think we just found Ghost Riders wife.
Did you see that? She broke like, 15 common street laws.

This is Prada’s commercial for “Candy”. I actually appreciate this one. I’ll just go ahead and tell you the takeaway for it now:
Big. Pink. Panties. Watch:

Here’s Nicole Kidman’s famous commercial for Channel #5, though it looks more like a movie trailer for Moulin Rouge. The budget for this little production was $42 million and funded exclusively by Channel. That’s right. FORTY TWO MILL.

The Takeaway: It would have been cooler if they just lit $42 million dollars on fire :)
I just threw this one in the mix because..dude..FORTY TWO MIL!

The 80’s know what’s up. THIS is a how a perfume commercial is done. I heard that Charlie is actually a pretty stinky perfume.

This woman’s life looks awesome. I kind of want to be her.
Kinda Young Kinda Now, Charrrlieee.

OK last one. This is pretty scandalous, especially for the 90’s. It’s for Calvin Klein’s Obsession. And um, is that you Justin Bieber?

Health, Happiness, and I just watched perfume commercials for the last two hours and now I’m really contemplating the meaning of my life.

 

The Killers Relief

Published on by Mary Gelpi6 Comments

When I wake up
Everything is just how I left it
In between tossing and sheets
sweating and dream world,
the killers wore off
And it’s as though nothing has changed
I still feel everything.

Because the hour is inappropriate
To start a day now,
I re-dose and wait
And this is admittedly exciting for me
That’s what they call
The thrill of relief.
When the killers go to work
I will struggle but win eventually
I’ll go back to dreaming
Where everything is the same.

I heard once
That you don’t feel pain in your dreams
Which makes me wonder
Where I’ve been going every night.

Last night I dreamt of money
And big powerful bankers.
I counted my money repeatedly
And my fingers throbbed
Until I dropped it all
watched it scatter
When I awoke I couldn’t recall the amount
Something had changed
But my fingers ached the same.

When I awake a final time
It will be inappropriately late
To start a day
Everything that once was numbed
Will have seeped back in,
alive and noisy.
The jury is out
On the purpose of pain
But each night it comes
Then the killers kill it
And I return to dream world
Until it comes again.
When I awake,
Everything the same.

Dude. Solitude.

Published on by Mary Gelpi21 Comments

Sound the bells. I survived the Colorado Crash of 2012. I’m alive. Woohoo!

Yesterday I finally started feeling back to my normal sickley self, not my deadly sickley self. And it feels good to be able to be out of bed for more than an hour a day. That tends to wear on a girl…at least a little. I can’t believe what a disaster my Colorado vacation was. It’s funny I’m still referring to it as a vacation. That’s like taking someone to the DMV and calling it a date. It was really hard for me to enjoy my time there because I was in constant recovery, catch up, and crash mode and the cycle didn’t break the whole time I was there. I had to say no to things and miss out on things which I’m typically “OK” with but this time I felt real sadness and anger about it. I wanted to blame someone, I wanted a reason, I wanted to “talk to the manager” about this. I wanted it to be somebody’s fault and somebody to fix it. But, that’s not how it works. These are the things that teach us grace and surrender and sometimes getting the lesson is the most painful part. By the last night I had broken down in tears just exhausted from being exhausted and feeling like the Debbie of all Downers. This illness tends to turn its victims into high maintenance fun suckers when it’s at its worst, and nobody likes to be around that. By the end I was tired of who I was on that trip and what I required. But my brothers talked me through it and we decided that next vacation we take, we aren’t making an itinerary. We’re not overcommitting to engagements and we’ll try to just take each day as it comes. We’re going to try to effectively do nothing–something I’m pretty spectacular at and most people are still getting the hang of. I’m happy to teach my ways. I’m doing nothing right now!

 

As hard as the last two weeks have been, I feel like it is all starting to pay off because now I find myself in Paradise. My sisters in-laws left yesterday morning for a three-week trip to Africa. When they told me about their voyage months ago my first question was what they were going to do with Mikey–an enormous yellow lab and king of the household. When they threw around options I casually mentioned that Hey, I have nothing to do in August (or any month ever for that matter) and I could watch Mikey for them if they preferred he had a dogsitter. A few days later they took me up on the offer and even allowed me to bring Monty here too. So now, after all the exhaustion, noise, chaos, itineraries, plans and breaking of plans, I find myself in a beautiful California home with two loveable drooling teddy bears, and I could not feel more at peace having arrived. When I wake up in the morning, there is silence, and there is no itinerary to follow. DO YOU KNOW HOW GREAT THAT IS!?!?

 

Truthfully I have always treasured my solitude. If I were a Country Singer, I would write a song called “Solitude Has Always Been a Friend of Mine.” Anyway, it happens at least a few times a year that I require almost total isolation and dream of being locked up in a cabin somewhere and cut off for a little while. It’s like my souls version of food cravings. I have always enjoyed small endeavors on my own. Sometimes I like to eat at restaurants alone, or see movies or go to the bookstore. I love not having to keep up a conversation and going at my own pace, which is usually pretty slow. There isn’t anything so commonplace and exhausting to me as small talk. I have no patience or energy for idle conversations anymore. I don’t like having the “What’s new with you?” conversation. I don’t like to hear how your job is going or how your brothers band got a new drummer. And I don’t like to share news from my neck of the woods either–obviously because I don’t have any. “Yep, still sleeping on peoples couches. Well bye!” I realize this probably makes me sound like an old curmudgeon, and maybe I’m starting down that path at the ripe old age of 27, but there is something about those forced conversations that sometimes even the mere thought of them drains me. They just feel so inauthentic on both ends and since my time out of bed is so precious anyway, it’s hard for me to spend it on a conversation that we’re having to fulfill some duty–or because we feel like we should. This is why having a dog as a best friend works out great for me. No elevator talk.

I don’t care about your job.
Me either!

The other part is, while writing is my passion, it’s kind of  a lonely practice. You can’t do it well with people around. And you kind of have to “strike while the iron is hot” which is typically for me sometime around 3 in the morning. The act of writing is not nearly as satisfactory as the result, and many times the process is grueling. Anyway, the only living thing that can hang out but not disturb me is a dog. Two dogs even. So Monty and Mikey have been great companions. We eat, sleep, swim and write and there’s no itineraries or talking about our jobs. Wanda left me a note welcoming me to help myself to any and everything and to write a book while I’m here. Think I’ll take her advice.

Health, Happiness, Solitude.

15 Fights Every Couple Has

Published on by Mary Gelpi18 Comments

1. The “You Spend Too Much Time With Your Friends and Not Enough Time With Me” Fight. It’s not that I hate your friends, I just think they’re stupid and don’t really want them around. 

2. The “You’re Terrible With Money” Fight. Did we really need these $20,000 life-size Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots?

Yes, yes we did.

3. The “I’m Allowed to Talk Shit About My Family but YOU BETTER NOT” Fight. Excuse me, nobody calls my sister a slut but me.

4. The “You Drink Too Much/Smoke Too Much/Work Too Much/Play Video Games Too Much/Sleep Too Much” Fight. You do all the wrong stuff, too too much.

5. The “ANYTHING Regarding Facebook” Fight.

Who’s that slut who wrote on your wall?

Why haven’t you changed your relationship status?

Why aren’t I in your profile picture?

Why are you still friends with that person?

Why won’t your dad accept my friend request?

Who is Brittny and why did she poke you 2 years ago? Defriend her. NOW. 

6. The “You’re Always Tired When It’s Time for Sex But Wide Awake When the Kardashians Come On” Fight. Come on, you know you love Scott.

Nuff said.

7. The “You Give Terrible Presents” Fight.  Awesome. Another candle. Thanks babe. 

8. The Failure to Agree on a Show You Both Like So You End Up Watching Stuff Neither of You Really Likes Fight. Oh look, No Reservations is on again. 

9. The “I Shouldn’t Have to Ask You To” Fight. Because you should be able to read my mind by now. 

10. The “You Have Terrible Phone Etiquette” Fight. There’s this thing. Called a phone. Try it out…

11. The “If You Like It You Better Put a Ring On It” Fight. Because nothing sets the mood for an engagement like the threat of a breakup. Or physical harm. 

Whoa Oh Oh Uh Oh Oh Oh

12. The “I Was Lying When I Told You I Didn’t Want Anything for My Birthday and You Should Have Known That” Fight. You could have at least gotten me a card. God. 

13. The “You’re Nicer to the Dog Than You Are To Me” Fight. Well he’s a better listener!

Tell me. Everything.

14. The “I Went Through All Your Shit and Found Something That Makes Me Not Trust You Anymore” Fight.  You never told me you ran track in high school.

15. The “If I Didn’t Pick Up After You, Our Apartment Would End Up on Hoarders” Fight.  Why do you put your clothes next to the laundry hamper?

Health, Happiness, Coupledom

10 Things to Avoid (and Embrace) When You’re Depressed.

Published on by Mary Gelpi10 Comments

10 Things to Avoid…

1. F

2. A

3. C

4. E

5. B

6. O

7. O

8. K

9. Ok 8 things.

10. Oh yeah, and Wal-Mart.

Here is the truth; you’re not missing out on anything if you don’t get on Facebook today. I’ll fill you in: Someone got engaged. Someone had a baby. Someone is angry at Obama. Someone cooked spaghetti. And someone is hung-over after going out big last night. But if you spend the day on Facebook, you’re missing out on all the rest. You know, like on life. So now here’s 10 things you can do instead of get on Facebook, that might actually make you feel better.

1. Forgive somebody. There is probably someone or something from your past that needs to be let go of, moved on from, and it might even be you. Letting go of things in the past opens up room for good stuff in the future. Go!

2. Appreciate who and what ya got. Having a gratitude journal sounds super cheesy I know, but once you start writing down everything you’re thankful for everyday, you’ll see very subtly your whole perception change for the better.

3. Create. Make art! Or a sweater! Or music.Or dinner! You’ll be surprised at what you end up making. And have someone in mind when you create. The best gifts are home-made.

I made you this sweater for your dog!

4.Exercise. Even if it’s just a walk outside or 15 minutes of yoga… exercise releases serotonin and adds years to your life. Imagine if you did 10 sit-ups/push-ups for every 10 minutes you spent on Facebook. Everyone would be all muscley and stuff.

5. Bake a cake for someone. Anyone. Just because you love em. It’ll make their day! Let us eat cake.

Because You’re You and I’m Me

6.Organize your closet, dresser, room, or junk drawer. Cleaning things out just feels good, it’s free, and the end result will make you breathe easier.

Aaah.

7. Occupy Wal-Street. Just kidding. Couldn’t think of a good O verb. Uh, organize your second closet!

8. Kidnap someone and bring them on an awesome adventure. Dont actually blindfold them and throw them in the backseat of your car or anything..just bring them to lunch or something. And then maybe antiquing.

9. Read a book. Remember books? Instead of getting lost in an anonymous persons wedding album on Facebook, (ahem, yeah that’s me) get lost  in a book. It’s such an awesome feeling. And you don’t feel like a creeper by the end.

10. Write and send a letter. Not an email, not a text. A real letter, written in your own special handwriting. Old school mail dude, it’s the best! (May take 2 weeks to arrive though. The post office has had a rough year.)

Health, Happiness, Lifebook. (See what I did there?)

I Have Many Stories To Tell About My Brothers–Most of Them Involving Farts

Published on by Mary Gelpi7 Comments

Allow me to introduce my brothers…

Don’t know which is better, the hats or the PJ’s. 1984. 

I’ve had the pleasure of spending a week in Miami with my two brothers, Doug and Nick. Though they are in their 30’s now and I’m in my late 20’s, I noticed during our time together that not much has changed since childhood. (And since this photo.) Doug and Nick are only a year apart in age, but couldn’t be more different. In fact all four kids in my family are incredibly different, so much so that I’m often wondering how we all came from the same two people. But, my parents were some dynamic people, and they produced, well, more dynamic people. From a young age, I took solace in the relationships with my siblings. But hanging out this last week with my brothers made me remember the insanity that ensues when more than two Gelpi kids are in a room together. Here’s an idea and photographic proof of the different ways it can go. These photos are from childhood, but I assure you nothing has changed.

Either everybody’s laughing…

.

Or just my brothers are laughing and someone else is crying… (like my sister, seen here)

Typical.

Since I was kind of a loser/loner growing up, my brothers, more specifically Nick “adopted” me into his social circle; not really concerned that I was 5 years younger. I remember smoking my first cigar at age 12 and staying up until 6 AM one morning playing a rugged game of monopoly. They all got drunk so I won! You’d think ‘Hey! That’s wrong! You can’t be letting a 13-year-old puff a cigar or let her pierce her upper ear!’ But truthfully, it was never dangerous or irresponsible. My brother kept close watch over me always, like a good sibling does.

One Halloween, when I was 11, my friends went trick or treating without me and I was at home all down and out. When Nick came upstairs and heard the story he said “Put on your roller blades! Lets go!” (Rollerblading. I miss that shit.) Anyway, even though he had plans with some friends, he instead drove his loser little sister to the neighborhood which always gave the best candy. He accompanied me until my bag was full, and didn’t laugh so hard when I tripped UP the stairs from my stupid roller blades getting caught as my second grade teacher opened the door mid-fall. (Seriously, true story.) Anyway, it was nice of him to do that. I always remember that gesture.

Then there was high school. My senior year, I was taking my boyfriend to the Sweetheart dance. I was kind of dating a nihilist but I was 17 so I just thought he was emo and cool. My brothers said they would chauffeur me and my date to the dance, which I thought was a fun idea! So imagine my gratefulness for them when we took a right turn onto my dates street, and they rolled down all of the windows in the car and blared the theme music from Star Wars as loud as it could possibly go. They slowed the car to a crawl so the whole neighborhood knew we had arrived. I begged them to turn it down, but it was just so damn funny, that I couldn’t be embarrassed, I just had to laugh; which happens a lot with them. Or crying. Either one. The nihilist and I broke up that night coincidentally.

So none of those stories involve farts, I know. But trust me, there are plenty. Like this one. I thought we’d take it one at a time.

One night after dinner on Rich People Island, the boys and I got on our golf cart to drive home. Nick was the driver, me in the front, Doug on the back. When we drove by the dock Nick saw something in the water that got his attention, so he stopped and parked the golf cart, got out, and went to check it out. Of course, like clock work, Doug jumped in the driver’s seat of the golf cart and floored it away from Nick, laughing and hollering the whole way. This is probably the 4th or 5th time Doug stole the golf cart from Nick. Anyway, we finally turn around and pull up beside Nick, and he’s like “Doug let me drive!” And Doug’s like “Fine!” So just before Doug gets out of the driver seat, he FARTS, really loud, and kind of leaves his own little “bubble” for Nick to enter. This of course, makes Doug begin to laugh as we drive away. But it’s late and quiet on Rich People Island and there are people eating outside at a nearby restaurant so Nick is trying to hush Doug up. But Doug’s ridiculous laughter is making me laugh, and every time I laugh, it makes Doug laugh harder, and louder. Which makes Nick hush him more, which begins the whole cycle over again. It reached an obnoxious point where Nick stops the golf cart and refuses to leave until everyone quiets down and stops laughing…which, you know, failed. Luckily, I had a camera with me and it seemed like such a Gelpi brothers moment, I decided to roll tape. -Enjoy.

I can’t explain it, but my brothers gas has always been a hot topic in our family–sometimes humorous and sometimes NOT– and I just don’t see it going away anytime soon. I’ll never understand what makes a fart so funny. Anyway, I hope that made you laugh, because when I feel down, I watch that video and I can’t HELP but laugh! That’s the best part of laughter–totally contagious. I guess I should note here that most of the time, we all get along. See?

.

Health, Happiness, Brothers

Greetings From Bed on Hard Knocks Island

Published on by Mary Gelpi20 Comments

I’m writing today from a very foggy place. I have to concentrate really hard when I consider what day it is, what the date is, and when someone asks me questions it takes an unwarranted amount of time to answer. This is my 3rd day in bed, and as much as I thought today would be better since I literally slept until 6 pm yesterday and fell back asleep at 9 pm for the night– I’m still not feeling much more alive. Luckily, my mom and I are still holding down the fort on rich people island. One of the worst parts of being in a full-blown crash is how isolated it feels. Luckily at this residence, my room has huge windows and an amazing view, so while I was only awake 3 hours yesterday, at least I had nice things to look at.

Not Too Shabby a View

I know to an outsider this seems ridiculous. And I’m sure there are people out there thinking “You’re simply sleeping TOO MUCH, and that’s why you’re so tired!!!” If I had a nickel…. It’s very hard to explain what my body feels like amidst a crash, and this one is one of the worst I’ve had in a long time. I think it was Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit and longtime CFS sufferer who said “Calling it ‘tired’ is like calling the atomic bomb a firecracker.” The only reason I got out of bed yesterday was to go to the bathroom and to take medicine. My mom tried to wake me up a few times and get me moving, but the thought of being upright nauseated me. Finally at 6, she made me drink a huge class of orange juice and eat toast and eggs so my body wouldn’t be running on empty. While I ate we watched a show on the science channel about the science of memory, dreams, and what makes us who we are, which was pretty mind-blowing. But by 9 I had fallen asleep again. I remember really really wanting to brush my teeth last night but standing that long just wasn’t going to happen, so I skipped.

Beyond the ridiculous fatigue are other symptoms that have been difficult to find relief to. I’ve had a non-specific pain radiating throughout my body, kind of like my bones are aching, that did not respond to pain killers. I’ve had a headache for a few days that is not a migraine but won’t go away does not respond to regular meds. Today at least the pain has let up and the headache has improved, but that heavy, wet-blanket fatigue hasn’t gone anywhere yet. When I woke up around 9 this morning, I sat up slowly in bed just to have my heart race and beat loud in my ears followed by a dash of dizziness to seal the deal. Good morning! God loves you!

The last symptom I’ll share, because we’re having so much fun here, is one of the most bizarre. I have this extreme sensitivity to sound that at times turns me into a crazy person. When I first became sick at age 9 this was one of my first and most jarring symptoms. Things like a hair-dryer, vacuum, or even the neighbors lawnmower were suddenly somehow painful, almost unbearable. I am noticing now that when my symptoms get bad, this sensitivity becomes heightened. It isn’t just loud noises either. For instance if someone leaves the laundry room door open with the washer or dryer running, I basically can’t relax or think straight until it’s closed. If someone is playing the radio in the car and there is static in the background, I feel like my head is about to explode until we switch the station. And it usually happens in the middle of someone telling a story that the sound of static becomes so overwhelming it’s all that I can hear, often causing me erupt in an erratic verbal explosion like “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN SOMEONE TURN OFF THE FREAKING RADIO?! I FEEL LIKE I’M ON CRAZY PILLS!!!!” And then everyone looks at me like I’m on crazy pills. But in my brain, the sound is the equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. I’ve found that many people with CFS have at least one of their senses which is painfully heightened. For my mom it’s her sense of smell; one whiff of the wrong perfume and she can get an instant migraine. Don’t we sound like a bucket of fun!? We are. :)

On day 3 in bed, I was mulling over the last week in my head, trying to piece together the puzzle of what-in-God’s-name happened to land me in bed this long feeling like I was hit by a cement truck and then rolled over by it once or twice. There are a few possibilities and I’m pretty sure it was a combination of all of them which created the perfect storm, but one in particular: I pushed myself for too long. Since my family is rarely all together in the same city, I hate to miss out on anything when we are. My brothers are two of my favorite people–they’re a lot of fun. They’re also two of the most hyper people I’ve been around. They were very go, go, go while they were here, and since I love to be around them, I tried to go, go, go with them everywhere they went until I die die died. It’s the same lesson I’ve had to learn before that I will continue to learn until I get it right; I have to limit myself. No one will do it for me, mostly because no one else has to pay the price of overdoing it, only I do. And I’ve overdone it so many times you’d think I’d have it down by now, but I don’t. I have to learn to say no. It does mean missing out on some things that I’d like to partake in, but the alternative is missing out on 3 days of life, and you never get those back. The doctor calls this being proactive vs. reactive. If you can sustain yourself by limiting things and paying attention to your body, you can pretty effectively avoid crashes and super-sick days. There were a couple of days last week I didn’t feel great but made the decision to go to the beach anyway, or go fishing anyway, and those anyways ended up being pretty detrimental.

Just so we’re clear, I don’t write posts like these to be depressing. I’m not doing it to complain or fish for pity. It was my goal from the start to try my best and paint an accurate picture of what life with this illness looks like. And sadly, some days or weeks, it just sucks. No getting around it. At the same time, I remind myself this won’t last. I study the things that got me here, and I thank God I have family (mostly Dr. Mom) to see me through the really tough parts. I wonder a lot how anyone would survive this illness alone, and I honestly don’t think it’s possible. Everyone I talk to in the waiting room at the specialists office has one primary thing in common; they have one person to whom they owe their life. A spouse, a parent, brother or sister, child or friend. CFS isn’t terminal. You don’t die from the symptoms. But I really can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t have the help of so many people in the past. Sleeping under a bridge somewhere. Keyword: sleeping.

In the light of friendship, I’d like to share the Gelpi’s rendition of one of my all time favorite songs from one of my all time favorite shows: Thank You for Being a Friend, from the Golden Girls. Luckily my brother Doug can basically play any song you ask him to on the piano, so he did me a solid. My voice is terrible so I apologize in advance, but hey, it was fun. This is dedicated to Emily and Kaitlin aka Matt Damon.

Health, Happiness, Crash and Burns

Let’s Talk About Dancing.

Published on by Mary Gelpi17 Comments

I arrived in Miami on Friday to spend a few days here. This is partially the reason I’ve been so crashed. I never do exceptionally well when I travel, and this time was no exception. But it’s nice to be sick in a beautiful place. I mean if you’re gonna be a human waste-land, might as well be a human waste-land on a beautiful beach. My brother and sister-in-law had a baby shower this Saturday (she’s due in March)and we decided to make a Gelpi Power Hour weekend out of it. I am staying at a hotel on South Beach and I dreamt all night of heavy base techno music. Wait, that was not a dream. I was actually up all night listening to heavy base techno music ricocheting off the walls. At around 2 am I kid you not, Club Mango played that song “What is love? Baby don’thurt me…” and it was like a real-life Night at the Roxbury!

Mm hmm.

Truthfully it wasn’t the music keeping me up, though it didn’t help. My legs were on fire, cramped up and emitting heat like they do. So I read more of my book as the base and noise of drunk people bounced around below. At first I was agitated but then I grew to like the sounds. It added to the authenticity of my Miami stay. It reminded me of what the noise of being alive is like. Also they played a lot of Rihanna so, you know. That was cool.

Every now and then they’d play a song I liked and out of the corner of my eye I’d find my foot tapping to the beat of the song without knowing I was doing it. The interesting part of it was that as I noticed this, I started reading a chapter in Marc Nepo’s book called Questions Put to the Sick: When was the last time you danced? I think this is what Carl Jung would refer to as Synchronicity. But that’s another story.

Allow me to say some things about dancing. 1. I love to do it. 2. I’m kind of terrible at it. 3. I don’t care. 4. OK I kind of care. 5. After a few beers I don’t care anymore. And I’ve been told my skills have improved. Anyway, I love dancing. I actually crave dancing. If there is a span of time where I don’t dance, I get the dancing itch, and the only cure is to rock out somewhere with loud music and move my body in any deformed way it feels that communicates physically the fun I’m having in my brain. It can be alone in my car, or at a bar, in the shower, or a wedding. Ooooh weddings. Those are the best. I think that’s why Dane Cook’s standup about girls saying “I just need to dance,” rings so hilariously true to so many people. Sometimes I’ll feel ansy and I know it’s because I need to just dance it out. I swear I’ll wake up the next morning after dancing and feel better, as though it was a bug I had to get out of my system. I’d argue it’s just as important as your dentist appointment or annual colonoscopy. You just have to do it. You’ll feel better once you do.

I may or may not have been compared to Elaine in the past.

Or you’ll feel worse. Wah Wah. (Debbie Downer tone) Being sick and constantly walking a fine line between functioning and non-functioning, there’s always the possibility of over-doing it and paying a price. Like last year in March, I danced the Dougie way too hard one night and I was crashed the next day. All because of the Dougie. But I need to say this:  it was worth it. Sometimes you pay a price, and sometimes it’s worth your while. “What happened to Mary?” “She Dougie’d too hard last night.” “Poor thing. I’ll make us some sandwiches.”

Here’s what Nepo writes about dancing:

The ongoing effort to dance, to give gesture to what we feel and experience, is ultimately healing because, as riverbeds are continually shaped by the water that moves through them, living beings are continually shaped by the feelings and experiences that move through them. If there is no water moving through, the riverbed dries up and crumbles. Likewise, if there is no feeling moving through the body, the being at the center of that body will crumble.

More often though, there is too much to give gesture to, and we fail to move these feelings through our bodies. In truth, much of our inner sickness comes from the buildup and pressure of all that is kept in. The ongoing act of releasing that inner buildup is what spiritual practices call embodiment.  …Once unblocked, giving gesture to our inwardness not only frees us from becoming pressurized, but the gestures, once allowed out, teach us how to dance further into our own lives.”

Pretty cool right? I know some people think it’s just psycho-babel and the idea of someone shaking their ass in the club to Lil Wayne and calling it spiritual embodiment is just a joke. Understandable. But pay attention to the music you hear and the subconscious urge you feel to move. It’s not a calculated choice we make. Even babies and toddlers begin to dance (sometimes better than me) when music is played for them. Sometimes, we should be still, but sometimes we should MOVE BABY. And don’t let your thoughts get the best of you. Don’t try to analyze it or over think it. The best kind of dancing is unrestrained, uninhibited, belting at the top of your lungs-holding a pretend microphone-singing to a pretend audience, unrepressed, uncontrolled dancing. It doesn’t matter if you’re bad. If you’re having that much fun, you’re far from bad. You’re the best!

So the next time you’re out, or in, and you feel the hunger, satisfy it. It is actually good for you, for your body and your soul. If someone asks you why you’re dancing alone in the kitchen, tell them you’re moving your life experiences through your body so you can dance further into your existence. They’ll like that. Here’s one last anecdote about dancing. After my step-dad died in 2006 the house was oddly empty and the family was pretty down. My mom told me later she would turn on Ellen in the afternoons and dance along with her, by herself in the living room. Sometimes it was the only thing she achieved that day. But guess what? It made a difference. It changed the energy of the room. It changed her energy–Made her smile, even for 30 seconds. And in times like that, you’ll grab hold of anything to get you past the moment of pain. So I love that part of Ellen’s job is to get up every day and dance, and to get other people to dance along with her. I love that my mom got up and did it, even when she felt devastated and lost. These are small, small things that in the end can shape large parts of our lives. I haven’t danced in a while, so maybe I’ll give the Dougie another go tomorrow and just cut myself off a little earlier. For now, my legs are cramped and I’ll do some research on fatigue-friendly dance. Perhaps I’ll head down to the nursing home and see if there are any classes there. They’ll be more on my pace. Maybe I’ll even meet somebody special.

Health, Happiness, and DANCE!

An Experiment.

Published on by Mary Gelpi44 Comments

*Contrary to feeling like death right now, I’m going to try an experiment. Here goes. 

I woke up this morning and I felt great!! I had so much energy, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I began by taking a six-mile run and watching the sun come up. It was beautiful! The birds were chirping and the sun coming up over the horizon allowed me to see the true beauty of nature in the world. By the sixth mile, even Monty could barely keep up with me! He’s so lazy sometimes. I need to get him into shape. I felt like I could’ve run forever.

When I got home I cooked up a great breakfast. Cage free scrambled eggs with soy milk, a fresh fruit salad, and a protein shake. It’s my favorite breakfast. I read the paper and shook my head at the state of the world. We really need to get our shit together. By the end of breakfast it was already 7:30! The day was really flying by. Monty took a nap and I told him he better shape up or ship out! No more doggie treats for him. He’s gained weight!

Next I organized three closets in my house. Boy did they need it! I color coded and alphabetized all the things I was giving to good will, and even sorted the things within the boxes into subcategories (kitchen appliances, tools, decorative things, shitty Christmas presents still in their packages, etc.) By the end of all that closet organizing, I found myself sneezing a lot. Ugh, so annoying. Allergies are the worst! But, I didn’t take ANY pills! You know what I did? Vacuumed my entire house. Then I went to the Sharper Image and bought one of those air purifiers. Since it was only 9 am the mall was virtually empty, so I did a little shopping for myself. A girl CAN’T have too many shoes, right? Girls out there, you know what I’m sayin’!

When I came home I took a wet rag and wiped down all the surfaces in my house, including furniture surfaces, baseboards, fan-tops, and counter tops. Then I made some herbal tea my best friend Sally gave me a while ago, which is supposed to help prevent cancer and is known to be good for allergies. By now it was 10:30.

Next I went outside and tended to my garden. I’m growing a bunch of root vegetables as well as tomatoes, squash, lettuce, and South African JuJu beans. I did some weed-eating and general maintenance. I even hand painted a sign out of some old wood in our shed that said “Mary’s Garden.” It looks great. Sometimes I think I should have been a painter. Next I went inside, hand-washed all the vegetables that were ripe from the garden, and made an incredible home-grown salad. But you know what’s even better than home-grown salads? Home-grown salads with friends!

DON'T worry. It's organic.

So I called up my besties, Sally, Cindy, SueSue and Peggy. Well, I know that’s only four, but I didn’t have enough veggies for ALL of my friends (too many to count) so I only invited those four. I love my friends. I have so many of them. And they all love home-grown salads! We talked about Chloe Kardashians new hair color (ew) and the crappy state of the world and how somebody really needs to do something about that. Sally and Cindy then had to go to their Jazzercise class but SueSue and Peggy were free so we all went to my favorite salon, got mani-pedis, and drank bubble tea! I’ve been feeling edgy lately so I painted my toenails dark purple. I’m so crazy sometimes!!!

By the afternoon I rode my bike to the farmers market to pick up fresh gluten-free bread and some other things that I can’t grow on my own. (One day!) I also bought some beautiful tulips that were being sold there. I decided they were too beautiful for any old vase, so I biked to a glass-blowing studio down the street to create my very own one-of-a-kind vase for them. Sorry, but none of the other vases would do! They’re sitting on my table now, and may I just say..DAMN. Pardon my french. Next it was time to make an appearance at an engagement party for one of my other besties and I wore my new 4 inch heels with my new dress. I also had the perfect set of hand-made earrings (made by yours truly) which couldn’t have matched any better. Not to toot my own horn, but, BEEP BEEP I was looking good! We drank wine, ate wonderful food, and it felt really good to stand around and talk to people about what they’re doing with their lives, tell them about mine, and then make tentative plans to get coffee and stay in better touch. It’s gonna be a busy social season guys, get ready!

Finally by 10:30 I was ready to leave.  Call me a dork, but I love to get in my jammies and watch reruns of the West Wing before bed! (Rob Lowe, so hot. Don’t get me started.) Anyway I finally made it home, saw the tulips on the table, and remembered how precious life is. I have a great life. But boy am I sleepy! Tomorrow I have Hot Yoga at 4 am, so I better get some rest. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store!!

HEALTH, ENERGY, AND BUBBLE TEA!

Mare

**Just to reiterate, this was all made up. I’ve been crashed the last few days.  This was just an imaginative experiment in pretending. If I tried to go on an actual six-mile run I would vomit then die.