Putting the Me in Meditation

My hard-drive crashed. No, I'm not speaking metaphysically. I mean that with no warning, my computer stopped working and I lost everything I have done the past 6 months.

In dealing with my extraordinary loss, the past couple of days my emotions have ranged between looking on the bright side, which is the hard-drive is under warranty to mild diva annoyance that I'm having to deal with this problem, to all-out Sally Field in Steele Magnolias, "WHYYYY? I just WANNA KNOW WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!"

Today my mind was spinning about all the things I already need to do, in addition to the things I need to RE-do! And I decided to hit the eject button. I went into the Chopra center to meditate.

For those not familiar with meditation, it’s where you go and sit and pretend you're not thinking about yourself. At least that's what a novice like me does. I think of all the things I need to do, while trying not to think of all the things I need to do.

Today while meditating, I mean, sitting Indian style and going over my to-do list, it dawned on me that for me, meditation is just another form of procrastination. It’s like watching TV, or blogging or cleaning my bathroom, it’s what I do when I really have a million other things that I’m supposed to be doing.

I’m such a die-hard dawdler, that even after having this realization, I inquired on my way out about the guided meditation tonight. Which would buy me some more time before starting the writing project that I’ve been putting off since Monday.

And meditation isn’t only a form of procrastination, its top-of-the-line dilly-dallying. It trumps all other forms of time-wasting. In a procrastination contest you might score points for “I put off doing my taxes for 4 years” or “I put off bathing this month.” But you'll always one up someone with, “Oh yeah, well I put off thinking! Yeah, that's right!”

I was going to end this with something witty or funny about procrastination, but I’ll wait and do that in my next blog.

Madam President

So, it's an election year. It's that time again where I think, "Would I want to be President?"

But I wouldn't want to be President. Not because it's stressful, and people would always be trying to kill me, and every decision could effect millions, but because I can't see myself living in the White House. I think home and office should be separate, like church and state or ice-cream and ketchup. I didn't even like having a Blackberry, so I know that if people from work were knocking on my door in the middle of the night, it would really piss me off.

Another problem is that all my diplomacy skills were learned as a child from my mother. As President, I'm sure I'd say stupid things to bickering world leaders like, "I don't care which one of you started it, I'm gonna finish it!" Then I'd sit with my finger on the button and say, "I'm counting to three and you guys better have this mess cleaned up. One....two...." And of course at some point I'd have to use the threat, "Don't make me pull this motorcade over!"

I'd create some sort of scandal moving in, bringing in all my IKEA furniture. The president of Iran would be over for RedBull and corn chips, and he'd sit down in my ill-crafted chair. It would break, he'd be humiliated, and World War III would start all because I never figured out where to put a couple of extra bolts.

And the first couple of weeks of my presidency would be awkward for everyone until I broke the habit of coming home from work in the summer and removing all my clothes in the living room.

Not to mention, I don't think I could handle the 4 year job commitment. I've never worked anywhere for 4 years!

But all those aside, the absolute main reason I can't be President is because my husband and I are slobs. We don't even invite people we know over, so I can't imagine foreign dignitaries seeing the filth we live in. We'd use the Lincoln bedroom for storage, there would be a mystery box of papers in the corner of the Oval office, and a broken TV next to a working TV in the west wing. Greeting visiting Prime Ministers would include saying things like, "Have a seat...what is that? ..huh, I don't know, just throw it on the floor."

But if, for some reason, I survived the mandatory four years in office without being impeached for inappropriate behavior, I'm confident I'd screw it up in the end when reporters ask what I plan to do now that I'm no longer President and I say, "Pee with the bathroom door open."

The Drool Fool

This is the beautiful smile I have after a few hundred dollars worth of dental work. You too, can look like a proud recipient of an ass-whoopin’!

I had to have an old 80’s filling replaced in my mouth. My filling was a leg-warmers wearing, parachute pants lovin’, Duran-Duran listening filling. I had to get it updated to a street cred having, Starbuck’s drinking, iPhone carrying filling.

I realized that there’s a reason for medical and dental jargon… because you don’t want to know what’s going on. Really, you don’t. You want to hear things like “hand me the handpiece” instead of “hand me the giant, loud drill.” Trust me, when you're at the dentist, you don't want to hear, "hand me the super-glue, hair-dryer and a quarter inch of duct tape." You want to hear medi-words you don’t know, you want to be ignorant, because ignorance is truly blissful when you have a jackhammer in your mouth.

But here’s the problem, my Dentist’s assistant didn’t know all the lingo. She was “in training.” When my dentist told me this, I thought “Oh, that’s just freakin’ great!” But I couldn’t say that, because at that point, it was halfway through, and I was only able to communicate through grunting and slurping noises.

So I knew what was coming. I knew when they were about to go in with the mini hair-dryer, with the vacuum hose, with the nail glue, and sadly with the giant squeaky drills.

Then the assistant lays equipment they aren’t using on my chest. The dentist asked if that’s okay. I grunted yes because I thought, “Well, they don’t refer to them as a rack for nothin’. Sure, see what the girls can hold!”

After the dental work is done, he tells me that if I can’t close my mouth properly, “just come back and I’ll make a few adjustments.” Yeah. Because that’s really what I want to do – go through all this again!

And I think after you have dental work, they should give you some sort of “Just Left the Dentist” sticker, so people know. Like the “I just VOTED” stickers they used to give out at the voting booths. So when people see you afterwards, they don’t look at you with confused sympathetic eyes, trying to figure out what caused your disfigurement.

If I lived anywhere besides NYC, I’d be able to walk out of the dentist office, get in my car and drive home anonymously with my dignity in tact. But instead, I walk past dozens of people on my way to the train, while drooling and laughing. I looked like the kind of person that if you have small children, you’d cover their eyes and cross to the other side of the street to avoid.

You lose all rights after having dental work done. Like for instance, on the train, I wanted to ask the kid next to me to stop picking his nose, but I knew he’d just snap me back in my place with something like, “Dude, you’re drooling!"

So that’s what I was reduced to yesterday, the cock-eyed lady on the train, drooling, giggling and sitting next to a nose-picker.

Going...green?

In an effort to be more "greeen" and get people to quit drinking so much bottled water, my company installed water purifying machines, and sent a long e-mail about how they are "working to help the environment" and striving to be "eco friendly."

Impressed, I went to check it out. For added humor, right next to the new water cooler was styrofoam cups to use with it. Yep, that's right, one step forward, two steps back, that's corporate America for ya.

I googled styrofoam because I was writing an e-mail to Kitchen Services. (Yes, that's how I roll.) And I discovered that Styrofoam isn't just a word, it's a patented brand, so you can thank Dow Chemical for all the Styrofoam in the world. Thanks Dow, I needed that laugh today.