Blogging: I'm Still Waiting For It To Shrink the Size of My Ass

Blogging has had so many positives in my life. But I'm still waiting for a time when I can say, I'm so much better, that I've lost the extra ass I gained two years ago.

People often want to know about this crazy thing called the Adventure Bowl and what it's done for me. To me, it's not just about pool hopping or riding roller coasters - it's about harnessing the strength you get when you do things you fear and apply them to other things.

For instance, feeling really strong has made me stop all contact with a very bad boyfriend. Staying in touch with jerks is for weak girls and I'm not a weak girl anymore.

There's other ways I see myself stand up for myself, too. There was this guy who came careening down my street, obviously using it as a cut through, and boxed me like a skunk in so I could not drive by. When I wouldn't back up so he could get by, he did everything from throw a newspaper at my car to a cup of coffee.

I would not back down. It might have been an over reaction, taking all the times I was just too nice and rolled over, but now risking that he was going to drag me out of my car and teach me some manners.

Instead I held my ground, totally feeling the adrenaline rush. He sized up a way to get passed me but over calculated the space and hit my car. I could hear the side of his car smooshing in... and it made me laugh.

He whizzed past me and I jumped out of my car to see... no damage to my Jeep. He had hit the big rubber side, just over the wheel.

AND I FELT AWESOME.

Is that wrong?

In my family, I have been raised to be the quintessential good girl. But where has being sweet and polite gotten me?

I feel sorry for me, for that good girl, but that girl doesn't really exist anymore and it's partly due to this blog, to the adventures that I do. Maybe other people want to buy 100 self-help books that they never put into action.

I don't. I don't need them. I have my own way.

Millions of people bought "Eat, Pray, Love" hoping they could be inspired to turn their lives around. I did, too. The problem is, how many of us can take a year off and travel the world? Will your job be waiting for you? Do you have the money that it takes?

But one thing I loved about "EPL" was, at the core of the book, it was about TAKING ACTION.

Looking at what you have and realizing it's not working for you anymore and then doing something about it. Seeing your life (which seemingly looks perfect) has gotten off track and then... building a new track, a new where to go.

So I have to ask, how many of you feel like your life has gotten off track? How did you know and what do you do about it?


This blog is dedicated to dancing in your underwear.

Blogging: I'm Still Waiting For It To Shrink the Size of My Ass

Every Thing I Know About Love, I Learned From Reality TV

This blog is UPDATED for your viewing pleasure.

I once went out on a date with an aspiring TV writer. He asked me what TV shows I like and I guiltily admitted my secret love for reality TV. That's right. "Survivor," "The Bachelor" (not all cycles), "Real World," "Top Chef," etc. He scrunched up his face like I had just told him I like to eat baby Panda bears and then he said, "You're the reason I can't get a writing job." Ouch!

What he meant was, I represented all the people all over America who like reality TV and the more we like and watch reality TV, the more scripted TV goes away and it makes it harder for aspiring writers like him to get jobs. Then he got up in a huff and said he needed to have a smoke (aspiring writers are very stressed out).

He seriously kept me waiting for like twenty minutes, I guess so I could "THINK ABOUT WHAT I HAD DONE," so I had no other choice but to pay the bill and leave. That's when I found him, the stressed out aspiring writer who smokes, out in the parking lot. We said good-bye but not before he asked me to read his spec script.

The reason I love reality TV is it gives such awesome glimpses into the human (boy) mind that I really, really need.

Take "Flipping Out" on Bravo. Do you watch it? Because if you do, then you ended up LOSING your mind just like I did over this last episode. In the episode, Jeff the Boss, uses a nanny cam on his workers. It's then that he finds out that his house manager Chris has been goofing off all day on his computer and shuffling around in his personal stuff.

That would be no big deal to BUT...

After Jeff fires him, he has to explain to Chris' wife, Jenni, who is Jeff's assistant, what he caught her husband doing. When Jenni confronts her husband (who she has been DEFENDING all this time) Chris says he's not happy and NO LONGER WANTS TO BE MARRIED TO HER!!!

WHAT???

Here the lesson is clear: We as women cannot take hot guys (Chris) and knowing they have other dreams (he wants to act) try to domesticate them by putting them in a mind numbing office job where their main responsibility is to pick up dog poop and NOT think they aren't going to punish us by breaking up with us on national TV.

Then we have "The Real World." And oh, it's real! On this last season, in Hollywood, Will falls for Janelle until hottie Britney enters the house. Britney, knowing he has a GF, comes on to him anyway (I call her Bitch-ney 'cause I'm clever like that). This is what we call girl on girl crime, people. Don't do it ladies, it just makes you look desperate and ugly.

But that's not where the learnin' comes in.'

Will goes to Mexico with his room mates and hooks up with Britney. He calls Janelle to confess and she hangs up on him. Good girl! But then she calls him a few days later so they can "talk." Honey, you don't need to talk, he already told you everything you need to know!

But noooooo, Janelle needed to find out about his talent to fake cry to get out of trouble and his love of four-somes (yeah, I spelled it right) on national TV before she could kick him to the curb.

That's the next lesson, we all know it - actions speak louder than words. And when your man has his "actions" all over another woman, he's not serious about you. So move on before you are humiliated further.

Oh, if you are not watching "The Two Coreys," then you are literally giving up a half hour of free therapy every week! Those two have the best therapist and you can just take everything she says to them and apply it to your life. I know I do!

I especially love her "one on one" sessions to the extra fucked up Corey. "I'm not asking you why you want to be in love, I'm asking you why you DON'T want to be in love."

Precisely! You don't have to be a meth, crack or heroin addict with self-destructive issues and no chance in hell to ever work again to glean answers from questions like that. Just pull out your journal and get to it!


This blog is dedicated to getting to the real, that is you.

Every Thing I Know About Love, I Learned From Reality TV

The Importance of Standing Up For Yourself

Sometimes standing up for yourself sucks Holy Balls. Sorry. It just does and Holy Balls is my new favorite expression. Just for clarification, Holy Balls doesn't always have to be a bad thing. You can use the term like this:

"Holy Balls, RadoMom! You won our first contest. The next time you're feeling low about yourself, know that you can pick a dysfunctional Mom's love of vibrator talk, right down to the minute it happens." You are gifted and now you shall be gifted... bath stuffs and such. Now email me at 100DaysinBed@gmail.com so I can arrange to get you your fabulous prize!!!

So here's the thing about standing up for myself. It is totally new to me. Where my parents have come in, it's just been totally easier to go along with everything rather than fight with anyone. Why? Because my Mom can NEVER be wrong so it's always been easier to bend and bow than argue with someone who can never see your side, never admit they are wrong and never take responsibility for their own actions.

My sister and I laugh at my Mom's new Non-Apology Apology. It's like a Passive Aggressive Apology. When she knows she's wrong (but will never admit it) she will say, "I'm sorry for my part."

BUT IT'S ALL YOUR PART!!! Here are some examples of when I've gotten an apology like that.

Mom: "Do you really want to be eating that muffin? (Insert condescending glance at my hips and thighs) It probably has 600 calories."
Mom: "You would think living in L.A. with all the professional hair people someone could show you how to manage your hair."
Mom: "Is that top supposed to bunch like that around the waist? I don't know if that's very flattering."

And know you know why it's been a few days for me to write. Because SHE'S TOO MUCH, it's all too much.

But let's go back to how we ended not speaking to each other. The day was Sunday and my Mom and I were supposed to go down to a beach hotel only I was feeling like we had had A LOT of togetherness. We had had two dinners where she was very critical of where I was in my life and I just wanted a break.

I blogged about that day, when I asked for "space" and was going to have dinner with her down at the beach and then drive up to my apartment and sleep here. I figured her time alone, not counting sleep would be about four hours. I blogged about her flipping out but it went one step further.

She called my Dad crying saying she had to move out of that hotel because it was not how she remembered it. So I went down the next day and moved her back to the hotel near me. Now all week she had been saying how she moved out of that hotel for me. Because now I couldn't be trusted to stay with her like I said I would. I might need "space" again and that's not what my mom planned on.

Finally, I had enough and said, "You moved out of that hotel because YOU wanted to. It had nothing to do with me. You said it wasn't nice enough and it wasn't what you remembered and you didn't have enough places you could walk to. It was what YOU wanted. Don't say you left because of me."

I don't know why this bothered me so much but there is a history in my family of "rewriting" history. Taking something that happened and changing the story to make my Mom look better in it. My Mom would not budge and it got progressively nastier which is what happens when I stand up for myself and assert myself and she feels like she's losing an argument.

She started getting really nasty and said some really mean things, trying to paint me as not dependable, that she couldn't count on me and that I had done the worst thing you can do to a person - "You abandoned me." I said, "I abandoned you at a luxury beach front hotel?"

Really? 'Cause now, I think she's reaching. Just a lil'. But she has to win. But I wasn't going to let her. Because I have all my life. I've just backed down. Adopted her version of the story to keep things cool and non-fight-y.

But I always hate myself. And worse, it permeates all my other relationships. I learn how to switch off in arguments because it's just easier. My "standing up for myself muscles" grow weak and I don't know how to use them anymore.

But this time I did. I just couldn't take it anymore. I could feel her manipulating me, first with her psycho-babble, then her anger, then her tears. But I felt nothing, I was unmoved. You feel nothing and unmoved when you've seen it a million times.

And when it was done, and she was out of the car and out of my Los Angeles life, I did feel something. Proud of myself. It's not going to be easy, our future. I don't know what our relationship will be now that I won't operate in the old way. But whatever it will be, it will be better for me because I'm being real for the first time. I won't be pushed around anymore.

Now that I started this, there's no going back.


This post is dedicated to not taking any s*%t.

The Importance of Standing Up For Yourself

Defending Your Life

Whenever I really worry about something, the opposite comes true. So I thought the fact that I was really worrying about my Mom's trip here, would mean that it would turn into a rolicking free for all, good time, wacky Lucy and Ethel on escapades type trip.

Then I remembered that Lucy really hated Ethel.

Things took a sour turn today (yes, a whole 36 hours into her trip). It might have started before that. She kept saying how worried she and my dad were about me. WORRIED, WORRRIED, WORRIED... like worried reserved for a person who lost their job or went into foreclosure or had a life threatening illness. It was starting to feel like, they were looking at some version of my life that didn't exist.

Yes, I am no longer writing for TV full time - no one I know is. But I am doing the most creative work I've ever done and actually making a good salary... a great salary and know that it's guaranteed for a year. So knowing that she worries about me and thinking the only worry can be about my financial future, I say, "Would it make you feel better to know that I'm making (insert what I think is a great deal of money here) a month?"

"No," she said quickly and tightly.

So we went into Marshalls where she needed to buy gifts for some baby set of twins she knows and we got into a huge fight about whether twins wear the same outfits or dress as individuals but it was SO CLEARLY not a fight about whether twins wear the same outfits or dress as individuals.

Of course, I dropped it because that's what I do, but I was feeling like - what more do you want from me? I have a great life (okay, I don't all the time and you guys know I'M FREAKIN' WORKING ON IT! but I've never let on to my parents that it's anything less than).

I guess I'm mad at being judged by my mother, "Judgy McJudger-stein" like I'm some poor sad sap that they have to worry about. Or maybe I'm mad that the things she should worry about - how I've taken my cousin's death or the loss of my boyfriend have never been addressed.

I was really pressing her tonight at dinner, "What are you so worried about?" I know that I am not some conventional "gonna get married and have some kids kinda girl" so I wondered, "Do you think I'm lying when I say that and you're really worried I'm missing out on something I'm not gonna have?"

She assured me she's always know since I was 14 I would not have kids. So what was it? I've said I'm doing well financially, she'd met all my friends the night before and the night before that. I AM THE PERFECT APPEARANCE OF ALL THINGS HAPPINESS AND LIGHT!

SO, what was it????

She wouldn't say although I was stunned when she said later on, "I just hate that you don't feel good enough for your father and I." I think that's when I really lost it. "What? I don't feel that way. Not good enough? You don't think I'm good enough?" It was like all of a sudden she was speaking some dirty truth she felt about me and there it was out in the open.

I felt like I could take a glass and just smash it into the table, I was so mad. Because I don't feel that way. AT ALL. With all I have to F'ING worry about it has never been about not being good enough to my father and mother.

Well, until now.

Because now she put it on the table, she can't take it back.

Then when I got pissed and wanted her to explain what she meant, she starts with the crying and I feel manipulated like I have my whole childhood when she gets backed into a corner she can't get out of and she plays the "tears" card.

That's it, I was out. As I said to a friend of mine, "Two days down, six more to go!" I'm home and she's at a hotel (The best $300 bucks I've ever spent) yet I could not feel more resentful or more trapped than I do right now.


This post is dedicated to prescription medication.

Defending Your Life