Narcissism in the Morning

As an exercise, I decided to come up with thirty things that are fantastic about me. I got 32. Because I'm a narcissist, I am sharing them with you. I encourage you to make your own. It's really hella fun.

1. I named my kids after goddesses.
2. I laugh. Loudly. At inappropriate times.
3. I quit doing drugs a decade ago.
4. I have really pretty eyes.
5. I'm the biggest book nerd I know.
6. Despite a Lifetime Movie of the Week past, I'm independent and awesome.
7. I can do backbends.
8. My dancing inspired this comment recently; "Your ass does things I didn't know were possible."
9. I consider "fuck" and all it's variations punctuation. I'm still very smart and have standards.
10. I consider love a verb.
11. I survived Spinal Meningitis. Therefor, boys are fair game.
12. I taught ballroom dance.
13. I make people laugh, even when they are dying, or crying.
14. I worry incessantly.
15. I was bathing a dirty old man once when I was a student nurse. He groped my ass and died the next day. It's that awesome.
16. I can ride a horse and a 4Wheeler.
17. I'm a dead shot, but hate handguns.
18. I give blood in my patients' names.
19. I can talk myself into and out of any mood.
20. My friends trust and love me enough to testify for me if necessary.
21. I will *always* try to find the answer. Therefore, I'm always questioning.
22. I make up words. So did Shakespeare.
23. I love being a nurse.
24. I spend 90% of my waking hours taking care of, comforting, and loving others.
25. I know every word of Forrest Gump.
26. I speak fluent kitty cat.
27. I can talk to anyone, about anything.
28. I'm writing a book. Any similarities to actual people or events are purely coincidental.
29. I develop crushes easily and thoroughly.
30. I'm ok with going without makeup.
31. My teeth are straight and I've never had braces.
32. My life is fantastic and I'm excited to watch it get better all the time.

Straight, No Chaser

You know, there are only so many shots of tequila a girl can do before she's dancing, by herself, in the midst of a wide open empty floor, to booty music interludes between the emo wristcutting renditions of karaoke Chili Peppers. And apparently, that many for me is somewhere between two and seven.

I was informed the next day that my three hours spent dancing while leaving my decidedly Segzy but entirely un Byachlike designated driver to people watch and field questions from a brigade of my friends by himself, was stupid looking. A lone girl grooving by herself with every ounce of her never getting out soul looks strange when any other people who may decide to grace the dance floor are doing so in the one-two manner of rhythmless white folks everywhere. I'll take it as a compliment, honestly. I may have looked stupid but it is relative stupidity. I looked stupid only because I was rocking out, and everyone else was Rockaway. The sheer awesome of my flailing eclipsed the bored back and forth of everyone else. But I was probably too inebriated to notice at the time, anyways.

Other things I failed to notice on this particular night of debauchery include knives being pulled, a la West Side Story, my Freddie Krueger hat being pinched by no fewer than three people and the car window and STILL managing to make it home with me, that four inch stilettos and fourteen tequila shots are probably not the best mix for ambulation, and that my bartender failed to charge me for god knows how many drinks. Bless her bleach blonde heart.

See, this is what happens when you don't get out much. The buzz which occurs completely blinds you to things that totally warrant attention, as outlined above. MAN! I missed it all, but did I? No, I really didn't miss it. I don't miss it. I was doing one of the things that I count highest among my hobbies, which also included a hip hop rumba thing with an excellent and incredibly gay man. (Gay men are my favorite dance partners. I have no qualms whatsoever about getting down when being led by a skilled homo.) At any rate, how can you miss something you never were aware of? Like Scout Finch, who only missed reading when the right was removed from her, how can you miss breathing? You just do it. How do you miss amazing Brews of Our Lives drama unfold when you're busy being enveloped in your own universe of musculature manifestations?

That being said, gratuitous apologies to my DD for ignoring him, to my friends for having to purloin me from empty dance floors in order to garner my support for their own karaoke needs, and to the people who were utterly pwn'd in their attempts to dance by my fantastically fantastic interpretive art.

LOVE YOU BYACHES! <3

The Low Down from a High Horse

"Our emotions have a vibratory frequency to them. There are only two emotions that a human can experience: fear and love, while all other emotions branch out directly or indirectly from these two emotions. Fear has a long and slow frequency vibration to it while love has a very rapid and high frequency." -Erykah Badu, "Love" from her new amazing album, Return of the Ankh, pt 2.

You know, that shit just blew my mind. When I had the kids in New Orleans, we went to a play and there was this piece of art that you could put your hand on sculpture that is supposed to pick up your human energy and project it across Washington Square Park. Granted, it didn't work, but it said your hands had to be dry, and your palm had to be in just the right spot, and the Cosmos had to align on the fortieth day in the sixteenth hour, or something, but still. Dig the thought madly.

But as a concept, I think I'm on the same page as Erykah. And that's not my raging girl crush speaking. Maslow has his hierarchy, well I guess this is the Erykahrchy... Fear and Love. Each have their place and all other things are spawned from them. The yin and yang of the motivations in life. So much of how I've carried myself through this life has been motivated straight up out of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, fear of loneliness. But the flip of that same coin can and should be love. LOVE of potential, LOVE of adventure, LOVE of abandon, LOVE of self enough to never be lonely again. The last year gave me that love of myself. I will never be lonely. Alone, maybe, but never ever lonely. Loneliness is a waste of time and energy and the succubus of the spirit.

I love being inspired by strong women.