I have been in Florida since my birthday, May 23rd.  Because that was my Sister’s due date.  It is her first baby.  We are still here.  My Niece is now over one week late.  It seems she is already taking after her Grandmother and making us all wait for her.

We have done every old wive’s tale people have thrown at us.  Exercise, long walks, spicy food, peppermint stick ice cream, even Castor oil.  You don’t want to know about the last one.  Nothing.  In the meantime, I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time with my Sister which has been grand.  I keep thinking that I should come up with some words of wisdom now for my Niece before she enters this world.  Life lessons that I have learned, priceless memories that I could then reflect on at a later date and be like this is what was going on as we waited for your arrival. 

But I’m too self centered for that.  I can’t get past how different my whole life is going to be after this trip.  The dynamic of my whole family.  To add to this, my best friend gave birth to a beautiful baby boy a few days ago.  Thus winning Baby Watch 09.  We are all growns up.  So why don’t I feel that way?  I have a myriad of friends who come to me on a regular basis for shoulder crying, advice, and the pleasure of my company on a rainy day.  Thinking of my own life as in a constant state of free-fall, I asked a girlfriend of mine once ”Why do you seek out my help and opinions? Think I’ve got any of this figured out?” 

She then gave me the honor of replying that she thought I was one of the most well adjusted people she has ever known.  I then shared with her my hidden truth that just that very morning I had sat down in my shower, and with the water running from high above, cried hysterically because I found myself completely overwhelmed by this fact:

“One way or another I had to live the rest of my life”

And here I am. Doing just that.  Now my life is fuller, with one new little man and a beautiful little girl on the way.  I don’t know what kind of role model I will be.  But I will be there. Always. That is what I have to offer on today, the last day of May 2009. 

The other thing I can’t get out of my head is a sign that I have been hanging out in Florida for too long.  On the local radio station, they frequently play The Pina Colada song.  And as I sit and wait with my Sister, every time I hear it I can’t help but think how I’d like to meet this person.

If you like Pina Coladas

And getting caught in the rain

If you’re not into Yoga

If you have half a brain

If you like making love at Midnight

In the dunes on the cape

Then I’m the love that you looked for

Write to me and escape

Of course you have to block out of your mind that the song it is actually about two people who have fallen in a rut, decide to cheat on each other, and magically answer their own  personal ads and thus it is somehow romantic when they meet up.

Aside from the near miss infidelity, how great does that sound? I am getting punchy.  My Niece needs to come soon.  Thank you to all who donated for my birthday!  We are at a total of $2817 raised for Feeding America and that is amazing in these tough times.  CLICK HERE TO DONATE in honor of my new Niece and in support of her birth!! Come on Baby!

I can’t believe I am about  to be a role model to anyone!!! And I’ll stick with being an Aunt for now, since the closest I have ever been to being pregnant is when I went as a knocked-up fairy this Halloween.

Emoticon Cabaret

Today is May 20th, which besides being 3 days before my birthday, has always been a special day for me.  It is a day when I pause to give thanks.  Thanks for a friend that I was privileged to know.  And thanks for every day of my life, especially for the last 14 years.  It is because of today that each year as my birthday draws close, I do not dread getting older but I am thankful to the universe that I am here.  Here to experience infinite joy and the pungent sting of a good kick to the head.

This year, I am also thankful for my date to Mel&EL last Friday, Carmelita Tropicana who helped make it the best Fake Birthday ever!

Carmelita Tropicana, Obie Award winning performer, internationally renowned performer Nao Bustamante and the extraordinary video girls of Fulana bring you:

June 4 at 9:30 PM at Joe’s Pub
A feast of live girls on stage, comedy,
performance, video that will make you cry in one eye and laugh in the other.

Check out Carmelita’s show, she is a riot.  And for all of you my love and best for this life.

Last year at this time, there were two things that I was resisting out of a distaste for the activity and fear of the unknown.  These two things were SPIN class and dating.  In a banal twist of fate (the common phrasing is more like in a bizarre twist of fate. But is it really bizarre that I would start dating again? Or that my FA would need to hop on a bike?  No.) these are two activities I’ve been engaging in quite frequently lately.   At first I couldn’t decide which was the more painful of the two, but they each have their benefits.  But it never occurred to me to combine these topics into a post, until something happened at my last SPIN class.

Sitting there in the dark, with the weird 80s roller-rink black light making the unicorns and moons glow on the walls of my gym’s ultra funky SPIN room, the music was pumping and our instructor Cat cranked up my resistance while shouting her usual “don’t cheat yourself!” when it happened.  The song ended, and some sort of steroid infused hip hop version of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ started to play.

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but those who know me well are laughing by now.  For some reason that I’ve never been able to pinpoint, I go completely Pavlovian for that song.  Every now and then I fall apart.  And nothing gets me in the mood quicker.  Well not Nothing, let’s leave a little room for the unpredictabilities inherent in one-on-one human contact, but it’s pretty gosh darn close.

And thus, worlds collided.  But how to best capture this collision in a amusingly endearing blog post that would inspire you to CLICK HERE to donate $12 to my Charity Badge and help Feeding America feed a family of four for a WEEK was a ponderous notion.  What to do? What to do?  What first popped to mind was how the sound bites Cat shouts at us during class could also be applied to various dating scenarios. The best of course being, “Don’t cheat yourself!”

Followed by:

• Show me what you’ve got.

• You’re not fooling anybody.

• Faster, faster, that’s it, so close.

• Now that’s what I like to see.

• Don’t give in to it.

But I decided the fun thing to do would be to compare how my personal mental time-line while suffering through a bad date can be surprisingly similar to that of a  SPIN class.  Now my rule on writing about my date life, is to heighten the generalities and not reveal any specifics.  So if you have been on a date with me recently, go ahead and assume that I am now talking about someone else.  Because obviously the date I was on with You was a good one.  And I am now charting the similarities of my mental state over the course of a really bad date and SPIN.

In the beginning, I am pumped and ready for anything.  I instinctively dread the experience but work to keep an open mind.  Feeling a little insecure about my body, I appreciate the dim lighting.  For awhile I feel good, heart racing, skin tingling in anticipation.  There is a slight moment of endorphin rush as the power of my body kicks in and its true strength overshadows my mental misconceptions.  But I pace myself, because I am instinctively aware that it is too early to sap my reserves.  Then things start to get hard.  And I alternate between struggling to achieve my best and faking it.  My whole being eventually aches with the effort and my mind drifts towards the comfort of what I might eat later as a reward.  I snap those arrant thoughts back on task and concentrate my efforts towards the moment at hand.  As the end draws near, I don’t think I’m going to make it.  Everything hurts, and there is a red flash of anger towards every moment in my past that has brought me to this bleak present.  I push through because I know I can make it.  Confident, because I’ve always made it before and stand stronger each time.  When I burst through to the other side, my body explodes in relief and embraces sweet, sweet freedom.  I’m a little sorer from the experience, but I know that ultimately it is shaping me towards my own brand of sass-sure woman.  I’m still a little pissed off.  But it is a happier pissed off.  My hair no longer looks anything like it did when I left the house, but every war has its causalities.

There you have it.  The biggest difference, however, between a bad date and my SPIN class is that at the end of every SPIN class our instructor Cat has us perform a series of stretches.  And the last one is to hug yourself.  And she always says:

Really love yourself, but know that I love you more.

Which may sound cheesy, but when it is uttered by a short squat woman who has been screaming at you for over an hour it is surprisingly charming.  And if those words were spoken to me at the end of a bad date, I’m not sure I could classify it as a bad date anymore.

To quote my Noir altra ego:

When a man looks at you like you are an Angel, and kisses you like a high class call girl, that’s a man you hold onto Detective.  That’s a man you marry.

Fun fact:  Eclipse of the Heart was originally intended for Meatloaf but he got into a fight with the songwriter and it ended up going to Bonnie Tyler.  Don’t say I never taught you nothing.

And the winner for my Stamp Out Hunger campaign is: CARMELITA TROPICANA

Carmelita Tropicana will be accompanying me to see Mel &El: Show and Tell this Friday, May 15th!  You may think I’m a kind hearted soul for my philanthropist efforts, but really this whole thing was an elaborate scheme to make sure that I had a date this Friday night.

In honor of Carmelita, Mel&EL and the end to my personal prohibition this Friday, this one is for all of you: