lesson twenty-five: it's okay to forgive someone for purely selfish reasons

This one's not going to be long. But a little less than two weeks ago, I did something I've never done before. I forgave someone who hurt me--although unintentionally--very, very badly, without any kind of proper apology or explanation.

(Several weeks) after this happened, said person finally said, "I don't really know what to say." And that was about it. A few weeks later I told him--"THIS IS WHAT I NEED YOU TO DO SO WE CAN BE FRIENDS AGAIN." (He thought we were already cool by that point.) Did he do this? No. Did I have any confidence the gesture was forthcoming? No.

So after feeling terrible about something I did nothing to cause done by someone who seemed incapable of making amends for weeks, if not months...a light bulb went on. Something like: I get to stop feeling bad about this thing that was done to me. I get to stop feeling awkward around this person who did something to me and is unwilling to deal with it.

And I realized I was allowed to forgive him, anyway. Just like that. And based on the results, I have to exponentially recommend it. I'm going to start forgiving people for no reason more often.

(for more on my countdown, 30 lessons from lalaland, click here)

lesson twenty-four: shave your pubes

i admit, i was not born with the gene that understands at birth that women should shave their legs. or wear makeup...much less, you know, "trim the hedges".

or maybe i *was*, but lost it somewhere in the wake of watching my former southern-beauty-queen mother cake on makeup and curl her hair just to drop us off at school. even if that meant we were late (or maybe she was really going to go see her secret lover afterwards??...nah...).

at the sweet, tender age of ten, i was probably close to a militant feminist. i had very short hair, refused to wear dresses, openly scoffed at my mother's domesticity (sorry mom!) and was certain that if hair grew anywhere on our bodies, it was because it was supposed to be there. (and i was apparently good enough at this that i effectively convinced my mother i was a lesbian until my mid-20s.)

[how did i turn out so mild? and straight?]

so anyway. up until i moved to LA, i never really trimmed...down there. i suppose it had simply never occurred to me as something to do.

shaving around "the area"...sure. for even though my mom's passive aggressive attempts to buy me Nair, without ever actually telling me what it was for, failed completely...once around age fourteen or so my sister walked into my room when i was dancing around in my underwear and i guess i had some afro-in-a-wig-cap action happening down there, she merely held up her hand and said, "CHRISTY!!! how about a courtesy shave!?" --well see, that worked wonders. see, parental units, mine and at-large, when you actually speak to people, amazing things can happen.

but that was still a decade before i found myself in the company of two of the first LA women i ever met in this great city--both very proud to be *double scorpios*--which for those not in the know apparently means nympho sex kittens/maniacs.

and one night, hanging out with these lovely ladies at fat fish, a great sushi joint in west hollywood, one of these ladies and i had to go to the bathroom at the same time. and there was only one.

"oh, don't worry, we can go together!" she enthused, and pulled me in with her.

*sidenote: all through junior high and high school i had a recurring nightmare that i had to go to the bathroom in front of other people. my high school psychology teacher informed me this was a dream about feeling that i had no privacy.

*side-sidenote: at the time when he told me this, i had had the definition of privacy (reposted verbatim from the dictionary) taped to my bedroom door for several years.

*side-side-sidenote: i COULD NOT go to the bathroom in her presence. she said her ex-husband was the same way. "pee-shy", she called it. i actually, truth be told, drove all the way home just to pee before re-meeting them at a bar later that night.

but anyway. while i was waiting for her to go, i couldn't help but notice her daintily trimmed pubes. just a tiny triangle of hair, really. i apologized and probably blushed ridiculously for noticing. but see, the thing about DOUBLE SCORPIOS is how sexually open they are! she merely laughed and apologized for the moment even happening.

but like i say...tell me...show me...i am open to bettering myself. i am doggedly addicted to bettering myself. so from that night on, i decided, well...if a double scorpio does that with her pubes, who am i to argue?

(for more on my countdown, 30 lessons from lalaland, click here)

lesson twenty-three: music is not just an instrument of torture

i like music. no, i love music...although i gotta confess i rarely find myself listening to it on my own time.

i've never owned an iPod (but...i want one! *wink wink*) i never turn on the car radio. i don't listen to anything at the gym (except the "house music", whatever happens to be on, but mostly refer to the "no iPod").

i don't have a stereo. i have a decent iTunes library and listen to music on my computer, on occasion. (1500 of my songs, 4000 of my father's--a gift from him on an external hard drive a few christmases ago. this chick, hands-down, i think easily has the biggest Kingston Trio collection of any girl in hollywood.)

if i need to unwind after a stressful day, i'll pour myself a glass of wine, light some candles, pour a hot bath (and set off the smoke detector more often than not, and in the middle of the night...but i digress), and put on some norah jones or rosemary clooney, which makes me a fifty-year old woman or an eighty-year old woman, respectively.

but i really, really love music. i always want to learn more about it and discover new bands. i now have enough indie music recommendations to impress the prolific Indie Music Buff in LA for exactly one conversation (Lenka and the Noisettes...shoot i just blew it!) it is stressful for me to be around Indie Music Buffs because i am neither against them nor have anything to contribute to the conversation.

all because i grew up thinking that music was bad.

i grew up with my bedroom in between the thin walls of my brother's and sister's rooms. my brother had an amplifier addiction and only listened to rap music and country--that vibrated the walls. my sister, who grew up trying to emulate my brother in every way, only liked country music on the other side. loud, bad country music.

so on the rare occasions when i could escape to my room without required listening, i basked in the quiet. and then when the music started again, i would flee downstairs--

to where my father would be blasting easy listening music.

there was no escape.

and then, there was my mom. she's the one who drove me everywhere, and her car was her sanctuary. where my ears were invaded by freaking modern christian inspirational music. we're not even talking about good old-timey gospel tunes, which i could dig. i swear. this was like, sandi patty. go ahead. look her up. it'll be a nice kinship-empathy moment for us.

"Mom, can we just turn it off?"

"Christy, this is the only time I get to listen to it!"

so yes, it took me until age 28 to hear about the Smiths. and yes, the last rock concert i went to may well have been Bush when i was thirteen...(i was SUPPOSED to go to the Killers on wednesday, but had dress rehearsal. gah!)

but all in due time...and i'm in the right place for it. and even though by LA standards i am sure i am music-retarded, my music IQ is off the charts compared to what it would be like if i'd stayed within oh, 3000 miles of my father's stereo.

(but i gotta admit, my knowledge of classic rock is not shabby...and exactly when in life do you meet a girl who can sing along to "charlie and the mta"?)

(for more on my countdown, 30 lessons from lalaland, click here)

lesson twenty-two: "definitely" means "never"

if you're looking for definites, don't move to LA. of course the saying goes in life there are no guarantees, but in LA there are even fewer. people dressed like superheroes regularly walk the streets. writers with no experience get six figures for a one-line pitch. the "wrong" people may surprise you and the "right" people could very well, and probably have, let you down.

maybe it is because of this inherent vulnerability that the word "definitely" tends to boomerang here...it has nowhere to really latch onto, so it turns around and goes back on itself.

examples:

"We definitely have to do this again soon." --translation-- "We will never see each other again."

"I will definitely read this script." --translation-- "I will forget about this forever by the time I get home."

"I will definitely get back to you by Monday." --translation-- "Don't expect to ever hear from me again."

...and so on. sadly it took me turning into the beast before i realized this curse.

"Oh, I will definitely e-mail you when I get home," I said. (I never e-mailed her.)

when hanging out with a friend of a not-really-and-no-longer-mutual-friend:

Her: "We need to hang out soon." Me: "Definitely." (We never hung out.)

that was about two years ago. so i tried very hard to stop using that word, and then a few people said "definitely" and actually came through for me and i thought maybe i was wrong, after all. and very happy to be so.

until then this weekend, when it popped up in an e-mail from a guy i liked very much:

"...I definitely don't want to let you go..." --translation-- "I'm letting you go right now."

(for more on my countdown, 30 lessons from lalaland, click here)