Notes:

1. I lied. I will tell you: I was on San Diego Channel 6’s Saturday morning news. There is no link though, thank the Lord in His starry heaven above.

2. The “Lia Sophia jewelry rep lady” is Elizabeth (link here).

3. I never actually said the names of the products I demo’d (that’s bad, right?) So please see below for the links to the products. There were some good ones. Plus, I’ve giving one or two of them away.

Mama Mary won the stuffed pig treasure chest and We Sit by Fire? You won the MyPlate-Mate! Congrats! You wanna email me your addresses? Or shall we arrange a pickup day?

You remember that TV thing, right? As in, I’m going to be on it?

I’ve got my Secret Extra Strength ready to roll and a six-pack of Tums in my pocket, in case I over-perspire or throw up on camera. Thanks for your helpful tips. I especially appreciate the reminders to be myself…just not sure which self to be. There are so many of us. Hopefully I’ll figure it out by tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be the librarian whose a real firecracker in the sack.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d share the items I’ll be demo’ing. If you’d like, you can learn more about them by clicking the links below. I’ll be giving away the first two dealie-bobs (Treasure Chest Pets and MyPlate-Mate), so if you’d like to win, just leave me a comment with what you’d prefer and be sure to include your email! I’ll randomly pick two people to win on Wednesday, March 9.

Treasure Chest Pets are stuffed animal organizers that are a great way for kids to keep their special things safe. Each TC Pet has a magnetic, detachable, pillowy stuffed animal head and stuffed animal body with external and internal compartments for organizing and storing children’s treasures. I am showing the Accessory Chest Pig, which has a hidden drawer and two secret pockets on the outside, along with hidey pockets in both ears.

MyPlate-Mate is a spill-guard for toddlers that attaches to the rim of any standard plate. In a nutshell, it creates a bumper to prevent food from falling off the plate while a child eats. Also, the Plate-Mate’s curved wall helps kids easily scoop food onto their fork, spoon, finger. The Plate-Mate has no lead, phthalates, bisphenol-a, polycarbonates or PVC. Plus! It’s dishwasher-safe.

The BumpyName is a line of elastic rubber labels that are personalized, non-adhesive, reusable and come in a variety of colors. BumpyName’s stretchy design allows it to snugly fit around containers, from baby bottles to sippy cups to snack containers. These suckers are heavy duty and can withstand the rigors of repeated dishwashing, microwaving, boiling and sterilizing.

So there you go. Now be honest, who took bets on whether or not I’d accidentally smell my pits during the interview?

Scene: My husband walks in the door from work. I need validation and assurance. We are in the family room. It is night.

My husband: Hi, honey, how was your day?

Me: DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME?

My husband: Sounds good. I’m going to take a shower now.

Me: What is that faraway look in your eye? Are you leaving me? Who is she?

My husband: See you in about 15 minutes.

*****15 Minutes Later*****

Scene: It is still night.

My husband: What are our plans for Saturday?

Me: I feel so disconnected from you. We never talk anymore.

My husband: Aren’t we talking now?

Me: You don’t look at me the same. I want you to look at me the same.

My husband (making a dopey face): Like this?

Me (making an even dopier face with oogly eyes): No. Like this.

My husband: I don’t think my face can do that.

Me: It would if it loved me.

*****3 Minutes Later*****

Scene: Night still.

My husband: What’s for dinner?

Me: All I do is cook and clean! You don’t appreciate me!

Pasta.

My husband: It looks delicious. I will clean up the kitchen after I eat your homecooked meal.

Me: Are you patronizing me?

My husband: Nope.

Me: So you love me?

My husband: Yep.

Me: That didn’t sound very convincing. You paused a little before answering.

My husband: What can I do to make you feel better?

Me: Make your face do that thing I showed you.

End scene.

Since I’ve been thinking lately about boundaries, I thought I’d explore the serious side. As a woman who never learned to set personal boundaries, I’ve paid a price. Luckily, the cost hasn’t been too high - other than lack of self-respect - but I’ve been in some situations that could have turned out much worse.

In these cases, I either didn’t believe that I deserved to raise an alarm or I felt “bad” for saying “NO!” I often downplayed sexual harassment, for instance, because the term seemed so serious, so “surely that wasn’t what happened to me, he just got a little frisky,” and I didn’t want to make a problem by saying anything. After all, he just “kissed me on the cheek and grabbed my butt.” He’s just playing around. Never mind that he knows I’m married and we’re at a work function. Sad to say, I laughed that incident off and acted like it hadn’t happened. You know, because to do otherwise would make me one of “those girls” who make a big deal out of everything.

Even when I was stalked and my stalker BROKE MY DOOR DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, I felt bad for bothering the police. Because at one time, I chose to date this person, so it must be MY FAULT that now he won’t leave me alone. A belief made more substantial after the male cop asked me what I had done to make my stalker so obsessed with me. After I discovered that police reports hadn’t even been filed (when I had been told otherwise) for each incident (including but not limited to crawling through my window and hiding under my bed), I thought for sure I didn’t “deserve” to be called a victim of a crime.

A few years after that melee, something just as frightening happened, something that could have turned out much worse.

About 10 years ago, The Rock and I were at a friend’s party several blocks away from where we lived. I drank too much and accused The Rock of flirting with a woman at the party. He’d become frustrated when I wouldn’t let it go and left the party, thinking I’d sleep it off at our friend’s house or at the very least, get a ride home. After he left, I decided I’d walk home and give him what-for some more. So I took off without telling anybody and began to stumble the half-mile to our house. After a few minutes, a white truck drove by, stopped, and then backed up to idle at the opposite curb from me. There were two men in the truck and the passenger rolled down his window and shouted a few things to me that I couldn’t hear. I ignored them and continued to walk. Although drunk, I knew this could get dangerous. I was alone without a cell phone on a dark street at midnight and I didn’t have all my faculties about me. Also, there were two of them.

Sure enough, one of the guys got out of the truck and crossed the street. I kept walking, mumbling to myself, hoping he’d think I was crazy. It didn’t work. He jogged over to me, put his hands up my mini skirt and began to pull my underwear to the side. His buddy stayed in the car, keeping an eye out I suppose. The fondling lasted about two or three minutes. I kept walking the whole time, looking straight ahead, saying, “I’m almost home, I’m almost home.”

I have no idea why, but he left. Got back in the truck and just left. THANK GOD. I ran the rest of the way home and told The Rock what had happened. I was very unsober, but he got the gist and insisted we call the police. No, I begged. No. I’m drunk. They won’t believe me. Nothing bad happened. I don’t want to bother the police. But God love him, The Rock picked up the phone anyway and within minutes, an officer arrived to hear my story.

Truthfully? I felt like an idiot. Question after question revealed that I had been drunk, walked home by myself, and wore a short skirt. I didn’t feel blamed per se, but rather somehow responsible. Still, the next day, a detective left me a message to investigate the incident further. Again, I felt silly. Like all this attention was being directed at me and I didn’t deserve it.

I know for a fact that if I hadn’t been with The Rock, I never would have called to report what happened to me. It seemed so minor, so unworthy of attention. Can you believe that? A stranger stuck his hand in my underwear and I thought I was the problem. I wonder now about women like me; women who don’t want to “make waves,” or discount themselves to such an extent that they truly believe somewhere inside, they’re not “important” enough to draw attention to the bad things that happen to them.

I write all this because I wonder about the unreported “incidents” that might have alerted authorities to suspicious behavior, that might have led police to investigate a person before he “strikes again.” What if those guys in the white truck went on to another girl after me? What if she hadn’t gotten off as “easy” as I did? If I hadn’t reported it, then someone else may have suffered. I’m grateful I did report it. But you know what? I had to have someone else tell me I was worth it.

I am on my way to stronger self-belief and confidence, to “I AM worth it.” It’s a long, long road. I’m not sure why it’s like that for me. But I tell you what, I’m making damn sure my girls don’t walk the same way I have.

So this woman I barely know, whose daughter was my daughter’s daycare buddy for a year in 2006, calls me out of the blue a few months ago and leaves me a message that sounded semi-urgent.

“Hi Debbie, it’s Betsy. Can you call me back?”

So I do, even though we’ve never spoken socially on the phone before, even though I meant to delete her number because I haven’t used it for THREE YEARS, even though she and I now live 20 miles away from each other and never talk. Not like we ever did when we lived two blocks from each other for that matter.

“Hi Betsy, it’s Deb. How are you?”

She gets right to it. “Great! Hey listen. Can you come to a meeting tonight to learn about some stuff?”

Oh crap. I know what this means. Multi-level-marketing. Pyramid scheme. Never gonna talk to this person again.

Still, and legitimately, I can’t make it. I have another event.

“Sorry!” I say. “Can’t make it tonight. What are you doing?”

Now she wants off the phone. “Something you really need to hear about. I’ll call you for the next meeting.”

And that’s it.

But not so fast.

Over the course of the next few months, I receive random phone calls from Betsy, each time asking me to a “meeting” the next night. Thankfully, I can’t make any of them, because if I could, I’d have a hell of a time saying no. It’s my thing and I am so working on it.

See, I’m in the course right now of learning to set boundaries and the like, but I’m not there yet, which sucks because I got another phone call tonight. My caller ID told me it was Betsy, so I didn’t answer, but after listening to her message — another urgent, but this time also irritable, voice mail, I knew I had to call her back and say NO. I AM NOT INTERESTED. BETSY. DAMN YOU AND YOUR SATELLITE VIDEO PHONE* OR WHATEVER THE HELL IT IS.

I’m all set to do this too. NO! I’m too busy as it is! NO! I’m working on building my own business. NO! I don’t have the extra time or energy to devote to YOUR SATELLITE VIDEO PHONE BUSINESS. Or WHATEVER THE HELL IT IS.

I’ve got conviction, see. I’m all riled up. I can do this.

I place the call. After 1,507 rings, a harried Betsy answers.

“Hi Betsy. It’s Debbie, returning your call.”

“Oh hi. Can you come to a meeting tomorrow night?”

“No, nope I can’t. What is this for?” (So far, so good!)

“I want to put you in front of the information.”

Put me in front of it? What is it? A 250-lb. man named Leadpipe Joe?

“What information?”

“It’s something you really need to be here for. The information.”

I take a deep sigh. I can DO THIS. “You know, Betsy. I’m working on my own stuff right now, and am not interested in taking the time for this.”

“You really need to hear the information.”

My resolve is weakening. I blurt out, “I just found out I have anemia! I’m too weak. I don’t have the energy!”

“Well see then. This information is good for people like you who are struggling.”

Oh shit. Now I’m struggling. Great. Tell the multi-level marketer that you are weak and sick and could probably use her freaking satellite video phone to connect with loved ones before you die from lack of iron.

“I’m already doing my own thing. Twittering. Blogging. Writing. Editing. No time. No time.”

Boy, all that twittering and blogging sounds real important. Maybe if I didn’t do those things so much, I could operate a successful pyramid scheme. Also, now I am no longer speaking in complete sentences. I am totally flailing. I am one blighted “no” away from owning a satellite video phone business.

“People like you should really be open to this information I have. Technology is moving so fast. You don’t want to be left out.”

I have no idea what she is talking about…but it does sound kind of satellite video phoney.

“I can’t do it. The anemia.”

(I swear I said this. I need help.)

She’s kinda pissy now. “OK, I’ll call you again in six months. I have to go, my daughter needs me.”

And that was that.

So six months from now? I either learn to give a proper “no”** or you all better be prepared to buy stock in my satellite video phone scam.

*The video phone? Heard through the grapevine that it was her last business venture.

**I am currently accepting all “how to say no” tips.

P.S. I also wanted to tell you that San Diego Momma was nominated for an Influence SD “Best in Lifestyle” blog award. And so were a lot of other people I like, including Mama Mary Show. But kinda cool, right?

I am a girl from Chicago

And snot flowed freer than fro-yo

**************************

I live in a town with moms

Jewelry parties go off like a bomb

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The limericks! I can’t get away from the limericks! I think in them — weird, measured rhymes that haunt my days and bedazzle my friends. Where “bedazzle” equals “bewilder.” Or “annoy.” Right. I think annoy is more apt.

Such rich, rich prose.

So this PROMPTuesday, join me in my madness if you please. Write a limerick about where you live OR where you’re from OR if you’re especially limericky today…do both.

Please post your limerick in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

I’ve decided to come right out and get the following down. I’ve been agonizing over how to word it, how to do the experience justice, how to stylize my prose. But in the end, all that is stopping me up, so I’m going to recount my Dr. Carolle visit best I can without engaging the inner editor.

As I said in a previous post, one of the first things Dr. Carolle said to me is: “I am woman.” She told me that phrase kept popping up in her subconscious when she thought about me, and I knew just what she meant. I’ve traditionally had a tough time asserting my personhood, my womanhood, my self-hood. In fact, I often say that I don’t know who I am, and that’s the damn truth. I don’t have a real sense of myself, which is probably one reason I like to write — to hold the mirror up and see what’s reflected back. But before I could say those things, she affirmed them first: Conviction, she said. No fear. Let the light shine.

Easier said than done.

For me, anyway.

And what does this have to do with my physical problems?

That’s where it got interesting.

My ambivalence about myself and my womanhood manifests in physical ways centered around my femininity. So I suffer from what some people call “PMS” or “Perimenopause” (which are only a constellation of symptoms, Dr. Carolle said, and just because we label them, that doesn’t get us very far…because we forget to look at the issues that set those symptoms in motion). Every month, my “higher self” reminds me to stop ignoring my issues. And I bleed, and I hurt, and I brood, and I swell, and I muddle through…

Now in my 40s, my body is saying “STOP WASTING TIME!” “Be a woman!” “Be strong!” “Be you!” “Be FREE!”

But how to be free?

Again, it’s interesting.

It’s different for all of us, but my freedom rests on forgiving my mother. See the theme? Femininity. Womanhood. I have a hard time knowing who I am as a woman and a mother because I was so conflicted about my first female role model: my mother. My mom and I had a lot of tension in our relationship, a lot of ambivalence, a lot of unrest. I continue to live that and need to let it go, something I’ve never done effectively. THEN, I can begin to see myself clearly. Out of the shadow of my mother issues.

But I’m not sure I want to forgive, I told Dr. Carolle. My mom is no longer alive. She can’t bear witness to my hurt. I want her to know. She needs to know how she hurt me.

Then you’ll always suffer, she replied.

I knew she was right. See, when we first began to talk, she asked me to tell her about my mom and I couldn’t do it. I hadn’t realized before how VERY profoundly I was affected by my relationship with my mom. It’s deep and entwined and wraps around me. When I couldn’t get the words out to talk about my mom and I, Dr. Carolle taught me an energy balancing trick to center oneself: tap above your eyebrow five times, tap below the eye five times, take a deep breath, blow it out and say “I am free.”

Soon enough, I began to talk. I discovered some things I’d always “known” but couldn’t see for myself, something that happens when you’re out of balance and your inner self isn’t able to speak. Or if it does, you don’t hear it.

There’s more, but this is the center of it all. My homework is as you’ve probably guessed: forgiveness. Not only my mom, but my dad, and myself. Dr. Carolle has a system of forgiveness she shared with me and I need to do this and move on. This is what I’m to do:

1. Write down everything you feel the person has done wrong to you. Get it all out.

4. Lastly, practice telling the person that you forgive him or her, because they did not know any better.

In her book, Mind, Body, Soul and Money: Putting Your Life in Balance,” Dr. Carolle shared a powerful story of her own forgiveness, which has inspired me to do the same.

At this point, the work begins. Once I free myself from the anger and resentment associated with my mother, I can begin the journey to becoming a mother myself. Dr. Carolle told me that she felt so many of my hormonal issues peaked when I was 37 — right after the birth of Booger — because I now knew that I was irrevocably a mother — it couldn’t be taken back — and I didn’t know how to be a mother. I wasn’t sure how to proceed because my mother mirror reflects back too much ambivalence. Also, because motherhood is such a large part of my identity now, it’s important to know who I am as a person too. How can I be anything until I know myself? But I don’t, I don’t, the mirror cracked at some point and the pieces must be found and put together.

That’s how I am to proceed.

To be fair, this post barely grazes the iceberg’s tip. Of course, I am to be proud of who I am, be positive, free from worry. Know I am worth it. And so, so much more. But I think this is a good start.

Learn more about Dr. Carolle on her website. And if you live in San Diego, she does a thing called First Thursday Evening Tea with Dr. Carolle, which promises to be eye-opening. Dr. Carolle also does sessions over the phone, so you can benefit from her insight from anywhere in the world.

Curriculum Vitae: A banana brain, nose job candidate, constipated, 34C.

I’ve lived a lot of places in my life, and nowhere has seemed as small town as the suburb I call home today. Everyone knows everything about everyone and Good Lord, you don’t want to make a wrong move…kinda like when a married someone I know made out with her kid’s teacher in front of everyone but her husband.

That wasn’t so terrific.

Especially when you say her name in the course of a conversation and the raised eyebrows and knowing glances commence. That’s the way it works around here: Say a person’s name and invariably someone in your conversation circle knows when she pooped last and how often she sleeps with her husband. Or someone other than her husband. Or vice versa. Or versa vice.

I’m telling you: it’s crazy up in here.

My favorite is when someone asks YOU a question and it’s obvious they already know the answer because YOU were the subject of a recent neighborhood gab fest. Apparently matters are not helped by the fact that YOU have a blog where you share intimate details of your swollen right boob.

It’s not like this everywhere. Where I lived last? My neighbors didn’t even know my name. In point of fact, they didn’t care to know. I wasn’t a hippie or an artist OR a stoner, so I wasn’t especially interesting. But put a bunch of moms together? In a town where all the kids go to school together? And I can tell you who feeds their kids too much McDonald’s, who doesn’t discipline enough, who disciplines too much, who spends beyond their means, and whose boobs are fake — along with the approximate date of the surgery and chosen cup size.

I swear every single word of this is true.

This is novel to me. I’m used to being disenfranchised and disconnected. To wondering about the person who lives next door. To looking at a chest and not knowing for sure.

I have to tell you I’m very surprised there’s not a reality show on all of us and our big mouths.

I for one would totally watch the episode starring McKissy Lips CheaterFace.