One Ear Hair

One ear hair

A few months ago I discovered one hair growing on my ear; about ¼ of an inch in length. It was growing out of the fleshy part of the ear. According to the medical journals it was where the anti-tragus meets the anti-helix… (As if that makes a difference.) The fleshy part of the lobe where the ridge is. (Not inside the ear thank-you very much)
Now of itself that probably doesn’t seem very dramatic. Well of –course it doesn’t seem very dramatic…. it isn’t HAPPENING TO YOU.
Obviously in the scope of importance it isn’t the oil spill, Iraq, Iran, the recent Republican debate the Wall Street movement, or Paris Hiltons’s evanescent career.(Sidebar: did you know that she wears a size 13 shoe?? Whoa! NO shoe modeling contracts for those boats.)

Oops I digress.
Okay now back to the errant hair growing out of my ear. Well obviously my first concern is WHO SAW THIS?

I’m usually not interested in image management. But this was definitely different.

What is image management you ask?

Image management is an illusionary way of being where you painstakingly control what you say, do, and wear for the benefit of other people…bosses, spouses, friends, and the general public. You want to manage their opinion of you so you speak, act, and dress in a certain manner under the illusion that people 1) look 2) see 3) or actually give a shit, about what you are saying, doing, or wearing.
This is not dressing for success…. (Another article another time) this is dressing for an image that you want to portray to the world. You want to control how other people view you. People you know and people you don’t know. It’s an equal opportunity disguise. It lives somewhere between adolescence and Los Angeles.

It is planned, plotted, and perpetuated in the mind of the individual.

It’s based on what will they think of me? Without really answering the important question of: WHO ARE “THEY.” (My pal Patty once said, “you know who THEY are…they are the imaginary people looking in your window to see whether you cleaned your apartment today...” That’s who THEY are.)

For so long I have claimed not to give a crapola about THEM and here I was wondering WHO SAW MY EAR HAIR. (For edification…only ONE (1) hair…so far anyway. Thank-you very much.)

And now I was one of them…the image management group. I had to admit I cared about what THEY thought. Wouldn’t you?

My capricious thinking started to image all sorts of scenarios. How long had it been there? What if the hair was flapping in the wind at the gym while I was on the treadmill? Of-course that didn’t happen because I don’t go to the gym. When my pals and I went to PF Changs for dinner did one of them not order the noodle dish as the result of a subliminal response to (THE HAIR?)

If I had not noticed it …could it have eventually looped around my belt? Who knows how deep this thing can go??

I had nightmares. Headlines, “Extra Extra read all about it”….”Mops of hair growing out of woman’s ears; Surgeons baffled”… …The Enquirer wants to know!….Ear hair suffocates woman. A forest in her ear. (sounds like a song doesn’t it?) Death by tangle?

Oh it just went on an on….as it usually does ……….the ubiquitous state of embarrassment. I was mortified. I RAN AROUND FOR AT LEAST A DAY WITH A HAIR GROWING OUT OF MY EAR.: and everyone saw it and NO ONE SAID ANYTHING. Ha! and they call themselves friends!!!

This has got to stop!

I solved my problem by buying a suicide mirror; that’s the 12x one. You know …you look in the mirror and your pores have pores. Everything is so large you can only look at your nose, lips, or eyes but not all at once. I carry it with me everywhere…that and a pair of tweezers...

This isn’t image management it’s survival.

OMG……….are they the same thing?? Image management and survival?? Maybe those people who are pre-occupied with how they 1) look 2) talk 3) act 4) look are just trying to survive. Maybe they are just afraid of being themselves…or maybe they don’t know who they are….so they pretend to be what they think other people will 1) respect 2) fear 3) be impressed by and most importantly 4) like.

Okay another lesson learned….I say to all you image management people out there…carry on……...there’s room for all of us on this earth and I no longer judge you…My (1) one ear hair and I are one of your tribe.

I now understand.

I had a mid-life crisis in Cleveland

The First Mid-Life Crisis

About 10 years ago I had a mid-life crisis waiting for Southwest flight #1455 from Cleveland to Las Vegas. It was my first one (not flight...but rather mid-life crisis.) This announcement comes over the loud speaker that the flight has been delayed due to storms in St. Louis. Storms? It's June 22 (I remember the day) What storms??? So I'm reading this great book and figure what the heck..it's an 8 hour flight ..because this particular flight stops everywhere...so now it will be a 10-12  hour flight. Who cares I've got nothing pending.

Nothing pending how could that be??? I've been busy since I was 11. .What does that mean nothing pending??? I apparently had urgent pendings at the age of 11. I know from pending. I've been pending all my life...........But really I have nothing pending now. How can I go on without pending, and the anxiety from the pending ??? Can I live without pending???

I remember thinking I could call everyone that has left a message on my phone. (I always make calls from the airport.) Okay... let's see who would have called?? my "recovery" pals who think I know something...some never ending work calls , or friends calling to see what I am up to...What am I up to?? are you kidding ?? I'm without pending ...how can I be up to anything ? But alas I didn't want to talk with anyone. "That's strange, " I thought. My whole life is based on catching up. I live for that. I live to check things off my list. I'm the kind of person that thinks that one day everything will be done and I'll sit down and put my feet up and say, ( I don't know what I would say because like the rest of the world I've never gotten to that point.)

And then it hit me...I don't want to return calls .........I don't want to do anything. There's no one I want to talk to and I have been talking all of my life. OH MY GOD I'm having a mid-life crisis in Cleveland waiting for flight #1455 to Las Vegas. I don't want to read my great book or fabulous W magazine. Oh my God I'm ____________ years old (not ready to devulge my age to you yet) and I've paid for enough therapy to open an outlet mall, self-medicated myself into spending 25+ years in a recovery program, groped my way into meaning and purpose, self-evaluated, self-examined, and self whatever into a mid-life crisis? That is what I'm having isn't it?

And then it came to me....I have examined every component of my psyche, but not planned one damn thing in my life. I just rolled. Life happened and I went for it. One gig after another. You gotta roll with it baby.
And when the rolling stopped............
.... I folded...........major meltdown in Cleveland..
not apparent to the naked eye but exceedingly apparent to my soul. I got scared there wouldn't be a second act.
Well, I recovered from Cleveland and then 10 years later............... as in last year...............
another major meltdown. ANOTHER FU--NG MID-LIFE CRISIS. NO NO NO. yes yes yes.

Again nothing pending AGAIN. So no third act????

So I'm here to tell you there is always another act. You want to know what a mid-life crisis is???........besides picking up a blonde and buying a yellow convertible corvette and a new toupe (for males)  and driving fast on a coastal highway wishing you had a different birth certificate and a different divorce attorney.  A mid-life crisis is thinking and almost believing there are no more surprises for you in life....and no next act...the curtain has come down. So I'm here to tell you that the curtain has not come down.
Show up another day
Dare to be surprised
and if that doesn't work
buy an internet radio station.............
I did.

too many passwords

I decided to buy an internet radio station. TLVS1.com  (am doing this with Chuck Rounds ...whom I've got an arts and commericial photography business with called MaddMeat)
This is my first step in reinventing myself. I've reinvented myself so many times in the past couple of years I've got whiplash.
Do I know anything about owning an internet radio station? of-course not, but that has never stopped me in the past. Had I ever thought about owning an internet radio station before last week. UHHHHHH No. Have I ever listened to radio internet? UHHHHHHHHHH No.
Can I spell internet radio? YES. Wew.
TLVS1.com has video streaming. Fell in love with that as soon as it was explained to me. Have I ever watched video streaming on internet radio? Well since I've never listened to internet radio before this I guess the answer is No.
I've owned the business for a week now and all I can say is: there are a lot of programs and passwords and all I know how to do is schedule the Bobby D show in the computer. Chuck's the smarty pants engineering guy so he seems to know what to do while I stress about not knowing and get sick from the stress and then need to take a day off, which leaves him more to do. Ahhhhhhh the price of partnerships.
We both have 9 other jobs ...his all real and mine imagined...but I think about them and that stresses me out too..even if they don't exist in reality.
Going into week 2 of internet radio land now...and will keep you posted. Just wanted to take a moment and thank my pal RW Munchkin for supporting the idea and my pal Mitchell Greenberg for sending me this quote.
"If at first the idea is not absurd; then there is no hope for it." Albert Einstein
Stay tuned
http://www.tlvs1.com/