My fantasies are weird....

This morning I was day dreaming about a  vacation line of cruises and destinations offering a fit and healthy atmosphere. Elevators only for the handicap. All meals have raw and organic options and nothing they cook with is processed or synthetic.  They offer every type of fitness workout from spin to barre to hot yoga, cross fit, jazzercise and dance - all day long. The entire vacation dedicated to optimum health in a fitness persons heaven. Late night pizza and buffet replaced with late night juices and raw almond butter cheesecake. Hot eucalyptus steam showers and Himalayan salt rooms distressing the body as you wait for your Korean style body scrub in the no clothing allowed open air spa. Alternative treatments offered from around the world to enlighten people with holistic health options to combat ailments. Raw cooking classes, food is thy medicine workshops and creative art classes too. Billy Joel, George Michael and The Eagles all set to perform ..... which is when I realized my fantasy had gone too far but the rest should and could really become reality, if everyone gunning for this organic change wins. Here's to hopefully making my holistic health fantasies a reality and I'll just buy tickets to see Billy, George and the boys! 

Rejoining the living!?!?

I'm pretty sure when Ferris Bueller said to slow down in life, he wasn't referring to recovery from hip surgery but boy does it prove this to be true.  After being in the protective cacoon of my hospital bed in recovery for 4 weeks, it's time to put down the crutches and brave the world again.  Or so I am told.  By my doctors and therapists. A standard timeline. 

My first solo adventure sans crutches was to Whole Foods, of all places. I thought I could breeze in and out with no trouble because my mind has returned to operating as fast as always with my body, unbeknownst to me yet, moving at a snails pace.  The only places I've been were my parents house, the doctors and my radio show.  I had yet to return to "amongst the living".

I luck out and find a spot up front, which wouldn't be luck if I would just give in to having the handicap placard but I can't, yet! "I'm 36 and a vibrant fit young lady," my mind tells me but that thought was quickly fleeting as I struggle for a bit but finally get myself out of my car to standing.  

"I'm naked. And. I'm in a parking lot. I'm like the frogger" - This is the best way to describe the feeling of not having my crutches to crutch and having to rely on myself to walk. My first two steps are baby steps and I think to myself, "get moving" but I can't. Gravity has gotten it's hand in the mix and all pressure is on me.  I'm serious. The pressure that gravity puts on us is unbelievable. Talk about the weight of the world on my shoulders. My steps only moving me forward inches at a time.  A line of cars is starting to form as I try to cross to get a cart. I look perfectly healthy, as if I'm just fucking with everyone. There is nothing I can do to move faster which prompts a man to scream "Can you walk already!?" - No.  I can't!  Seriously. I have to learn how to walk again and that takes time. 

Cars now whizzing around me because everyone is rushed.  The world around me feels to be moving at ludicrous speed.  A woman so hurried she hits my incision area with her hand basket without even a notice. Without fail, over and over "can I squeeze by" and "mind if I get around you?"'s politely hitting me left and right with others just glaring. Nobody slowing down for a minute.  My fav employees asking what's up with this enevitable awkward good bye, where I can't walk away fast and they keep saying "good to see, you get well. " and I just keep answering "will do" "thanks so much" "you're so sweet!".  

My mind keeps pressuring me to hurry up hurry up, move it girl but then as the world around me continued in its fast whirlwind, my eyes caught a glimpse of a little girl messing with the flowers while her mom picked produce. This little girl took a flower from a bouquet and walked over to the old lady next to her mom struggling to open a plastic bag for her fruit and handed it to her.  The old lady and mother laughed and smiled and the mother returned the flower, as I laughed and smiled from a distance to myself. 

All this time spent hurrying and rushing to be where I am not, is making me miss all of the little things of where I am now.  From that beautiful moment on, I've continued to slow my roll. I walk slow and take baby steps. I asked for the handicap placard and I'm still using my crutches and taking my time because you can't hurry healing, even if you're trying to rush through life.  With all the brutality and pain I've faced through getting hit by a car while riding my bike, with multiple surgeries, endless procedures and therapy, it wasn't until I was forced to slow down by disability and saw a silly little girl try to brighten an old lady's day with a stolen flower, did I realize the hidden gift I have been given.  With the weight of the world on my shoulders I can say without a doubt "Ferris Beuller, you're my hero!"

7.14.13 .... It's been 2 years. Wow!

On July 14, 2013 I was riding my bike and a woman in a rush who didn't properly follow driving protocol tboned me with her car.  Since that day I have undergone 21 diagnostic procedures, 16 guided injections, 2 major hip surgeries, 1 major misdiagnosis, 100's of appointments with doctors, specialists and therapists and will continue to fight to regain the abilities I had prior to this accident and to live without being in constant pain. I have been disregarded, misdiagnosed and made to feel like my pain doesn't exist and all of this because one woman couldn't take an extra 10 seconds to use caution while driving her car and the apartment building she was exiting didn't have proper mirrors up.  These types of accidents are sadly happening all too frequently and the solution is so simple; Make full stops at stops signs, take an extra second to double check that you're all clear to go and stop rushing so much. With life moving at such a fast pace sometimes we try to cut corners in an attempt to keep up and these corner can cut someone's life short or alter it forever. So on the anniversary of the day that changed my life forever and with the most gratitude in my heart that I survived, I urge you all to help make the roads safer for everyone on them and start taking a few extra seconds for safety checks. Be safe and drive carefully!

Time is of the essence, choose your battles wisely!

            

As we develop in childhood thoughts of fairy tales of the life and timeline we should live are planted in our minds.  Growing up in the 80's there was still a sense of 1950's American values with girls being super girly, guys being super jocks, meeting your Prince in High School, going to prom together, going to college and then getting married. You buy a house and have 2 kids, work your butt off to go on a vacation each year and so on and so forth. The ideal life.  The rules for boys and girls still on the divide but being pushed for change. Movies like "Working Girl" and "9 to 5" showing young women that equality was on the horizon, if you continue to fight for it. The good hard working girl can have it all and men and women will be equals but then as life goes on you wonder but can we ever really be equals? How can we be equals, if we can't even be friends?   

Like the saying goes, Reality Bites!  There is one thing that will always be the road block for equality between man and woman and that is Sex!  When Harry turns to Sally and says "Men and Women can not be friends because the sex part always gets in the way!"  It's a fact! Sally says absolutely they can and in fact her and Harry will just be friends.... Fast forward to Sally and Harry in bed together. Its human nature. Why do we fight it?

I never wanted to believe it because as a young girl I was friends will so many guys but we were kids which means no sex which is why it was so easy.  Throughout my life I've tried to push this envelop in every which way, I've had great guy friends that were completely platonic but without fail, they find a girlfriend and suddenly it's frowned upon to go out with me solo. Why? because of sex!  It's simple. The girl whom my guy friend is having sex with said she's not comfortable with her boyfriend hanging out with a girl. So what happens to our friendship?  It becomes an acquaintance type relationship and I'm invited to group events where she is there. It's not because of anything other than its a better life choice for my guy friend to avoid the drama of trying to hang out solo.  

There comes a time in life where we realize how we want to spend our time. Do we want to spend it proving to our girlfriend who has self esteem issues and is jealous that we have every right to hang out with a girlfriend or do we pick our battles? 

We can choose to make our decisions based on our ideals of the world we wish we lived in or based on reality. When we choose reality we are not letting go of the change we want to see in the world, what we are doing is choosing to avoid the negative that comes with going against the reality of a situation. There is a time and place to prove your point and sometimes it's better to just be happy with what you are given.

Like me and my guy friends. Sure I miss our solo adventures and it's really not as much fun only seeing them at group events but we still have funny text sessions and I still get to see them. They are happy in their relationships and that is more important to me then making them prove some notion about men and women being friends. 

The fact that seems to always fall between the cracks is that Men and Woman have two completely different make ups both physically and mentally which means that the reality of the situation is that we will never be equal because we will always have different needs.  We can try our best to make things as fair as possible but it will never be perfect. The only thing we can do is  try to see the positive in every situation, push for change when the right opportunity arises and choose our battles wisely because we don't have that much time here and not everything has to be about proving a point. Remember, you're not losing your stance or ideals, if sometimes you choose to abide by the reality in life to avoid the drama of it! 

2013 - Me with a group of guys who will always be my friends- because they're all gay! Problem Solved! 

(*Ps. My best advice to the girls who can't grasp reality, get a gay bestie, they'll still want to play with your boobs but it's definetly a guy you can 100% just be friends with!)

Modesty, humility, privacy...Say what?

It's 90 degrees inside at 8 pm, in the old building on Vermont and Beverly where I co-host my radio show Flipside LA.  My stomach feels like I'm about to explode. I give my co-host, Anna the nod, "I gotta potty" and we try to politely push our guest and producer to leave so I can finally go. They leave but now the key will only open the mens room but I gotta go like 24hrs ago. I'm in recovery from hip surgery and the pain meds as well as the trauma from a major surgery makes even the most clockwork potty party person, get backed up so I've been using holistic nutrition and a special tea to help with the post op back up and it works but in its own time with urgency. 

The men's room it is! I rush into the only stall with a door and my beautiful but very tipsy co-host follows because she wants to continue chatting boy talk. I'm trying to explain the situation and talk her into going into the hallway to avoid my nightmare of embarrassment over the "pottysymphony" about to happen but then I hear the door open.  A guy walks in asking questions in Spanish and then I hear a second guy walk in and Anna is trying to explain to them why she's there and then I hear the door open again and I hear a lot of female voices in the hallway too.  

I'm trying to hold it in, sweating in fear of exploding and could just.barely.hold.it.    Now, I'm just drenched in sweat hunched over in a pretty dress, thigh high compression stalkings, shaking in a tiny stall with my knees touching the door in pain and trying with every fiber of my being to keep the cap on a post operative uncontrollable bathroom horror as 2 strange men, my radio show producer and my tipsytoes co-host are all squeezing into the 4x4 common area of the mens bathroom trying to figure it out in a "who's on first, what's on second, English is my second language and I can't believe this is fucking reality" style.  And then it happened. In that moment of unbelievable relief and sheer terror, every bathroom fear I ever had was met and conquered, head on, face first.  This is recovery. 

It's all so normal now. It has to be.  I go unphased through days of appointments where everyone is basically looking at my crotch and taking hip X-rays which basically shows every person who sees it my "kitty", all while dealing with a lot of post surgery symptoms people don't talk about. 

Since, having my second hip surgery last Thursday I've been combating these secret challenges until I can't keep them secret any longer because pure animalistic necessity replaces privacy, humility and any ounce of modesty I had left. I have no choice but to just let it all go.  It's hard to adapt to when you're use to being an in control person, a very self sufficient caretaker who doesn't trust anyone to help properly and who definitely doesn't want anyone to see her be weak.  Suddenly, I'm shitting my brains out in front of 4 people and don't care because the relief after 24 hrs of not being able to but feeling like I have to trumps the fact that people are not only aware I'm going through this but are now listening.

It's hard to fathom but eventually we should all live in a world where health and well being take priority over vanity and public approval. We need to stop trying to dehumanize ourselves and embrace what makes us and keeps us alive, the good, the bad and even the shitty!