Stuart Smalley & Me

Let's hear it for self help!

This little piece of inspiration came to me from Madame M.. It is the "all me way to spend the day" meme. Ten things I love about myself. It's hard to embrace this one. The forbidden territory of tooting one's own horn is the order. Alrighty.

1. I love that I can make milk. And babies.

2. I love that my expressions are so telling I can't lie, be convincingly polite to irritating people, or be in love without my real thoughts being obvious. No poker for me! I have no idea how I pull off the whole Santa & Easter Bunny thing. I guess it's an easy crowd.

3. I love my little feet. I can just try on the display shoe, it'll probably fit. It's a real time saver.

4. I love that I can say no, and mean it, and still sleep well. In fact, I'm learning to really enjoy it. I have learned to say no with a certain amount of glee. I don't even give reasons anymore. Just "no". Ahhh. Try it. Glee.

5. I love that I have writing. I've been journaling since I was eight.

6. I love the joy of being happy to believe in God, even if it's not always easy or even rational to do so. I don't need everything to be rationally justifiable or analysed. T is reading Hitchens, and we know he's compelling. See me doing the "W" with my hands?

7. I'll admit it has been fun having really red hair. There's an occasional grey now. I am in denial. And I'm fine with that.

8. I love that we have dinner together as a family. With candles. And music. The candles really make it magical family time. It's a real sweetness.

9. I love that I'm calm and efficient in an emergency, and for minor things I can just take them in stride. Unless I can't find my pen/book/comb/phone. Then I flip all the way out. I think this is healthy.

10. Flexibility. Early ballet training has made me quite the yogini.

I feel like I should say some self-deprecating things now. Like it's not okay to just leave it positive. Aaahhh, social anxiety. Writhe, writhe.

The best thing I can do is pass it on. Okay, brace yourselves: Carter-Ann at Baby Gravy Train, Activist Mommy, Veronica of Toddled Dredge fame, and tz at Zimmerhouse.

Speaking of Activist Mommy, she's given me the Eight Things meme. I had it as Pieces of Eight, but it's back in a new form, so here goes. In brief.

1. First member of my family to be raised north of the Mason Dixon line in hundreds of years. A Yankee sympathizer! Lawd.

2. Vegan Macrobiotic for five of the nine years I was vegetarian. Eventually I got hungry and ate a huge hot pastrami sandwich from Katz's on Orchard Street. It did not make me sick. It was awesome.

3. Learned to garden in a 5x7 plot at the Clinton Community Garden in Hell's Kitchen.

4. Birthed two of my three at home, right next to Times Square.

5. The third was a water birth at home in Naples. The water was good.

6. K was two when we got married. She nursed mid-ceremony. We had readings I had picked from the Mahbharata (when the Pandavas brought home Draupadi), Marx (on the property aspect of marriage), Joseph Campbell (from Hero), Khalil Gibran (the columns), among others, and our fabulous drag queen neighbor did a show in Spanish (W, you're a star! We love you!). A jazz violinist friend played music at the reception picnic in Central Park (we still think about it, Jim. It was a lovely time. I'm glad you called when you did!). Our psychic homeopath friend couldn't find us. Evidently she's not that kind of psychic.

7. I do all of this living with no caffeine. Allergic.

8. I don't sleep enough. But you knew that.

I have to end with the "tag me at your own risk" caveat. I haven't said it yet, mostly because, like borage oil, I think memes are good for me but I can feel a little glee coming on...

UPDATE: And Dylan. Totally.