That's Scary

Today as millions of people celebrate Halloween, get loads of candy, dress in costumes and indulge in other tricks and treats, a lot of attention is focused on being scared.

It got me to thinking, do people really want to be scared or are they scared of being scared? Many people live with fear, yet we love being scared. That’s why horror films do so well at the box office.

We like the thrill of the kill, the whack of the ax, the ting of the scream. In fact, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that scream.

When we are startled, we get a pounding sensation in our chests. When we are afraid, our body changes, our heart beats faster and our senses are heightened.

Emotions such as fear, anger, frustration, and anxiety cause the body to produce an automatic "flight or flight" response.

This involves nerve and chemical signals that fire instant messages from the amygdala, (a peanut-sized structure deep within the brain), to the heart, lungs, and other organs of the body.

Additional nerve groups, called the sympathetic system, originate within the brain stem's medulla region and use adrenaline-like chemicals to stimulate the heart and accelerate its rhythm.

Neighboring nerve fibers of the parasymphathetic system provide inhibitory signals to the heart and other organs to calm things down again, so we don't stay in a constant state of heightened alert.

The balance between these two systems provides the right mix of up and down responses that keeps us aware of pending danger or stress and calm after the stressful situation subsides.

Life is about living, not fearing. It’s about facing each fear courageously and releasing them from our body, mind and spirit.

What is the scariest thing you’ve ever done? Whatever it is, it probably started out as scary and once you did it, it no longer held any fear.

Following is a list of scary facts to make you cringe, get your heart pumping and your imagination active.

• Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who died in 1832, left his entire estate to the London Hospital provided that his body be allowed to preside over its board meetings. His skeleton was clothed and fitted with a wax mask of his face. It was present at the meeting for 92 years.
• Every Halloween millions of bags of chocolate are devoured. Cacao, the main ingredient of chocolate is the most pest-ridden tree in the jungle.
• Hair and nails do not continue to grow after death. The skin recedes, making it appear to grow.
• Fishermen in Australia caught a five-and-a-half foot long cod and found a human head in its gut.
• In 1970, a group of people were arrested at Highgate cemetery for intent to harm a vampire, who is rumored to still be around today.
• In 1982, a Chicago women burst into flames for no apparent reason as she walked down the street.
• Mourners at the funeral of a young Belgian girl were shocked to hear screams from the coffin. She had woken from a coma and was nearly buried alive.
• In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
• 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
• The Australian bird-eating Spider is over 6cm wide and 16cm long- almost the size of a human hand.
• People fear spiders more than they do death.
• One million Americans, about 3,000 each day, take up smoking each year. Most of them are children.
• Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.
• The total combined weight of the worlds ant population is heavier than the weight of the human population.
• The average American consumes enough caffeine in one year to kill a horse.
• In 1221 the daughter of Genghis Khan ordered the killing of the entire population of the city of Nishapur (about 60,000) in one hour. The order came after her husband killing. (Moguls claim that 1.7 million were killed)
• Coca-Cola was originally green.
• The main library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
• The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep.
• It is possible to drown and not die. Technically the term, “drowning” refers to the process of taking water into the lungs, not to death caused by that process.
• More than 2500 left handed people are killed every year from using right handed products.
• The average person will spend two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
• The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
• The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
• Tokyo has 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional Japanese greeting.
• Samhainophobia refers to an abnormal and persistent fear of Halloween.

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The Home Depot Patient

I am writing a new screenplay based on The English Patient, called The Home Depot Patient. Why, you ask? Because I just spent the last two hours there looking for light bulbs and all I got was sawdust in my eyes, mouth, lungs, teeth, nose, ears.

It’s no wonder I hate going to there. My friend Tristan loves it - - must be a testosterone thing. He can be there for hours, look at power tools and think nothing of it. Me, I would rather face a firing squad.

As I felt my way down the narrow aisles littered with abandoned carts, blind from all the wood debris, I began to feel like a rat. Because of their poor eyesight, rats have to stick to the side of the walls or other stationary items. That’s why most of them wind up in traps. They don’t see them unless they are in an open area away from the wall.

I couldn’t even find my way to the door without knocking into something. Then I made a deal with he universe. We’re like this (crossing middle finger over index finger.) I said, ‘If there is anything you can do to make this trip pleasurable, please do it.’

Suddenly I hear the song, “Kiss Me,” by Sixpence None The Richer. It’s such a sweet song, how can you not enjoy it?

“Kiss me out of the bearded barley
Nightly, beside the green, green grass
Swing, swing, swing the spinning step
You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.

Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me...”

Immediately my mind shifted and I was running through a grassy lily filed with the sun dancing on my face. It was so peaceful - - until the crosstalk started from the inconsiderate employees - - crosstalk that sent my mind back to where I was.

“Bill, a customer is waiting in lumber - - Chris, extension 233 - - Mike, clean up the paint spill in aisle 47 - - Robert, can you pick up lunch - - Did anyone see the game last night - - George, exterminator on line 2 - - Fred, extension 385 - - Bill, do we carry hunting rifles?”

Couldn’t they save the crosstalk until after I was gone? They spoke over the entire song and I still hadn’t found my way to the right aisle.

When I got close to the light bulb aisle, a forklift comes barreling down the main aisle with a guy barely out of high school driving it, almost running over me. He blows the horn and another guy waving an orange flag quickly closes the aisle.

To make the delay even longer, the forklift driver has trouble getting the pallet off the shelf, which causes more agitation to people who are waiting to go into that aisle.

In December of 2005, a 24 year old former employee drove through The Home Depot in Chandler, Arizona, then attempted to burn it down in an apparent fit of anger. (I wonder what brought that on?)

I love what the coworker said, "He always seemed pretty low key, but who knows?"

I couldn’t wait any longer, my vision had returned, so I decided to try to find my way out. I went through the lumber aisle, which is by the door and a gust of wind blew in, kicking up more dirt and dust.

I was back at square one. Choking, wiping dirt out of my eyes, and covering my face from further assault.

Remember in The English Patient when Ralph Fiennes’ character, Almasy and Kristin Scott Thomas’ character, Katherine were in the middle of a sandstorm? They were stuck in a jeep and he pours a little water so that they can wash out their eyes and noses and mouths. She takes her silk scarf, wets it, presses it to her face.

The sand is piling up against the two cars, the tent is swept from its moorings, the water cans are hurled up too, and then plunge ominously into sand drifts as if going under an ocean.

Almasy tells Katherine about the winds. “There is a whirlwind from Southern Morocco, the Aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. And there is the Ghibli from Tunis which rolls and rolls and rolls and produces a rather strange nervous condition. Then there is the Harmatton, a red wind which mariners call the sea of darkness. Red sand from this wind has flown as far as the south coast of England apparently producing showers so dense they were mistaken for blood.”

I felt like I was in that scene, in that sandstorm. It felt so real that I could taste it. My cornea was plastered with tiny grains of reddish brown quartz and I was lightly floured with soot.

As I headed down the last aisle to freedom, I happened to walk next to some welcome mats. They had the usual ones that read, “WELCOME,” but the one that really caught my eye, (ha ha) was the one that read, “LEAVE.”

It was definitely a sign from the universe. I had to get out, get out and never return. I never got the light bulbs, I couldn’t see the point. (Get it?) Couldn’t “see” the point.

I did overhear a male employee tell a female employee that there were rats in the stock room. The shriek that came from her mouth almost deafened me. Now all of my senses were offended. It was absolutely time to go.

Imagination can take you anywhere. It is the cornerstone of creativity. A universal right of way to transforming your day, feelings, experiences. It is also a great stress reliever. Today, let your imagination play. Let it take you to places you never thought you would go.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”

~Albert Einstein

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The 'L' Factor

How many times do we get angry at ourselves, at others or at God for our lives? How many times do we find negativity and doubt dripping from our acid tongues?

We curse the heavens and the universe for bringing us here in these conditions. We blame everyone except ourselves for the tangled web we have woven.

It’s time to clear your throat, clean your tongue and have a little gratitude for being here in the first place.

You are a lottery winner. You have won life. You have won the people in your life. You have won your lifestyle, your job, your intellect, your everything.

Though sometimes, it’s not pleasurable, as soon as we deal with it, the reality gets better.

Have you ever wondered where you begin and where you end? Is it one in the same? Do you feel that you are part of the circle of life? Do you think of what kind of strings that were pulled to bring you here from where you were? Your existence goes though many transitions before you end up here.

Their is a hierarchy of spiritual powers that be that must place you in the right environment, country, climate, circumstances, parents, that will give you everything that is predetermined for your particular life that maps out the course to get to your destiny.

You are connected to a massive network of inner knowledge and a spiritual corporation that backs you on your decisions. You are never alone. That’s the key. You are never by yourself.

It’s all about love. The degree in which your heart radiates towards the universe. We are galaxies - - suns - - moons - - stars.

We are a system of swirling emotions held together by mutual gravitation. We gravitate towards the center of existence in a series of events that ground us or give us lift off.

We beam love, we dream love, we breathe love, we are love. How can be anything else, but love? We must remember what we are and act accordingly.

Love is the story we are told before we come here. Even before we understood the words, we had the knowledge of love. Even before we could consciously give it, we felt it. And we like how it feels. We love how it empowers us.

Even if we don’t feel love, we still have a reserve that we can tap into at anytime. It’s the ‘L’ factor.

Have you ever felt that your heart was skidding and waiting for the crash? That whatever you do, you can’t do it right? You don’t have to feel that way.

That’s the time when you have to remember that you are loved and that you are love itself. Remember the joy.

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Offer Compassion

A man distraught by all the pain and suffering he saw around him broke down and banged his fists into the dirt. As the dirt flies into his face and stings his eyes, he looks up and yells at God.

"Look at this mess. Look at all this pain and suffering. Look at all this killing and hate. God. Oh God! How could you let this happen? WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING?"

The dirt swirls, the wind roars and he hears a voice from beyond the clouds. “My son, I sent you."

Often times we feel frustrated and helpless in certain situations. We feel that there is nothing we can do to alleviate our suffering and the suffering of our fellow man.

Life is full of suffering, but it’s also full of love. For everything that can cause heartache, there is something that can cause joy. For everything that can cause hate, there is something that causes love. Love can become the stronger component if we make a point to channel it daily in everything we do.

We can tip the balance by taking the attention off of ourselves and putting it on compassion. We are all in this ocean together, trying to stay afloat.

We swim against tides, fight off the sharks and other predators. Sometimes our arms get tired and we feel ourselves being dragged under the current.

That’s the time when we stretch our arms out to the side and help our fellow man. It’s enough to keep our heads up and to keep us alive. Just by reaching out, our attention has shifted. Just by reaching out.

By being the life jacket to one another, life isn’t so strenuous. There is strength in numbers. Have you ever tried to push your car off the road when it was broken down?

You would struggle by yourself to move such a heavy vehicle, but with two or three others, the car moves effortlessly. (And if you’re like me, you hop in while others push. ;D)

I think there are a lot of generous people out there who give their time, money and heart to charity. Frankly, without them charities would be in dire straits. I am not saying to go on a peace mission in a third world country, unless that is something you feel you should do.

Other people suffer in direct proportion to how our heart suffers. If we are loving we are not suffering. By that I mean, if we concentrate on offering compassion, we don’t suffer.

When the opportunity to be compassionate arises, have a heart, lend a hand, make the effort, offer love. There is something in the act of kindness that fills us like nothing else.

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Tips For Living Well

I used to have a friend who was often frustrated with her life. At these times she would complain and say, “People should come with instructions.”

I always thought that this was a colorful statement and wondered what those human instructions would say if we did come with them.

Thinking about this, I happened upon some tips that I think would work well as our instructions for better living.

They are simple and very doable tips that we should keep in our head and heart.

Hey, if we remember half of them we will be doing well. Learn them well and spread them throughout your life.

• Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
• Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
• When you say, “I love you,” mean it.
• Believe in love at first sight.
• Never laugh at anyone's dreams.
• Love deeply and passionately. Even if you get hurt, it's the only way to live life completely.
• Don't judge people by their relatives.
• Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
• Say, “Bless you” when you hear someone sneeze.
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
• Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibilities for all your actions.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
• When you realize you've made a mistake take immediate steps to correct it.
• Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
• Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
• Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
• Spend some time alone. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
• Read more books and watch less TV.
• Live a good honorable life. When you get older and think back, you'll get to enjoy it a second time.
• Trust in God but lock your car.
• A loving atmosphere in your home is important. Do all you can to create a tranquil home.
• In disagreements with loved ones, deal with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
• Share your knowledge.
• Never interrupt when you are being flattered.
• Mind your own business.
• Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
• If you make a lot of money, put it to use helping others while you are living. That is wealth's greatest satisfaction.
• Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.

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The Paradox

“I have found the paradox,
that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt,
only more love.”

~Mother Teresa

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Live Your Best

This weekend, may you find the love you have always been looking for inside of you. Be good to yourself. Be good to those in your life. Be good period. If you give your best everyday, then you will be living your best day.

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Cry Happy

It’s too much sometimes. The world crashes down on us and crushes our heart. We are pinned under a wheel of hurt; a Catherine Wheel of sorts, laying in excruciating pain with squashed limbs while our living remains are threaded through spokes and pole hoisted into the air for vultures and crows to feast.

According to a seventeenth-century chronicler, a Catherine Wheel victim looked like, "A sort of huge screaming puppet writhing in rivulets of blood, a puppet with four tentacles, like a sea monster, of raw, slimy and shapeless flesh mixed up with splinters of smashed bones."

Looks gruesome - - sounds gruesome - - feels gruesome - - IS gruesome. Knowing and feeling that our hearts have just been murdered, good old fashion tear therapy is in order.

We have to cry. It’s therapeutic, cathartic, a release of emotional density, chemicals and hormones that have built up in our brain over time. The chemicals and hormones disappear from our body through the form of tears, soothing our sadness or distress by withdrawing these chemical agents. Crying is a stoppage of emotional erosion that can spill over into spiritual inadequacy.

Charles Darwin called crying "a special expression of man." It is a rare human universal that we share with no other creature, but more so tears smooth out the irregularities of the eye surface making our vision possible. Without this watery layer, we would see weird diffractions, absences and would lose our eyes to infection.

There are three types of tears. Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated constantly. Reflex tears are produced when our eyes get irritated, like with onions or when something gets into our eyes. A psychic tear is produced when the body reacts emotionally to something.

When emotions affect us, the nervous system stimulates the cranial nerve, in the brain and this sends signals to the neurotransmitters to the tear glands and we cry. Many believe that the body, in times of emotional stress, depends on the lacrimal gland to release excess amounts of chemicals and hormones, and thus returning it to a stable state.

Women have been allowed to cry more than men traditionally, but the benefits of crying suggest that men need to cry more. A study of more than 300 men and women was conducted in the 1980’s at the University of Minnesota which concluded that women cry five times a month and men about once every four weeks.

In Tom Lutz’s book, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears, he states that, “Cultures around the world have crying out of obligation, for show, and for grief and pain. Each culture defines where and when it is acceptable to cry.

Cultures, in some parts of the world, sometimes determine the length of crying and mourning. For example, in the Zuni culture, a chief allows the mourners of the dead to cry for four days after which the chief says that the death occurred four years ago, and now the mourning may end.”

It is not the howling itself that makes our crying unusual; it is the tears that go along with it. Other animals may whimper, moan and wail, but none sheds tears of emotion - - not even our closest primate cousins.

Apes do have tear ducts, as do other animals, but their job extends only to ocular house cleaning, to bathe and heal the eyes. But in our case, at some point long ago, one of our ancestors evolved a neuronal connection between the gland that generates tears and the parts of the brain that feel, sense and express deep emotion.

Lutz also broaches judgment of tears. “If a young woman were to fall on the ground weeping in a restaurant, and wash her father's feet with her tears while begging for his forgiveness, few people would find it as appropriate or heartwarming a sight as a group at an eighteenth-century British inn might have. And the same is true for the other judgments we make about tears, as when we deem them to be normal or excessive, sincere or manipulative, expressive or histrionic.”

Lutz has a point. Who says a little girl crying because she can’t have a lollipop is in less distress than a woman who is crying because her husband is cheating on her? Both have the same pain when what they want doesn’t coincide with what they have.

No matter how many versions of Cry Me A River that we hear - - from Ella Fitzgerald to Justin Timberlake, it’s all the same. The pain of our existence is equal to the joy of our happiness. In other words, if we have to be in pain, it’s better to process it rather that leave it unprocessed where it will surely wreak havoc in our Soul and affect our happiness.

It’s good to cry. It’s good to heal. It’s good to reset ourselves. Let it out. Rid the liquid from your eyes, your heart, your life. Shedding tears is both beneficial to your physical health as well as spiritual health.

It’s good to mourn and then celebrate making through another day because let’s face it, making it through any day is a cause for celebration.

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The Possible Dream

My friend Oceanshaman has tagged me with the following.

'Write five things you want to be when you grow up. Big dreams that seem like folly, but in your heart of hearts are very real and dear to you. Things that maybe you have forgotten about in the ebb and flow and toil of the everyday, but that never really leave your soul. What you would do if anything was possible?

Spend some time day dreaming…and then post them on your blog, passing the idea along to 5 others...because sometimes we need to pause and remember our dreams. Maybe just saying them out loud will help you discover little ways you can make them happen. You can write about that, too.'

When you ask me to name five things I want to be when I grow up, I have to pause because I will never grow up. Growing up means that life is over in a sense, that I can’t do things that I find enjoyable because of time or commitment constraints. So I will rephrase it to five things I am doing or will do in the future to enhance my life and those around me.

Dreams are important and the key to my existence. I am living my dreams. I am living them in my head, my heart, my consciousness and my Soul. In fact, my name for a dream is a “dreamality.” Partly because people think dreams are unattainable and the other part is because if we think dreams are possible, we can dream them into reality.

1. I have always had a dream to be a screenwriter, to tell the stories of my heart and Soul. I trained vigorously for it, learned the ins and out of structure, characterization, plot, story, etc. I had a great script that hadn’t been told before. A producer loved the idea and wanted to make it into a film. He took the script, I never got paid and I heard he made it in Japan. I regrouped and continued writing and eventually sold another script to another company. To make a long story short, I am still writing scripts after a rocky start because I never gave up. Currently a production company is developing several of my scripts and I couldn’t be happier.

2. Many people want to travel to see the world, I want to travel to experience other cultures and to see what is in their hearts. I know we are all connected and I want to see how I can connect with all.

3. I like cars (not in a way that men ogle over them, but design wise) and would like to own a vintage Mercedes; a 1955 300 SL Gullwing will do nicely. I think this is a classy car with great lines, style and loads of panache. It’s beautiful. I love the doors so much that I just want to drive it with the doors open so I can fly into the stars.

When I want to be driven, my dream car is the 1928 Isotta Fraschini Coupe 8ASS from Sunset Boulevard. I will be Norma Desmond wearing those black elbow gloves, hat and glasses, being driven to Paramount Studios.

4. I can’t stress enough how important it is to love and open our heart. It is hard for some people say, but it’s never hard to hear. Believe me when I say, if we do nothing else, we can love. Everybody needs it. Everybody wants it. Everybody breathes it. It doesn’t cost us anything, but what we gain from it is a sense of spiritual freedom, confidence and wings. (Probably why I like the Gullwing.)

5. My endless dream (dreamality) is to lift and leave people with love. It is important for everyone to feel that they matter. All of you matter. Put your differences aside, leave the hate behind. Don’t give it energy. Turn that negative energy into love.

*Bonus* This is for all the undiscovered dreams in the heart of all dreamers. We are all born to dream. We live to dream. We dream to live. Make your life, your dream and love with every fiber of your being. Every fiber of your dreaming.

I would like to tag fellow dreamers.


Raffi

Crushed By Ingsoc

Max

Ubermouth

Ask Lucid

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Love's Magic

"Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud.
It is the Morning and the Evening Star.
It shines upon the cradle of the babe,
and sheds its radiance
upon the quiet tomb.
It is the mother of Art,
inspirer of poet, patriot,
and philosopher.
It is the air and light of every heart,
builder of every home,
kindler of every fire on every hearth.
It was the first to dream of immortality.
It fills the world with melody,
for Music is the voice of Love.
Love is the magician,
the enchanter,
that changes worthless things to joy,
and makes right royal kings and queens
of common clay.
It is the perfume of the wondrous flower --
the heart and without that sacred passion,
that divine swoon,
we are less than beasts;
but with it,
earth is heaven and
we are gods."

~Robert G. Ingersoll

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Silence Of The Ostrich

My neighbor is knocking on the door. I don’t want to open it. Last night she caught be coming home and she just didn’t stop talking.

I don’t like to cut people off, so I waited and waited and waited, but she never stopped. I kept smiling just to generate enough juice for my eyes not to slam shut.

After two weeks of hotel hopping, I just want to rest. So I have to type quietly so she won’t hear that I am home. If I look out of the peep hole, I’m sure she will see my eye peering out. You know people can tell when you are looking out of the peep hole because you blink your eye.

I have great neighbors and she is no exception. She is very nice, but sometimes I like the peace and quiet of my own thoughts. There are so many thoughts that travel through my head that I have to stop and make sure they get to their right destination.

I know why ostriches obstruct themselves - - because of neighbors like mine.

Ostriches are huge, flightless birds of the open African savanna. They are the world's largest birds, standing 8 feet high and weighing more than 300 pounds.

Ostriches are also the world's fastest running bird. They can reach speeds of 45 mph, putting them in the same league as the cheetah, the antelope and my neighbor's Rottweiler that won't let me cut through his yard.

Ostriches only have two toes. One toe is small and mostly used for balance. The other toe is huge, more like a foot, with a 2-inch long claw on the end of it. With their massive legs and deadly claws, ostriches are capable of delivering kicks that can smash the skull of a would-be predator.

Since ostriches live on the open savanna where there are few places to hide. When an ostrich wants to go undetected, it drops its head and long neck to the ground in hopes of fooling an enemy that it is a distant bush.

The idea of sticking their heads in the sand is definitely an old wives tale. Speaking of old wives tales, you also don't get warts from toads, you don't have to wait an hour after you eat before swimming, and dogs mouths are not clean. And I mean any dog's mouth, especially my neighbor's foul-mouth Rottweiler.

Oh no, my neighbor is still knocking. Don’t tell her that I am home. Keep it on the down low. I have to hide, she’s looking in my window.

Oh and remember, it’s okay to have quiet time where you can just be alone. A great time for meditation or hearing yourself think or embracing the silence in your Soul, otherwise you’ll just run yourself into the ground.

Oh, she’s finally leaving. She’s carrying something. I think it’s cake. I can see that is says, ‘Welcome Home Alexys.’ How sweet. (pun intended.) Oh no come, back neighbor. Come back. I’m sure she will be back shortly. Now I can’t stop thinking about the cake.

Happy peace weekend!

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Elevator Etiquette

What is about elevators that make people nervous, uncommunicative and uncomfortable? Every time that I get on an elevator, I smile and wait to make contact, but other elevator riders do everything to avoid contact.

They look up in the air, look through their purses, look straight ahead, at the floor numbers, at their watches or pretend to peruse their papers.

One person even clung to the side of the elevator like Spiderman as if he was praying to God. I didn't know if he was praying that he would make it out alive or that he wouldn't have to talk to anyone. People just don’t have elevator etiquette.

One of my hotel experiments was to see how many people I could get to talk during our elevator time. When someone stepped onto the elevator and I saw that they were uncomfortable, I did what they least expected; I said, “Hello.”

Some responded in kind and most of them barely mumbled “Hello,” under their miserable breath while they continued to look down.

When you think about it, we don’t spend that much time at once in an elevator, unless we are stuck. That still doesn’t mean anything to those who don’t partake in the art of elevator etiquette.

Most of them would rather have root canal or a needle stuck in their eye. Don’t you think that once everyone gets on the elevator that it should stop right before it gets to the designated floor and give people a chance to chat?

I think a voice should come through the shaft and say, “You’re not going anywhere until you all speak to one another. It’s not going to kill you.”

I think in a way, elevators are designed to make us feel closer to each other, not further apart. A sense of togetherness, not loneliness. Elevators shouldn’t make us want to press the “Close Door” button when we see someone running straight for it.

As my experiment was coming to an end, I was a bit disappointed by the results. I didn’t think it was going to be a success, but knowing that thoughts are actions, I changed my thinking and decided to give it a go again.

I was determined to have a successful experiment. One man got on in an elegant blue pinstripe suit. (I am a sucker for men in suits.) I said, “How are you?” He said, “Very well thank you and you?”

Something happened in that moment. Bells went off, lights blinked, life stood on it's hind legs. We actually made a connection. One of those genuine moments that you never forget. He made eye contact, smiled and was very open and responsive to my greeting.

I was so excited, (I think it was the pinstripe.) As we spoke further, I found out that he was from Texas and was in town for a seminar. He certainly had the Southern charm and the smile to light all of darkness.

As we walked together in the lobby, we kept the connection going. Sparks were flying off the flint stones. We were volleying words back and forth and scoring points right and left. As he exited the lobby to his waiting car, I felt my experiment was a success.

Anytime I make a connection with a Soul, it’s a success. Anytime we stop and acknowledge another person, it’s spreading the love and letting everything good in us merge with everything good in someone else.

I think we have modules of merit, kindness, compassion and humility inside of us to corroborate our spiritual bounty, but they are often short-circuited by desire for wealth, corporeality, greed and extravagance - - and we’ll do anything to get them, including cutting the throat of our fellow man to gain dominion over him.

See, we really can change the our outcome if we put the right thoughts into action. I did find that more men speak as opposed to women and I don’t think it is because I am a woman, I believe men are more open to speak.

Men don’t seem to have any pretenses. They just take the situation for what it is and respond accordingly. Women are more cagey and preoccupied with life.

One thing I did learn, elevators and elevator people seek their own level. Some continue going up while others are on a downward spiral.

People are like elevators, we all have are ups and downs, people enter and exit our lives all the time and people push our buttons. We just have to be aware of the doors closing and opening.

Of course this experiment wouldn’t be complete without fascinating facts about elevators.

• The most widely used form of mass transportation in the U.S. is the elevator. The average trip takes less than a minute.
• Over 340,000 elevators in the U.S. travel more than 1.5 billion miles a year and make more than 500 billion trips.
• One elevator manufacturer boasts that its elevators alone carry the equivalent of the world's population every nine days.
• The Roman architect Vitruvius first described elevator-like lifts in the 1st century B.C., and there is reason to believe that his description came two centuries after the first "elevator."
• The first known elevator was invented by Archimedes. He made a vertical box that moved up and down by a set of ropes and pulleys being pulled by horses or men. Primitive elevators of this kind can be documented to have been used throughout the Middle Ages to move cargo or other heavy loads vertically.
• The first elevator specifically designed to move people was installed at Versailles for Louis XIV. The King could enter a lift chair from an outside balcony, and men inside the walls could use ropes and pulleys attached to counterweights to lift or lower his royal personage, but the first device truly resembling what we now call an elevator and designed to carry passengers was built by Elisha Graves Otis.
• Up until 1853, elevators were deemed unsafe for passengers until Elisha Graves Otis invented a spring safety device for his elevator which sprang into action if a cable broke and its tension slackened.
• At the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York City in 1853, Otis rode his elevator above the heads of the spectators. Then he called for the cables to be cut and the Otis elevator was in service.
• The first passenger elevator began operating at the Haughwout Department Store in New York City in 1857. It took less than a minute to climb five stories, but it would take over 20 minutes to reach the top of most skyscrapers.
• The smoothest elevators were the "direct plunger" elevators. A large plunger was built beneath the cab and fit into an underground cylinder. When the cylinder was filled with water, the elevator was pushed upward. When the water was let out, the long plunger moved down the cylinder and the elevator descended.
• The oldest operating elevators in the U.S. are direct plunger elevators. They are located at 34 Gramercy Park, in New York City's earliest cooperative apartment house. The elevators were installed by Otis Elevator back in 1883 and still retain most of the original equipment first used in the nine-story building.
• The fastest and longest ride in the U.S. is to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago. The speeds reach about 1,800 ft. per minute, or about 20 mph. It takes less than a minute to reach the 103rd floor.
• In Japan elevators offer a smoother ride than those in the U.S. One industry spokesman says, "Japanese elevators are very smooth because the Japanese are very sensuous people, whereas the people in the Western world are more in a hurry and a smooth ride isn't considered as important."

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Breast Cancer Awareness

It may affect the life of a stranger or someone closest to you, but the facts are staggering.

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers.
• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, exceeded only by lung cancer.
• The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is about 1 in 8 (12%).
• It is estimated that in 2007 about 178,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States.
• Women living in North America have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world.
• The chance that breast cancer will be responsible for a woman's death is about 1 in 35 (about 3%).
• In 2007, about 40,460 women will die from breast cancer in the United States.
• Death rates from breast cancer have been declining since about 1990, with larger decreases in women younger than 50. These decreases are believed to be the result of earlier detection through screening and increased awareness, as well as improved treatment.
• At this time there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States.

October is the Breast Cancer Awareness month, Max has asked me to pass the penguin and I am asking my readers to do the same thing.

How can you help?

1. Spread the word. Announce the event on your blog. You could write a blog post (like this), or a little note about it. Whatever you choose to do, just go ahead and tell your readers about it.

2. Go pink. Modify your theme if you know how to, or get yourself a pretty pink theme. If you run a website, turn your website pink. But if you don’t like pink, you could still participate by putting up a badge on your sidebar.

3. Design badges and banners. Design a couple of “Pink for October” badges or banners for other participants to use (for free) and to publicize the event. Some of the existing badges and banners can be downloaded from the Official Pink for October Site.

4. Design blog themes. There are a lot of bloggers who can’t do a simple design, so if you are good at it, perhaps you could design and release a few pink themes? I am hoping that whoever happens to read my post, please do something to spread the awareness. It only takes a moment of our time.


Please spread the penguin and awareness, by spreading the word. Max has tagged the amazing women on her blogroll, which is a great idea, but why stop there?

Breast Cancer also affects men, so everyone, (men and women) consider yourself tagged.

Thank you for participating!

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Hold On

“For nothing is fixed, forever;
the earth is always shifting,
the light is always changing,
the sea does not cease
to grind down rock.
Generations do not cease
to be born,
and we are responsible
to them because we are
the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises,
the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease
to hold each other,
the sea engulfs us
and the light goes
out.”

~James Baldwin

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Sunny Side Up

This is the last day of my mini excursion into the hotel world. It was very interesting. The dust is settling at home and I will finally return tomorrow (knock on wood.)

That is, if the workers don’t find any other way to delay my return. They seem to have a knack for doing that. I am remaining positive, but I still won’t unpack right away.

As I gaze out of the window into the brilliant sunset, I am grateful for all that has happened. I am just a few repairs away from sleeping in my own bed. Everything will be new again and I will archive this as a memory.

Speaking of sunsets. I have never met one that I didn't like. There is a majesty, tenderness and strength to every sunset. If you look at a sunset everyday, your day would always end in beauty.

If you can, try to see as many sunsets as possible. They always leave me with a sense of accomplishment. They radiate such a warmth. Feel the glow of the sunset. Let it's power bring you love. Let it take you to your star.

Thanks to everyone for sharing this experience/experiment with me and I want you all to have a magnificent weekend full of the sunsets of your Soul.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

~Pablo Picasso

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

~Jack London

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Blunder Construction

Oh my God, the workers are still not done. I made a surprise visit yesterday and walked into a dust cloud. They were plastering a wall - - covering up a hole they made by mistake.

They forgot to cover my new furniture that came two days before the flood. It didn’t get flood damage but ironically “worker” damage from the dust that has formed on it.

All the while, they were singing Spanish love songs (not bad either.) Maybe they were practicing for Spanish Idol. I would vote for the singing, but not the workmanship.

In fact, if I had a hammer, there would be no more construction workers.

Next time I will have to bring a gas mask and a hazardous material suit just to keep clean and to be able to breathe. You may be wondering why I don’t just fire them. They are under contract to do the job until they do it right.

Every time the builder brings in a new crew, they are usually worse than the previous one. It’s not like there are no builders around, but like anything, the good ones are always harder to find.

As I was surveying the repairs, I ran into my neighbor who told me a horror story about his worker.

The worker was supposed to repair a wall and he couldn’t get it straight so he kept going over his work with plaster and inadvertently built the wall out three feet causing my neighbor to lose square footage in his home.

After he was fired, my neighbor discovered that the workers had drank his rare bottle of 30 year old Balvenie Scotch that he got from Scotland.

In this country, people say it’s always good to hire workers who are licensed, but it really doesn’t make a difference.

I have hired both and the only difference between the licensed ones and non licensed ones are that the licensed ones can put a lien on your property if you don’t pay them but you can’t put a lien on their license if they do a shoddy job.

So for now, I am still a gypsy traveling the highways of love. I have found a hotel that has a lot of character so I will stay put until I am ejected.

We are often under construction at various times in our lives, building and rebuilding our stamina, patience, faith, strength, courage and will.

Whatever God has in store for us is always better than we can imagine, but sometimes we have to get out of the way, clear our head, get out of the dust, and let it settle into a new structure - - something to withstand hell and high water.

When the dust settles, we will be transformed and we will embrace the change that has taken place. Change is good. Change is necessary. Change is vital to our growth.

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Still Hopping

This hotel hopping is fun, but exhausting. I have done four so far and have gone back to one. Surprisingly many hotels are sold out. I don't know if it's the time of the year or just timing, any how, I am certainly having an adventure to say the least.

It's amazing what you can find in your own backyard. As soon as I get home and get my notes together, I will be sharing my adventures with all of you.

Until then, don't let life keep you in a rut. Break the chains, do something new, make everyday a new day. Let life guide you to your greatness.

See you all soon.

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