Fast and faster.

So sorry I haven't been able to write lately! Everything's been going so FAST! And I mean EVERYTHING!
Here are some examples :

The other week I woke up with 2 pimples on my face. By 6 pm that evening, they were gone.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a man at my cousin's theatre and he pursued me AGGRESSIVELY for 4 days and nights. Non-stop texting, phoning, etc. On the fifth day I agreed to meet him for lunch. We had lunch, he followed me to my next appointment (I was meeting a friend for happy hour), then he called me the next morning to tell me he didn't want to date me because I was a "strong willed person". (I figured it was really because I let it out during lunch that I have 4 children)  - I didn't want to go out with him in the FIRST PLACE!!! But he managed to court, convince and dump me in less than a week! Now that's FAST!

 Also - I have managed to go from culinary school to line cook/prep cook in less than a month at one of my favorite restaurants. I have been trained in a language that I do not speak in less than 3 weeks. I think that's BLOODY FAST!!!!

 I have gone from deep pockets to empty ones in record time - less than a year ago I was flying loads of people to Paris, putting them up in a 4 star hotel and taking everyone out for - well, everything!

A year ago I had a beautiful house that had been mine for twenty years, now I'm homeless.

BUT....everything's been going SOOOO fast - who's to say that I won't have a million dollars in the bank a year from now?
I've lost ten pounds in two weeks and gotten some fab, fun headshots done for free over the course of a week - so as far as I'm concerned - ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE!

Bring it on, Life. I've burned all of my fingers and they healed in a day. I'm doing my sit ups, getting Spanish books at the library and, quite frankly, I'm ready for anything. Bring it on - and DON'T spare your fast balls!

The New Normal, or What Kari Said..

I am sipping on a cup of excellent Costa Rican coffee, with just a touch of almond milk and brown sugar. My breakfast is a bowl of greek yogurt piled high with fresh blueberries and strawberries. I am sitting at a modern, glass dining table in a sun drenched room - looking out at a city view past a sea of tree tops, and a perfect chalk blue sky with only a few cotton candy clouds hanging above it all.

When I wake up in the morning, the view outside my bedroom window is of a castle. Ok, maybe not a CASTLE - but definitely an Italian chateau. ( It looks like a beautiful Four Seasons Hotel was accidentally air lifted and dropped in from Tuscany!) Most mornings there will be a deer right outside that window. Two feet away. If you had told me this would be my daily routine a few weeks ago, I would have laughed at you in disbelief. With all of the horrible things going on in the world, how is it that I am so lucky?

Right before Christmas, I went to visit my brother's X-wife, Kari. I still love her, and my children still call her 'Aunt Kari'. We had a little time to talk about life things while our lads were entertaining each other. Everything seemed to be going as well as could be in her world. Her new marraige, her son, her new house. Everything seemed so right on. And Kari, herself, was more beautiful than ever. Happiness and confidence poured out of her lovely face.
Then the conversation turned to me.

I had a whole routine down to explain my erratic moves of the last year. I told her about all of our dear friend, Mark's, family and friends of family dying in the last few years BEFORE they got to take their dream cruise or dream trip. In some dramatic instances, it seemed they dropped dead two days  before the cruise. Mark's family couldn't be more 'safe'. They were mid-west folks who played by the rules their whole lives. Two weeks vacation a year - ONLY two weeks (the rest of the first world countries think we are mad regarding this)...and then, like some cruel joke - DEAD - BEFORE they could enjoy their long awaited retirement.

"So, you see, Kari", I told her, "I was just not going to fall for that trick. I just decided to do it in reverse. Have my fun dream trips NOW, when I can and I'm super healthy and young enough to still get into some trouble, and then I won't mind if I work until the day I die. I'll just be some little old lady in a corner shop. You know, with a little apartment. I'll toddle on down to the shop with my lunch in a paper bag and sell things to nice people all day. I think that sounds pretty good."
"Oh, I see." she said."YOU are going to magically turn into a little old lady that works in a shop some day?"
"Yes! And I won't have any regrets - you see?"
"And when do you imagine this happening?" she asked with a smile in her eyes.
"Oh...you know..pretty soon. In my fifties, I guess."
"So, a few years from now - some time in your fifties - you're going to change into a completely different person?"
She said this looking right into me. She was certainly laughing at me inside.
"Why not? I can be a little old lady at a shop! You don't think so? What's the matter with that?"
"Nothing. I just have a hard time believing that you're going to turn into a completely different person than the one I know - the person that is standing right in front of me now. That's all."

I just stood there in disbelief. I must have had a very stupid look on my face, because then Kari laughed out loud.
"Oh, Jennifer! " she laughed, giving me a little hug, "Think about who you ARE. You're the one who is always travelling around the world - it wasn't just this year - going on crazy adventures...you're whole life is a crazy adventure. I'm just not sure you're going to be able to change into another person altogether."

I was stunned. My bubble popped. Maybe she was right. I thought about this for a few moments as she scooped up her little blonde boy, kissed him on the head and redirected his play away from an electrical cord that he was fascinated with.
"Cookie?" she asked sweetly, as she offered forth a chocolately bit of decadence.
"OK", I said in slow motion, trying to assess how I felt about this severe wrench in my life plan.
"So, are you saying..." I slowly forced out while waving the cookie in the air, ".. that I will NEVER be an old lady in a shop?"
Kari just smiled and shrugged.
"Are you saying that I'm just going to keep ON this way? "
"Well, you are YOU."
" Do you think I am going to become a sort of Aunty Mame kind of character? "
Kari just laughed and shook her head. "Well, more like that.." she said, amused.
"My goodnes, Kari. I never thought of it that way."

Now I'm here.
Only a few weeks later. Everything's been going so FAST. How did I end up so QUICKLY in what may arguably be the most beautiful spot in Texas? Despite the fact that I am now near penniless. (in cash anyway)

Just yesterday, my sister called me after a panic attack. The one thing she said comforted her was that she now knows that I am able to pack up and get out of any city in under a week.
Darn it! Maybe Kari's right. People that can pack up that fast, move, spend all their money, then land on their feet next door to a bloody castle might not EVER turn into little old shop ladies!

Oh well.
'Normal' is overrated in my book. Time for me to accept the new 'normal'. My normal. It's NORMAL for me to hit up 6 or 7 countries in a year. It feels just as 'NORMAL' for me to be so elegantly homeless now as it did to HAVE a home! I'll just have to kiss those dreams of NORMAL normal goodbye and be thankful for all the crazy good stuff that comes my way.

But that's all I can write for now. I have to plan an outfit for this weekend. I'm going on an excursion on an old fashioned steam train to the country with my little nephew, my brother and sister.
And one must ALWAYS dress appropriately for each and every adventure!

It's New Year's Eve tonight...

It's New Year's Eve tonight.
I confess, that as I write this, I'm still a little bit loopy from the ambien my brother gave me last night to help me sleep. I just can't DO that stuff - too hard to shake it off the next day. However, for now, I have a pleasantly goofy feeling all through my body. QUITE relaxed.

Tonight I'll bring the New Year in working. Which is just as well, and quite good, since I don't have a date anyway. It's how I hope the coming year will follow - lots of WORK!!!!
 I feel good about the year to come. Good about things in general. Lucky to have such great kids and such great family all around me.

But I DO have SERIOUS New Year's resolutions this year.
For the first time in a long time - I am DETERMINED to make some that are top priority and follow through like a maniac.
It's just no good anymore - this - this lollygagging about, this using only a tiny part of my potential. It simply WON'T do any longer. This year I will :

1. Stop Drinking. (either full stop or mostly)
2. Learn French. For REALS - like enough to have some simple conversations!
3. Learn to pay 3 songs on the piano.
4. improve my Spanish.
5. Do yoga. EVERY WEEK.
6. Walk around the lake at least once a week.
7. get a job (that goes without saying, really)
8. do theatre. (it's been FAR too long!)
9. sing. a LOT more.
10. write letters - actual ones, not e-mails.
11. take dance classes.
12. fall in love.

The only thing I see as a real challenge is the falling in love part. Kind of hard to MAKE that happen. But I'll write it down in a spasm of hope.
Check in with me next year, and see how I did.....

MAY YOU ALL HAVE THE MOST AMAZING, MEMORABLE , HAPPY 2013 !!!!!!

Christmas Eve, 2012

It is Christmas Eve.
As I am writing this, I am looking out over the hills to the sparkling lights of the city. It is so warm here.
So warm in so many ways. And I must be the most pampered and spoiled homeless person on this earth.

I have just come from church (yes, I went to my childhood church - quite odd - looked so much smaller!) and Christmas Eve dinner with my family. I am full of good food and good feelings. We are the lucky ones. Everyone is well and full of good cheer this year. Everyone is grateful. Perhaps a little bit because of the Sandy Hook shooting - it certainly puts things into perspective right before Christmas.

I have to confess, I couldn't sleep the other night  - so I turned the TV on looking for an old movie to calm my mind. 'Miracle on 34th Street' was on, and the first thing I thought of was how horrible it would be to see these sweet, family Christmas movies if your child had been shot dead at school just a week ago.

Tomorrow I will give gifts to my family that I have accumulated from all over the world. Exotic things. I have dragged them with me on planes, trains and automobiles in an attempt to share a piece of my adventures. I look forward to giving my little nieces the headdresses from Bali - golden tiaras studded with jewels (not real ones, of course),  saffron tea to my mother, cashmere scarfs from Scotland for my nephews, jewelry from South Africa for my sisters and the impish mask of happiness for my grown up cousin who runs a theatre. As I wrapped all of the trinkets and treasures - the silks, the woolen things, the wooden carvings, the beaded art, etc - I thought of where and how I got them. All of the different looking money used over the last many months, the adventures associated with each and every item.

And as I enjoy the greatest gift of seeing my little cousins faces light up, or a smile from one of my sisters, I will not take a single moment of it for granted.
I will treasure each second of tomorrow's Christmas, and feel deeply how lucky I am. How lucky we are. We had a close call in our family - very recently - but we've made it through. So far.

We are here. We are safe, well fed, healthy and loved.
We have each other.
And after a year of great travels and adventures and culinary school, I feel like I am about to embark on the very greatest adventure of all.
I don't know what it is exactly.
I just know that's how it feels.

the OK Cupid experiment...

SO.... (big breath)

Before I left Portland, my sister gently shoved me into the online dating world via OK Cupid.

"Look," she said, with a note of resigned pity on her face, "we both know that you are a breeder."
Before I could shake my head, "no", she went on.."A MATER - someone who likes to partner up. Am I wrong?"

"Well..." I said, thinking about it. "I guess so."
"And this is how it's DONE these days, Jennifer." she instructed me. "At the VERY least - you can just look at the guys in Texas and see what you think."

So, I started looking at the guys in Texas.
I was rather amazed at how many lovely, intelligent men were swimming around the pool of the OK Cupid waters. AND with good taste in books and music and film!

The first conversation I had online, was with a nice Atheist man from West Texas who scolded me for not having good photos up. "You need one where we can see your FACE." he wrote to me.

Ok, ok. I put more photos. 2 without sunglasses.

"That's good." He wrote. "Now fill out your profile and answer some of those questions."
"I don't like the questions. " I wrote back. "And I can't sum myself up in one page!"
"Well, I don't know what you want out of this experience.." he replied, "but I don't really want a pen pall. I really want to meet someone - and the more specific you are, the better chances that you'll meet someone you actually like.."

I thought about that. What DID I want? Just to look at the big, tall Texas cowboys? A pen pall? Well, no. I DID want to meet someone cool and great and all that. But I was NOT going to answer a million questions about sex and intimate stuff like that on a public site. So, I decided to try something different. I put up a link to this blog. Now - it's ALL out there. They could research me if they so chose to. My thoughts, my worst Christmas, my past - some of the TV shows I was on - easy to google, etc, etc.

I thought for sure I would get some hate mail - but I was ok with that. It certainly would be a weeding out process, wouldn't it?
Instead, I got lots of positive responses. Not one hate mail. (not yet, anyway). This OK Cupid thing was going pretty well - and the most LOVELY men were writing to me! Maybe it would WORK!!!

But then, conversations began to develop. Online. On screen.
These lovely men all had a LOT of questions. Good ones.
"Do you have a job lined up?" "Where will you live?" "How many times a week do you work out?"

Uhhhhh.....
Uhhhhhhhhhhh........

I realized very quickly that I have NO answers to these questions.
Then I felt like a COMPLETE IDIOT.

"What the hell is wrong with you, girl?" I asked myself - while laughing at myself.
I have no job lined up, not sure where I'll be living and last week I worked out ZERO times and in fact was sitting in a car for 12 hrs at a time and only now am regaining feeling in my ass, and am on some road to recovering my poor stomach from the dreadful road trip crap I've put into it over the last few days.

In short - I am a mess.

So...as much as I really do want to cover all of those lovely Texas men with freshly sliced Texas peaches and eat them all up - as much as I want to go on a million coffee dates with different fellows - this one gentleman told me something that sticks in my head. He told me that he went on a date with this woman from OK Cupid and she BRAGGED at dinner that she just went out with all these guys to get a bunch of free meals out of it. If you can BELIEVE that! Not cool!

I in no way want to be like that woman.
And these super nice guys deserve a little better in my book. They deserve to go out with someone who can  answer at LEAST those first 3 questions. I mean, they ARE pretty basic, after all.

Gentle readers - I have torn myself away from the scintillating and slightly addictive world of online dating for NOW.
I intend to get myself into a place where I can answer those questions (and more)very happily, and then I'll just dive back in.

 Maybe.

In the mean time - single ladies who read this blog - if you EVER thought about moving to Texas - I can tell you that there are some MIGHTY FINE gentlemen here - smart, cool, athletic, single (unless they're lying - but I don't think so) - that are ready to meet you for coffee!

Sandy Hook Massacre

On Dec. 14th, I couldn't sleep.

All that early morning I was awoken by terrible, horrifying, violent dreams. I kept sitting up and physically shaking myself to try to get away from the nightmares.

I dreamt about my mother, after my family's car accident, on the side of the road just outside Clovis, New Mexico, with her 10 year old boy in her lap, his neck snapped. I couldn't shake the extreme, deep horror and sadness of that moment.

Then I dreamt about my best friend, Mieke.
She, too, held her daughter in her arms after it was too late. Nothing  - no amount of love or desire - could bring her back. I dreamt and felt so distinctly how that MOMENT - those moments - must have felt. A mother losing her child. It felt so real.

Then, I was awoken by a random dream. It was vague, and hazy - but there was a man with a gun. I heard the shots, and again was awoken in terror and a deep, deep sadness - not knowing why these dreams were coming to me this morning. I shook my head, hard. "Perhaps it's just because I'm leaving today.." I thought. "Maybe I'm scared and don't realize it fully?"

I tried to sleep for another hour, then gave up and switched on the TV to see what time it was. Almost 8:30 am , on the West Coast. I was getting a late start to my journey back to Texas.

And then I saw the images.
Little children being hustled out of somewhere. Grown ups hunched protectively over them - cars everywhere - a scene of chaos.
I turned the sound up and listened to the news in disbelief. A SHOOTING? At an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL??? TWO FREAKIN' DAYS AFTER THE MALL THING HERE IN PORTLAND!!?????

It was hard to believe. Awful to believe.

I tore myself away from the terrible images, packed my car, made a couple of sandwiches, and left.
I'd been looking forward to the drive through Southern Oregon. Grant's Pass, all of those beautiful mountains - and I was also in a hurry to beat the next snowfall.

My cat, Zyll, and I , took in the glorious scenery as Handel's Messiah washed through me. Clouds swept and swirled around the tops of tall evergreens and snow capped mountain tops. Then, as I lost one radio station and searched for another, I landed on NPR. The reporters were clearly accounting the details of the Sandy Hook Massacre. TWENTY young children believed to be dead, and SIX adults, not including the shooter and possibly his mother. It was almost too horrible to believe - and RIGHT before Christmas!

I cried and cried through the beautiful trees, mountains and vistas. The sun popped out at times looking like those paintings of 'God'. The green pastures dotted with white sheep were so vibrant they almost  glowed green. I lost the station, and switched back to classical music. It was raining off and on, making my over active imagination feel like the beautiful sky was crying with me. Then, just passed Grant's Pass, a rainbow appeared.

I went to Catholic school as a kid. I am not Catholic any longer, but all of those stories stuck in my head. And, I feel like the bit about rainbows being a sign of hope just makes sense. Even if I never heard those stories - I think a rainbow WOULD make me feel hopeful. Just from it's sheer beauty and magic. Maybe there IS a pot of gold, maybe everything WILL be ok....

But then again, if there is a God - how the hell can these 2 realities be reconciled? The horror of those poor families losing their children ( AND the adults, too, of course) in such a terrible, disgusting way -  and this incredible, peaceful, glorious rainbow - looking innocent and HOPEFUL!!!???

I stayed in Lake Shasta, then continued my drive yesterday, crying off and on all the way into L.A.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
No sense at all.

Back to Roots

After I sold my house a year ago, I didn't know where to go.
I felt homeless.
So, I traveled the globe looking for options.

I thought perhaps it would be good to go back to where I was born, South Africa. I could get citizenship there if I wanted to, and I hadn't ever been back. "Perhaps these are my roots?" I thought as whizzed through the sky in a huge man made machine, looking down at fluffy, white clouds underneath me.

South Africa felt familiar and strange all at once. There WAS something of me there. A tiny part of my history. But it was not where I belonged. Not now, anyway.

Then, after much travel, I decided on Portland. Partly because of my sister. She'd been wanting to move here for years, and I truly loved the city when I was coming to "scout it out".

But now, after a few short months, I know that Portland is NOT where I belong right now, either. I feel like a ghost here, and that's quite something for ME to say. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a shy or introverted creature. I did not feel like a ghost in Bali or Paris or South Africa when I was traveling there alone. Not in Amsterdam or Scotland.
Something about this beautiful place and I - is just not clicking.

AND....I do feel, after many conversations with my sister, that perhaps both of us were running away from something at the beginning. She certainly was and is. And maybe I was, too. From family - from perceptions of both failure and success - from my past....

But I've come to a glorious and wonderful new enlightenment.

I don't WANT to run away!!! NOT FROM ANYTHING!!!
I WANT the messy family stuff - the lovely, complicated, complex relationships that make us who we are. I want it ALL.  I want the drama, the stress (sometimes) the laughs, the love, the food... I want to see my little cousins and my niece grow up ...I WANT IT ALL.

So...I am packing up my car once again. getting rid of even MORE stuff (a serious shedding)...and heading back to my roots, and my family in Texas. Of ALL places.