Keep Track of Your Favorite Reality Shows More Efficiently!

Dear LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

Happy Sunday!  Where did the weekend go?  I swear my weekends have been evaporating like ice cubes on a hot day.  While I am sad that AMC's The Walking Dead is over for the season, I am happy that HBO's Game of Thrones is back.  (Maybe I need to stop watching so much television?)

I have been a huge Bravo TV show fan for years.  However lately, I must admit that I am having a difficult time watching some of the Real Housewives shows.  The episodes were always catty and biatchy, but now I feel like the "mean girl" quotient has been exponentially amplified.  

To me, it's like the difference between a 2 second scuffle between pro hockey players during a game versus a lethal bullfight.  I may cheer when two hockey players throw down their helmets and charge each other (and are separated by referees and other teammates before anything happens), but I take no joy or entertainment in watching a bull get stabbed and then slowly die before my eyes.  (And yes, I did see a bullfight years ago in Spain in my wayward youth.  It was horrific and sad.  I would never go to one again.)  

I don't want to make a sweeping generalization, but I do think women get pitted against each other.  Look at working moms vs. stay-at-home mom issues.  Emotions flare whenever any one questions what makes a good mother.  It is very easy to accidentally hurt someone's feelings or ego.  So watching women tear each other apart on the Real Housewives series has gone from entertainment to leaving me feeling sick to my stomach.  

I hate to use a reference to the TV show "Charmed" but it definitely reminds me when Alyssa Milano's character was pregnant with a demon baby and was being given a "pre-natal potion" that was "pure evil" to feed the demon.  I didn't know evil came in liquid form, but I guess that's besides the point!  When I spend my time watching people treat each other with blatant disrespect, I feel like I am drinking in pure evil too!

I stopped watching "Real Housewives of New York" and let me tell you if "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" is as bad next season as it was this season, I'll be crossing it off my list as well.  

I know some people read the reality TV show recaps instead of spending an hour of their lives watching the nonsense.  I wasn't a big recap reader since I usually would watch the episodes.  However when AllAboutTheTea.com asked me if I'd be interested in writing some reality show episode recaps, I was intrigued.  I figure if I can write deposition summaries, I could handle a TV episode recap.

So while I am staying away from recapping the Real Housewives shows, I will be putting my excess TV watching to good use by writing some content for AllAboutTheTea.com.        I enjoy the reader compliments.  One of the women who was on an episode of Bravo's "Married To Medicine" also chimed in with her views in the comments section of one of my recaps.  It's a small world!

If you're interested in reading some reality TV episode recaps, check out my writing here.  It may save you some time - reading a recap instead of watching an episode.

Of course it could also intrigue you to watch an episode … so maybe it's not a time saver but a time waster?  Whoops!  Didn't think this through very well - ha ha!

If you're a reality TV show fan, check out my recaps!

Once Again: THANK YOU TO THE UKRAINE!

Back in March 2012, I was reviewing my Blogger.com statistics for LilyOnTheLam.com.  The country that has the most LilyOnTheLam.com readers/page views for the entire lifespan of my blog was (and still is) the United States.  But back in March, I was surprised to see that the Ukraine came in 5th in number of readers/page views by country!  

I have never been to the Ukraine but evidently I was a Ukrainian superstar!  Like David Hasselhoff to Germany, I am to the Ukraine!  

(Hopefully the Ukraine isn't the home of international blogger identity theft or anything ...)

So now it's mid-October 2012 and I look at my stats again and the Ukraine has jumped from the #5 spot to the #3 spot in terms of most readers/page views behind the US and the United Kingdom!  God bless you, Ukraine!!

To celebrate my Ukrainian fans, please check out my blog post and Ukrainian restaurant review here.  This definitely calls for some more Ukrainian restaurant reviews in the future.  Stay tuned LilyOnTheLam.com fans!
  
Google Affiliate Ads:

You're Welcome, Google Searchers!

I have been posting my random musings on Blogger.com since the end of 2010.  As part of my blog, I am able to see statistics including from what countries my readers are logging in from and what posts are the most widely read.  

One of my favorite stats however has to be what search terms people looked up on Google.com that brought them to my website, such as:

A Google.com search for "Cat-shaped wine bottle" will bring you to my blog post:  "An Evening with Top Chef Masters 2011 Winner Floyd Cardoz."

A Google.com search for "Physics themed cupcakes" will bring you to my blog post: "To Glee or Not To Glee ... That is the Question."  I'm not sure why, but there you go.  

A Google.com search for "a blog about a mother named Phyllis" will bring you to an awesome pie recipe link on my blog post "Thanks For The Awesome Blueberry Pie Recipe, Phyllis!"  

But the Google.com search words that had me bowled over with laughter was that someone out there in the internet universe Googled "I got a blow job after I proposed" and it brought that person to my blog post "The Lengths One Will Go" - and yes, it's about wedding proposals and blow jobs.  It's also about Ani DiFranco; my life in Buffalo, New York and why having straw up one's derriere is not the best seating option.   

So thank you Google.com searchers for taking a stop at LilyOnTheLam.com when you're looking for your wacky search terms.  Welcome and I hope you stay awhile ...

P.S.  Today someone Google searched "Lily is awesome" and they were referred to my blog ... oh Google, you truly get me!

Doesn't Everyone Love Breasts? (Otherwise known as: Awww Come On, Minnesota!)

I read this blog post "Silly Woman, Titties are for Titillation and Selling Cars" on the Angry Black Lady Chronicles and as a person who spent the majority of her life as a Minnesota resident, I have to say "tsk, tsk" to the Minneapolis Central Library for their breast-feeding gaffe.  Check it out - ABLC is a great blog.


By the way, you may have noticed that the author of said blog post on ABLC is the star of my very own blog post:  "Midnight Radio:  How I Found My Doppelgänger Via Twitter."  So therefore I am going to take credit Mitt Romney-style for something I had no part in and say "You're welcome for the fine blog post that someone else wrote on ABLC."        

Cadavers, Adultery, The Butterfly Effect and Why I Have Been Missing In Action

I have decided to channel my inner Mary Roach today.  

Side Note:  If you do not know who Mary Roach is, shame on you!  She is the author of one of my favorite non-fiction books, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  Unfortunately I have been less enchanted by her books that followed: 1) Spook: Science Tackles The After Life (slightly less interesting than the book Stiff, but still a good read).  2) Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (a book on sex that I was so bored with that I couldn't even finish - now that is a truly sad statement!)  3)  Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (More interesting than the book Bonk, slightly less interesting than the book Spook.  Hopefully Mary is on a literary upswing again.  I still read everything she writes.)  

When I say I am going to channel my inner Mary Roach, it means that I am going to add in some snarky footnotes to this blog post.  One of my favorite parts of her book Stiff was the hysterical footnotes.  I'm not a big footnote reader, but if you read the book Stiff without reading the footnotes you are missing out big time.*

My friend DEG (a.k.a. Mr. Hot-lantan)'s father ("Mr. E") was in a golf cart vs. SUV accident last week.  Unfortunately, Mr. E was the golf cart.  The SUV sent the street legal golf cart (and my friend's father) tumbling end on end.  Mr. E was "ejected" from the golf cart.  No seat belts, no air bags, no passive restraint system, no crash protection, no helmets.  If a golf cart is street legal, shouldn't it have some level of safety equipment or requirements?  A rollerblader with helmet and pads has more safety gear than the crew of elderly roadsters whizzing along in their street legal golf carts.  (Please Senior Mafia, do not email bomb me for that last statement.  I live in Florida where old people outnumber me 8 billion to one.**)

Now if Mr. E hadn't decided to take his golf cart out that day and if an SUV hadn't decided (consciously or subconsciously) to try to knock out a senior citizen***; then DEG would not have had reason to race down to Florida last weekend.  If DEG was not in Florida, I would not have had the opportunity to do dinner in the retirement city (Republican stronghold enclave) "The Villages."  

It was during this dinner in "The Villages" (which bills itself as "Florida's friendliest retirement hometown/city"****) that DEG told me that the 1940 U.S. Census results are now available to the general public.  DEG has been looking up members of his family in the Census results.  He told me in an almost romantic tone that reading about his family was like opening a window into the past.  DEG had this very thoughtful look on his face as he recounted that for one moment in time, you know exactly what your extended family (most who are now long dead) was doing on the day of the Census.  You know who responded to the Census taker and what they said.  You know who was living at the house at the time.  Plus this was pre-political correctness, so some of the census questions from the early 1900's include such questions like whether you can read and write.  And other questions that they wouldn't dare ask today.   

Sitting across from DEG at the retirement city's version of a Japanese steakhouse, I just nodded as he talked about looking up his family in the Census.  Yeah, yeah, that's interesting; but what do you think about this chicken teriyaki?  Little did I know that DEG had slyly implanted a time bomb in my brain.

So if Mr. E hadn't been in a golf cart vs. SUV accident, DEG would never have seen me to plant a time bomb in my brain and I may have spent the past three days writing blog posts for LilyOnTheLam ... but here's THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT ... DEG's time bomb exploded and I have spent the past three days on Ancestry.com tracing my family tree back to the 1700's!*****  

A few days after my dinner with DEG, I discovered that my cousin and her family had moved into my Grandmother's former house.  My Grandmother's house was built in the late 1890's.  My Grandmother - the 13th of 14th children - was born in the small 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom brick home.  My father, uncle and aunt were raised in that home.  My Grandmother babysat my cousins (who lived locally) in that home.  And every now and again, the youngest, most beautiful and most snarky grandchild(* x 6) would also come from a 3 1/2 hour drive and visit.  

Generations of family playing hopscotch down the long sidewalk.  Hundreds of thousands of loads of laundry hung from the clothesline in the back yard.  When my father was young, there was a candy store 2 doors down from my Grandmother's home.  When I was young (* x 7), there were no candy stores but instead there were four bars in walking distance.  My cousins and I would buy those windshield wiper fluid looking freezer pops from the local bar.  We suck on them with a fury that left our faces, lips and tongues bright neon blue.  Then we would spin on the nearby playground's whirly spinning thing (* x 8) until we felt nauseated.  Ahhh... good times.  

Thinking back upon my childhood and my cousin's recent move in to our Grandmother's house, made me stop and marvel at how our family has an almost 125 year old house.  Our family members have been the sole occupants for generations. 

I remember watching the changing spectrum of the neighborhood as my grandparents grew older.  Their block used to be filled with old ladies who would pay me a dime to bring them back the church bulletin on Sundays.  The old ladies would remark that they were too old to handle the stairs at the church.  (Even though the church had long before put in ramps and elevators.)  They said that since they were physically incapable of attending the Service, to please bring them back this week's Church bulletin.  I remember thinking I'd gladly pay a dime to not go to the long Sunday Catholic masses.  I wanted to say "Just because you read the church bulletin, Old Lady- doesn't put you right with Jesus!"  Instead I said "Thanks for the dime."  Or "What is this?  A nickel?  The old lady down the street gives me a dime!  Yeah, that's right - look in your coin purse again, sister!"

My family's church is still one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen and now at the ripe old age of ... ahem 24 years of age (* x 9) ...  I have seen many of the world's most beautiful churches.  My heart still belongs to the first church I have ever known.  The one I was baptized in, as the two generations before me were as well.  I wonder what the going rate for church bulletins are today.

As I entered my early teens, the numbers of little old ladies who would pay me a dime for a church bulletin diminished.  My Grandmother's neighborhood block began to fill with young, low income families.  I remember my cousins and I would stand guard over my Grandmother's phone while she took her daily nap.  This nap would occur after both an intense viewing of the soap opera "The Young and The Restless."  and after the episode, would come a much less joyous making and serving of lunch for a grumpy husband and three not so appreciative grandchildren.  Lunch would be "goulash" which in my Grandmother's definition was elbow macaroni, ground beef and canned tomato sauce.  Dusted with that Parmesan cheese that comes in the green can.  Or if my Grandmother didn't feel like cooking - thick slices of summer sausage and Velveeta on white bread.  

Our family had discovered that the "early 20 something" year old (but already a mother of three screaming children) woman who lived next door had been sneaking into the house while my Grandmother was napping to make long distance phone calls from our Grandparents' telephone located in the kitchen.  The woman's phone had been shut off due to non-payment.  Unfortunately, my Grandparents had not realized what was going on until they received their telephone bill.  

Breaking into my Grandparents home while my Grandmother napped wasn't a particularly difficult feat as I never recall my Grandparents' door ever being locked or even shut.  The door was always open with just the screen door closed.  The lock on the screen door wasn't engaged either.  In fact, I can't even recall if they actually had a front door since there was always someone home!  My Grandmother did not know how to drive and would rarely leave the house.  When my cousins and I heard about what had been happening, we were so outraged at THE CRIME, with a ferocious intensity that only young teenagers can have. 

My Grandparents never used the house's front door that was located in the front of the house and opened to the living room.  They instead used the side door that opened into the kitchen for the main thoroughfare of entrance and exit.  On the boring summer afternoons when my Grandmother would go for her like clockwork daily nap, my cousins and I would hide in the kitchen.  We would position ourselves so that someone approaching the kitchen screen door would not see us.  We'd cover our mouths to keep ourselves from talking or giggling as we would wait in silence.  Eventually like a rat to the trap, the young 20-something neighbor would dart out of her house.  We would watch her very gently climb up the front steps, carefully avoiding the creaky step.  My cousins and I would exchange pissy, outraged glances - how did the neighbor know about the creaky step?  This is one mastermind of a criminal!   

At the precise moment that the ultra-sneaky neighbor would start to reach for the screen door, we'd jump out and start talking loudly.  The neighbor would run back to her house like she was on fire!  No more free long distance calls on our watch!  We were our own vigilante task force!  Only once the neighbor was safely behind the closed door in her home, would we let our laughter and praise of each other's crime blocking skills erupt.  In our early teenage notion of the world, this was justice.  This was our family's ancestral home and we would fight to defend it!  As long as "fight" meant hiding in a kitchen and then scaring off some dumb neighbor woman.    

It was in my Grandmother's house that I was reared on a diet of soap operas - both on television and in the "real world."  Which may or may not be the origin of why my life seems to revolve around DRAMA.  (Odds are on "may" versus "may not" on that particular statement!)  In addition to the daily viewing of "The Young and The Restless" (my Grandmother's favorite "story"), my cousins and I had a real world soap opera to watch as well.

In the mornings, my two female cousins and I would sit in the kitchen and watch through the screen door as our real world soap opera would unfold.  It always began the same way - the young 20-something neighbor's industrious 20-something husband would kiss his wife "goodbye" on the way to his long hours job.  Their three children, usually clothed only in dirty diapers and snot-covered faces, would scream incoherently.  The husband would look at the wife with a guilty face as if to say "I know your job is much harder than the 60 hour weeks I have been putting in at the factory."  The wife would then give a look of exhausted martyred diligence, as if to say "Yes, my job raising YOUR three children is much, much, much harder than your job that brings home a paycheck.  But I am a better person than you and this is what I must do because I am the world's best mother, wife and human being."  Then the husband would leave for work.

This scene went on every single morning.  What the young, hard-working husband did not know is that every day after he left for work, about twenty minutes later his "loving wife" would gleefully welcome with a squeal and a large hug - her boyfriend.  In a split second, she'd go from looking like a harried, beleaguered mother to this "jumping up and down with glee and delight" teenybopper.  She would look 10 years younger just with one look at her adulterous lover.  It was like she jumped into a time machine - before she had three children and a husband.  For a short time, she could forget about her husband and kids and just be a crazy young girl "in love."  Or perhaps it was in lust, because the wife always looked very disheveled at the end of the visits.   

Every now and again, our adulterous barely out of her teens neighbor would catch us watching as she would joyously embrace her lover.  She'd shoot us a look of death before dragging him inside the house.  While we had no problem playing barking pit bulls to keep the neighbor woman from our Grandmother's phone; it was an unspoken agreement between my cousins and I to keep the adulterous neighbor's rotten secret.  We knew in the core of our being that if we spilled the beans, we'd probably end up stabbed and thrown in a ditch to die a slow, sad death.  My young brain reasoned that any woman who had no qualms about entering a sleeping elderly woman's home to scam free long distance was obviously also capable of murder. 

However the "unspoken agreement" not to squeal, did not extend to childhood boasting.  As my cousins and I would watch the adulterous neighbor woman and her incredibly doofus looking boyfriend skip into our house; our commentary (worthy of any Jerry Springer audience member) would begin.  We made snarky comments about how the loser boyfriend did not have a job and that's why he was able to come over during the day.  We would stir up each other's outrage that the poor husband was working so hard thinking his wife was working equally hard.  And then came the tirade about the woman's parenting skills.  The judgments were flying fast and furious!

While the neighbor and her lover were inside the house, the dirty diapered kids were left to fend for themselves in the yard.  My memory is fuzzy but I think the kids were 2, 3 and 4 years of age - all naked except for diapers.  I had done enough babysitting to know that at least one, if not two of the children were way beyond the diaper stage.  

My cousins and I would announce that this situation was so terrible that we were absolutely going to tell the young, industrious husband about his terrible wife's adultery and child neglect!  But even as we would triumphantly proclaim our plans to end this injustice, we knew our words were hollow.  We knew we would never tell the husband.  We had watched enough of "The Young and The Restless" with our Grandmother to know about the age old tradition of "shooting the messenger."  Besides, who would believe three young teenagers out on summer vacation?  It was like our own version of Hitchcock's "Rear Window."  

The three toddlers, with diapers so strained to maximum capacity that they threatened to fall off, would eventually stop screaming.  They seemed to know that once their mother's lover came over, there would be no attention paid to them.  My cousins and I would keep an eye on the kids in the yard from our kitchen vantage point.  We did not want to be unpaid babysitters or be complicit in the neighbor's adultery, but we also didn't want to see one of the kids escape and get run over in the road like a stray dog.  

Usually by mid-afternoon, while my Grandmother was napping; the adulterous neighbor's lover would sneak out.  The neighbor woman would stand in the doorway, clothes crumpled and hair in 800 directions, looking so incredibly forlorn.  It was like her life force was being sucked away with each step the lover took away from her.  The three kids were still in the yard, now even dirtier.  Those toddlers seemed to have accepted that they'd always be in diapers overloaded with feces.  I recall thinking it was sad that at such a young age these kids had already apparently made peace with the knowledge that they could not rely on anyone.  

After standing mutely in the doorway for at least 5-10 minutes watching the vacant space of air where her lover had once been, the neighbor would turn back from giddy teenybopper to frustrated, depressed, harried mother.  The transformation was amazing.  She'd slowly gather her dirty children from the yard, ignoring their chortling.  She acted as if she was on a death march.

Before dinnertime, the neighbor's husband would arrive home from work looking incredibly weary.  The wife would bring out the kids - freshly bathed, clean diapers and bright smiles.  The husband would embrace the children and kiss his wife.  Then usually the wife would ask where dinner was.  The husband would look sheepish and mumble how he thought his stay at home wife would have made dinner.  The wife would then counter than she had worked all day slaving over the children.  My cousins and I would give each other an eye roll at the notion of this woman slaving over anything.   The husband would then launch into how they could not afford to keep buying take out.  The wife would then stomp her feet and pout.  We were mesmerized that the husband would visibly be distressed when his wife would pout.  It was clear that the husband was hopelessly in love with his wife.  My cousins and I believed undeservedly so, unfortunately.  Inevitably after much arguing, the pizza man would arrive and calm would be achieved.

This was the soap opera of life in my Grandmother's neighborhood.  We would watch this entire exchange happen on a daily basis.  Every day the husband would go to work and every day the lover would arrive shortly thereafter.  My cousins and I would fantasize about what would happen if one day the husband came home early from work.  We'd stare at the children in the yard and try to figure out if they looked like their mother's husband.  We'd talk in hush tones that definitely the middle child didn't look like the husband at all.  We were compartmentalizing a sad situation by only evaluating it for entertainment purposes.     

Every now and again, my Grandmother - drinking instant coffee, chain-smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio for the daily cash call - would tell us to stop watching the neighbor.  My Grandmother knew what was going on next door, but she declared it was none of our business how other people lived their lives.  But in small town, southern Minnesota for bored summer vacation barely teenagers; this was the most interesting thing going on.  Which we recognized was truly sad.

As an adult, in retrospect, I may want to spend some time to discuss how this young neighbor was probably so overwhelmed with her life that adultery was her only temporary distraction from a nervous breakdown.  But honestly, I still think the whole scene is as disgusting now as I did when I was a young teenager.  Some morals do not blur with age and experience.  

My childhood was definitely not modeled after a 1960's television show, but it was all I knew.  My Grandmother was a crusty, mean, old, chain-smoking fiend who cursed like a sailor and I loved her so very much.  I remember once telling her as a very young child that I was glad my Grandmother was not one of those sweet stereotypical Grandmas on TV.  I told my Grandmother that she was mean, spunky and feisty and that's why I loved her.  My Grandmother just chuckled.  As the only child of the favorite son who died young as well as being the youngest grandchild, I didn't spend much time censoring my words when I was at Grandma's house.  

Every now and again, my Grandmother would try to quit her chain-smoking ways.  She had a large cookie jar of starlight peppermints strategically placed behind her kitchen chair for whenever the nicotine cravings started.  I'd sneak a peppermint from time to time and secretly wish that my Grandmother would use Reese's peanut butter cups to stop her smoking addiction instead.  Peppermints were just not as fulfilling as a melty chocolatey and peanut buttery morsel.  Long after my Grandmother had passed away, I'd smile whenever I would see a starlight peppermint.  

Perhaps maybe ten years ago, I was spending time with my once favorite Aunt.  When I was a child, my Aunt P. was like my fairy godmother.  She would rescue me from a boring, impoverished existence and for one day I'd be showered with gifts and anything I wanted.  For a child who had to continually go without, my time with my Aunt was magic.  

Unfortunately when you live your life solely focused on making other people happy and do not safeguard to make sure you are your top priority, you tend to get ... well, let's just say it - bitter.  My happy-go-lucky, don't worry about me- it's all about YOU- Aunt had given away so much of herself and made everyone else her top priority that what was left after so many decades of this behavior was an angry, bitter shell.  Here's the cautionary tale, ladies and gentlemen - be selfish when it comes to making sure your needs are met first, because if you're not happy with your life how can you help anyone else?  

I was visiting with my now bitter, bitter, bitter Aunt, when I saw some starlight peppermints at the restaurant where we were having lunch.  I recounted with joy how whenever I see peppermints I think of my Grandmother and her attempts to try and stop smoking.  My Aunt - unfortunately in full bitter mode by this time - snorted at me with ridicule and disgust.  "She wasn't sucking on peppermints to try and stop smoking!  Her dentures never fit right, so she had to suck on peppermints to keep from constantly gagging on her dentures!  That's why she was sucking on them all the time!  Geez!"

It's funny how a couple short sentences can completely deflate one's soul.  With a derisive snort, my Aunt had blasted through one of my favorite memories of my Grandmother.  I felt like we were skeet shooting - I sent out a clay pigeon of my warm, fuzzy memory and my Aunt joyfully grabbed her verbal shotgun and annihilated it.  I seriously would pay a hypnotist to erase this memory from my head.  The "gagging on dentures" information is just too much for my little brain to bear. (* x 10) 

Because of exchanges like the one with my Aunt, I try to focus on the good childhood memories of life with my Grandparents.  The discussion with DEG on the census, started to get my wheels spinning.  I realized I didn't know the names of my Grandmother's parents who had first built my Grandmother's home.  I went on Ancestry.com and started poking around, not sure of what I'd find.

Well, I figure that in the past 3 1/2 days, I have spent at least 18 hours on Ancestry.com tracing my family tree.  I was unaware just how much information there is out there.  Each nugget of info, led to more and more and more.  The first night I sat at my desk from 7 p.m. until 3 a.m., busily researching and building the family tree.  Time flew!  For a nerd like me, it was intoxicating.  I didn't know the names of my great grandparents when I started and now I can trace my family tree back to the 1700's!!  Other members of my long, long, long extended family have uploaded pictures of distant relatives to Ancestry.com as well.   Words cannot describe the feeling while looking at pictures from the 1800's and knowing that no matter how diluted the blood, there is a shared lineage.  I suddenly felt very connected with the world, when I usually am embracing being a loner.

I sent DEG a text cursing him for mentioning the 1940's Census to me.  I now truly understood what he meant when he said it was like going back in time and seeing a portion of my ancestral family's life. There is so much I have learned about my family that I didn't know just a few days ago.  If you are wondering why the Lily On The Lam blog posts have been light (or nonexistent lately), you can blame DEG.  Or better yet, blame Mr. E and his golf cart vs. SUV accident.  I think the opportunity to blame a hospitalized senior citizen with cracks in every rib and a bruised lung is always a smart move. (* x 11)

It may be that I am a tremendous nerd (* x 12), but I have really enjoyed tracing my family history back in time.  I wish I could go further back than the mid 1700's, but that would probably require a trip to the Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Germany to look for paper records.  (By the way, did I mention I am popular in the Ukraine?) [* x 13]  I doubt I will ever be that curious into my lineage to start knocking on doors in Poland, but I am amazed that sitting in my home office I was able to track down and organize 250 years of historical records (all during a 14 day free trial of Ancestry.com too!) without ever leaving my chair.  The internet is an amazing tool. (* x 14)

If you are a closet nerd like me (* x 15), I would recommend you check out some of the many genealogy tools available out there on the internet.  It is amazing what records you can find out there.  Channel your inner detective and check it out!   

Thank you for excusing my foray into nerd-dom and I promise I'll try to write more frequent blog posts in the future.  As always, thank you for reading! (* x 16)  


LilyOnTheLam's first footnotes:
* By the way, if you think my snarky footnotes will be better than Mary Roach's snarky footnotes in the book Stiff; you will be sadly disappointed.
**  The "facts" in LilyOnTheLam.com are usually not accurate.  Consider yourself warned.
*** OK I'm exaggerating here.  The SUV probably wasn't intentionally trying to kill a senior citizen.  Maybe.
**** Normally I would vehemently disagree with such a sweeping generalization statement, but I gotta say The Villages is pretty darn nice if you are into Stepford communities.  I normally would not advocate a Stepford existence, but did I mention it was pretty darn nice?
***** So you can blame DEG's father, Mr. E, if you have been missing new Lily On The Lam blog posts.  Not my fault at all.  100% Mr. E's fault.
* x 6  If you don't know who the youngest, most beautiful and most snarky grandchild is - well, I just can't help you.
* x 7  I'm still young!
* x 8  Yes, that is the technical term.
* x 9  I'm actually 23 years old.  I just like to make myself sound older.  And if you believe that, I have some gator-infested swampland to sell you for use as a children's playground.
* x 10 Yep and now I have introduced to the entire world that my Grandmother would gag on her dentures on a daily basis.  Sorry Grandma!  But if my Aunt has to burst my bubble, I am going to preemptively burst all your bubbles too!  Yikes, maybe I am becoming my bitter Aunt.  Definitely one of my "wake up in the middle of the night screaming" fears!
* x 11 But of course, I am cruel and selfish.  Oh Lord, I am becoming my Aunt!
* x 12 Sad but true.
* x 13 I will NEVER stop saying I am popular in the Ukraine, so get used to it!
* x 14  It's not just for PORN!
* x 15 OK maybe I'm not a closet nerd, just a nerd - out in the open.  I'm here, I'm a nerd, I'm proud, I don't know how to write effective rally chants ... get used to it!
* x 16  Lily On The Lam - guaranteed to make you NOT gag on your dentures!  (* x 17)
* x 17 Um, OK, when I say "guarantee" I don't really mean it.

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Why I Am A Sucker For Reverse Psychology (a.k.a. Don't Piss Off a British Chick or a Voodoo Priestess)

Update:  I wrote this post in the wee hours of late Sunday night/early Monday morning.  However you want to define it.  LilyOnTheLam.com was originally conceived as a food and travel blog, so most of the posts have at least a few pictures.  And usually those pictures are of food or wayward orang utan or panda (see my Orang Utan post and Panda post).  However when I go spinning off on a tangent about my ridiculous drama-filled whack-a-doo childhood or "fell for the wrong guy AGAIN" dating horror stories there usually is not a picture accompaniment.  (And seriously folks, if I did have pictures that were suitable complements to these types of stories I doubt I'd be posting them.  The lady has to have some shame and discretion!  I think I left some of that somewhere around here!)  


But I do feel bad that these types of posts do not get a colorful thumbnail picture announcing the "theme" of the blog post.  And let's be frank, I can only post just so many pictures of cats on my blog.  (That maximum number by the way is 9 billion and 2 cat pictures ... I think I'm at 9 billion and 1 so far, so at least I'm not over my limit.)  The following post is about my wayward youth in Los Angeles and how my libido helped me lose a childhood friend.  Now what picture would be a suitable illustration for that kind of blog post?  Hmmm ... thinking, thinking, thinking on a Monday morning makes my head hurt!


OH!  I KNOW!  What kind of picture best illustrates a blog post about how my libido helped put the death knell on a friendship?  A picture of JESUS, of course!  

Or more accurately a picture of a Jesus notebook.  I do fancy myself a writer after all.  What could be more holy than writing in a Jesus notebook?  

Especially a notebook that says "Looking Good for Jesus - Be Worthy, Be Noticed."  Ohhh I already feel the Holy Spirit moving me ... moving me to be noticed!  (And as if I could look any better than the ravishing, internationally known diva I am!)

This gorgeous Jesus Christ notebook was purchased at Pearl River Mart in NYC (one of my FAVE stores).  So if you want to look good for Jesus, get yourself over to Pearl River.  But finishing reading this blog post first, get your priorities straight!  Puh-lease!


Now currently my Jesus Notebook is blank.  However I do plan to fill it with all sorts of plans and "deep thoughts" about my goal to become a Cult Leader.  (Yes, you heard it here first!  OK actually the little voices in my head telling me to "Kill-Kill..." ... ahem, er ... "LOOK FABULOUS!" were the first to hear this news.)  Some people are unaware that Clearwater, Florida is the East Coast home of Scientology.  Well I plan on making Tampa, Florida, the global headquarters for LIL-OLOGY (Trademark pending, all rights reserved).  A legion of followers in Sanrio Hello Kitty t-shirts and afro puff hairstyles.  (I don't care that you don't have an afro!  I don't have one either!  We'll glue them on if we have to!) ... oh I can see it now ...  the beauty, the beauty!


Oh hello there ... sorry ... was lost in thought ... what?  You are tired of hearing about my plans to be a cult leader?  OK OK ... on to my blog post entitled "Why I Am A Sucker for Reverse Psychology (a.k.a. Don't Piss Off A British Chick or a Voodoo Priestess.)  Enjoy! 


Every now and again, my past jabs at me like a ghostly hand in the dark.  Sometimes that hand is a delicate caress, other times it's a straight-on choke hold.  As I am a believer in "everything happens for a reason" (evidenced in my Ukrainian blog post), I may not understand why the past chooses to pop up when it does.  However I have learned the hard way, that I must stop and listen to it.    

Sunday night, I received some news about a former childhood friend who I haven't talked with since the year 2000.  Let's call him "Mr. Joan Collins."  (Yes, he's a man.  But a gay man and trust me, Joan Collins is both a childhood reference that he would appreciate and understand.)  Growing up, Mr. Joan Collins and I were terrifyingly close.  We both arose from impoverished childhoods ... we were considered low-income trash but we thought we could rise above it by acting haughty and draping ourselves with what we thought was "fabulousness."  I find that the more people you can co-opt into buying the charade that you are fabulous, the stronger the defense mechanism shield becomes.  Mr. Joan Collins and I bonded over our shared love of writing, soap operas and a dream that one day we'd get out of Minnesota.  We spent our days oppressed by schoolyard bullies and our nights writing spec scripts for nonexistent soap operas.  


I still remember the name of one of my soap opera heroines ... "Carolina Salinger."  If I had a dog, his/her name would be Carolina Salinger.  Unfortunately, I have cats and they are too biatchy to have soap star names!  My cat Finnerty is named after actress Kathy Najimy's husband, Dan Finnerty of "The Dan Band."  That damn cat has not sang "I Am Woman" even once to me - and I rescued him from a shelter!  Perhaps, this is why Finnerty has his own section of posts on my blog under the category "Why My Cat is an A**hole."  (For those of you who have NO IDEA what I am talking about, check out Dan Finnerty on this YouTube video.)   


Mr. Joan Collins and I inspired each other to write in ways that only hopeless dreamers can.  I distinctly remember one time I set out to write the dirtiest novella known to man or woman.  Which is quite a feat when you are thirteen years old and have no torrid love affair experience to draw upon.  But Mr. Joan Collins didn't mock me.  He grabbed his pom poms and cheered me on.  If I wanted to write the dirtiest book EVER ... he was going to support my endeavor, with no questions or doubt!  God bless you, Mr. Joan Collins.


Instead of hitting the street to whore it up for some real life "artistic" experience, I chose a different route for reference material.  The dictionary.  Yep.  Big old red Webster's.  I still remember writing the now classic line "and he licked her vulva with delight."  Um yeah ... dirty?  Not really.  Sexy?  Hell no.  Hysterical for me to think a dictionary could sub for human experience?  Absolutely.  


Like any Lifetime TV movie, circumstances occurred that caused this lovely childhood friendship to fall to jagged pieces like a crystal vase slipping from a drunk woman's hands.  Like any soap opera worth its salt, all good things must come to an awkward, drama-filled, clown car insane end.  

Now like in most relationships, the demise of our childhood friendship cannot be boiled down into black and white, one person at sole fault terms.  There was wrong-doing on both parts and then of course, the bitchiness that comes from two very intelligent but socially and emotionally stunted youths.  The friendship ended a very long time ago, so it intrigued me that news of Mr. Joan Collins would appear at my doorstep now.  Perhaps the universe is telling me to work harder at maintaining healthy relationships with close friends who are currently in my life.  Or perhaps the universe just wanted me to get off my arse and write a new blog post ...

Who's to say?

For now, I am going to go with the latter - blog post topic fodder ... as thinking about Mr. Joan Collins makes me think of my part in the dissolution of our friendship and of course the DRAMA that came with it.

But in my defense, I am just going to say this ...

"If you tell me not to f**k your friend, reverse psychology is going to make me want to f**k your friend. You brought it upon yourself, Mr. Joan Collins!"

OK ... that's not all I am going to say, but wasn't that a tantalizing lead in?  

By the way, my friend's mother-in-law reads my blog posts ... LS, you may want to skip this one.  Oh wait - that could be reverse psychology teasing ... sigh ... OK read this one, don't read this one ... just don't look at me weird afterward.  (Bwahahhaha - as if my previous 100+ posts haven't scared you and scarred you already!)

If you're a regular reader of Lily On The Lam, you'll know that I had spent a few years as a wayward youth in Los Angeles.  (Read about it in my "A Space in My Heart for (Kevin) Spacey and Charo - Part One" blog post.)  However I neglected to write about why I chose to hitch my star to the lady "El-lay."  I had finished graduate school and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I was pretty sure I was not going to become an internationally famous rock star, so how was I going to parlay my midwestern roots into big city dreams?

Mr. Joan Collins and his best friend Jazz Boy (read about "Jazz Boy" in my prior blog post) had decided they were going to move to Los Angeles and become writers.  My dreams of writing for my career had died somewhere between English lit classes in undergrad, but I still thought moving to Los Angeles for a year or two could be a fun adventure.  And after all, I was looking to postpone "adulthood" for awhile.  What better place than Los Angeles?  

We knew the Truman Capote quote "It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year" and we quickly discovered it was more like ten IQ points per year.  The sun and the smog made us giddy and stupid, but we were young and living in Los Angeles.

Dragging my sister Squidge along to Los Angeles for a week, I was off to meet Mr. Joan Collins and Jazz Boy.  We were going to go apartment hunting.  Mr. Joan Collins had a bigger budget than Jazz Boy and I, due to the proceeds of an insurance settlement.  The three of us had decided we needed our own individual apartments.  It made sense at the time.  However by the time Squidge and I arrived, Mr. Joan Collins and Jazz Boy had already found apartments in Hollywood.  Not wanting to disrupt the flow, I concentrated my apartment search only on Hollywood.  Looking back, I would have done better in Venice Beach.  But then I'd have a million less partying stories ...

I knocked on the West Hollywood hotel room that Mr. Joan Collins and Jazz Boy were sharing.  Mr. Joan Collins was gay.  Jazz Boy was straight.  The door opened and I was staring at the epitome of "my type."

Side Note:  As a churlish youth, there were two types of men I was attracted to - and my relationships in my 20's and into my 30's were solely one of the two types.  There was the tall (6'1" - 6'4"), olive-skinned, dark-haired, lanky, lean muscular man type.  An homage to the first boy who kickstarted me into puberty with one brooding look back in the summer after 6th grade.  This gentleman is now a not so lanky, but still lovely attorney in Minnesota.  He knows he's the archetype for 1/2 of over a decade's worth of relationships and is quite flattered by it.  

The second physical type was short, angry, artistic blond with goatee.  Now I say "short" but what I really mean is 5'7" - 5'11" and no, that's not short, I know.  But it's shorter than the other type.  Don't send me hate mail, Napoleons!  Anyway this second type was an homage to a certain drug-addled hipster in college who I spent way too much time and energy on, but who also helped me straighten out some of my emotional sh*t.  He has no clue he is the second archetype of my 20's love life; if he did he'd have a huge ego rush.  (Insert eye roll here!)  

Back to our LA Story ... it was morning, the West Hollywood hotel room door opened and there was the epitome of "my type" - a 5'10"-ish (memory's fuzzy), angry, artistic blond with goatee.  My jaw dropped to the ground.  Mr. Joan Collins had been telling me about his best friend Jazz Boy ... I hadn't realized that Jazz Boy was straight and deliciously brooding.  We stared at each other with this mutual sexual interest.  I'd like to metaphor that up a bit, but seriously that's what it was.  It wasn't love at first sight.  It was a kin to lust at first sight ... but more accurately, it was just this mutual knowledge without any words that at some time, in some place, somewhere - Jazz Boy and I were going to be getting naked.  It was a certainty.

Mr. Joan Collins popped out of the bathroom and introduced me to Jazz Boy.  We basically grunted at each other uncomfortably.  Jazz Boy went to take a shower.  As soon as the bathroom door closed, Mr. Joan Collins wagged a finger in my face and said "I told Jazz Boy this before you arrived and I'm telling you now - you and Jazz Boy are NOT allowed to hook up!"

Whaaaaat?  Didn't Mr. Joan Collins know that he might as well have just thrown rose petals on the bed, ordered up a jumbo bottle of tequila and a box of condoms?  Telling two wayward youths that they're not allowed to get it on was just throwing jet fuel on the fire pit.  

Now I may have honored Mr. Joan Collins' finger-wagging if he had told me BEFORE I met Jazz Boy.  If he had said it before Jazz Boy and I exchanged "The Look."  (The "We're so getting sweaty, naked and things are going to be bruised and sore in the morning" look.)  Seriously, a girl can't be expected to crank the libido back down after "The Look" has occurred.

Hindsight is definitely 20-20 in this story.  What I did not know was that Mr. Joan Collins had had a raging gay man crush on straight man Jazz Boy for years, so by hooking up with Jazz Boy I was doing something that Mr. Joan Collins had yearned to do but knew he could never do.  Had I understood that this was the reason behind the ardent finger-wagging, I may have taken pause because hurting Mr. Joan Collins was never my intention.  We had grown up together.  He was like my little brother.  But I was young, stupid and very attracted to Jazz Boy.  I wasn't thinking about Mr. Joan Collins and his feelings.  I was only thinking with my anatomy.

About a week and a half after I moved to Los Angeles, Jazz Boy and I fulfilled the fervent promise of "The Look."  It was good in the physicality of it, but there was no emotional component.  Jazz Boy had his own raging crush on someone from his college years.  But sadly for Mr. Joan Collins, Jazz Boy's crush was on one of their female classmates.  Jazz Boy had told me that Mr. Joan Collins had also adamantly proclaimed that Jazz Boy was not allowed to hook up with me.  I asked Jazz Boy if he knew why - he hemmed and hawed but finally strung together that maybe it was because Mr. Joan Collins thought of him as a surrogate boyfriend.  Uh oh.  I now understood.  But it was too late.  I had already plucked the proverbial fruit ... and then I had done dirty, dirty things with it.  (OK maybe not so dirty, but hey it makes the story juicier!)

When I was in college, one of my dorm mates had a New Yorker cartoon on her wall.  It was entitled something like "What Love Is."  It was a picture of a circle of people each chasing after the person in front of them saying "I Love You!"  That cartoon has burned into my brain as I have seen it being relived many times over the years.  Mr. Joan Collins had a mad, raging crush on Jazz Boy.  And Jazz Boy had an equally passionate crush on someone else.  So much passion and energy but all a waste on people who didn't love them back.  And even worse for me- no one was chasing me shouting "I love you" in this scenario!  Jazz Boy and I indulged our physicality a few times over the course of 6 weeks and then it fizzled out as I went to find someone who cared for me and Jazz Boy continued to stoke the fires of his four year and counting unrequited college classmate crush.  From the start, we had agreed not to tell Mr. Joan Collins.  We rationalized that it was none of his business.  But inside we knew that he would be hurt if he knew.

Almost a year and a half later, the brief physical interlude with Jazz Boy was a distant, faded memory.  I chalked up the events to being a mixture of Cosmopolitan cocktail-fueled loneliness, wanting to have a boyfriend in a new city and also just plain old "gotta have you" chemistry.  But whatever the reasons for the start, it was long dead over.  After Jazz Boy, I had spent almost a year chasing, dating and obsessing over a Romanian god - 6'3", olive skin, muscles for days, chiseled jaw ... he still remains one of the hottest men I have ever dated.  (Also one of the most immature men too-- but that's not as enviable!)  

One night, the British Nanny "EL" (read more about her in my prior blog post here) was for some drunken reason pissed at me.  She was a party girl, so perhaps she mixed alcohol and drugs and came out angry and paranoid.  For whatever reason, she ran into Mr. Joan Collins at a club and decided to exact some revenge on me.  She told him that Jazz Boy and I had been having a "secret affair" for a year and a half and that we were purposely keeping Mr. Joan Collins in the dark about it because we knew he wouldn't be able to handle it.

Secret affair?  One and a half years long?  Oh EL, when you want to screw someone, you really know how to do it.  Mr. Joan Collins - still madly in love with Jazz Boy - asked Jazz Boy about it.  Jazz Boy claimed total ignorance.  "No ... oh no ... nothing had EVER happened between us," he swore up and down to Mr. Joan Collins.  Now since Mr. Joan Collins was hopelessly in love, he lapped up Jazz Boy's lies like they were gospel.  However after two weeks or so, the little voice of doubt was knocking louder and louder.

Side Note:  Do you think maybe perhaps Jazz Boy could have called me and told me about this exchange?  If you're going to lie, maybe fill me in on the lie too?  Ohhhh but noooo .... Not only was my type "short, angry, artistic blonds with goatees" but also cowards with wavering definitions of honesty and no respect for giving a girl a heads up!  I was woefully in the dark about EL's amplified sabotage and Jazz Boy's adamant denial.

After two weeks of doubt knocking at his skull, Mr. Joan Collins decided to check out my side of the story.  He told me what EL had said - secret affair, 1 1/2 years long, keeping Mr. JC in the dark ... I was horrified.  I freaked out and said "NOOOO!  No!  That didn't happen!"  Which Mr. Joan Collins was happy and reassured to hear since it was in line with what Jazz Boy had said.  Oh but if I had only stopped talking then.  Sigh.

"It was only a couple times - just sex and it was a year and a half ago.  No secret affair!  We weren't dating - it was sooo long ago!  There was nothing to tell you.  It just happened over the course of like 6 weeks and then fizzled out."  OK now THAT, Mr. Joan Collins was NOT happy to hear about.  Why, oh why, did I have to confess all?  

Mr. Joan Collins told me that Jazz Boy had denied everything when confronted two weeks ago.  I was left fish-mouthed mute.  Ugh.  Two weeks ago?  F*cker!  Coward!  Why didn't Jazz Boy tell me??? At heart, I am an honest person - but British Nanny EL was such a head case that I would have been willing to adopt Jazz Boy's lie and just claim she was a drunken idiot.  But since Jazz Boy didn't give me a heads up, the truth tumbled out of me with a wave of hot shame and sheepishness.  Mr. Joan Collins ended his questioning.  He didn't want to hear more details about how I had sexually sullied his unrequited crush.

My friendship with Mr. Joan Collins didn't end with one event, but a slow unraveling over the course of two years.  However, this was definitely one of the larger straws that eventually led to the camel's back of our friendship breaking in Mr. Joan Collins' eyes.  At the end of our friendship, Mr. Joan Collins told me I was a "bad person." 

Side Note:  Did I happen to mention that Mr. JC had decided that Jazz Boy was telling the truth and that I was lying about sleeping with him?  Evidently Mr. Joan Collins chose denial to keep his friendship and lust/unrequited crush going for Jazz Boy versus face the truth that I, his childhood friend, had complete carnal knowledge of his crush.  And I guess denial works, because they are still friends to this day and Mr. Joan Collins and I are not friends.  I'm sorry Mr. JC, I did have sex with your friend.  Several times.  You're gay.  He's straight.  He's never going to love you in a physical way.  I'm sorry I hurt you.  But in your heart of hearts, do you really truly believe I lied about sleeping with him?  Wake up!      

Anyway, back to the final straw ... Mr. JC said that I was a bad person, but if I was willing to work on myself and change many, many things about myself (his emphasis and repetition on "many"), he would remain my friend.  He said it in a tone like a family member pulling tough love to get you to go to rehab.  

I said "Um... no, that's OK."  

Mr. Joan Collins looked at me startled.  "What?"  He asked incredulously, certain his ears had failed him.  

"No, that's OK.  If I am a bad person, then there's no reason for you to be friends with me."  I said flatly, devoid of any emotion or sarcasm.  

Mr. Joan Collins stammered "No, no - I'll still be friends with you - if you change yourself ... A LOT."  

"No ... thank you for that offer," I said to him.  "But really, what's the point?  If I am such a bad person, you shouldn't want to be friends with me."  

Evidently Mr. Joan Collins hadn't expected that I would walk away from the friendship.  But here's the deal - you've known me my entire childhood.  You've known your crush for less than 4 years.  But I'm the bad person and the liar?  And I should change A LOT ... change many, many things - to have the honor of your friendship?  Nah.  I'll just stay as a bad person then.  (By the way, a similar theme played out over a decade later with a former friend I refer to by the name "Fake" in my Midnight Radio blog post.  Ugh, what a horrific repetition!)

I had hoped Mr. Joan Collins would one day come to his senses and realize that several of the reasons he was upset with me had roots in his low self-esteem and unrequited crush on Jazz Boy (and also on a crush he had on a gay friend of mine - story for another time).  But that day never came.  

So Sunday night - a dozen years later- when I heard what Mr. Joan Collins was up to career-wise, it reminded me of that final friendship severing conversation ... if I had known then what I know now, I would never have had sex with Jazz Boy.  It wasn't worth hurting Mr. Joan Collins.  But I would NOT have changed my reaction to Mr. Joan Collins' offer to still be my friend if I made a lot of changes to myself.  That, I do not regret at all and would not change.

However, I will say overall it still makes me sad to think about the way it all went down.  

When I was younger, I was worried that Mr. Joan Collins would end up as a crazed meth head given the crowd he was running around with in Los Angeles.  I am glad to know now that he's still out there, alive and trying in his spare time to write.  

My stepfather was recently in Savannah, Georgia.  So one night while my mother and step-father were visiting me in Florida, we watched the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which is set in Savannah.  My stepfather had never seen the movie.  It had been years since I had seen it.  (In fact, I met actor Kevin Spacey who stars in the movie the same year it was released.  Click here for more info.)  In the movie, Kevin Spacey's character shoots Jude Law's character.  Minerva - a voodoo priestess (played by the wonderful Irma P. Hall) tells Kevin Spacey's character to beg for forgiveness from Jude Law's character's spirit every day.  His spirit is unhappy and continues to try to get to Kevin Spacey's character from beyond the grave.  Kevin Spacey's character mocks this - he will NOT ask the slain ghost for forgiveness!  I won't ruin the end of the movie for you, in case you have not seen it (or read the book).  But I will say that perhaps Kevin Spacey should have asked for forgiveness at least once.

I feel like the ghosts of my past are rising up before me.  I could mock them and stay stubborn and resolute.  But I was a younger, less mature kid when I lived in Los Angeles.  So I will look at the ghost of my LA past in the eye and I will say "I'm sorry Mr. Joan Collins, that I slept with your unrequited crush.  Had I known how much he meant to you, I would have walked away.  I hope you are happy and content in your life."  

Life is short.  I subscribe to "The Daily Love" on Twitter (@TheDailyLove).  On Sunday, "The Daily Love" tweeted: "Forgive yourself, forgive everyone else. Hate and anger are the weights that hold you down. Let them go."  (You can also find the Daily Love at: http://www.thedailylove.com/)  In the spirit of "The Daily Love," I apologize for my part in the demise of my friendship to Mr. Joan Collins, but I also forgive myself for it too.  I was a young, dumb kid with no intention of hurting a friend.  

I wonder if Mr. Joan Collins regrets his actions that ended our friendship?  I'd like to think he does, on some level.  But if he doesn't, well then that would just re-affirm that ending it was the right decision.    

I hope the ghosts of my past can accept this offering and move along to the next spirit plane.  Otherwise I am going to have to find a voodoo priestess to help me out ...