The 40licious Bride: Part V

I see a pattern here, and apologies to those of you who are completely uninterested in reading about our upcoming nuptials. There's just so much I am noticing since I took so long to get here!

Today I shopped for the undergarments that will go with my dress. The dress is a strapless tiered number in a mermaid silhouette made of taffeta, and the worst wardrobe calamity I can imagine is akin to my 10th grade homecoming outfit that mostly involved my hiking up the top the whole time. I can't tell you even who I went with. But that was about the last time I went strapless.

So I'm in Macy's and paying for my bustier and some undies and the total came to $66.66. The clerk looked at me in horror. "Do you want to add something to change the price? You don't want bad luck for your wedding," she said.
"No thanks," I said, "It's four digits, not three, it should be fine."
She paused a moment and punched some numbers into the register.
"I took $1 off. It's $65.56 now. Have a beautiful wedding."

Even people I don't know are looking out for me, and that is exactly the magic of being engaged.

Citizen Journalists

By the time you are 40licious, you have amassed an amazing collection of people. One of the people I am proudest to have in my circle is the talented Amanda Koster. She's a photographer and a writer and she has no concept of "impossible." She's a world traveler, but with a mission -- help those she encounters along the way. Here she is speaking at Web2.0.

She's blogging about helping orphans in India and I'm blogging about eating a pint of frozen yogurt. I don't even know where to begin on that.

The New Economy

I realize that many of my sisters and brothers are walking this earth without a job. I don't know what I can really do for them. Make dinner. Connect them with people who might know something. Look at their resumes.

The latter of which I have been doing a LOT of. For example, my young friend, an IT help-desk whiz, needed a refresh on her rez because she wasn't getting any calls. We stayed up late and talked Geek Squad trash, and made her a new one, all streamlined and pretty and informative. She's since gotten three calls for work. So I opened my my services to my professional network of women. In exchange for an hour consultation and edit on their resume, I asked for something in trade. It could be a sewing machine, organizing skills, massage, whatever.

I immediately got six or seven responses. The first was dire and sad; a woman and her husband, have both been laid off and are about to lose their home and take the couch tour. I can't promise her anything but an edit.

In return so far I've scored a membership to a group called Mix LA, a consultation with a music supervisor for my music-producer brother, possibly some musical equipment, and $40. It's becoming a game to see what makes itself available.

Have you found a new economy since everything all went to hell?

Giving up Lent for Lent

Well well, it's that time of year again. Lent. We're really emergency Catholics in our family -- those of us that claim any kind of organized spirituality at all -- and so I can't really say with too much smugger-than-thou-ness that I've done such-and-such for Lent. I've occasionally given up an indulgence here and there, but I always need someone to remind me when Lent is over. I'm going to be all about the Master Cleanse next month, so maybe that will count. I don't really see God as a linear being, she won't mind.

But this year, I just plum forgot. So yes, I will have another glass of wine, thank you.

What are we?

When you're 40licious, it's likely that you have been many places. I'm lucky to have a list of countries I've visited on at least two hands, maybe three or even four if I remember hard enough. I didn't have a corporate job for most of my life so that I could travel where and when I wanted. Now, it feels like I have a corporate job so I CAN go these places -- and have a paycheck waiting for me at home.

Either way, the best thing you get from travel, besides tiny bottles of shampoo with Hebrew writing, besides a batik sarong, besides notebooks filled with scribbling from breakfast at a beautifully tiled cafe, is perspective.

I want us to be a big-hearted country. I want us to take care of our own. To make sure that nobody has to choose between going to the doctor or paying their rent. To understand that a pocket full of money isn't the end game -- rather, it's where it goes, it's how we help each other, it's how we make the world a sweeter place during the time that we're here.

Tonight, I want to leave my job and take care of orphans. Or wipe off the wounds of Untouchables. Or cradle a baby dying of AIDS. Maybe that's the least I could do. Maybe the most I could do would be to help shape policy to help make it better for people who aren't as lucky as I am.

I voted for Barak Obama in hopes that he would spur people to think less of themselves, and more of us as brothers and sisters.

But maybe I gave a job to someone else that I should be doing myself.

I don't know how to make it better for the society's wretches. Welcoming any suggestions.

A Letter to the Girl in the Towel

Dear Current Occupant of My Former Residence on Rowena Street,

Busted. You realized that, as you stood at the door, hair in one towel, another wrapped around your LA-too-skinny ass.

I really tried to do this in the most civilized manner possible. I left a nice note. You didn't respond. I went again, with hopes that you would be home this time. You were.

Some advice, seeing as you're young and still living with roommates and clearly a Troglodyte and not a very nice person:

1. When the UPS delivery person brings a package that is NOT addressed to you or to anyone you live with or to anyone you know, DO NOT sign for it.
2. Said package is likely a gift from someone very dear to the intended recipient. It may be a gift, such as a silver box engraved with the intended's name on it for her 40licious birthday.
3. Because it is highly unlikely that your name is also Vanessa McGrady, this box will be of no use to you.
4. The sender will feel crappy that she went to all that trouble and wonder why recipient did not send a thank you note. At best, she will think recipient a thoughtless fool. At worst, she'll go over and over in her head all the possible reasons recipient could be mad at her. Which there have never been. We are talking about a 39-year friendship here.
5. If you must sign for packages that are not yours, at least send a thank you note.
6. When the clearly concerned intended recipient shows up at your door to explain the problem, in the nicest way possible, do not call her "babe." Especially do not call her "babe" repeatedly.
7. When you live in a major metropolitan location, do not answer the door in a towel. There are plenty of crackheads with crowbars and creepy magazine salespeople and pent-up Jehovah's Witnesses waiting for an opportunity like that.
8. You have to deal with your own karma.
9. Save up your pennies, girlie, and get a one-way ticket back to whence you came. Because being the kind of person you are, you will not make it here in LA. Or anywhere.

I hope this helps.

Love,

Vanessa

Full and happy

This picture of me with singer Amos Lee was taken solely for the benefit of my former intern, Carlin, who is a huge fan of his. He was very nice and didn't make me feel like a dork for asking.

I missed a couple days of dispatches from Pop!Tech, mostly because they had me so dang busy thinking up ways to save the world. And of course, there was my mad passionate affair with lobster. However, I no longer discuss my love life on this blog, so you'll just have to use your imagination about the things I did to those poor unfortunate crustaceans.

I wish you could have come. I wish you were moved to tears with me when Ben Zander made a room full of 600 people sing "Happy Birthday" to one person, like it mattered. Like it was a ballad to a disappearing lover. Like it was the celebration it should ALWAYS be.

I wish you could have talked all night about energy and politics to Rufus Cappadocia, a revolutionary cello player who has deconstructed classical music into something so deeply moving and profound and funkalicious.

The economy as told by Juan Enriquez, illustrated.

I wish you could have watched Juan Enriquez so eloquently describe how the US got into the clusterf*ck it's in and how we need to get out -- if we can at all. I'll have a manifesto for you to mail into your leaders soon.

I wish you could have breathed the snappy Maine air and slipped through the carpet of leaves on Camden's sweet narrow sidewalks.

There will be video posted of all the presenters, we're told, and I'll point you to the ones you absolutely cannot miss.

In the meantime, I leave you with my new friend, Frank Warren, who spoke about his Post Secret project in which hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have sent in their secrets for him. He does it for the love of humanity. He has saved lives because of this project. Write to him sometime, it's cheaper than the shrink.

Frank Warren wants to know your secrets. I didn't tell him any,
mostly because I have so very few and don't want to run out.

Reverse Warrior

Yoga is a metaphor for everything else. You seriously could drive yourself half bats making all the intellectual, spiritual and emotional connections. In yoga there is a counter pose for every pose. When you spend time bending forward, you move into a back bend. When you stretch left, you stretch right. And so on.

There is a series of poses called "Warrior." For Warrior II, one foot faces straight forward. The other swings behind and points to the corner of the room. The front knee bends and the back leg stays straight. Arms are straight, like an arrow through the torso, in front and behind. Head looks forward, gazing over the fingertips.

When you reverse your Warrior, you bring your front arm over your head, and bend backwards.

As I was reversing my Warrior this evening, I wondered how that could translate. What if we all tried to reverse our Warrior? What if every time we felt super pissed off, we automatically provided the opposite of that and sent love to the object of our anger? So yesterday, when this chick at work was condescending and treating me like a moron, maybe after my initial furiousness, I could have gone over and given her some chocolate. And I would have felt a little better. And maybe she'd think harder next time she said something insulting. And we'd both walk away with a little more sweetness in our day.

On a national level, what if instead of bombing the crap out of people, we showered our enemies with money and clinics?

Consider this:

• So far the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost us $555 billion. With a "B."
• More than 4,100 US troops have been killed.
• Anywhere from 87,000-95,000 Iraqis have been killed.
• We are paying bazillions of dollars to fix what we have further broken.
  

What if we gave HALF of that $555 billion to Iraq and built schools and hospitals and helped them with infrastructure issues? And then we took the other half of that money, kept our soldiers home, and used it to rebuild New Orleans and Texas and anyplace else that needed a hand up? Or, gee, I don't know, bought health care for everyone here? Or paid teachers like basketball players? Nobody dead! Everyone happy!

There very well may be some kind of life after our stint on earth. Actually, I'm banking on it. But in case there's not, or in case it's not what we think it might be, this may be the only chance we have. Right here, right now. This is the kir royale, the appetizer, the palate-clearing sorbet, the entree, the dessert and the double espresso. All of it. So why not try to make it better for everyone involved?

How will you reverse your Warrior?

This Can Happen To You!

So, as everyone by this time knows, I am participating in my first-ever "athon" event, the Orange County Race for the Cure to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation. That's for breast cancer. Which is a terrible, terrible disease.

My good and wise and generous friend Paul answered my plea and donated some money, and then, just moments after, he found the SAME EXACT AMOUNT in cash on the street.

Voila!

So, I encourage any of you who are just THINKING about donating and haven't yet to go ahead, it's easy and fun and, heck, you just may end up with a little instant karma.

The site is here.

I am so honored and humbled by this effort and how people have reached out. Within 24 hours, you all have donated $775 toward my $1,000 goal. I may have to up that now. Because you are, simply, shockingly big-hearted.