Rising Above Mediocrity

I hear and read a lot about this concept in personal development. It’s not new. You can find pages of quotes on mediocrity on the internet.

Here are just a few…

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. Author: Joseph Heller

We must overcome the notion that we must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. Author: Uta Hagen

A steady salary is an invitation to mediocrity. Author: Anonymous

I love these quotes because on the right day they move us act righteously and take risks, feel more deeply and focus more intently. I hate these quotes because on a bad day, they punish us for relapsing, regressing, questioning our direction, second guessing ourselves, watching television and taking naps.

I read these quotes and think, “Am I what you would call ‘mediocre’?” I don’t feel mediocre. In fact, I think I’m fantastic. But, then again, my salary could be considered mediocre. Add to that, my yoga practice. I only practice twice a week. And it’s probably a sign of mediocrity that I eat microwaved leftovers at my desk over lunch hour. The fact that I even have to clock in at all is a bad sign.

Damn. Maybe Uta Hagen would have called me mediocre.

I recently left a relationship that only permitted me to envision my future within a framework of mediocrity. I recently met someone else who assisted in restoring my sightlines to encompass much grander landscapes.

I always remind myself that there are No Regrets, so when I started to regret the fact that I spent the last three years of my life with someone whose monstrous true self was hidden behind clouds of marijuana smoke, I vowed to my crying eyes in the mirror that I wouldn’t waste anymore of my precious, precious time. Which, naturally, led me to question my relationship to my job. Which, against the advice of a smart friend, I voiced to my employers.

From their point of view, quitting without ever trying to succeed is a mediocre move. (One of them even suggested I look at my pattern of boyfriends and figure out why I can’t commit to something for more than a couple years before I run.) In my opinion, perhaps the weaker move would be to build a career on the foundation of a mild to moderate interest in the industry where I am to leave a mark and take a large commission check.

So, once again my Renaissance Soul is reeling, confused and tripping over itself, juggling the options, the input from outsiders, and my inner voice that has yet to learn to speak audibly.

When I feel bad, I turn to Joni Mitchell, because she makes feeling bad seem poetic and archetypal. Was Joni Mitchell mediocre? It would be a challenge to find someone who would answer in the affirmative. Yet, here’s one of her personal lyrics:

Dora says, “Have children.”
Mama and Betsy say, “Find yourself a charity.
Help the needy and the crippled.
Or put some time into ecology.”

Well, there’s a wide, wide world
Of noble causes
And lovely landscapes
To discover

But all I really want
To do right now is
Find another lover.

Sounds like a half-assed goal to me. But, it only makes me question when all these celebrities and philosophers are railing against a general mediocrity, do they even know what they’re talking about? Calling someone mediocre is like calling someone ugly. First, it’s in the eye of the beholder and second, one ugly person is nothing like the next ugly person. It’s truly a personal thing.

If I had to choose one quotation about mediocrity that makes sense in every way it would be the quote by Roberto Begnini “To express gratitude in moderation is a sure sign of mediocrity”. And that is the yardstick I feel comfortable measuring myself against.

Win the War! Win the War!

If you can't tell where this license plate is from, can you just guess based on the bumper sticker?

It's Texas.

The woman driving was finishing off a hamburger as I passed her on the 10 somewhere between Houston and San Antonio. I wondered for a while about this lady and her bumper sticker.

My main quandry was, which war? The war on drugs? The war on poverty? The war in Iraq? Afghanistan? The Congo? The War of the Worlds? Or does she just want to make it clear that whatever war is raging on any given day, this Texan is rooting for the USA?

I gotcha, lady. Let's not worry about the whys, where, or what ifs - let's just win, win, win!

Here's to not over-simplifying things, dubya style.

My Moments in the French Quarter: Le Coeur de New Orleans

Before I left LA for my somewhat dreaded trip back to Tennesee, I told myself that I wanted our one day in New Orleans to be a day of freedom, free from my daily life in Los Angeles and free from the preoccupation of selling a business in the beat-up economy of Tennessee. Lucky for me, New Orleans would have it no other way.

It was my first time in the city and we were directed by our hosts to visit the French Quarter with the limited amount of time that we had. Anyone who has been there before can attest to the fact that this neighborhood is extremely special, to say the least. After the floods, when I saw displaced residents saying that they would return and rebuild, I thought they were crazy. But, you would hear people saying over and over again that there is no place in the world like New Orleans. After a mere half day there, I understand wholeheartedly their sentiments.

Let the earth open up and swallow Phoenix, Dallas, or Knoxville. The surviving residents can then relocate to St. Louis, Minneapolis or Houston where they will find their Best Buy/Safeway/Ross Dress For Less/McDonald's corners and ease right back into the familiarity of it all.

But, oh, to imagine having lived in the magic of the French Quarter all of one's life. To begin and end the day with cafe au lait and beignets. To walk amid jazz bands and horse drawn carriages on the way to work. To have had your first kiss beneath the crumbling balconies of Royale Street. And then, one day, to be whisked away on a crowded bus and plunked down in Lincoln or Wichita! And try as you may to search out the new loft developments and downtown revitalization projects, you would never, ever find the soul of New Orleans there. And at night you would fall asleep only to dream of its sounds and smells.

I understand now.

If you can, before the world ends, find a fabulous lover and a second story flat in the French Quarter. Stay there for at least a week. Love the food, the music, the thick air, the galleries, and a sidewalk hurricane now and then. Then tell me where else in the US of A you could possibly feel so alive.

And now... A Word of Wisdom From My Dentist

I went to the dentist for the first time in over a year yesterday. Despite brushing my teeth, on average, 1.75 times per day, I had a lot of plaque built up on my gum line. So much so, that the scraping was making my gums bleed quite a bit. Sexy, right?

Anyway, my dentist says, "I don't know if you haven't been in for a cleaning in a while because of the filling (read: large hole in one of my molars due to falling out of a faulty filling that he did the previous year) or what, but you have a lot of plaque on your teeth."

I said, "Actually I haven't had insurance for the past year, so I couldn't afford to go to the dentist". He then offered up this string of rhetorical pearls of wisdom, "So what? Is there insurance for food? NO. Do you still buy food?"

Uh, yeah.

I would have responded if he hadn't subsequently huffed out of the room. Plus, I was numbed, drooling, and bleeding. Anyway, I don't understand this logic. Based solely on the number of days that a human being can survive without food vs. without dental care, his argument is ineffective. But, he was probably just upset because he missed me while I was gone. And the 500 dollars that I chose to spend on daily nourishment.

Here's to the eventuality of free health care for all.

Jasmine is back!

If I could, I would build a winter home out of trelliced jasmine vines. I would fall asleep to the scent of night-blooming jasmine and wake to the fragrance of the Confederate variety. One of the saddest things I had to leave behind when we moved to Tennessee was the star jasmine vine I had spent the last year training and pruning, especially because I knew it was just about to bloom and I would miss all the pleasure that the flowers would bring.

But, today on my bike ride into work, I discovered a patch of road on Civic Center Drive in Beverly Hills, where for a brief second, the stellar scent of the flower almost knocks you out. I gasped a reflexive, "Oh my God!'" as I passed through it. So, it's time again for jasmine all over LA to bless us with its presence. The fragrance travels a significant distance, so even if you can't immediately spot the vines, you know they're there, maybe on the other side of a fence or around the corner.

And, alas, I am leaving for Tennessee again for two weeks starting tomorrow. Lucky for me, it has a long growing season. Get yourself one too! They are very drought resistant, grow well in containers and will climb anything. And they will fill your days with aromatherapeutic pleasure!

Here's to taking advantage of the splendid year-round gardening opportunities California has to offer!

Merry Christmas!

This fabulous piece of edible art is a Crescent Roll Christmas Tree. I took it to a potluck on Monday and I'd say it was a hit. I'll be making it as a holiday tradition from here on out. Someone remarked that it was "White Trash", but I think it's more "Midwest Christmas" than anything.

This was a really cool art piece at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where we saw the 2008 LA Holiday Celebration. It's a three-dimensional representation of Bunker Hill, an area in Downtown Los Angeles. Before it was taken over by lofts and high rises.

Christmas Greetings from LA, the Contra-Christmas Locale

It’s Christmas Eve in LA, which makes this my 6th holiday season in a city where I have no family, have never lived in a home longer than 15 months, and haven’t purchased a Christmas tree, real or fake. Last year, we decorated a large tumbleweed we found in the Sequoia National Forest. We nailed it above our hearth (a blocked in, useless fireplace, of course). It was very minimalist and I was very fond of it. The year before was a ficus tree that I had moved from home to home with me since I got here. Ficus trees don’t support ornaments very well and I had to wrap the ugly, black plastic pot in red velvet to make it a little more presentable in its new role as a holiday centerpiece.

This year, our Christmas focal point is a lopsided, creaking fiber-optic tree rescued from the curb by my roommate. Its wiry branches are bent every which way and it’s, well, you know what fiber optic looks like. It’s not what you’d call modern, or traditional, or classy. But, somehow it’s appropriate for a Los Angeles Christmas. It fits in nicely with our dinner plans for Christmas Day – find an Indian restaurant that’s open and accepts buy one, get one free coupons from the Entertainment Guide.

It may be the weather. It could be all the Jews. It may be the hordes of displaced wanderers that inhabit this town. Or it may be that most people I know, including myself, feel the lightness of their pocketbooks more acutely this time of year. All those things combined make LA the perfect place to spend a non-traditional Christmas and be at peace with it.

If I were in Wisconsin right now and it was minus zero with wind chill, snowing outside and every place of business was closed in honor of the holiday, the fact that I was sitting in my living room without a proper tree, no presents, and no fudge would probably depress me deeply. You’d find me in a down coat at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, curiously eyeing the others eating around me and wondering how and when my fate had taken such a dismal turn.

But, here in Los Angeles, a city that caters to singles, transplants, and heathens alike, we can go to Mondo Xmas at the Silent Movie Theatre – a sort of sick and twisted film festival for the holidays. Or to Santa’s Satanic Swingers Lounge at a Flintstone themed bar for Christmas drink specials. Or, barring rain, we can just go to the beach, wander around and say “Can you believe it’s Christmas Day and we’re at the beach?” Cold weather transplants like to giddily say that kind of stuff all winter long. (“Can you believe it’s January and we’re rollerblading in shorts?!?")

For us, this year, Christmas Eve is a free 6-hour Christmas program at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, followed by a Christmas Eve service at church. Besides the Indian food on Christmas Day, we may go see the heavily advertised Curious Case of Benjamin Button and take Penny to the dog park. On Saturday, we’re going to Pershing Square for a classical guitar concert at the outdoor ice skating rink, followed by skating until our ankles give out. So, we’re mixing in the traditional in small doses. The photo above is us at a friend’s party. They’re Jewish and look at that beautiful tree! Just another example of Angelenos bucking tradition.

Here's to a joyous day for all, no matter what you have planned!