Month: February 2012

Valentine’s Day is a week away.  While I believe it’s a chick’s holiday, there isn’t anything wrong with a little extra effort in the romance department by the ladies too.

Personally, I am not holding out hope for a Valentine.  I know how to survive when my fantasy is my only reality.  No tears necessary…I put myself up on this perch and it will take an extraordinary situation to make me jump down off of it.  I have simple needs.  They don’t necessarily involve jetting off to exotic locations or opening little baby blue boxes…but if that does happen…lucky me.

I’ve been at this dating crossroads for a while now.  I gave up on the fix-up.  I understand why the married gals are a little jumpy.  The shortage of good single men is causing a bleed of those already taken, and they are all a little worried that their own marriage might be the next artery.

Men mature and women fade.  I am sad to report that there is no sisterhood.  It is survival of the fittest in spandex, and there isn’t a single gal out there without a high heel footprint on her back.  EVERY man is fair game and if you’re not paying attention someone will walk over you to get at your guy.

All it takes is a little effort to keep the fires burning.  Men are hunters…if you want yourself to be the only one your man is chasing, then you are going to have to change your fur to feathers once in a while.

Make yourself into “the other woman”…whether you’re single or married…change is exciting and it can breathe life back into a humdrum relationship.  Use my story as a precautionary tale.

When my marriage went pear-shaped, I had my pity party…complete with refreshments.  Armed with the pound sized bag of M&M’s and salt and vinegar chips as a chaser, I took stock of myself.

I was on the wrong side of an eighteen year marriage with too much skin, breast and thigh.  I’d gone all poultry.

During my mourning period, I mastered the fetal position and acquired an addiction to anything “alien” on t.v.

The fog lifted the day the battery died on the remote control.  I took a harsh look at everything negative that my ex said about me and I gave it legs.

And then I learned to outrun it.

I had work to do before I could re-enter the atmosphere.  I’d been off of the market for some time and a coat of mascara and some blush wasn’t going to up my curb appeal.

I took charge and stopped making excuses.  I have always been a confident chick.  Rusty…but not rusted through, I took stock of what I still had and worked on what I could make better.  I did it FOR ME.

Feeling confident and healthy irradiates beauty…and there is something beautiful about each and every one of us.

In truth, by the time my marriage ran out of gas there was already another passenger in the car.  I’m not going to say she was THE reason why we split up, but she certainly added to the water that put out our fire.

I gave her way too much power and my imagination ran wild.  Fantasma was a goddess in a garterbelt…a gourmet cook who made her own steak rub.  She tossed her head back when she laughed, fingering a creamy strand of pearls around her neck.  Her house smelled like vanilla musk and patchouli oil.  She played Yanni and old rock and roll.  When she went to bed, she closed the door.  She slept naked on lavender scented sheets.

She laughed a lot and she always had great wine and something sweet to eat.  She didn’t own anything made out of sweatshirt material and sometimes she wore a dress just so she could wear high heels.

Pump the brakes…lavender scented sheets??  Tossing my head back when I laughed??  Vanilla musk and patchouli oil?  I could do that…well, maybe not Yanni…but I could BE the other woman.  It was simple and it was in my control…MY control.

Here is my personal checklist…it’s female friendly, though you boys can take away some important tips of your own.

1.  Grow my hair:  Men like long hair.  When my ex left I was sporting the housewife bob…you know the one I mean…hair pulled back in a stretchy headband…tiny ponytail in the back.  Hair should smell good and toss well.

If your hair won’t grow…try extensions or a new color.  Be brave and adventurous…go try on some wigs before you make a permanent decision…cut some bangs.  Take a chance.

2.  Throw out any item of clothing with a cartoon character or a seasonal three dimensional theme:  There is nothing that ages you faster than badly permed short hair, ill fitting cheap polyester, and theme clothing.

I never thought I’d be one of those moms who wears snowman vests at Christmas, but there are pictures that prove otherwise.  N.O.  Get rid of anything with cutesy designs on it.  Simplify.  Loose and flowing means cover up and hide.  I know this seems harsh, but you need to develop an edge and teddy bears and hearts should not be your billboard.

Wear a belt…if you don’t have a waistline, GET ONE.

Buy some great fitting jeans…make Spanx your friend if you have to and buy a black t-shirt.  Wear it with your hair loose and jeans with holes in the knees…magnetic.

3.  Buy some sexy underwear and WEAR IT.

If you’re brave enough…go commando.  It’s liberating.  Throw out the granny panties and the footie pajamas while you’re at it.  Try sleeping naked on sheets with a high thread count that you dried with a great smelling fabric softener.  If you aren’t the naked type…get some silk boxers and a men’s tank undershirt…the “wife-beater”…which I believe is named for the girl who is after your man and is brave enough to sport one.

4.  Smell great all of the time.

Scent is a powerful aphrodisiac.  Use lotion and keep your skin soft and touchable.  Put on some makeup.  Every woman can benefit from some kind of color on her face, even if it’s just lipgloss.  If you’ve never worn perfume or makeup…WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?  Keep your skin looking great.  If you can’t afford a fancy skin cleaning brush…buy one of those cheap throwaway battery operated toothbrushes…works just the same and is less than ten bucks.  Sunscreen and moisturize…moisturize…moisturize.

5.  EXERCISE.

Use the horror of someone new seeing you undressed to get yourself back into the gym.  I was wearing pink sweatpants and flip-flops the day I found out my marriage was over….PINK SWEATPANTS AND FLIP-FLOPS…ugh.

Throw away the sweatpants…especially if they fit like leggings, and get yourself some cute running pants and get healthy and happy and strong.

When you are fit you are strong.  When you are strong you don’t bend and snap easily.  Strong is confident.  Confident is sexy.

6.  Find something to do.

Stay busy…be interested and interesting.  Growing and learning doesn’t have to cost money.  Get excited about something and go after it.  Be brave and willing to fail.

7.  Choose to be happy.  Choose to be passionate.  Choose to find joy.

There is a learning curve to happiness.  You have to be open to it and it doesn’t always come to you…sometimes you have to go after it.  Stop reworking the puzzle of your past with pieces that don’t fit anymore.

8.  Stay in the moment.

Don’t keep trying to predict the next fork in the road.  Go full speed ahead and decide which turn to take when you come to it.

9.  LAUGH.

Do this as often as possible.  Laugh at yourself…laughter bubbles over…it IS the fountain of youth.

10.  Remember that you are an ex too.

Don’t be an audience.  Refuse to swim in stagnant water.

I am still a work in progress…I’ve made a few mistakes, but I am enjoying my reconstruction.  Mistakes are growth too…and I am still learning.

Relationships are complicated and full of surprises…the bitter with the sweet.  Body image is just a bump in the road…make yourself the person YOU’D like to be with…for you first…and the rest will follow.

There is something beautiful about each of us.  My daughter has struggled with body image issues.  She and her brother were divorced too and they had to work through it.  She and I are cut from the same roll of dough…here is a poem she wrote when we both began working on ourselves.

Carly’s Quest

Unbearable the words that sound

for like a plague did go around.

From one to one the gossip spread

that made me walk with fearful dread.

But was this to be my dire fate

for I was one who gained some weight.

The town filled with whispers of my name

the nasty stares filled me with shame.

But still I grew to eat and eat

so heavy I couldn’t see my feet.

Becky Lou, a skinny dame

laughed at me, mocking my name.

This tore through me just like a knife

they said I was a wasted life.

I couldn’t get away too soon

I left this place next day at noon.

On foot I started on my journey

Following in the steps of Ghandi.

I only packed a few Slim Fasts

hoping that it would make me last.

But sneaking up with a deadly sting

was a block in my path…Burger King.

I stood and stared it in the eye

knowing I would kill for a french fry.

It spit at me with flaming grease

I jumped, then ducked and rolled with ease.

I managed not to stop and eat

Amazingly I felt no defeat.

On my way I then did go

and bumped into an old hobo.

He lived inside a t.v. box

reached out and punched me from my socks.

He proceeded to chug my Slim Fast

the chocolate one…it was my last

I prayed and said, “Please help me God.”

and there appeared a pretzel rod.

The rod I used just like a dagger,

I struck the bum, caused him to stagger

and from his wound an ooze did spew

Slim Fast poured like a chocolate goo.

I ran away, escaping death

but had to stop to catch my breath.

My quest to be thin continued to be

and people still were mocking me.

The restaurants looked like edible towers

and I had not eaten for at least two hours.

I decided to stop for a little snack

I had 3 large fries, a Coke and a Big Mac.

Tearing myself away as quick as I could

I headed to a gym, thought it would be good.

The treadmill is what I came to face

pushed and strained to the end of the race.

I felt the sweat drip to the floor.

I hoped I’d keep going a little more.

Sadly though I had to flee

forty five seconds was too much for me.

My quest continued down the road

where I came upon a little toad.

The toad became a tiny girl

munching on an old cheese curl.

She told me even though she could not stop eating

she could not gain weight…it was self defeating.

I said she should join me on my quest

to find the answers that would fit us best.

We had not walked a step or two

when we found we were hungry, anything would do.

Across the road was an apple tree

and down from there, a chocolate pudding sea.

We were now faced with good and bad.

I knew my choice.  It made me sad.

Just then we heard a cry “Save me!”

It came from the waves in the chocolate sea.

A head bobbed along the hard top layer.

My tiny friend pointed and said “Look there!”

I ran down shouting “This much is true…”

“I will find a way to rescue you.”

The pudding covered face did smile

I got her out, it took a while.

I ate my way out through the muck

I grabbed her hand, then I got stuck.

My tiny friend from on the shore

reached for my hand, I could eat no more.

She slowly crawled, would not let go

to the two of us, though we had to move slow.

We made it back onto the beach

thanks to the littlest one with the smallest reach.

Then much to our surprise, it couldn’t be

the brown pudding muck turned into a clear blue sea.

The young girl we saved turned her pudding covered face.

She spoke five words…”You have won your race.”

I stood and smiled, put out my hand

we all stood there, a very strange band.

We could go back now, tell all our story

wait around and bask in the glory

or we could build a boat and sail across the sea

help others find out how great they could be.

So now you know, our quest doesn’t end here…

we’re on the ocean, not afraid to face our fear.

So someday when you are at the shore

look for our boat, I will be at the oar.

You may not know that it is me…

from all that rowing…I am now tiny.

Carly Neilson-age 17

My daughter made her own lemonade…she is a Crossfit trainer and this summer worked with a group of cancer survivors helping them to get stronger and more fit.  When they started out they couldn’t even climb the stairs…by the end of the summer they were running.  Perspective…

And that is romantic.

Day Three Hundred and Nineteen- If you want to be struck by lightning…you have to stand outside in the rain.

Cynthia Neilson

Construction has resumed on my cyber-pyramid.  The news wasn’t so good for my laptop that quit and walked off the worksite.  My external hard drive didn’t totally have my back.  I lost a lot of writing files but managed to keep my collection of the odd and silly and useless…go figure.

I’m drafting new blueprints and plan to forge ahead with another game plan.  They would only issue a learner’s permit for me and this new computer, as they lost me after “Can I help you?”

I’m back on track and feeling all warm and fuzzy.  In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share a romantic story of my own…get out your mini-violins.

This is an excerpt from a book I’ve written about my dating experiences.  Remember…those who can’t…teach.

Killer Grin

If your heart isn’t in your mouth and your stomach doesn’t drop when the roller coaster hits the top of that first big hill, then you know it’s time to get off of the ride.  I find myself pushing the car along the tracks just to keep it going.  I’ve stayed too long at the fair.

My friends were tired of asking me when my book was going to be finished.  Truthfully, I had no final chapter…the one where I ride off into the sunset with the man of my dreams and live happily ever after.

I’m prepared to ride off alone…I already have my own horse.  I just don’t want to spend any more time in solitary confinement.  I’m not that interesting to myself.

What IS love?  It’s unexplainable and unpredictable.  You don’t know when it’s coming and you rarely see it leaving until it’s too far gone.  It is as painful as it is joyful.  It’s disappointment runs as deep as its exhilaration rises high…and yet we all want it and are willing to take the risk.  It takes a lot of courage to keep looking for love even if it continues to elude you.

Love is blind and deaf, and a lot of the time…really really dumb.

I read somewhere that our DNA calls for us to be attracted to one type of person and by instinct we spend our lives searching for that match.  We grow impatient and settle for close enough or good enough.  Unless our DNA match is searching for us at the same time and we happen to be in the same place then we are never destined to meet.

Love becomes unfinished business.

There are those who find their needle in a haystack.  They recognize their cosmic connection and can’t keep their hands off of each other until the day they die.  They don’t have to keep trying to refill their hearts, because for them, there is no one else.

Was my failure to find my DNA match holding me back?  Is close enough good enough?

I was stuck in neutral and I couldn’t figure out why.

And then one day something happened…just like in the movies.

I was working one of my catering jobs at an office opening.  The guests were nice and the staff was really friendly.  The other bartender and I were setting up glasses and wine at the receptionist’s desk.  A tall cutie pie walked up to the bar and struck up a conversation with me.  My boss had mentioned that there was a guy who worked there who would be perfect for me…and I figured this must be him.

We all continued talking while I crawled around under the desk cleaning up the glass I’d just broken…what else is new?  When I stood up, I noticed a man by the door.

He was standing in a Valley of the Dolls…beautiful blondes with ice-cube sized diamonds and hair that wouldn’t move in a tornado.  One of the Glamazons said something to him and he grinned.

It was an ear-to-ear slash…so sexy, so bold and confident, and so so distracting to me.  I gave some serious thought to marching across the room and kissing that grin right off of his face.  ?!?

Another group of people came through the door and I lost sight of him in the crowd.  I just knew that if I had gotten close enough to him he would have smelled fantastic.

Later that night I went home and Facebooked the name of the guy that I had been chatting with at the bar…the one my boss wanted to match me up with.

When the profile picture popped up, it wasn’t him at all…it was Killer Grin.  Uh oh.  I held my finger over the friend request and hit send.

Though I’m sure he had no idea who I was, he accepted the request.  And then my old friend failure to yield appeared and in an historical moment for me, I sent this man with the incredible smile my phone number and wrote:  “You should call me sometime.”

This was WAY out of my comfort zone.  I was not used to doing the pursuing, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, I would wonder for the rest of my life what it would have been like to kiss that grin…

and now I know…

it was amazing.

I was finally struck by lightning.  It simply hadn’t occurred to me that he wouldn’t feel the same way.  And that’s how quickly he went from taking my breath away to knocking the wind out of me.

My path had crossed with a man who was just beginning his middle-aged crazy.  He wanted for nothing and needed everything and had to continue in his own direction.  I could have pointed out the quicksand to him, but he would have run into it anyway.

It was something he said to me that told me it was time to end my book.  “I wonder about the missed opportunities because I stayed too long.”

I knew exactly what I was struggling with.  I had stayed too long waiting for the right moment, for my happily ever after and because of that I was missing my happy right now.

The journey away from my divorce was never about finding the man of my dreams.  It was about putting Cynthia back together again.  What began as validation has become redemption.  There are no missing pieces that matter.  I am whole and I am happy.

In reality, only some of us get happily ever after.  But all of us can have happy right now…and I’m okay with that.

Months later I was asked to work a party at Killer Grin’s house.  I was looking forward to seeing him again.  I was curious to see if that smile still had the same power.

We walked up to his front door and he opened it…and there it was…my undoing…that grin. Kryptonite to me.

I don’t like the taste of bittersweet.  It doesn’t go down easily, but it’s part of it and I would rather swallow it than spit it out.  Killer Grin and I spoke for a few minutes in his driveway.  It was a gorgeous fall evening and it felt “right” and I wished that he would kiss me and for a fleeting second I thought that he might.

But that only happens in the movies…right?

I doubt there will ever be a time that I won’t want to kiss that grin right off of his face.  This amazes me and when I think about it…it makes me grin too.

I’ve never carried a torch before.  I can’t tell you if the weight of it changes or it gets less bright as time goes by.  I’ll have to let you know.

I took a chance and I put myself out there…and I’m still standing.

I heard a popular television matchmaker claim that women past a certain age are “hard to place”.  Really?  I continue to fly in the face of it…I can hold my own.

I’m smart and I’m funny and even though I’m no longer one of the most beautiful girls in the room, I’ve figured out that the secret to being the center of attention is by making everyone else feel that they are.

My story…like yours…is unfolding in its own beautiful and mysterious way and I still believe that something great is going to happen.

Now is the right moment.  Take chances.  Today is the best day.

Day Three Hundred and Eleven…Happy Valentine’s Day…love keeps us moving…

Cynthia Neilson

Songbird Whitney Houston was laid to rest today.  Her funeral was celebrated on television and the internet for all the world to see…her final performance.  I am confused, because it seems she was surrounded by good people who thought highly of her.  They hold her up now in glory, when she doesn’t need them anymore.  I’m not pointing blame…maybe they grew tired of having their hands slapped away when she began to stumble.

Fame didn’t kill Whitney Houston…excess and addiction did.  Fodder for magazine and sensationalistic television, she became a paperless doll, dancing in the fairy dust trail that her superstar left in its wake.

In recent interviews and photos she looked lonely and confused and desperate…like a gambler who needs to let it ride one more time.

“We love you Whitney” was the theme of the Grammy Awards…and yet, the silent “but” hung there like a bad note.  It was a rock n’ roll version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”…a room full of recovery and rehab graduates and gonna-bes, silently thankful it wasn’t them found naked in a bathtub.

The closeness that they claimed to Whitney in her death seems hollow and makes me wonder where they all were in the preceding days when she was so obviously in trouble.

Now the praise and glory drips from their mouths like honey…sticky and a little too sweet.

Whitney made bad choices and surrounded herself with parasites who saw her celebrity and her money as their own path to glory.  They will crawl out of the woodwork now and claim they tried to help…just to get an extra fifteen minutes of fame.

I wonder if she would have gone down the same road, had she been an ordinary girl living a regular life…or was addiction just part of her destiny?  Her life of privilege could have afforded her every kind of help there is…her life of privilege afforded her every access to what eventually destroyed her.  She had it all…but it wasn’t enough to fill her void.  In the end, the choice was hers to make…and she chose badly.

Addiction turns you into a selfish cannibal.

The light of the tarnished woman with the golden voice went out without a whisper…alone. The radiance of the little girl who stood in the front of the church and sang for the joy of it was gone a long time ago.

 

I leave you with the words of Dylan Thomas….

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

 

Day three hundred and seven…life is fragile and precious.

Cynthia Neilson

The Yankee in me took a hit today.  It snowed here in middle Tennessee, just enough to call the lemmings out for the bread and milk march.  I had a brunch date with a perfectly disrespectful man…just my type…and I was determined not to let a little snow get in the way of possible true love or really good pancakes.

I drove out of my holler to the big curve that never gets any sun.  It was really icy and I turned around and came home.  I am…officially…a woosie girl.

To reward myself for playing it safe, I cracked open a frozen pizza and ate two Dove bars while I waited for it to bake.  I burned the roof of my mouth on some sort of cheese imposter and had to hunt up some Tums for the Dove bar revisit.

I have a fire going in my wood burning stove and some really good port from a winery down in Franklin and thought I might wax poetic about sex…lies…and video tape……..

Sixty-eight year old Mimi Alford decided to write a book about her 18 month affair with JFK.  It is her right and privilege to do so…but I don’t think anyone really cares.  The scandal that it would have been back in the sixties doesn’t exist now, unless she has a sex tape to hawk with it.

I’m calling you out, sister.  I’ve read your explanation as to why you wrote it, and it still sounds to me like you aren’t clear as to whether you should be apologizing, accusing, or asking for forgiveness…and no one is left gasping in disbelief.  You’re too late…we’ve been sexed out, Mims…the morality of 2012 doesn’t care to consider the morality of 1960…it does not compute…unless you have some sexts or a sex tape, it will be a hard sell.

JFK was a womanizer and it was understood and accepted and dealt with the way all things untoward were back then…behind closed doors and whispered in ears.  It was private…period.  His value as a world leader surpassed his peccadilloes and he was accommodated and protected…there was honor among thieves.  Of course, if he’d had a sex tape…well…we’d be talking millions.

Countries, civilizations even, have been toppled over sexual shenanigans…this is nothing new.  Sex as a release is control and control is power…and the worm turns.

I believe that Clinton could have short-sheeted his whole impeachment if he had just fessed up and admitted that he had an inappropriate relationship with another woman outside of his marriage.  Instead he chose a ridiculous defense, so offensive in nature that he made a fool out of his wife and every other woman in this country.

Putting any part of anything naked anywhere in anyone is sexual…and his redefinition of what sexual relations are would have given George Carlin material for a whole new act.

I’ve listened, bemused, when the argument is made that it doesn’t matter what politicians or leaders do behind closed doors.  Only a cheater would make that argument.  I’ve been on both sides of that bed, so I know the rhetoric.

Picture someone running on the campaign promise:  “I love my wife/husband and my children 98% of the time…the other 2% is my private business.  I’m under stress and need the release.”

It still remains the ultimate betrayal, though these days, it almost seems a rite of passage. That it was so silently tolerated, once upon a time, had more to do with honor and pride and trust.  Hush money didn’t have as many zeroes in front of the decimal point like it does now.

All due respect to Ms. Alford, I can’t see any good coming from this tome, other than monetary.  She seems to want to clear her name, and if this makes her feel better about herself, then I guess she’s doing what she needs to do.  Her story goes from squeamish to whimsical as she describes racing ducks in the bathtub with the head of the free world.  I’m just trying to figure out what she else she has to say that would take up an entire book…unless she has drawings of Johnny’s privates…and a sex tape…

I can’t help but feel it is at the expense of the family left behind in the Kennedy riptide.  They’ve already paid a high enough price.  Enough already.

Archie Bunker once campaigned that the airways would be safer if all passengers carried a rod.

In the same spirit…let’s make it mandatory for all of us to do a sex tape.  They could be protected with a copyright and officially documented.  We could choose from three settings:  Tropical bliss…winter wonderland…or rainy daze at the cabin.  It could start a whole new industry…make-up, hair, director of photography, props…little mini-movies.

I’ve got dibs on whoever does Oprah’s lighting for mine.  Of course, with the men in my age range…we’d have to come back another day for take two…

Day three hundred and six…enjoying my port in a sex storm…

Cynthia Neilson