Karma

20 Ways to Get Good Karma
By The Dalai Lama

Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama


Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
Follow the three R’s:
- Respect for self,
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions.
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
Spend some time alone every day.
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
Be gentle with the earth.
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

The Ride Home

When I was about 15, I used to sneak out of the house on a regular basis on weekends and go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. After the movie was over, we would all go to Denny's or some late night party at someone's house but usually it was Denny's. I could walk to the movie theater from my house but I always needed a ride to go to Denny's.
I had lots of friends and we all kind of knew each other and generally, someone would drive me home. Most of the time, this guy we called Moog would give me a ride home. He was cranky about it and acted like it was this huge imposition but he always did it. Still, he kind of made me feel bad about it (later I realized that was all bullshit and he didn't mind at all but at the time I was pretty super sensitive to everything). One of the guys who hung out on occasion, his name was Paul, he used to give me a ride home sometimes. I think he was in his late teens or early 20's, definitely out on his own.
The first time he drove me home, we got in front of my house and made out for about a half hour. I wasn't really into him, I mean, I didn't go home and think about him and I didn't really like him that much. It was just, okay, I made out with this guy. The next time he drove me home, I made out with him again and it went a little further. I remember knowing absolutely that I was not going to have sex with this guy, that I wasn't going to ever let it get any further than kissing and a little touchy feely groping over the clothes.
I'm not even sure how I knew those were the parameters but I was pretty clear on it. I don't know what he thought. I never asked him. He never asked me out, he never asked for my phone number, he never made any attempt to see me outside of the occasional ride home. We never even talked that much when I was at the theater, at Denny's or in the car. I can't recall a single meaningful conversation I ever had with him.
Things I remember about him. I remember his leather jacket. I remember that he was not that great a kisser and I had very little chemistry with him. I was single and I liked being liked but I was just not that into him.
The third time he drove me home, I told him I had a sore throat and I would see him later. He was pissed off. I could see it. He made me feel super uncomfortable that night. He didn't exactly say it but you could see he was exasperated with me. Mind you, he wasn't super pushy and he let me push him away when I had enough, but you could tell he thought it was going to progress.
I avoided him for a while, he didn't always show up every weekend but the next time I looked around and saw my options for a ride home were none but him, so I reluctantly asked him.
Part of this stupidity was always that I never pre-arranged. I would go places assuming it would work out for me. I had such confidence. I would drive with someone to Denny's and never bother with the ride home. I just assumed someone would pick me up and drive me home. There were always people there I just figured would take care of me. How funny that I was never really stranded, just left with lousy options sometimes.
I must have been the height of foolish optimism that it would always work out for me. But then, I was never afraid to hitchhike or walk, or wait around for the bus. Even at 15, I was incredibly self reliant and incredibly ill prepared, always knowing I would figure it out when I had to do so.
At my age now, I cannot imagine that I was so foolish and arrogant to be so ill prepared. And yet, even at this time, I can't help but admire the kid who was so fearless and open to the option of life unfolding before her. I would never allow my kid the same foolish luxury but I see the same spirit of adventure in all my daughters.
My mother once told me the story of how she went out to Coney Island with a date and gambled her money away and then her date went bad and he ditched her. She had to pick up empty bottles and return them for deposit to get the money for the subway home. She swore at that time she would never gamble again. But I hear in that story how resourceful she was in getting out of a tough situation by thinking on her feet. My mother is hard on herself for her foolishness and I applaud her wits.
I'm lucky to carry that with me.
But that night, I had to ask Paul for a ride home so I sucked it up and did it. He smiled about it when I asked and readily agreed. The whole way there, I was thinking of my excuse to make a quick exit. I had decided I didn't like him much at all, not even as a friend and I wasn't going to make out with him and I wasn't going to continue with the charade of leading him on with my behavior.
So, I steeled myself with a lie to save his feelings that would let him know where I stood.
It was completely lame.
"Listen," I said as he pulled up in front of my house."I'm just getting over being sick. I had strep and I don't want you to catch it. So, I'm just going to go."
He looked at me. "I'll risk it," he said.
"I don't think you should. I'm just going to go."
There ensued a minor argument and a pissy little attitude about why I shouldn't go. But I wasn't budging. I did not have to make out with this guy for a ride home.
He finally looks at me and says (I will never forget this) "I'm not going to be willing to give you a ride home any more if you're not going to do anything in return. I just won't be able to do that."
I was livid. Did he actually fucking say that? Really? Out LOUD?
I looked right at him and said "Well, I will keep that in mind. And I won't ever be asking you for a ride home again."
What an entitled piece of shit.
I don't think I ever spoke to him again and I know I never asked him for a ride home again. I'm really proud of myself for telling him to fuck off. For having enough sense of my own worth to know that was wrong. For being angry.
Still, I realize that my daughters are going to be subjected to this. I realize that girls everywhere are told this is the price for a ride home. Guess what girls, you still don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Tell him you don't owe him anything. Had he been paying attention, he would have known I gave him the pleasure of my company for free and he should have valued that.
I think the worst part of this is that young girls are continually subjected to this. Like they owe someone for dinner, for a ride, for a favor. And there will be girls who will feel obligated to 'pay up'.
I cannot imagine anyone doing that to a grown woman. I have given a ride home to many a person. It's an act of generosity. I've never hesitated if I can do so. This really is something perpetrated on females, mostly teens, mostly the young and vulnerable ones. Because they don't know the rules and it's easy to think that maybe you did something to lead him on- and even in a moment of teenage exploration where I thought I might like him but decided I didn't- that I might have been obligated somehow to do something I didn't want to.
I was thinking about it and grieving a little for all the girls that were coerced, that did the thing.
This guy did not seem to care if I was willing in this action. He was fine with guilty, obligated, coerced sex. He didn't care if I didn't want to, he really thought I owed him.
It's easy to feel bad. I let anger be my guide that day. It came when I needed it the most.

Laundry

I used to work at this hotel in Maryland Heights. We had these railroad workers who came in every day, they were hotel regulars, the company sent them and they were always in and out on their routes.
This one who came in all the time had a crush on me, and used to flirt with me at the front desk all the time.
One day he saw my engagement ring and he said "I'm going to steal you away from your fiance." I said "Oh yeah? How are you going to do that?"
He said "Well, I don't want to brag but I am really good in bed."
I said "That's all well and good, but do you do laundry?"
He said "What? Laundry? Are you kidding me? No way."
I said "Oh, that's too bad. I guess the deal is off, then."
He said "What? Why? I told you I'm great in bed!"
I said "Yeah, guys that are great in bed are a dime a dozen. I can find those anywhere, heck, I can train a man to be good in bed. But guys who do laundry are the keepers."
Oh the look on his face. But I speak the truth, do I not, ladies?

Not so Stupid Girls

Remember when you were a little kid and you used to mindlessly sing lyrics to catchy songs without really thinking about what they meant? Then, when you were a teen, you started thinking about lyrics in this heavy, meaningful way and the music of your generation became really important and you discovered things like it was the first time this music had ever been heard-
Right-
I think most of us go through that.
The other day I heard my five year old crooning about Jesus being crucified, crucified and I was thinking- she has no idea what she's saying, but someone thought it was appropriate to teach my five year old this song- what the fuck! What happened to lighter fare like 'Jesus loves me, this I know, cause the Bible tells me so...' no, they taught her full on horrifying stuff, really. I was ready for the next verse to be "then he hung there bleeding, bleeding, while the flies buzzed around his thorny head!"
I remember singing "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care..." and "I'm a yankee doodle dandy..." what the heck was that?
I think even more insidious that that is what is seeping into our teen culture now. I turned up the music to Billy Joel's My Life "I don't care what you say any more, this is MY life, go ahead with your own life, leave me alone." The perfect teen anthem if ever there was one, and a song I carry around in my pocket when I can't please everyone. But overall, a song I can still get behind. Self reliance- resistance to peer pressure- the message there? "They will tell you : you can't sleep alone in a strange place, then they'll tell you : you can't sleep with somebody else- ah but sooner or later you sleep in your own space, either way, it's okay, you wake up with yourself."
The other day I was listening to the radio and Bruno Mars song Just the way you are (don't get me started with how Billy had a far superior song of the same name) and I was thinking to myself- teen girls love this song but it is begging them to be even more insecure and needy than they already are.
HE has to tell her she's beautiful and amazing. She can't see it herself. She hates her laugh- she always asks if she looks okay.
This song, it's catchy, Bruno has a lovely, melodic voice, but look at what this song is saying to girls? We need guys to tell us we look okay- she's more attractive when she hates her laugh. This is the kind of thing that Pink was railing against in her music, the dumbing down of girls.
Stupid girls are everywhere and we are supposed to admire them. Cause they're pretty? Pretty girls get a pass when they don't get it exactly right. Today I watched a video of all the Miss America contestants answer the question "Should evolution be taught in schools?"
I was BEGGING for one of them to give an intelligent answer. Surely they couldn't all be that stupid. Most of them said "Sure, but we should present both sides." Both sides of WHAT, ladies?
Lots of them said kids should have it presented to them so they got to make up their own minds later...
It is mind boggling. Evolution is really more than just a theory, beauty queens. Are they really walking that line? The I'm a Christian, vote for me, I have decided that I believe the Bible when it said the world is flat...and I support Galileo being jailed for heresy when he insisted on that scientific fact. I mean it was just a theory of his, so it's obvious that if it goes against the Bible, it has to be a lie! Everything in the Bible is true and we must abide by it. Throw out your cotton/poly blends, they are of the devil. It's great that these women are competing for COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS because they definitely need an education.
Why is it that once again, being an intelligent woman is terrible? I mean, lots of people spent a lot of time making sure these fifty women were ignorant and then they raised them up on a platform of beauty and someone had to tell them they were pretty! They couldn't look in the mirror and tell that themselves? We need a contest to decide who is the prettiest? God forbid they be smart, you know, no one likes a girl who is vain and intelligent.
The other day a woman called me conceited and self impressed because I listed languages I studied and speak- one of them happened to be Latin. Hey, she asked if I knew who Cicero was- I replied, of course, I studied Latin for years, though he wrote a great deal in Greek...
I am pretty sure I'm not ugly enough to know that. Because if I was, that would have been okay.
And newsflash, ladies, you can be a Christian and believe in scientific things like evolution- cause if you believe in the magical man in the sky, he could easily have made the animals evolve, he's GOD, he can do anything including evolution.
My daughters are all very pretty girls. But I didn't raise any of them to be shy about being intelligent. Anyone who doesn't appreciate how sharp they are is in trouble. I love my brain, I think it is the sexiest thing about me, and always was. A long time friend of mine stopped being friend with me, reportedly because I thought I was smarter than she was.
First of all, I wouldn't have been friends with her if I thought she was an idiot but this is a result of me not HIDING my intelligence from her. I'm not sure when the brain got SO threatening. I know it scares a lot of guys. Cause you might figure out their game? Cause girls are not supposed to be smarter than boys? Cause it somehow goes against nature? It would have been quite difficult for me to date someone who was smarter than I was. I gave that up a long time ago, it was never a pursuit I was interested in. Sure, I wanted to be with an intelligent guy but compatibility is about so much more than that!
It would be really difficult for someone to compete with my background, if this were about competing, which it isn't. People find out I was raised by two PhD's and they have been known to be threatened. I went to some great schools and some terrible schools and I learned a lot from all of them. Ever read a terrible book? It taught me what not to write. Life is not a competition. In fact, I never desired a PhD for myself. I knew all along, no matter what higher degree I pursued, it would never be about the letters, but what I learned. The education itself is the value. The deep and critical thinking is the gift. And that can be attained as easily through life as through college, but you have to be paying attention.
I had that all along, and what I truly valued was the ability to do it. Somewhere along the line, no one taught these girls that basic ability. To value what they have, to use their innate ability to think critically and deeply. So, please, give us catchy tunes that tell us something that makes us think. Give us deep and meaningful lyrics that speak to our souls. Stop picking apart and valuing our worst insecurities and putting them to catchy music to complete the dumbing down of this generation of women. I'm not falling for it and neither are my daughters.

Phase Three on the diet

So, we have finally entered the least restrictive phase of the diet. Phase three. We have added back things like wheat bread and small amounts of mayonnaise. Phase two sucked for me pretty badly. I'm sad to report I only lost two pounds on phase two but I have lost two more in phase three so that brings my total weight loss at this time to twelve pounds.
My husband has done much better. He has lost an astonishing 22 pounds in forty days. He has cheated less and been very active. I'm pretty jealous. But I have to keep in mind that I haven't gained anything back at all. My weight loss has slowed but I have not gone the other direction. After this phase is over we go back to phase one and begin over again since neither one of us has met our goal loss at the moment.
I'm really proud of John, you can really see his progress. He looks great. For Father's day, Marissa got him a t-shirt and I said "He has lost so much weight that he can wear a large and he doesn't need an extra large." and indeed, when he tried it on today, it was true.
It's funny because both of us feel like we are eating too much now. We got accustomed to the restrictive nature of the diet and used to not eating certain things and now having a piece of wheat bread for breakfast feels so wrong! I'm actually looking forward to going back to phase one. It was the worst restrictions but I had lots of energy. I haven't begun to give up this battle yet. I'm going to meet my goal and I'm going to do it in a healthy way. I like this diet so much better than Slim fast or being miserable eating "diet food" this is real food, delicious food, healthy food. Those meal bars suck.
I think this diet is easy to follow and good for you. I've enjoyed many of the recipes and all of the progress we have made. So, even though things have slowed down for me, I have not lost hope.
This week I am determined to add more exercise in and rev up so me more.

I effing hate father's day

I don't remember ever loving my father. They told me I used to love him when I was a little baby, but I don't remember ever having positive emotions about him. I remember hating him, wishing he would go away, wishing he were gone. I fucking hate Father's Day. I fucking hate Father's day because I have a father who did whatever he could to crush my self esteem and punish me for things I didn't do and brutalize me for the things I did do. I didn't believe any kind word he ever said to me. He has never seen fit to apologize to me about one single beating, about any time he bashed my head into the wall, about any of the times he threw me down the stairs, pulled my hair, slapped my face, shook me repeatedly, bruised my body, blackened my skin with his anger and hatred and misery.
He used to take us down to Baskin Robbins when I was little. It was walking distance from our house. One time, when I was about five, I let him get far ahead of me and I crushed his head between my fingers. When he would go on business trips, I prayed he would just not come home.
I can't help but wonder these things. If he hadn't been there, would I have this much fight in me? Because he was not going to defeat me. He could beat me black and blue, he was never, ever allowed to own me, to have my spirit, to defeat my goodness and to take away my light.
I just wanted him away from me.
The only way I can deal with him for any length of time is to be away from him most of the time.
I will never love him, I have come to terms with that a long time ago. It is not necessary to love your father in order live a happy and healthy life and be spiritually healthy. I did however realize I was a walking wounded girl, so I did seek therapy. I went to see several therapists to work through this issues. In the first session, I would say "I hate my father."
The therapist would say some platitude like "No, you don't. You have abandonment issues. You'll see that you love him, really."
I walked out the door. Choosing a therapist is a very serious commitment, I tried on a few to see who I liked. I thought I would need a woman. I was wrong. I chose a man.
When a therapist finally said "That's okay. At least you're honest. Do you want to love him?"
"No. I want to get over what he did to me and choose better men in my life."
And that is what we did.
My therapist said "If you met him on the street, would you be expected to like him? Would you think less of yourself if you didn't? Sometimes we don't like our parents, and the pressure to love someone who you just don't is a source of guilt we just don't need."
I have given up the dream that the past can be any different than it is. And I don't like my father. I can see that he is an intelligent man, I can agree with him on many issues, political and social and I can see that other people love him. I can see that he has great good in him. He has done great good in this world, and in an odd way, I am proud of that. I am proud of his accomplishments and his drive, ambition and good work ethic. But he gave all the good away at his job and brought none of it home to me. I can even be proud of his accomplishments and happy for him when good things happen to him. But I just don't love him. I can muster some feelings, but they will never be love. Most of the time, these days, because I don't live with him, I can downgrade it from hate to apathy. But he is not the only reason I hate father's day.
I fucking hate father's day because my first three kids got even worse dads than I had. I was not done punishing myself with men, apparently. But I refused to let my kids grow up with that cruelty. I left when my mother would not. I hate father's day because it makes me sad that Cory, Cassie and Derek didn't get the father they deserved, that father's day is an empty ache for them- a place that was never filled, and that it's mostly my fault.
They did, eventually, get the world's most amazing stepfather.
I'm jealous of Marissa and Isabella sometimes. Their father is amazing, and exceptional. Loving and accessible. I keep my hatred of father's day locked down deep so they can enjoy it, because there is more goodness and kindness in that man that I could ever express in words. I force myself to go shopping with them every year to pick out something wonderful for the best dad in the world- but somewhere in me my heart breaks again and again. It breaks for the little girl that never bought a father's day gift for someone she loved. I have never and will never get a father's day card or gift for my own dad. There were a few men, my best friend's father, in particular, who had a lot of patience and love for me when I was a kid- who told me when I was out of line in a way that let me know I had disappointed him and when I felt the shame of that- he knew that was enough. And I used to feel very safe in his house.
I don't know if I will ever get over my hatred of this day, my hatred of the event. I choke it all back but I hate every last bit of it. I'm happy for all of you that had wonderful dads. I really am. The world needs more of them.
About five years ago, I came home one day and saw Marissa and her dad in the dining room. When I went to see what they were doing, my heart just swelled. He was making paper dolls with her. They were drawing them, cutting them out and coloring them. He had made the backgrounds for them, too. I want very much to have that in my heart on father's day. But I got a long way to go. And if I never get there- I can forgive myself that.
So for today, I will allow myself to hate father's day, cause that is honestly the way I feel. It is what it is. I am happy for my husband and for my daughters- but for all of you out there that got a raw deal- go ahead and hate for a while, I got your back, girl.

My love life through Elton John

So, everyone who knows me well knows that I am a devoted Billy Joel fan, but I tend to keep his songs close to my heart. They speak to me in ways I have always held dear and I think, in retrospect, I never attached a Billy Joel song to any relationship for fear it might ruin it for me.
I picked out my wedding song was I was about 14, though, long before I met my future husband, I had the song I wanted played at my wedding. In my brief and ill advised first marriage, this song was not played. I did, in fact save it for my first dance at my real wedding. The song was Billy Joel's "You're my home" and I waited to play it until I felt the meaning of it with the right person. So, even then, the song was not his- it was born of him living up to it.
I have saved every Billy song for me, though sometimes they do remind me of a place or a time or a situation- even a person I was with. I'll always remember my friend Paul doing his crazy dance to "Only the Good die young." but that isn't his song.
A few years ago I realized I had given Elton John songs to the loves of my life. It might have started innocently enough. My first real boyfriend was Dave. I was fifteen and we lived in Oxford, England. He was not the first boy I kissed or the first crush I had ever had but he was the first guy who I would meet every day and would hold hands with me and call me his girlfriend. I was so crazy about him. He came home and met my parents and everything.
Dave and I were hanging out in the park one day, under a tree, by the Cherwell. I was sitting on his coat and he looked at me and he sang a little of Elton John's "Blue Eyes" to me. Told me he thought of me every time he heard that song. That's the kind of thing that makes a fifteen year old melt into a puddle of goo.
That was a good day. And it was the start of my love affair with Elton John because now that song belonged to Dave. I still can't hear that song without thinking of that guy. Even the fact that Dave turned out to be a rat bastard hasn't ruined the song for me. It's still a sweet memory.
For some reason, my next boyfriend, Bryan was attached to the song "I guess that's why they call it the blues". I never told him that, he would have mocked me endlessly - he liked mostly punk rock and rebellious noisy crap. It was something in the lyric and I knew we were two kids trying to live like adults.
"Laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder, under the covers..."
Something my sixteen year old self identified as meaningful in that song. Something in our relationship that made me sad and happy. Something in me that knew it was doomed to be tragic- that it was going to end up in the blues... and it did. Of course, it was even more tragic than I had ever imagined it could be. For me, that song is now always bittersweet. I love the song, but it's a tough memory that it's attached to. That relationship was brutal. I was with that guy for three years.
After him was a tumultuous two year relationship with Sean who I married-the marriage lasted all of four months. Really, honestly, I think of him with "Saturday night's alright for fighting". In the end, the only thing that was entertaining and worth doing with him was fighting. He sort of began the fight in me. I worked so hard finding a voice in that relationship even though I was never really heard. Did I say all of these songs were romantic? No. In fact my favorite break up song became REO's "Time for me to fly"- loved that. I sang that a lot on the way out.
It gets worse. The second David I dated was "I don't want to go on with you like that." As a side note, my breakup with him was marked with the song "Don't Shed a tear", I used to belt that out in the car.
My next relationship, with Brad was categorized by him with a Tears for Fears song called "Sowing the seeds of Love" but I always found that song banal and ordinary. It didn't have the richness of lyric and it was sappy and cliche. That should have been my first sign that he was an idiot. There was so much grief in this relationship that it became "Sad songs say so much"
After this, I began my survival mode songs. My love affair with myself began with "I'm still standing" and morphed into "I want Love". I was lying around crying to Tori Amos and listening to "Don't let the sun go down on me". I know. Pathetic. Those years were somewhere between pissed off and angst ridden but I did get my shit together and picked myself up. After all, I was still standing!
When I started dating John, I had deliberately not been in a relationship for four years- in fact I had decided I was maybe never going to be in one again. I was a little raw and emotional to be feeling all I was feeling for him. We went out to Joanie's Pizzeria on the day it opened and "Don't Go breaking my Heart" came on the jukebox. We had been dating a few weeks. I knew right then that was his song. I had fallen in love with that song a long time ago- but now it belonged to him- and I knew that he would be breaking my heart. And he did. But he also put it back together-
A few years later, I heard the song "The One" on the radio and I knew that also belonged to him. After we got married, I was deciding what songs to put on our wedding video and I knew very quickly the two songs would be "You're my Home" and "The One". It was a nice way to bookmark my love affair with Elton John songs.