to Be or not to Be

Just sitting here writing to the hum of multiple helicopters in the air above my apartment looking for two men at large with guns…no big deal. Good to be back, LA. Fun times. I hope everyone survived the most boring Superbowl of all time. You know it’s bad when the streaker is the most exciting part of the game. If you didn’t know, THAT guy made a bet there would be a streaker during the Superbowl and is now $374K richer so, well played, sir. And that is the definition of ‘work smart, not hard’. As far as the halftime show…(sigh)…here are my thoughts. We are in the middle of a pandemic that frowns upon mass gatherings so did I feel the 300 masked dancers were necessary? Not particularly. Do I have an idea of where The Weeknd’s $7M went to “enhance” the show? Not the faintest. I don’t think anything is worth 7 million that only lasts 13 minutes. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it – I just wasn’t entertained. It felt like a very fancy, over-priced walk-about. I actually don’t mind his music at all but I think he missed a really big opportunity to do the ‘quarantine dance’ to Blinding Lights which leads me to believe it was a conscious choice and a bad move considering he was attempting to entertain families across the country. EVERYONE knows the dance. If you don’t know what I’m talking about – just google quarantine blinding lights dance. There are montages of it everywhere. And he knows that and was like – no, I’d prefer they watch me walk through a 7 million dollar lightbulb maze. Boo.

Alas, you can’t please everyone…and you won’t. It’s statistically impossible, not to mention exhausting. Everyone has a different gauge of good, bad, right and wrong. PETA is currently on a campaign for us to stop calling people animals as an insult because it is supremacist language that perpetuates the oppression of animals. This is all true, I swear. Speciesism. I didn’t even know it was a thing. So for instance, instead of chicken, they prefer we say coward. Instead of rat, snitch, so on and so forth. I, for one, had no idea how many chickens I was offending. Perhaps I’m being insensitive but at what point do we all admit cancel culture has gone too far? Cause if we’re being real, I truly don’t care if I’ve ever hurt a snake’s feelings. But that’s the thing, we all have different priorities and backgrounds and upbringings and feelings and standards – I mean some guy embedded a $24M diamond INTO HIS FOREHEAD. Reread that. He just smashed my dream vacation into his head. And maybe this is because I’m but a tiny peasant in this great big world but I am both speechless and crushed. I’m scraping by month to month and this guy is putting over a year of rent into his frontal lobe like he’s reinventing the troll. $24M…just sitting on his face…and this guy has sex? Ugh, do you boo.

Now I’m fully aware that ‘to be or not to be’ is a reference to Hamlet pondering his existence. Of course I am. I’m obsessed with two men – Jason Momoa and William Shakespeare. So come on this jaunt with me, hear me out. What I’m saying is, in life, we have two options. We can be who everyone else wants us to be or we can be who we are. I suppose it depends on how you feel about approval ratings but one of them is very much living and the other one is like being held hostage by a million wants and needs that are rarely yours. It’s called choosing your happy. Someone told me that happiness doesn’t last long.  And I’m sorry sir, but I must politely and adamantly disagree with you.  I think happiness is a state of mind and it lasts as long as we want it to.  You just have to be delicate with the things that make you happy. Now I’m not saying I’m Suzie Sunshine everyday of the week but I do my best to keep my eye on that light at the end of the tunnel and when I lose sight of it, I fight my way back. It’s always darkest before the dawn yeah? Choose not to be taken down by the ‘slings and arrows…heart-ache…and scorns of time’. I mean, is anyone else turned on by that prose? Is it hot in here? (sigh) Shakespeare and I would have been a power couple for sure.

With everything going on in the world and the feelings of being trapped, a lot of people are feeling depressed and having a deep sense of inadequacy. And whenever I feel that way my first question is always, where is this coming from? For me it’s almost 100% always internal because I am my own worst enemy and have the tendency to mean girl myself into pieces before anyone else gets the chance. Sometimes I feel things I can’t explain and have no business feeling. And then I have to remind myself that pessimism and negativity are toxic contagens. Then there’s the occasional outside influence. (surrender arms) I’m human. It happens. I can’t pinpoint exactly when other people’s opinions started to matter but it happened. There is a real beauty in being naïve before it becomes tragic. The point is, I am learning to care less. WAY less. Especially when it comes to people who I find inconsequential – like strangers, people who come in hot on social media you haven’t seen in a decade, also known as internet trolls, and basically anyone who doesn’t have a general idea of when my birthday is. People who don’t know me shouldn’t have any bearing on my life or the decisions I make. Lately, I’ve had my nails painted dark on one hand and light on the other. When I was asked why, I said ’cause I like it’. Maybe because it reminds me that I’m like The Force with a dark side and a light side and that I have the power to hold the universe together…much like duct tape.

A few weeks ago I about lost my mind when Jeopardy! contestants didn’t know who Dave Chappelle was – and not just with a clue – WITH A PICTURE! They knew the title of President James Buchanan’s book, that the element magnesium was named after a place in Greece and who wrote How Stella Got Her Groove Back but not a clue who Chappelle was. MIND BLOWN. What is – WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! So whatever you choose to be, don’t be those people. Be whatever version of amazing you choose. Think about all the things you do and say for the sake of others. Why can’t we be that loyal to ourselves? When did our obligations to others become more important than to ourselves? It’s called self-care which up until recently has been an alien concept to me. I had no idea you could say no to stuff you don’t want to do for no other reason than ‘just because’. That’s a thing!? It’s glorious and I give it five stars. And if something in your life isn’t making you happy, fix it. Imagine how different your life could be. I’ll forever be chasing what makes me feel the most alive, what gives my heart that extra reason to beat, what leaves a smile on my face long after I’ve begun to dream and what makes waking up a thrilling adventure of Wonderland proportions.

Oh, and uh…one last thing – I suppose I can’t ignore the albino elephant in the room. It seems my favorite day of the year is upon us. I think you all know how I feel about the 14th of February. Unfortunately, I’m also a huge advocate of romance so it’s a real pickle Sunday for me this year. I like love to a gross degree. Trust me, if you saw my reading history, you’d be concerned. I should be the official mascot of the heart. People would hate me for being so disgustingly good at my job. But this forced day of last-minute florals and declarations is neither romantic or authentic to me. Perhaps it’s my resistance to conform or maybe it’s because I prefer letters over chocolates but I’ve become a bit of a Cupid’s Scrooge. Until recently my V-Days were spent on Las Vegas Boulevard with my GALentines but the state of affairs has put a pin in that for now. So for the second year in a row, I’ll be sitting here waiting for a heart shaped pizza covered in pineapples to arrive…as I drink ALL the wine. Cheers to you, yours, his, hers, and all the animals madly in love Xx