It’s the birth anniversary of Frida Kahlo…patron saint of this website, so I had my high school portrait photoshopped in her honor. She wasn’t classically beautiful — after all, how many fashion magazines celebrate the unibrow and faint mustache? — and yet she was riveting because of her talent and her deep personailty. To me, she’s every woman who might decide to be an ugly duckling, who creates despite or because of her suffering, who has the capacity for big love even if it’s not predictable or traditional. Recently I was flagellating myself in retrospect because all the men I’ve been involved with were just plain wrong for me. And yet, and yet …. sometimes there’s a soul  mate you can’t live with in the usual two-car garage, PTA way, but who you will never forget and never regret. Why try to discount it or write it off as “dysfunctional?” Why not accept that he or she birthed a part of you that otherwise would have died or lain dormant? That’s what Frida means to me — the potential realized, the wildness recognized, the life unapologized.

1. Scorpions in my shoes…it could happen.

2. What did I say about the Brazilian wax at the barbecue when I was a little drunk?

3. How can I make more money?

4. Where is that bracelet I lost last year? And my red glasses? I should get up and look for them again.

5. Why did I buy/open/eat the ice cream?

6. My dirt yard is so hillbilly. I need sod right away. How can I make more money?

7. Why isn’t my sleeping pill working? What if my doctor gave me a placebo?

8. What if I have sleep apnea and have to wear a Hannibal Lector  mask?

9. Why don’t I have any grownup clothes? Why do I have a princess bed? What possessed me? My whole life is badly, sadly decorated.

10. Do they give prescriptions for medical marijuana brownies to treat insomnia? I wish I hadn’t eaten all the ice cream.

When I was in spinning class recently, I felt like I was working hard enough to generate enough energy to run a hair dryer or a lamp. Or maybe even recharge the battery on my cell phone. A little whimsy to keep me from whimpering in pain.  And then I  thought how it would be even better if I could send the energy I was generating out to people I know who are in trouble. I visualized neon electrical ribbons flowing out and recharging them with the power to change their lives, to get up every day and go out into a world that is beating them down, to generate more faith in themselves. My energy would simply be overflowing into their lives from afar, but without the onus of rescue, enabling, codependency, guilt or the fireworks that result when I try to intervene or control. When I was spinning that day, I was doing good things for my body, but I was also thinking of the ones I love, willing them to keep pedaling, keep breathing, keep trying, keep safe.

Just a day after I was rejoicing about being lucky to be alive, I was losing my temper, yelling at coworkers and family and sobbing as if my heart had cracked open like a dam all the way home from work. It made me feel like a wild animal suddenly unmasked, and I know it’s because I rarely let myself feel angry and then I blow.  I want to learn how to live with that wild animal — not kill her spirit but not let her kill others’ either.  I hate that I’m not always honest with myself, that I’m afraid of the dark inside, that I’m always wishing someone would kiss a hurt and make it go away–when deep down I know I have to be both the hurt and the healer. Why isn’t real life like a blog? Full of epiphanies and arty insights and latte-thoughts to live by instead of the raw skin and scars that come from rubbing up against our own and others’ humanness.

A crazy driver almost killed me this this morning, but it was only later admiring my beautiful latte that I realized how lucky I’d been to escape with my life. And how it sometimes takes a close call to make me remember that every morning is a new leaf, a new unfolding. Anything could happen. You could have a vision, discover your spirit animal, get a message from your dead mother. The dog could learn to answer the phone. The man in the moon could be on the other end of the line. Does that sound preposterous? How much more preposterous that we rise every morning with hope, love with abandonment, make far-reaching plans, see them fail, plan again, endure with grace, dream, celebrate and play, all with the certain knowledge of our eventual extinction. How brave, beautiful and preposterous humans are.

This past weekend I was out on a friend’s boat in the creeks that run all through the marshes where I live. Porpoises were feeding next to our boat, great blue herons landed on the banks like majestic Concords approaching the runway, and it felt like we were living in Wind in the Willows. No fish were landed except baby sand sharks that got thrown back in to grow up and scare  the pants off people on the beach, but there was wine, a constant breeze and glorious sun blessing every pore and and wavelet and blade of grass. And no oil slicks. Yet. It’s extraordinary that one company has managed to destroy, maybe beyond restoring, a huge part of our coast. (Be sure to go to skirt.com or the print issue of Skirt in July to read “Deepwater Feminism,” a wonderful essay by Stephanie Hunt .) When will women exercise their voting and consumer power to protect Mother Earth instead of fighting each other? Emily’s List or the Susan B. Anthony List — why not one list of ferocious women devoted to healing the planet?

From the little reading I’ve done on Ayurvedic medicine, I’m pretty sure I lean toward the kapha type and right now I need to find my fire. Lately, I sleep way too much, avoid exercise and feel generally flat and uninterested in things happening around me. My mind wants to hide from the world, while I know my body needs vigorous sweaty stretching and exercise. Given my Puritanical upbringing, I’m quick to accuse myself of laziness, but I really think my whole system — emotional and physical — is totally out of balance. I just signed up for a 30 Days of Yoga home practice to try and find my way out of this mental torpor. It requires a commitment I’m loathe to give because I’d rather stay in bed until 15 minutes before I’m due at work, or sleep the weekend away and my problems with it. My 30 days starts on Saturday. I’ve set an intention (to wake up) and a commitment (to show up), two things that are missing in my life right now. I’ll give you a progress report at some point, but what do you do to wake up your sleeping beauty?

There’s a new section on Fridaville called “Creative First Aid.”  You’ll find things that inspire me to turn off tv and turn on imagination, to get off my couch and get creative … plus bits and pieces on keeping a journal, the writing craft, collagery, photography and assorted other arty alchemy. Hope you’ll check it out.

This was part of a Nick Cave exhibit of “Sound Suits” that I attended recently. The suits are out of this world, but it was this body suit that I fell in love with. Don’t we all flower and glitter and shine like this inside? What if we looked like that on the outside, too? A second skin that let our dream and visions materialize like a flower garden we’ve been hiding under Wolford black tights or skinny jeans or yoga pants or doctor’s scrubs. That guy you pass every day and dismiss as a jerk because he doesn’t return your hello. The cold fish who has enlarged diamonds rings on her fingers and a Dwell-worthy  house. The homeless guy under the bridge we avert our eyes from. What if they are blooming, too, and it showed on all of us?

I love the app that lets me take an ordinary photo and give it a vintage twist. At the same time, it makes me feel a bit guilty. Instead of waiting for magic-hour light, I used technology to give it a golden patina. In reality, the peonies are falling apart rather unphotogenically and the pot of brushes has been sitting there unused for way too long. I wish there were an app that could give my life this soft glow. Round off the awkward corners, smooth the rough spots, make it look like a series of scenes from an illuminated manuscript. Instead, my life has its fair share of awkward moments — a cluttered counter instead of this peaceful tableau, clean sheets piled on the table waiting to be folded, a dying basil plant. But in my mind’s eye, I see the romantically swooning peonies, old light slanting through the shutters and just-used paintbrushes instead neglected tools. Am I cheating by settling for wanna-be reality? Taking the easy way out? Or maybe it’s okay to try and turn the unremarkable into the rememorable now and then.