Accountability

“You’ve picked a hell of a time to get a life!”

~ Me, in a text to my friend

My world has been turned upside down this past week—just not in the way you’d think.

It is not Trump or world events that have me feeling like I’ve been thrust into an alternate reality (Okay well, maybe they started it) it is the fact that my “accountability” friend has decided to get all “human” on me.

Sally, I will call her Sally because that’s her name, has been my friend for well over twenty years.
We served side by side in the jewelry trenches. Even then I counted on her to get me off my ass and outside in the fresh air. Spurred on by her desire to lose some actual baby weight she convinced me to run three miles with her every day after work. Since I had put on ten pounds of imaginary baby weight, and given the fact that I’m just a damn nice friend, I acquiesced.

But not without protest.

Since I’d never so much as picked up my pace to catch a cab or board a plane, actual running by choice was as farfetched of an idea to me as having a baby. And what do I do when I’m talked into to doing something I don’t like? The mature thing. I bitch and moan every step of the way.

Sally didn’t give a shit. She is the honey badger of accountability friends. 

She was always several paces ahead of me talking away, paying absolutely NO attention to my protests.
“Oh my gawd, I’m gonna die!”
“This is so hard. Isn’t this hard?”
“It’s so hot today, can’t we stop at the corner and go get ice cream?”
“I can’t do the hill. You do the hill. I’ll wait here and jog in place.”

Deaf ears don’t hear complaints.

These very valid reasons for quitting always fell on Sally’s deaf ears, and let me tell you—I can be persuasive. I could argue the collar right off of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

IF Sally  replied, which was about as infrequent as the sex I was having in those days, her response was always the same “Come on, you can do this.”

Rain or shine we ran. Pouring rain in the winter and in temperatures well over one hundred degrees in the summer. I cried. I begged random gardeners on their rounds through those manicured Beverly Hills neighborhoods to spray me with cold water from their hoses for relief from the heat. Honey badger wasn’t having any of it. She just shook her head in disbelief and ran on. After a couple of years, she even convinced me to bump our daily mileage up to five.

‘Fuck me running”, as my friend Sandra would say.

Fast forward two decades and she has maintained her role as my Chief Exercise Accountability Expert—only now we hike.

Every Sunday and Tuesday. Those are the days we hike together. Sally hikes seven days a week. But since she has to be at work by ten, she starts most days when the sun comes up. I cannot subject myself to that kind of torture before I’ve had my coffee and pooped, so most days I get there by 8:30 and by that time Sally is long gone.

She still starts by seven on Sundays and Tuesdays, but since those are her days off she does the hike TWICE and I catch her at a civilized hour on her second go around. You heard me. She does a brutal, mostly uphill, three-mile hike TWICE on Sundays and Tuesdays.

Sally is a beast, a stone cold half-way bitch—and a soul sister.

When she swings past the stairs where we meet, (she doesn’t stop), she is barely out of breath. Her arm and ankle weights in place, she sets a pace that would challenge an Olympic athlete. Does she slow down at all? Nope. But I know the routine. I just try my damnedest to fall in line. It’s a lot like jumping into a round of Double Dutch. You get up to pace and jump in—or you fumble and fall out. As per our routine for the past two decades, I fall in step several paces behind her while she chats away—and then I commence the whining.

I love her for that. I love that she cannot be bothered with me and my resistance to exercise. I love that she talks over my complaints and that her only answer if she acknowledges me at all is “Come on, you can do this.”  I love her persistence and reliability. I know with the same certainty that I know that the sun will come up, that Sally will be on that mountain when I text her.

Except for this past Sunday.

I was actually looking forward to the hike since I’d been away for a week and we had a lot to catch up on. I geared up and enjoyed my prerequisite cup of coffee waiting for her text from the hill. That time came and went. Finally, around eight thirty (which is noon in Sally time), I texted her to make sure she hadn’t been bitten by a snake to eaten by a hungry bobcat because those are the only two reasons I could think of for her silence.

What she texted back was even more horrifying.

“Believe it or not I just woke up.”

Wait. What? Had the earth stopped spinning? Did pigs have wings? Was my exercise-nazi friend in trouble?

We agreed to meet and I actually got there before her! When I stopped checking the weather on my phone to see if hell had frozen over, I saw her pull up next to me. She didn’t even notice my car. When I went and stood next to her driver’s side window she jumped. She was slow, she had a cold and felt…wait for it…tired.

Oh, the humanity! Here was the proof that we had actually fallen through a portal into an alternate reality. This is not a woman who lets a cold or lack of sleep sidestep her! That is MY gig!

This is a woman who hikes when she has the flu. Or an injury. She limp/hikes. She would commando crawl if she had to. With a dog on her back. I swear to God.

Sunday she hiked one round. One lousy round. I was concerned but tried not to show it. I just shamed instead her because that’s what old friends do.

We still had Tuesday. Viruses don’t survive long on Sally. Tuesday she would be back to her old self and all would be right with the world. I would be the sick and tired one and SHE would go back to her role as the none-shit-giving honey badger.

Here is how yesterday, Tuesday, went.

8:22 am — I texted her the eyeballs which is our symbol for “Where are you?”

She texted back: I’m planting. Driving there soon.

My response: Wtf? Who are you and what have you done with Sally!

Sally: It’s just 8:22.

Me: Exactly! I was worried. You’re usually on round two!

Sally: I was amending soil and planting.

Me: You’ve picked a hell of a time to get a life!

Truth be told I’ve always wanted Sally to slow down and smell the flowers. Just not on Sundays or Tuesdays. I always figured she was immune to the seasons just as long as she could hike—so I’ll be happy for her when the shock wears off.

What happens if she decides to live life so fully that she becomes completely unaccountable?

It’s too much for me to think about today. I’m going to eat some pie for breakfast.

Carry on,
xox

Thank you over-entitled, underappreciative, totally unaccountable assholes. Thank you for keeping it real.

Okaaaaaay…
So, here I am trying to wrangle me some assholes.
Like an idiot, I think I can change their minds about their assholishness. But come on, we all know they can’t hear me because they are not at a place to, awwwww fuck it… (their heads are too far up their asses!), there, I said it.

Thursday I was talking to my friend Heather (one of the sweetest, nicest people on the planet. Waaaaay nicer than me!), and we were commiserating (uh oh, slippery slope), about how it seems that lately all of the—we won’t call them bad guys, okay, so maybe they can be called the “shitty people”.
How it seems that all of the “shitty people” (assholes) seem to be coming out on top. Either with their particular brand of financial trickery or the fact that their hijinks (general jackassery), is trying to suck the good cheer out of the new year—and is keeping us up at night.

Now, if I’m up late at night and YOU are the reason, and I had serial-killer tendencies, they would be materializing right about then. I know it doesn’t seem like it but I can be quite diabolical when pushed. I’m spiritual but I’m not a saint, and when you’re shitty to me or mine, I Ommmmm it away as long as humanly possible—and then I start plotting all the ways to…well, you know, kill you, or at least, ruin your day.

What I really need to do is mind my own goddamn business.
Seriously.
Just back away from the asshole; smile and disengage.
Then take a nap. Or go to a movie.
I’ve been seeing an awful LOT of movies lately.

Remember this poem from last year? Yeah me neither.
Just kidding, actually it keeps repeating on an endless loop in my brain—right alongside all the murderous thoughts.
I think it would be smarter to let IT win.

Here is what I’ve prescribed for myself today:

“Mind your own business” she said, the voice in my head.

“Who the hell are you?” I replied.

“Mind your own business!”

“Mind your own business” she warned, “Don’t look over there,
it’s not your concern, why do you care?”

I see some disaster and I’m compelled to assist;
like a poor choice of lipstick—I can hardly resist.

“Mind your own business”, she harped, “Keep your thoughts to yourself.
That’s the best piece of advice, better than any book on a shelf.”

“Mind your own business” she sniped, “And here’s more advice:
keep your nose outta trouble.
Don’t make me ask twice.”

“Darling. I’m you.”

Some people are just shitty assholes—so drink some water, go to the movies, and mind your own business this weekend you guys!

Carry on
xox

How many of you are blamers? Or married to a blame? Or were raised by a major blamer?
Show of hands, please. Uh-huh, I thought so.

I had a boss for almost twenty years who was a blamer and it drove. me. nuts. He was a shamer too. I’m convinced blame and shame are siamese twins, but that’s just me. Let’s see what the expert, Brene Brown has to say about blame in this short, funny and insightful video.

As for me? I’m not a blamer, I’m an “I told you so-er”.
I have to bite my tongue not to say in some way, shape or form, “I told you so” to my husband like, forty-five thousand times a day.
Seriously.
Like today. He saved all of his outdoor tasks for this morning. The morning we were ALL warned that El Nino was going to hit us like well, like a big, fat, super soggy storm full of really wet rain.

And like the shining example of good wifery that I am, I reminded said husband of his shitty decision making,choices, —timing, before I left for the gym and it was only drizzling.

But alas, he waited until the REAL rain hit to empty the dog poop can into the main garbage bin, get the dead Christmas tree out to the curb for pick-up, and fiddle (fix in man-speak), with the sump-pump (all of which we talked about just yesterday), and then sent me a text and left evidence (wet pants in the shower), of how soaked he got. (Who is surprised here? What woman is the least bit surprised by this?)

See how I did that? Never once did you hear me say I told you so. I wanted to. So very, very, badly.
My tongue has permanent grooves.

Listen, I don’t want to tell Brene how to run her social media, but I think that needs to be her next video.

The seemingly repressed but clearly expressed I told you so.

What do you guys think? (That’s for you, Jim)

Love, soggy in Studio City
Carry on,
xox

As you wake up and become more conscious, you start to clean up all your messes from the past, mend fences and take responsibility for all your decisions. It’s called accountability.
It’s ALL part of the process.

Have a great Saturday my loves,
xox

It feels more important in these buzzy, blurry times when branches of our government and many of our larger institutions have managed to sidestep accountability regarding their actions and decisions, that we, individually, must be held accountable.

Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but…
We can’t ask it from someone or something else if we’re not willing to answer the hard questions ourselves.

Before we step off the sidelines and onto the “playing field” of life, someone should hold us accountable.
What do we hope to achieve with our action?
How can we best express our vision?
What do we think we can add to the world?

That last one is the doozie because we already have enough “takers” in the world, we need the big-hearted “givers” right now. We ALL have something special to give. That I know for sure!

Also, to clarify, this does not mean to shout, or comment or tweet mean-spirited, non-constructive criticism from the sidelines. That is not making someone accountable, that is bullying. Ask intelligent questions, engage in a dynamic conversation. Don’t be a coward. Don’t be “that guy”.

I recently got inspired to start a group for “women in transition”. I’ve been talking to people one on one for a while, but a group? Even though the thought excited me, and even though I was encouraged to do so, I hesitated for months. I wasn’t sure I was ready to come out from behind the anonymity this blog provides…to get on that “playing field” so to speak.

But you’ve got to gear up and take that first step.

I did follow my intuition long enough to start to write the email I would send out.
I tweaked it a little bit every day, adding and subtracting things to better express what I wanted to say.

Then I sent it to someone I KNEW would hold me accountable, big time!
A few days went by without a response, and believe you me, I started to sweat!
Even though she had been encouraging me all along, I knew she had the ability to read between the lines, to feel the intention inside the words, and bust me on any BS.

She’s also highly intuitive so the day I was freaking out the most, she called…from her sick bed.
Am I surprised? No! Well, maybe a little, she has NEVER called me in the four years I’ve known her.

Here’s where it gets kinda funny. I had just been wondering if I should offer wine at this group. Just a thought, but it had just crossed my mind and I have to say, I had already decided it was a bad idea.

I guess the Universe found that thought so repugnant, that it roused my poor friend from her sickbed, to call and tell me this:
I love that you’re doing this.
Be clear. You are not offering a wine and cheese bitch session. (Got it!)
You are to apply the energy you have to drive evolution forward.
You are to approach this as a $10,000 a day life coach would, and drive a dynamic conversation. 
Got it? I’m tired, I’m going back to bed.

Gulp. Now THAT is holding someone accountable, and I love her for it!

I rewrote the email accordingly and (deep breath) finally sent it out.
Her response this time?
“Welcome home”

Who holds you accountable?

XoxJanet