When people find out that I am 36, they remark how young I look for my age. I thought I would use my blog as the opportunity to pass along some of my beauty secrets. First, don’t have children because the emotional weight and responsibility it requires puts lines on your face and gray in your hair…just kidding. Now untangle your panties because anyone can achieve results with just a little work, and busy mommies especially deserve the extra energy that being healthier gives you.

I know you have heard it a million times but I have found that the key to staying fit is moderation. When I first began attempts to get healthy, I made all of the classic mistakes: I worked out too hard and overtaxed my body resulting in longer periods of time between workouts. My workout routine turned around (and I was able to push my amount of exercise from 3 times a week to 5 times a week where I really started seeing results) when I would focus on simpler activities for 30 minutes a day. I gave myself the permission to stray away from heavy aerobics and intense weight routines. It was when I started a walking through my neighborhood or roller-skating the path that runs through my local park that I began to look forward to workouts. While I like to vary the intensity so that I get in a tougher workout now and again, I listen to my body and it tells when it’s time to go to the gym. I have come to crave my activity time as my moving meditation and relish the energy that getting my blood pumping gives me. Besides the boost in confidence, I have the energy to pursue goals that I would have put off before.

My imagination has grown as I give myself time to daydream 5 days a week while I have become inspired by the beauty of nature on my daily walk through the woods…I haven’t felt this good since I was a kid roaming the backyard 7 days a week. We get so busy with the myriad responsibilities of being adults that we forget our highest responsibility to the vehicle that we travel this earth with; this body is a gift that we do not get to keep forever.  Treat it kindly, and have fun with it! Overcome that voice in your head and take the time today to walk for 30 minutes. Take a mental inventory of what you feel at the end of that time – it could be a physical  surge in energy, a solution to a problem that you’ve been mulling over, or much needed peace for your soul – and then do me a favor, let me know what you gained!

            I recently saw Billy Bob Thornton’s portrayal of a drunken, misogynist football coach in the remake of Bad News Bears. It was hard for me not to think of his personal life while watching and how he had recently ended his marriage to Angelina Jolie-Pitt when he made this movie. He comments on teenage girls’ asses to the consternation of those around him and yet his character does not hurt for lack of snatch – lack of a real relationship on screen and in real life – but apparently not sex. It seemed that this movie was chosen by Thornton as a monument explaining his fears and insecurities about being a father and dedicated to his posthumous marriage. It’s too late, Billy Bob; women don’t take kindly to being abandoned while new to motherhood whether the baby is yours or not, and proving that you worship women in retrospect won’t get you anywhere either. There was a scene where Thornton’s character was talking to the teenage girl with the nice ass mentioned previously and one of his baseball player protégées interrupted him and was severely reprimanded. It was here that the uninformed kid got what I imagine is a universal lesson in a young boy’s life – the anti-cockblocking speech. I have been meditating on this idea of cockblocking and its anthropological repercussions ever since, some mystical key to the Universe seeming to be contained within the act. Cockblocking: a woman walks by while the man hustles to get a word in, any interruption and the moment/piece of ass is lost.  I used to see this as yet another sign of man’s constant attempted manipulation of woman as well as his opinion that she is stupid. But suddenly I see it form a different side and the woman becomes a feminine creature that seems to float by on the air while the lowly human man victoriously struggles to overcome his fear and insecurity and touch the magic that woman contains.

            As my feminist-educated mind reels from the implication that everything might be exactly opposite of how I have always thought it, I ponder other such supposed erroneous ideas that I have held. Is the man working and running the world a sign of woman’s ignorance and inability? Or is it a sign of her power to have the tedious done for her? I gotta say ladies – a career is one thing – something that you care about and can be your stamp on the world – but working for a living sucks. Is it too late to go back and unchange the world? It’s too late for Billy Bob, that’s for sure.

     I don’t like holidays. I despise holidays. When one comes around I turn down all invites tersely and make sure that everyone knows I have other, more important plans. I sequester myself in my house with enough food to survive until the wicked thing has passed.

      This last holiday has been the worst in my history as a human being. July 4^th is usually a holiday I can navigate without any disturbance. People usually pack up their cars and head to the mall to watch the fireworks so that I am left in the ghost town that is my neck of the woods. Only, as predicted by NPR, gas prices are such that everyone has been buying fireworks this season for their own holiday show. I suppose that my neighborhood bought the bulk of Atlanta’s fireworks because yesterday at dusk they set them all off right outside my front door. Besides the raucous screaming of fun by the pool that filtered into my solitude all day, the 30 minute fireworks show that evening was incredibly intrusive to my viewing of The Empire Strikes Back. I had to turn the TV up to deafening levels to barely cover the sound and close all the blinds that still let the color of the show seep in. It reminded me of warfare. How celebratory.

            It’s not that I don’t like people. While I do think there is something unnatural about the human body that reminds me of monsters or aliens, I do like particular persons and always in small doses. No crowds. When I was a rebellious teenager, I loved to dive into the center of crowds and lose myself in the animal that is a mob of human beings. (Check out Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti, a great book about the morality a human being loses when caught up in the rapture of the crowd.) But one day I went to see a show and was in the center of a crowd that began to move and dance of its own accord. It felt like I was being rocked to sleep in a protective cocoon until I realized that I could lift my feet off the ground completely and be held in place by said crowd. I kicked and shoved my way out and won’t go near a crowd since. Only, the crowds that I can handle have gotten smaller and smaller until I can only entertain a small number of people before I begin to feel suffocated. I struggle with my individuality being muddled by the influence of others on a daily basis. I strive to rise above my baser impulses and ever evolve towards a civilized  state of mind; watching grown adults hoot and holler over some lights in the sky seems to me the epitome of stupidity.

   It has been a strange week for news that has my brain a-thinkin’. It started on NPR last Sunday during my favorite show This American Life with a story about a mother’s new realization of her child’s diagnosis with Downs Syndrome. She took her toddler to see a stage version of Sesame Street and saw an adult afflicted with the disease and realized that her child will still be excited about Elmo in 10, 20 years when all of his peers will have moved on to other, older things. So, the smarter you are, the less excited you are. Is the smartest person in the world also the dullest by implication?

   Then I heard a story about a woman who had a stroke which was preceded by a surreal experience that morning. She awoke and jumped on her exercise machine. Suddenly she looked down and her hands appeared to her as primitive tools. She felt a disconnect with her body as if it did not belong to her. Primitive Tools. This phrase has reverberated in my brain since that moment. She was filled with euphoria and I could relate in some faraway part of myself, my childhood maybe, when I inhabited my body as some great adventure or toy or…gift. The future and past where absent and so she was completely disconnected from rational thought; she was completely in the moment. It seems to imply a consciousness is something that is held down by the constraints of time, the laws of nature.

   I have oftened wondered it the “mentally handicapped” don’t know some grand secret and are unafraid to live a life unfettered by social constraints. What if?

                I am inundated with choices on a daily basis, all of which require spending money. I do not like spending money. I don’t particularly like thinking about making money, or should I say turning my heart, soul and time into something as grubby as money. I do like keeping money. I am wary of ways in which people will try to separate me from my money. McDonalds, the example in my political argument against spreading democracy in the Middle East (Yes, Iraq is seriously lacking a McDonalds on every corner), was one day replaced by Satanbucks…I mean, Starbucks.  At one time, getting me into Starbucks would have been quite a feat.  The prices are ghastly, certainly, but more than that, a Starbucks on every corner strikes a chord of terror in my heart. But a friend of mine who lives in the midst of materialism, nay, the dead center itself, asked me to pick up a cup. And so, in the spirit of friendship and sharing, I got one for myself. Actually, her specifications were exact and I over poured the cream to the brim and then took a sip so as not to spill it to find heaven on my lips. I started sneaking off to one of my many local Starbucks in disguise and under the guise of keeping my enemies close.

                As a enjoy my tall breve latte to the soothing sounds of the new Starbucks record company radio station, I secretly worry that I haven’t escaped my roots of the white upper middle class background that I have been in rebellion against since I was a child. I’d rather be a white trash redneck hillbilly than a superficial snob that pretends that she’s giving back to the world by jumping on the latest bandwagon of whatever charitable fad is in vogue at that moment. “Global Warming” is the latest bunch of hooey solely designed to ease our guilty, wealthy conscience by giving us something to worry about momentarily in between the endless moments we think only of ourselves. But that is the undercurrent.

                In real time, my affluent background has given way to a more meager existence – by choice – where I cringe over replacing my three year old contact lenses that turn my eyes red when I put them in now. I am repairing a jacket that I bought two years ago at a thrift store for sixteen dollars with shoe polish. There are lots of things I want. I want the Iphone, the Imac and everything else at the Apple Store which I try to talk myself into on the grounds that anything Apple makes is considered a “good buy” by the general public; the general public being the same group of people that always go with the flow and have nothing at the end of their lives but memories and the trendy new gadget by whichever company that is hot …as if time itself will stop and they will hover in their momentary technological heaven forever. In truth, they will tire of that thing they cannot live without within minutes, hours, or days; they will find its inherent flaws almost instantly (perfection exists only in our heads) and then become deflated, walking around just a little more stooped than before. They will find that while their little gem, even at the height of their true, new love, will not change their lives for the better. It doesn’t change anything. It cannot ever reach the innermost part of them like the idea of it did. Because in the end it is the idea of it that reaches into our hearts and minds and lets us dream, the actual physical representation is irrelevant. It is the idea that we love – the idea that the salesperson sold us, the idea of who we will become when we buy it. No matter what we choose to have in our life, including things and people, we deal in ideas; the physical is just a manifestation of the idea. The more ideal the idea, the quicker we are sold. I know this, I joined a cult for the ideas that they peddled. Any man I have ever been with has been for the ideas that he embodied. And while matter may just be one big idea, which is why it seems rather pointless to reside in the camp of the “haves”, I still cannot in all good conscience exist in the camp of the “have-nots”, or hippies, or bums as the “haves” generally call them. The last thing that a hippie could be bothered with is money, or making money, or taking showers. And I like money enough to be cheap with it. And showers. And toilets. And indoor plumbing in general. ( I think Man created Indoor Plumbing for Woman because he loved her so much.  Indoor Plumbing IS Civilization.)

                I saw a large congregation of hippies recently when I went to see “His Holiness the Dalai Lama” speak at Centennial Park in Atlanta. The President of Emory’s opening address implied that the producers of this show were expecting more black people by referring to Atlanta as the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. and home to the positive integration of black and white. (Has the President of Emory ever been to Atlanta?) I have had the privilege of being a clown and entertaining at children’s birthday parties all over this city for the last decade, and I have seen the children’s parties become more and more segregated since I began 12 years ago. Now I either go into a black neighborhood or a white neighborhood. At “The Visit”, as it was named and bannered all over the park, there weren’t many black people, just white hippies. There was one guy with fuzzy dreadlocks and superlong, disgusting fingernails that the crowd surrounding him pointed at and whispered about. There was a big pink female Buddha sitting on the lawn that reminded me that I had eaten too much that day: her tummy hung like Buddha and rested on the ground as she sat cross-legged. I got a slap on the hand from my friend for pointing that one out, but she was hard to miss in her hot pink outfit. There was a smoking hot Hari Chrisna who was selling the Bhagavad-Gita in his traditional religious costume. My friend did not see his beautiful eyes, I assume she was distracted by his outfit. But I know what it’s like to be a human being trapped in a cult and I wanted to go back and buy his book so that I could talk to him, but he’s in a cult so it would have been a one-sided conversation in an attempt to convert me. Besides, I already have a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita.

                The Dalai Lama came on stage just as I was getting back from my sight-seeing trip of the CNN Center with a fresh cup of Starbucks. He got more respect than I imagine the President of the USA would have received with reverent applause and then silent-as-a-pin-drop quiet as the audience drank in His Holiness’ speech about war being caused by unaffectionate mothers. He called America chauvinist and arrogant with his happy, can’t-hurt-a-fly smile and the spectators laughed on cue. He talked about everything we used to talk about in my cult: positive feelings create! …a fact I find completely bogus and new-age hokey now that the general public has jumped on the bandwagon. (The general public in this case being hippies and anyone who watches Oprah.) Freud would call this mindset “repression” for its lack of desire or ability to deal with negative emotions that are inherent in the life process. I would call it idiotic for missing out on the entire half of life, albeit the dark half, that makes the light half look so bright. It reminds me of when I was in the cult and a fellow cult member had shot herself in the face in a church parking lot. We were not supposed to feel sad because we had been taught for years by this point that we were in charge of our emotions. But I cried. I cried because I realized how quickly that could have been me – when you feel so sad and all alone and all you want to do is tell someone but they don’t want to hear it because it isn’t happy or perfect enough. I usually did everything I was told because I was a good student and that’s what good students do, but I cried anyway. I didn’t think I would ever stop crying until I saw a butterfly flitting around as if trying to tell me something. (The Dalai Lama mentioned butterflies in his speech. He supposed that butterflies must be generally unaffectionate – and therefore a warring species? – because they are born from a cocoon and not held in their mother’s arms. Does he know that butterflies only live one day and might not want to waste their only day being coddled by their mother? Or more scientifically, has anyone told the Dalai Lama that a butterfly is actually born as a caterpillar? I’m glad that the Dalai Lama has a serious dialogue going on with a wide variety of Western scientists…maybe they could fill him in on a couple of facts…) I imagined that butterfly was my blessed dead friend reincarnated to live one day and be beautiful. What do butterflies do other than be beautiful and spark people‘s imagination about the idea of transformation? I mean, in the great scheme of things…. Do they spread pollen around? And do they worry about how much pollen they have collected, saved, and spent? I imagine they do not. I imagine that their life goes by in the blink of an eye and they spend that day of the rest of their life marveling at the vastness of the big blue beautiful sky. That’s what I would do if I were a butterfly. I would spend pollen freely as I found it and laugh and cry and suck every moment out of that one day that I could and I would never worry about how much a cup of pollen cost me, or how much pollen I was spending to put some new butterfly eyes in. I would love all butterflies – black and white alike, and…who am I kidding? If I were a butterfly, I would worry constantly every second of my only 24-hour period. I would spend the only day I had left to live finding the inconsistencies in butterfly civilization. Maybe I could help fight the butterfly war that his Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of….I would be a butterfly rebel…and I would start a butterfly blog about the absurdities of butterfly life…

            No matter where I go, the internet goes wacky. I used to think that the internet is simply highly unreliable but now I am starting to think that I have an adverse effect on technology. The internet is allergic to me. I don’t know what the cause is but it reminds me of another affliction I have –the Kiss of Death…or the Kiss of Madness…or, at the very least, the Kiss of Dysfuntionality. If you kiss me something bad is going to happen.

            It was the fourth of July several years ago when I went riding on the back of an ATV down some railroad tracks in a drunken celebration of independence. I did not know the friend of a friend of a friend that wildly put us onto two wheels at every opportunity to hear me scream. But I did kiss him at the end of the ride in gratitude for the resulting exhilaration and at his request. The next day he died on his motorcycle on Interstate 75 in Marietta, Georgia.

            Look back into my past and you find victims of my dangerous kiss littered behind me. It was after the death of the motorcycle man that I decided that I must save the lives of these potential suitors and stop kissing. It is a sacrifice and also my good deed, my way of serving humanity. And it’s a shame, really, because I have great genes that would produce healthy and hardy offspring that would outlive everybody. Perhaps I should rethink my plan and look for the perfect specimen to mate with who will then become a sacrifice for the children that he will never see…because he will be dead. Like the black widow who kills after she mates, my destiny will swallow up the father of my children. Oh, well.

            The lights are turned off as we settle onto our mats and prepare for a concentrated class in yoga. The uninitiated yogi comes from another part of the gym, perhaps the weight machines, thinking incorrectly that he is in for a casual hour of stretching. Men can be extremely proficient in yoga with much practice, but first they must conquer their egotism and innate male conceit. Yoga initially seems to be more natural to women who are taught to be humble and flexible, the latter most literally and figuratively. When a man finally does overcome the inherent obstacle that a yoga pose constructs, he is a fine thing to behold indeed. Until then, I must suffer with the stray male in class who thinks it his duty to have a running commentary with guttural grunts as if he is the only one who is turned upside down while balancing his head on the ground, legs stretched out while holding his toes (wide leg forward bend). He becomes a little boy looking for his mommy’s approval for his hard work as he incorrectly balances with his back hunched like the disfigured in a freak show, desiring to appear that he is more limber than he really is.

            I sense an apprentice as he sets up his mat behind me. The telltale signs of a beginner abound: not knowing how close to put his mat to mine, mimicking those around him unsuccessfully with moves that ensure minimum benefit and probable injury. Then I sense that I am the main point of his focus as I see in the periphery of my vision that he is following my moves. I imagine him joking earlier with his weight lifting buddies that he is going to yoga while a lot of nudging and eye winking goes on. My eyes half close as my plan crystallizes. I take my leisurely stretch to its limit and hear behind me a grumble as my new protégée follows suit. A deep breath and I achieve another inch and a half followed by his low moan as he begins to comprehend his shortcomings. We begin a sun salutation as our heart rate and breathing increase and the body behind me realizes that this is not his grandmother’s yoga class. Still attempting to ogle, he balances precariously in Half Moon briefly with one arm and one leg in the air until he falls onto my mat. My gaze stays steady on my reflection in the mirror as I witness my most beautiful expression of the pose that I have ever done.  My leg has a height that only the most self-righteous competition could inspire. While he struggles, my cool disgust turns to enjoyment. A series of balances ensues as we are taken to our limits, even the most practiced muscles shake while holding our bodies aloft. My foot becomes the root that reaches into the ground as my arms reach like braches to the sky in Tree. The sapling behind me is blown over by the racing thoughts of his mind. My legs bend deeply into a wide-legged squat as my arms stretch out like an arrow focused on its target in Proud Warrior. The wannabe behind me quickly snaps his arrow in half as he pitches forward. We go down to the floor and I feel him relax as if the hard part is over so I increase the stakes. My form is perfect; I didn’t know I had such depths of stretch within me. He tries to quiet his groans but they escape him before he knows it because he is not listening to his body but trying to keep up with me. Have I not sufficiently expressed my expertise? Is he so pompous to think he can keep up with me? I take a deep breath and deliver the final blow. A terrified gasp behind me has halted his practice; frozen, he holds his leg as we continue to the next pose. He slowly rises to his feet and gathers his shoes and his mat. He limps towards the door, holding his leg. A snail moves faster. I fall deeply into my pose. I close my eyes, fully satisfied. Certainly, he has learned his lesson. Maybe next time he will approach that which he does not know with a little more reverence. Hopefully, he will be more humble; he will not mess with me again.

   I’m stuck in my head, stuck with myself. Some might say I’m stuck up. Maybe I’m just stuck. I speak more words when I’m by myself – to the mirror, to people who aren’t there, and if they were I wouldn’t be talking to them. I guess somewhere along the line I decided that I talk too much and so I don’t talk at all, except to myself.

   I don’t miss that person I was even a month ago, the person that I would’ve spent my life defending…a month ago. I look back and see all of the opportunities she missed out on while she was talking. Now I see women everywhere I go – talking. I drive by a couple sitting on a bench, the man staring off into the distance, the woman yapping into the air like the irritating little lap dog that sits in her lap. I sense that she is talking about nothing; I sense that she just wants to hear herself talk. I imagine that she would be talking to herself if no one was there. Talking, talking, talking. It is little wonder men don’t listen. They probably stopped listening before they could talk. They figured they had heard it all by five from Mother who talked and talked – talked at the phone, talked at the kids, talked at dad who wasn’t listening, talked at the TV and dinner when it would not agree.

   But me, I’ve had enough of talking. I knew it was time to stop when I started boring myself with my own stories, my excuses, my defenses that stopped holding up in my head. I had to quit that which I was so busy defending with all of that talking. I was so tired of nothing in my entire life turning out like anything close to what I had imagined, and the last person that seemed to have any effect on my life was me. So I quit talking and started breathing. Well, actually, I had to quit smoking first…but to quit smoking I had to quit everything else in my life. I quit drinking, I quit the career I was in because I had built it on cigarettes. I had to find out if I had control over anything. My preliminary anger of not being able to have a cigarette (or, basically, the complete bewilderment of not being able to do whatever I want at every moment, like some fantastical notion left over from childhood) turns into determination, fury at the thought that I don’t have control over one thing in the entire universe, even the simple decision of whether or not I’m going to put a cigarette in my mouth. And to my utter amazement, (I have quit so many times in the last five years) I got farther than I ever had. I have almost touched the feeling that I won’t ever smoke again. Like an alcoholic, I have to take it one day at a time. I cannot get comfortable. I wonder how long I’m going to have to walk on eggshells around myself – the rest of my life? Fine. My determination turns into defiance; and each day that passes makes me a little more proud of myself. My garden is growing. I planted one seed of change and in so doing I have flowers of hope and happiness springing up all over the place. One change changes everything. I want to quit more; my new addiction is quitting my old addictions.

  So now I am here, very much in the middle of the moment, wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. (It is truly amazing how much time smoking cigarettes consumed.) I am doing everything backwards from how I always did things. I used to always be in hurry. I drove fast, drove into drive-thrus (because I couldn’t cook fast enough), maneuvered past relationships that took too much thought and generally just spun around fast like a top. I was looking to get there quickly; I’ve been ready to arrive since I was five. And yet the faster I moved, the more nowhere I went. Happiness was always the destination right around the corner. But every corner I turned seemed to take me farther and farther away from happiness…until, instead of smoking a cigarette, I looked around the corner I was in. I was not in charge and I probably never will be. My corner was dark, musty and dirty with ideas that I had incorporated from who knows where still hanging on the walls. I found the problem with my ideology was that it was all about what I didn’t want – to be bothered or constrained, to take my time…So when I finally quit, I was going crazy with all of this time on my hands that I had filled up with a big rush. I had to figure out what to fill my time with. I write in my journal. I clean. I paint a wall or two. I read and I think. It is…luxurious. I cook; and, to my utter amazement, I enjoy recipes that take longer because it gives me more time to fall into a deep contemplation, a simple meditation where my body works more than my brain. I have found that cooking is…downright sexy and I have totally lost my taste for fast food. I have found that my favorite spice is thyme (pronounced “time”) which has lead to a little herb garden on my kitchen windowsill where I ponder thyme and time while I water – a task I didn’t have time for before. I guess I didn’t have time to brighten the corner I was in. But now I’ve done some spring cleaning and the corner I reside in is full of sunshine and smoke free.  

from a previous issue of Heroine

   The Truth depends on what day it is, or what angle you are looking from. I will attempt  to unload my conscience while being as realistic as possible, clarifying a fantasy as such when it occurs and warning also of the opposite tendency of my heart to freeze over quickly and unexpectedly. But I feel that my heart needs thawing, it hurts now as if it were about to burst in my chest. I have a secret, a burden I carry that I have learned to hide in the shadows because of the implication that it holds. I am hopelessly addicted to solitaire. And not your generic brand of simple solitaire either, but the most daunting of all lonely one-man games: Spider Solitaire. This is a fact that I rarely share. I once told a romantic interest in a moment of trust and intimacy who seemed to be my perfect match when he purred that he too plays my particular game, the perfect strain of the secluded mind versus fate that is Spider Solitaire. I bragged of my 12% win rate when at first encouraged by his admission, but he frowned. “I wouldn’t tell anyone that,” he said, “That is not very good.” I felt stupid and small. Until I found out that we were indeed talking about two very different games – he was playing the medium level – the one that uses only half a deck as opposed to the two decks I play with. In reality, it is merely the practice game that one learns how to play before graduating to The Show. Really, there is only one game in Spider Solitaire and it is the difficult level. Saying you play Spider Solitaire while at medium is like proclaiming you can ski while you slide down the bunny slope. My win rate at the medium game is 100%. It is a different story in the big leagues though, I don’t know if it’s possible to win 100% of the time while playing at difficult or if anyone has ever done it. I can win three games in a row…given a significant amount of free time.*  Once I sufficiently expressed my point, my lover was equally impressed and intimidated and suggested that my win rate in solitaire is not something I should brag about. Touché. I never saw him again, but who cares because he was obviously an idiot.

   I love Spider Solitaire. If I am in a good mood I do not play well because I have less focus and patience. If I am in a bad mood, made further worse by the disgust that I am wasting my time playing solitaire, I have patience for hours to brood over the game and win, each win further testament to my insurmountable amount of procrastination. I have learned how to cultivate a bad mood for years because of the patience said bad mood provides, which aids me in all manner of ways.

   Sudoku is a more social game as Spider Solitaire is held by my computer and so holds me stationary. I could carry the computer around with me but I’d have to find an outlet to plug it in wherever I go, besides the fact that it weighs a ton. I suppose I could buy a laptop, but that looks so Starbucks and silly. What I dream of and wait for is a tiny keychain device that projects a hologram in to the air and acts as computer, phone, and jukebox. The speakers are embedded magically in the hologram and they are not wimpy, they are beefy. They deliver clarity even at the highest volumes, which I will utilize and so will also require a laser (the kind that gives you cancer if you point it at people’s eyes) for when some bitch with a laptop at Starbucks comes over to not so politely ask me to turn down my hologram, I can point the laser at her eyes to scare her off. That would be much more efficient than my standard “oops, I just ‘accidentally’ spilled coffee all in your expensive handbag” bit that keeps getting me kicked out of coffeehouses. I could play Spider Solitaire in the air on my hologram while listening to my jukebox and being sociable by sitting next to a friend that I was pretending to listen to. Solitaire wouldn’t have such a solo reputation then. I suppose I could bring two decks of cards on community outings, but people would inevitably bump my cards around and get yelled at. People always seem to get in the way, don’t they?

   I’ve tried interactive games like Scrabble but too easily offend with my extreme level of smack talk such as, “You won’t have the will to live after I crush your spirit and intellect with this game!” And, “I’m going to bury you with all the paper I’m going to need to add up my points!” My poor lovely and patient mother is referred to as a vintage fashion accessory, as in, “Hurry up, Old Bag.”

   I can’t really help my bloodthirsty streak as I come from a very competitive background. My great Grandfather is dead. The family killed him in cards. My father played to win, even at Chutes and Ladders. In the end, it’s just a way to pass the time – like sitting in a room and silently staring at a screen for two hours. I guess we all run out of things to say and sitting and staring at each other might drive us crazy.

   Time, people, patience. It all adds up to one thing: old age. There is no way to escape it, except maybe the undesirable choice of an early death. My father celebrates each birthday as a victory and an opportunity to see another year. But he is a handsome, healthy, alert and vivacious 70 something. It is not so much old age but the impending terror of handicap that scares the rationality and joy of the moment right out of me. I see so many people become religious with age in the hope that Jesus will save them from that stroke, that heart attack, that monumental act of the earth finally rising up to eventually swallow each and every one of us. I’m not supposed to think about such things. They are morbid thoughts. But as my parents get older and I approach middle age, what else am I supposed to think about? My taxes? Oh, wait, that’s right. I’m not supposed to think. I don’t really think it’s ever been my job, what with being a woman and all, but spouting such atrocities now makes it doubly heinous, I’m sure. I’m expected to be hot in my youth and then grow old gracefully, willingly letting go of the spotlight for those who are coming up fast behind me and then spend the next 50 years getting out of their more important way. ?! Fuck that! I’m going down screaming until my voice goes out completely. I may be all alone, hobbling on a walker but I am still going to stay one step ahead with the one thing I will have going for me in the end – my mental acuity that I sharpen daily with my silly, solitary mind games.

from Heroine’s “Plasticity of the Brain” issue

   As usual, my state of single-ness inspires confusion in the opposite sex. Actually, I should be more specific: I inspire confusion in the opposite sex that happens to be hitting on me at the moment.  Their eyes flash a readout, “can’t compute!” How in the world could I choose being single over them?? ..as if I don’t enjoy my own company or am single by some random act of tragedy. I have often considered telling people that I am a lesbian (I am not) or wearing a big cubic zirconian on a finger, any finger, to throw a man off my scent. When I enter the picture alone, a man naturally thinks he has a chance. However, he most probably does not.

   One such successfully evaded attempt at romance involved a friend of a friend’s come on that I managed to wiggle out of before it began. I recently ran into him again and was pleased to find out that he is dating a wonderful woman – pleased because he deserves this and because I could then relax at the party without looking for the exits signs of the conversation. Unfortunately, his new state of coupledom enforced his confidence and I was publicly grilled for my lack of romantic intentions. Finally, he remarked in frustration for his inability to understand what he must see as my lonesome existence, “what a waste of raw material.”

   ‘Raw material.’ I have been pondering this statement for days now. What in the hell does he mean? Am I unfinished without a man?? Is it literally that I am wasting a good body to have his baby with? I guess my mother and her generation’s dreams for equality among the sexes has completely fizzled out and I just never received that text message. I have been living oblivious to the obvious that I am nothing without a man. Before my anger rises, I realize that it is just like a man to want to take his environment and exploit it. He is the builder, man is, and every tree exists for him to cut down and make paper or a house. I, the woman, prefer to stay naked. Sorry.