Posted on by Anelemc

“I want a golden goose and I want it NOW!”

Wrote this in 2012 but hey…Still want a golden goose!!

Anélemc's Writing

I want a one-bedroom apartment with a fireplace, indoor parking garage, a pool and a backyard.

I want to live in a neighbourhood where the only sounds I hear at night are crickets.

I want a grand piano and no, not a Steinway but a Bosendorfer.

I want to win Mega Millions and not the $2 prize but the bunch of millions prize.

I want to lose allot of weight in two weeks’ time.

I want new clothes to compliment the weight loss I lost in two weeks’ time.

I want a female pit bull.

I want to name my female pit bull- Ms Piti Bee or maybe Ms Piti Me.

I want a house in the country, in a gated community, in case Jason Voorhees tries to contact me.

I want the entire Fall 2012 Mulberry bag collection.

I want a road bike.

I want to ride my road bike in…

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Posted on by Anelemc

Since I stopped drinking…

Another part of my LENTEN observance involves drinking. Forty days and forty nights of alcohol abstinence.

Do I have a drinking problem? I don’t think so.

But…

Denial is difficult to overcome when nowadays the definition of alcoholism is so varied.

I have not had a glass of red/white wine, a vodka martini with three olives, double bourbon on the rocks in twenty-six days. Having two glasses of wine a night was a norm with the occasional martini/bourbon drink on the weekend. With the drinking, came the munching of cheese, salt, chocolate or whatever food complemented the drink at hand.

It has not been easy to not drink alcohol.

Social outings have diminished as most of the people I surround myself with drink. Then again, most of the people I surround myself with drink alcohol at bars. Social drinking is social drinking. We drink and socialize. Could we socialize without the drinking? Probably.

It has not been easy to not drink alcohol.

The glasses of wine I looked forward to after working an emotionally and physical shift are gone. Now I drink hot chocolate or chamomile or ginger tea. I no longer sit in front of the TV watching SVU re-runs, munching on bags of chips as Stabler and Benson solve a case. My class work is done on time and I actually retain the reading assignments.

Since I stopped drinking:20140331_072808 (2)

I have lost five pounds
Blood pressure reduced
Pulse is lower
Morning fog brain is gone
Active instead of sedentary-back to penguin running and registered to run a 5k in July
Junk food drastically cut down
Eating home food instead of ordering in
One restaurant outting-dinner with a diet coke
My glass is neither half-empty or half full-it is completely empty

What happens after forty days and nights of abstinence from alcohol? Will I return to old habits or is this experience a wake-up call towards better health.

It has not been easy to not drink alcohol.

Posted on by Anelemc · 2 Comments

This is my hair…

I went to our church’s after service Bring a Dish Dinner on Saturday. After gathering a small sample from the variety of food brought I sat down at the table with about 12 parishioners. We are a multi-cultured and multi-faceted sometimes too complacent group who regularly attend Saturday services. At times, as we eat, conversation involves  politics, the sensational headline of the week, who said what to who or whom or the rantings of verbal word hogs, who cannot or will not shut up.

I sat at the table, sampling the variety of food brought and sipped at my half filled/half empty cup of wine. The conversation was lively with advice on handymans, cats and animal behaviourist, wine, why such and such wasn’t recommend for such and such and then BAM out of nowhere…

Parishioner #1-“Hey, did you go to the salon? Your hair looks short.”

SILENCE

Me-“Yes. I went to a curly hair salon”.

SILENCE

Parishioner #1-“Oh. Well its short.”

Parishioner #2-“I thought you were wearing a wig.”

Me-“I’m not wearing a wig. I went to a curly hair salon.”

Silence, and change of subject as I extinguished the hot lava of verbal words not appropriate for church from my vocal chords.

My hair, normally tied captive into a puff had gone through its emancipation from the cotton bandana the week before during a visit to the Devachan salon in NYC. It was finally free to curl up into tight corkscrews drenched in the best moisturizer (Devachan One) that I EVER, EVER, EVER used and the most expensive condition I EVER, EVER, EVER bought.

It was worth it, and not like Loreal .

Since I did not have the emotional strength to relay the trials and tribulation of having the hair which no advertisers for commercials will show swinging in the breeze during prime time television-I use this forum to vent.

In pictures…

This was my hair on the ‘creamy crack’ when it was long.

Assisting through 013 (2)

This was my hair on the creamy crack when it was short.

Short straight

This was my hair in locks..boy how skinny I was back in the day. Maybe this is the start of another post, ‘This is my body when…’

Locks

This was my hair all gone.

Shaved off

This is my hair growing back.

Growing out

This is how I hid my hair when it was growing back.

Hiding the hair

This is my mom’s hair which in no way shape or form resembles mine.

Mom's hair

This is my hair, now…in its puff-a-souras glory.

Puffasaurous

This is my hair when it is wet…I wish it would look like this when its dry-actually it does look like this !

wet hair

This is my hair when we run.

Hair for running

I once had blonde locks before it was in vogue, as well as a Gerry Curl in all its goopy, dripping glory that left its own gelatin calling card behind on every headrest it encountered

My hair as I stated before, represents who I am and where I come from and I do not apologize for its refusal to fit into what society’s obsessiveness with European looks wants it to be.

‘nuff said.

Posted on by Anelemc · 2 Comments

2013

2013 arrived and was not greeted with the usual resolutions such as those made in 2012:

Lose weight

Limit alcohol intake

Penguin run – frequently and on a schedule

Living situation-Move out

Change job or get a better job with better location and better pay

images (2)

The resolutions of 2012 are now discarded. The New Year of 2013 came at midnight when the clock struck twelve and casted the resolutions of the old into an ‘unresolved’ imaginary bin stored in the back of my brain.

But, the consequence of making those resolutions in 2012 were severe:

Instead of losing weight I gained ten more pounds

Alcohol –a lil bit more instead of a lil bit less

Penguin run-what is that again?

Living situation-the move out turned into the barely living, drowning in frustration at my financial inability to move out

Same job and definitely no better location and no raise let alone a Christmas bonus

This year, with the new, New Year approaching, instead of the usual in my bed by 10pm sleep induced reception, I was awake. And no,  I did not watch the dreadful ball drop on TV for it triggers memories of a New Year’s past in which my butt was fondled and molested in the melee of a crowd gone wild while watching the old ball (sans the 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles)  drop live and in person in the pre-Giuliani Times Square.

But, this year there are no resolutions.

Attempting to construct resolutions for 2013 may be good in keeping with the spirit of the New Year thingy but if 2012’s resolution results are an indication of what will come, I think I’ll pass this year.  There’s no need to go through the ‘unresolved’ feelings of disappointment at not meeting impossible expectations. No point in shoving the disappointment into my brain where it will stagnate and fester turning into the unrequited resolve of the resolutions.  And no, the toxicity of that mess will not migrate to mi alma (my soul) for clutter and suffocation are not allowed to reside there, only torment, bliss and friction of every emotional kind.

Instead of resolutions, I welcome subtle and easy changes towards achieving goals.  Subtle, like breathing in and out and so easy as in not having to think too much about the process itself.

The subtle and easy changes require a difference each day in the way I think and do things. All things, from putting on my socks (left first instead of right) to the amount of pep milk (a little one day, a lot the next) in my coffee. I will take a slightly different route while walking the street, like walking on the opposite side of the streets I walk down.

My subtle and easy approach towards tackling larger goals will bring results.

Some of the goals I’ve set in motion involve learning and practicing meditation, consuming less meat and enrolling in a running program. Subtle and easy. Attending meditative classes, abstaining from meat until the weekends, running with a group instead of alone-just doing those little things which are subtle and so easy will lead me to obtainable goals. meditation 001

Posted on by Anelemc · 3 Comments

“I want a golden goose and I want it NOW!”

I want a one-bedroom apartment with a fireplace, indoor parking garage, a pool and a backyard.

I want to live in a neighbourhood where the only sounds I hear at night are crickets.

I want a grand piano and no, not a Steinway but a Bosendorfer.

I want to win Mega Millions and not the $2 prize but the bunch of millions prize.

I want to lose allot of weight in two weeks’ time.

I want new clothes to compliment the weight loss I lost in two weeks’ time.

I want a female pit bull.

I want to name my female pit bull- Ms Piti Bee or maybe Ms Piti Me.

I want a house in the country, in a gated community, in case Jason Voorhees tries to contact me.

I want the entire Fall 2012 Mulberry bag collection.

I want a road bike.

I want to ride my road bike in the country, near my country home, in the gated community.

I want a Life Alert button so if I fall someone will eventually come to get me up.

I want someone to live with me so I won’t need the Life Alert button.

I want and I want and only get what I need and sometimes what is desperately needed but for now I will daydream of living in Veruca Salt’s world.

Posted on by Anelemc · 6 Comments

Emotional Pain

Pain-not the physical one but the emotional, deep down one that resonates from a memory of a conflict in which the receiver is left with the deposit of a throbbing, scorched, branded entity driven between the layers of the soul. And oh, so difficult to expel once its roots have found anchor.

Physical pain touches the internal or external surfaces of our bodies and produces a reaction.

A face will squeeze into a grimace, unstoppable tears flow, moaning, sighing, rocking back and forth, will dissolve once the pain ceases. Physical pain, on most occasions, leaves a visible mark for the trained and untrained eye to discover. It makes it presence known, outwardly or inwardly and arrogantly. It occurs with warning, sometimes without. It is unpredictable or predictable, quiet or loud. A simple aspirin may reduce its strength; a Vicodin will obliterate it.

Emotional pain.

Set to pounce, by way of a simple trigger, leading the soul into dark caverns without a flashlight, map or a tour guide. The bearer can easily present a smile to the world while the emotional pain carries out its silent torment inside.  It is a coward and adores sucking the fight out its intended victims. It is devious and rots away the foundation of the soul’s vibrancy and pulse. It strangles, suffocates and asphyxiates, leaving the soul disjointed, discombobulated and sucked dry like a prune in a vacuum-packed canister.

If a snap of my finger or the sucking of my lips (Jamaican style) could make the emotional pain disappear, I’d be moving forward right about now, skipping through the Long Meadow at Prospect Park and drinking ONE glass of wine a week, while aging gracefully with my weight in check.

But, no, it’s not that easy.

Analyzing, obsessive rumination, age, endless amounts of wine (preferable white) and most importantly FORGIVENESS helps at times to uproot the emotional pain from its anchor onto a more level field.  On other occasions, analyzing, obsessive rumination, age and endless amounts of wine (usually red) will impale FORGIVENESS and use it as fertilizer for the roots of emotional pain to attach deeper to the soul.

But, with darkness comes light…

With the help of therapy or alone, with a self-help book (New York Times bestseller) or a conversation with a close friend or stranger, healing emotional pain is possible.

Layer by layer or in a huge clump, dissected, torn to shreds or pieces, stomped out, extinguished or left to thaw out-emotional pain is healable.

Bring on the blow-torch and have the fire extinguisher nearby.

Change is a comin’ to my soul.

Posted on by Anelemc

Judgments and Assumptions

Personal appearances are often misleading.  Take for instance a person who prefers to dress in Salvation Army clothing while another is layered head to feet in Couture.  Another person may drive a fully decked out slightly used 2010 BMW Z 4, while another drives a 1997 Honda Civic Hatchback.

Judgments and assumptions.

The ‘Salvation Army’ dresser is a cheap billionaire who prefers to have money locked away in investments while the ‘Couture’ dresser is one day from an appointment with the bankruptcy lawyer. The used BMW financed at 12% glistened seductively  in the showroom and now the owner owes three back payments while the Honda is long paid off, vamped with the latest accessories and still in possession of the original owner.

Those who feel entitled because of their perceived notions of elitism quickly cast judgments and assign assumptions to unknowing victim(s) and yes I admit I have been on the assigning end.  The irony is that the unknowing victim is very much aware of what is taking place because of the way the ‘entitles’ treat them and yes I have also been on the receiving end as well and frankly, it sucks.

I am overweight and struggle with navigating my body throughout my immediate surroundings. I was once skinny, society acceptable
skinny, at a weight of 115lbs. I also fitted into Ann Taylor Loft clothing and at times wanted the size 2 label to hang outside the jeans instead of on the inside. Now I waddle down the street, sucking my stomach in and pretending the image I see in storefront windows is the size two instead of an eight.

If you saw me, would you stop to think before passing judgment or would you assume I’m just another fat black person who can’t stay away from the Kentucky Fried Chicken? My weight gain is a combination of emotional backlash as well as physical –a hypo thyroid gone wild is not a girl’s best friend.

And now, to add more salt…My work clothes no longer fit. The pleated slacks, A- lined jackets, silk blouses and richly dyed shirts do not close about the waist. Do I buy new work clothes on a part-time salary? NOT. I walk four miles to work just to save subway fare! Okay, now you’re thinking, with all that walking the clothes should fit. NOT. The caloric makeup up of my lunches far exceed the calories expended walking.

As a monetary society that believes in “Bigger is Better”, the “Bigger” just as easily works with the “Expensive is Better” rhetoric.  Couture clothing, flashy cars, Indian hair weaves, and Botox, not to mention boob jobs and my all time fav, the “Lifestyle Lift”   all help to up the ratings in the judgment and assumptions category.  You are what you eat or rather you are what you wear.

So to all who judge and assume beware, for as you judge, so shall you be judged .