Category Archives: laughter

Pizza, and Other Tidbits

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m sure some of you have iPhones. The newer ones, and maybe even older ones, now will translate a voice mail into text. It can get pretty funny as all voice to text can, although I will say it’s surprisingly accurate at most times.

Anyway, I got an angry voice mail yesterday, from the nameless one. I have had a few voicemails from him in the last few days, all saying he just wanted to talk to me, he wasn’t angry, etc. Instead of calling him, which would only lead to an angry exchange, (because I was still angry, even if he wasn’t, at the audacious things he said and the lies) I sent him an email asking him to just let it go, and also told him and posted on here that I was seeing L last night. The voicemail that I received after that went from “please call me.” to calling me a “piece of shit” for ruining his relationship with B. (I did email him and ask him to consider that it was the lies he told both of us that did him in with her, particularly telling me that he was not “with” her, that they were just friends who had coffee together occasionally. Seriously, he’s out shopping for women, and I’m the cause of his demise? Hmmm. I think not. Narcissist….)

The iPhone however, didn’t comprehend “piece of shit” and changed it into his calling me a “pizza”. It really made me laugh. Pizza. Don’t think I’ve ever been called pizza before! LOL. Really took that anger and kind of made me laugh at it.

So ends the last act in that ridiculous drama. Pizza. With pepperoni, please….

My dinner with L was wonderful. He’s going to cook for me early next week. We talked and laughed and just enjoyed each other’s company. Respectful, and kind, and and funny, and a little shy, which is very endearing on a big, good-looking, football player type! Can’t wait to see him again.

I thought my cough was gone, since I didn’t cough all day yesterday. Until he got here, and kept making me laugh, deep belly laughs that made me cough….I was a little embarrassed! But it didn’t seem to put a damper on us, so that was good.

Early next week is a good time to see him again, because I will be very busy with the grand opening for the Veterans Art Center for the next few days. I think the actual event will be a lot of fun. I’m hoping that a lot of vets artwork is sold and that they make a lot of money, as well as the center raises a lot. It’s such a wonderful project. Today I’ll go over and help my bestie who’s the curator to get all the galleries organized. She said we’ve gotten in 100’s of pieces of amazing artwork for it.

And I have open mic tonight.  Won’t be home too much today!

Exciting things happening here. The shift I felt a week or so ago is well underway, and life is amazing. Love and light, everyone.

All Good Things This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

Nothing like a good night’s sleep. I was asleep by 9:30, and slept straight through until 5:45 this morning. My cough is gone, I feel rested for the first time in 2 days. It’s awesome, really. I skipped my massage yesterday, and my Veterans Art Center meeting. You know I was tired if I didn’t get the massage, lol. I was afraid if I wasn’t coughing my brains out on her table, I’d fall asleep there, lol. Better not to go, than be the client from hell.

I am so excited to see my son. OMG, 9 months is too long not to see your child, even though we talk every day. Don’t want to go that long again! We will have such a good time! The baseball game, maybe go kayaking, go to my sisters house, the beach….so much to show him and do with him. Maybe I can take him to open mic night! I plan to go out there this summer, and we’ve talked about meeting in CT too at some point, because we both miss our friends there.

The weather here is going to be around 80° all week, I think that will be the norm from now on. 80° is my favorite temperature. Hot, but not too hot. The humidity is very low this time of year. A couple more months and it will be hot and sticky, but right now, it’s perfect. Hot and sticky is a trade off for not having to deal with 10° and piles of snow, and that’s a good trade in my book any day!

Tonight I’m going to make that dinner for L that I kept telling him I’d keep warm while he was gone. Looking very forward to that. I have a few things to go get this morning for it. We should have a good time, we laugh a lot together.

I am so grateful this morning, for the way my life has turned out, and for the people who are in it. Feeling very blessed, as always. Love and light to all.

3 AM Observations

Posted on by learning to live like water

After not being able to write much while my friends were here, last night I couldn’t stop. I wrote the blog, Manatees and Men, and then two poems. In between the poems, I wrote another whole post as I tried to figure out what it is that holds me back with Tim.

I realized that the whole day together we did not really laugh. And laughter is such an aphrodisiac, I so miss hanging out with someone who makes me laugh hysterically all the time. It actually has overridden the fact that I was betrayed on a grand scale, so many times. I think that’s why I kept talking to him periodically over the last year, because I wanted to laugh, and feel sexy at the same time.

I went to sleep easily last night, and didn’t wake up until about 3 AM. I knew yesterday was the anniversary of the night my mother died last year. And that also marks the beginning of Scott’s re-entry into my life. I pieced it all together like a movie in my head for a couple of hours last night, just observing all the emotion I felt then. Because I wanted to understand what the incredible attraction to him was, when he was able to so betray me, and lie to me and to Betty so easily. Why did I still feel affection for him, so many times, and let him back in? The answer to that would be the answer to why I could not feel a connection to the other nice men I’ve dated.

Scott and I had been talking the whole week before my mom died, every day, many times more than once a day. because Betty had just found out about me and this blog a week before, and was never going to talk to him again. He and I had fallen into our old routine, of talking, texting, picking up where we left off before Betty’s re-entry into his life. When my mother died, I called him.. It was late at night, I’d just hung up the phone with him and knew he was up. He offered to come just be with me the next day, so I wouldn’t have to be alone, and I was so bereft, and so grateful that he would do that. He came, and we swiftly fell into bed and a relationship again. For 3 weeks, til Betty found out, got jealous, and wanted him back. I’d known that would probably happen, that at some point she’d want him back, I understood the pattern. But I didn’t expect the attacks from him, designed to convince her that it meant nothing to allay her jealousy, when of course I knew better. Later on he confirmed what I knew, and I thanked him for that, because I’d taken so much shit about our relationship from him, and then from Betty, who in her jealousy, felt she needed to weigh in on my relationship with him. And then his cryptic messages….oh it went on. We stopped talking at all for 3 months. It’s all here in the blog over the last year.

But the point is, no matter if I was crying, or if I was furious with him, or loving him, he made me laugh. I mean, wonderful belly laughs. I once cursed him for making me cry, and then making me laugh while tears were running down my cheeks. When we broke up, he used to say the thing he missed most was hearing me laugh.

I won’t go there again with him. I am just too tired of the games that get played, of the insecurity of caring for someone I could never trust. The last time we talked, I just looked at my phone and exhaled “I am SO sick of this game.” That was the end, and I won’t start again.

But neither will I settle for someone who can’t make me laugh.

I don’t want to hurt Tim. He is a nice guy, really nice. Kind, loving, sweet. But he doesn’t make me laugh. He makes me smile, but that’s not the same. And, I think it’s too soon for him after his wife’s death. He doesn’t think so, but he has said that he really needs a woman in his life. I don’t need a man, I really don’t NEED one. I am quite happy to be alone most of the time. But I want one, I love men. I think I should call it quits with him before I end up hurting him, because I don’t see me ever feeling very amorous with him, and I know he’s heading there now. He said he has his own life that he loves, and he does, but he’s got a hole to fill. He says he NEEDS a woman. I don’t think I will ever want the job of filling a hole left by the death of their spouse.

I’m just going to keep on looking. And, to keep on loving the life I’m creating here. As I get more involved in community projects, maybe I’ll meet someone in real life, who can make me laugh hysterically. I can only hope.

But I’m going to stop obsessing over it. I know better what I want now. But I’m also very grateful for the life I’ve created, and live. It’s seriously joyful most of the time.

It’s nice to have the house to myself again this morning. I haven’t done my meditation since before the girls came for 3 days, because I need quiet, no distractions and none of them are meditators. It’s something I need to do, to keep myself centered.

I think I’ll go do that now. Love and light, all.

Music and Friends (or why I was so tired last night, lol)

Posted on by learning to live like water

Open mic is such a cool thing in this little town. I was supposed to meet my friend Beth there. She said she was going early to practice a song with a couple of guitar players, but when I got there she wasn’t there yet. The friend I’d run into Wednesday was there, sitting with a few other friends, and he right away motioned for me to come over and sit with them, which I did.

I got into a conversation with a woman who I was only acquainted with before, when I asked how everyone’s week was. She was telling me if it could go wrong it did, lol. Then we got into a discussion about how Mercury turns retrograde Monday the 19th. And kind of wondering what effect that will have on the Electoral College vote that day. Mangia Gourmet Cafe is a rare place in FL where you will not find any Trump supporters, so it’s safe to talk openly about him, and not expect any arguments.

Beth showed up, and as is her way, she flits from table to table because she has known everyone for so long. She kind of settled across the table from me, next to our awesome transgender friend G. G is 69 years old, and trans-ing from male to female. She is so open, and funny and she sings beautifully. Next to G was a performer who comes up from Sarasota, about an hour away, on a regular basis. The table was rounded out with D, the wife of the shows MC, who is an actress, having taught acting her whole life, but is now retired. She and her husband are equity actors, meaning they get paid for their work, lol. However, she considers herself a sculptor. I have not seen her work. Such a lovely funny person.

We were talking about the music they were all playing, and I leaned into the table and said, “I am waiting for someone to get up and do some Van Morrison. I’ve never heard anyone sing him here.” B, the guy from Sarasota, nodded his head, and looked like he was thinking about what I’d said. Well, when it came to his turn to sing, he first did Harvest Moon (Neil Young), then maybe one of his own compositions. Most everyone was doing just 2 songs, but we kind of egged him on to do another. The MC told him to go ahead, and B said, “Ok, well I have a request…” and he pointed at me and began singing “Moondance.” So everyone at our table started clapping. Somehow he transitioned Moondance into California Dreaming and that into All Along the Watchtower absolutely seamlessly. It was so awesome! When he was done I gave him a big hug, thanking him for all of it, especially Moondance.

There are always makeshift bands that play together, to back someones music up. My friend Beth did her two songs, but then joined in a bunch of others. Everyone loves her to sing with them, because she knows all the music, and can sing harmonies without thinking about it, and puts on a fun show while she’s up there. The last song of the night was Minnie the Moocher, (old Cab Calloway). They had 6 or 7 performers up front, and Beth was singing the scat part of it, she is so good at that and loves to do it. Everyone laughing and clapping, everyone having a good time.

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“Minnie the Moocher” at Mangia Gourmet

At the end of the night, a few people were saying how Mangia is needing a bigger space. Because it does get really busy, people are out on the sidewalks.

God, what a fun night.

Tonight is my date. I got a text from him last night saying he hoped I enjoyed my open mic night, and that he was really looking forward to tonight. So am I!.

What a rough life, lol. I slept til 7:30 this morning, that is SOO late for me! But I’m glad, hopefully it will mean I won’t get tired so soon tonight.

Love and light everyone.

Thoughts on Unconditional Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

I drove out to my sisters yesterday, to do laundry and to spend the night, but also because she was having  a small dinner party, and she asked me to help.  One of her best friends just had a mass found in a lung.  He had prostate cancer just about a year ago, and now this.  So, my sister brought together a few couples that were best friends with this man and his wife to try to cheer him up.

I don’t know that it cheered him, but it distracted him from impending gloom.  He hasn’t had a biopsy yet, so there’s a chance it won’t be as bad as a “mass in the lung” sounds.

I would call what my sister did, unconditional love, of her friends.  She tried to be there for all of them.  So they could support each other.  She gave them the venue.

We sat around and talked.  Her friends are becoming my friends.  As we talked, we opened up.  Told our stories.  Stood by them.  Laughed at them at times, laughed at ourselves, commiserated at times.  It is what happens.  Unconditional love doesn’t require perfection, it just requires acceptance.

It is the same with any friendship, right?  For the friendship to develop, people have to share their stories, to relate, to let you in behind their wall.  Intimacy only grows this way.  I have had someone in my life who claims to be a friend, but will only share so much with me. Enough to concern me, not enough to either confirm or allay my fears.  I would guess many of us have known people like that.

So what happens in that case?  You back off, when you realize they don’t really want to be close. When the two-way communication, and sharing, and trust stops, the friendship often dies, or goes dormant. This backing off is often perceived as a condition for love.  One friend is constantly trying to prove that I don’t love unconditionally.  Why?  To what end?  To justify, after the fact, that they chose to put a wall up?

Does your backing off mean you don’t love them, unconditionally?  Of course not.  Unconditional love is just that.  Unconditional.  Do I accept someone who chooses to leave me out as they are?  Yes. And I will let them be.  Do I love them still?  Of course.

It has nothing to do with whether or not I love anyone.  I once told my son’s therapist (court ordered, when his father and I were getting divorced) that there was nothing my son could do to make me stop loving him.  The therapist said, “Oh I am sure there are some things…”  I said, “No.  There are behaviors I would not support, or accept, but I would always love him.”  The therapist looked at me and said, “You’re right.  Unconditional love and unconditional acceptance are two different things.”

So, this is still true.  I will always love my son, I will always love the friend who now chooses not to talk to me.  I will be there for them, if they change their mind.  I don’t hold a grudge.  (Sometimes I wish I could, but I’ve never been able.)

I say a lot, “Love always and all ways”.  That comes from Byron Katie, one of the greatest teachers I know.  She teaches unconditional love, and acceptance of what is.  So yes, I still love that way, even if someone shuts me out, or behaves in a way that is hurtful to me, or to themselves.

Love and light, to all.

 

 

A Feeling of Wonder

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’ve been for hours, to an outdoor brunch with music, which was supposed to end at 2, but actually we stayed much later. My friend Beth sang, with the guy who was playing for it, as did a couple other people. Another buy brought his bass and played the whole second two hours with the man on guitar. It’s fun to go with Beth, because she is at the center of the music community here and knows everyone. She’s lived here for 28 years.

After the guitarist was done at 2, all the musicians who had taken part in the mornings brunch music, came to our table. Some of them were collaborating on songs for another venue, some were just talking, they were hungry, lol. It was really fun to hang out with them all. They are all about my age, and we all like the same kind of music. I am not well versed, but I’m getting an education, lol. They include me so much.

I had met a man who sang old kind of crooner songs, from the Frank Sinatra genre, the other night. We talked for so long today. He is from NYC. Everyone is talking about Bob Dylan getting the Nobel Prize, and this man said he remembers so well, being in high school and going to Greenwich Village and seeing Dylan, and Peter Paul and Mary and other great old names there. He said that this community reminds him so much of the Village. I’ve never been to Greenwich Village, but I can imagine that it does. Everyone is so serious about their art, whether it’s music or painting or writing or whatever. Yet, they are all one big family and so laid back, kind, and respectful of each other.

They’re having the First Annual Gulfport Jazz Festival this coming Saturday. My friend Beth is totally excited because she sang jazz for so many years and knows so many of the musicians that will be playing. She’s trying to arrange an after party at one of the restaurants for all the musicians to come after the festival closes at 10, and just be able to jam together. I went with her to talk to one of the restaurants that is a good venue for this. I hope it works out for her.

Tonight is the super full moon. I want to go to the fishing pier or somewhere similar with a glass of wine and watch the moonrise over the water. I want to remember too, to put out my crystals on a tray to recharge them. I love the full moon, and this one should be huge, being the closest the moon will be to earth this month.

Maybe it’s the full moon energy that is giving everything a feel of wonder today.  Life is good here. Had a wonderful day so far, and it’s not over yet.  Feeling grateful.

Love and light, all.

Laugh Til You Fart

Posted on by learning to live like water

(Warning:  Adults only…..)

I was talking to a dear friend tonight about how I had one man who was an awesome lover, but not fun, and another one who was not really a good lover at all, was quite self absorbed, but made me laugh all the time. He made me laugh so hard I farted once, in the middle of sex. Which had us both hysterical. (And me red-faced, lol) Once when we broke up he said, “Who’s gonna make you laugh til you fart now?” (We stayed broken up for a few days I think, lol.)

I’d rather have the laughs I think, than the heavy serious lover. I love to laugh.

In truth, I want both, lol. An unselfish, caring lover who can make me laugh til I fart.

But I remember being talked down to, because I had a rich full life with the funny one. And I said to that person, “Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? To have great sex with the man you love?” Geezus. I should feel bad about that? Or be embarrassed? WTF?

I just don’t get that attitude. As if it’s not one of the joys of being in a relationship with someone. As if sex with the person you love should be a burden.  Or you should make them feel it is.

Well, anyway, I never understood that whole thing. I suppose some people just have baggage, that keeps them from enjoying fully that wonderful part of intimacy, in a (for me) closed, monogamous relationship.  I don’t want to be judgmental.  I’m just happy that I don’t have any, lol.

I’m sure there’s someone out there (in Florida!!!) that will join me in that endeavor

Love and light, all.

Laughter

Posted on by learning to live like water

I love to laugh.  Someone who can make me laugh, a really good belly laugh, has a permanent place in my heart.  I have a lot of those people in my life.  Yeah I’m blessed.

My son first and foremost.  He saw me getting upset on the way home from his birthday dinner last night because I was thinking about him moving away, and he had me hysterical in a few minutes.

He used to have a volvo, which was automatic but you could push a button and it had a whole bunch of gears you could shift through manually.  Now he has a normal standard shift car.  He reminded me of the day he cut his finger really badly, needed to go to emergency.  I as at work a half hour away.  I said, “can’t you put your car in automatic and just go?”  Forgetting that his present car is a standard.  He calmly said, “Mom, I have a 6 speed standard car. What are you talking about?”  He reminded me of that last night.

As a kid, when he went to bed, I used to also go up to bed and read, mostly so I didn’t have to sit with his father watching “Deadliest Catch” again.  He would come in my room, sit on the edge of my bed and start just cracking jokes.  I’d have to beg him to stop, so that I could relax and go to sleep.  But it’s one of my favorite memories, having him come and make me laugh every night.

He’s such a blessing.

My bff makes me and everyone laugh.  I love to go to her house, because I know we will laugh our asses off.

There are other good friends, I can count a half dozen friends who can always put a smile on my face.

S….was perhaps the best at it.  He could make me laugh hysterically, sometimes in the same breath that made me cry, because it hadn’t been his intention to make me cry.  He could dead pan it. Like, say something dead serious, and wait to see me erupt into hysterics.  I miss that. When we used to have our mini-breakups, which usually never lasted more than a few days, sometimes he’d text me and say he missed me.  I’d say, “Yeah, I know what you miss….” He’d always say, “you think you know everything.  What I really miss is making you laugh.”   And we’d get back together, momentarily.

I always feel like I’ve accomplished something great if I can make someone laugh like that.

Anyway, I thought I’d find some funny things to put up this morning, because I feel like laughing. So here goes.

that's hot

Toast porn

like a boss

sumo baby

not my cat

But this poor thing looks hungry (and she looks like my Maggie)

thinking

Google is demented

Have a lovely day.  Love and light.