Thanks?

There was something spectacular I was going to write about. But I've had two habanero bloody marys and I've forgotten.

So typical.

Because of my pesky penchant for blackouts I wondered if I was an alcoholic (just like my pesky penchant for dick years prior made me wonder if I was a slut). Well, that mystery has certainly been solved since I actually went online, took the quiz and discovered, thanks to Al-Anon.com, that I AM an alcoholic.

I took the quiz vicariously for the majority of my friends, and, they're alcoholics too.

I wonder if I should tell them?

Anyways . .. I was probably going to write about Thanksgiving. And about how being around my family simultaneously dances upon my very last, frayed nerve while bringing sentimental tears to my eyes. I love them. I hate them. I hate to love them, love to hate them and so on.

I doubt there's any other family in which I truly belong.

Probably not . . . I've seen a lot of well-adjusted, malfuctioning, emotionally depraved, sickeningly loving, twisted, straight-edge andall around fucked up familial units. And I'm pretty sure after extensive informal research that I am definitely not adopted.

My beautiful cousin Karrill made me sad for me, for her this holiday. Apparently her fiance had given her the "too fat for own our health" discussion and had given her a mere week to step up her health and weight gain. Game. Of course, any sane person would know that this isn't nearly long enough to start to change your mind and attitude enough to make any impact on your body.

Words were exchange.
Insults throttled like the engine of a Maserati.
Each one of them raced off alone into single. Without checking the rearview mirror.
And although I'm sad for her, I'm also sad for him.

He's lost a lion. We're lions, Karrill and I. We've learned from Benelia and Sharon and Lillie Mae that there simply isn't any other way to be. There really isn't any other way to be.

We don't know how.

Enough.

I just saw "For Colored Girls."

When I try to articulate, even to myself, what I've just seen and experienced, I can't get past the swell of moisture beneath my eyelids and the brick of heavy on my chest.

I'm devastated.

This was a movie with no sunlight. No warmth. No whisper of balance of yin and yang or good and evil. Or right and wrong. The movie just was truth. And is.

ME.

And I can't help but wonder (and I hate when Carrie Bradshaw says that phrase in her lilting voiceover that sounds pretty but is void of any responsibility for her current state of fashioned - and fashiony - chaos, but I digress) is THIS the kind of colored I am? The soaked through sadness? The wistfully romantic, but unrealistic? The hardened with thick rhinocerous skin? The heartbreakingly naive? The misplaced righteous? The lost and near broken?

This was a movie with no sunlight. Begat from a play with no dawn.

But, I WANT to be the colored that shines! The capital C-olored forever awash with tiny pinpoints of ethereal light. The kind of Colored that makes mouths water for chocolate so rich and delectable and . . . Godiva.

The kind of Colored that makes mouths happy.

But how can I? With a heritage so burdened with skin-hued despair?
But how can I? When people, even my own, tell me I can't because I am not colored enough?
But how can I? When I'm trying to be better? Faster? Stronger? Smarter? To prove that I am just as good. As everyone else. Trying harder than everyone else, just to be . . .equal.
But how can I? When my speech isn't peppered with the streets that I don't know because I was raised in the suburbs?

I'm not exactly sure that I'll ever be colored enough to be Colored.

My Reality is Musicality

I sincerely wish that life was a musical.

People of all characters and walks of life breaking into song in line at the DMV, celebrating the deliciousness of their customized beverage at Starbucks, actually enjoying the walk of shame after a night of particularly kick ass no-strings attached sex.

Just singing. And smiling. And hitting high notes and spontaneous choreography like a Disney movie or Broadway.

My body aches wishing that this was my everyday reality. . . which is why I ALWAYS tear up and get misty eyed while watching "Glee."

If I could've broken into song walking through the halls of Moreau Catholic I would've.

I should've sang my way across campus at USC.

I need to blow up some karaoke at a hipster bar and scare everyone else of the mic, just living my fantasy.

Just singing. And smiling.

A Day of Cerenity, November 1.

A very dear friend of mine told me tonight that major birthdays like 30 are for reflecting.
Granted, we were sitting in our sweats swigging an entire bottle of the delicious nectar of Lambrusco, but her advice still rings true.

It's also true that reflecting is much more positive than sitting naked under an old bathrobe in the dark feeling sorry for myself (Pilaar: age 29), still trying to figure it all out while job-related perks and tons of useless, free stuff outweighed my actual life achievements (Pilaar: age 28), or throwing world's best pajama party (Pilaar: age 25).

Okay, maybe not Pajama Jammy Jam. Nothing beats Pajama Jammy Jam '05. Trust.

In this time of self-reflection throughout the month of November, I thought it fitting to go on 'head and start with an Open Letter to Jesus. Kinda like the prayers that started off each and every day at Fremont Christian School. Only this time God and I are in a better place now that I'm an adult and we can speak more candidly. He's the Homie. Capital 'H' (cause He's God, we can totally do the upper case.)

Ahem.

Dear Jesus,

I pray that I turn out nothing like Phaedra on "Real Housewives of Atlanta." Although if Star's body continues to rival Apollo's that is certainly acceptable and welcomed.

Thank you so much for your many blessings! I appreciate being genetically pre-disposed to aging exceptionally well with examples like Benelia Terry, Kathy Watkins and Sharon Dean to lead me down The Path of Graceful Maturity. It's nice to look into the face of the future when it has such well-appointed, milk chocolatey smooth skin. High five, Jesus.

Thank you for your free of charge, round the clock omniscient surveillance and protection. I have done many, many, many, many stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid things. I've given blood after eating a mere apple for sustenance. I've picked up dudes off the street. I've gotten inebriated and fallen into bushes and/or gotten into fights. I've dated losers. I've smoked Black and Milds. I've done things considered unfitting of a sheltered girl with a private school education. There are some things that have happened in gas station bathrooms that I'd rather not share. I've driven without insurance or valid registration. I've been to Amsterdam.

How, praytell, am I still alive with all of my working mental capacities intact?

You, Jesus. That's how.

Jesus, I am not worthy of the everyday blessings you've provided me in the form of my friends and family. I am not worthy of the laughter, the lessons, the Lambrusco. It's hard to hear that I'm not quite as perfect as I think, but the people you've put into my life to teach me about loving myself and others as YOU would love them are awesome, Jesus. Just freakin' dope. Of course you know this though, you're Jesus! Such a cool job.

Thank you for Starsky, Jesus. I can't without him. I just can't. Well, I mean I couuullllddddd but I just really, really, really don't want to. You broke the mold with this one Jesus. And then you gave him to me. I am forever and eternally (redundant?) grateful.

And lastly, thank you for granting me the passion to write. Although I'm not sure it's exactly what You planned, I can make anything funny! Anything from bacterial vaginosis, to dusty shoe-stealing wenches, to quitting my wretched job to mexican diet pills to racism. Racism is funny, Jesus! Because of You. Thanks. (insert finger guns, Jesus)

At least every day this month, I'm gonna make you proud of me and write something. Anything.
Flexing that writing muscle like a squat thrust at Bally's Total Fitness. Or a chest fly after I've snuck in at Crunch. After they kicked me out that one time though, I really hate Crunch (just a sidenote, Jesus, but I digress.)

You are awesome.
Let's do this.
Amen.

Pause.

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm actually at home. I'm watching the sun sift through the slats of the wooden shutters that line the windows of my apartment.

Out one window is the city. Hustling, bustling, breathless and flying by at a dizzying speed. Just right outside. I can hear the boulevard.

Out another window is our backyard garden. Quite literally the exact opposite. Serene. Green. Lush. Tranquil and full of heavy sighs of patience. Calm.

Quite literally my couch and I, clad in a weekend t-shirt, a fierce fuschia pedicure and a freshly showered skin that smells of mangoes, are smack dab in the middle of it all.

City and country.
Rushed and relaxed.
Grinding metal and engines pushed to breaking and the gentle cacophony of the birds in the trees.

What a nice place to be . . . right?

. . .and before you get jealous, really think about that last time you paused. It's sad that I, Miss Hershey McJones, can't even remember. When was the last time I did something my heart wanted - rather than what I thought I should do? When was the last time I said no? Dammit, when was the last time I said yes? Yes without waiting for the complete question to be asked because I was so full of Want to comply? When was the last time I allowed a release to the dam of words that are constantly filling my head?*

I. CAN'T. REMEMBER.

I'm rusty on the Pause. Gotta lubricate.

Footnotes:
- I swear to God, some people see in colors and sounds. All I see is words and ways to sexually manipulate the alphabet. I love to love language. Nerd alert.