Rich Mind

Word of the Week

fris⋅son

NOUN /-ˈsõʊ̃z; Fr. -ˈsɔ̃/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [free-sohn; Fr. free-sawn-sohnz; Fr. -sawn]
. a sudden, passing sensation of excitement; a shudder of emotion; thrill.

Use: Seeing the man streak through the streets gave me a slight frisson that cascaded through my body. Thank you streaking man!


I first saw the word frisson used in an Anais Nin diary.

It's from the vintage French word, shiver (friçons). Oh that naughty Anais. She is well known for her tryst with Henry Miller's wife June (as well as a life long affair with provacauter Miller), however what's less known is that she wrote about some naughty with her father as an adult (I believe it was slight surrealist fantasy with the seeds of flirtatious truth). She was also legally married to two men (one on each coast, and one far younger than her) who never found out about each other until after her passing.

She often cited Djuna Barnes as a literary inspiration, when I was in NY last (best town for used books in the world) I picked up one of Djuna's books and can't wait to get my nose in it. In fact, I named my first jewelry collection "Djuna."

Monday Detox-sicle

Manic Mondays Post Debauchery Detox-sicle

"Pucker Up Parsley"

Juice 2 lemons
a handful of parsley

Juice, then immediately sling back. Hope to forget the barrels of naughty you committed the weekend previous.

Parsley is chock full of B vitamin (good for hangovers and energy replenishment), it contains three times as much vitamin C as oranges, and twice as much iron as spinach, Parsley contains volatile oils that have been found to inhibit tumor formation in animal studies, particularly those in the lungs (smokers, pars-it-up), Lemon juice is a great liver tonic, Ph balancer and a great potent aid to detoxing.

Going out on the lemon note, here's one of my fav poems.

Ode To The Lemon by Pablo Neruda

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

Burly

A big, burly samurai comes to a Zen master and says, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.”

The Zen master looks him in the face and says, “Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?”

Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword and raises it to cut off the master’s head.

The Zen master says, “That’s hell.”

Instantly, the samurai understands that he has created his own hell—black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment. He sees that he was so deep in hell that he was ready to kill someone. Tears fill his eyes as he puts his palms together to bow in gratitude for this insight.

The Zen master says, “That’s heaven.”

~ Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty:108 Teachings

for free audio zen teachings go here! you can also find on itunes
http://www.zencast.org/

We Love Mondays

Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.

Stay tuned for the Monday detox-sicle and a new sketch of a devil in converse and a unitard. It had to happen. :*)

xo-Mo

Gogs

So the problem with having an 83 year old friend is that when she goes missing, incommunicado for a day or so, chances are she's landed back in the hospital. This is unlike my other friends who when I'm craving for a catch up and they have gone missing, usually meaning they are inconsolably hungover or camped out in a cave of love with a new captive.

Jacque, my "adopted grandma slash senior friend" has become a member of my inner circle. And that has nothing to do with the fact that she's a mean cook who loves to feed me. Sometimes her spirit is younger than mine and yet she's also an anchor as am I somehow to her. The kindest moment ever was when this road rager was about to go anger-epileptic on me because my car was blocking a driveway (selfishly sure, yeah sometimes I do think the world can pause button a mo' for me), yet as he was in mid-tirade about my life-threatening selfishness, she sweetly interrupted, unafraid of his lashing aggression, looked in his eyes and said, "she is the most unselfish woman you could ever know."

I'm sure there are compliments others pay me, unfortunately landing on sometimes def ears incapable of receiving compliments with grace, but that sweet arrow struck. And it melted a better part of the tough girl stuff in my heart. :*)

83 or 29, we live of borrowed time, tumbling towards our mysterious best by date. I'm not going to start a carpe diem pep session, I'm just saying, suck the plump nectar now. And be kind. To you and others. Some days we have the momentum to better the world and some days we are only able to better the day of another. This is enough. Start there.

Let's Take a Banking Moment

So let's get this straight. Regulators are paid by the people they are meant to regulate (OTS "regulating" AIG). That is simply amazing. And the Standard and Poor, the rating agency, gave AIG their highest rating of AAA deeming it an incredibly safe, recommendable investment.

A full, and actually edible, radio story on Ira Glass's This American Life on NPR is available. Episode link below.








http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=382

Wild Card Boxing Club

I went to the club a little later when they have boxers in the ring going rounds. I saw a female fight. One of them had the best smile, she's a force. Incredible. I'd love to fight her. She'd pummel me. One of the trainers asked if I wanted to do a round, he was either messing with me or overestimating me. By a lot. Those women have been doing it for 3 yrs, myself, 2 mo.

What I love about Manny Pacquaio is in his fight against Patton, he had a big, beaming smile on his face. For the biggest fights of our life, it pays to pack a smile. What is life worth otherwise?

xo mo

Morning Whack

On my way into the studio this morning while stopped at a red light, the man in the van next to me was staring at me. I glance again. More hard, direct, unflinching stare. And I notice. A little extra saucy action. I think the crack was mid-whack. I was not whack worthy this morning, in boxing clothes with my layered rain gear (one prepared Los Angelino here). What is slightly sicker than the whack job starer ... as I looked straight ahead in a faux-ignore, I started to smile, then laugh and sorta enjoy the diabolical discomfort of it. So who is sicker in this example? :*)

Have a damn happy Friday thoughtsicles!


Stay tuned for Mondays detox-sicle.

I like the way you wear that smile

Even as we think of ourselves as defiant individuals, we are a community (of individuals), sardined in together in cities, complexes, as neighbors. We effect each other. When someone smiles to me, or a friend inspires me with potent hope, I am lifted. That stranger with the smile may not see the effect, but the next person that gets the nicer version of me will.

Living in Hallways

Only five minutes into boxing and I felt great. It's just the getting there. It's the devil on the shoulder whispering incessantly about better things to do, now it's too late, maybe tomorrow, it's too long a walk to get there (a block away).

At boxing there's this peculiar thing about the raw, sweaty testosterone wafting loosely from every man there. It's always slightly intimidating and also very magnetic.

In the Garden of Good and Evil

Habits are amazing. If I take a mere few days off from my good habit (boxing in the mornings) then suddenly going back feels Sisyphean. Mountainous terrain. Treacherously uphill. Incredibly, gargantuanly, effen difficult. However, indulging my face full of fine cheese, red wine and laxing off is an easy oops.

Habits.

Bad. Good. I'm the one standing with the angel and the devil dancing on my shoulders, whispering sweet nothings in my ears.

It's like a garden of good and evil, flowers and weeds. Whatever we water grows. What do I want to water today?



Here's an article on habits. :*) More on this topic later. Always.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-breakinghabits6-2009apr06,0,2419265.story

God Love the Snooze Button

How many times did I rock the snooze button this morning?

10.

From 6.30a.m. until a very long time. :) whose fault is it? The event last night. (A design heavy, elegant but spunky event by Opportunity Green, catered with organic burgers, dark chocolate devils, Veev cocktails - Veev cocktails have their hands on nearly ever event I go to in Los Angeles).

What happened to my incredibly new found "discipline" of last month? Boxing -all the time- at 7.30 a.m. ... biking to work the other days. I don't think that was discipline, I think it rarely ever is with me. It is momentum and sheer will. Discipline is something I'm still fairly unfamiliar with. We barely know each other.

There was a study about delayed gratification, the study showed that kids who were able to choose to wait five hours and get double the amount of cookies versus the stinkers who picked having the cookies immediately, showed advanced levels of success later on. They are certainly onto something and we here at Daily Thoughtsicle will explore it. This illusive thing called delaying gratification, this incredible concept called discipline, we'll get at the heart of whether its really beneficial and how the hell to make friends with them.

Down With The Meter Maids

We get it. The city (yours, mine, all of them) are out of paper money. Budget as dry as the Mohave. And to make up for it, they are compulsively ticketing every single hard working human around the clock like a looter hitting every five and dime before the po-po arrive. (Po-po always sounding funnier from a Caucasian).





How to calmly handle getting your dozenth parking ticket this week:

1. Create a mental "oh shit fund" and even better make a financial "oh shit fund," otherwise known as a "savings account." Mentally set aside a particular amount of money a year for these and all other not-on-my-agenda diabolical experiences so as not to upset you when they *do* happen, as they *always* will. Mentally you won't be saying, "well that wiped out my money for Bora Bora," no, you will say, "deduct a little from the 'oh shit' for the bad shit."

2. Consider it a donation to your city and all of it's much needed projects.

3. Practice a ten minute round of turrets street side. Enjoy the funny stares from all around. This alleviates far more stress than any previous suggestions.

4. Commit to fighting the ticket, then get too busy to fight it, but also forgetting to pay it, letting it double. Get the boot on your car and then commit to leaving the country for some small island where the only method of transportation is tricycle.

5. Swig back a xany with some whiskey. Boom. Problem? Gone.

so many pretty meter maids. so little time.


some ticket hard through any weather.










others ticket happy
with fashionable bouffant updo's. ladies. take note.

"The Classic"









"The Spastic"














"The Beauty Queen"









The "Tokyo Cutie Queen"










The "I Actually Went to School For This"









The "I am about to break out into a strip tease"










The "I just did"

post debaucherous detox-sicle

Time for Mondays "Post Debaucherous Detox-sicle!!


First, take a daring swig of unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar
(contains sexy making minerals, vitamins, loaded with potassium with is good for healthy hair and strong nails, cider vinegar also helps break down fat)


"Mondays Normally Suck Juice"
to be used with a juicer, if you don't have one you can blend it with some ice. make it real nice.

""
4 carrots
3 apples
2 limes
1 lemons
a handful of romaine lettuce

juice 'em & drink.

apples- benefits the boobs and the butt~ a Cornell study found reduced risk of breast cancer, a Brazilian study found that women who ate three apples a day lost more weight while dieting.

carrots - help with night vision. good for Ninja Chicks everywhere (www.ninjachick.com)

limes - keep your sick days for the beach - the green puckers contain flavonoids called flavonol glycosides which have anti-biotic effects

lemons - loads of vita-c antioxidants that slay free radicals.

romaine - good source of fiber. and we do know what that means. :*)

Being in the Moment

It is often the case that whatever we are doing, be it sitting, walking, standing, or lying, the mind is frequently disengaged from the immediate reality and is instead absorbed in compulsive conceptualization about the future or past. While we are walking, we think about arriving, and when we arrive, we think about leaving. When we are eating, we think about the dishes and as we do the dishes, we think about watching television.

This is a weird way to run a mind. We are not connected with the present situation, but we are always thinking about something else. Too often we are consumed with anxiety and cravings, regrets about the past and anticipation for the future, completely missing the crisp simplicity of the moment.


~ B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up