All posts in August 2017

Again, if you are singing your way through life, you can skip this post. Today’s advice for singers and others: Try Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Ginger. You might melt a small handful of these tasty pellets in your microwave, using this as a base for today’s hot chocolate.

There’s probably some foodie way you could pulverize the ginger, but my friends and followers know I am all about making life easy. I will never make Mary Berry’s Coffee and Walnut Battenburg or even a chocolate roulade. While I definitely favor cooked over instant pudding, if it takes more than twenty minutes to pop the thing in the oven, I am probably done.

In my version of hot chocolate, you eat the ginger pebbles with a spoon at the end.

Back to singing: Sing! Join Bruno Mars or Adele as you drive down the road. Make a joyful noise to and for yourself in the shower. Don’t necessarily erupt into song in the middle of the mall for no reason — oddly enough, spontaneous singing does raise eyebrows — but pull your music like a cloak around you.

Music makes life happier. Singing drives the blues away. Singing brings us into the present, even as it captures and creates memories. Simply, singing is fun, and more fun is good.

For any former students who might be reading this post: All that music in the classroom? It was for me as much as for you. I still enjoy most of the songs I downloaded for us. I confess, Skrillex will forever remain a mystery to me.  Reading lyrics was fun, too, even as I kept crossing songs off the possibly appropriate list. Reading lyrics remains fun.  For example,  here’s part of a recent favorite:

“Ophelia” by the Lumineers:

Ah, ah when I was younger, I, I should have known better
And I can’t feel no remorse, and you don’t feel nothing back

I, I got a new girlfriend, she feels like he’s on top
And I don’t feel no remorse, and you can’t see past my blinders

Oh, Ophelia, you’ve been on my mind girl since the flood
Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love

I, I got a little paycheck, you got big plans and you gotta move
And I don’t feel nothing at all
And you can’t feel nothing small

Honey I love you, that’s all she wrote

(What the heck does all this mean, Ms. Turner asks, even as she sings along in the car.)

 

 

 

Some of us are lucky. We get the mom and/or dad we need. Maybe grandpa fills the gap when mom gets too busy with the new boyfriend, survivalist buddies, or ancestry.com. But the universe is busy dealing cards furiously and haphazardly. Maybe we get the dad who means well, rather than the dad who understands that we desperately could use ADHD medicine. Or the mom who knows she could have been a gymnastics star if she’d worked a few more hours each day, the mom who is not going to let us make the same mistake. Get back up on that beam!

Tricky place, 21^st century Earth. I strongly suspect many people find the zombie apocalypse fascinating because they want to simplify their lives, not because they want the excitement and adventure that comes with a world of the walking dead. Simplify, our minds whisper. Stories of post-apocalyptic survival may appeal because the immediacy implied in that grim scenario blocks out before and after pictures. Our pasts are often the reason we prefer to escape our present and future.

If you never revisit the past, and your past and present seem fine, perhaps it’s hot chocolate time? I’ll suggest adding coffee ice cream to this version. A coffee milkshake instead? This post is not for you.

But if the past comes at you sometimes, fists raised, here’s a place to start: Wade out of the muck. Visualize the person you needed when you were younger — your dad, your mom, your grandpa, your teacher. You can channel that invisible person. Then address the issues with your invisible friend, family member or authority figure. You know what you felt was missing when you were younger, right? Ask what was going on back then that led to your troubles. Then listen to the answers.

Maybe you will find your gremlin had the best of intentions. Maybe you won’t. Leave yourself open to the possibility the gremlin will say, “What? I never noticed.” But try to get inside your Gremlin’s head. Slap him or her up the side of the head if that helps. One good thing about invisible Gremlins, they never put up much of a fight. They tend not to come up with self-serving excuses, either.

You probably already know your answers, even if you have never articulated them. Here are your invisible-people goals:

Remember who you were.

Be who you wanted to be.

In general, unfuck yourself.

I apologize for the language, but I can’t find a clearer two words to capture this idea.

Or better yet, be yourself with a spiffy new superhero name. BatJocelyn? Maybe not. I think WompRat Jocelyn is out, too, as Wombat Woman tumbles into the total reject pile.

The Kumquat Whisperer? That name has advantages. No league of superheroes is likely to try to draft me with a name like that. Still, what will I whisper to those kumquats? Probably any damn thing I want. It’s not like the kumquats care.

I see that I am looking at this all wrong. As we know, the wand picks the wizard. After I find my superpower, my name should come naturally.

Except Befuddlement doesn’t go with any spiffy connecting, explanatory appendages. Befuddlement Babe? That should keep me out of any and all leagues of superheroes for sure.

Which might not be a bad idea. When the aliens come through the hole in the sky, I think I plan to be in the basement making Whiskey Sours. Or I will be eating pizza by a quiet, mountain lake in the middle of nowhere.

Life Coaching advice: Don’t rush to find your superhero name. You don’t want to be near any holes in the sky anyway.  I mean, let’s look at this realistically. Most of us would decide not to join the army for fear of going to Afghanistan or Some Korea. Why would we want to take on crazy Norse Gods or techno-crazed, wanna-be Nazis?

That said, you might take out a few hours to try to identify your superpowers, even if they aren’t as dramatic as turning humans to ice with your touch.  There’s not nearly as much market for making ice-humans as the media suggests anyway.  Now, top-notch bartenders, though…  They can always find a place in today’s world.