I thought the Empire State Building looked pretty cool tonight with the top lit up in blue so I drove around, yes I drive in NYC, to try to find a spot to take a good photo with my high tech iPhone camera but these were the best I could do….

I just finished skyping, ok face timing, with a dear friend in New Zealand who just had major surgery and, while in pain, she implied that although she has endured earthquakes, tough times and now serious surgery, her life doesn’t compare to mine which she categorized as a stage 5 hurricane.  I just looked up Katrina which was a stage 5….this is not a compliment and she knows me quite well. That said, it may be a semi-accurate description but the difference is you can plan for a hurricane and you know it’s coming. I never know what’s going to be thrown at me and I just have to duck, tuck and roll.

I have always said I was born in the wrong time. I was not meant to live in a time when you are with someone but they are not truly present. I was not meant to live in a time when the majority of communication is performed through a computerized device. I miss reading the penmanship of friends and lovers. I miss looking someone in the eye as they give me a firm handshake and actually engage in conversation. My mother always asks when I think I should have been born and I now say “think Midnight in Paris.”  Jesus, I sound like I am 80 and I am barely half of that but this is truly how I feel. I know I am in a HUGE minority here but it has to be said.

Today, I had a “I just saw my life pass before my eyes” moment while at the oncological surgeon and realized that even though my life is entertaining for others I am not really enjoying it or frankly living it.  You may have guessed this already.  I have my moments but I need to start LIVING my life ASAP.  I have worked from home for 12+ years and I am literally scratching at the walls like a mental patient to get out. I had an all time low recently when I realized I couldn’t get a job as a bar tender in NYC. I thought it would be fun and great to do one or two nights a week. To interact with people, get me out of the house, make some extra dough and not think about it when I leave.  Very different from my 16-24 hour a day corporate job that I have had for 12 years.  However, apparently in NYC people become career bartenders (who knew!) and one must have an extensive bar tending resume.  The icing on the cake was when I had to take a four page test, define grape varietals and foods such as tripe, sweetbreads, fois gras, braising, sauteing, duck confit – you get the picture.  I did quite well on the questions with regard to beverages and wine but not so well on the food part of said test.  I am basically a semi-vegetarian these days but even when I was a meat eater I was never one to eat organs nor did I even want to think about them.  I finished the test and told the manager that I didn’t even care if I got the job but I managed to pass two bar exams and I just wanted to know how I did.  He wouldn’t really comment except when he looked at the wine page he said it looked “great” and they would be in touch. That was two weeks ago. Nada. Ridiculous!

Anyway, you realize when you are on the other side of going through all this medical crap that your life looks nothing like it did before and that very few things really matter. At the end of the day when you die, the pile of money you made doesn’t matter. It may change the journey for sure in various and sundry ways but you can’t take it with you. What, I think, one will remember, or at least I will, is the people and animals you loved, the changes you made in other people’s lives and the people (and animals) who loved you and impacted your life.

I am fairly certain that at the end of the day or road or whatever you want to call it that you don’t give a shit that you hated your boss ten years before or that you bought three houses and had four divorces. Ok well the divorce part you might care about depending on how they went down but unless I get started soon I won’t know that feeling. My mother would on the other hand. Four marriages. Clearly the apple fell far from that tree.

I did, semi-jokingly, tell her this past weekend on our way to Easter dinner that I thought she was being very selfish by not agreeing to go into a retirement community so that I could find a rich husband who is close to death. [Laugh now] Is that bad? I am sort of serious. My brother found it quite funny but I think I laughed more. I am willing to try almost any tact to get my mom and stepfather who both have alzheimer’s out of their three story house plus I feel I should get one husband on a notch.

One thing I must say is that I crack myself up on a regular basis and there is nothing better than making a joke, laughing at yourself and saying out loud “I love me!” You gotta love yourself and although my life is nuts and I spend an inordinate amount of time taking care of my family and others I actually derive enjoyment from helping people. And from laughing. Laugh more, give a shit about most things less. Oh and cry less too. Tonight’s mantra. To be continued…

PS