Alone vs. lonely

I like alone. I have time to think thru what it is I am now and what it is I want out of my life. I also have come to see how little control I have over so many of my wants. Those are the wants for connection, for touch, for intimacy...I cannot sleep with someone I do not care for. I cannot prey and abuse for easy sex or touch...what would be the point of that for me? None.

I have to learn patience. I have to learn trust. I have to learn how to interpret attraction and response....It's all so new. When I was young, I just trusted my gut, now I trust nothing regarding my gut, can't read signals, except for the obvious, the easy flirt, the come fuck me who cares..., oh I get that, just won't respond.

Real attraction? That's something else entirely. I just want to see clearly, to trust my intuition, to react appropriately.

Please let me be wise and learn and deserve. Let me touch and be touched by someone who actually is decent and kind.

Slante

Decorative elements

It would seem strange to look at all the beauty around me and to not realize how lucky I am. I have a cozy home, great daughters, warm friends and a family that might make me crazy at times, but who I love with all my heart and know that it is returned.

Still, somehow I feel so tired and so lonely. Is there something wrong with me? Is it not enough? I feel that it should be but it isn't. I feel the pressure of having to be something more than human. I am not allowed frailty. I am not allowed to fuck-up, to make mistakes. I haveto represent not just my life, but a whole neighborhood. Who needs to do that? Is that the expectation of any of the other women on my business block? No. Is it fair? Not really.

I have agreed to do a vocational evaluation for my divorce settlement. It's my ex's way of saying what he said for years...that what I do and am is not useful, not valid. I have to live and earn by his standards, not mine. That's what it feels like when the employees say i have to represent...it's as if Iam not good enough unless I live by their decisions, not mine...Ed. Them? Where do I come into this?

I have never hurt a soul. I have never done one single thing to another human that I regret as having been mean or harmful.If I joke about "cougar" which it turns out I cannot do, even that is unacceptable. If I go out with gurls and laugh and talk trash, not acceptable...

What the hell is okay, I wonder. everyone else can talk shit, make bad jokes, complain about their lives in public, but not me...
The funny thing is that the customers come to aexpect and accept the personal, because we are like one big crazy family. I don't open to all...just those I know get it. They do the samee to me. If the employees are right I am misreading all of them.
So, here are my options as I see them. Don't talk politics...even when the customers want to and start it? Don't make bad jokes about dating, even when the customers start it? They expect a smart ass, edgy response...i guess I have to disappoint...

Twelve years in, and still alive, and now I'm supposed to stop doing what has always been what makes it work...has always been a part and parcel of what has made us succeed when everyone else is gone...it has always been about the old school personal, sharing of self that makes us tick. No matter what the ladies say, the majority of the customers tell and want to be told. that's part there but for the grace of god, and the i'm part of the inner circle magic...

So here is the last blog that the public will see for a while. I will say what I think. I will live my life w/o harming others and I will not apologize to anyone for being human and sad and trying to survive.

Slante

Spattered with beauty

Long, up and down week...lots of drama, lots of sadness and lots of joy. Life in a nutshell.

Friday night painted the shop ceiling with Jay. Took so long I thought I'd fall asleep on the floor. Trying to find extra paint cuz Home Depot underestimated absorption..Evil Walmart at 10:45 p.m. with sweet Michelle. Thank you so much dear , for running around in the rain and snaow with me, And, thanks to Erik for finding an open business even if it was evil Walmart) to get the necessary paint...

Hours later,( 2:30 a.m. to be exact ) poor tired work-horse Jay finished spraying. I had a lot of trim painted and it was so good...clean and fresh, light... just that allowed me to see in my head how the rest of the shop would spring to life with the coming colors.

Sunday. Oh dear. Closed at noon to start hauling out furnituren so Jay could prep before painting walls...three hours of prep...jeezuz. Kudos to Jay for the most impressive work ethic I have seen in years. Precise, determined, perfection... flawless in execution....

Damned if he wasn't dead on regarding wall colors and the black trim. It is beautiful and makes me smile everytime I look at it. Customers love how bright and open and pretty it is. They want the art and books back yesterday tho...I'm working on it.
Can't wait to get the fabric baffles done. They will not only decrease sound pollution, they will add dimension and beauty.

I guess that if I get past the physical exhaustion, the rest is all beauty and painting perfection...

Special thx to a painter extraordinaire. One who's technique is perfection, but who also gets the fact that beauty matters; that color can make you react emotionally...that beauty saves...

Thank you.

Slante

beauty as salvation

Last week, I traded dollars for scholarly, incredible art , for practical dollars... for making a living art...And, here's the best part. There's not a sad bone in my body about it.! In fact it just possibly makes me happier than having a masterpiece on my livingroom wall. I say this for a couple of reasons.

The first reason being that as a single woman, who needs more than ever to succeed in her business, it is smart business.
The second reason is oddly more important in some ways...it is that I realize now how much beauty has meant to me these past few years as i decided to end my marriage. Beauty saved me..BEAUTY SAVED ME. It did and it will always. Beauty is faithful it would seem to those who see it in all of its' incarnations, grand and simple.

When my ex's infidelities cut me to the bone, I created a garden to heal myself in. It truly was a labor of love and survival.
It is and was, a place where I could trust. i trusted that if I nurtured and weeded, my blooms would thrive and spread happiness...

With each new plant and bloom, my heart grew back together, stronger. With each back-breaking shovel full of dirt dug for my pond, with each 300lb stone set, i knew it was worth living, no matter how wounded I felt. When that first stream of water came over the waterfall, I felt freed of the dirt he brought to my bed. I felt the courage to tell him to leave. It didn't matter to me that I might lose the house and the garden...I knew I could create that again anywhere...

So, now to the painting of the shop...It will heal me further, not in regards to the death of my marriage. That is finally healed. No, this time, the painting, the creation of a beautiful space is about signalling to myself that beauty still maters.

It is now a symbol of wanting to live happy again...like my newly painted bedroom, it will make me smile and maybe even laugh each time I enter. It is a gift to my community, to my customers, my employees and to myself. The rest of them, they will see beauty in color and ight...I will see beauty in that too, but most of all, I will see beauty in the fact that it is a symbol of wanting to live full-force again...of wanting what we all want, but i didn't dare to think I deserved, a shared life, for however long a period of time i am lucky enough to be given, i want to share my life with someone who intuits the importance of beauty, of it's ability to heal, to give joy, to laugh.

So, great art is after all, in the eye of the beholder... I hope those who behold the clean beautiful bright shop at its completion, understand.
Slante

Posted by mary cassidy at 10:01 PM

renew, re-use, review

Last blog made me think about perceptions: Since my childhood I had to walk a tightrope...don't be that bastard child, keep family secrets, act this way, never misbehave, always think of others first...always be meek...then I married, same thing..., then I had daughters, god how I love them, but willingly, sometimes be-grudgingly, I put them first, their father first, taking care of my parents, solving other peoples problems, worked for a decade as a Chair for families and children's mental health, basic health and educational rights county wide..everyday representing the families that had no voice. Everyday fighting greedy politicians and agenda driven superintendents...I loved it, for the ethical and social justice good it did, but was exhausted by it all till I didn't know who or what Mary was anymore...

Then I dared to open my own business...I put it in front of the line, and me too, by association...probably was what led to the end of my marriage, that I dared focus on my own life, my business...it was seen as a total betrayal.

Now, I am trying to explore, define, question, open...to this new solo life. It is beautifully frightening and amazing at the same time. I suppose I have come across as self-centered for a bit...it being about me..such a new concept. I will try to go back to it being about us, community. It will be that tightrope walk again trying to keep growing and trying to keep my values and ethics about community in place at the same time.

Still, I do not want to shoulder the responsibility of, as I was told I do, "representing NE/Jstreet." The other ladies and gents can carry that for a while. I will represent just me, Mary. A hard working, honest, ethical , exhausted, sometimes funny, sometimes eccentric woman trying to find herself and save her business after divorce, multiple betrayals, no bridge and a bsd economy. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes support.

And, as always, it will be seeing and making beauty that saves me...beauty in all of its tiny and vast forms. I have my friends, my family...my garden...That WILL be enough.

Slante

Apparently , I need to represent, not live my life...

After years of marriage to a psychiatrist who was the best mind game player I've ever met, now I apparently, have to again think of myself, not as me, but as a representative figure...I am the "face of Johnson Street," which means I shouldn't talk or blog here about my sadness, my fears, my temptations, my crushes, my sadness, my joys, my re-discovery of the fact(without being easy, I might add, just through thought process and re-discovering self-esteem...)that I might feel sexy again. I might dare to like my body, my sensual side still being alive...oh dear, how slutty of me...

I say..sorry to offend. Shut down my blog, don't read it at all. Or, better yet, read it...REALLY READ WHAT I AM SAYING, WONDERING THINKING, FEELING.

Have I harmed anyone? have I betrayed myself? NO. NO. NO.
Will I harm anyone? knowingly? NO.NO. NO. FUCKING HELL NO.

People who live in glass houses should never throw stones. At least they should carefully read, not read INTO.
My mom told me that. She was dead on.

TO being MARY, just mary, not THE POPE OF NE.
Don't represent anything but hard working, funny, irreverent, tired and re-newed...mary d.

Slante

auction item

Once in a while life throws a softball to you. Got bought at a silent auction funraiser...i came with a gift cert. to Manny's. Hell of a deal. Went to dinner with highest bidder tonight. Sean from the coffeeshop was our waiter and my bodyguard...lol...

Had a great time with young, did I say how young, Jed. He was polite, nervous, funny, slightly eccentric.. and I laughed my way thru the date. He came to my house to see my garden and we drank a bottle of wine on my deck and talked till 1:00a.m.

It was so much fun...i think I found a dear new friend. How lucky can a gal be?

Slante

I'm finallyb worth spending $1500 on...

Never was worth a fancy restaurant, or a decent pieceofjewelry till he knew I was leaving...then only as a bribe to not leave him...
Now, I'm worth $1,500.00 to have me vocationally evaluated to see if he can convince the court that i need to se4ll my shop so that I earn more and he pays less...so so sad...he knows that the shop is special, not about income as much as it is about communityb and family...does he give a damn? No.

How strange. I would never consider making him stop doing what he loves. Yet, to save what, $200 a month, for a guy who makes well into double six figures...so typical of him, so predictable...just like him telling people he left me, instead of the truth, that i asked him to get out....

Kharma is a bitch, Ed...you'd better be ready for it. May 12th i'll do your required evaluation and I'm willing to bet the judge will see it for exactly what it is. Here's a prayer for justice...let the judge just be fair, gods...all I ask.
Slante

Sexy in my bones

So, it is interesting how in one week three, count 'em, three men i am intrigued by, are in my life..

SFC, all darkness and smarts, so sweet and so self-destructive...for some reason willing to share his frightful secrets with me...and I am determined not to give them away...but, i said i will always listen to him, help him struggle to find reasons to stay here among the living. I will try to make him see that there are reasons to un-freeze...try to give him light in his darkness. And, I will sit up all night to listen, try to share what I have learned and to hold his hand, gladly.

And, sweet sweet Jed, so sincere, so damned cute, so nice... he bought me and I bought him at auction...dinner at Manny;'s wednesday and jazz or film after dinner...such a gentle man, emphasis on gentle i think...too young... too young. I could be his mother...so, what is happening here....I am confused by his enthusiasm, i assume he just thinks i am nice and fun...but then, I am confused researching everything we could do together after the meal; make the reservation, request specific server, research foreign film festival selections, find out who is singing Jazz at the Dakota...or, he asks, would i prefer a simple walk, talk and cocktails, by the river...????

Then there is Jay, my enigma man, smart, intense, somehow i sense he is wounded and slowly recovering. Like with sfc, i want to listen, to somehow help him heal... I am so thankful that he is helping re-do the shop. Amazed that he gets how color can make me happy, everyone happier...I am struck by how much I like him...but, I act like a teenage fool around him...Jesus save me from myself. Thing is, as attracted as I am to him, I would love his friendship alone...??? Did I mention that i am confused?

Still, confused or not, I love that I finally, finally, feel sexy to my bones. Sweet.

going once, going twice, SOLD

Well, the fundraiser is done, raised about $1100. 00 for ads for the BIZ fund. Nice, considering Jarret didn't do the promo he promised...lesson learned...let Jess and Nina do the promo. Next one is at little Grumps, then on to DT Grumps for athink, a guitar hero death battle...hmmm.

Jed, sweet Jed, bought me at auction so we are going to Manny's! I bought him too, so it's perfect. He is funny and nice and sincere and is a great young friend that I'm happy to have met. Can't wait to go eat steak and have a cocktail with him. I'd like to learn about his life, and interests beside the drunken spelling thing....

In the ealier blog I commented about how everyone was afraid they wouldn';t sell...It's funny how we all see ourselves as not atractive enough in others eyes...not funny, i guess, more sad than anything. Took a lesson from it all. After the Single Auction I have decided that maybe, just maybe, i can be sexy in my bones...gonna try to believe I am and will be.

A toast to being both Sensual and Confident.
Slante

business and babes

So, tonight is the first BIZ event, an attempt to raise ad $$$'s for the businesses hurt by the 35W bridge collapse. Jarret didn't promote it the way he promised and I am afraid no one will come to it. Between slow economy and bridge it's hard to stay alive and I needed him to do what he promised...

So, I pray to the collective conscious universe to have people come, to have them spend, to have them care...and, please gods and goddesses, don't let me go for $7.50. I'll cry. That won't buy any damned ads...

P.S. Please don't let any of the creepy customers buy me, a certain one would be just fine, but not the creepy ones. I'll cry then too. Hard and my eyes will get all puffy. and my nose will get all red and gross.

What if no one wants to buy me?

Saturday night is the Fundraiser for BIZ, a project to raise $$$'s for the small businesses that are hurting due to the collapse of the 35W bridge. The Onion and my daughter thought a singles Auction would be fun...funnier if mom entered to be bid on...okay, it IS funny.

Everyone I have asked to be in it, except Dollface, have said the exact same thing. "What if no one wants to buy me?"
It doesn't matter how old, how young, how gorgeous, what gender...the same damned thing...

So, I say this. I am funny. I am smart. I am sexy as hell. I can pay for my own dinner. Liberal? yep...Political? yes yes...great company? you betcha...

$200, what the hell, I'm so worth it and so's the cause.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Letting go of things you thought were gone

I ran into my ex's old guitar teacher yesterday, he said" I'm sorry to hear Ed left you." I have to admit to being blindsided.
" I left him, Steve". He looked puzzled. "But.." "No, I asked him to leave...guess it doesn't matter what the hell he tells everyone to save face."

I walked away, in a public place and started to cry, which shocked me. Not because I was sad that it is over. No, it's more of the same. I think somehow if I made him face alone....face a consequence, it might have an impact, help him to fix himself, or at least somehow face his own shit, the cheating, the never being wrong, the denigrating crap he spewed...no, it appears, same old same old.

It made me sad...Do I care that people think I was left? No. It's inconsequential in the end. Do I want him just once to be honest, yes.

So, trying to find some peace for me, I went for a reiki treatment today to try something new, a cleansing, a ritual of over-ness. It was amazing and I'm not sure I believe in a lot of the spiritual journey, but I do believe in self exploration.

As it was happening, something rose up from my heart and left in a swirl of darkness, like a thunderhead. It was physical and emotional. Afterwards, I felt like I was new. A terrible loss had happened and finally the weight of it was lifted. A birth of hope, cliche, I know, but true, came through and I shook and felt white and floral. Here's to new beginnings...
Slante

Bad cougar/ good cougar/ funny cougar...

Went to face my cougar cub at the hotdish revolution...awkward. He seemed nervous, I was nervous. Shook his hand and told him I was sorry if I scared or confused him. He laughed. Gave him the card. I blushed, he blushed...he said he would read it later, but went into back and read it right away and started bringing me beers. I brought him food. We talked. I talked to all the neighborhood assn people. Sat withmy funny customers, talked politics, talked business with other small biz owners about how tough things are since bridge collapse, touted the BIZ event...he watched every guy I talked to and hugged and smoozed. I smoozed some more, he brought me more beer set up three meetings with holland and windom people(all men)..he brought me more beer. Of course I really don't like beer... beer makes me want to sleep, but i'd drink a few sips and ditch the glass. After enough quarter beers i got damned tired so I gathered my goodies and headed out.
He asked why I wouldn't stay.

I am confused.

Good cougar? Bad cougar? Just plain funny cougar? what the hell... now I have that super dooper specific only to beer and me, headache...

Nite lad

Cougar part II

Here's the funny thing about cougaring...i find that I can't bare to hurt anyone...ever!...

So, once you've flirted them into interest and following you from bar to restaurant...a hug, a soft kiss, a "I get up at 5:00a.m. I have to get home now..." Then, an invite to a neighborhood fundraiser where he is bartending....I'm going and bringing a card to say I am an idiot, that he is sweet and fun and too nice for me to cougar on...It's a FUNNY FUCKING CARD, all humor at my expense...I hope he gets it. I

need to learn so so so much.

So, if I can't cougar on men I LIKE, I won't cougar on men I HATE or even dislike, what's left? Retire after one night at it?

I have to think about this one...

I'm packin up my hotdish and heading to face the man at the Holland Neighborhood Hotdish Revolution... the neighborhood politics will begin, and i hope to laugh at myself......with him.

slante

practicing naughty

I have decided to create my own spring...I have been painting and creating beauty to counter the f'n snow and rain, but it hasn't been enough. Then it occurred to me that in the spring, "a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of"....well, so have mine. Why do young men get all the thoughts?

Hence, tonight i'm going to the Peacock Lounge with Nicole and Jess and her boyfriend Bret and I'm going to practice my cougar skills...don't know if I 've got em, think so, but I'm determined to find out if I do. Nothing stupid mind ya, just full out flirt attack. Tired of sitting home and painting and reading poetry alone. Sure, I go out with friends, and I love them and have a blast, but as of yet I haven't overtly prowled... I think tonight is the night.

Re-stated...Tonight it begins. I'll be raising a cup or two or three, to cougars...rrrrrrrrr, meow?

Spring?

According to the calendar it's springtime. But, tonight it's snowing and icing and blowing sleet like a winter gale...

According to my heart and longing, it's springtime. I am healed from the winter of my marriage and divorce and ready to love or at least share me, and no one cares or dares, at least no-one I want in return.

The one man I am attracted to is younger and so oblivious to my attraction and maybe that is the way it should be. Oddly enough, I have never hurt a friendship because of sexual attraction. It's just so ironic, that he is someone who i would love to share a true friendship with, and yet, I feel like a goddamned teenager when I am near him...nervous and foolish. It passes once we start talking but i fucking laugh at myself. How could I be this old and still so foolish.

I guess the heart and mind operate on two different planes...one has nothing to do with logic, only emotion...

Maybe spring actually will come. Maybe emotion will have it's way. Maybe with time, someone will dare and care.

Hope "springs" eternal.

the plot thickens....

We had our jstreet merchants meeting this morning and guess who having invited herself, never bothered to show...the ANA prez, (mz I'm gonna be voodoo-d )Cindy Schulte...
By not showing she increased the suspicions of all of the merchants and now it has worked to pull the more apathetic ones securely into the larger group.

Letter to ANA left on desk stating that we expect to be put on planning board and given current info...cc to Ostrow, CPED, Ryback, Hillcrest development and the City Council...if no info is forthcoming it will be the press at everyturn and the neighborhood. Legally, it has to be an open process and they have locked it down to the public, Shame on you.

the detective work has begun..public records, public info requests... purchase agreements.

I guess a good fight for the businesses I love as welll as the one I have poured my heart into is good and necessary...
It's also a distraction from loneliness and spring fever, if ya know what I mean...

I know I trust my customers to stand up for me. I also trust my lawyer, when he says they cannot pull emminent domain on the lot. What the developers can do tho, is to buy out all of the landlords that our businesses are housed in. No controll over that.

I choose to believe that we will be okay...and that we are smaart enough to predict the bad behaviors and counter them before it is too late.

Fuck y'all for your underhanded shit, Cindy and Hillcrest..and Paul Ostrow, if you are part of this, you will not be re-elected, I promise .

Politics, neighborhood, the little guy

The biggest political fight of my business life begins today. This all depends on what the hillcrest developers are planning for the 28th-29th and Johnson...as of yet, they have shared no plans, answered no questions and have locked out the Jstreet Merchants.

This morning we ass the association deliver a letter to the ANA and the developers telling thm that they must seat at least two of us merchants on the planning taskforce. If they refuse, all hell is gonna break out. Great time to be the new president of the merchants...

What the hell, need to fight and I will, for all of us. Hope the rest of the merchants are ready.
Have already talked to lawyer buddies. Next step will be to call in the neighborhood loyalists...petitions, going to the press...to city hall...

misadventure? no just one hell of a battle...wish us luck and good lawyering.

Gettin my voodoo doll ready Cindy....ouch to you

Cougarishness

Saturday night at the Triple Rock and the Nomad, before my daughter's show, she was busy trying to recruit singles guys for the Small Business bridge impact zone fundraiser...lots of sweet, young men volunteered to be auctioned off for a good cause...but, oddly each of them said the same thing, "what if no one wants to buy me?" (that's the subject for my next blog)

My daughter, who'd had a few coctails laughed, pointed to me and said," oh my mom will bid on you...she's gonna be a fuckin cougar, GRRRRRROWLLL" ....completed with clawing swoosh thru the air...

The boys smiled, said, "cool, will she buy the both of us...can't wait to go out, the two of us in public with that cougar.Sweet!"

I smacked her on the back of the head and laughed....then later, while she was sining I thought, well, maybe it's not so crazy after all. But, I'll pick my cougar cubs all by myself, Jess. Thank you very much!

A toast to cougars with values...
Slante

politics, paint and purpose

I know, I love, LOVE alliteration...get over it it's one of my quirks.

Tonight I went to the ANA public meeting, my first as president of our business assoc. and was awed by the level of deceit and behind closed doors political maneuvering that has been going on under Cindy"the new world order" Schulte...what she doesn't know tho is that I am the master of undoing bullshit politically...it was my forte in myb past county-wide political life...here's my counter...fuck with my neighborhood and you fuck with me, which I don't take gently...I'll study your game, I'll find your weak spot and i will kick your dirty tricks playing asses...not just me, but my customers, my fellow business owners and college friend lawyers...so, the challenge has been seen and the strategies to counter have already begun.

Left the meeting and immediately met with other merchants to begin the counter-attack plans. Do not underestimate a tough broad, especially one who has survived tidal-waves of shit and lies. Wrong estimation of me and the rest of the busness owners.

Took me years to stand up for me, now it's second nature. Add the attack on my and my friends business livelihood and you have really given me reason to go to war. Like Mike Ditka, I do NOT take prisoners. So, ms right wing racist, control freak schulte, prepare for a salvo you never planned on.

I will not go away. I will not let you bring in chain stores and dirty dealers. I will paint my shop. I will beautify, I will re-tool, In will go for grant$'s to help all of us and you dear can go to hell.

Come on Obama Jay...we'll start with beautiful color, add some new furniture, retain the sense of humor that has driven the business since day one, overtly add some sassy political machinations and in the end, the little guys will hold their own.

We will not only hold our own, we will win in the end. Like the country, we are tired of dirty politics and have had enough.

This time, we will not fall for the pat lines, the bullshit scenarios. We are on to you. We are willing to fight to the end.
We will win.

En guarde, bastards

paint=beauty=fun=gratitude

I know this blog is titles the misadventures of mary cassidy, and trust me I've had plenty and know there will be plenty more.

But, last night I had a yes-adventure, something as simple as planning to re-do the shop with delish color, looking at beauty and realizing how color can show you a great deal about someone. I drank too much on an empty stomach, talked too much, (but I guess that is me when i'm sorta nervous and i AM working on that).
It was just nice to sit in a colorful kitchen with someone you know is nice, who had the funniest knife block I've ever seen and to laugh, to plan for the future and to think that sometimes the universe puts a gift of a person in my life. Not only can he paint and wants to help, he's, smart, political,funny and to top it off, fucking nice too!

It was a good evening, at least for me. I hope I didn't scare him with my big mouth and tipsy demeanor...Jeezuz. I apparently need to practice my drinkin skilz a bit more. So, Jay, I just need to say thanks for being there, for getting elements of me and for hopefully a great friendship into the future. A toast to color, new beginnings and to the Galaxy coming out of the garage. I'm hopin for a ride with the top down...sweet ride.

Sex toys, wine and giggles

My god, it's been years since I've been to a "romance party." Toys, lubricants, whips and bondage items all over every open surface in the room. Ladies drinking screaming orgasms, good red wine and vodka martini's; disinhibited by the booze and the company, passing dildoes, licking edible lubricants off our arms...talking about everything from jobs to kids to politics to breast -feeding, cramps and about being "too tired but maybe this will help"

After, Nicole and I went to Grumpys and she read the toy catalogue descriptions to Old Frank the bartender, who ran, as only big old Frank can, (more like a turtle crawl) to the other end of the bar and we laughed and laughed. Eventually, he worked his way back to us. "Do they have crotchless panties in there?" he asked. So we flipped to the naughty lingerie section to see and darn they didn't but he liked the nurse's outfit.

Geez life is funny and silly and it was great to spend an evening with women who weren't catholic about their sensuality. HoooRahhh.

Mary did some shopping. Hehehehehe.

Too long

Listening to Yael Naim"s .Too Long...perfect song for me. I HAVE been wainting FAR TOO long , painting my room with gold...it made me suck in air and think, I have been waiting, frozen in myb home and self, far too long...I DO know who I am now...a complicated, smart, silly, naughty, altruistic, intense funny woman who finally sees that it's time to live, time to reach out and find my physical self SOON.

I have been dormant for far too long. I will not sleep with the young punks who just want a cougar fuck...screw that. I will find a soul mate. Young or old. A soul mate... I will find a sensual, caring partner who is not afraid of the tough broad me...one who wants to dare, to explore and bite life, who sees me as genius and kind, someone to touch, to lie next to and wake up happy with, someone who wants to learn from my old soul along with me and who will love my intellect and spirit. No more sitting and waiting for god knows what...Don't know how I will finnd this but goddamn I will. Promise to myself!

It no longer seems foolish to see myself as sensual. I am. It no longer seems foolish to reach out to a man who will find me interesting and alive. Told by many that my eyes hold stories that are worth sharing. Haven't done that yet but, Frickin Okay world, I'm going to. Here's a toast to the men who will dare to see me for what I am worth. And most of all, tell me so... I am ready.

Slante