A girl can dream … I find myself saying that a lot. Really, almost mocking myself. Basically dismissing my imagination and desires. But why? A girl CAN dream. A woman can dream, anyone can dream. Everyone SHOULD dream.

When I was a little girl I used to imagine and dream all the time. I pretended to be a teacher, a mother, a singer, a writer, a wife. I believed in all of it; without a shadow of a doubt, it was all going to be my future. No one stopped me from dreaming. In fact, imagination was embraced and encouraged. So, what happened along the way, on the journey from childhood to adulthood? How did that dreaming I once took so seriously become a personal side joke to myself?

One beautiful, lazy Saturday afternoon in the park a wedding party was having their photos taken with the  Hudson River as their backdrop (another dream of mine: to get married somewhere on the water in the serene Hudson Valley). I, of course, had my trusty camera with me and started snapping shots of the party. The bride was gorgeous. It was an Indian wedding, and the bridesmaids were dressed in bright fuchsia dresses adorned with sparkling jewels. It was like a free movie in the park for those who were there. But as I snapped away, it was a little girl looking on who came into focus.

She must have been just a few years old. She stood completely still, mesmerized by the bride on her special day. I could feel the power of her imagination transporting her to another world. A place where possibilities are endless and you truly believe from the pit of your stomach to the beautiful ache in your heart that what you envision is reachable. The present-day reality surrounding her came to a halt; it was just her and her dream.

Thanks to the power of editing, and my novice Photoshop skills, I attempted to transform the photo I took into what my imagination saw that day. I call it “little girl dream”.

I have set the image as the background on my desktop and my blackberry, so that every day I am reminded to strive to be like that little girl; to be the little girl that I used to be, and just dream it.

photo by allyson curtis

I have been religiously following the New York Yankees since the playoffs. I’m not a die-hard baseball fan. Heck, I wasn’t really a Yankees fan until recently. I even admittedly own a Boston Red Sox hat. Shock horror – I know! I liked to think of myself as Switzerland when it came to baseball, but suddenly, over the past few weeks, I find myself forming an attachment to … a bond with the Bronx Bombers.

Growing up, baseball was always on the television in my house. For years my Dad was a Mets fan, but then he got fed up with them and switched over to the pinstripe pride. But I never really grew attached to it. That is, until now.

I started getting into the game because I wanted to be  a part of the conversations every morning at work, or at least be able to make an effort at pretending to know what was going on. And I figured, hey it couldn’t hurt my dating life either to know somethin’ about the sport. Another topic to add to my dating conversation repertoire. And in the midst of it all the Yankees won me over. They had me at “play ball!”

It’s an interesting game. Makes me do a lot of wondering about life in general. It excites me and confuses me and stresses the heck out of me to the point that I find myself yelling at the television. It turns me into a person I never knew I could be: a sports fan.

A few things that I’ve learned about the game and that, well, just really intrigue me:

1. In the American League pitchers don’t have to bat, but in the National League they do.  Ummmm, okay, but why?
   
2. A foul is a strike, unless it’s the 3rd strike then a foul is not a strike and you can hit as many fouls as you want at that point and not strike out. Say what?
   
3. I could probably qualify to be an umpire for Major League Baseball. Seriously, I don’t know baseball that well, but some of the calls that have been made, even I know, have been bad. Plus I think it would be cool to make those wacky hand motions and say “steeerrrriiike!”
   
4. Most, if not all baseball players, have nice derrieres. Pants-’aint-gonna-fall-off-that kind of back ends. I like it. I like it a lot. What’s the secret to the bountiful baseball buttocks? 
5. Baseball players spit. They ALL spit. Even the umpires spit. They spit if they chew tobacco. They spit if they chew gum. They spit if they don’t chew anything at all. It comes out of their mouths like geysers. I am mesmerized by this! Is there a reason for it? Do they  do it in their everyday lives or just on the field? Are they born with the talent or is it taught at spring training? Is there a spitting coach?

Yes, being a (newish) baseball fan is a very exciting and educational experience, and I feel it’s my duty to selflessly share it with the world (or at least the people who stumble upon my blog). There are just so many mysteries to explore, life lessons to learn and men to observe.

So until next time boys and girls … that is this (newish) baseball fan’s perspective on the beloved game.

Go Yanks!

One day while having coffee with my sister and brother-in-law, my brother-in-law made a comment that to this day makes me laugh. “I like my coffee like I like my women,” he said. “Light and bitter.” Oh, and yeah, it makes me fear for his life too having said it in front of his wife!

So, the other day as I was having my typical autumn craving for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, I started thinking about that conversation. Maybe my brother-in-law was onto something. Maybe how we like our coffee is how we like our mate, in which case, I’ll take mine sweet and spicy please.

What is it that makes us like our coffee the way we do or makes potential lovers appeal to us? In a world of online dating (yes, I’ve done it … Match.com, eHarmony and Chemistry) have the laws of attraction changed from days of old, when people met out-and-about or by being introduced by a mutual friend?

My father’s sister introduced my mother to him. She thought they’d be a good match, brought my mom to the restaurant where he tended bar to check him out first, and well … seven kids later, here I am writing about it. My sisters met their husbands at work or in high school. My brothers met their wives through work, at high school and at a party. I have a hard time believing that when I was born God or my guardian angel or whatever greater being bestows it upon you said, “this child shall meet her one, true love online.” Is it my digital destiny?

I’m not saying I would never do online dating again. I’ve heard lots of stories about people who’ve found THE ONE online. I had a really good experience with it a couple of years ago, and I actually encourage friends to do it. It’s a great way to get yourself out of your comfort zone and jump into the dating world.

If I wasn’t broke right now I would probably sign up with one of the many matchmaking machines. I love modern technology. Case in point – this blog! I basically have Facebook and Twitter open on my computer all day, and I hop on any affordable opportunity to attend workshops and conferences to learn more about Social Media. But I’m still not convinced that this tangled web of an electronic world is how I’m going to meet my partner in crime.

I did some research on what attracts humans to one another. Is it as simple as the coffee theory? I found some interesting and entertaining information, particularly in an article published in 2006 by Live Science called “The Rules of Attraction in the Game of Love”. My favorite part:

Those hips

Body shape is of course important, too. And scientists have some numbers to prove it. Psychologist Devendra Singh of the University of Texas studied people’s waist-to-hip ratio (WHR).

Women with a WHR of 0.7—indicating a waist significantly narrower than the hips—are most desirable to men.

And an analysis of hourglass figures of Playboy models and Miss America contestants showed that the majority of these women boast a WHR of 0.7 or lower.

In general, a range of 0.67 to 1.18 in females is attractive to men, Singh concluded in a 2004 study, while a 0.8 to 1.0 WHR in men is attractive to women, although having broad shoulders is more of a turn-on …

What exactly is encoded in the hip ratio? A big fat clue to whether the person will have enough energy to care for offspring.

Where fat is deposited on the body is determined by sex hormones; testosterone in men and estrogen in women. If a woman produces the proper amount and mixture of estrogen, then her WHR will naturally fall into the desired range. The same goes for a male’s testosterone.

People in the ideal hip-ratio range, regardless of weight, are less susceptible to disease such as cardiovascular disorders, cancer, and diabetes, studies have shown. Women in this range also have less difficulty conceiving.

“The idea is that beauty is conveying information about health and fertility, and we admire that,” Singh said in a telephone interview.

Okay, okay … so I’m attracted to this part of the article, because, well I got a big butt and I cannot lie … and my hips don’t lie either! I can totally see a correlation here with coffee. Terms used to describe coffee: full bodied, smooth, sweet, spicy… by gosh, I think I’ve cracked the code!

Alright, I ain’t cracked nothin’, except my head from thinking way too hard about all of this fascinating subject matter. But I guess, no matter how you meet, you’re attracted to what you’re attracted to. The avenue of how you get to meeting those people is you’re own personal destiny; digital or otherwise.

Ho do you like your coffee, mate?

Venice, August 2005

I stopped by Starbucks this morning to treat myself to a grande, sugar-free vanilla, soy latte to help remedy my previous day from hell. After all, a cup full of sugar-free-caffeinated-soy-goodness helps the medicine go down … Anyway, there was this woman, clearly a regular customer at this particular location, who seemed so relaxed and happy. She was a very trendy cool kat taking care of business on her iPhone, sitting and enjoying her croissant and chatting with the baristas. She seemed so …. calm. Content. I want to be her.

—

Rewind about 14 hours earlier … I was so excited to go and get my hair cut! Woo hoo! Something about getting my hair cut makes me feel like a new and improved woman, and boy was I in need of some renewin’ and improvin’. I’m not the get-your-haircut-every-six-weeks kinda gal. I go more like every three or four months, so it is always a long awaited treat for me. The hairdresser begins her magic combing through my long, thick hair …

“What’s this?!?” She shouts.   
“Ummm, what?” I ask, confused.
“That. Right there.” She points to what looks to me like a part she has mad in my hair. “It’s a full on bald spot. What have you been doing to your hair? I have to ask you … how is your stress level?”
“Horrible.”
“Horrible?”
“Yes, completely horrible.”
“Well, that’s it then. Your losing your hair because of the stress. But I don’t want you to stress about it. It’s growing back. You have some peach fuzz there.”
“I’ve been here before. A year after my Dad passed away the same thing happened and I didn’t realize it until I went to get my haircut. It’s been a little over a year and a half since I lost my Mom. Here we go again.”

 —

I felt completely defeated! How could I have been unknowingly bottling up that much stress for what clearly had to be a longtime to have the effects it’s having and not even notice it AGAIN? My own body is attacking me. Somethin’ about that just ‘aint right. I picture these mini green monsters hackin’ away at me from the inside, kinda like the creepy mucus guys from the Mucinex commercials.

You know when you take those quizzes or when you sign up for a dating website and they ask what your best feature is? Yeah, so my answer is always … yep, you guessed it, my hair. No, no, no, not MY HAIR!!! Not my only good asset. Why? For the love of God, why? Second to the hair would be the eyes. Don’t tell me stress can make those fall out too!

I have had a lot of stress in my life lately, sure, but doesn’t everybody? Isn’t that what we’re made to do – endure as much stress as possible? I guess I just didn’t realize exactly how much stress I had bottled up inside. You think I would’ve learned my lesson after the whole hair loss due to stress thing  happend to me the first time. Duh!

So, today I did a little research on the stress culprit that is attacking my best feature. According to a 2007 survey done by the American Psychological Association nearly a third of U.S. adults feel extreme stress. The online poll asked 1,848 adults to rank sources of stress:

• Work: 74%  (check! is there a job that exists that doesn’t cause stress?)
• Money: 73%  (money, what’s that? do I have any?)
• Workload: 66%  (double check)
• Children: 64%  (the fact that I don’t have any yet and am a single, 33 year-old woman who will soon be barren … should I be looking into freezing my eggs?)
• Family responsibilities: 60% (family craziness – yep, check. constant regrets of responsibilities I don’t feel I adequately fulfilled and wish I could go back in time to before my Mama passed away to take care of properly – check. )
• Health concerns: 55% (I’m losing my hair for crying out loud!)
• Health problems affecting spouse, partner, or children: 55% (none of those to worry about – whew! although I do have a cat who has recurrent rodent ulcers and has to constantly go to the vet, which ends up costing me an arm and a leg … would that stressor fall under money or health problems affecting others or both?)
• Health problems affecting parents or other family members: 53% (not currently, but I think the residual affects of  watching my Dad fight a plethora of issues including severe asthma and cancer and watching my Mom battle and be consumed by emphysema, fall under this category. so … check for this one too.)
• Housing costs (e.g. rent or mortgage): 51%  (CHECK! CHECK! AND CHECK!)
• Intimate relationships: 47%  (I repeat … I am a single, 33 year-old woman who will soon be barren …)

The good news in all this is that I am not alone. The bad news is that there seems to be evil, nasty stressors hiding in every nook and cranny of the lives of American adults. So, what do I do? What do WE do? Because there is a one in three chance that if you’re reading this you are right there with me! 

Basically what I found is that we need to stop stressing. Ummmm, yea … heeeellllloooo McFly?!?!? One website I found said to immediately seek stress management services. Uhhh, do I need to go back and recap the money stressor issue? How much money do you need to dump into these services to get destressed only to then be stressed because of the big bucks you spent to heal you of stress?

Others say to identify the source of the stress and change your lifestyle accordingly. Hmmm … if that’s the case I’m gonna need to become a completely different person, sounds like a lot of stressful work. Some say to take certain supplements to make up for the deficiencies that are caused by stress.  Okay, so again here, more of the money stressor, but I will admit I did buy a supplement to try at Whole Foods yesterday (it was on sale and I’m a sucker, a stressed sucker that is). It’s called Supercritical Stress Advantage. I’ll let ya know how that goes …

For now, I am going to take a deep breath, lots and lots of deep breaths, and perhaps grab a Starbucks and try to find that cool kat of a chick to see what her secret is. Then it’s on to some more stressful research to find out how we can all claim our lives, and in my case my hair, back without losing the shirts off our backs.

Sometimes I just need something to spark my creativity and get me going. If you haven’t already checked it out, when you need some inspiration or a challenge to get you thinking, visit SoulPancake. SoulPancake is the brainchild of Rainn Wilson , which aims to engage users and to get them to “Chew on Life’s Big Questions”.

The site’s Attack A Creative Challenge section recently featured an activity called The Poem Is Waiting For You. The idea is to grab a page from a book, magazine, etc. and find the poem waiting for you (and discover the poet you are and didn’t even know it – hee hee) by using a sharpie to chip away at the words until you create your own masterpiece. I couldn’t wait to try it! I’ve posted mine below. Give it a whirl yourself and tap into your creative self and inner-poet!

I try and try and try so hard to come up with something to write every day for all of my tens of readers here on Cupcakes & Cat Food, but try as I may I just can’t seem to do it. The more I try to force the words out of me, the less willing they are to make their way to my fingers, onto the keyboard and ultimately to the screen for your reading pleasure.

I’ve come to realize that I’m putting too much pressure on myself. When I try to think too much with my head instead of just letting the anecdotes, stories and quasi tips & advice just flow from my heart and soul it doesn’t work. Instead of writing freely, I’m bogged down with thoughts of what others will think about the words I’ve written. And in the end what really makes me happiest and fulfills me the most is when I can walk away from something I’ve written that I feel good about.

So, randomly speaking … that’s my post for today. I do hope you enjoyed reading it. I definitely feel good having written it.

I love taking photos of signs. Maybe it’s because I’m waiting for the right one …

Common phrases heard while growing up in the Curtis household … 

“Do you own stock in Con Ed?”  Dad – when we left lights on after leaving a room

“I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!”  Mom - doesn’t everyone’s mom say that?

“I’m going to see a man about a horse …” Dad – before my time, during his drinkin’-with-the-guys days, but I loved hearing the stories about him saying it as told by my siblings, especially because one of them always thought he was going to bring a pony home

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Mom – I don’t think I ever heard her swear

“Was your father a galss blower?” Dad – when we stood in front of the television he was watching

“Pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again.”  Mom -  simple, sweet and encouraging … annoying at times but I’d give anything to hear her say it again

“Shit or get off the pot!” Dad – I like to think this was his way of saying that life is short so stop hemmin’ and hawin’ and go for it

“Ba fanabla!” Mom – I don’t know if I spelled it right and I’m not even sure I know what it means, but I’m thinkin’ this was her way of swearing

“I love you.”  

Mom & Dad -
I realize this is not said regularly enough among families, and I am thankful for having beautiful parents who said it to me often and for my siblings who continue to tell me.

The worn hardwood floors vibrated angrily as the massive, electric oxygen tank jumped and jittered in the corner of the living room like a shuttle getting ready to launch into space. Rotations of friends and family armed with food and stories overflowed from one room to the next. The house where Mama and Daddy raised seven children seemed so small and was bursting at the seams with chaos. But Mama lay peacefully on the noisy hospital bed air mattress that Hospice delivered. She was home, exactly where she wanted to be – her launch pad to heaven.

We had been roomies for the past seven years. I moved back home just one year before Daddy died, and then it was just us girls. When she arrived home from the hospital that Friday night, I ached for it to be just us girls again. I wanted to tell her about my day at work and hear her sweet, excited voice recount the day’s episode of The View.

“Mama, are you scared?” Her eyelids were heavy. She couldn’t keep them open for long, and when she did, her eyes were unrecognizable. The once beautiful, deep brown had washed to gray. “A little bit, but God gave me a good life.” She grasped her pale pink rosary beads tightly.

After all the suffering she’d endured during her 75 years on earth, how could she think that God gave her a good life? “Mama, I wish I could have a faith as strong you.” “You do,” she said. “Be good to one another.”

I sat in the recliner in the corner of the dark room watching over her. I gave her periodic doses of morphine, wiped the thick mucus that collected on her tongue, shifted her from side to side, and in between I cried. I ached and shook and cried like I never had before. I knew that soon I would be an orphan.

Monday night. She waited until we all left the room, just for a moment. She was unconscious in mind but not in soul. She knew. Heaven gave her clearance for lift off, and softly she went.