the impatient blogger™

An Announcement

2011-12-29T10:34:00.001-05:00

All craft, craft industry, professional and jewelry making related posts can be found at Margot Potter The Impatient Crafter blog. If you want self help and lifecrafting advice, please visit Craft. You. If you'd like to enjoy pithy quips directed at snarky internet comments, please visit Internetiquette with Ms. Madge(rs). Finally...stay tuned for my haven for all things retrofabulous at Your Grandmother's Crafts.

Phew.

This blog will be taking an extended hiatus. It's become too much of a microscope and too little of a refuge. I am turning a new page, if you are a reader here, please do come along for the fun at my other sites!

Love
Madge

Of Cabbages and Kings

2011-12-22T23:37:00.001-05:00

The above picture makes me laugh. I do things like this to keep from crying. I am crying while I type this, so I guess I had better bust out another perfectly lovely picture to deface.

I know I haven't posted here much. I am sorry about that. This is really where it all started. Now I have fifty seven blogs.

Okay, I have four.

Or five.

Um, let me count them on my fingers...

Five.

Yup, that's it. Five blogs and not one of them pays the mortgage. Seriously?

Someone give me a book deal already, GOOD GRIEF.

As we all know, all fifteen of us, I have had a long and miserable year. Insert tiny violins...here. Extracting myself from this year has proven difficult.

Yay.

I am really, really hopeful (hope full) that this is all going to work out to be so fabulous and fanfuckingtastic that I will look back in a year or two and have a jolly good laugh about it all.

Yes, I shall toss back my strawberry blonde Leonine mane with my manicured finger tips in my bubblegum pink yacht as I drift past our new home on the coast of Bora Bora, wearing a ridiculous straw hat, a bedazzled sarong and drinking some incredibly fruity and delicious rum soaked beverage from a pineapple served by a cabana boy.

I'll meet you there. Be sure to bring wine and some delicious fancy cheeses.

They aren't really into fancy cheeses in the tropics. Alas. We make small sacrifices for our fantasies, but in mine, I teach the natives how to make fancy cheeses and a nice crisp Sauvignon Blanc and all is well.

I should be sleeping, but I'm just not that into it. It's the shortest day of the year, so it makes absolute sense I'd milk it for everything it was worth.

No, mostly it's hormonal shifts and other things you would probably prefer I not blather on and on about. Yet it's tempting to be sure.

It is Christmas, but Santa is not bringing me anything. Santa is low on funds this year. It happens. Please don't tell the children, they'd be terribly sad.

What I'd really like, if Santa is listening, is to sell my humor book, sell my TV show and to get my life back. The one that got lost in this horrible year. Yup, that about covers it.

Also some wine, fancy cheeses and good dark chocolate.

Oh and Botox and a trip to the tropics.

That about covers it.

Really just the first three would be fabulous, the others are just icing on the cake.

Make that a dark ganache icing...if you please.

I'm feeling a Scarlet O'Hara moment coming on...I simply must go whip up a dress from our curtains!

Love
Madge

Some Good News!

2011-08-09T18:08:00.003-04:00

Some of you may recall that I visited National Jewish Hospital last year in my relentless quest for answers about my unresponsive asthma. I went on a 9 month course of antibiotics after that trip to eradicate a microbacteria from my lungs called mycoplasma. You can read about it here.

Well, here it is over a year later and I have interesting news.

I have been having a heckuva time breathing since the heat index went through the roof here in East Tennessee over the past two weeks along with some other extenuating breath challenging situations. I visited my new asthma doc for some relief and she gave me some new meds to get me through until the heat subsides and the ozone levels go down.

She also told me that I have the first viable improvement in my breathing in years! So that means the Biaxin must have worked, which means that my regular asthma meds may finally be able to get in there and do their job.

So...although I'm currently wheezy and exhausted, there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel!

Huzzah!

If you know anyone with unresponsive asthma, MS, Crohns, Gulf War Syndrome, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue, Rheumatoid Arthritis or any other long term chronic inflammatory or immune system condition, they may benefit from this therapy too.

I had to fight hard to get this answer and I really want other folks to know there is hope, it's not just you and sometimes you just have to fight long enough until someone finally listens.

Fight the good fight, you are worth it!

Love
Madge

Gentle Readers...Few Though You May Be

2011-08-05T18:03:00.005-04:00

Dear Approximately Four Regular Readers

Yes, there are about four of you who read this drivel and a few who stumble through on their way somewhere else. You held on even when I took down four years of posts and mostly stopped writing here. You lovely wonderful four of you who for whatever reason keep coming back for the few posts I manage to eek out these days...thank you.

Thank you for offering me a virtual shoulder and for reminding me, especially in the toughest times, that you are out there and that you, yes you, gentle readers, genuinely care about someone whom you have never met. Someone who shows her seams, embraces her warts, colors outside of the lines and lives out loud. Someone who takes the side roads and rescues any turtles she might find stranded on them. Someone who, just like every other someone on this planet, merely wants to love and be loved and to find whatever modicum of grace and dignity she can as she makes her way through this weary world.

And if you're looking for something here that isn't bathed in unconditional love and covered in fierce fabulosity and glittery goodness, then I'm afraid you have come to the wrong blog.

To the looky loos, the trolly trolls and the thrill seekers, move along. There is nothing to see here. Show's over. I truly hope you find your pathway to joy, or at the very least find your way back to that bridge that is missing you.

Writing is my guilty pleasure. It is the joy inside my tears. I work things out by writing them out and I post them here because I know that in doing so I have given someone else who may be struggling to find terra firma a little message in a bottle that lets them know to hang on and be strong.

Just know, brave four, that you are light, you are loved and nothing and no one can harm you and if you ever need to feel just a little less alone, you can find me here.

"And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make." The Beatles

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were always waiting for this moment to arise." The Beatles

"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all encompassing can have no opposites." A Course in Miracles

Be in peace,

Madge

The Scar

2011-08-03T13:32:00.005-04:00

Her fingers traced lightly over the scar on her right cheek.

It was an imperfect circle, there were small almost imperceptible peaks and valleys. It was a fresh scar that was still settling into a state of permanence. When she caught a glimpse of it in a mirror, it was confusing and alien. She had spent 47 years living without it.

Most people were far too polite to inquire how it had appeared where it once was not, and so it hung in the air like a great unspoken question mark.

Maybe it was always there, somewhere, lurking in the shadows waiting to emerge.

The deepest scars are mostly invisible.

Perhaps this one had been making its way to the surface for a number of years only to meet at the proper moment with an accidental external assault.

She traced, sighed, gazed and reflected on the subtle changes time was making to her countenance. The scar felt like a vulgar addition to an already fading canvas.

"I will learn to love you, scar." She announced resolutely.

She had no choice, so she did, in point of fact, learn to love it. It was a part of her now, after all.

Rock the boat, don't rock the boat baby...

2011-07-25T14:56:00.005-04:00

It has been a while since I posted here.

I have so much to say, yet I can't say it out loud right now.

I built my entire career on transparency. I am no longer running the show. I have been asked not to rock the boat.

I used to be the captain of the boat, the boat that I rocked with joyful abandon on a regular basis. I mean, who doesn't like rocking the boat now and again?

I can say I'm not really happy with the new sailing arrangements. This makes me sad.

I can also say that was not a pathetic stab at irony or sarcasm.

It is just how I feel.

I can also say that without hesitation that I will wrap my fingers around that wheel again and I will not ever let it go.

Just saying that makes me feel better.

I guess that about covers things in an obtuse way.

"The time has come, the walrus said,
To talk of many things.
Of shoes, of ships, of sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings."
Lewis Carroll (also being obtuse, but in a most delightful way)

xoxo
Madge

Shiny Things

2011-02-28T09:48:00.002-05:00

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh...a shiny person who felt the strain.

Sometimes I feel stuck in the resistance of people who feel threatened by me. Let me be clear, it's not all about me, it's not about me at all. It's about them. It's about living in a state of lack and allowing that state of lack and fear to project outward and infect your actions. This happens to all of us at some point or another if we put ourselves out there and god forbid, achieve some level of success. I first noticed this phenomenon when I was a kid. People who don't sit quietly in the corner, who don't follow the rules blindly, who sparkle freely, who live out loud...especially people who do all of that and also boldly encourage others to do the same...we are threatening. We are threatening because our presence is catalytic.

It's weird, because my endless Pollyanna desire for community and belonging is ever thwarted by my square peg in a round hole reality.

I have never fit in and I'm afraid it's become increasingly obvious that I never will. Even among the misfits I'm some how odd girl out.

C'est la vie.

The thing that makes this frustrating is these threatened people often do their best to push me out of the spotlight, out of my jobs, out of my connections, out of the party...though how my leaving will make them appear any better at what they do is beyond my comprehension.

In point of fact, together we are far stronger than we are individually.

I want to take them gently by the hand and sit them down and say, hey, listen, I'm not the enemy. I don't want to take your pie, I'm busy baking my own. You don't get anything out of making someone else smaller, except bad karma and a side of guilt. It's okay for all of us to become exactly who we are and in doing so there is no possibility for competition or threat, no one in the entire world can be you better than you can. It's okay to get yours, but you don't have to kick someone else in the shins to do it. I don't need to take away from you to make me bigger.

I just want to shine and watch you shine and encourage everyone to shine...

Yeah, I want to buy the world a Coke.

Except for the diabetics who probably don't need a Coke, so maybe I can get them a sparkling water instead.

But I digress...

There is room enough in the sky for every star to shine. So just shine brightly and don't worry about that star on the left or the right, they're doing their own shiny thing. Do yours.

"Your life is an occasion, rise to it." Mr. Magorium

xoxo
Madge

A Little Breathing Room

2011-01-15T16:38:00.006-05:00

An old friend of mine left a comment on my Facebook page that bears contemplation. I was getting the old roots dyed and she asked, "I wonder when a woman decides it's o.k. to see what's underneath. I see those women walking down the street with their amazing silver hair. When do we become one of them?"

I see those women too, they have downy soft shiny silver hair, it's gorgeous. It's fabulous.

It's not my hair.

I have the hair of a wire terrier. It is neither silky nor soft. It is not silver, it is part grey and part reddish brown and there isn't much sense to be made of why some is gray and some is brown. For me, that lovely image isn't a reality. I do not have lovely shiny silver hair. Beyond that, I am so pale that silver hair would make me look like an albino.

That is not an exaggeration for literary effect.

I think she brings up a point that is interesting. When do we see what's underneath? Must we see what's underneath? If we don't are we vain and silly? If we do are we special and brave? Are we not seeing what's underneath because we're feeling pressured to look younger or are we just not that into it? Either way, aren't these both choices?

Sometimes women don't give each other enough room to just be who we want to be without explanation or apology. Sometimes...women need to give each other a little breathing room.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Wash, dye, don't dye, shave, pluck, don't shave, don't pluck, rouge, don't rouge, rinse, repeat...look in the mirror and love what you see. If it takes a little help from Miss Clairol to make that happen, so be it. Rock on with your bad sassy self.

Love
Madge

Weenieness 101

2010-12-15T18:28:00.001-05:00

I find it fascinating that there are people who simply can not operate with even a modicum of transparency or compassion. I'd respect them far more if they'd just be honest about it. I mean, if you're going to be a total bastard, wear it proudly. Get the t-shirt and the vanity plate.

These people know just up what arse the smoke must be blown and can, with lightning fast speed, turn from said aforementioned smoke blowing to blowing poison darts in your direction all the while grinning like a Cheshire cat. We all meet up with weenies, but a rare few are almost pathological in their weenieness.

No, it's not a word. Don't page Websters.

What's frustrating for me is that I want things to be happy and shiny so much so that I often do my best to 'fix it' until I realize, once again, that there is no fixing crazy. The more you try to fix crazy, the more that crazy just rubs off on you and makes you stink. No matter how much you bob, crazy keeps weaving at you with a stealth force and a cruel laugh. I've been dragged into crazy too many times and I'm quite frankly tired of it. Crazy can, quite frankly, kiss my ass.

I'm not made of the stuff that relishes in crushing others. I want to buy the world a Coke and furnish it with love. I want everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. I don't understand and so, therefore, I don't know how to navigate it. How do you navigate someone who revels in being cruel? How do you get the light of truth to shine on someone who is so good at the old razzle dazzle that the people who matter simply can not see how horrid they truly are?

I don't know. I do know that I've had to spend far too much time with this kind of crazy in this lifetime and there must be a reason for it, though it still eludes me.

I do know that 'I will not go gentle into that good night.

(I will) rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

I have missed this blog. I have missed you, Gentler Reader.

Wish me luck while I lace up my steel toed boots, I think I just might need it this time.

Love
Madge

Take That, Internet Haters

2010-09-24T11:54:00.005-04:00

Today's incredibly rude e-mail via my website hails all the way from Europe via info@Alzheimer-Europe.org and was lovingly penned by 'Etiquette Police' also known as 'Edicate Police.'

"Oh I see now now... your a closet comedian/performer...

You REALLY need some etiquette lessons... I "really" don't want to hear about "every girl should have a 'shaft'" or "stif-whatever you said" when I am watching a "craft" video.

On what planet do you live----that you cannot see that all of this is sexually INAPPROPRIATE behavior. Can you NOT SEE how uncomfortable you made that woman...?!!!

PLEASE! Go get some performance training or image consulting, maybe some therapy to understand "why you cannot SEE, your inappropriate behavior!" RAISE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's all so... eeeww, unprofessional and dysfunctional!

Edicate Police!"

"Dear Etiquette Police:

Perhaps instead of sending unfathomably rude emails to complete strangers, you might focus instead on assisting people with Alzheimer's. My Grandmother and my Grandfather both suffered from this most horrible and debilitating disorder. I can't even begin to believe that you think it's appropriate to send such a thoughtless email to someone whom you don't know.

Life is far too short to lack a sense of humor, even in the face of the most horrible things we must endure. I don't really give a rat's behind if you like my videos and for the record a flexible shaft is a kind of electric drill and my friend Jenny Harada thinks me very funny. I wonder what kind of a person bothers to be so RUDE under the guise of dishing out 'etiquette advice?'

As for etiquette, since it appears that you are the one who requires a lesson, one does not attack another person via anonymous emails merely because they don't like the videos they make, one politely declines to comment and moves on with their day.

Oh and finally, I have performed some of the greatest roles in the Classical Theatre canon to accolades and acclaim and I have been a professional performer for 28 years. My craft career came long after my performing career. It is you who requires lessons, in basic human courtesy.

Regards,
Madge"

Madge's Afterthought:

We live in a world of increasingly rude behavior that is escalating at a most alarming rate because of the ability for people to hide behind their computer screens. What exactly is sexually appropriate behavior and when is a joke just a joke and not an affront to humanity? Why can't a girl enjoy a little innuendo now and again? I mean, really. Lighten up, buttercup.

I am so tired of the army of anonymous people who feel compelled to spread their nasty all around the internet. I am not afraid of them and I'm not backing down.

Take that, haters.

Love
Madge

Turn and Face the Strain Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-09-14T15:52:00.008-04:00

We are smack dab in the middle of some major life changes here at Casa Potter. It's been...overwhelming. I decided to dig up a post from my archives I wrote way back when I first started this little ol' blog of mine. It's apt as we move towards a new adventure. A caveat, I used to write in lower case letters, but I decided that unless it was poetry or I was channeling e.e. cummings, it was derivative at best. Do forgive.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Margot Potter
Copyright 2006
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

"turn and face the strain, ch-ch-changes."

ah, change. the only constant. and in my lifetime perhaps the only moor to which i can ever dock my sailboat. i have moved 27 times in my life.

27 endings...27 beginnings...27 major sweeping reality shifts...27 hellos...27 good-byes...27 opportunities to reinvent myself.

man...am i tired.

it's funny because so much of life is change, and yet the thought of instigating sweeping changes absolutely terrifies us. because we have no freaking clue what might happen if we push the button, right? will the great glass elevator really shatter into a million pieces...and if it might should we push the button anyway...just to see? it is good to stand on firm ground, but i think it might also be good to rock the earth under our feet a little every now and again. Keeps us on our toes...makes us feel that rush of living.

"to make a beginning, there must be an ending...the end is where we start from."
t.s. elliot

albert einstein theorized that if we stood in space and could see to its farthest reaches we would see the back of our own head. now that's a circle for you! maybe reality is a circle and not a straight line...and our feeble attempts to change that are wasted effort.

ultimately, it isn't the external change that matters, because if we don't make a quantum shift inside of ourselves then no matter where we go, the scenery all starts to look the same.

change may be good or maybe not so much, but regardless of its merits it is impossible to avoid.

"time may change me...but i can't trace time..."

Glamerican Beagle Jr.

2010-09-07T13:45:00.010-04:00

I knew eventually my kid would decide that funky thrift store finds were simply not going to cut it at school. I held out hope and then...the unrelenting logo pressure got too strong. Not only are teens label conscious, they're season conscious. They pay top dollar to wear clothes that are slathered shamelessly with store logos AND they must have this season's picks or the other kids will know.

Oh no. We wouldn't want...the other kids to know.

I don't want Avalon to feel like Second Hand Rose, so I do supplement the stuff from the discount stores like TJ's and the Mom Closet finds with a few key logo savvy pieces.

So off to the mall we went. Hoorah. We hit several stores and then had one last store to check for a skirt she had to have. After no fewer than three incredibly perky sales people tried to sell us something we really did not want, we managed to get to the register mostly unscathed. Then the perky cashier asked if we wanted a Frequent Shopper Card. I said okay and then after handing me the card she asks me to hand her my driver's license so she can 'save me some time' and fill out the form for me.

Insert screeching tires sounds...here.

Uh, not so fast, Muffy.

I can fill it out myself, thanks.

I get home and read this form and realize that she was trying to flim flam me into signing up for a CREDIT CARD. To add insult to injury, it requested my Social Security Number and my Mother's Maiden Name in two small boxes at the bottom.

Seriously?

To say that I'm a little miffed is a vast understatement.

It's bad enough that customer service has disappeared, but now they're trying to trick me into signing up for a credit card and sharing personal information that could be easily stolen by said aforementioned perky cashier a.k.a. Muffy Liarpants?

WTF?!

I would name the store, but that might set me up for a libel suit. Instead I shall say that it's the teencentric clothing store that rhymes with 'fairy' and is a branch of the store that sounds like Glamerican Beagle.

I wasn't born yesterday.

Love
Madge

Justice, Wherefore Art Thou?

2010-09-03T08:58:00.008-04:00

I have watched two amazing women be methodically crushed by two monstrous men for the past few years and it's been unbearable to see how our legal system does absolutely nothing to set things right. These women have tried to escape, but the courts have made that impossible. I am so angry, so frustrated at my lack of ability to help them break free. These selfish, cruel and vindictive men have been rewarded over and over again while the women they continue to abuse have been punished. No matter how many lies they tell, how many lives they ruin, they continue to abuse, control and crush with a complete and total disregard for the destruction of their relationships not only with the women they've abused, but with the family that surround them. That is the psyche of an abuser.

The wheels of karma have not yet spun in their direction, but it is my sincere hope that soon they will and with an unrelenting velocity.

I wonder sometimes how these men can stand to even look at themselves in the mirror. I suppose trying to understand a sociopath is pointless. I wonder if the possessions and the money they covet like Gollum or Scrooge give them any satisfaction at all. I wonder what it feels like to know that your egomaniacal unbridled selfishness and unrelenting need to 'win' has completely destroyed your relationships with your children, your grandchildren and everyone who should have mattered to you.

You'd think, eventually, somehow, someday, when they sit alone in their dragon cave surrounded by their crappy dragon hoard that whatever tiny heart they might actually possess will crack open. And then, finally, they'll know how much they've lost and how little they've gained.

If there is justice, they will find the prison they've constructed so carefully for themselves is locked so completely, they will never be able to escape.

"I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard. I gartered it on of my own free will and by my own free will, I wore it." Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

"They’re thieves. They’re thieves, they’re filthy little thieves. Where is it? Where is it? They stole it from us. My Precious. Curse them, we hates them! It’s ours it is, and we wants it. "
Gollum from The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien

‎"Until you do right by me, everything you THINK about is gonna crumble!" Ceelie to Albert from The Color Purple by Alice Walker (thanks to Andrea Ferguson)

Love
Madge

E Pluribus Unim

2010-09-01T13:24:00.007-04:00

The Statue of Liberty by Elcobbola from WikiCommons under a Creative Commons 3.0 License

There is nothing more insidious or evil than the politics of misinformation and fear. It has permeated our culture and it is a disease that just might kill us. It has created a schism so wide that it seems almost insurmountable. The truth is that the people behind this misinformation and fear have a far deeper agenda than funding and winning political campaigns. If they can effectively divide and conquer and create a constant state of fear and confusion, they can take control of every aspect of our lives.

This is how Hitler took power in Germany.

Once you create an 'enemy' that people can blame for their problems you start down a pathway that leads to eventual complete disregard for humanity and the intrinsic value of human life. Once you start publicly preaching hatred of those you deem to be the 'enemy', especially when done under the guise of sharing factual information, you are absolutely and completely responsible for the violence this kind of misinformation will most certainly provoke.

People are hard wired in their most primal brain to form clans and groups. They can easily forget that they are united as citizens of a country or as human beings on a planet if they become convinced that their way of thinking and moving through the world is entirely dependent on everyone else in the world thinking and moving in the same way. This is what creates political and religious extremism.

I like to think we're yet again in the center of a great bait and switch. It's about a handful of individuals with excessive amounts of power and money who think they can manipulate the masses by dividing them. They've bought our political candidates and they've bought our news sources. They are banking on the part of human nature that possesses an innate need for survival. With enough pressure, this becomes, in it's most extreme, an extraordinary level of selfishness.

I'm going to get mine any way I can and I'm not going to help anyone else no matter who they are or what they need and I am going to attack anyone who gets in my way.

It's the Culture of Me.

It is not, in point of fact, all about any one individual. Society is actually about the Power of We. Once we stop buying into the idea of 'the other', we begin to approach life from a state of grace, love and acceptance. The most beautiful aspect of being alive is the knowledge that each and every one of us is a unique creative expression and that it is not possible for any other person on the planet to be, think, move or feel in exactly the same way. Yet, we all want and need the same things.

We all want and need to be loved and accepted for exactly who we are. So then, that common and basic need unites us.

Judge less, love more.

Wake up, push away the smokescreen and stop drinking the Kool-Aid served by the Cult of Fear.

The founding fathers are being bandied about a lot these days, but they made it clear that it is the right of each and every citizen of America to pursue happiness. It is our duty as citizens of this country to ensure that right is held high. Higher than religious or political or social or ethnic differences. Higher than the politics of fear can ever reach.

I have seen the enemy and I will fight to my last dying breath to expose the politics of fear for the ruthless evil it truly is. We are one. One.

E Pluribus Unim "Out of many, one."

Don't let them make you forget that.

Love
Margot

Hello, Chaos, Come On In

2010-08-31T12:30:00.007-04:00

For months now, I have been in an uncomfortable limbo because virtually everything in my life is in a state of chaos. Chaos and I, we go way back. In fact, our first introduction happened when I was but a young girl. Since then, my world has been catapulted by the reappearance of chaos into a state of absolute uncertainty countless times.

I sometimes picture myself not moving through life so frenetically. Instead surrounded by simplicity and beauty and joy. I imagine what it might be like to find a home and stay there for more than a handful of years. I wonder how it feels to grow roots and branches. I've never stopped turning, turning, turning to the music of change.

I suppose none of us do.

Still, the illusions of security, comfort, home and stability captivate my imagination.

Here I stand, once again, on the precipice of change with chaos holding its hands on my shoulder blades. I am taking the time to be sure that this free fall is what I truly want. That this change comes on my terms and not someone else's. That this choice will feed my family as well as my spirit. I spent too many years of my life doing things that did not feed my spirit and I have, I believe, earned the right to choose joy. After all, none of what feels so incredibly important at the moment is even remotely consequential to the grand design.

I wish I could say it feels good to be here, but with every expansion and contraction come growing pains. It's an uneasy and unsettling place to be. I am, as ever, attempting to approach it all with whatever grace, dignity and creativity I can muster.

Love,
Madge

The Decline of Western Civilization or Crappy Airline Customer Service Strikes Again

2010-08-14T09:35:00.007-04:00

My daughter and I were away at a photo shoot for my new book in Cincinnati last week. I'm pretty much burnt out on living out of hotel rooms, this has been a hectic summer. We had a long week, the shoot was tough and I was stressed out at the end of each day. By the time we left, all I wanted was to be back home in my own bed and asleep.

On the way to the airport, we got a phone call that our flight was going to be delayed. By the time we got to the airport, we were informed it would be two hours delayed and perhaps more. I checked my daughter in and changed her seats so we could sit together. My husband has Silver Status with this airline because of his frequent flier miles. He flies often and having Silver Status makes it a little less stressful. He boards earlier, gets his luggage checked for free and gets an occasional upgrade. My flight was booked by my publisher, my husband booked my daughter's flight through his account. When we checked her in in Philly, her bag was checked for free by the airline computer. She was flying as herself, not as my husband. We had not pretended she was him. I assumed that she was flying under Silver Status since the bag was free and she was boarding in Zone 2. What we didn't realize was that by not paying for the bag for which we were not charged, we were flagged by the airline for fraud.

Had I known, I would have gladly paid for the bag. I wasn't trying to get something for nothing. In fact, I am so painfully honest it drives my husband insane. If I'm overcharged, I inform the cashier. If someone accidentally ships something to me twice, I return the second item. If I find money on the floor, I take it to customer service to make sure the person who lost it can get it back. I never, ever expect something for nothing and I surely wouldn't willingly perpetrate fraud over a 25 dollar baggage charge.

So fast forward to last night. I'm tired. I'm stressed. I'm having trouble breathing because there were smog alerts in Cincinnati. I'm frustrated that we're now several hours away from departure. Still I'm marching forward with my sense of humor mostly in tact. We check the bag on the electronic kiosk, I pay the fee musing out loud to my daughter that I thought her bag was free since it had been on the first half of our trip and the customer service woman informs me very loudly (as a favor, mind you) that the account has been flagged for fraud. She's grinning from ear to ear and I'm just shocked beyond belief. I would never willingly commit fraud. I explain this to her, calmly. She continues to repeat over and over again so that everyone in line can hear, that she can do nothing about it and she didn't commit fraud and I did.

I have, never, in my 47 years on the planet lost it in public. I'm friendly, I'm affable, I treat customer service people with kindness and respect because I spent 12 years waiting tables. I say please and thank you and I'm sorry and if I get great service, I always make a point of acknowledging it. This woman, with her evil grin spreading wider, kept repeating the word fraud until something inside of me snapped. While she laughed and again announced to all who could hear that SHE didn't perpetrate fraud and that I did, small cartoon smoke puffs began coming out of my ears.

I told this woman that I'd had enough of this airline. She just kept laughing, calling me a fraud. People were shuffling uncomfortably as I became more and more upset. I told her I was happy to pay for the bag, offered her my credit card and she refused to take it. I explained that I'm an honest person, I'm generally a very nice person and that I wanted to rectify the situation. She just kept laughing and saying fraud. I have never, ever, in my entire life been treated so rudely. Shouldn't there be an assumption on her part, as a customer service person, that this was simply a misunderstanding and not an intentional attempt to commit fraud for a 25 dollar baggage fee?

What has happened to customer service?

I finally stepped away and my daughter and I went to get some dinner before the airport closed. Yes, the airport stores and shops closed at 7:30 and our plane did not leave until 10:30. I woke up this morning still upset. Is it so much to ask to be treated with respect? Is it so wrong to want to be heard? They made the mistake of not charging us, so perhaps an apology, an explanation and we would have gladly paid for the bag. We tried to pay for the bag. Is publicly humiliating customers who spent 800 dollars to fly on your airline over a 25 dollar misunderstanding appropriate? Is it really on us to deduce that they made a mistake and if we don't, are we at fault? Really?!

I think the loss of basic civility and common courtesy is destroying the fabric of our society. If we don't start working on getting that back, I'm afraid this great nation is heading right down the toilet.

Oh and if this isn't rectified and we are not given an apology, I'm never, ever flying on the airline with the same initials as an acronym for our country again. Just for the record.

Love

Madge

A Brief Announcement

2010-08-06T08:56:00.006-04:00

Hello Love Muffins

I like to peruse my blog stats now and again just to see who is dropping by for a peek. I've noticed a fair amount of my professional craft industry connections recently and I wanted to post today an explanation of this blog and why it's here and why I have a second craft dedicated blog.

For the first four years, this was a crazy mash up of professional and personal posts. Since I work in a fairly conservative industry and since my unfiltered personal posts, rants and essays aren't relevant to my professional career, I decided to separate the topics into two different blogs.

Mostly, I don't promote this blog unless I want to share information I think will help other people. This is a place for me to say what's on my mind without having to filter myself. I don't write about politics or personal matters or spout expletives on my other blog, but I do here. I don't link to this blog in my email signature or from my website. You have to go into my Blogger profile to find it.

Writing is my guilty pleasure and I am a woman with strong opinions. I took down four years of posts last year because I was worried about my professional contacts being offended.

I am 46 years old and I'm simply not going to hide or pretend to be someone else. Love it or leave it...this is who I am. I don't expect other people to think like I do or to agree with me. I am always willing to listen to divergent points of view with an open mind and an open heart.

If you're here looking for crafts, please visit my blog next door. If you want to read the mostly uncensored writings of a woman of substance who is a liberal independent feminist smarty panties with Zen master wishes and Taoist dreams...you've come to the right place.

Proceed with caution. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program...
xoxo
Madge

Baking Your Pie

2010-08-04T10:43:00.009-04:00

Baking Your Pie-an Allegory
Copyright 2010 Margot Potter
A Liberal Independent Political Rant brought to you by Self Righteous Indignation Flakes-the cereal for people with something to get off of their chest.

There is a pie you make. The pie is reflective of the level of your prosperity. You work, you make a lot of money, you buy the ingredients, you bake the pie.

It's your pie, right?

Well, yes...but here's the other side of the coin. A lot of people had to work for not a lot of money to make the ingredients and get them to a store so you could buy them and make that pie.

Someone grew and harvested the wheat. Someone made it into flour.

Someone tended and milked the cows that made the butter. Someone processed the milk and made the butter.

Someone stood in the hot sun and picked the fruit.

Someone stood in a sugar cane field and chopped down the canes. Someone processed that into sugar.

Someone drove the truck to the grocery store. Someone stocked the shelves. Someone rung you out on the register and bagged your ingredients.

Someone clung to the back of a stench filled garbage truck and took away the detritus of your pie baking.

And on and on and on, every ingredient in that pie was available to you because someone else worked hard and got paid very little. Not everyone has the opportunity, faculties or ability to make lots of money to buy lots of ingredients to make a big pie. That's because someone has to do the dirty work so someone else can drive to the happy grocery store, buy their tasty ingredients, head back to their state of the art kitchen and bake their fabulous pie. Not everyone gets to go to college or have a stable family life or grow up in suburbia or make the right connections or advance into big money jobs, because if we all did that...who would do the dirty work and who would we blame for taking all of our pie? Because we certainly can't blame the giant corporations and their CEOs that make the majority of money on the ingredients, lobby and fund politicians to ensure their interests are protected and move their business offices to offshore accounts so they don't have to pay any taxes. No, we can't blame them.

So...if you're not going to get angry at the corporate pie pillaging and are instead going to blame the pie ingredient makers for your woes, then it's time to think about this pie of yours. Is it really completely your pie or do you, perhaps, owe just a little slice to help the people who made the ingredients have access to basic things like school, health care, police protection... I'm not saying you need to give your entire pie away, just a slice, mind you.

A society is measured by the way it treats the least among us. I don't advocate giving all of your pie money to people who don't want to work, that's just silly. I think we should all get to have a nice juicy pie of our own making when we want one. I work for myself, so I give a lot of my pie money, much more than most people. I advocate that the corporations and the big wigs and the folks who make a huge amount of the pie money at the very least pay the same percentage of their income that the folks who make the pie ingredients have to pay. It's only fair.

I think if you want to bake pies and not worry about giving any crumbs to the people who make the ingredients for you, perhaps you can get together with the other 1% of fancy pie bakers and purchase a country where you can all live together. Then those pesky pie ingredients people will stop taking all of your pie money.

Love
Madge (a registered Independent, for the record.)

Mycoplasma and Asthma: My Diagnosis from National Jewish Hospital

2010-07-23T07:48:00.013-04:00

A Hopeful Madge Before her Bronchoscopy!

I'm back from my visit to National Jewish Hospital. I've got a pile of work to do here that is engulfing me, but I think this information is important to share. If you know anyone with unresponsive asthma, ALS, alzheimers, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Crohn's disease, cancer, fibromyalgia, leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, heart problems or other immune system disorders...they may have the same infection that I have. In fact if you or anyone you know suffers with one or more of these conditions, I HIGHLY suggest you read further.

Several months back I went on Biaxin for an ear infection. I found my asthma began to improve, so I did some research. I discovered a wealth of information about a bacteria I thought might have been behind my problems and brought it up to my asthma doctor. I went on a one month course of Biaxin to eradicate the bacteria, but unfortunately that wasn't long enough to kill it. Flash forward to this past Monday and...it turns out I was on to something.

So let me start with the smaller stuff. Quickly here is a synopsis of my diagnosis: allergic response asthma, severe allergies, chronic cough, vocal chord dysfunction and mycoplasma infection in the small airways of my lung.

I've learned new strategies for retraining my vocal chords and exacerbating my chronic cough. What's amazing is how simple these are! Here is some information about what I'm doing. Relaxation, pursed lipped diaphramatic breathing and learning to recognize triggers and reponses.

The allergies are pretty straight forward. I am basically allergic to everything...except for one strain of mold. So a daily dose of Zyrtec or even one in the morning and one at night during the worst times of year helps immensely. I'm going to start using a neti pot or a nasal rinse with a saline solution daily. I've been given a nasal antihistamine for use in the fall and the spring.

My asthma is not so straight forward because it is unresponsive to medications. What that means is that I have not improved my lung function at all in the 13 years since I was diagnosed with asthma. No matter how diligently I follow my medical protocol, I still can't breathe and I can't stop coughing. This is why I have been fighting for the past five years to get to National Jewish, because even the pulmonologists at UPenn couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. The consensus was that A. I was lying and not taking my meds or B. my airways were permanently remodeled because I didn't get treatment soon enough. Neither of these things is actually true.

I have a long standing infection with a stealthy, tiny bacteria that lacks a cell wall called mycoplasma. I have no idea when this infection started, but I've had asthma for 13 years. Everyone has been exposed to this organism. It is the cause of walking pneumonia. Some people, due to immune system compromise, become a perfect host for this organism to hijack their cells. Mycoplasma can literally hide in your cells without killing them. If it gets into your lungs, it can profligate and cause inflammation of your small airways and kick start asthma. If someone is predisposed to developing asthma, they are the perfect host for this bacteria.

In case you're now afraid to talk to me in public...once you've passed the initial infection, you are not contagious! I can't spread the bacteria, because it's embedded in cells in my lungs. Don't be afraid, I'm not Typhoid Madgy.

If this bacteria gets into your white blood cells and passes through your blood brain barrier it is believed to be a major factor in a huge swath of neurological disorders including: ALS, Alzeheimers, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Crohn's Disease, Leukemia, Gulf War Syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, MS...it is also a factor in cancer...and the list goes on. This bacteria invades your body and creates inflammation in the tissues, which is what has happened inside of my lungs. I keep feeling like I've been invaded by tiny aliens, because basically that's what has happened.

The scary thing about mycoplasma is that it's very hard to detect because it hides. I had to have a deep tissue biopsy, lavage and several blood and urine tests to show DNA evidence of this organism. I pressed for that biopsy, so make sure if you have similar issues you press too! Because we've all been exposed to it, we all show some evidence, most of us have some of this in our bodies, which is fine as long as our bodies can keep it from colonizing. Those of us with long standing infections who have serious health repercussions have to rid our bodies of the bacteria and that requires a 3-6 month course of Clarithromycin or Biaxin or another related antibiotic. In fact, this is the only class of antibiotic that is effective against mycoplasma. I'm taking 1000 mg daily. Once you start to kill this off, you'll likely feel pretty sick for a week or two, but that will signal that the bacteria is dying, so it's a good thing!

I know this sounds like a bunch of hoo ha...I mean why haven't we all heard of this stuff? What's the deal? If we all have it...shouldn't this be common knowledge?! I'm seriously thinking that there's no money in this for big pharma, so why on earth would they want us all on Biaxin and...gasp...for people with chronic medical conditions who buy their medications to get BETTER?! Yes, I like a good conspiracy theory. There are people who think this is a super strain of mycoplasma that was created as a biological weapon, which is another interesting theory. I think ultimately, since this is difficult to detect and treat and research is constantly improving, most doctors just don't know enough about it. Though mycoplasma was first discovered by LOUIS PASTEUR in the 1800s during studies with cows suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.

Please research this, share this, talk about this with your doctor if you suffer from a chronic condition that is potentially linked to this. Please know that if you don't fight for your health, you're going to be unlikely to find answers. Please also know that this is far more common than it is strange and many doctors simply don't know enough about it. It's far too easy for doctors to sit over their prescription pad and keep handing you drug after drug after drug than it is for them to dig deeper. It's far too easy for them to blame the patient than it is for them to take responsibility for finding answers. The system is currently financially unrewarding for doctors to dig deep. So it's up to you to. If they're not listening, fire them and hire someone who will. It's your health. Fight with every fiber of your being, you're worth it.

Here are some excellent articles about Mycoplasma, please read them and share:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol3no1/baseman.htm
http://www.rain-tree.com/myco.htm
http://s99.middlebury.edu/BI330A/projects/Howard/Mpneumoniae.html
http://www.drmirkin.com/morehealth/G144.htm
http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/mayer/myco.htm
http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=7933

If you Google this, you'll be blown away at how much information is out there!

PS: I am taking high doses of probiotics, eating yogurt to maintain the balance of good bacteria in my intestines!

Love
Margot

Fixing Chaos

2010-07-21T09:58:00.011-04:00

I spent a lot of years trying desperately to be someone who would make everyone around me happy and comfortable. Because I was surrounded by chaos and uncertainty, because I felt abandoned and misunderstood, I felt compelled to constantly try smooth the wrinkles. I still, on occasion, fall back into that pattern. The irony is that my larger than life personality makes that challenge a virtual impossibility. I'm not a calming force, I'm a catalyst. It took a lot of years and a lot of frustrating exercises in futility for me to realize that it wasn't my job to make everyone around me happy and comfortable. It is impossible to know precisely what anyone can do that will ever make everyone around them happy or comfortable.

It took a lot of years of attempting to fix chaos to realize that fixing chaos isn't possible.

I've come to realize that the things I say or do, even with the best of intentions, are filtered through other people's perceptions. I can not control that. Everyone sees everyone else through a lens. That lens is often clouded by insecurities, expectations, ego and past experiences. Although we can strive to be the best expression of who we are and to be mindful of the ways in which our being impacts others, we can not become someone else to make others happy and comfortable.

I think that's a really tough thing to accept. What we all really want deep in our most hidden heart of hearts is to be loved unconditionally. We all want to become free of feeling the need to be who other people want us to be. We all want to be loved exactly as we are, even in our most unlovable and difficult moments. We all want to be free to be ourselves without apology or explanation. We begin that journey by learning to love ourselves without judgments or filters or expectations. Then we can begin to practice offering that to others. The entire point of being on this planet is to explore the ongoing practice of unconditional love.

No matter what we do or how we do it, there will always be people who simply don't like us. It hurts to know other people don't like us, especially when they are people we desperately want to like us. Other people are often stuck in old patterns and old scripts and they simply can't see us clearly. Our job is to let go of our attachment to these things. We define ourselves, others can not define us unless we allow them to do so. We have to allow ourselves and others the room to be less than perfect. If we choose to accept the role of the 'bad guy' or the 'difficult person' simply because that's how other people have cast us, that is a choice we make. We can alternately reject these roles.

People will, if we surround them with our unspoken expectations, never cease to disappoint us. People reflect what we project upon them. We can gather evidence to fully support theories attached to our negative projections if we work hard enough at the endeavor. We all see, hear and believe precisely what we choose to see, hear and believe.

We are either victims of our past, our circumstances and the actions of people around us or we take full responsibility at every moment for our own reality.

I am, ever, learning to love myself and those around me unconditionally. I am, ever, a work in progress.

Judge less, love more. Words to live by. I am striving every moment to allow myself and others the room to breathe.

Love
Madge

On the Road

2010-07-17T12:17:00.003-04:00

Six years ago, during that same crazy year when my professional world fell apart, my asthma took a strange turn. I became so sick, I couldn't get out of bed for a month. I had a sharp, shooting pain in my right lung that felt like a rusty saw going in and out with each breath. The initial diagnosis was flu. I didn't respond to the antibiotics. The next diagnosis was allergic asthma on overdrive, so I was prescribed prednisone. Prednisone is a corticosteroid. Not the kind of steroid that body builders take to gain muscles, this is another form of steroid that is an extremely strong anti-inflammatory drug. Lots of folks take it for allergies, asthma, lupus, chronic infections, extreme cases of poison ivy or other rampant and unresponsive rashes, it's an immunosupressant, so folks who have immune systems on overdrive are often prednisone patients. Some people use it regularly, you will recognize them by their full moon shaped facial features. It makes you puffy, angry, agitated. Some folks feel a sense of euphoria and extraordinary energy. I had never taken it before. Within a few days, I began a descent into what can only be described as rubber room variety crazy. It was not, for me, a euphoric feeling. I was terrified. My brain already moves very fast, suddenly it was moving at a speed that resulted in my having to work very hard to get the words in my brain to slow down enough for me to speak. I wasn't getting better and after a trip to the ER and an accidental overdose of more predisone by the pharmacist, I was unable to sleep for five days.

Since I was up all night, I got on the computer and began diagnosing myself. Why the hell not, someone else had to have been where I was, right? My prednisone reaction was rare, for some people it is possible to enter what is called a steroid psychosis. It can even trigger latent bipolar disorder. Holy crapamole! The pain in my side was pleurisy. Pleurisy is an extremely painful blister-like occurence on your external lung wall. It was a common condition in the Victorian Era, because so many people suffered from consumption. Why I was so tired and having so much trouble breathing, I can't say. I didn't solve that part of the equation. I did manage to communicate to my husband that the drugs were making me crazy and I thought I had pleurisy. He's a good man, he listened and he advocated for me. He called the answering service and demanded the doctor contact me immediately.

The doctor dosed me off of the steroids and concurred with my self diagnosis of pleurisy and recommended aspirin and a heating pad. Really?! Good grief.

Had anyone listened to me from the first office visit...I'd not have been down that scary path. Not one person addressed the pain in my lung. Amazing, huh? I think there's a general feeling among many doctors that patients, particularly female patients, exaggerate their pain. I had natural childbirth, I know what pain is, people. After this episode, my breathing did not fully improve and I have lived with chronic unresponsive severe asthma since. I was first diagnosed with asthma when I was pregnant, but I didn't take it seriously until this event. It was one of those 'long time coming' scenarios, but this forced me to push for better answers from my doctors. Since then we've been working to figure out what's wrong with me and how to get me back to some semblance of quasi-normal.

So here I am, in Denver as an outpatient at National Jewish Hospital. The doctors, nurses, staff...everyone at this hospital has been amazing. I mean like 'what the hell is in the water here?' amazing! They've listened. They've taken copious notes. They've dialogued. They're treating me like a medical mystery and they're actually excited to solve it. They're looking at every possible condition and they're explaining everything to me in detail. I feel like I'm in some wonderful alternate medical reality. Except for the medical tests, which have not exactly been a fiesta, but I'm willing to do what it takes to get answers.

My patient and loving mother has been at my side. She left her little dog Thelma with a good friend and she's been with me every step of the journey. It's not easy for two strong, smart, snarky, fiercely independent women to spend 7 days of uninterrupted time together, especially when one of them is stressed out and extra snarky...one of them being me. She deserves a medal for her service on my behalf. I hope my love and gratitude will suffice. Thank you, Mom. I love you.

It is that strong, smart, snarky, fierce independence she instilled in me that gave me the tenacity to demand answers and get to National Jewish which is another reason I owe my mother my gratitude. It's so easy, because the deck is stacked that way due to insurance companies and legal factors, to give up. Doctors simply don't have time to deal with medical mysteries. They're not making enough money for it to be worthwhile. They can't afford to risk a misdiagnosis. It's easier to hand you the meds, pat you on your head and send you on your way.

I am so grateful for the staff at National Jewish. What a revelation! I'm so excited to get my diagnosis on Monday! I have so many tragi-comical stories to share with you about my journey here. They'll come when I get home. I have to rest now. Yesterday's bronchoscopy with biopsy and lavage has me very tired indeed.

The good news, the very good news, is that if there is any place on earth where I can finally get real answers, this is it.

Love
Madge

A Dearth of Words

2010-06-16T08:48:00.003-04:00

Insert Appropriately Compelling Image Here
(or I got tired of looking and got busy with other things...)

Hmmm...I'm oddly lacking in things to say as of late. Could it be that Madge has run out of words? Wow. Someone, quick, alert the media! This is news!

If there is an allotment of words in one lifetime, I'm quite sure I've used up more than my fair share. In fact I just may have used up someone else's share or several someone elses' shares. I started talking in full sentences before the age of one and I've not really stopped since. That's 46 years of chatter...going on 47 this August. (Gotta get that birthday plug in here somewhere. Just remember people, I like Sauvignon Blanc, shoes and sparkly things.)

E...gads. I think it might be true.

I shall have to ponder this matter with considerable seriousness over the next few days and report my findings. Perhaps, and this is just at theory mind you, it's a temporary condition caused by the alignment of the stars or the solar flares.

Yes, I'm quite sure that's it.

Hopefully once this cosmic event has passed, I'll be back to my old talkative self again. I imagine you're all awaiting this most auspicious event with baited breath.

Even when I'm lacking words, I can still manage to eek out a blog post about it. Amazing. Step right up and listen to the verbal stylings of the wordless wonder...

xoxo
Madge

Defunked

2010-06-12T11:35:00.007-04:00

From Old Time Travel Posters and Luggage Labels by Dover Books

I'm afraid I left everyone here thinking Madge was sitting under a mossy rock in a funk all week. I've been so busy working on projects for the new book I've not had a lot of time for feeling sad, like a spring rainstorm the sad passed and I'm happy once again. I just want to clarify...I do have friends. I have friends whom I adore. They just happen to live far away. I have some local pals, but we're all so busy it's hard to carve out time to just hang out. I feel lonely sometimes, like we all do. It's part of being human to want to connect.

I'd rather have a handful of true friends than a litany of acquaintances. I think we're all lucky if we have one or two people whom we can call true friends. I think it's a symptom of the age in which we live that we can't connect with other people enough. We're all blathering on our Facebook walls and tweeting up a storm and texting endlessly, but somehow that has removed us another degree from one another. It stops us from taking the time to write a letter, pick up the phone or even send an email. The depth and the breadth of our interactions has suffered. I say this often and I shall say it again, we live in a time when we are more connected than we have ever been and yet more disconnected than we have ever been. It's a conundrum to be sure.

I am eternally grateful for you, gentle reader and for my family and friends who I know are all there for me when I need them most and for whom I am there as well. Life is a gift, and I do treasure it.

Love
Madge

Le Sigh

2010-06-09T14:11:00.005-04:00

Gibson Girl Illustrations Dover Books

I am a sunny skies kinda gal. Sure, I like to dance in a nice warm spring rainstorm followed by a rainbow just like the next gal and who doesn't enjoy the excitement of a full blown thunderstorm when you're safe and warm and watching from inside?

Still...long, grey, gloomy, spritzy days make me feel funky...and not in a PFunk kinda way.

Mostly in a funkity funk kinda way.

Today is one of those kinda days. I should have pumped out another book project...and if I can muster even a drop of creative juice I will. I should have driven the 45 minutes to my allergy doc to pick up my medical files. I should have showered, shampooed and shaved. I should have made it out to the food store to get some fixin's for dinner. I should have whipped up a cool gift for my mother's birthday this weekend and popped it into the mail. I should have...I could have...and I would have accomplished a long list of things and yet I mostly didn't do a thing because I mostly didn't feel like it.

Le sigh.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes ya don't.

(When I think about people reading my blog translated into other languages I chuckle. What is this nut of which she is speaking and how exactly does it feel?)

I'm free falling people and although I've got a very clear picture of where I fully intend to land, I'm feeling the 'Holy Shit' portion of my flight today. Yes, it's Holy Shit! It's far more potent than your garden variety fertilizer. Get your Holy Shit today! It's new and improved and extra shitty! Order now and you'll get a set of Ginsu knives and a bamboo steamer!

Yay.

That and quite frankly I'm lonely. There, I said it. I have thousands of wonderful virtual friends but no 3-d friend to go have a cuppa with. It's just that sometimes it might be nice to have someone to talk with about the things I can't talk about here in virtual reality. Someone to listen, smile, laugh, give me some sage advice, reach out and hold my hand and let me know it's going to be okay. I miss that. I love my family, don't get me wrong, but everyone needs friends.

Le sigh.

Step right up to the roller coaster that is Madge's reality. Up, down, sideways...and occasionally upside down.

Love,
Madge

The Free Fall

2010-06-08T16:41:00.007-04:00

Yesterday I began what would be best described as a free fall. It's a long way down and I'm not sure what might happen on the way. I have been standing on the precipice of this cliff for quite some time now, but yesterday I finally leaped into the abyss.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soon 'whee' might become...'holy shit'...or perhaps it will mellow out into a more restrained and understated "wow."

Whee...holy shit...wow.

Yes, that about covers it.

It's funny how we expect these moments to have some major cosmic resonance, to feel big and important. Ultimately they're just little tiny blips on the cosmic radar. Just like most of the 'important' things into which we place so much of our focus and energy, they are mostly illusions.

I am not afraid. It's just a leap. Life isn't worth living without a few brave leaps into the great unknown.

Sometimes it becomes more difficult to hang on than it is to let go. Sometimes the thing that feels comfortable is actually really not comfortable at all. It's safe, convenient and it's soul sucking.

So we close our eyes, we count to ten and we leap.

WHEE...HOLY SHIT...wow.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life, you have always waited for this moment to arise." The Beatles

xoxo
Madge

Serendipity

2010-06-04T09:32:00.004-04:00

Kristen Turberville Haffey

The word serendipity was coined by Horace Walpole in a letter he wrote in 1754. Here is the quote as taken from Wikipedia:

"I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity?”

Serendipity is the unexpected discovery of something valuable that occurs when we are seeking something else. Our lives are, all of them, filled with moments like this. Moments where we can, if we open ourselves up to the possibilities, experience unexpected gifts and opportunities. Not only that, we have opportunities to provide this experience to others.

On my way back from Tucson via Phoenix several years ago I was on a very crowded plane and I was exhausted. I knew that upon my arrival in Philly I was facing several days of temporary single mother status with dog, chickens and a child who all needed my 100% attention. It was my full intention to get into my seat, curl up with a tiny airline pillow and paper thin airline blanket and sleep. There was a lovely young woman sitting next to me reading a book. We exchanged pleasantries and I realized rather quickly that she needed to talk. I really did not want to talk, and I was feeling put upon and annoyed at having to start a conversation. Yet, something in me was making it infinitely clear that I was supposed to talk to this young woman.

We struck a conversation that lasted the entire flight from Phoenix to Philly. She was on her way back from missionary work in Phoenix. She had a thyroid condition that needed doctor’s care and had reluctantly agreed to go home to Pennsylvania to see a doctor. As we talked, I shared my stories and she shared hers. She began to tell me about her music and her art. Her eyes were literally sparkling with excitement as she talked about how much she loved the Beatles and playing her guitar. How she’d played with her friends in a band and she really missed wearing her Converse all star sneakers (I had mine on that day by chance.) Her mother had encouraged her to pursue her art and music, but she wasn’t sure it was possible.

Suddenly I realized this girl was at a crossroads and she needed someone to listen to her story and to offer some sage advice. "Yes, yes!" I said, "You can do what you love and make money. It is possible. Yes! You’re so young; you have so much future ahead of you, anything you can dream is possible. Yes!" As we talked and shared stories and our passion for creativity I watched her face light up more and more. I was deeply impressed with this articulate, passionate young woman. The plane pulled into Philly. I gave her my card and asked her to stay in touch.

Not long after I received an email from her mother. She told me she was thrilled to have her daughter home. This thyroid condition was potentially quite dangerous. The tests were being done and in the meantime her daughter was playing music again. She asked if I would stop in from time to time and stay connected with her daughter. Of course I said yes. Not long after I got an email from her daughter. The thyroid condition was potentially cancerous. She might have to undergo chemo, they’d know after surgery that month. It seemed so unfair. She joked that she’d buy some erasable markers to draw on her hair everyday. I told her that’s the attitude she’d need to beat this thing.

This was the last line in her email:
“I'm so glad I got to sit next to you on the plane...you have no idea how much you helped me. Thanks. :)”

That...my friends...is serendipity. Every moment of every day we are presented with opportunities just like this. Casual moments that seem innocuous enough...and yet they are infused with deep significance for someone else. These are gifts. Open them with due reverence. You can be an instrument of compassion and change, just by being willing to listen, to say thank you, to be kind, to be compassionate and to move out of yourself especially when your instinct tells you not to. The real serendipity is in the way these moments shift your reality for the better. You may never know how you’ve touched someone else’s life, you may never get a thank you or an award. It doesn’t matter. The award is the unbridled joy that comes from finding the compassionate heart.

Seek “happy.”

Above is a video of this lovely young woman Kristen singing an original song on YouTube. Isn't she amazing?!

Love
Madge

I'll Take the Sprinkles, Please

2010-06-03T10:08:00.005-04:00

Image from Wikimedia with a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license by Lotus Head

Well, it's happening. I put on my steel toed boots and I called my guardian angels and we kicked some figurative ass. I will be going to National Jewish hospital. I will finally be getting the help I need to get my life (and my breath) back.

To top it off...we managed to use airline points to get first class seats on the plane both ways...for less than coach. I have never, ever flown first class. Plus I scored a discount hospital rate at a luxury hotel in the nicest part of the city with a shuttle that will take me wherever I need to go. That means I don't have to rent a car and deal with driving in the city. Woo hoo!

Those are the little sprinkles on the top of the dessert. I like manifesting sprinkles...I mean...really...who doesn't like sprinkles? I like ice cream, but sprinkles make it happy!

I don't know what's going to happen or how it's all going to work out. I don't know if my insurance company is going to change their minds and stick us with a huge bill after I get home. I'm not afraid to shine a big giant spotlight on them if they do. They've given us at least 10 different answers so far and we couldn't wait any longer to coordinate the trip. This morning after booking my hotel, I threw my hands above my head and I officially gave it up to the universe.

I am going to take those sprinkles as a sign that this is a big bowl of yummy ice cream and not a steamy pile of something stinky.

Now I must away to make more projects for my next book! Huzzah!

Love
Madge

Drama Queen

2010-05-21T11:23:00.009-04:00

Portrait of a Young Drama Queen (Your Faithful Blogger)

Hello, my name is Margot and I'm a Drama Queen.

I'm a Leo.

I'm an actor.

I come from a long line of performers.

Drama...is in my blood.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I don't have to get involved in other people's drama, I don't need to always be the main attraction and I surely don't have to write myself a cameo in a crappy movie.

I can sit on the sidelines, munching on my popcorn and enjoy the show.

Creative people live life passionately. We are, quite frankly, messy. If you paddle quietly along in the pool, you won't splash water on everyone around you. Passion precludes one from paddling along quietly. Plus let's face it, creative people like it when other people pay attention to them. If we didn't, we wouldn't jump up and down in the pool flailing our arms yelling, "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!", which is basically the same thing as having a blog and a Facebook wall and a Twitter and a website...

You can not have a viable online presence and claim to be shy and retiring. Sorry, Charlie.

I have a lot of passionate creative friends. I see them getting pulled into other people's drama and I want to say, hey, don't get caught up in that. That's a lame script anyway, keep making your own movie! I have to say that to myself sometimes too.

Okay, I have to say that to myself on a daily basis.

Either you're an extra in someone else's movie, or you're the writer, director and star of your own show.

When you're in charge, you get to write your own lines.

"You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up. "
Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard

xoxo
Madge

Becoming The Swan

2010-05-20T08:54:00.010-04:00

Growing up I was decidedly unlike the other kids. I didn't have a lot of friends, really I had only one or two in every school I attended. We had a lot of turmoil at home and we moved every few years, so I was the perpetual new kid. No matter where we moved, I did not fit in. I was the kid that the other kids laughed at on a daily basis. I knew I was special, but I also knew that much like the Ugly Duckling, it was going to be a while before I became a beautiful swan.

I was not then, and I am not now, one of the Golden Popular kids. I'm a grown up now, with grown up problems and concerns and a quirky young woman of my own to mentor. I see her navigating the same complexities and social interactions and I worry about her endlessly, but I also trust that she, like her mother, will find her way. She's a smart cookie that kid of mine.

I've come a long way since those awkward childhood years. I am the swan I dreamed of becoming. Yet among my peers, I often feel a strange disconnect and that same feeling of being the proverbial square peg. I get a lot of cold shoulders and weird looks and even though I reach out to connect, there are plenty of people who, for whatever reason, simply refuse to reach back. Maybe barging into the scene making bold and audacious and ironic proclamations about being "Bead Queen of the Universe" made them uncomfortable. Maybe wearing candy colored wigs, tiaras and giant plastic necklaces and not fading into the background politely was disconcerting to some. Maybe some people read between the lines of my blog posts and social networking posts in search of reasons to dislike me. I don't think everyone quite gets my subversive sense of humor or my sincerely deep seated desire to inspire and connect. It gets exhausting trying to figure it out.

I have always been a square peg and that is never going to change. I'd like to be liked, as we all would, but if you're going to be bold, you're going to have to accept that might make other people feel small. If you're going to put yourself out there, you're going to have to accept that some people will twist your words to suit their agendas. Some days I am reminded of how that small feeling makes insecure people celebrate when I can't come to the party or when I trip on a rock and fall. So be it. They can deal with that nasty karma when it comes back around.

I can't control anyone but me. I like me. I like you. I like being liked and I like liking. No matter what we do, everyone is not going to like us. Life is too short to focus on the negative. If you can't be nice, I can't be bothered. Those who don't approve can go 'unlike' me from a distance and I'll keep on spreading my wings and flying.

Love
Madge

Life's Too Mysterious, Don't Take it Serious

2010-05-06T09:39:00.009-04:00

Asian Giant Hornet (A Most Deadly Bee)

If I even for a moment doubt the wickedly naughty sense of humor of the universe, I'm reminded immediately.

What? You are sad? You are indulging your sad feelings in a public forum? You are having a bad week? Really? You are whining about rather large bees needing to be extracted from your buttocks on a regular basis?

Well Ms. Madge, I'll show you. Let me break out my tiny violin...or my largest and most imposing...bee.

With that, without explanation, a 2.5" hornet dropped on the windowsill in my bedroom. Kerplop. That is precisely the sound it made, just to be clear.

Kerplop.

or

Thunk.

Thud.

Splut.

Insert your favorite loud huge ass bee dropping sound effect here.

What insect could possible be in my house that could make a sound like that upon dropping on my windowsill? What insect?

A ridiculously, ludicrously large hornet. That's what insect. The largest bee I have ever seen. Holy farking hell! After the initial shock wore off, I scurried my child and my scruffly terrier, who was buried under the tangled mess of who knows what under my child's bed, downstairs. I closed all of the doors to the rooms upstairs before I left to contain the large hornet in one room, I regarded the aforementioned absurdly large hornet as it crawled behind a stack of books with a sense of trepidation and fear and noted it's smaller waspish companion keeping guard on the window as if to say, go ahead, try to squish this bee. Then I hoofed it as fast as my wheezy lungs would allow downstairs and waited for my brave knight to come home and slay the beast.

He said he had never in his life seen a bee that big. So it's not just me and my big imagination people. He sent the second wasp out into the wide world this morning, sparing its life in a most compassionate manner. As the first bee was already dying, he merely assisted the process.

I can't be sure that this bee crawled out of my ass, but I would imagine a bee of that size would make quite a nuisance of itself had it been lodged there. I think you may recall my large bee nightmare from my childhood...yes? Plus the bee blather this past week on the blog...yes?

Perhaps the universe is sending me a message. What can it be? Or more precisely, what can it bee? Wah, wah.

Perhaps it's reminding me not to take any of it too seriously. Perhaps it's saying, "Hey Madge, you think you've got bees up your butt? Check this one out?"

Or perhaps this dying majestic super sized wasp was telling me that something big and menacing was passing away and that I could exhale just a little and keep faith. Because even the biggest obstacles can be overcome. I'm going to stick with that.

Oh, beehave. Or is that oh, beehive? Oh dear...I hope not!

Love
Madgey McBeeUpMyButt

Let it Rain

2010-05-05T12:15:00.007-04:00

I'm a believer in the power of positive thinking. I try to incorporate it into my day to day decisions and reactions. Sometimes though, life hits us with such incredible force that countering the not so happy with happy thoughts becomes well neigh impossible. I'm a believer in embracing all of the complexities of life. That includes the sad parts.

People don't like it when you're hurt and they can't fix it. It's an innately human response. Fix it. Make it better. Make it go away because it makes us uncomfortable. That's a good thing on one level, but there can also be a value in not fixing it right away and instead in diving into it. In other words, it's okay to be sad. It's okay to cry big crocodile tears. Sometimes we all get the 'mean reds.' You don't have to pretend it's okay to make other people feel better, because their happiness is their job. You are not serving your joy if you can't allow yourself the room to be who you are without apology, even when who you are is a little rough around the edges.

So yes, I'm sad this week.

There, I've said it.

I'm feeling a little beat up. I'm hopeful that soon I'll have a sunnier perspective on things, but for now I'm going to be okay with the cloudy skies. For now I'm going to dance with the rain. Sometimes that's what we need.

The joy and the sorrow, the pleasure and the pain, the light and the darkness...in the Tao it is all the same.

Love
Madgey Golightly

And one other thing...

2010-05-04T14:53:00.004-04:00

And just to be clear, this isn't going to become a blog all about my medical condition and the battles that ensue as a result of it. That is just a part of my life and currently due to spring it's a prevalent part.

This is a blog about whatever bee has flown up my butt that day and refuses to exit until I write it out. Perhaps I should rename it The Impatient Bee or What's the Butt Buzz? or As the Butt Bee Stings or Pain In My Ass...

I'm cracking myself up and I sure as shit need a laugh today so cut me some slack if I offend.

Who knows what I might blather on about endlessly at any given moment? I think that's the fun of it. Or maybe it's not fun at all, but it's all I've got. I've never been very good at sticking to the script.

Consider this an ongoing exercise in free associative thought.

xoxo
Madge

Lacing Up the Gloves

2010-05-04T13:57:00.007-04:00

From Evaiksno on Photobucket

My insurance company that begins and ends with the same letter just denied my visit to National Jewish Hospital. They pushed the doctor there into sending a list of every possible test or treatment I might receive on my visit so they could pre-approve all of them. This was a little trick. The trick was that the list was so long there was no way they'd approve any of it. The insurance company wants to know why I can't get the testing done locally. Well, for starters, I can't because no one locally has the time or energy or interest to investigate why one woman can't breathe and doesn't respond to the regular asthma protocol. No one locally has the ability to ask for the right tests or to interpret the results. I've already been tested for a wide swath of abnormalities and I've tried an endless variety of medical and herbal solutions. Nothing has worked. We're still looking for the elusive answer...

I need to go to a hospital where they specialize in medical mysteries. That's National Jewish. So as an alternate we're looking into Johns Hopkins. We'll see if that pans out and if the demi-gods at the insurance company deem that acceptable. We're contesting their current decision, of course. I'm just lacking energy to fight at the moment since I can't breathe.

You see, they want me to give up. They want me to go away. If I stopped breathing today I'd be one less number on their list and one less annoying person with whom they'd have to deal. They're not interested in me, my books, my work, my notoriety, my family, my friends, my life. To them I'm a number and that's how they want to keep me. I'm a number on a long list and the answer is no. We won't pay for you to get the testing you need. Just shut up and go away.

You know why they don't want to pay for tests? Because someone might have an answer for me and it might be one they don't want to hear. It might cost them more money for some radical treatment they don't want to cover. Because I am a number and the answer is no.

Anyone who lives in this country and thinks we don't need a complete overhaul of the health care system hasn't gotten really sick yet, just wait, it happens to most of us eventually. Between the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, we've all been sold a bill of goods and it's a craptacular one of epic proportions. It's designed to keep us sick and keep us quiet. I guess the insurance companies don't much like the pharmaceutical companies when you think about it...they're working at cross purposes. The insurance companies would like you to just go away and keep sending that fat check every month and the pharmaceutical companies would like to keep you sick so they can keep selling you drugs. Of course, the insurance companies seem to forget that if you die, you're not going to be paying them any more money, but if you get better you will and you will cost them less money.

Radical, huh?

I'm not going away. Not me, babycakes. As soon as I get my breath, I'm going to tell them all about that number on that list and the things she's got left to do and the people who need her to stick around to do them.

Fuck them. I'm not giving up without a fight. I'm going to need a team to help me, but we're going to stay away from the ropes, do some fancy footwork and keep swinging.

Love
Madge

Do Not Go Gently

2010-04-29T11:43:00.007-04:00

It's been a long week for Madgie.

Being a medical mystery is complicated on many levels. Having a chronic untreatable medical condition becomes a series of good, bad and ugly days, of reminding friends and family who don't see you on a daily basis that yes, you're still sick. It means explaining to them, again and again, that this isn't going to go away and you're not getting better until the mystery is solved. Yes, it's a big struggle just to get through most days, but you are tired of whining about it so you just suck it up and keep on doing what you've got to do. Many of my friends and family have no clue that I have chronic unresponsive severe asthma and those who do don't really have a clue what that means. It doesn't come up in conversations much. Besides, no one wants to hear about your ailments. Even if they say they do, they don't. Trust me.

Having a chronic physical condition means missing out on things that matter a lot to you and matter to the people who matter most to you, sometimes at the last minute. When you have a condition that doesn't include an obvious physical handicap, people question the validity of your complaints. You look fine. What's the problem? It becomes an endless stream of explanations and apologies and clarifications. When you have a chronic cough, people look at you like you're Typhoid Mary. Or they want to fix it right away with a glass of water or a cough drop or some remedy they found on the internet or some herbal concoction or vitamin therapy they swear will work. I have tried everything. It becomes tiring trying to explain that. So for the most part, you just stop talking about it and you do everything you can to hide it or you just say thanks a lot and let it go. People mostly can't understand things that aren't black and white. It's human nature.

I have spent a lot of years pretending everything was fine and I do so much in such a public fashion that most people have no clue I'm living with a chronic condition. When I'm on phone calls and I start to feel that tickle in my throat, I just make an excuse to hang up. It's easier. If I'm at a big trade show or public event, I always know where the nearest restroom is just in case I have to duck in and cough. It doesn't affect my ability to deliver when I need to do so. It's complicated, but I have a tenacity and a resolve that will not be denied and I refuse to give up or give in. I'm a fighter.

I realized six years ago after a very scary experience that the only way you're going to get well is if you're willing to fight. The way the medical system is structured, it is easier to hand you the prescription that works for everyone else and send you on your way than it is to seek deeper answers. If your doctor isn't fighting for you, find another doctor. If you're not getting the answers you need, ask someone else. Keep asking and keep seeking until someone listens. Find someone to help advocate for you if you get too sick to do it yourself, sometimes having someone else confirm what you've been saying for months or years can make all the difference. Doctors are funny like that. You do not have to be a good patient and follow the rules, in fact if you want to survive I suggest you don't.

 "Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Dylan Thomas

Love
Madge

Keep Faith

2010-04-23T12:22:00.006-04:00

Image Copyright Stevage Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License

I have had one of those weeks that feels like I'm taking an extended ride on a rickety rackety old wooden roller coaster. It's been up, down, sideways, backwards, upside down...and all at the speed of light and in a most nauseating bumpity fashion. As you know, we had to shell out 2 grand we don't have for a new well pump and we just found it it's going to be another 500 buckaroonies for a new pressure tank. Yee haw. I'll just go fire up that money press in the basement...

I've been trying desperately along with my stalwart and valiant asthma doctor to forge some new pathways so we can finally figure out why Madgie can't breathe, a situation that has been exacerbated exponentially by the preponderance of pollen wafting through the air this spring. I just found out today that my primary care physician's office has done nothing towards getting the ball rolling with the insurance company even though we contacted them over a month ago with the information they needed to do so. So this morning, I called and restated the details calmly and clearly and the nurse screetched at me that it wasn't going to happen anyway and it was too much work to get this approved and I shouldn't get my hopes up and she's super busy and yadda, yadda, yadda.

I had to stop, breathe deeply, try to understand her frustration at dealing with insurance companies on a daily basis and remind her that I have every right to want to be healthy and my family depends on that so we can survive. 'Nuff said.

To add to the funky trail mix of stress, there's a glitch in a professional project that we're trying to navigate with diplomacy and it just might result in the loss of more money and time we can't recover. So that took a good chunk of my morning to navigate.

Then there's the giant knot in my neck and the stress that's creeping up the back of my head...

...and just when I was about to crawl into bed and have a good old fashioned cry, I got some very, very good news. Huzzah! This is news that we really, really needed. I can't say what it is...yet. Lord knows I'm transparent. I was see through when I was born, have I mentioned that? My mother got a see through baby with a mass of purple veins like a squirmy human atlas after she gave birth.

My poor mother!

I'm going to pop open the desultory bottle of champagne this evening and celebrate the good news with my family. We can't win 'em all, but we can win some and we can't win any if we aren't willing to fight. I think that's the point of faith, isn't it? In order to believe in things we can not see, feel or touch, we have to trust that they are always there, especially in the toughest times. We have to trust that within each of us is everything we need to survive, thrive and flourish.

We are all far stronger than we know. You too, gentle reader. Have faith.

Love
Madge

I Can Get it for You Cheap

2010-04-22T10:19:00.003-04:00

Image Copyright No Sweat.org

Yesterday in my other blog I posted about a thread I started on Facebook that took off like wildfire. I thought that people expecting to get something for nothing from creative people was the problem, but after speaking with the plumbers who replaced our well pump yesterday who also get regularly nickle and dimed by friends and family members, I realized this was a deeper problem. It wasn't just that creative people were being rampantly undervalued, the fact is, everyone wants something for nothing and if you're willing to give it to them, they'll gladly take it. We've been so conditioned to get it all super cheap and super fast that we're reticent to pay more or wait for anything. Of course we'll stand on our soap boxes and preach about buying handmade and buying American and then turn around and look for a super sale or hit the local corporate chain store in search of dollar items and bargain bin scores without a second thought about the deeper implications.

Earth Day is today and after a particularly fruitful visit to a local thrift store I mentioned to my husband that if more people bought second hand and re-purposed these items, the world would be a better place. In my twenties everything I owned came from thrift stores-my clothes, my shoes, my decor, my furniture...everything but my food! The grease pencil prices on the bottom of my shoes were a family joke, but I was the one laughing because I knew how much those vintage shoes were worth! I didn't have a car and the thrift stores were in walking distance, plus I loved vintage and it was plentiful back in the 80s in the Bay Area. I'm determined to master my sewing machine so that I can whip up my own fabulous clothing from vintage fabric and patterns and stop contributing to the mass consumer culture. Yet I, too, bend to the siren song of that fabulous and super cheap dress at Forever 21 or H&M.

The fact is, if it's cheap, someone didn't get paid fairly. Chances are that someone lives in a third world country, they work in sweatshop conditions and might even be trapped in a lifetime of indentured servitude. When we created laws to protect the worker in this country, it was a very good thing. Unfortunately as time progressed the manufacturers took their business elsewhere so they could get cheap labor again. Fact is, that cheap thing we covet isn't cheap at all. It's quite expensive, only someone else has paid the price so we can get it cheap.

A good friend of mine told me a story once that haunts me still. He was in China visiting a factory when a worker on the floor had a sudden heart attack and died. My friend expressed his concern and the tour guide responded, "Don't worry, we can get you another worker."

When my husband and I had a bead shop and Fair Trade gallery we struggled daily with the unfortunate dichotomy of beautiful fair trade handicrafts being sold opposite beads that I knew were being made by people who were dying of silicosis from breathing the dust produced in carving and drilling gemstones and created by people working in sweatshop style factories. Though we also sold beautiful handcrafted beads and vintage Swarovski crystal, people mostly wanted the cheap strands. Eventually we took the beads home and it felt right to do it. No one really wants to think about why things are so cheap. They may give lip service to supporting the small business owner and making this country great again, but most of them don't put their money where their mouths are. Then when an independent guy or gal asks to be paid fairly for their work, people balk. What? How much? I can get that at Target for a dollar!

I am guilty too, so this isn't a sermon.

How do we shift our way of thinking? How do we let go of this need to have so much and get it cheap? What will it take for people to realize that we all deserve a living wage and to be fairly compensated for our hard work? I wonder. I think that moving the factories overseas has disconnected us from reality, just like we've lost a connection to the food we eat. It's also killed our economy, but that's another topic for another day. We live in a time when we are more connected than we've ever been and yet more disconnected than we've ever been. We're busy, busy in our little bubbles of cell phones and social networking sites and TV programs, it's so easy to get whatever we want whenever we want it and get it cheap...we're losing the basic milk of human kindness. That's a mighty expensive scenario when you think about what we've lost.

Love,
Madge

Oh, Well

2010-04-20T14:30:00.004-04:00

Kickapoo Wishing Well at the Trail of Tears photograph copyright Kathy Weiser

(Blogger's Note: This post has some unpleasant subject matter, proceed at your own risk.)

Our well has been having 'issues' for several months now and my husband has diligently worked on DIY solutions. He's a handy guy and he does a lot of repair work around the Potter School House. Last week our poor well started to go seriously south and Sunday it was gone A little note might have been nice. Thanks a lot, well. Services are scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Please bring pie, creme brulee and paper plates.

We have had no water for two and a half days. Water is something most people take for granted, myself included. If you don't have a well, water is provided to you by the city in which you live for a fee. If you do have a well, you cast magical spells and hope it doesn't die and the power doesn't go out...and then there's the septic tank. Which is a whole other can of worms...or pool of icky...depending on your perspective.

Since I work from home, I'm at the front lines of the no water zone. I can't use anything that requires me to rinse or wash, including paints and adhesives. I haven't showered since Saturday and the concurrent layers of extra strength deodorant are starting to head towards epic fail. We have water in jugs for drinking, rinsing, brushing and a large bucket of water courtesy of our neighbor for...flushing. The flushing happens twice daily. I'm selling tickets to the neighborhood kids.

Last night before bed I was rendered helpless with laughter when my hubby asked me in a most serious voice, "How many poos do you make? Are you making more poo?"

"Yes. Yes, I am. Gosh, thanks so much for asking! Are you the poo police? Am I being given a poo ticket? Can a gal poo in private around here?"

Yes, this is what I've been reduced to. Laughing at poo.

One can either laugh at this shit or cry. It's not the end of the world, we just don't have water until we settle on the plumber.

The first plumber to arrive at the scene was blessed with a sparkly white smile, wavy brown hair, a fit physique, baby blues and what my husband later jokingly referred to later as 'rugged good looks.' Picture the 'carpenter' on a home improvement show. After he dropped the bomb that our well was going to cost four thousand dollars to fix and lept back into his trusty plumber van with a grin, I told my husband he seemed like an affable fellow and I had a 'good feeling' about him. Now I realize he was the shiny 'bait' the plumbing company sent out to hopefully meet the 'lady of the house' and flim flam her into spending a small fortune on her plumbing woes. One wonders if the 'switch' was a big hairy guy with a baseball cap, scraggly pony tail, beer belly and the ubiquitous plumber butt...

Luckily my husband was not swayed by Super Plumber's rakish good looks and he called some other plumbers for comparison bids. All of these plumbers are from local companies with long standing records and good reviews. The second plumber came out, told us a similar story about what needed to be done and bid at two thousand dollars less than the first guy. He was willing to dig the trench himself and not hire a backhoe and a crew. We had a third company slated to come out this morning, but they never showed.

So we are leaning towards the second guy, but we must look over the contract first. At the earliest, we'll have water again Thursday night. I am trying not to freak out and I'm hoping my deodorant lasts that long. Then there are the problems of the mounting dishes and the laundry baskets straining at their seams. My daughter stood watch over the Raisin Bran this morning with a stern warning about too much fiber and our current plumbing situation. Seriously. It's come to this. My family is monitoring my fiber intake and bathroom usage.

Good.

God.

Yes, that's a chorus of Green Acres you hear in the background. Oh and it took me until I posted this blog to fully appreciate the humor of the name of the well in the photo above. Just take a peek...

xoxo
Madge

Write a New Script

2010-04-19T09:30:00.002-04:00

Image Copyright Dover Books

I am making a conscious effort to post here regularly again. Writing makes me happy. I'm a big believer in doing what you love. I'm a bit of a pu pu platter creative type. It has been my experience that most creative people are multi-faceted. I think that's one of the best parts of creativity. We aren't limited by anything but our own imagination and our scripts.

We all have scripts. They start when we're kids. It's a combination of what we were told by others and the experiences we have along the way. The scripts can be positive and therefore help us to take risks and believe in our ability to do...or they can be negative and hold us back. It's fascinating how much power casual words can have on others, something I think we'd all do well to remember before we speak. Think of all of the people who are convinced that they aren't 'artists.' The ones who therefore can't give themselves permission to create without that nagging voice in their head blathering on about how unworthy they are and how lame their art is. This is exacerbated by the bastions of artiness who insist on thumbing their noses at those whom they deem unworthy. I think everyone has had the experience of working hard on something and being really excited about sharing it and having someone crap all over it with an off handed negative comment.

Don't quit your day job.

You aren't an artist.

Maybe you should try something else, dear.

Trees are green, not hot pink.

That's really...interesting...

Good GOD what the hell is that? Don't do that again.

Be quiet. Calm down. Sit still. Stop asking so many questions. Why can't you be more like...

These little moments carve themselves into our psyches and if we allow them to do so, they can stop us from exploring and succeeding. There are so many moments in our lives that shape us and it is up to us, when we become grown up, to stand in the face of this negativity and say, "NO." These things only have the power we afford them. No matter what we do, no matter how fabulous it is, there will always be some thoughtless asshole ready to sling a crappy comment our way. I've come to realize that these comments stem from insecurity and they rarely have anything to do with us. Many people are threatened by people who aren't afraid to let their freak flag fly. So be it. Also, let's face it, everything we create is not going to change the world, we can't expect everyone to love everything we do and we can't create merely because we want everyone to love us. We have to love us. We have to create because we simply can not imagine doing anything else.

I, too, gentle reader, still struggle with wanting to be loved and accepted and with embracing the power of creativity without being attached to the results and reactions. I get sad sometimes when I hop about reading other blogs and people leave copious amounts of friendly comments for one another whilst one could hear the faint sound of crickets chirping over at my blogs. I get sad when I spend hours crafting a blog post with a free project and I see the traffic and the downloads and no one even says, "Thanks" or "Hey that's pretty cool, Madge." I get sad when people whom I know appear to be having a figurative party to which I am not invited. It hurts. I can't lie. The key is to stop taking it so personally. Either they like you or they don't. We can't bend over so far we could audition for Cirque du Soleil just to make everyone else comfortable.

Which brings me back to the post about being scary...but I digress.

Do what you love because you love it. Do it because to not do it would be to shrink your spirit. Do it because you love yourself and you love others enough to want to inspire them to do it too, even if they aren't inviting you to their 'party.' Make your own damn party and if it's fabulous enough I guarantee people will show up even if they lurk quietly in the corners. Let go of the negative scripts and stop seeking approval. No one else will ever love you enough to make the negative scripts go away, it's entirely up to you. Like everything, it's merely a matter of extracting it, holding it up to the light and releasing it. Nothing feels better than letting go of the things we can not change.

Life is series of moments stitched together into a patchwork quilt. You are the thread that binds it together. Each moment matters exponentially until it has passed. Learn to live in the moment and you will find true joy.

And in the words of the great Bette Midler, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

Love
Madge

The Humble Terrific Radiant Pig

2010-04-16T09:20:00.005-04:00

Illustration for Charlotte's Web copyright Garth Williams

When I was young, probably around 10 or so, I started reading voraciously. I was a socially awkward kid, as I've mentioned before, and I spent a lot of time by myself. Reading was a way to escape the mundane and enter magical worlds of possibility. Our local library offered a summer reading challenge each year and I exceeded the book goals regularly. In fact I read so much that I exhausted the children's reading section and moved upstairs. My first 'adult' books were Erma Bombeck's hilarious tributes to suburban life. She was a brilliant and underrated writer. It takes true talent to make the everyday drudgeries that funny. I moved on from Erma to other sections and other authors, though I must admit that there are many classics I have not yet explored. Reading has always been a guilty pleasure and I still try to read as much as possible, though not nearly as much as I'd like.

My favorite book as a kid was Charlotte's Web by E.B.White. I read it every spring for years and each time I found myself hoping against hope that Wilbur would survive and Charlotte wouldn't die. Each time I read it I cried huge, heaving sobs at the end. Why did Charlotte have to die? Why did anyone have to die? It seemed so incredibly unfair, as death always is. What a beautiful story of unconditional love. It's a lesson we could all stand to revisit on a regular basis.

"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die... By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

My obsession with Charlotte's Web caused me to secretly harbor the desire to have a pet pig, just like Wilbur. A sprampity, hoppity, sweet and snuggly little piggy who would be my best friend. When pot bellied pigs first started surging in popularity, I wanted one desperately. Lacking a house of my own, it was an impossibility. Yet still, I kept the dream alive.

Then a couple of years ago my sister-in-law (an emergency vet) told us about a wealthy local woman who passed away and had a huge collection of exotic animals in need of new homes. Two of them were pot bellied pigs. We have less than half of an acre, but we'd already been raising chickens and it's farm country here...so we thought maybe we could make it work. We went to see the pigs and instantly fell in love. That was that. We had their cottage moved on a flat bed truck and they've been living with us since. They aren't as sprampity or hoppity as I had imagined, but they're sweet and gentle creatures with distinct personalities and I love them dearly.

Because of this long standing love for pigs, it's surprising that I enjoyed bacon, scrapple, pork roll and sausage with such gleeful abandon even after Daisy and Amos moved to the property. We watched Food, Inc. recently. What a disturbing movie. It changed my life. I refuse to eat any meats that are not free range, grass fed and hormone and antibiotic free. I think the corporations that have co-opted every aspect of our food supply are the epitomy of evil. After watching the horrific manner in which hogs are slaughtered, I simply can not eat another pork product. I love pigs and although I am still okay with eating meat, I'm not okay with eating meat that has been raised and slaughtered with such total lack of reverence or compassion. We are far too removed from the origin of our food and it's a dangerous thing indeed.

I will not eat another pepperoni pizza. There. I've said it.

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

E.B. White

Love

Madge

Make a Wish

2010-04-15T10:39:00.004-04:00

Dandelion Field Image Copyright mgpenguin86 FlickR

I often contemplate the reason why the oft maligned dandelion inspires such rancor. It's such a happy little flower. What's so great about a sea of green grass anyway? I find lawns pedantic and dull. I happen to love dandelions. I wouldn't mind it at all if my entire yard became a sea of cheerful yellow flowers with their bold green spikey leaves dancing in the summer breezes. Please feel free to send your rejected dandelions to me, as I will treasure them.

Dandelion Photo Copyright Louise Docker FlickR

As if the lovely yellow sunburst of a flower wasn't enough, the dandelion is kind enough to offer us the magical second stage of it's lifespan. Who among us has not made a most important wish with eyes closed and heart skipping while blowing on the friendly dandelion? Who among us has not tentatively opened our eyes to watch the little seedlings scatter freely, sending our wishes off to the ethers?

I think sometimes our obsession with order and symmetry and perfection is misguided. It is the imperfection that reminds us it is okay to be who we really are without apology. Do you want to be a sea of green grass, perfectly mown into submission, or a defiant little dandelion poking forth in a sea of sameness? Ultimately we're all part weed, bravely making our way up through the cold soil, stretching our petals towards the light, unfolding, becoming and changing as we grow. Perhaps it's time we reconsidered our disdain for the lowly dandelion.

xoxo,
Madge

A Crazy Soup

2010-04-14T10:01:00.003-04:00

My parents divorced when I was five years old. It was 1968. I think that's right, but memory is a sticky thing so maybe I was six and it was 1969. I believe I had just finished an absolutely stellar run as teacher's pet at K D Markley Elementary school in Malvern Pennsylvania. Above is my class picture. Can you guess which kid is me?

Oh okay, if you've not guessed I'll go ahead and tell you. I'm the one with the goofy smile and the 'not very' Marcia Brady hair fourth from the left in the front row. It's actually well behaved in this picture comparably speaking. My mother spent years struggling with that hair. It was unruly. It was wild. It had cowlicks upon cowlicks. It would not bend to the siren call of the Dippity Do or the fervent tug of the rat tail comb. Much like the child under whom it flew freely, it defied convention with an absolute lack of shame.

I have snippets of memories from the first few years of my life. We'd already moved several times by the time we got to the lovely little farm house in Malvern. The little house before Malvern was at the end of the dead end street and I believe it was in Narberth. Maybe it was a twin, but it's several lifetimes ago when I was very young and I simply can't be certain. Back then I rode a mean tricycle and had just begun my love affair with Barbie. I used to have flying dreams in that house, which I can still vividly recall. Have you ever flown in your dreams? It's pure ecstasy. It was in that little house that I also began having a recurring nightmare which continued replaying on a fairly regular basis for many years after. It was morning. I awoke to the smell of bacon frying. I came bounding down the back stairs to the kitchen where my mother was cooking breakfast. I was stopped cold by a most disturbing vision, between my mother and the staircase was a giant honey bee. I mean giant like in a Japanese horror film giant. My mother could not see this bee, but I could and I was terrified. She was smiling and insisting I come down to breakfast, but I stood frozen on the staircase crying and trying to get her to see this menacing bee.

I hated that dream.

What was the meaning of that bee? I do not know. Perhaps even then as a small child I sensed that something was wrong in our happy family unit.

I remember planting a potato in the backyard of the Narberth house not long before we moved to the pastoral country setting of Malvern. I always wondered if that potato grew? Did the new people who moved into the house enjoy a plentiful harvest of potatoes? I have moved so many times since and it's funny how often I have left some small token of my existence behind and wondered...did the new people find it and if they did...what did they think?

But I digress in a tangential journey down memory lane, which is always filtered through the hazy fog that is my faulty memory. My parents divorced when I was five or six and that was a very good thing. Though of course, at the time it felt awful. We moved every few years when I was growing up. It meant that I, the frizzy haired, translucent skinned, smarty pants, awkward girl was perpetually "the new kid." It's not surprising that I was usually met with sidelong glances and suspicious whispers. I have spent most of my life feeling like a stranger in a strange land, never quite fitting in and never feeling totally welcome. I am a misfit toy and I have finally come to embrace that, but it's part of what makes me scary I do believe.

Our experiences form us. They inform us. They color our perspectives and they shape our choices. I spent a lot of years feeling sad about being a misfit toy, but I'm not sad about that anymore. In fact I'm quite pleased about it. If other people are afraid of me that's their problem. Much like my friend Kate McKinnon, I have embraced who I am and I've stopped apologizing. We can not make ourselves smaller to make other people happy, they have to rise to the occasion or move on.

I'd like to let you in on a little secret though...we are all misfit toys. Some of us just delude ourselves into thinking differently. The more we embrace our uniqueness, the more we become ourselves. If we'd all spend less time trying to fool everyone around us into thinking that we're not broken, we'd all be a lot happier. It's okay to admit that you're a little broken. It's okay if your surface has a few scratches.

It is the scars, the broken parts and bruises that make us who we are. Mix that up with who we were when we foolishly jumped into this time-space continuum and you get a crazy soup. Mine's a little spicy. I like it that way.

"Self awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together."

Robert Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land

Love
Miss Fit Toy

The Elusive Happy

2010-04-13T17:31:00.002-04:00

It is cold and rainy outside and I'm glad for this because our seeds need the rain. I don't want to go outside and feed the pigs or make dinner inside either for that matter. Unfortunately the pigs can't feed themselves. This is a good thing because they don't have hunger triggers so they'd just keep eating until they exploded. The people on the other hand actually can feed themselves, but I make dinner most nights and my husband makes breakfast on the weekend. Friday is pizza night and Saturday recently became nacho night. It's kind of like having pizza twice...which makes it a bit of a cheat but we make them healthy. Baked or whole grain chips, black beans, grass fed ground beef and low fat cheese...

I tell myself they're healthy because it makes me feel better and it's a really simple meal to make. I'm impatient, have I mentioned that?

About ten million times or so?

I'm not sure why I'm regaling our dining schedule here. I was going to share some deep thoughts, but I'm feeling tired and deep requires digging. I seem to have misplaced my shovel, galdangy. So far this has been a weird week. Suddenly some rather dark moments from my past have resurfaced through several people with whom I experienced them. It's strange to discover my detachment from these experiences, but also somehow comforting. I spent a lot of years feeling really heavy. I had a lot of secrets. I lived through things that in retrospect don't even seem real. There was a lot of not so shiny and happy in my life when I was younger and it took a lot of years of naval gazing and the writing of a lot of obtuse and depressing poetry to work it out.

It gets heavy carrying around your sorrow and your anger and I quite frankly got tired of it. Letting go was a process. Our pain is often somehow comforting because it's familiar and change is scary. Releasing attachment is the most powerful thing we can do. Forgiveness transforms us. We can not change what has passed, but we can move forward. We can learn to treasure the moment and invest ourselves in it fully. It's powerful. I don't know if we can ever be totally healed, there are fissures here and there and dents and scratches that we tell ourselves give us character and perhaps they do.

I want to hold these people in my arms and tell them that it's going to be okay, that they can let the past go and live in the present. One of the hardest things about being a grown up is knowing that you really can't fix everything.

"It is never too late to have a happy childhood." Tom Robbins

"Especially after your memory starts to go." Margot Potter

Love
Madge

Am I Scary?

2010-04-08T17:22:00.002-04:00

Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford addressing the men in the Pepsi Boardroom in Mommie Dearest

"Don't fuck with me, fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo."

So...

I had this really important and compelling thing to discuss here today and then I stopped to stare at a shiny thing for a moment and just like that...it was gone.

Poof.

Guess it wasn't all that important or compelling.

Either that or my brain is a sieve.

Honestly after forgetting two very important meetings this week, I'm quite sure the latter is true.

Oh wait! Huzzah! I remembered!

A few years back I went to the Tucson Gem Show a day early to meet Kate McKinnon. We had been trying for a while to set up a time for me to visit Tucson and perhaps explore metal clay basics together. She's a master in her medium and although I didn't have much to offer in return beyond my eternal gratitude and witty repartee, it looked promising. Then life intervened, as life is wont to do, and we had but a short time to spend together. So we walked a lovely bead show and I picked up some really special beads and that was that.

Yesterday I reviewed Kate's stunning new book in my other blog. It's really sensational. If you are at all creative and interested in precious metal clay, this is like taking a master class from a master artist in the comfort of your own home. So I finally got my class with Kate and I can take it at my leisure here at Studio Madge. All is well that ends well.

Kate generously posted about my review in her blog yesterday and then she wrote something that made me laugh out loud. She said that I scared her when she first met me because I was three times as alive as most people. The irony is that with half a lung and the current stealth attack of the pollen people I feel about half as alive as most 80 year olds right now.

L'il ol' me?

Scary?

Really?

Huh.

Though it does make me wonder. Do I scare you, gentle reader? Am I...scary? Is that why the other kids give me funny looks and run away when I try to play with them?

Hello, Old Friend

2010-04-07T12:52:00.002-04:00

Image Copyright Margot Potter

Hello, old friend. I've missed you. I can't believe how long it's been and I'm truly sorry. It's been four years since we first met. You were and still are my favorite guilty pleasure. I don't know why I took you down, abandoned you, ignored you, came back to flirt with you and ran away again...can you find it in your heart to forgive me? I was afraid of commitment. I'm fickle. I've got a lot on my proverbial plate. Then there's the undeniable fact that I have a big mouth and it gets me into trouble. I ~~often~~ sometimes forget to think first and speak later. I have an epic potty mouth and people were concerned my proclivity for four letter words might affect me professionally.

They were probably right.

Yet I keep feeling the gentle pull of the strings back to this little exercise in transparency. Maybe, just maybe, if I came back and nurtured you perhaps I'd find my way to new professional opportunities...

...or perhaps I'd burn a lot of bridges...or perhaps I could expand my innately held desire to inspire others into some expansive new directions.

It might just be fun to turn the lights back on and see what happens.

What do you think? Are you willing? Shall we make glorious messes, tell tall tales, color outside of the lines. dance with the devil in the pale moonlight and damn the torpedoes as we charge full steam ahead?

To blog or not to blog...that is the question.

Releasing Attachment

2010-02-12T14:08:00.010-05:00

(Painting by Anthony Frederick Augusts Sandys)

I think one of the hardest things to process is the realization that we can not change who we are to please others and the more we put ourselves out there, the more we open ourselves to being judged.

That’s part of the deal.

The thing is you have to reach a point where you no longer care if other people ‘get you’ or ‘like you’ or ‘approve of you.’ Because no matter what you do there will always be people who don’t....get you, like you or approve of you. People will misunderstand your intentions, people will read into your actions, people will attach their own bullshit to you and people will see you as they choose regardless of the reality. We all view the world through our own mythology.

Often it has absolutely nothing to do with you. Don't take it personally. I love what my friend Jenny Bruce said recently, "What other people think of me is none of my business."

Brilliant.

Be who you are without apology. Those who don’t get or like or approve of you are probably threatened by you and that is something you simply can not change.

Don’t worry about how other people perceive you because you can not control that. Be kind and compassionate to others no matter how they treat you. The wheels of Karma spin for everyone.

Don’t think you are any more or less important or special than anyone else, because you’re not. We are all equally important and special.

Make art that pleases you and not art solely created to please others, if you aren’t honestly expressing your create spark because you're worried people will laugh at you it’s obvious. Plus you’ll never please everyone, you’ll make yourself miserable trying and that is antithetical to the point of creating.

The point of creating isn't the result, anyway.

Reach out to others and accept that some folks are simply not going to reach back. Let it go.

Do what pleases you and you will be joyful and that joy will please others.

Shine your little light in the darkness, even on those days when you don’t feel particularly shiny. Even if that little light inspires just one other person whom you never meet, you’ve made a difference.

Don’t be attached to the results. Enjoy the experience.

Let go of all expectation. No one will ever be able to meet all of your unspoken or spoken expectations. Most disappointment in life comes from our impossible expectations not being fulfilled. Let it go. You can’t control other people.

If you want it, get it for yourself. Stop waiting for other people to make you happy, happiness is a choice. Happiness is not a reaction to external stimuli, it is a state of being that exists in spite of what is happening outside. Everything in life is about perspective.

When all else fails, on those days when you feel beaten up and bruised and unloved and misunderstood, know that every single other person on the planet feels like that sometimes. You are not alone. You are a connected to everything and everyone and we are all on a fantastical journey together.

Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t think there is no hope. Every moment is an opportunity for grace and if we give up, we lose that opportunity. Stand strong.

Breathe deeply and remember that we are all but a speck in the cosmic whirlpool and these things that feel so important now are only illusions.

You are loved.

You are love.

You are accepted.

You don’t have to do anything at all but be, the big ‘is’, the Grand Poobah, God, Allah, Buddha, The Goddess, The Great Spirit, The Universe...call it what you will...loves you. You are loved unconditionally in the deepest and most profound sense by the creative force just because.

And...finally...no matter what happens and how much it hurts, don’t let the bastards get you down.

Love,

Margot

Zuzu's Petals

2009-12-29T15:40:00.005-05:00

(Image from It's a Wonderful Life copyright Frank Capra)

It is easy in the day to day drudgeries of life to fall into a stupor and lose clarity. It’s dulling, the chopping of the wood and the carrying of the water. It is easy to forget what’s real and what’s not, to lose heart, to lose mindfulness, to lose a sense of connection. It’s easy to stop paying attention to the gift that lies in merely getting up every day and being able to chop the wood and carry the water. There is so much to do these days, so much rushing from place to place. We are all so over scheduled. When we’re not doing something, we’re tapping on the computer or talking on the cell phone or sending text messages while racing, racing, racing to the next thing. There’s no down time anymore.

I see it in the faces of the women in the minivans and SUVs with a kid in the front seat looking terrified as they’re riding up my ass because they’re late to the next soccer game or ballet class or doctor’s appointment. I’ve had to turn around and shame them into waking up and realizing they’re endangering their children’s lives and mine by driving this way by pointing a finger at them. "YOU...SLOW DOWN!" So what if you’re late, the world won’t stop spinning on its axis. You aren’t a bad parent if you say...NO. Your kid doesn’t need to be doing something every minute of every day, then collapsing in front of a TV set in a daze because they’re too tired to talk. What kind of a life is that?! What ever happened to mud pies and lazy summer afternoons just chewing on a piece of grass and watching the clouds roll by? We don’t have to fill up every moment with things to do and fill up every empty space with stuff we don’t need...there is value in the empty spaces, there is something there. Maybe something far better than the things to do or the things to buy, definitely something more powerful and resonant and ripe...

No wonder we drive through the parking lots like the spaces aren’t even there, we can’t be bothered with spaces or taking time to drive up and down rows, because we’re late. So what if someone might be letting their toddler out of the car, or putting their baby in a car seat, or walking with a cart full of food, they’d better get the hell out of our way. We’ve got things to do, see, because we wrote a list. No wonder we’ve forgotten the common courtesies. We don’t have time. We are all of us out of time.

I see it in the men who no longer bother to open a door for me when we’re walking into a store, who whip around me on the road giving me the evil eye even when I’m going ten miles faster than the posted speed limit, who butt in front of me in line because they have to get somewhere far more important than anywhere I may have to be. I see it in the cashiers who are overworked and underpaid and no longer bothered to thank me for shopping with them, because truth be told they wish I’d have stood in another line so they could go on break. I see it in the mothers at the day camp who can’t wait to drop their kids off and race away to squeeze in some modicum of alone time in the hopes of maintaining a fragment of their sanity. I see it in the children who are so worried about making the grade and making the team and winning the prize, they can’t be children anymore.

We are more connected now than we’ve ever been in the history of the human race, yet we are more disconnected than we’ve ever been in the history of the human race. It’s a crazy dichotomy isn’t it? We’re all so busy we don’t have time to just be. When was the last time you just sat by a river or the ocean with your kid? Really talked. Really listened. Connected. When was the last time you actually heard an entire story they rattled off to you without your mind drifting off into a litany of things you’re freaking out about not having finished? When was the last time you took an afternoon by yourself and wandered aimlessly down a pathway in the woods? When was the last time you exhaled...fully...and let your shoulders go...and your schedules go...and your need to be doing something every minute of every day go?

When was the last time you reached into your pocket and found *Zuzu’s petals? Took them out and rolled them in your hand, smelled the fragrance as it wafted into your nostrils, realized that you’ve disconnected with the people who love you and fully remembered why we’re here. Why you are here. How fragile and fleeting life is. How easily and violently the fabric of our existence can be ripped apart and never rewoven into the same cloth again. How quickly the days can slip away from us on into another until we get to the end of the journey and realize with total clarity and absolute desolation that the destination wasn’t the point.

Today, for a moment, why not stop spinning your wheels. Take out Zuzu’s petals and don’t shove them back into your pocket right away. Sit with them. Spend a few minutes or an hour or two with the people who matter to you, connecting. Listen to them. Exhale. Breathe them in like oxygen. Touch them, kiss them, hold them close. Reconnect. That’s real. Love is real. It’s the only thing that is real. The world will not stop spinning on its axis if you stop for a moment, I promise.

“Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon

(*Zuzu's Petals are from the classic Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life)

The Christmas Angel

2009-12-23T13:23:00.005-05:00

Where the hell did the time go?! I've been MIA here for a while again. Busy as a little bee I'm afraid, but here I am.

This is a post I took down in the great blog removal...and it's a sad tale with a happy ending. The joyful part is that I've finally and fully reclaimed Christmas. That's something. Life is bittersweet. We'd not appreciate the sweet without the occasional bitter. I truly believe that.

Everything I am today is a direct result of the experiences I have had in this lifetime. What a glorious gift it is to live long enough to let go of the past and embrace the present!

Love and light,
Madge

The Christmas Angel
Copyright Margot Potter

When I was a kid, like most kids, I loved Christmas. I loved the lights and the cookies and the sappy songs and the snow and Santa riding down my street on the fire truck and the joy...the joy...the JOY! I loved the joy. I loved trying to stay awake to hear the clickity clack of tiny reindeer hooves as they landed on our roof. I loved waking up at the crack of dawn and begging my parents to let us go downstairs and open presents. I loved opening presents, who the heck doesn’t love opening presents raise your hands?! I didn’t even really care what was inside; I just loved the experience of opening them. I lived in the moment back then. Like most kids, I usually ended up playing with the boxes. Isn’t that just the way?

When I was in first grade someone told me in the cafeteria at lunch that Santa wasn’t real. They were quite serious. It was the vast Santa conspiracy and they were there to let me in on the real deal. I looked at them, blinked twice, smiled and replied with absolute sincerity, “Of course Santa is real. Santa is the love we feel at Christmas time. He’s the spirit of giving. That’s real isn’t it?”

I still feel the exactly same way too, just try to tell me Santa isn’t real. Come on. I double dog dare you.

I’ve always known what was real, though I’ve sometimes allowed myself to forget. People often say Christmas is for kids, and they are right on some levels, but on others they are dead wrong. See...that joy...that joy belongs to all of us. It’s not something that we have to relinquish when we reach adulthood. It’s not about fancy gifts or holiday stress. It’s about the joy. It’s about the return of the light and the end of the darkest days of the year. It’s about hope and faith and love and wonder. At least, that’s how it should be.

Every year, my favorite part of Christmas was decorating the tree. It still is. If I had a bigger house, I’d have more than one tree. I have a collection of vintage glass ornaments and vintage style newer ones. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas. When I was a kid, we had a tree topper that I loved so much I can’t even express it in words. She was beautiful, extraordinary and transcendent. Just holding her in my hands made me feel a sense of total calm and rightness with the world. Honestly in some ways I didn’t want to hand her over to the tree, I loved her that much. Yet, when she went up to the top of our tree she made it shine. She was constructed of wax with fine delicate facial features, flaxen marcelled long hair and a lovely crimped foil skirt of a shade that lived someplace between pink and lavender. I’ve researched her since, she was German. I have no idea how old she was; she may have been new back then. You can find angels similar to her on eBay, but they are nowhere near as extraordinary as our angel. I’m sure she is far more beautiful in my memories than she ever really was. Memories are funny like that.

My parents divorced when I was in first grade. Christmas came and went without gifts or cards or phone calls from my Dad. We didn’t know where he was or if we’d ever see him again and that, my fine friends, was a bitter pill for a kid to swallow. This was the first dent in the joy of Christmas. Yet that Christmas angel was in some small way a bridge back to a time when we were all together, a time when I could be immersed fully in the moment, the magic and the joy. Every year when I held her, I remembered. Even if my memories were filtered through my own personal mythology of the happy family that never actually existed, they were the myths that kept me going.

When I was in 7th grade, we had a very bad year. I won’t get into the details here, because these aren’t only my memories. We had to leave our home right before Christmas. We left our home and our gifts and of course we left our angel because she was at the top of our tree. The Grinch stole our Christmas and he was most definitely not giving it back. We had to throw some small fragments of our lives frantically into black plastic garbage bags and rush off into the unknown and wonder if we’d ever return and know in our heart of hearts that absolutely nothing would ever be the same again.

When we returned everything had indeed changed forever and our beautiful Christmas angel was gone. I never saw her again. I have to admit; when she disappeared another large piece of my joy did too. I have greeted every Christmas since with a slight underlying sadness that I can’t seem to fully erase. I’d like to have my joy back. I see it in my daughter’s eyes as she opens her gifts...and in the simple moments of making other people happy by some small kindness or by getting them the thing they really wanted...which is to be cherished and listened to and loved but that doesn’t really fit in a box so we say it with a present...the present...the moment that’s real...and that joy, the joy of giving is mighty powerful stuff. Yet if I’m honest I must admit that my joy...my joy is never fully realized.

Every year I try to let go of a little more of the sadness. The sadness that comes from so many of the things I lost along the road of my childhood. Small fragments of the joy...the innocence...the wonder... I am ever hopeful that one day, I will be able to open my heart up fully to let the joy back in and let go of the sorrow completely*. I am ever hopeful.

The joy and the sorrow, the pleasure and the pain, the laughter and the tears...in the Tao they are all the same.

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” Tom Robbins

*This year, I finally did it! Huzzah!

Obtuse

2009-11-10T15:40:00.006-05:00

I have neglected this little blog again and as I have clearly posted a Blogging Without Obligation widget in my sidebar I'm trying not to feel too badly. It's that busy, hectic, frenetic time of year when I've got far too many irons in far too many fires. Plus that other blog keeps me pretty busy. This is how I deal with the ebbing of the light. I just keep throwing things on my straw pile until I'm far too busy spinning to dive into darkness.

I've gotten to an age where I find it difficult to take myself too seriously. There are far more serious things in the world than my silly problems and complaints. I figure once you've reached 40, you have no one to blame for your unhappiness but yourself. You've been an adult as long as you were a kid at that point. I've managed to create a pretty damn good reality here and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. I intend to continue seeking joy on a daily basis. If all else fails there's always dark chocolate and a glass of wine!

Still the light wanes and the skies have been relentlessly grey and a woman I know was killed in a bombing in Bagdad and one of our little guinea pigs died suddenly last week and I felt myself standing just a little closer to the veil. We take the bitter with the sweet. Death comes for all of us, so we might as well learn to embrace it.

We can dance with the darkness and still seek the light. It's one of the great contradictions of the human experience. The dark and the light, the joy and the sorrow...in the Tao it is all the same.

Obtusely yours,
Miss Busypants

Reboot

2009-10-05T13:57:00.005-04:00

Image Copyright Vaughan Bass

So last week was a little rocky, but that's life. If it was always smooth sailing, we'd get bored. Sometimes we need to be shaken a little to get us moving in new directions. I've refocused my energies on the novel I've started writing. Of course there's no pay for this novel until I write it and sell it, which makes it a risky endeavor. I believe in this idea and I think it's really got potential, so I'm going to devote a few hours each day to this and see if I can't get it done.

I'm impatient. Have I mentioned that? Like the scarves I started to knit that turned to pot holders, my past attempts at novels either never manifested beyond a few pages, were truly horrid concepts or became poems or short stories. So this is a test, but after writing in this blog every day for an entire year several years back, I'm sure I can do it.

I'm heading to Toronto this weekend to present an item for Ott-Lite on The Shopping Channel. I've never sold their products before, but I'm a big fan and I really believe in what they make. I'm excited to travel to a new place, though I'm afraid I won't get to see much of it as I'll be doing a 24 hour stint with small breaks in between.

I may be a little quiet on this blog here for a while, but I'll be back soon.

xoxo
Madge

Keep Your Hands on the Wheel

2009-10-02T10:29:00.006-04:00

Image Copyright Enoch Bolles

I had an idea. It was a really good idea if I do say so myself and I just did. I spent over a year working really hard on this idea. I researched it. I contemplated it. I nurtured it. I worked to make it a totally marketable and viable concept.

My mistake was...I didn't listen to my intuition.

It's complicated.

Now my idea is dying. There is nothing I can do at this point except try to keep it alive...and at some point...if I can not...I'll have to let it go. Everything has a season, every idea has a time frame. Success happens when the right idea meets the right moment.

I have a lot of ideas. I'm always chasing rainbows. At any given moment I've got about ten or more ideas simmering. I accept that if just one of them boils, those are damn good odds, but this idea was special.

Sigh.

My advice, hard earned as it is, is to always follow your intuition. Don't be swayed by shiny things. Shiny things are often not so shiny upon further inspection. If you have a gut feeling and it's telling you to change course, do it. It may not be easy, but the destination will most definitely be better. You are the captain of your ship, so don't go handing the wheel over to someone else. They can help you chart your course, but you have got to keep your hands on the wheel and you have got to trust your instincts. Always.

We live, we learn.

Rock on,
Madge

Round and Round and Round She Goes

2009-09-28T09:50:00.006-04:00

Although I'm liberal on most things, when it comes to abuse of children, I've got absolutely no mercy for the abusers. In fact, I think we have no use for them at all in society. I think people who physically and sexually abuse children should get the death penalty and I think that they should suffer a miserable death.

Just because someone is famous or brilliantly talented, they don't get a free pass on child abuse in my book. I know Roman Polanski survived the Holocaust and the brutal murder of his pregnant wife by a group of wackos led by a madman...but none of that excuses his raping a teenaged girl. He knew it was wrong and he fled because he knew he was headed for jail. Child abusers don't fare well in prisons, even criminals know they're the bottom of the barrel.

I'm curious why everyone seems so quick to disbelieve Mackenzie Phillips? I find it fascinating. We simply do not want famous people to be guilty. We simply can't fathom a 'star' committing such atrocities. We simply don't want to ever imagine anyone sexually molesting a child, especially someone famous. If your father raped you and then convinced you that having an ongoing sexual relationship with him was a good thing so that you consented to continue, it's quite likely you might have been so haunted by fear, guilt and sadness that you'd turn to drugs to escape your reality.

So because she turned to drugs...well she must be lying. Yes, of course, it's so logical.

I don't actually know if she's lying or not. We may never know. There's not going to be a trial, because the abuser is dead. I can't imagine what she has to gain by sharing this information publicly, except perhaps a sense of release. We can't release things until we're willing to take them out of the dark and put them into the light. We'll never know her motives or the truth, because abuse is often so carefully hidden, we're shocked to find it that it happened. By the time the abused find the strength to tell their stories, it's often too late. Of course, that's part of the plan.

Abuse is all about guilt, fear and denial. Abusers are often incredibly charming people. It makes it easier for them to get away with what they do if they can convince everyone around them that they're wonderful. They're almost always extremely smart and disturbingly manipulative.

Because abusers can be so charming, we don't want to believe them capable of abuse. Not wanting these things to be true makes us work harder at denying them. Dysfunctional families never want their family members to break the code of silence. They build lives around myths because they're ashamed of the truth. If someone in the family speaks out, they are often attacked. Don't tell. Don't share. Don't break the spell.

I'd like to believe in the wheels of karma, but I think it's more complicated than that. The thing about abuse is that it's already a circle. The abused becomes the abuser. Round and round and round we go...and where she stops...nobody knows.

This is why we have to stop the circle. The only way to do that is to stop denying that these things happen, that anyone is capable of these things regardless of their fame or fortune and to bring those who perpetrate these acts to justice. The only way to do that is to stop attacking the victim and celebrating the abuser. We have to suspend our disbelief long enough to find the truth. We can't allow abusers a get out of jail free card because they're charming.

There is no excuse for abusing a child. Ever.

Folding Inward

2009-09-25T15:58:00.007-04:00

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I am exhausted. I've been hitting a wall at around 3pm every day. It's autumn, I'm afraid.

Something about the transition of summer into fall completely saps my energy. Perhaps that's natural. It's a time of folding inward. It's a time of decay. The light is waning. The warmth is leaving. I find this time of year incredibly bittersweet.

I've got big dreams planted and no indication of whether or not any of them will bloom. There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping. I can't control the outcome, but I have hope.

"Hope is the dream of the waking man." Aristotle

Even in times of darkness and decay, there is light. There is hope. The hope of rebirth and renewal.

As long as we breathe, we hope.

I am experiencing my annual tendency toward brooding Irish Melancholia. As I often do this time of year, I am allowing myself to dive into that. There is something of great value there. I intend to explore it. I think women try too often to smooth the wrinkles, but sometimes the wrinkles have gifts for us. It's okay to feel all of the glorious spectrum of emotions. I'm a passionate woman, it's my nature to feel everything deeply.

Will my big dreams unfold or will they wither and die? I can not say. I can say that no matter, there are always new dreams...and that I am ever and eternally filled with hope.

xoxo
Madge

Twilight Time

2009-09-24T17:29:00.003-04:00

This is what I like to call "twilight time." Not because it's actually twilight or because of books about teenaged vampires written by a nice midwestern Mormon lady that I don't ever plan on reading. I call it "twilight time" because it's the small pocket of time in between work and making dinner during which I feel as if I can do what I please. Because I can.

So I'm blogging.

So there.

Take that dinner.

Dinner has become complicated by my husband's restrictive diet and my daughter's relentless specificity. They have needs and desires that are diametrically opposed. It's becoming a make two meals event every dinner hour and quite frankly, I'm finding it exhausting. I've run out of things we can all eat together and the challenge of figuring out which side to choose so I don't have to make three meals has become daunting.

I'm hiding up here in the studio in the hope that the food will arrange itself into three pleasing plates that make everyone around here happy.

I'm envisioning it as I type. It's like a scene from Fantasia, except without Mickey Mouse. Oh what fun! I can't wait to see what awaits for me on the table!

But wait...

...I hear my husband lurking at the bottom of the stairs...apparently my creative visualization isn't working and he's wondering where dinner is.

Damn it all to hell.

Twilight time has passed and I must go rattle some pans.

xoxo
Madge

Compassion

2009-09-23T16:39:00.008-04:00

I often ponder why it is that we treat sick animals with more compassion than sick humans. If an animal is suffering and dying, we put them to sleep. We don't even think about the alternative, because we know it is the right thing to do. We 'put them out of their misery' and allow them to die peacefully and with grace.

If a person is suffering and dying, we expect them to spend unearthly amounts of money on expensive tests, hospital stays, medicines, pain killers and a host of indignities, we expect them to suffer and to hang on and hang in until they've exhausted their bodies, their spirits and their bank accounts. Even if they don't wish to live, we force them to until they've lost every grip on what it is to be in control of their destiny. Even if they have lived full lives and are ready to move on, they have absolutely no right to do so. They must keep on pumping money and resources into their sinking ship until the bitter, miserable end. Anyone who dares to help someone who has decided that they'd like to spare themselves and their families the expense and the suffering that comes from a protracted and painful death is considered a 'murderer.' We live in a culture that is terrified of death, so much so that we pretend it never has to happen. I think that's dangerous.

Why is compassion murder?

Why is allowing and assisting someone to choose the manner and the time of their death and to execute it as they see fit a crime?

If a chaotic event happens and I lose my faculties and I'm nothing more than an assisted heartbeat without an inkling of my former self, I want the Kool-Aid. Whether I've left the building or not, if it's burning indefinitely I'd like out, thank you. If I am diagnosed with an incurable disease and it has become evident that efforts to thwart it are in vain, I fully intend to choose the moment of my death.

I've got far too much to do to die right now, but when I am ready to shake this mortal coil, if it isn't a blissful transition, I will do what I can to make it so. I think we should all have that right. I don't understand why people feel they have the right to tell other people not only how to live but how to die. Why can't we all mind our own ever lovin' business? Why can't we find the same compassion we have for Fluffy and apply it to our neighbor?

One wonders.

Yes, one does.

I realize this is complicated by emotion and romance and the wishes of those around someone who is dying or on life support. Sometimes it's hard for other people to let go and I think that's tough to navigate. I remember the way the Terry Schiavo case was handled and politicized. So let me make this clear...pull the plug, give me the Kool-Aid and do what it takes to free me. I can't imagine anything worse than being stuck inside a body that is no longer serving me.

We all should have the right to decide. Compassion isn't always easy. Sometimes it means letting go. Sometimes it means loving someone enough to let them go.

Tricky stuff indeed.

Epic Fail

2009-09-20T09:38:00.005-04:00

Last week I jumped into the middle of a situation when I should have stayed out. Because of that people whom I love and respect were deeply hurt. I got caught up in some drama and I acted like a Drama Queen. I'd like to think I'm old and wise enough to know better, but apparently not. We live, we learn.

I am trying to fix the mess I helped create and to reach out to the people whom I hurt. They may not ever be able to forgive me and I understand. We can expect forgiveness, we can only ask for it.

We live in an age where people make excuses for everything and everyone. Oh they had a bad childhood. Oh they had a bad day. Oh they meant well. Oh I have a disorder. Blah...blah...blah.

I have no one and nothing to blame but myself. There are no excuses for bad behavior. I am sorry. I acted like a jackass.

I am making my way through my life as best as I can and sometimes I get it wrong. It is important to me, as a parent, that I show my daughter how a grown up acts when they get it wrong.

I threw on my big girl panties and I stepped up to the plate and took the blame for my bad actions. Next time, I hope to have the foresight to avoid becoming involved in this kind of situation. Next time, I hope to check my ego at the front door and bring my compassion inside. Next time, I hope to remember to be careful what you believe, be careful what you speak to others, don't speak until you know what the hell you are speaking about, don't get caught up in the drama and be careful what you put in writing.

Be kind.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's the point.

That's why we're here.

I am trying every day to be the kind of person my daughter can be proud to call Mom. Last week I failed.

This week I hope to do better.

Namaste
Margot

Choices.

2009-09-15T20:03:00.004-04:00

Every moment, every second of this life is a gift. In fact, every moment is literally all there is. As soon as the moments have passed they are forever altered by the lens through which we view them. We choose the manner in which we react to the things that happen as a direct result of the choices we made that led us to those things. It's an endlessly fascinating cirle of cause and effect and cause...

The joy and the sorrow
The success and the failure
The pleasure and the pain...

...in the Tao it is all the same.

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly." Richard Bach

It doesn't matter what you choose, ultimately, because we're here for one purpose. Every choice offers you an opportunity to explore that purpose. We are here to learn how to love ourselves and each other unconditionally. We are here to experience love in action.

I prefer laughter to tears. I prefer success to failure. I prefer pleasure to pain. I prefer to choose joy. In the great cosmic whirlpool my preferences and choices are inconsequential.

Everything in life is perspective. The past only affects us as long as we cling to it. We can release it at any moment.

What do you choose today?

xoxo
Madge

This Little Blog of Mine

2009-09-11T09:56:00.003-04:00

I realize there aren't a lot of you who read this little blog here anymore, and that is by my own design. I took several years of posts down and have been mining them for book ideas and new directions and I have to say you're going to be excited to see what I'm doing with it all. It's a tough thing for me to navigate because I work in a very conservative industry and I'm a decidedly unconservative personality. I'm technicolor and it's hard for me to water that down to pastel, though I effort. I'm working towards creating a way for me to be my technicolor self without apology! Yipee!

This blog has always been my guilty pleasure. Lately I've found myself with something to say that isn't related to beads or glitter or crafting and I can't seem to stop myself from saying it. It's the sort of something I did in this blog on a daily basis for a year and regularly for two more before I got busy building a niche focused blog next door. The blog next door is doing well and building steam and I don't feel I have to obsess over it as much now.

As it happens, I happen to love writing. So here I am, writing in this blog again. We'll see where it leads us. I have no idea how often I'll be stopping in, but it will definitely be more often than not.

Stay tuned...

xoxo
Madge

A Liberal Political Rant. Proceed with Caution.

2009-09-10T10:26:00.009-04:00

The following Liberal Feminist Political Rant is brought to you by Rhetoricalax. The little blue pill for free thinking folks who need a serious break from the endless rhetoric of the spin masters.

I'm happy to have deep political discussions with people who have divergent thoughts if they are willing to comport themselves like grown-ups and not toddlers that need a nap and a binky. If you can not have a civilized discourse, there is something wrong with you that most likely requires therapy. If you truly believe that you are right, then someone with a divergent opinion shouldn't make you angry. What does it matter what they think when it's glaringly evident that you are vastly superior and they are incredibly stupid? Right?

They should all just shut the hell up because you're the only one with something to say that's worth hearing.

So there. Nya, nya, nya.

I wonder though...why must we all think the exactly same thoughts?

Why must we all pray the same, love the same, laugh the same, live the same, talk the same, think the same, dress the same?

What kind of a world would it be if we actually were all the same?

I'll tell you what kind of a world it would be...a really fucking boring world.

Maybe the folks who are all so angry about how the rest of us are all trying to steal their pie and turn them into commies and tax them into submission and think it's their job to shout their opinions so loudly they drown out everyone else...should consider gathering up their constantly threatened resources and purchasing a large parcel of land. Then they could all live together in Boringia, where the boring, sanctimonious, self serving, unyeilding and abrasive folks live together in a constant state of self righteous indignation. Then they could all freely judge everyone in the rest of the world from a safe vantage point and they could freely screw each other over in the endless pursuit of more wealth and power. They could read boring books and watch propaganda that passes for news and remove all traces of the arts from the schools so that eventually they stop having new books, new music, new art, new magazines, new crap they can buy to wear and decorate their McMansions and all of the other things that those pesky artists create to keep life interesting. Who wants interesting when you can be boring? They could have national prayer meetings each morning where they openly judge and freely hate anyone who doesn't pray to their God or live their lives exactly as they did.

Wheee...what fun!

I'm not saying we all need to be liberals either, I'm saying we all need to be willing to make room for a variety of viewpoints and lifestyles and agendas. It's part of the deal of living in a Democracy. If your team lost the last game, then instead of shouting about it, do everything you can to make sure they win the next one.

I can't believe that an elected Senator shouted "You lie!" at our president last night. Seriously. Grow up. Firstly, our President wasn't lying. There is no provision for health care for illegal immigrants, but I personally think there should be one that forces the people who hire them to pay their medical bills and the rest of the bills they incur while living here illegally because many of the same people who rant endlessly about illegal immigrants have no problem hiring them to mow their lawns or watch their kids or clean their houses. Ahem. But I digress, you don't have to agree with the President, but you do have to comport yourself with the dignity that is expected of an elected official.

What a dink.

I'm not actually sold on this current health care initiative, mostly because I think we'd be better off with socialized medicine. Yup, I said the "s" word. I'd frankly rather see my tax dollars go to helping sick people get better than to billions of dollars in blank checks handed out by the former administration to bloated financial institutions who filled out a two page form with a few questions and then took OUR money and ran after devastating our economy. Where was my form to fill out so that I could continue being the entrepreneur and small business owner trying to pay the mortgage in this mess that they left behind? I'd also like to stop paying for a war based on a real lie told by our former President who definitely lied...over and over and over again.

I have had extended discussions with people from countries with socialized medicine and guess what...they love it. They all say it's amazing to go see a doctor when you're sick and get the medicine and quality treatment that you need without having to jump through endless hoops to get approval and referrals. Wow, that sounds really horrid, doesn't it?

I've also known what it is to have to decide between buying food or a visit to the doctor or a medicine that I need. I've known what it is like to not be insured and to pray every day that I stayed healthy. I have a chronic medical condition and I am lucky to have insurance, because if we didn't I would not be able to afford my medicines and my treatment. I think most of the people screaming like banshees in these Town Hall Meetings are one catastrophic event or one funky mole away from total financial ruin. Only until it happens to them or a family member or a friend, they won't know what it's like to lose everything merely because you had the audacity to get sick or injured or what it's like to watch someone you love die because their insurance company dropped them or refused to pay for treatment.

We need to all lighten up, breathe deeply, stop drinking the Fox News Kool-Aid and educate ourselves. We need to learn the fine art of diplomacy and compromise. We don't have to agree, but we need to disagree graciously. We need to accept that a democracy requires us to discuss, debate and determine the best course of action for the majority. It's not simple and it's not always fun, but it's part of the deal.

I love these quotes from this NYT Op-Ed article my friend Homer shared with me from a letter written by Eisenhower to a concerned citizen. I think it's a very, very smart letter:

“I doubt that citizens like yourself could ever, under our democratic system, be provided with the universal degree of certainty, the confidence in their understanding of our problems, and the clear guidance from higher authority that you believe needed. Such unity is not only logical but indeed indispensable in a successful military organization, but in a democracy debate is the breath of life.”

Referring to a favorite book written by Eric Hoffer Ike said that Hoffer:

“points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems — freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions.”

Educating yourself is not only your right...it's your duty. We will never all think the same thoughts, but I do believe we all want the same things. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Therefore we all need to become more a lot more informed and constructively involved and a lot less angry or at the very least know what the hell we are screaming about.

Love
Madge

Dear Superintendent

2009-09-08T13:29:00.004-04:00

I just sent this message to the Superintendent of our School District. I am absolutely gobsmacked that a taped message of our president encouraging young people to stay in schools was attacked as a subversive communist missive. Because of that, my daughter isn't going to see this message in her school. I'm so weary of the politics of fear. It's not about who is on what team, it's about us dropping the angry, derisive, misleading and misguided rhetoric. It's about growing up and having grown up dialogs. Sometimes it's about agreeing to disagree, graciously. I am absolutely sick of the current tone of discourse. We are all entitled to our opinions, but we don't need to shove them down each other's throats. Like it or not, Barack Obama is our president.

Sheesh.

"Dear Superintendent:

I just found out that TVSD opted out of airing our president's address to our children today. I'm greatly dismayed and disappointed. The transcript for this speech was released prior to today, therefore you had sufficient time to review it and determine if it was appropriate. I can't understand how people in this country who use falsehoods and innuendo to promote their agendas have such a profound effect on our schools. It's ludicrous and disturbing. This is a message from our president who was elected into office by a very large margin. It isn't a political message, it is a straight forward plea to children to stay in school and work hard.

President Obama is a shining example of the American Dream in action. As an adult who was also raised by a single mother, I understand implicitly the struggles he endured. He went to an Ivy League college because of his hard work and determination. He became president because of that same spirit of self belief. His story is a wonderful inspiration for young people who doubt their ability to achieve success. Our young people need all of the positivity and inspiration they can get these days.

I accept that I'm in the political minority as a liberal living in this very conservative area. That being said, based on the fact that Obama was elected our president, I'm not a political minority living in this country. If we allow the politics of fear to influence how we teach our children, we are heading down a slippery slope indeed.

Regards,
Margot Potter"

The Pretender

2009-09-03T09:26:00.006-04:00

There are some women who just don’t get it. They are often the women who talk the loudest about how much they support other women. Usually they make a point of telling everyone who will listen how many nice things they’ve done for other women and then running down the list over...and over...and over again. Just in case you didn’t get how supportive and nice and selfless they are. Really though, the only things they’ve done for other women have been marginal efforts that make them look extremely good on paper. They’re in it for number one, sweetie, and if you don’t pony up the favors and the pay backs when they call them in, they’re going to let you know that you owe them and you’d best get on the good foot.

The women I am discussing make it a point to point out their ‘good deeds’ in the hopes that no one notices when they artfully stab other women in the back and stomp on them with the pointy heels of their open toed Jimmy Choos. They think if they smile pretty enough and look cute enough that no one will see through the façade. They’re usually quite skilled at looking just helpless enough that men (and other women) flock to support them, promote them and defend them while they bat their long eyelashes and give you the stink eye.

It’s all about them. Every moment, every action. They’re not only shameless, they’re shameful.

I’ve dealt with this kind of woman for years. Somehow, no matter how easy it is for me to get their number, I sometimes feel like no one else does. If you try to point them out, you’re often looked at suspiciously because much like a killer rabbit, it’s hard to believe something so cute could be so vicious. It’s tricky stuff. They’re quite skilled at twisting reality to support their cause. You’d better be damn good at dodging bullets, because if they’ve drawn a bead on you they’re going to do everything they can to bring you down.

That’s how they’ve managed to get where they are and how they can often get so very far. Only eventually, they’ll step on so many toes, they’ll screw so many other women over and they’ll push so hard that people will start to figure them out. Eventually they’ll whisper the wrong catty comment into the wrong ear at the wrong moment and the house of cards will start to crumble. Women like this are often so reliant on their appearances and the appearance of innocence, it’s only a matter of time before those looks fade or that storyline stops making sense and their complete lack of personality and depth and talent and compassion becomes painfully evident. It’s the karmic adjustment for getting ahead at the expense of other women.

I’ve been dealing with a woman like this recently. I wonder, is she reading this post? I bet she is. She’s been up in my cornflakes for months now. I bet she’s convinced that I must be talking about someone else. Either that or she’s wondering how she can cover her petite ass enough to save her from being discovered.

Well honey bunny, I’ve got your number and I'm not alone. I highly suggest you get out of the way because this train is leaving the station and you aren’t on it. I also suggest that you think long and hard about where your train is heading, because it’s a lonely destination.

xoxo,
Madge

My Sad, Sad Bladder

2009-09-02T16:26:00.003-04:00

It is possible that my bladder is depressed.

We may have to give it anti-depressants.

I’m thinking maybe I just need to cheer it up instead.

What about some flowers? Chocolates? A serenade?

I like my bladder. It’s always been good to me. It’s a good bladder as far as bladders go, but apparently it’s gone all red inside and it’s been so incredibly persistent lately. Maybe it feels like it’s not getting enough attention. Maybe it's just acting out.

I had a highly uncomfortable test today to see what might be going on with it.

It wasn’t fun.

In fact nothing about it was fun.

Is there anything fun about a straw sized tube in your urethra?

I just don’t like that word, is it just me or does it seem to fail to capture the spirit of the area it describes?

I’ll have to ponder that more deeply later but for the now I can answer the first question...having a straw sized tube in your urethra is HORRID. Avoid it if you can.

I may have to give up all of the foods I like to eat in order to make my bladder happy...but then what about the rest of me? Shouldn’t it be a matter of percentages? Most of me really, really enjoys those foods and beverages. Why can’t my bladder (pardon me in advance for this dreadful cliché I’m about to type) go with the flow?

I feel much better having discussed this openly. I may be sorry later that I did, but I’m laughing about it now and perhaps this laughter is helping in some small way to cheer up my sad, sad little bladder.

That seems like a worthy cause.

I tried, but I simply couldn't find the right picture for this post. Surprising, eh?

Love
Madge

Connection

2009-07-21T20:41:00.004-04:00

Image Copyright MC Escher

I believe that we are here for one thing and one thing only...to connect. I think the more that we can connect on a visceral, atomic level-the more we’ve fulfilled that mission. I don’t merely mean connecting with our family and our small circle of friends, that’s easy. I mean creating connection with absolute strangers. I mean finding common ground with those we consider our enemies. The more we focus on our similarities and the less we focus on the fraction of a percentage of things that make us different, the better. We all want the same things.

We want to feel loved.

We want to feel wanted.

We want to feel connected.

I believe that the power of the internet is that we can be connected in ways never before imagined. I’m not sure that anyone has fully tapped into the power of that yet. I think we’re so stuck in old models, it’s impossible to see just what this Brave New World offers us. We want to do what we’ve always done, but the context has changed and we’re not getting what we always got. We’re going to have to shift our perception of reality entirely to fully grasp it.

I’m talking quantum shifts...not a mere jump to the left and then a step to the right.

It’s all about connecting, because it’s a web. Every fiber is connected to another and another and if you follow it long enough it will connect back to you. If we play our cards right...anything is possible.

I think I've unraveled this thread and it's blowing my mind. And so, gentle reader, I reach out to you through the ethers of the vast interwebs and I offer you my hand. We are, at least for this moment, connected. Pass it on...and on...and on...

Love
Madge

My Friend Michael Benbrook

2009-05-21T10:48:00.007-04:00

Michael Benbrook as Joan Crawford

If you read my other blog, you'll see I posted about Adam Lambert and American Idol. It finally occured to me why I fell so hard for Adam. Adam reminds me of a very dear friend who died a few years ago from AIDs. Michael Benbrook was without doubt one of the most talented people I've EVER known. He had a four octave vocal range and a larger than life personality to go with it. Here's an obituary for Michael I found on the web. I can so see him defying a SWAT team with a water gun...totally Michael. He was outrageous and fearless in every way imaginable.

We met in the theatre scene in Sacramento back in the early 80s. I was a wide eyed ingenue and Michael was a force of nature. We did Camelot together, I was Guenevere and he played Lancelot. I quickly became his muse and he became my punk rock mentor. We'd hit the clubs decked out in the most absurdly fabulous outfits that Michael would create for us. He'd sew pencil skirts so tight that I could barely walk in them, put me in sky high stilettos and transform me into an exotic and beautiful creature. It was like being a living Barbie Doll! For a while there the folks at the gay clubs were quite convinced I was the most fabulous drag queen in San Jose.

Tee hee.

Michael was a complicated person...as all of the best people are. He had an intense personality and a burning need to be noticed, as did I. We lived together with my uncle Shawn in a small apartment above a TV Repair shop in San Jose. I'm quite sure we drove my poor uncle mad with our antics and for that I am truly sorry. Michael worked as a waiter at a chi chi hotel down the road and would walk home from work late nights singing at the top of his lungs. You could hear him singing from blocks away. That voice...was unearthly. He absolutely should have been a super star. He could sing anything. He died far too young.

AIDs took away a lot of incredible people whom I loved dearly, including my uncle Shawn. I can remember talking about it with Michael when it first started emerging in the Bay Area. We really didn't understand it back then. I couldn't believe it years later when I got the call from an old friend that Michael had died...at only 41. He just seemed so invincible, so full of life. What a waste.

Michael was 6'3" tall and he loved exaggerating his stature with the outfits he'd concoct. He adored Jean Paul Gaultier and Theirry Mugler. He'd carve huge shoulder pads out of foam rubber and slide them in his shirts. He'd super glue Barbie dolls to his ears. He rocked a skirt like no other man I've ever seen. He had a shocking red pompador, a charmingly freckled strewn visage and was a master with make-up and styling. We often hit San Francisco club scene, burning up the dance floor, hitting the after hour parties back before they were called raves, crawling home the next morning on the BART scaring the bejesus out of the morning passengers. I think my favorite moment with Michael was marching in the Halloween parade on Castro Street in full drag together. I was Marilyn Monroe to his alter ego Ruby Begonia in all of her red satin fitted ball gown glory. What an amazing night. What an amazing human being.

Michael and I lost track of each other after he moved to San Francisco to join the cast of Beach Blanket Babylon. I left California behind to start a new life and wondered often how he was and what he was doing. I thought for sure he'd make it to Broadway one day. His death was a tragic, tragic loss.

So Adam Lambert, let that freak flag fly high and never apologize for who you are. The world needs people who are unafraid like you and Michael. We need your spirit, your talent and your tenacity. The more outrageous you are, the more you inspire others to be the same.

Life is too short to apologize for being fabulous.

In the words of the indomitable Bette Midler, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

And Michael, I'm very much looking forward to playing dress up again with you when I shake this mortal coil. I hope they have well stocked Thrift Stores in the afterlife!

xoxo
Madge

Tit for Tat

2009-04-29T19:03:00.003-04:00

Image Copyright Gil Elvgren

When does a request for a favor become a demand?

I am a firm believer in paying it forward and if I see someone with tenacity, talent, integrity who has worked hard to make a dent in their industry and I can lend a hand, offer a little advice, make a recommendation or help them make a valuable connection, I will. I will do it gladly. That being said, it’s hard to do favors for others and not feel that they owe you. I’ve had to work on that. I’ve come to realize that the universe will reward your good deeds in ways you can’t imagine and it’s rarely going to come from the person whom you helped. If you do a ‘favor’ for someone they’ve not requested and immediately turn around and demand a return on your investment, that’s really kinda lame. It really isn’t a favor, it’s a bargaining chip.

Expectation is a slippery slope with a most uncomfortable landing pad.

What makes doing good deeds cool; is that you never quite know how they’re going to come back to you. Plus, let’s be honest people, when we do nice things for other people we are getting a really good feeling inside. That really good feeling of having done something nice is a big part of why we do nice things for others. In fact, helping someone else is on several levels really all about us. Isn’t it?

The Golden Rule doesn’t have a caveat. I believe it says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Not: “Do unto others as you expect them to do unto you. Make sure you remind them of their obligation to do unto you after you’ve done unto them at every given future opportunity until they’ve done unto you in a manner that is commensurate with your initial doing unto them.”

Everything I’ve built has happened because I was willing to dream it and do the hard work. I find it difficult to ask for favors, even from people whom I know well. No one has handed me anything, in fact my husband often muses about how hard won all of my success has been. Perhaps that makes it all the sweeter, but at the very least it makes it mine. People can shine the light on the pathway, but you, my dear, must traverse it alone. I feel that the best favor I can do for others is to lead by example, to share my stories of triumph and tragedy and the details of ways in which I’ve created my success. If you want it, you’ll find a pathway to it. If you don’t...you didn’t want it badly enough.

So please don’t do me any favors if there are strings attached. Those kinds of favors I can truly do without. If you want me to do you a favor, ask nicely and don’t quibble if I say 'no.' There’s probably a very good reason.

xoxo,
Madge

Cross Post Copyrights and Artist's Rights

2009-04-22T10:20:00.001-04:00

Permission Free Image Dover Books

I work really hard each and every day to come up with unique and inspiring ideas. My goal in life is to inspire creativity. I love seeing people riff on my ideas, because that’s a dialogue. In the classical music period, musicians had musical dialogues with snippets of music called motifs. They were expanding on each other’s ideas in creative and fascinating ways. Jazz musicians also do this. That’s the sort of dialogue I want to have with my readers. I also love knowing that they’re making the designs I’ve created and enjoying them as is. That’s a really wonderful feeling.

I don’t so much love finding out someone has co-opted my work as their own. That’s...the complete opposite of the point. It’s a subtle distinction, but let me see if I can’t clarify.

My blog, my books and my magazine projects all have a common thread. They’re protected by copyrights. That means if you want to reproduce a project I’ve shared with you for yourself, that’s my intention. I want you to do that! That’s why I make and share projects! If you want to give said project to a friend or family member as a gift, that’s fabulous! But...and here’s the big but...if you want to copy said project and make it into a kit, a class or a design for profit...that’s not okay. It’s okay to take a technique I’ve shown you and make your own unique design and sell that, because then you’ve engaged in a dialogue. Can you see the distinction?

If you copy and paste the picture of my project or an entire post into your blog or on your website without my express permission, that’s also not okay. The internet has created a free for all when it comes to horking intellectual property and I’m here today along with other artists to start staking our claims to our work.

The problem is that everything is so easy to take from the internet, so it seems less wrong to take it freely. It is, however, wrong.

If you copy someone’s art work and sell it for profit, you’re stealing. Do you steal regularly? Do you feel entitled to walk into a store and take things off of the shelves without paying for them? Do you hork stuff from your friends’ houses? If you visit them and see a vase you really like, do you feel entitled to plunk it into your purse?

Intellectual property is property. Artists and musicians and creative people work incredibly hard and they deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else. Illegally downloading a movie or a song is stealing. Pirating software is stealing. Copying and pasting a copyright protected image into your blog without permission or credit is stealing. Uploading a segment from a TV show to YouTube is stealing. Copying an image that is under copyright, printing it and reproducing it in your artwork is stealing. Copying a design, reproducing it and selling it for profit is stealing. (On a side note it is okay to use images you cut out of books or magazines in collages, it’s just not okay to copy them and use them multiple times. See the difference? One is recycling, the other is theft.)

Anytime you co-opt someone else’s professional creative output for personal gain or profit or even for your personal pleasure without paying for it, you are breaking copyright laws. These laws can be very expensive to enforce, so you may just get away with it. Lots of people do. That doesn’t make it right. Because it is theft and theft isn’t right. It’s becoming a rampant and serious problem with the boom of the internet. People who create for a living have the same right to make a living as everyone else.

I see my work in projects sold to magazines and in ads for manufacturers and even winning design contests, only it’s actually other people copying my work. What incredible audacity it must take to steal someone’s work and claim it as your own. The way I see it, if you aren’t creative enough to make your unique designs or to give due credit when you are inspired by someone else’s work; you probably shouldn’t be selling your work. I’m just sayin’.

This topic gets everyone all kerfuffled. Even artists can’t agree on what is and what is not copyright infringement. If we can’t agree or if we’re so afraid of being unpopular we can’t take a public stand against copycats and copyright infringers...well I’m afraid this sort of activity will continue.

For the record, I am taking a stand. I have no interest in making lazy people easy money. If you want to sell kits, classes, projects for publication or finished goods, use your fertile imagination. I want you to make my designs and wear them and enjoy them. I want you to be inspired by my work to expand into new directions and most of all I want to see you become empowered to make your own unique designs. If you want pictures to post on your blog, take them yourself, use stock photos, permission free images or credit the source, if you’re thinking about taking my pictures or text from my blog or website make sure you ask permission and that if I grant it...you give me credit.

So every time you illegally download a song or a movie or copy software or sell a copy of someone else’s work in your Etsy shop or copy and paste a picture from a Google search into your blog, think about what I just told you. It’s not okay.

If you'd like to participate in educating the public about this topic, please post a blog this week and I will share your link with my readers in a group link post. We can't complain if we aren't willing to take a stand.

Cheers,
Madge

My end is my beginning.

2009-04-21T09:23:00.004-04:00

Illustration Copyright Enoch Bolles

I pride myself on my communication skills and yet, sometimes I’m about as clear as mud. I’m not quitting blogging! I merely took down my archives so that I could reclaim them, reorganize them, edit them, expound upon them and use them as the seeds and the fertilizer for several books. They will be life crafting books, humor books, autobiographical fictional books and perhaps a novel or two. When a person turns their blog into a book it’s called a blook. I own the copyrights to all of my material, as you can see when you look at the creative commons license on my side bar. I can do with it as I choose. It also follows that no one else can use any of my material without my express permission. It’s not the property of the internet merely because I posted it here. I did this in a public forum to help inspire other women to do the same. I did it to live out loud. I did it to be authentic. These posts were my little messages in bottles to the universe. That was my gift.

I now choose to take three years of writing and use it as I had originally intended, as the material I could mine for books. I told myself for years I couldn’t write a book because I’m too impatient, but this blog proved me wrong. By forcing myself to write every day for two years and to continue writing when inspired for a third, I found the self discipline I didn’t know I had. By doing it in a public forum, I couldn't cheat. It feels good to look though three years of musings and find that in and amongst them are some pretty good ideas. There’s also a lot of self indulgent drivel, which I shall pare away.

This is an ending and a beginning, as all endings are.

“And to make a beginning there must be an end. The end is where we start from.” T.S. Eliot

So don’t be ‘afeared’ my little cherry dumplings, Madgie isn’t going away! She’s just reinventing herself again. It’s what she does. I was feeling stuck, so I unstuck myself. It was harder than I thought it would be, but I think it was a very good idea. Perhaps I’ve broken some internet taboo...rules schmules...we all know I’m not so good at following the rules.

Love,
Madge

Starting Over.

2009-04-20T15:28:00.007-04:00

Several years ago we moved into our little school house. I finally got a real studio and I began to virally market myself via the tangled mess they call The Interwebs. This blog began as challenge I made to write every day for a year. I managed to do that for two years, with a few days off now and again for travel or sickness or real life. In the third year, I gave myself a reprieve and started blogging when I had time. I started a second blog that was entirely focused on my craft career and promoting my brand. It's been three years now, and I can't believe it!

The Impatient Blogger was and is my guilty pleasure. I poured my heart and my soul into each post. I shared some of my deepest, darkest feelings, secrets and stories here. I gave total strangers a glimpse into my life as I traversed it with whatever grace I could muster on a day to day basis. I didn't candy coat it and I didn't make believe. What you read was what you got.

Then one day I woke up and realized that it was ready. The little buzzer went off. I'd acheived my objective and I'd amassed almost 1000 posts that had within them the seeds of several interesting books. I decided it was time to pull the curtain closed, take my posts offline and begin the arduous process of editing them. So here we are. It wasn't an easy decision, but as long as I left the archives up, I'd never be able to dissect it and reconfigure them.

So I thank each of you who has been willing to take this journey with me. Your insightful comments, your encouraging emails, your cheers when I was down, every bit of it means more to me than I can ever, ever express. I'll still be blogging regularly next door at my craft blog, but I won't be quite as transparent there. I'll pop back over here now and again when I simply can't resist a good rant or a stream of naughty words. I'm not leaving, I'm just starting over.

If I manage to get this material organized and published, you'll be the first to know. It was just time to reclaim it for me. It's still out there. I can't completely erase it, but it was time to bring it home.

And to each of you I say, "Live out loud. Color outside of the lines. Create without filters. Be bold, be brave and be brilliant. Life is short, be sparkly."

Love
Margot