So.  I am staring at this blank page.  And the Headline, “Add New Post” as if it is a command that I have to obey.

Obey?  Me?  I don’t know if I feel like obeying right now.  It’s Sunday.  And I would rather be sitting in my yard sipping a tall glass of lemonade or ice tea.  Watching my dog roll around in the dirt.  But.  I am not in my yard.  I am here.  At the computer.  Always the obedient servant, I listen to my computer and I type.

Wait.  It says Add New Post.  Not Type New Post.  How do I do this post adding stuff?  Is it simply jamming on the ten-key thing?  That’s Fun!  I’m sure everyone would just love to read a bunch of numbers.  Anyone fluent in machine code out there?

I have no clue what to add.  So has writing become suddenly like math?  While I was sleeping did Language Arts somehow merge into an unhappy union with Calculus and Geometry?  Oh, wait.  Adding is the easy stuff.  They didn’t say divide, multiply or solve for x and y.  Or Pi r squared area stuff.  Whew!  I’m off the hook.

Anyway.  How do I form words and letters into an arithmetic equation?  I guess what I write isn’t exactly comprehensible sometimes, so why not throw a little math into the equation so that everybody completely misunderstands?

A little misunderstanding.  Ah.  To hell with it.  Where’s my lemonade?  Add new post?  Not in my box!

No tags

So I have this goal.

And I am reading this book on achieving goals.

And one of the things this book says I have to do to achieve my goals is.  That I have to accomplish certain aspects of the goal each week.  This process is supposed to take one week per aspect.

This week.  Has turned into two.

Because.  I am having difficulty with this week’s task.

Why?  Because.

I have to contact someone I admire.  Someone I feel has qualities I need to achieve my goal.

Silly me.  I chose someone famous.  Someone who is pretty un-contact-able by the general public.  Yeah.   I did the Google Search.  Facebook “Like” Pages, Twitter Follows, etc.

All I can say is:  “Good job, Vick!  Why do things easy, when you can do things Difficult?”  What I mean is that I could have chosen differently.  I could have picked Someone who I could reach.  Someone I knew.  But I chose This Particular Person.  This Person Who Likes to Avoid Contact With Regular and Irregular People.

So though I want to chalk this week’s thang off the To Do List, I will not resort to stalker-ish behavior.  I need to get on with my life.  And get on with my goal.  I want to move on to next week already!

So.  I did what I could.  I am putting this out there in the only way I have left.  That Seems Reasonable to Me.  So.  Here goes:

Hey!  Woody Allen… I wanna make movies, too!  How didja do that?  Go from a kid from Brooklyn to where you are now?  Thanks!

One day, I will have a Fun Day of Filming My Way Out of the Box!

goals

How did the last day of school become such a HOLIDAY?

Does the world stop on the last day of school?  It’s almost like we should have a parade or something.  Or blow up fireworks.  Or even the neighborhood.

Instead of being that destructive, I thought I would explode a kettle.

Toasted kettle

Or kind of burn it a little.  I mean.  Winter is over.  Who needs tea?

Or we could get tattoos.

Attractive Tattoo Artwork

Or we could make food art.

Bee-yoo-tee-ful Tomato

OMG!  Today.  Is.  The First Day.  Of Freedom!  The opportunities are endless!  Let’s conquer them now!

Fun Your Way out 0f the Box and into Summer!

freedom · last day of school · summer vacation

Had to ask.  Because something is holding me back from achieving my dreams.

So I asked, “Hey, BFF, please tell me my very best and very worst traits.  And please be honest.”  Honesty is imperative, because I will not achieve my heart’s desire if I don’t use my finest quality to my advantage, and conquer my basest un-quality.

I was surprised by her answers, but not upset, because what I thought was my worst is something inborn that I cannot change.  The element she thought needed most fixing was something that is totally conquerable.

She said I lacked self-confidence.

Now some of you may disagree on this.  You may know me in other aspects of my life.  True.  I am not devoid of confidence.  It is just in the area of achieving my dreams that I am.

Because.

My dreams are big.

And.

They don’t make sense to some people.

Because.

Certain people feel that these dreams of mine may not be reality based.

And.  So.

I am deciding not to listen to them.  Those certain people have become mere walruses barking and playing trumpets at me.  How nice to have such musical accompaniment!

Because.

I am going after my dreams anyway.

So there!

How am I going to conquer this self-confidence issue?  I’m going to pick at it a little at a time.  I am making little goals for myself.  Little goals that are achievable.  And I am succeeding.  At little goals.  Each little goal makes me feel that much better.  And already, I have climbed up, like, a whole flight of stairs.

That is, like, so cool, and makes me feel so good.

And then I look up to my goal, and see that it is still about 108 flights up.

And then I look down to where I started and see how far I’ve already traveled.  Wow.

I have to keep moving.  I will climb to the top of these stairs.  I will reach that 108th flight and maybe even go up to 120.  Or how about 508?  Because I have a power tool.  My best quality.  The BFF said my best quality is Compassion.  Until now, I have used this on everybody but myself.  And now I will beam it on me.  I can be nice to myself and cheer myself on.

Yay!  Vick!  See me Fun My Way out of My Box, too!

compassion · self-confidence

I didn’t really get to do it this year.  Jig the Irish that is.  Because.  Zill wouldn’t Jig with me.  She got on the dance floor for like 5 seconds and got all pre-teen embarrassed on me.

So.  We left the dance floor.  Then Zill ditched me.  And.  I danced all by myself on a dirty knoll.  At the Irish Festival.  Yeah.  We were there again.  Did you see us?  I was the one in the green shirt.

Well.  I wasn’t exactly all by myself.  Because.  There were about 50,000 people there with me on that tor.  Most of them wearing green shirts, too.  The rest were wearing kilts.  So I wasn’t officially alone.  Just alone in my dancingness.  I was just dancing with myself.  All me and my Gen X self.

And one of those people standing with me, wearing a green shirt, not a kilt, was my husband.  But he doesn’t dance.  And neither did the other 49,999 people.  The only ones dancing besides me were on the dance floor.  I was the only hill dancer.  But at least I wasn’t on a pole.

And while I was trying to dance.  Some guy who didn’t look Irish sat down on the hill where everyone was standing, and he kept putting his hands where my feet wanted to dance.  I don’t know how I missed stomping on his metacarpals.  It must have been because of my supreme levitation skills.

Anyway.  Zill and a bff of hers kept popping in and out.  While alone amongst 50,000 hilltop people who stood or sat, I danced to the Young Dubliners and the Fenians.  And the husband drank beer.  And stood around trying to look all tough New-York-half-Irish like.  With all the other49,999 non-dancing people.

I don’t have to act all tough.  First of all.  I’m from the step-sister state.  New Jersey, is almost a state, right?  So I’m a complete loss at being tough.  I have no hopes of being cool or even tepid.  And second of all.  Um.  There is no second of all.  The New Jersey thing is bad enough, right?   Oops.  Hey!  Did I tell you I could levitate?

Anyway.  How did I get off on that tangent?  What was my point to begin with?  Oh yeah.  Not having to be tough.  And that means.  I can do Jigging if I want to do jigging.  Only thing was that I wished to be on the dance floor.  With the Funsters.  But I had to guard my designer, $19.99, Jack Skellington handbag, which can double as an insulated lunch box in a pinch.  Pretty valuable, huh!

Why was I guarding this precious carryall?  Besides the fact that it was mine, it also had stuff in it.  My stuff.  Stuff like keys, a piece of paper with a number 3 written on it, a cough drop, two lucky rocks, a hair brush and Zill’s first baby shoe.  The left one.

So I jigged around my purse, which could have been a lunch box.  So.  That was fun.  That was my Saturday.  Hope you had a Fun Your Way out of the Box Day, too!

dance floor · fun · Irish Fest · jig

So.  I think I am going to become a write-a-holic.  When I grow up.

I want to be just like my friend Nina who writes and writes and writes.  And maybe in between, she goes to Urth and gets a cup of coffee and something sweet to eat.  And then she writes and writes and writes some more.

Wow.  She is so dedicated.  She is my role model!  Yo!  Shout out to Nina:

Nina!  Nina!  Nina!

Okay.  Enough shouting.  I can’t shout and write.  I must focus.  I will not go off on any tangents.  Because I am a newly converted Write-a-holic.   I write and write and write.  And maybe get a coffee.  So I can write and write and write some more.

Crap.  Now I have to come up with a 12-step program.

1.   We admit we are powerful in our writing, and in writing our lives become manageable.

2.  We have come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves reaches into our writing utensils and writes our books for us.  (Yo!  Automatic writing rocks!)  Thus we are restored to insanity.

3.  We have made a decision to just get on our butts (or flopped on our stomachs if that is our writing style)  and turn our wills over to the pen & paper or computer keyboard and who cares if we are understood.  We are writers!

4.  We made intense and fearless searches, exhausting resources and information to support our writings, enabling us to create rich inventories of characters, places and descriptions, and um… so… we are, like, really good writers.

5.  Admitted to a dog, ourselves, a human being, a stuffed toy and maybe a vegetable or steak and potatoes that we are writing our opus.  And.  If we don’t finish it, we are to be slathered in barbecue sauce and bombarded by large, reverberating gong until we get back to task.

6. We are entirely ready to fork the shebang over to the editor to remove all defects of character and storyline.

7.   We humbly ask for an agent to sign us, sell our books so they will remove a percentage and short-pay us.

8.  We made a detailed list of all characters who ate ham.  And who had the fish.  And who wore the green shirt.  And who was making amends to them all.  Because we have to remember to keep our story lines straight.  The guy making the amends, is most likely the one who got killed by the fish in the green shirt.  Or was that seaweed?  Anyway, someone got harmed, and it’s our job to note it!

9.  We made sure not to make direct amends to any characters too soon in the story.  We vow to injure at least one character and perhaps others.  To further the story, of course.  Because conflict is more interesting than nice-nice.  We will not forget that this is a STORY! Not real life.  Don’t make it too tidy.

10.  We continue to take story inventory to keep the facts straight.  Because if we get it wrong, some reader is going to remember that somehow a little girl turned from a girl named Danielle to a boy named Dominic, and back to a girl.  Named Patricia.  Yikes!  And if we get it wrong, we fix it before it goes to the editor.  Just in case it was the editor who ate the ham.

11.  We seek through focus and prayer and meditation and channeling and role playing and drum circles to improve our conscious contact with our characters and their world, so that their existence is carried out in an expressed reality that our readers will find believable and engrossing.  Or maybe just gross.

12.  We are wordily  awakened as the result of these steps, and we carry this message to enlist other write-o-holics to cheer them on, setting examples as we practice our write-iple principles in our daily lives.

Writing.  Yeah.  I’m a We now.  And We are off to our fun refrigerator box with a flashlight and a crayon.  Fun your way into the box or out! Your choice.  Write-a-holics unite!

12 steps · consistency · writing

So it wasn’t exactly a party.  But there were a ton of people.

And John Belushi wasn’t there.  But it was still mayhem.

Mayhem in June.  Should I say Junehem?  Nah. That would be like sewing up the train on a bride’s dress, and I am not exactly the best at seamstressing.  Sewing of seams and stress have no place in my life, thanks.  Also, a needle in Vick’s hand is also through the other.  Yeah.  I best leave the sewing to other chicks who are not Vicks.

Anyway.  I digress.

Let’s just say, mayhem, junehem,  it could have happened.  People could have begun chanting:  “Yoga!  Yoga!  Yoga!”  Instead they were very mellow.  And quietly intoned “Namaste.”  Except for the guy next to me changed it to, “No more steak!”  He’s trying to be a vegetable-arian, I guess.

But again.  I say.  It wasn’t a party.

It was pretty tough, actually.  Because beginning yogi me misread the schedule and stepped into a more advanced class than I intended.  And I got yoga’d in many more directions than I could pretzel.  Fortunately, I didn’t eat steak.  And was happy to intone Namaste at class end.

And I’m taking in Teacher Betsy’s mantra for the day, “A kind gesture large or small never goes unnoticed.”

So.  From me to you.  Be kind to yourself.  And you can guarantee that someone always will offer you kindness.

And… oh, yeah.  Don’t forget to smile.  If you are a lazy person, it uses less muscles to smile than to frown.  So you may be lazily happy, and whilst being lazy, your laziness will spread good cheer to all who encounter you.  A happy and lazy society would solve all the world’s problems.

So.  Problem Solving I’m all for that.  Here’s one small problem solved from mini me:

Yoga your way out of the box!  It’s fun.  Kind of…

yoga

So.  In the getting of new biz.  As in increasing sales/income.  You kind of have to meet new people and circulate, right?

Yeah.  I would love to do that.

And my husband says he would like me to make up the slack I lost with the sinking economy.  As long as it doesn’t interfere.  Interfere with his needs, that is.  I am to earn my income in hours that are not in conflict with his schedule.

If it conflicts with his need for dinner by 5:30 pm. VETO that.

And then.  There is his theory that the sidewalks are rolled up at 5 pm every night.  No exiting the abode after dinner.   Digestion.  Must.  Consume.  The evening.  That and silence unrelated to the current sporting event on the tube.

So.  How does an entrepreneur go about circulating when husbands are whining about dinner and sidewalks are rolling up upon us?

How do I go about doing that?

I am SSOoooooooo glad you asked.

That is why I invented the anti-sidewalk-a-roll-a-nator.

It is a handy sledge hammer with matching skates that you can use to break up concrete and spousal dissent, while gliding gracefully upon the waves of falling rubble.

And for only 19.95.  That’s right! 19.95.  And with that there’s more!

You also get a free menu planner.  Normally a $50 value.  We are giving to you absolutely FREE!

And wait!  That’s not it!  We will also send you your own personal sous-chef.  Normally a $599.99 value.  Which we are including absolutely free!

But.  Wait.  If you call right now.  You will also get a FREEE! Get out of Jail card.

And Wait! That’s not all.

For free if you call right now, we will file your divorce papers for no additional charge. Normally a $3000 fee.  You get this for free!

The box is split in more fun ways than one.

Fun Your Way out of the Box!  Now.  Or else the sidewalks will getcha!

as seen on TV · generate new business · marketing · sidewalks roll up

This was really weird.

I was pumping gas.  Which isn’t exactly weird.  The weird comes a little bit later.  Wait for it.

Have you ever tried to make a pump stop at a specific number of gallons or a certain dollar amount?  I have.  Which may or may not be weird.  So.  Okay.  Wait a little more for the weird.  I’ll get to it.

Sometimes I want to stop the price at an even dollar amount to make the maths in my checking account easy.  Probably because I can’t hold too many numbers in my head.  They flit around like squirrels competing with Donald Trump’s hairdo.

Very distracting thoughts run through my brain.  Imagine the competition.

So.  I play Russian Roulette with the Gas Pump.

Whenever I do that, somehow an extra two or three cents rides in.  Bam!  Empty Chamber.  My turn again.  So.  I try again.  To force the pump to stop at a zero.  I’ll even settle for a five, maybe.  But these things don’t seem to like even numbers for easy maths.  They always keep popping in a couple of more cents to make life interesting.

And make bank reconciliations a challenge.

Makes no sense why I even try.  Because it never works.  That.

So yesterday.  I’m at the goofy pump.  I don’t like to stand there holding it.  It just seems so.  Um.  Phallic.  So usually, I put the clicky thing on and let it do it’s own thing.

But.  This goofy pump had other ideas.  It was goofy, because it’s clicky thing was defective.  It just stopped pumping on its own before the tank was full.  And refused to pump my car full.  Unless I held.  It.  Those things are so needy.  Always wanting to be held.

So.  I stood there.  And held.  It.

But.

My hand slipped.

And.

Released the trigger.

And.

I looked at the pump display.

And.

Saw that.

The number.

Of gallons.

Pumped.

Was.

7.7777.

Wow.

I couldn’t have done that if I tried.

So is it a sign?  I don’t know.  What do you think?  Comments are welcome.  Help me out with your theories, thanks!

Fun Your Way out of the Box… Self-Service Style!

lucky 7 · pumping gas · self service

Some guy was ranting and raving to me in multiple text messages the other day.

At least he claimed he was a guy.  I wasn’t exactly going to cash in that claim ticket.  Because I wasn’t as sure about it as he was.

Why wasn’t I so sure?

Because.

He was a whiner.

And not being from Joyzee, like moi, he did not exactly have official whine bragging rights.

And all the whining was.  Because.  He had a problem.

I offered him solutions and a lovely mantra that helps me when I have problems: “Look for Big Problems. They Mask Huge Opportunities.” Ooh! I get so excited by that one. Wow the opportunities are immense. It really helps me get through things.

But that wasn’t good enough. He had no money.  And his no money bought him a rotten car.

Ah! You have a rotten car now and can get to a rotten job. Whereas before you had no car and no job…. Things are looking up for you, dude!

But that had him spewing more at me. The universe was against him.  He was angry.  He was a spiritual guy, and did not deserve this treatment by the Universe. How dare the Universe do this to him.

I told him not to take it personally, because everybody has STUFF going on with them right now. He wasn’t the only one being affected by the economy.  And the Universe.   So I tried a little hypno-texting on him. Asked him to breathe.  Asked him to relax.  Asked him to be patient and that a solution would arrive.

No.  He refused to breathe.  And got angrier.

At me. This time. It appeared to be my fault.

Why?  Because I am Woman.  Hear me raw.

He whined.  (Wait! He’s not from Joyzee I said!)  “Women have it better than men.  They are always rescued by men.  Men have to stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves.  Nobody rescues men.”  Wah.  Call him a wambulence!

Oops.  He whined to the wrong person.

I am not exactly one of those types wailing out, “C’mon baby, and rescue me!”

Well, maybe if I hear Willie Bobo and his band singing it, then I just can’t help belting it out…  Whoa!  Hold me back.  Here I go!  Wait.  No.  Really.  Hold me back.

But there are just so many single moms out there struggling to get by.  I don’t see Prince Char-mink swooping in and buying them Fur-rah-reezes.  What did he want me to do? Snap my fingers and turn him into a woman?  Or even better give him his own two feet to stand upon so he can take care of himself and be a man?

So let me backtrack a little for a little back story.

This “guy” is supposedly a life coach and above all material things.  He describes himself as a person who bases his life on soulful, rather than material living.  But because he keeps getting kicked in the booty, and not actually earning some booty,  I think he’s living more sole-fully (as in sole of shoe to his keister) than ethereally.

Maybe if he would actually get a real job thingy that would help.  Or even more profound.  Maybe.  If he tried being an adult and taking responsibility for his own actions.  That would be major big on the helpness factor.

Anyway.

About a year ago, this “guy” stated to me that everyone knew how “powerful” I was.  (Who are these people I wonder?)  He knew that I could help him.  (Yep.  That’s me.  With Salvation Army tattooed on my forehead.)  For some reason, he seemed to think that I have super powers.  (I guess my cape gave it away.)  And that they will rub off on him.  (Kinda like garlic on toast.  Or.  Dog hair on black pants.)

In case you didn’t know these facts about me that I don’t know either:

1.  I melt butter with my eyes.  And a little help from the stove top.

2.  I am stronger than STRONG! With ease and grace I toss and juggle jumbo jets and cargo trains into the air as if they were toys.  Wait.  Those were toys.  Shhh!  Don’t tell him I was using a green screen.

3.  I walk through doors and walls.  Providing there is an open door for me to walk through.

4.  I have powers of invisibility.  Especially when I am in a crowd of really tall people.

5.  I can fly.  When I use my green screen.

6.  I can shape shift.  Because I do yoga.  And am almost a pretzel.

7.  I can breathe.  Therefore I am.

Yeah.  That’s me.  Vick the Slick.  World Savior! Watch me save myself from Whine poisoning as I delete message and contact information from cell phone.  Bye Bye Sole Man!  May the Universe give you what you deserve.

Funning my Way out of the Box, one problem at a time!

breathing · hypnosis · problem solving · Whiners