You can't spell "courage" without "rage"

I can’t tell you how many times people have called me “ballsy”. I am not a daredevil committing death-defying stunts. Even the occasional acts of reckless abandon are weighed heavily over time and only appear to be slightly impetuous. So what are these people really saying to me?

The last guy to comment on the nature of my balls was reacting to my suggestion that I am a very good catch. Though he agreed, he thought it brave somehow for me to express such a sentiment out loud. Was it? Is it?

Conclusion, dear readers, it is brave. Time and time again this label of ballsy is a reaction to my ability to be absolutely honest and open about my true feelings. So it got me thinking about what courage really means. The acronym “cou” is derived from the French word for “heart”, “inner-most feelings” and “temper”.  And “rage”, of course, in its origin was meant to express furious intensity or passion, i.e. “to be mad”.

Heart madness. Furious intensity of the innermost feelings. Courage turns out to be nothing more than vulnerability; the willingness to not only listen to the heart, but to honor its temperaments through acts of passion. Vulnerability itself is an openness to an attack.

So, you can call it balls if you want, but  I’ll call it courage because the etymology of the word turns out to be pretty rad. I will be soft and open and vulnerable. I will express what is in my heart with intensity. I will rage.

                     

Goodbye, Yellow Prick Road...

There seems to be a rampant uprising of the sentiment of never turning a man down for sex or else he will simply go and get it someplace else. What now?

Seriously ladies?! Seriously. This is another, not at all subtle way of relinquishing all of our power to men. They are clearly desperate for our lady bits, which should give us all the power. Go vaginas! But wait, they’ll be within their rights to cheat on us if we aren’t always ready to comply… Here’s a thought: Stop getting with married men! They’ll have no place to “go”. Or if they do go, good riddance. Problem solved.

Our duty to ourselves as women is not to be complacent for the needs of our men. Rape culture much? We all, as in all people, have trillions of cells in our bodies, full of demands, leading us to action. Eat, dispose of waste, procreate. Nature and biology have everything to do with sex drive, lending men and women alike moments of libidinous rapture. Thanks, libido! Some of us like to drive a little harder and faster and longer and need a compatible copilot, but let's be honest, no man has ever died from a stymied ejaculation. Calm down.  A woman’s “place” is not sex-ready in the kitchen.

All men care about what’s on the inside. And by inside, I mean vagina. Sounds to me like we’re in charge…

                                                    

Don't forget to roar!

                                                                        

Women’s beauty has been heralded long before languages were formed and the earliest of texts were scribed. Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships with her legendary beauty. Bruno Mars tells us that a pretty girl should never look so blue. Endless memes offer a variety of “I’m too pretty to ___”; you fill in the blank.

It’s time to start valuing women for more than their beauty, and we girls have the largest stake in this. We have a responsibility to fight for our equality and it will never come if we continue to insist on being adored for the cosmetic.

You are not too pretty to work. You aren’t. Thinking this way or feeling this way is extremely dangerous. It says to the world that beauty is the most valuable thing. That a woman who has achieved some standard of beauty has fulfilled her life’s purpose and should now find a man to belong to. He should work hard and pay all the bills and be grateful to be in your presence. Now you are a kept woman whose value relies deeply upon your man’s physical attraction to you, which is proven by science to wane over time.

You are not too pretty to be single. You aren’t. Dating is difficult and chemistry is elusive. Identities are a heavy burden and no one really has their shit together. If you’ve put all your stock in your looks, then that is all you have to offer and any man will get bored quickly.

It is reckless to suggest that pretty people deserve more than everyone else. Where is the humanity in that? Of course beauty is an asset, it would be absurd to consider otherwise, but so is intelligence, humor, honesty, and the list goes on. Women are seldom praised for any of these attributes unless they have been previously trumped by a superficial compliment. A woman should use all her assets, and the very word “use” suggests an action. So put in work. Offer up more to the pantheon of art and society than a complacent satisfaction in a surface appraisal. We are women. Hear us roar. If you want to look fabulous doing it, great, but don’t forget to roar.

Vive la femme!

                                                                                   

The feminine should absolutely never be used in the pejorative. We have to stop teaching not only our girls, but everyone, that “acting like a girl” is in no way weak. The strongest bond a creature can make is through love, which requires vulnerability, which inherently makes the vulnerable strong. 

It is never okay to say that someone is acting like a wimp, wuss, sissy, pussy, bitch, faggot, pansy or pantywaist. It is never okay to say someone throws like a girl or fights like a little bitch. Every time you “innocently” say something like this, you create that space, that life in the universe where a woman is rendered a second-class citizen. It reinforces the stereotype that men do things the “right” way and that to be feminine is to somehow fail.

Don’t dare to call yourself a feminist or a champion of women out of one side of your mouth and then talk about how Lady Gaga isn’t that pretty or that Miley Cyrus is not that great at twerking out of the other side. So much attention has been paid at how to cut women down to size at every turn. We have to take responsibility for creating a new place where a woman is still celebrated without having to have perfectly symmetrical features or perfect muscle isolation in her glutes. We don’t have to feel threatened by the beauty or success of our fellow sisters because man and machine have thoughtfully sought to program us this way.

Did you know that if you give money to a man in an impoverished nation that he is entirely likely to abandon his family; take the money and leave? If you give the same sum to the woman of the house, she will start a sustainable business and support everyone. Forever.

We don’t need your “Ladies’ Nights” or to be otherwise rewarded for our perky tits. We just need to make the same money for the same work as a man and we’ll buy our own drinks at the bar. We don’t need anymore “lady doctors” or “male nurses” or reinforcements of any kind for the stringent gender roles that are constantly marketed as a one size fits all.

Being a woman is the most amazing, wonderful gift. I am grateful for it everyday. Vive la femme! 

Give Love, Not Power!

Ever wonder why men love bitches? It’s simple; they keep their power.

Let’s just assume that when you love someone you care about them and their needs, feelings, desires. It would be weird if you didn’t. To feel so much so strongly can make you want to share everything. To say “Here. Here is all of me.” It feels beautiful and liberating. And then terrifying, because there’s a huge difference between sharing and giving away the power. All of a sudden, you begin to have needs, to feel needy. Uh-oh. These needs create a sense of entitlement in the other person; you feel you need them and now you have rights. Wrong. You are already a complete and whole person and they are simply a new component that can add or subtract from your equation. They are a slice of life, not the main dish. This would never happen to a bitch. 

It can be difficult to distinguish between giving away love versus power. Have you ever heard the expression “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”? Well, when you “need” someone and you make them responsible for your personal happiness in life, now you have put all your eggs in one basket. More specifically, you have burdened the person you love to carry all of your eggs. And your basket. How awful. Not just for they who now have the considerable load, but for you as well, for giving it all away. That would never happen to a bitch.

Keep your damn eggs to yourself. You keep all your power, which is what attracted that person to you in the first place. You get to walk down the road a little way, side by side, and though any time and length together brings its gifts, that certain someone is entirely more likely to walk further with you if they aren’t doing all the heavy lifting. 

Love with abandon, show up to the dance, be vulnerable, and do belly flops off the high dive, but bear your own burdens. Be like two, distinct rivers flowing independently that join in a mutual union without one sucking all the water out from the other. And whatever you do, don’t let those bitches have all the fun!

Holiest of Holes

I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately, taking a poll, and it is truly amazing to me that so many people are out of touch with their emotions, the men especially. Not only, mind you, but especially. I was raised to believe emotions are bad. My mother represses all of hers and lives in a pretty amazing fantasyland, but I completely understand why and that’s another blog for another time. My father was a stoic cowboy from good, hard-working Catholic farmers who was taught the value of grit. Perhaps I was too caught up in my own pain, the slow burn from a heart protected, to notice that it was not just my family, but society as a whole teaching people to disconnect, to shelter, to live in fear.

L.A. is really plagued by this epidemic of the emotionless; where those of us who were never loved quite enough as children flock and try to cohabitate while simultaneously chasing that elusive longing to become eternally enshrined in the pantheon of art. Laughable. I spent a solid three decades of my life trying not to feel anything but rather pawn off any strong sentiments onto characters in stories, whether acting or writing. I always thought everyone else had their shit together and I worked really hard to join them in that place. I went to therapy, I went to a shaman—I assembled a motley team with power tools to take away the ache of the steady chisel of introspection. And it worked. And people notice.

Numb itself is a defense mechanism, and that guy brings a whole lot of unwelcome guests to the party. It takes so much energy to attack people and keep them at bay, to suppress everything, to never cry, to make sure everyone thinks you’re strong. It is absolutely effortless to simply experience what is happening naturally in the moment. But now that I’ve figured this out for myself and can see the forest for the trees, well, I’m concerned about a lot of you trees. There is none so obnoxious as the newly informed. I know; I get it. I’m finally in touch with myself and now I won’t shut up about you doing the same. Because it is wonderful and truly liberating!!!

There are so many ways that people avoid real human connections everyday. We avoid being human when it is such a gift. We are all capable of so many heightened emotions but we won’t let ourselves feel them. Why? When did we learn to do that? Children act out, scream, shout and get it all out so that they can play and be happy again. Immediately. No one ever calls them drama queens or psychos or tells them to keep their chin up through the pain or tells them that they are not ready for so much expression. Emotions are good. Feeling them. Having them. All good. Also, kids are smart.

Everyone comes with life experience. You can call it baggage, but again, that is just a way to pervert something beautiful about the scars and wounds of the person standing in front of you. I wear my hole, my scars, my “flaws” as a badge of honor. Look, I’m not asking you or anyone to fill my hole or fix it, because you can’t. I’m just asking you not to judge it. 

Getting Rich

So there I was at a 420 pool party, minding my own business, when a vision appeared before me in the pool. I was definitely staring. I felt something electric pulse through my body, a deep-seated, biological recognition of something that was mine, or should be. But who was he? Was he single? Does he think I'm pretty? 

I made friends quickly with everyone there, but one girl in particular glommed onto me. She immediately began discussing this gorgeous man and her intentions to have him as well. Apparently there was a line of girls before me, each declaring their dibs, hoping for a chance to catch the attention of this aloof man. "Are we sure he's not gay?" I asked, he was ignoring all these bikini-clad beauties after all. I was assured that he was extremely far from this on the old spectrum and that was good enough for me. 

I knew I had caught his eye several times, and when I happened to mention being single for the last seven months, he very visibly perked up. I tried to give him every opportunity to ask me out, but because I had shown up with a friend who also has a penis (probably, I wouldn't know, but I'm assuming) he respected some man code and left me alone.

So alone I was... but I couldn't stop thinking about him. Rich... Rich. I knew there must be a way to get him a message about my interest. I'm still a lady, I don't want to do any heavy lifting and prefer to be pursued, but he is just a man and probably could use a hint. I requested his facebook friendship, but this was somehow too vague. This never would have been a problem on Myspace... I then enlisted a friend to text him about my curiosity which quickly turned into a high-school-note-passing situation. She took several days to get in touch with him, unbeknownst to me, so I agonized for almost a week. Why wasn't he interested? Who the hell did he think he was? Didn't he know we were meant to be?

My fears were finally put to rest when he immediately responded to get my number. Happy dance! And then he called the next day. And we talked for over an hour. We couldn't get together for a whole other week (sigh), but we made plans to eat at my favorite sushi place and he called me two more times before then. I guess he got the memo--er--novel on how to navigate me. Everything was perfect. 

May the fourth could not come soon enough. I had butterflies the entire day. Okay, he's attracted to me, right? Right?! But will he like me? Oh, god... He has to. I need him to claim me, stick a fork in me, stick a flag in me, dear god, please stick something inside of me. I planned to abandon all my "rules" about dating and waiting. I am in my sexual peak and it's been too long. Way too long. I was hoping he wouldn't do anything stupid enough to turn me off like so many before him.

He didn't. It was amazing and everything and beyond words. I didn't even care if I never heard from him again. I got what I needed. What I NEEDED. When he got up in the middle of the night I braced myself for the inevitable creep, but he surprised me by coming back to bed. And asking me to breakfast. And spending the whole next day with me. Our date turned into a weekend turned into the most incredible relationship I have ever had. 

How did I get Rich? Just by being my authentic self and giving myself permission to do all the things I wanted to do without judgement. Turns out Oprah was right; follow your joy. Maybe money can't buy you happiness, but getting Rich is a great place to start... and hopefully, finish.