A great bunch of women.

Wow is almost two years old. Before I created Wow, I found myself recovering from a bad break-up and realizing that all of my single girlfriends had moved or married or were otherwise unavailable. So, at the advice (and serious pushing) of my beautiful curly-haired daughter, I emailed women on Match.com and JDate who were near my age and location and invited them to meet for dinner and the rest is history. We've had two amazing years together, meeting at least once a month for potluck and usually a speaker and I am a better and happier person for having these delightful women in my life. We've added a few ladies during the years and each has brought a unique view of the world. The speakers have made me think and grow, and the friendship of the Wowettes has brought me joy. I can't imagine these ladies not being in my life.

It's hard to really define the impact of friends on our lives. These ladies have shown me that I'm not alone in my feelings or struggles. They have encouraged me and scolded me and applauded me and I'm a much better person because of them. They bring delicious food to my house for the potlucks and they invite me out for meals to hear about what's new in my life and to share theirs. And I am grateful to be a part of their lives and thinking about the upcoming year together makes me smile.

They are a diverse group of women. A few have been through medical issues and have come through healthy. We've each had heartaches and joys. Some keep a list of their coffee dates with new men and one has been in a new relationship with a dream guy who she met shortly after Wow was formed. We have a travel agent who plans our now yearly singles cruise and always makes me laugh and giggle. Another is always smiling and spent her vacation this year working on an Indian reservation, a big change for someone who never misses her weekly facial and always looks well accessorized. Two have written amazing guest blog posts, sharing their lives with all of you readers. One misses meetings so she can take dance and singing lessons. Another new member invited me to the wedding of her son and shared with me one of the most special days of her life. I have grown to love them all.

The Wowettes have all have expressed an interest in having a new man, a new great love, in their lives. Many have used online dating sites and most are still looking, these smart and beautiful women just hoping to add romance to their lives. Thinking it would be easier to meet a whole bunch of singles guys in person at once, I orchestrated several free parties at a local hotel. We greeted the guests, danced the night away, and it seemed like it was a fun night out for all. And I met a man myself at one of these parties, a delightful and kind and wise and sexy guy who seems to think I'm a great addition to his life. I found speakers easily for the meetings and they've all given us something to make us stronger women and all have expressed their pleasure at meeting us. Whatever I've planned just flowed easily with no snags or aggravations, just like it was meant to be.

What's the point here? That friends, good friends, are like nourishment for our souls. That sometimes we have to listen to that little voice inside of us that tells us what to do and just do it and that we have to be willing to take some risks to make something happen sometimes. That money and fame and security are lovely, but it is the friendships that bring riches to our lives. So, I thank all of my lovely Wowettes for sharing their lives with me so generously and say that I cherish the memories we have created and look forward with great excitement in creating more.

This little light of mine.

There is something meaningful and nourishing about traditions, those ritualistic things we do to celebrate events and holidays. Think of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and all the times where we perform certain acts, hear certain music, and recite certain sayings that really bring us together as we share what has been done for decades or centuries. It's a way to connect with each other, to remember those who came before us, and to think hopefully about the future. This is the season for the Jewish High Holidays, to celebrate their New Year and to atone for the sins of the past year. Rosh Hashanah is the New Year, followed by ten days of personal self-examination leading to Yom Kippur, one of the holiest and most solemn days of the year. Its central theme is atonement and repentance for sins against both God and one's fellow man. There are feasts and fasting, recitations of prayers and reading of sacred text, as Jews gather to perform rituals celebrated in the same way as their ancestors.

We have far more rituals in our life than we realize, and most are ones we have created and continue without thought. Consider the hug and kiss when we see a friend, the "have a nice day" we say here or the "y'all come back" that I hear when I visit the south. I have read from the same Pooh story book to my grandchildren since they were tiny, as they prepare for a nap or a night of sleep, and they won't let me stop or read a different book. When I come home from work, I take off my shoes, unhook my bra, and change into something "comfy" before I read the mail and make dinner. In the morning before work, I put on sweats and tennies, put the dog on a leash, grab my cell phone and a plastic doggy-poopy bag, and head out for a walk, the same walk every time. Rituals are comforting and help us to live ordered lives in the midst of a chaotic world.

But sometimes it's good to shake thing up. Remember when I stopped the home delivery of the LA Times, which I'd received for decades and my life changed? I really noticed the difference, how I found other things to do with all the time I had spent reading it. A little shift, even parking in a different place for work or doing things in a different order, can create bigger changes.

I think I'm trying to say that sometimes we get into ruts. Some are good and help us have harmony and order in our lives. Some we just don't realize we're doing. I keep hearing that quote from Socrates, that "an unexamined life is not worth living." Maybe at this time of the year when the Jews spend ten days in self-examination, each looking individually at ways to be kinder and more generous and more compassionate, when it would be good for all of us to take a look at ways that we could better our lives and the lives of those around us. It can just be smiling at the guy or gal behind the counter when you get your morning coffee or really listening and not talking when our friends or even strangers talk to us. It could be being aware of our negative thinking and being more positive. Everything we do creates an energy in the world, either good or bad, so I vote that we take this time to find a few places or actions in our lives that might be negative and replace them with something positive or even joyful. I'll bet this will make us feel better about life and even might add a moment of happiness to the lives of others. We can't individually end the war or cure cancer, but we can sure shine a little light into the little space and time we are given. Let's do it!

Meet my new friend, Nadine.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending the day with the mother of the new boyfriend. He's really a very, very good person and an equally good boyfriend. He's kind and thoughtful and attentive and affectionate and likes to plan fun things and makes it clear to me how he feels about me and that he appreciates what we have together. And this is his mother.

Nadine will be 94 years old this month. You'd never guess her age, just never. She looks young and has a smile that warms a room. When I first met her, I asked her what she attributes her longitivity to, and she admitted that part of it is her upbeat attitude, that she always looks for the best in people and life. Just like me, and maybe most of us, she has to push herself to do what's good for her, like eating healthy food and exercising every day and admits that ice cream is her weakness. She walks, either on her treadmill or about her town, and when I dropped her off after five hours of walking around a quilt show and having lunch, she said she was going to rest a minute or so and then take her daily walk. She goes to the local Senior Center, plays cards weekly with friends, loves to play the penny machines at the casinos, and participates in a book club with a dozen other women. She says that she tends to worry and will usually pick up a good book to read when that happens. She was a college graduate when it wasn't common to see a woman in college and had a career as an educator.

But most of all she is delightful company. She is smart and wise and shares herself freely with me. She's perceptive and sees right through me and surprises me with suggestions on how to surmount what she thinks are my difficulties, even when I haven't really told her the whole story. And she makes me laugh, she just will crack me up without warning. She says that her family gets together at Christmas and she is the one that plans the fun part of the festivities. She comes up with a theme and everyone has to act out some idea of hers and no complaining is allowed. Apparently, last year the boyfriend and another grown male relative picked the card that said they were to dress up in ladies clothes and dance. Oh, I wish I could see pictures of that. Can you imagine how much laughter was in that room, all the creation of this lovely lady?

She shared old newspaper clippings with me that told of her parents, her father a "successful minister and business man" who, with Nadine's mother, opened a small grocery in their backyard in 1911, a single room 12x18 feet, stocked with $37 of merchandise, which grew to seven groceries and many accolades by their community. Called a "living legend," Nadine's mother shared her husband's pastoral duties, managed her growing family, was a "kind and interested friend of her customers and was the "confidant of those in all walks of life," and was "never too busy to have an attentive ear for the troubles of others." Known as a staunch supporter of causes "she deemed right," apparently few politicians "ran for office without seeking her counsel." She shunned publicity and was "content to remain in the background when she performed many deeds of community and personal service." Nadine's parents were both college-educated, as were all of their children, most with advanced degrees.

Life is what we ourselves make it, I'm reminded again and again. We have this one chance to be happy, to have a positive effect on those around us, to leave our imprint in our community. What didn't I tell you about the lovely and wise and fun and caring Nadine? It's that her parents, the successful minister and the well-respected grocery store owner and community legend were children of slaves. It's my privilege to consider her a friend.

I am Woman, hear me roar!

My daughter wants me to watch a new AMC show on TV that is set in 1960 in the advertising industry. My beautiful curly-haired daughter is 36 years old and is fascinated and amazed at how women were treated then, how the men held all the power positions and the women were the secretaries and were treated openly as second class citizens and sexual objects. I remember working in a doctor's office in those years, never seeing a female pharmaceutical rep and that there were really only one or two female docs in practice.

Times have changed. Women are still not always making the salaries of men in equal positions but they are in every job, from police oficers to leading their own companies. But I and my friends were raised in the 50s, typically by often frustrated women who knew their "place" as dutiful wives, taking care of the children and feeling quite limited in what they could accomplish. And then came the '60s and the consciousness raising and women burning their bras and being vocal and believing they, and their daughters, could be equals with men and achieve whatever careers they desired. They believed women could "have it all."

Just like any political trend, there is a movement from the far extremes of the position, and then a settling in the middle somewhere. Women now realize that they really can have it all, but that it sometimes requires not really doing everything as well as they would like and sometimes living with extreme stress from trying to make it all work. And, strong women that they are, they're trying to find a way to not necesssarily have it all, but to balance what they want to have.

And those of us raised by those '50s moms sometimes still hear their voices in our heads and sometimes we act like them without realizing it, being meek women who subvert our desires and dreams for our men. I've been learning to live a conscious life, being aware of what I do and my motivations, which is not always pleasant since I have to own my actions and be responsible for my reactions. I realized last week that I have been kinda waiting around, being available for the boyfriend, not making as many plans of my own in case that would be a time he had available for me. I'm just amazed seeing this in print, realizing that this strong and modern and independent woman was acting like her mom of fifty years ago! I found myself getting a bit depressed and then figured out that I was being that second class citizen myself, believing that his time was more valuable than my own, waiting for any left-overs that were given.

So I picked myself up, summoned my courage, and told him what was happening, that I was not willing to be a lesser priority than his other activities, that I wanted to be considered first sometimes and that I was not going to accept anything less. I always wanted a relationship where I could really be honest, where I could say to the guy "I love you and you're being a jerk," where I could really ask for what I want and set boundaries and make my needs and expectations known. And not settle for less. There's always that fear of loss or rejection, of course, but this time I didn't let that hinder me at all. Just said it, nicely and without accusation or blame, but just let it all out. Just told him who I was and what I wanted. And, of course, he really had no clue because I had been this nice and giving and tolerant girlfriend and he was surprised. But maybe not so surprised, since my honesty is something he values.

So what happened? Did we get into a fight, that endless and agonizing "you never....and you always...... and you don't......" Did he just withdraw or leave? OK, being the amazing guy he is, he just listened and listened and didn't say a word until I was done. And then he said that having a relationship as honest and caring as ours was very, very important and valuable to him and he appreciated knowing what I wanted and that he had a great desire to create balance in his life and would certainly take my needs, now that he knew them, into consideration.

What are the lessons here? It's important to be real, to be truly who we are. It's important to keep in touch with what's going on inside of us and stop when we have that churning in our guts and figure out what's really going on and what is triggering it. It's important to own our feelings and our reactions and not just blame the other person for the problems. It's important to be willing to take this risk of being transparent, to really show each other who we are and what we want. This happened to us just at that three-month point, where the honeymoon is supposed to end and the reality takes its place and the relationship either goes forward or ends. I'm happy to say that we had a really nice long weekend together. I was willing to take the risk of loss to be true to myself and it worked out great. I recommend it. Be real, be honest, be kind, be vulnerable. We're not our mothers, we really aren't. We may have some of their lovely qualities, but we don't have to live with their insecurities or fears or meekness any more. We are strong and independent and bold women of the millenium and let's not forget it!

I do and I don't.

Having a relationship is weird stuff. All my women friends say they want this, but really it's not so easy. There's all that stuff about space and time, like how much do we see him and does he sleep over and does he really need to leave his shoes in the middle of the room and what happened to going out and having fun? And then there's when he does something or says something that a past guy said or did and we just subconsciously get weird about it, like we remember it's what really pissed us off before and was the final straw for the last guy and this guy is doing it and what does that mean now?

And they're guys, you know, pretty simple beings who just want us to be nice to them and talk to them and let them know we appreciate them and get naked with them. Not much fuss to all of that, is there? So I pride myself on being rational and refusing to do the drama-thing and here I am reacting to this nice guy who just wants me to be happy. I see him doing things like an ex and my stomach turns and I start thinking that he's just like the other guy that drove me nuts just because there is this similarity which might not even really be a similarity at all and I'm off being nutty again.

So what happened to that rational woman who wrote that love is a verb, a decision, a commitment to allow the other person to be themself and to grow and to be the best they can be, regardless of their faults. That it's respect and affection in action, not based on feelings or what the other person does or says. And remember that woman who was determined to walk through fear, to be a watcher and learner, to stay strong in her own person? Yow. This is tough.

It's really so easy to just go with this, to point out the things that bug us in the other person and to blame our unhappiness on their actions or lack of actions. It's easy to point out their flaws and ignore our own, to keep our eyes on them instead of ourselves, to run the other way when the uneasiness gets strong. It would be easy to avoid facing our own insecurities and blame the problems on the other person, to just say it's them and not us. It's not easy at all to admit that these things are even going on in our heads, to admit that we fall prey to our ego or our fears or our feelings of impending doom. We're supposed to tell the other person what's really going on with us, tell that person who believes we are kind and sweet what's causing our odd reactions or withdrawal, but all we can think is that they'll hear that and flee. Fast. And then we'll be alone again, regretting our craziness and wishing for another great guy to come along and then, this time, we'll do it right and not react to anything from our past and just be that loving and fabulous women they think we are when we first meet them.

So what's the answer to this? Maybe it's all about fear, the fear that if we are really truly authentic, then we might be unloveable and that people will leave us. That if we are show our humanness, our not-so-healthy places, that we might be undesirable. So we want to be loved, but we're afraid to be loved, we want to be close but we're afraid to be close, we want a relationship but we're afraid to get hurt. I'll leave you with this quote that sums it up: "Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing." – George Sheehan

Packages and other gifts.

This computer thing is amazing. When I was born, my parents had just bought their first TV set and the VCR was many years later. Progress was slow and we had the time to adjust to the new technology easily. I remember buying our first fax machine at work and how great an impact it had on our jobs. Geez, now we buy a cell phone that takes pictures, plays videos, makes movies, and sends emails. I remember that we used to see changes in surgical technique a few times a year and now it's hardly a day that a rep doesn't come in with a new screw or rod to show the docs. Now we use a type of navigation where we do an MRI, put the disc in the machine, and the docs can see exactly where they are in a patient's head during brain surgery. I just think it's magic. I want to understand how they put all that info on something the size of a penny and how I can write a word in google and in a second there are two zillion and fifty answers. It's just magic.

What brought me thinking this way? I write this blog, this way of getting to know myself and share my thoughts with you. And, for the most part, I don't even know who you are. Sometimes at my parties, one of you will come up and say that you enjoy reading the blog and I think, you know that person I just met knows so many personal things about me and I know nothing about him. Kind weird, but then it's been good for me to open up, to write about me and learn that it's OK to be revealing.

I especially enjoy your emails to me, how you comment on something I wrote, how it is just what you were thinking or that you were glad I brought up a certain subject that is important to you. I've recently realized that some of us dearly want a "soul mate" but that we seek someone like the Prince on the white horse and are not realistic about who he should be, like he is our age but has to have all his hair and be really tall and make lots of money and make us laugh. And one of you wrote this really cool email to me: I must comment on the "Laws of the Jungle..." blog. First, thanks so much for including this info. I hope the women in WOW take it to heart. Although I'm considered an attractive man by most standards, I'm just a smidge under 6', have a little more avoirdupoir than I should, have a bit less hair than I used to and most of it is gray. I'm no Donald Trump, but have no debts and will retire with a nice income. You'd be surprised how picky women have been, even in your wonderful group. It's time we all changed our value systems a bit. Do nice guys still finish last? Thank you for all you do. Geez, doesn't he sound like the nicest guy?

Me, I like surprises. I think of all the things I've done in my life that I would have missed if I took the safe route. I might not have traveled by myself to meet friends in Puerta Vallarta, I might not have bought my house on my own, I might not have gone to Paris with someone I barely knew, I might not have taken that amazing parasail ride, and who knows what else. I sure might have never created Wow or these really fun parties that have made my life, and maybe yours, a lot brighter. Maybe we should think of prospective mates like this, like we are open to surprises and that we have almost no preconceptions about what they should be. Maybe we should learn to ignore some of the packaging and wait until we see what's inside. Think about receiving a gift that is wrapped at some fancy store in the shiniest paper and ribbon but might be some silly doo-dad inside that we don't want and some gift that is wrapped in the funny pages with the tape showing and holds inside something that would really make us smile and be happy.

I have a picture of my twin grandchildren walking into a room to see their 4-year-old birthday gifts. They had absolutely no idea at all what might be in those boxes and each time they opened one, they were thrilled, just thrilled, like it was the neatest thing ever. Maybe we should view life, and potential mates, like that, that they might just be the gift we hoped for all our lives. My beautiful curly-haired daughter sent me this quote last week, "Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold." ~Maurice Setter. Let's open whatever special gifts that are waiting for us, regardless of how they're wrapped!

Now that you got him, what next?

So we finally meet the guy or gal of our dreams and then what? I've read books and blogs and heard lectures and seen relationship coaches, but they all talk about getting the guy. Where to meet him, what to wear, what to say, telephone etiquette, how to lean back and let the guy be the guy and etc. and etc. and etc. But who actually talks about what to do then?

I've heard that we get "settled in our ways" by this age, that we claim to want a relationship but we want it on our own terms. I favor the Woody Allen method. Not marrying a step-child, of course, but that we live apart but close and see each other whenever we want or don't see each other when we don't want. Or we can buy a really, really, really big house and have separate places to hang out in the same house, but I don't think too many of us have that option.

I have to admit that I might have what someone else might call "bad" habits. I like to wear sloppy clothes around the house, stuff that is clean and not stained but is baggy and comfortable. Guys like lingerie, you know that itchy stuff that costs a fortune and turns them on so you get to wear it like a minute and then they ask you to just take it off. And I like to watch TV, stuff that I TIVO and might be embarrased if anyone knew, like reruns of shows I've already seen or shows that are just silly or B-movies. What if the guy doesn't watch TV and wants to do things together, all the time? What if he wants to watch sports or the history channel and you don't? Got a house big enough for two TVs and lots of space in-between? And sometimes I like to eat junk food and read all night in bed and leave my clothes on the floor and not wash the dishes. So there.

And if you're not living together and you're spending a lot of time together, do you have to be together every minute you're together? Can you say you just want to be alone or read or veg out if he's come over to see you? And we women sometimes wake up in weird moods, like we talk and talk about what to do about a certain problem and he helps us to make a decision and we wake up the next day and have a totally different opinion - isn't that going to drive him nuts? Or that we women are soooo giving and nurturing and kind and want to just make everything so nice and then sometimes we just want to be selfish and be a queen-for-a-day and not do anything for anyone - how does a guy cope with that? Or that something bothered us and it takes a week or two or more to get the courage or the words or whatever to actually tell him about it and by then we're really emotional and talking really fast and not making sense - how is he supposed to handle this?

I know, I know, that men are not such fabulous people to always have around. Sometimes they leave all the planning up to us or they bring us flowers at first and then stop once we have sex or they get moody or insecure and react to stuff we do like it's one thousand times bigger than it really is and we're supposed to soothe them and make nice, even though we think they're crazy. And sometimes they stop saying nice things to us, like how they like to be with us or how pretty we are because we must already know this and don't realize that we really have to hear that every day because what they said yesterday doesn't really transfer over to today and they don't want to do that. Or they drink too much or don't take showers enough or stay out late with the guys or complain because the restaurant is expensive when they just bought the newest really expensive gadget.

Listen, I'm in the beginnings of a pretty nice relationship with an amazing guy who is kind and thoughtful and sexy and calls me at work to say he's thinking about me and still brings me flowers and makes plans and really acts like he cares a lot. But I just wanted to remind us all that the effort doesn't stop when the Prince kisses the Princess and wakes her up, that the stuff afterward is real and sometimes tough and that we have to be very self-aware of what's going on inside of us so that we don't get mad at the other person when it's really just that we are feeling insecure or need some time alone or haven't really told them what's bugging us. It's not always easy to be with another person, to be vulnerable, to let them see the "real" us, all the while being considerate and kind and looking for the best in them - but I have a hunch it's worth the work.