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description= Stuff I think about...plus a couple of hopes and dreams, and maybe a fear or two thrown in the mix...;
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hat we were beth loved it too and our bond was strengthened by our mutual obsession with this movie seeing it once was not enough i had to live it i got the record and listened to it all the time when the follow up record more dirty dancing came out i got that too i saw the movie over and over again with beth my parents and anyone who would go with me and rented it multiple times when it came out on video in between classes beth and i would practice our dirty dancing moves with invisible partners around the middle school hallways occasionally enlisting beams as stand ins for patrick swayze there was a dirty dancing concert tour at radio city music hall featuring eric carmen and the back up dancers but sadly no patrick and beth and i went with our mothers having dinner before the show at hard rock cafe and each buying a dirty dancing t shirt afterwards dirty dancing filled with music and passion offered the promise of sex electrifying to the mind and body of a 12 year old girl in seventh grade i d gone to spin the bottle parties in jack howe s basement but i hadn t yet french kissed a boy or gotten to second base like some of the other girls in my class but dirty dancing brought the hope of more further down the base line of someday having sex with or making love to a muscular shirtless dancing patrick swayze lookalike as cry to me played in the background that at 12 years old was my dream anyway it might not come as a surprise that at 36 as of yet that has never ever happened as electrifying as that first sex scene between johnny and baby was it was also mortifying one of the many times i went to see the movie was with my dad and i wanted to die during that part it was like watching tv with your dad when a tampon commercial came on mort i fy ing that year i was planning my bat mitzvah and it was a no brainer what my theme would be but some might not think that dirty dancing was an appropriate theme for a religious rite of passage for a 13 year old so it was my secret theme my official theme was 5 6 7 8 dance but i another curly haired jewish girl named jennifer knew the truth my real theme showed up in the photo on my sign in board in which i was smiling at the camera wearing my t shirt from the dirty dancing concert tour with jennifer grey and patrick swayze on it in the same pose as they re in in the photo above except with more clothing on it showed up when i ve had the time of my life played at my party and beth and i jumped up and down with excitement and like all good theme songs returned during the closing slow motion montage in my bat mitzvah video then as often happens in middle school my bff became my arch nemesis jealousy and resentment drove a wedge between me and beth as we moved on to other friends but we d always have dirty dancing in 2007 as soon as i heard that dirty dancing was going to be in movie theaters for its 20th anniversary i emailed beth whom i hadn t been in touch with since high school to ask if she wanted to see it together she wrote back right away saying yes and that she d been planning on getting in touch with me to ask if i wanted to see it the night of the movie i arrived at the theater early to get good seats and i scored two towards the middle a group of girls arrived before beth did and asked me if i could move so they could all sit together pointing to an empty seat in the corner nobody puts me in a corner i thought holding my ground and refusing to move the girls talked shit about me through the whole movie adding to the feeling that i was back in seventh grade again afterwards beth and i caught up over drinks you look great she said you haven t changed at all i was wearing a jeans jacket so that helped my transcendence of time but still i felt like our 20 year feud was finally over our wounds and resentments healed united as we were in our love for dirty dancing five years later 25 years after i first saw that breathtaking full page ad in the paper dirty dancing still has the power to create magical moments watching it still fills me with hope possibility that pure joy that is natural at 12 and harder to come by at 36 and the feeling that as long as baby and johnny are still dancing somewhere all is ok in the world names have been changed tags brooklyn dirty dancing mccarren park middle school nostalgia outdoor movies comments 1 comment categories 5 6 7 8 dance pop culture my essay on the huffington post 28 jun i have an essay on the huffpost women section of the huffington post why i had an affair with a married man tags the huffington post comments 2 comments categories articles writing just write the next thing 24 jun a few weeks ago i wrote a blog post about how i stepped on a rat and then met my favorite singer maxwell i loved this post and not just because i love maxwell i loved everything about it it was an unbelievable miraculous story i wrote it well the twists the turns the dramatic arc the culmination in a life lesson i felt like it was possibly the best thing i ever wrote or would ever write again i wanted to relish it and bask in it and savor it what i did not want to do was write the next post i always want to go out on a good note quit while i m ahead like being the one to get off the phone first when i m talking to a guy i have a crush on right after i ve said something charming and adorable and funny and before i turn tired and boring and run out of things to say i wanted to freeze my writing with my maxwell and the rat post hold onto it so everyone would think that everything i write is always that perfectly crafted the thing to do in this situation is to just sit down and write that next thing get over the hump break through the resistance so i sat down and wrote about going to a vision board party i liked this post it was honest open there were some funny parts and a pretty kickass playlist it wasn t the most amazing thing i ve ever written would ever write there were lots of reasons to scrap it there always are and they all seemed valid they always do like posting my vision board felt like taking a picture of my journal entries and publishing it like nothing spectacular or miraculous happened adam levine didn t show up at the party and make out with me or anything but it was a solid post and the most important thing was to get it down disregard the reasons to hold off and wait for some elusive bigger better idea just write the next thing and then keep writing the longer i go without writing especially after writing a piece i ve fallen madly in love with the harder it gets to write that next thing the more of a big deal it becomes the more i need to have some fabulous idea or riveting story or life changing lesson the more i get bogged down and stuck rejecting every possible topic that is anything less than off the charts incredible the more i don t write for writing to not become a big deal looming dauntingly in front of me it has to be a regular part of my life something i am consistently doing even on those days when i m not sure what i m going to say and in those moments when i question if i have anything to say writing my next story or post or kernel of an idea i write my way through resistance through good enough writing and i write my way back to writing that makes my pulse race lights me up gives me chills to the best thing i ve ever written or will ever write i fall madly in love again and then i keep writing some more tags creativity overcoming obstacles resistance writing life comments leave a comment categories inspiration writing my vision board sans perfectionism and plus playlist 12 jun this weekend that fateful day finally arrived my return to self help in the form of my friend s vision board party that i excitedly yet with some trepidation rsvp ed yes to would i be triumphant happily reunited with collaging as if we d spent no time apart and the past seven years since my last vision board were just an insignificant blip i had my doubts as the day approached collaging anxiety crept in plus i had volunteered to make the party playlist and was starting to feel the burden of responsibility i felt like i had to prep go shopping for an array of magazines that represented all the areas i wanted to cover on my vision board swing by a few home furnishings stores to pick up catalogs buy art supplies decide on a vision board base should i put everything together on one huge piece of poster board or break up my collages by category on scrapbook pages with labels then i d have to print out category labels and i couldn t just bring labels for myself i d need to bring extras for the rest of the guests i d started a file folder a while ago of images i liked and wanted to use in a future vision board but i couldn t find the file anywhere and felt like i d lost part of my vision a few days before the party i made the mistake of looking at the last vision board i made seven years ago pre self help detox and it was a ma zing categorized scrapbook pages labeled a sheer thing of artistic beauty i couldn t believe i had created it there was no way i could live up to my collaging past and then there was the playlist all the new songs i wanted to buy on itunes and how to organize them for optimum flow what happened was this my perfectionism was taking over turning a fun afternoon with friends glitter and glue sticks into an oppressive list of tasks and to dos so i decided to scrap everything all the planning and preparation it wasn t even my party and just do the absolute minimum as if i was cramming for a final i quickly made the playlist at 11pm the night before with nary a newly purchased song or a second thought the order i wanted the music to be uplifting so i just did one round of edits where i stripped out all the codependent love songs about needing someone else to be able to live or breathe an hour before the party i picked up three magazines a yoga one a home one and a vacation one and found the ideal compromise of half sheets of poster board at an art supply store i let go of trying to locate my image file and embraced the idea of creating my vision afresh in the moment pounding an iced coffee for sustenance i was ready to collage imperfectly dammit at the party my friend read a few vision boarding suggestions before we got started like keeping some white space in your collage to leave room for other things to come in and so it doesn t look chaotic and clutterred flipping through magazines i still doubted my artistic abilities but reminded myself that this didn t have to be the end all be all vision board just one attempt i was a little behind only on phase 2 deciding which images to use when everyone else was on phase 3 gluing but somehow mine came together quickly in the end while i d thought my vision board would be significantly career focused and had even brought cut outs of the new york times best seller list and logos for places i wanted to write or teach i tucked them underneath my poster board before i started and none of them made it on mostly my vision board wound up being about joy relaxation playfulness fun and a balanced life and by the way i love it i d be remiss if i didn t say that my playlist was a huge hit someone even said i should make playlists professionally if that s even a thing other than like dj and someone else asked me if i d publish the playlist which was the inspiration for this blog post having recently met maxwell it s a little maxwell intensive but as i told my friend who was hosting the party it was a major accomplishment that my playlist wasn t just maxwell cds so here it is codependent love song free and guaranteed to uplift vision board party playlist 1 imagine me kirk franklin 2 ascension don t ever wonder maxwell 3 superwoman alicia keys 4 beautiful christina aguilera 5 brand new day joshua radin 6 declaration this is it kirk franklin 7 a star is born jay z feat j cole 8 closer goapele 9 best of my love the emotions 10 seasons of love original broadway cast rent 11 just fine mary j blige 12 f ckin perfect vicci martinez and niki dawson on the voice 13 party beyoncé feat andré 3000 14 over the rainbow glee cast version 15 pretty wings maxwell 16 my love the dream mariah carey 17 september kirk franklin 18 ganapati girish 19 guru brahma jai uttal the pagan love orchestra 20 people everyday arrested development 21 lovely day bill withers 22 lifetime maxwell what songs would be on your vision board party playlist tags collaging playlists self help vision boards comments 6 comments categories inspiration music shining brightly how something really bad can turn into something really good oh and holy shit i met maxwell 9 jun maxwell in an ad for the gap last week i was racing across the street in flip flops when before i could stop it my left foot landed on a pulverized rat this was upsetting standing on the curb taking deep breaths i decided to turn around and take a second look maybe just maybe it wasn t as bad as i thought it was closer inspection revealed that i did indeed just step in rat guts with nothing more than a thin flip flopped sole between me and them trying to stifle my gag reflex i peered down at what had once been a rat but was now just a flattened layer of mush pressed into the concrete a tail and one foot the only discernible features that remained walking away i tried to convince myself that this was not a big deal maybe i d actually only grazed a sliver of the rat or missed it entirely a few blocks later i gathered the courage to look at the bottom of my shoe there was black gunk on the upper left corner and some reaching up along the left side of my shoe centimeters from my bare pinky toe not a big deal not a big deal i thought as i practiced lamaze breathing but i knew that there was no amount of scrubbing and disinfecting i could do that would make me feel ok about stepping foot back into my apartment in these shoes however microscopic i would never step soundly again knowing there could be rat entrails on my floor i looked down at my flip flops i loved these flip flops i d gotten them at the gap last summer so they probably didn t carry them anymore they were super comfortable and the perfect neutral shade to go with everything and i was super broke and not excited about shelling out money for any unanticipated expenses but the ratty flip flops had to go on my way to meet a friend for coffee i thought about cancelling and immediately heading to the gap for my replacement but he was going through a hard time and needed my help so i felt like i had to show up i spent an hour with my friend silently praying that i wasn t at that very moment contracting the bubonic plague i d planned to go to an event afterwards but there was no way i could sit through even another five minutes with this rat on my foot so i changed my plan and walked in the opposite direction towards the closest gap why does this shit always happen to me i thought who the fuck ever steps in a smooshed rat it wasn t enough to fee...
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