…it is still a beautiful world.

Sometimes it’s easy forget that, but there may be no truer testament to the preciousness of life than the way people fight to hang on at the end of theirs.

And babies.

Babies and death – the beginning and the end – are the poignant reminders of why we stick it out, even when it doesn’t seem to be worth it.

Lately I’ve been doing some intense – and truth be told, painful – inner child work with my friend/teacher/guide/and soon-to-be-business partner. It’s a workshop she developed 20 years ago and hasn’t really done since, but something I wanted to learn to facilitate. She decided that the only way to teach it to me was experientially, and thus, the two of us have been going through it together, day after traumatic day.

If sitting in a living room with one of your closest friends bawling about the pain of your infancies or toddlerhoods or pre-school years and crayoning with your non-dominant hands and discovering how those old wounds are haunting you still as an adult doesn’t sound like much fun, well…it isn’t. But alas, if you’re doing something in your life that you don’t want to be doing – thoughts, actions, addictions, inertia, you name it – then your subconscious is at work, and it will continue to ‘act up’ until it is healed. The only way out of it is through it.

Although perhaps a depressing thought to many (really: who likes therapy? My best friend once referred to it as “the most fun you’ll never have.”) the light at the end of the tromp down inner child lane is the hope of throwing off false beliefs, limiting negative self-talk, and other self-sabotaging behavior and recapturing some of the unrepressed joy that’s seldom seen outside early childhood.

If you don’t quite remember what I’m talking about, take a gander at this little guy: possibly the single greatest enemy Planned Parenthood has ever known.

(I love the stress-relieving sigh at 2:32. If they decide to clone this baby, I’m going to be the first one in line…)

I’m taking a break from finalizing my agent list – about twenty individuals and from what I can gather, the best of the best that are willing to look at new authors – and freaking the fuck out.

I am.

I’m so emotional I’m almost in tears.

Is it me or does this guy look a little bit like James Woods?

I think it’s in part that I want this so badly – it’s soooo important to me – that it’s overwhelming.

Actually, to be completely honest, the overwhelming part is fear and self-doubt of the generic “Am I good enough? Am I as good as these other people they represent?” variety.

Objectively, I think my story is amazing and I think it is well-executed…but the evil little voice likes to undermine with whispers and concerns of the million-dollar freak out question: “is the writing good enough?”

I suppose this is the crisis point for all of us at some point, be it personally, professionally, romantically, spiritually, or you name it. We all eventually run into a wall where we doubt our worth, and yet the polar opposite (an all-encompassing sense of entitlement) is even more unfathomable (not to mention distasteful).

I have to imagine even people who ‘make it’ or ‘have it all’ or just get damned lucky are plagued with the flip side of this equation: “Why me? What makes me worthy? Do I deserve this?” Isn’t that the whole nature of survivor’s guilt? Being plunged ad hoc into existential crisis and attempting to rationalize or understand why you lived and others died (and a subsequent self-imposed pressure to justify or substantiate your continued existence)?

As if life were rational…

(At the same time, did I survive something and forget about it, because I kind of feel like I’m suffering from a mean case of survivor’s guilt?)

Oh, to be a dog, where the philosophical self-loathing of worth, value, merit, and entitlement are non-existent.

My dog assumes you are as happy to see him as he is you and acts accordingly. And other times he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the person baby-talking or trying to engage him, and charges off toward the next smelly spot on the path without so much as an upward glance; it’s all zen to him. He isn’t the least bit concerned about how that might look or be perceived. (Unlike his apologetic owner who finds herself making half-assed explanations about his single-mindedness or interest in peeing on everything in a six-mile radius or otherwise feeling the need to explain why a dog has just done whatever he has incomprehensibly done.)

And the cat? The cat would laugh in your face if you asked him to justify his sense of self-entitlement. He exists. He purrs. He is beautiful. Isn’t that enough?

So that’s it.

And I feel a little better having talked about it.

I will return to completing the list and the letter will be tweaked and polished and sweated over and cried on and torn to pieces and carefully taped back together and hopefully arrive in some simplistic, beautiful, compelling state that I’m okay with enough to send out tomorrow as planned.

And we’ll go from there.

Marching ever forward and ignoring the little voices that undermine and hesitate, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!

Two years ago, I started this blog.

You may have been there and remember the tough early months: the sleepless nights, the colicky fits, the hysterical crying. Make no mistake: quitting your fancy career to live life on your own terms is not easy.

When this blog was just a newborn, it did a lot of whimpering and whining and complaining. Simply put, it was a real cry baby. Back then, the blog was learning to recognize familiar faces and fascinated with mobiles and other moving objects. Oh, how quickly they grow up…

Then it turned a corner: it got into a regular rhythm of travel and exploring and bitching and adventuring and writing and sleeping in uncomfortable bunk beds in rooms filled with snoring strangers. The blog had fresh content every day and began eating cereals and soft fruits. It began to understand simple cause and effect actions and sat up for the very first time. In many ways, these days were the high point of the blog’s babyhood.

Random two-year old. The happy kind.

Along comes eight months, and things abruptly changed. The travel is over and the confusion full-force. No longer is there a clear direction and content becomes scarce. There are experiments with humor writing and being a one-woman Onion. It’s way too much work. The blog could now walk, but preferred to crawl. It developed an increasingly long memory.

Then the first birthday rolls around…without mention. Nope. Nada. Nothing. A year old: not even marked. What a bad mother! There were no baby books, no snippets of first hair cuts, and no face in the chocolate icing – not even so much as a single candle in a lousy cupcake. Shameful, really.

Where was I last June 6th? In Pennsylvania, I think. With my dad. Let’s blame him, shall we?

Yikes. I thought this was just a picture of a two-year old, but apparently it's a two-year old CHAINED TO A POLE WHILE HIS FATHER WORKS. !!?? WTF?

Works for me.

So anyway, ages 12 to 18 months were a time of growth. The blog learned to wave bye-bye and clap its hands, and many a happy afternoon was passed playing peek-a-boo. There was more travel and (hopefully always) humor and probably some general bitching. Near as I can recall, life was mostly sweet. True, things turned dark at month sixteen, but most of you didn’t know about that at first, so we won’t mention it just yet.

18 months to today have, well, kind of sucked.

Okay, that’s not completely fair. I did finish my first novel (second book) and write and edit the third in record time. I sat in the sun by oceans and ate yummy things. I had my friends and my health.

I also cried a bucket of tears.

Makes 3,575 buckets of tears – assuming each bucket holds about two gallons’ worth.

The blog itself suffered. Neglected and alone, it had difficulty sharing toys and started yelling “No!” in response to simple requests, but at least would say please and thank you when prompted. It could eat with a spoon and drink with a straw, as did my friend right before she passed (ouch. That probably was not necessary, but I’m leaving it anyway.)

Random two-year old. The unhappy kind.

You see, months eighteen to twenty-four were dark days. So dark that the blogger herself has been a little off-kilter ever since. So dark that I’m only now realizing how dark and just now sorting it out. It’s true. Didn’t you read the post a couple days ago? I’ve gone all bleak and stuff. Super bleak. Like “life has no meaning and some days I kind of remind myself of those people in ads for Cymbalta” bleak.

But no worries.

We have hit a new stage.

And I have a powerful hypnotherapist in my entourage.

Things are about to get better than ever.

Yes.

You heard me.

It’s one thing to feel like shit. And it’s another thing to feel so like shit to the degree that you don’t even realize you feel like shit. But when you realize you feel like shit and want to change it?

Well, babies, that’s when the magic happens.

I am a true believer in the bottom. Get there and ask for help. As Emerson once put it, “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

So here we sit under starry skies at the start of age two.

Two is fun age.

Two is when the real personality comes out.

It’s the time of independence and a real sense of self.

The blog has almost a full set of teeth and knows how to use them.

It still frustrates easily, but that’s understandable. Life is freaking frustrating.

However, it is also grand and wondrous and all we’ve got.

If my recent flirtations with pointlessness have taught me one thing, it’s that we have to go for it. If this is truly all there is, why on earth are you just sitting there?

Figure out what you want.

Dream big.

And then chart a course to your destiny.

What is there to lose?

In the continued interest of improving the quality of your life (because that’s the kind of altruistic give-back soul I am), allow me to share a few of the hard-won lessons of the summer, in no particular order or urgency.

As always, if you find them useful or life-altering (particularly if you find them life-altering), feel free to thank me with a beer and/or the beverage of your choice. Mazal tov!

Don't even think about it.

1. First and foremost, and without hesitation, do not get up and eat a half-dozen cold Buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing for breakfast no matter how delicious that might sound. Sure, it seems harmless enough as they’re sliding over the lips and past the tongue but- as you damn well know – now it’s ‘look out stomach, here they come’ time.

And that ain’t good.

What am I trying to tell you?

I’m saying that two hours later when the vinegar, butter, and cayenne-based hot sauce is eating a hole through your stomach lining, you’ll have only yourself to blame.

I would know. I speak from experience…today’s breakfast.

2. When offering to ride along with a friend through unmarked roads in rural Mexico for the sole purpose of preventing her from being maimed or raped or murdered, inquire first as to whether or not there is a map. Or at least some kind of half-baked directions culled from the internet. Or hieroglyphics. Or smoke signals. Or if she has ‘the shining’. Or ANYTHING.

In other words, inquire as to whether or not there is any hope in hell that you will actually get there without being maimed, raped, or murdered yourself.

3. Whenever humanly possible, do not use a port-a-potty/Johnny on the spot/Honey Bucket/*Insert name of portable plastic public restroom brand here* in the complete dark.

The sight of all these human waste receptacles gives me the heebie jeebies.

Acknowledging that was a lengthy rule, let me highlight the two most important nuances: public and pitch black dark of night.

Whether or not this actually happened to me, let me just say that it’s entirely possible to be at a Michelle Shocked show, wait in a lengthy line to use the portable public bathroom unit, and finally get inside…only to realize that you cannot see a damn thing.

And since it’s a handicapped portable bathroom unit, it’s very large and roomy in there, and thrashing your feet about does not allow you to locate the actual toilet part of the room, you must resort to using your hands to braille your way around. That’s right. Feeling your way around a portable public bathroom in the dark, folks. It’s not for wimps, and if it isn’t cringe-inducing, I don’t know what it.

But then it gets worse.

How’s that?

Well, because you can’t see anything you’re afraid to sit on the seat, so you do your best to crouch over what you suspect is the toilet itself, and when you’re done with your business and come back outside, you realize that your entire left pant leg is wet.

In short: stay out of port-a-potties in the dark.

Enough said.

I know what I said, but I think if this thing was parked outside, I would go inside it. And I may or may not be sober when I did so.

4.  Don’t run with scissors.

Don’t run with scissors while drunk.

Don’t run with scissors while drunk and in a carnival fun house.

Stay out of carnival fun houses even while sober and scissorless, because if you’re old enough to be reading this far, you’re too old for carnival fun houses.

5. When potentially vacationing with a group of women that you don’t particularly know, inquire ahead as to how closely their idea of fun resembles Senior Week Daytona Beach 1991 and approximately how many hours per day they plan to spend buck naked and discussing their (ahem) personal landscaping preferences.

As before, enough said.

6. Editing sucks!!!

If you can, write everything perfectly the first time around, because EDITING SUCKS BALLS!!!

7. Do not date a double-amputee rock star, especially Bret Michaels (should he be involved in a freak accident that causes him to lose both arms and thus become a double-amputee. Not that I’m wishing anything like that on him.)

Once again, I know from experience.

He makes one hell of a pissy amputee, but at least if he didn't have arms maybe somebody could do something about that hair?

Okay, it was a dream, but it happened to me (in a manner of speaking), and thus I choose to count it as an experience.

So in short, Bret Michaels was a double-amputee, and I was dating him (and whether or not I’d been dating him before the accident/incident/whatever was unclear), and he was a seriously difficult chip-on-his shoulder grouchy bear to deal with.

For instance, I would offer to help him with things that seemed like they would be exceptionally challenging without any arms (and I’m not talking condescending things either, like feeding him with a spoon, although if I should ever become a double-amputee, do not hesitate to offer to feed me with a spoon. Odds are good that I will cheerfully take you up on it.) Okay, so I offered to do something that I felt was truly useful, like button up his shirt, and he WENT OFF on me about patronizing him and don’t try to do things for him that he can do himself, and it was really unnecessary and rather uncalled for to overreact on me like that.

I thought.

Because I really was just trying to help.

You can talk to me in a normal tone of voice, you know. And maybe after you calm down.

And note to self, if I ever really do find myself in this situation, remember to watch My Left Foot in order to bone up on what one can and cannot manage without arms.

Regardless, like I said in the opening sentence, watch out for romantic entanglements with washed-up hair band rock stars who are now missing limbs as they can be rather prickly and even a touch mean and how can anyone be all that good in bed without any hands anyway?

(And I have to add this because it’s just too stupid, but I all of the sudden remembered at one point I felt kind of bummed out that if I stayed in the relationship I’d never be hugged again [because he had no arms, as you know, but perhaps have forgotten, which is why I’m explaining it yet again. Perhaps you have arms, but your brain isn’t all that functional for reasons I won’t begin to speculate on?], and that I really could go for a good hug, and I thought about asking him if he’d figured out how to hug with his legs.

But then I decided not to because I reasoned that would just piss him off and make him yell at me some more. Figures a rock star would be a prick.)

When I was in middle school, we had a planetarium. I’m not saying it was a great planetarium…but then again, maybe it was. I don’t know. I couldn’t really see it.

In my mind, the mere existence of a planetarium in a middle school is somehow wondrous and wealthy and fancy pants, but at the time it was yet another burden on my young soul.

Feast your eyes on the one and only constellation I recognize: Orion the Hunter. Ooh baby.

You see, I couldn’t see.

And I had glasses.

But it being the 80s, they were the horrible round glasses that are again coming into fashion (so help me God). And perhaps they weren’t these, but then again they were perhaps these pink transparent framed numbers with a gradient pink lens. Very Dolly Parton. Or Tammy Faye. Or plain old awful.

But I digress.

I don’t necessarily know what they looked like, but I know I wasn’t wearing them. The point here is that the school had a planetarium and at least once a week in science class we were shepherded into said planetarium and talked at in a droning Ben Stein manner for an unspeakably long time, and I couldn’t see jack sh*t.
And I listened sort of.

And saw nothing.

I saw nothing because my pre-pubescent but still remarkable sense of style informed me that the hideous round, over-sized pink glasses were doing nothing for my Eastern European one-day-striking-but-at-the-time-extremely-gangly-and-awkward looks.

So I ditched them.

And thus – as previously mentioned – I saw nothing. (Much as I do each and every morning of my life, as I grope for my night stand in search of my current-day glasses the way a Helen Keller sought out a water spigot…)

What I’m trying to say here is that the combined effect of blindness and boredom was that I learned nothing.

Which didn’t seem to matter until one day the teacher announced that there would be a test based on everything taught to us during the planetarium classes.

W—?

Wh—-?

Wha—–?

WHAT!?!?!?

A test!?

I was supposed to be paying attention!?

Do you  not understand that I was trying to look fashionable and non-chalant!?!?!?!?!?!?!

No. They did not understand this, nor did they care, and thus I drug into the next class with my ugly glasses and a hell-bent determination to memorize whatever it was this joker had to share.

And for the most part, I failed.

But, at the same time, I somehow managed to retain the exact arrangement of lights that make up Orion the Hunter. And I can always pick out the Beetleguise – the star that denotes his armpit, as well as a movie starring Michael Keaton that I once loved and used to torture the guy who drove me to high school with by insisting that we listen to the strange soundtrack every day (“Shake, shake, shake senora. Shake your body line…”)

But that, I’m afraid, is another story for another day.

Anyway, the point here is that I was sitting outside tonight and saw Orion’s belt and remembered how I came to recognize Orion’s belt and, of course, Beetleguise and thought of you…and there you have it.