Mojo rehab

After a dismal last week through Friday, then, came Saturday.

A friend, another writer in town, called and asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I jumped at the opportunity, despite my sloth-like mentality and went to meet her.

We walked, and laughed, and swapped horror stories about clients and writing projects and people and men. We yakked and gave each other advice and swore at the skies and it was …. hold on to your hats … a lot of fun. Just shows the power of a good girl walk ‘n talk.

I returned home, mood considerably brightened. And then had tremendous fun that night on a date. (more…)

Happy feet but unsettled everywhere else

Day three of my 365 days of fun … and yes, honestly, I’m surprised, embarrassed, and a bit saddened to report that it is evidently very hard work for me to have fun.

I spent most of yesterday organizing, prepping for the week ahead, taking time out only to admire the bluejays, tufted titmice, and cardinals outside the window at the feeder. But I did take the time to do what I thought would be fun: I went to Mandala Spa, with a gift certificate I’d been given for Christmas, and had a foot treatment.

It felt good, of course, and it was somewhat relaxing, I guess. But overall, I felt uncomfortable in my skin. (more…)

Naughty? Nice? Let MC be the judge … 2009 in Review

Was this a year, or what? I’m a huge fan of settling down on New Year’s Eve, putting on my retro shades, and looking back at the crazy, sweet, and just plain foolish shenanigans of the prior 12 months. And this December 31st will find me, a shot of Sambucca at my side, staring out the window forgiving my myriad faux pas of 2009 and plotting to do better in 2010. But in the meantime, I’m handing out my first annual “Naughty & Nice” awards for the game-changers, newsmakers, do-gooders, and the notorious, vainglorious, and utterly inglorious of our fair city and beyond. (more…)

A tigger, not a tiger

“Bouncing is what Tiggers do best.” (A.A. Milne)

Ah, and Tiger Woods is bouncing right now. Bouncing in a slightly different way from when he bounced from his mistress(es?) bed to wife’s, but bouncing nevertheless.

Bouncing is what tiggers do — that’s all they know how to do. Because a real tiger knows when he’s got steak at home versus hamburger from the fast food joint down the street (a la Paul Newman) and apparently Tiger Woods is really just a Tigger after all — all bounce and no bite.

But he's still awfully cute huh? And I hear he's loaded!

Because, ergo, it takes bite, not to mention balls, to not f*ck around. That’s the easiest trick in the world, cheating. C’mon, it’s so passe as to be, um, passe. Show me a man who can keep it in his pants — not because he has to, but because he wants to — and I’ll show you a real tiger in bed. Non-cheaters, and yes, I think I’ve known at least one in my life, are better in bed because they know how to partner for the long haul, not for the tigger-conundrum of “Oh, I like everything I see and everything I taste!”

That’s what happens when you have no character. Everything looks good when you haven’t an ounce of discrimination in your bones. You go from tiger to tigger in the folding back of the bedsheets.

You bounce, and you tippety-toe through likes and dislikes and fancies and non-fancies, and the wives you wed but no longer want to bed and the women you wouldn’t consider marrying but don’t mind bedding.

But let me say this: I could give a rat’s arse about Tigger’s alleged infidelities. It’s all in a nation’s work, that, and we’re a nation of cheaters — whether actual fornication occurs or not, very few are loyal — to our wives, to our jobs, to our collective “values”, to the people who elect us to high office, to our communities, to say nothing of our disloyalty to our own selves. Day in and day out. We deceive ourselves into believing something about ourselves that our actions say, blaringly loud, is categorically untrue.

Here’s the only person I feel sorry for in this case: The Woods baby. That kid will grow up thinking “Sheesh, my Dad couldn’t even wait for me to be out of the womb before he hit it with someone not my mother.” Well, he or she will have plenty of money for therapy visits, at least.

And a word of advice to Tigger’s wife, though I know she won’t take it: Leave him, sweetie. Leave him and never look back and don’t take a dime. Take the kid and work at Mickey D’s if you have to. The schmuck’s not worth the two seconds it would take to cash his check.

Alan Grayson Keynotes Dem Club of Sarasota Sunday December 6

“Few Florida politicians have grabbed national attention as quickly and dramatically as freshman U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sunday Nov. 1, 2009, p.1.

Yep, Grayson was catapulted onto the national stage when he summed up the Republican’s Health Care Plan as 1) Don’t get sick 2) If you do get sick… 3) die quickly!

Guess you know where I’ll be on Sunday, December 6 … and it isn’t in church! Who knows? Maybe it should be … but instead I’m high-tailing it to the Democratic Club of Sarasota’s “Dinner for Progress” at Michael’s on East to hear national scene-stealer, U.S. Representative Alan Grayson ruffle feathers and enjoy just a smidgen of hyperbole with my dinner. A few weeks ago I was on Florida This Week trying to sound smart (ass) about Grayson and now I’ll have to see if he’s got the street cred to bring all that hot air down to earth. Hope to see you there — if you come, swing by my table and say hello to me! (P.S. if you do register, tell ’em MC sent you — that, and a near c-note, will get you in the door, meaning, basically, my name is mud without money! ;))

You can register relatively painlessly online — or take a look at the registration information below.

————————————————————————
The Democratic Club of Sarasota and The Democratic Party of Sarasota County
invite you to A Dinner for Progress featuring Congressman Alan Grayson
Sunday, December 6, 2009
6:00 pm Social Hour • 7:00 pm Dinner
Michael’s On East
1212 East Avenue South, Sarasota
Other speakers include:
Democratic candidates for Florida Attorney General
Florida Senators Dave Aronberg and Dan Gelber,
and Florida Representative Keith Fitzgerald
$90 per person (in two checks*)
RSVP by December 1 For more information, call (941) 244-2266

The Democratic Club of Sarasota and The Democratic Party of Sarasota County
invite you to A Dinner for Progress featuring Congressman Alan Grayson
Sunday, December 6, 2009
6:00 pm Social Hour · 7:00 pm Dinner
Michael’s On East
1212 East Avenue South, Sarasota
Other speakers include:
Democratic candidates for Florida Attorney General
Florida Senators Dave Aronberg and Dan Gelber,
and Florida Representative Keith Fitzgerald
$90 per person (in two checks*)
For more information, call (941) 244-2266
*******************************************************************************

Healthy, not wealthy, and dumbfounded as a post

Just received my health insurance renewal forms for 2010. My health insurance plan is going up by over $30 a month. I already can’t afford it at $30 less.

I’m a fairly healthy woman — no health problems, no medications. My biggest downfalls are too many martinis and not enough exercise (however, my fingers are long and lean from hours at the keyboard).

So, here’s this week’s conundrum: cancel my health insurance and walk the wire of relative health with no safety net below me? Or continue forking over beaucoup dollars every month for a health plan I never, ever use except to have twice yearly dental visits?

Or put another way: Be broke but protected or be unprotected and have a bit of money left over each month to buy a bottle of eau de parfum or maybe the occasional pair of new shoes, both of which by the way, give me a better sense of physical and emotional well being than any health insurance premium or check up ever has?

Cougar myths … debunked!

This column appeared in print in Creative Loafing newspaper 10/7/09.

The topic of cougarsome cuties chasing cuddly cradle-dwellers is about as tasty an intellectual morsel as dining at the Olive Garden is a gastronomic one. Whether or not women d’un certain âge have sex with younger men is a topic as culturally passé as older men using little blue pills to make it through the night. It’s done; it happens. Why all this talk today about something so yesterday?

MC tries (tries being the operative word) to strike a cou-girrrrrl-icious pose.

Cogito ergo sum?

For most of my life, I’ve agreed with Descartes — I think, therefore I am.

But what about Emerson and his theory about what constitutes a “great soul”? Such a soul, Emerson concluded, is one that has the strength to live truly, madly, deeply, not someone who merely possesses the strength to think. (more…)

September 11th … remembered

This is a column I wrote in 2007 … entitled Out on a Limb for Love

Another September 11th has come and gone. Six of them now since the first, and we’re still afraid. Maybe even more afraid. Of terrorists, of global warming, of war, of the stock market.

But mostly we’re afraid of each other.

Every day I hear at least one person express a desire for love – romantic, familial, friendship — but they’re too afraid to reach out and ask for it. Too afraid of rejection. To afraid their ego will take a hit. So frozen with fear that they’d rather live without the love they desire than go out on a limb and really, specifically, ask for it.

Single friends of mine are afraid they won’t find someone to love them. Married friends are afraid their marriages are failing or are numbly disconnected. Older parents I know are afraid to ask their busy middle-aged children for attention and time, something more than the occasional obligatory phone call or annual visit.

Fear. How can we let it be more powerful in our lives than love?

In the days that followed September 11th, everyone in America seemed willing to go out on a limb for love. Willing to call family members from whom they’d been estranged, to take the hand of the spouse they were cheating on and promise never again, to tell themselves they’d never send their children to bed without looking them directly in their eyes and saying “I love you more than the sun and the earth and the moon.” Willing to invite a stranger to dine with them or smile a greeting to the person who passed by on the street. Willing to be the first to say “I’m sorry.”

Six years later? Not so much.

We’re back to our old ways. Families are still fragmented by petty arguments and marriages still destroyed by laziness. People still twist their faces in angry grimaces at the elders who move too slowly in front of them. Friends still haggle over who “started it,” and who owes who an apology.

Six years ago, everyone said that those planes crashing into buildings and fields, those families decimated, those lives lost, would teach the rest of us the lesson of a lifetime: That we must not wait until we are confronted with death to say what was left unsaid. That life is to be lived and people are to be loved. Now, not later.

If you had just a few minutes left to live on a plane hurtling toward death, whom would you call? Whose voice would you want to hear? Whom would you forgive? Whom would you ask for forgiveness? To whom would you whisper, “I love you;” who would your heart break to touch and hug just once more?

What are you waiting for?

The lessons of September 11th are many, but the one that stands out above all is this: Love the best you can, as often as you can, while you can. Ask for love. Give love.

Blood-letting

Her hand,
a small one
according to standards
she’s never been able to meet

Says, “Look — she is here;
let the inquisition
begin.”

(If she’s told one lie,
she’s told ten.)

Fingertips poised
ready to draw
true blue
then drop à point
to be read
once bled.

The vellum almost
an admonishment:
She had better tell the truth.