THE ONLY RESPONSE TO HATRED IS LOVE

Buddhists believe strongly that people must immerse themselves in feeling others' pain in order to gain the compassion that heals the world. When your heart is full of love for your fellow man, you can reach out and actually change people's lives.

One day when my son Jack was eight-years old and in third grade, he came home from school with a notice from the principal that a ten-year-old boy in our school, a fifth grader, had accidentally died overnight from a high fever. We had never met this boy or his family, but I felt the mother's pain so deeply it shattered me. I could not stop crying. My own son had been home in bed all week suffering from a similar fever. I searched for the family name in the school directory to see if they had any other children. They had one other son in ninth grade at our local high school.

I prayed so deeply for this mother I lost all sense of time — pouring compassion out to her, holding her in my heart with love that passes all understanding. Maybe that's what prayer is — the invisible transfer of love to another. And then my tears stopped. It was exactly four o'clock in the afternoon.
I felt a sudden, urgent need to get in my car and find this woman. All I knew was that she lived in a large apartment building on Rexford Drive, a few blocks away. The car literally seemed to drive itself down the street. At the end of the block, I saw an unusually tall Asian woman in a bathrobe pacing the sidewalk, looking shell-shocked. I veered into a driveway and stopped the car. She looked at me with a depth of sadness I will never forget. “Are you Benjamin's mother?” I asked as I stepped out of the car. At that moment something surreal happened. The woman began running toward me, and I began running toward her. She rushed into my arms and we just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, holding each other. She was sobbing. Finally she looked at me and asked, “Did God send you?”

The woman was Korean-American, and explained in broken English that she had just come outside to search for her husband, who had disappeared in grief earlier that day. She asked if I would come inside and have some tea. She asked me if I would look at some pictures of her son.
We went inside and she showed me her son's “room,” which was just a corner of the living room that he shared with his older brother. Though this was Beverly Hills, they lived modestly in a one-bedroom apartment. She showed me Benjamin's report card, schoolwork, baseball trophies, and his collection of “Yugioh” cards — which were just like my son's. She poured tea and told me all the wonderful things about Benjamin.

I silently asked the universe to give me the right words to say, and out of my mouth came some memories formed into words I cannot not take credit for. I told her about my precious brother Paul and how he had come to me in a vision a few days after his death. I'll never forget this because I was driving my car and literally had to pull over and stop. On the radio they were playing the song from the Disney movie “Pocahontas” when the lyrics about the Sycamore tree came on: “Who knows how high the Sycamore grows, if you cut it down you'll never know.” This struck me because we had Paul's memorial service beneath a giant Sycamore tree in Franklin Canyon. Overcome by grief, my head collapsed onto the steering wheel. Now I have never experienced anything like this in my life, and it may sound completely loony — but suddenly, out of nowhere, a surge of warmth and light filled my body and I bolted upright in my seat. I saw my brother's face smiling at me, beaming at me, so broadly I had never seen him like this before. It was an inner vision, but it was as if he was right there talking to me. He told me not to cry, that he'd “see me later,” and that “there is no death.” Then, he said “I love you Lydia.” This was on the third day after I had found his body after the drug overdose. I felt at peace about him from that point on.

I kept a picture of my brother Paul by my bedside, with a candle burning next to it. One morning three days after his death, my one and a half-year-old toddler Jack woke up, giggled, pointed to the picture and exclaimed, “Paul happy!” This gives me chills even now when I remember it. To this day I can't even believe he could speak this well or even say these words - or even remember who Paul was! He had only met him a few times and most the time Paul was wearing sunglasses!

On the day we scattered his ashes at sea, before we left for the boat, three white doves alighted on our lawn, and these were not doves for hire. What is it with the number three?

As I sat with this woman, I told her that her son Benjamin was a blessing and a gift she got to keep for ten years — and now God needed him back home for bigger things. I told her “our children are on loan to us.” I have no idea where I got this, as I had never even thought about it that way before.
As she walked me out she said she felt a wave of peace come over her. “I was so sad before you came. Do you believe in angels? ” It dawned on me that we can all be 'angels' and comforters for each other when we open up and begin to really care about others. It's amazing how love uses us when we make ourselves available.

Our entire school attended Benjamin's funeral. During the eulogy, the minister read a letter written by this mother, which said: “Benjamin was a gift to us for ten years, and now God needs him back home.”
Maybe God is only to be explained through acts of human kindness, benevolence and comedy. Maybe that's all we need to know. There are so many times I've received a nudge to extend myself to help someone, but out of laziness or fear, I've ignored the call. Often I didn't feel equipped to help others because I was such a mess myself - and I wasn't able to get out of my self-centered fear.
But in the twelve steps there's a saying, “The answers will come when your own house is in order.”

***
One day I was working on a Pirates of the Caribbean puzzle with my son. At the very same time I was succeeding at putting the puzzle pieces together, my life was somehow quietly, behind my back, slipping into place, into a sort of divine alignment. How did it happen? This journey has swept me into Hollywood and brought me to my knees. It also uncovered immense spiritual resources I never knew I had. Sometimes I think life is a tapestry and we are underneath with the long yarn, holding on for dear life, holding onto the threads and fibers unraveling, winding, knotting chaotically — but all the time being woven into something orderly and magnificent from the other angle, from above — if we would just let go and not hold the strings so tight. We just can't see the beauty of the tapestry from the other side, from God’s viewpoint.

Why do people talk so much about whether or not God exists, when God is simply love? Who can argue with love — or kindness, unselfishness, compassion, sharing, forgiveness? Asking someone to prove God's existence is like asking him to prove he loves his kids. How do you prove love exists except by watching it in action? Religion often gets in the way of God's simple purpose: to love one another. I have the profound sense that we can touch God everyday when we are loving to others, especially those who offend us and disturb us, and especially those less fortunate. Have you seen someone's face light up with just one kind word?

“Compassion for others is impossible when we are filled with a belief that we are separate and distinct from other human beings,” says Wayne Dyer. "The only response to hatred is love."

 Love really does heal everything. But 'faith without works is dead,” and we are all called to get out of ourselves and help each other, like the Good Samaritan. We must be peacemakers and take care of the poor, the meek, and the outcasts, the widows and orphans.

Einstein said it beautifully here:

A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

###

THE ONLY ANSWER TO HATRED IS LOVE ~ HEALING MIRACLES

This video changed my life.

 Please take 4 minutes to watch this and read the ideas below.  It is from CBS NEWS

This is not what you think Please watch this. It's under 5 minutes. Please watch the video before reading any further.

This is how the law of life works: when you give, you receive. And the more you give, the more you receive.

It is wonderful the way love created a full circle of gifts. The one thing in the world the cab driver wanted, he received — as a result of his kindness and generosity.

Here's what's interesting. The woman was obnoxious and bitchy to the cab driver. She presented herself as a bitter, unhappy woman who complained a lot.

What is amazing about this is that the cab driver did not REACT. He did not return hate for hate. He did not spew anger or bark back at the woman. 

He quietly persisted in trying to first understand her behavior. He tried to understand ("Seek first to understand, rather than to be understood," says the St. Francis prayer) -- and wondered why she was so bitchy and mean-spirited. "A soft answer turns away wrath."

Question: If the cab driver had angrily cursed at her or been equally rude to the woman — if he had retaliated in an "eye for an eye" way — would he have been the perfect donor match for this woman?

I don't think so, but we would never know anyway, because an angry person would never have gone to the clinic to get the blood work done to see if his kidney was the match for a total stranger. And an angry stranger at that! 

Interesting question: did his loving attitude CREATE the match? Did his act of being loving and generous and compassionate and going against the grain of retaliating and "fighting fire with fire" actually foment a healthy breeding ground for miracles and create the synchronicty of the highest order -- love, healing, life? After all, love and love making actually unite people in creating babies -- LIFE! 

Obviously he would not have been open-hearted enough to even offer his kidney — but let's take it a step further. If he were a miserly, hateful, angry person — would he have had the right chemistry, the correct DNA, or even have a healthy kidney to give her?  Would he have been the perfect match if his nature had been reactive, volatile, resentful, negative, withholding, conservative (fear based) or "quick to anger?" 

What do you think? Did the cab driver's generous, loving compassion — his peaceful, non-reactive attitude — actually CREATE the right match for her kidney? Or was it all predestined? 

Quantum physics says that the observer affects the object (wave) making it collapse into a particle at a certain moment in time. 

Quantum Physics says that everything exists in waves of infinite possibility, until we turn around and lock it in or "particularize" it with our "judgment, observation or opinion." (This is why it's important not to make negative assumptions about people or to judge them, for you get whatever you choose to see -- and you can therefore experience negative events that were never objectively there before you "locked them in" with your weighted observation or judgment.  

I believe his open-hearted attitude toward the rude woman — and his gentle persistence in trying to understand her pain — was the compassion that created the donor match. Anyone can be loving to someone who is loving to them first, but when we are loving to those who hate us and persecute us, we disarm them. We conquer our enemies. (By the way, that is the mark of a true Christian; the one who turns the other cheek and loves his enemies and his neighbor as himself.

Love is creative. It creates life. The cab driver's loving compassion actually made his kidney the right donor match.

Love in the face of hatred is the law of attraction. Like attracts like; hence, the kidney match. I know this may sound difficult to wrap your mind around, but with an understanding of Quantum Physics, it is simple to understand.

If the cab driver had returned hate for hate -- if he had been her equal in jerkiness -- which is so easy and common, in fact most of us behave very badly on a daily basis with others. Most of us take the easy, lazy way out and we don't extend ourselves beyond our own nose -- we have no interest in experiencing life from another's point of view, especially a bitchy old woman. Maybe a sad person will elicit some sympathy but how often do we actually stop to consider WHY someone is so ornery or mean? Not very often, which makes me think this cabbie was a very special human being to be able to "turn the other cheek and quest for anwers inside this woman's crotchety old soul.  

It's so ordinary and easy and common for us in everyday life to instantly react with hurt pride or to lash out when insulted or attacked. It seems to be the way of the world - tit for tat, you insult me, I insult you back. In our American TV shows and comedies we are so snarky and sarcastic and mean to each other. We get annoyed and resentful so easily. 

But if this cab driver had been as much a jerk as his passenger was to him, there would not have been a healing. There would have been no story, no gift, no miracle. 

There would have just been two hollow, hateful people passing like ships in the night. Maybe the cabbie would have had to learn his lesson in another way.

But two jerks usually cancel each other out. So it's our job, each of us, to go out into the world and do what we can to make someone happy. Here's how simple it is: Love creates life. When we express love, no matter how someone else is behaving, everyone involved in an argument is healed.

I don't mean to repeat myself but this is an important point, and a major discovery. Love heals. it is a creative force. Hate is a destructive force; it does not create life — it kills life. Just as darkness is the absence of light, and coldness is the absence of warmth, hatred is the absence of love. Hatred, darkness and cold have no power of their own. They are not self-starters.

This man took a bad situation and shined love on it. By his generosity, he enabled his kidney to be the right one as a donor match.

How is this possible?

In Quantum physics, scientists have proven that our loving attention to an object actually changes the object in the physical universe.

We have been conditioned to believe that the external world is more real than the internal world. Quantum Physics says just the opposite: what’s happening on the inside determines what’s happening on the outside. Our world is shaped by our thoughts. So your loving attention to something, literally alters the physical universe. This is scientific, but it is not easily understood.

Energy consists of sub-atomic particles that in turn make up atoms and finally matter. This energy exists as waves spread out over space and time. They have discovered that down to the tiniest atom, there is only empty space. There is no solid matter. Everything is energy. Everything exists in waves of infinite possibility. Only when we focus our attention on an object does that object become a particle. We "particularize" an object by our attention to it.

So thoughts really are things. And 85% of all disease is caused by stress -- which means worry, fear or misplaced thoughts that become ingrained habits of negativity. There is now scientific proof that loving thoughts actually create a thicker brain cortex. Monks who meditate on love regularly have no disease.

Dr. Christine Northrup says "Hope is a biochemical state in the body that promotes healing."

Laughter heals. And we know that love heals everything. Love is the actual definition of God. (If only the hateful Christian and Muslim fundamentalists knew that; they seem to omit Christ's teachings form their form of Christianity. Very bizarre.

Love is an interactive force. The Creator needs playmates to show off for. God needs our cooperation and belief in order to manifest miracles in our lives.  

To experience magic, miracles and wonder, we need to adopt a childlike wonder at all the beauty around us. We need to appreciate it, so it can show off for us. We need to "act as if" we believe in a power greater than ourselves -- participate, conspire, and cooperate with the LOVE (which is God and Goodness (they all mean the same thing.) 

By our loving, selfless action, we create harmony and goodwill. By being loving and giving, this man became the perfect match.

In this case, the Universe kept putting the cabbie and the woman together because the woman needed to be "driven" into submission by the cab driver's gentleness. This is the method used by the Great Peacemaker when he healed so-called "sinners."  He leaned on Divine Love with revolutionary softness. Christ didn't condemn the adulterer or the thief; his unconditional love made them want to walk in the light, and transformed their hearts. Whether you believe the healing miracles or not, loving your enemies actually works. "A soft answer turns away wrath."

In any case, fate/the universe/God or whatever you call your higher power — kept putting the cab driver and the bitch together because they each had a missing piece that created the whole; the full circle.

It is wonderful the way love created a full circle of gifts. The one thing in the world the cab driver wanted, he received — as a result of his generosity. The antidote to poverty and depression is generosity. This cab driver acted exactly as the Great Peacemaker would; he gave freely without thought of self. And he received everything.

And what was the catalyst? Returning love for hate. The cab driver persisted in being loving to his enemy.

~ Love, Lydia 

Lydia Cornell: THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE

Lydia Cornell: THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/lydia-cornell-gay-marriage-_n_3038692.html

TO THE BOSTON TERRORISTS, DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN: WE ARE UNITED AGAIN

IT'S TIME TO CHANGE THE WORLD WITH LOVE * AMERICA IS UNITED 

Our prayers go out to those killed or injured in the Boston Marathon. It's time to take a stand against the destruction of our country. More than ever we must come together and unite as the United States. If we start being kinder to each other, no one can defeat us. That means left and right, Black and White, rich and poor. We are so powerful when we are united. A nation divided cannot stand. Love, peace, unity, service. When we think of others' first, our own problems diminish. It's a circle.

In light of the Boston terror attack that just killed an 8-year old child and another adult, as well as injuring 8 children and 110 people, it's time to unite our country and stop fighting each other. A divided nation cannot stand. 

A DIVIDED NATION CANNOT STAND

I am sick of the "Left-Right" divisiveness in the media. It's just a phony ruse to get us to watch TV. It seems to help the Nielsen ratings, which helps the TV networks earn more money through advertisers. There is no real divide. No matter what side you are on, we all want the same ultimate goal: peace. 

All my friends and loved ones, and even Facebook friends whom I have grown to love -- no matter how at odds we seem politically, we all really want the same things in life. We all want to see ourselves are kind, helpful, and generous. We all want prosperity, harmony, abundance, joy, enlightenment, safety, success, comfort, charity, love.

This world was set up to work against human nature. It sets us up to compete against each other and often feel like failures. 

It's time to change the paradigm. 

I have many ideas which I will post, but first I'd like to hear from you. How can we change the world? 

Please comment here. 

Thank you. 

LOVE xoxoxo 

CONGRESS: YOU WIMPS! VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE ON SANE GUN CONTROL

Gun Control vote in Congress tomorrow...

The Sandy Hook tragecy -- a horrifying sacrifice of lambs in the most horrific scene of gun violence our nation has ever witnessed, had to have happened for a reason. These children can't have died in vain.  It had to have happened in order to wake us up. How can anyone in Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- vote against their conscience? How can anyone vote against common sense gun control? How can anyone vote against universal background checks and a limit on military assault weapon sales? 

What has happened to reasonable, sane, good people?  Why are we paying the salaries of Congress people that go against 90% of all Americans who want sane, common sense gun control laws?  Can't you all see the strange intervention of all these horrific gun shootings? Can't you see the way the universe responds to our sick worshp of the gun, a weapon of mass destruction?  Should the government allow everyone to have a stash of Anthrax or a personal nuclear weapon or a missle in their closet, just in case you need it to kill a group of people with?  You think a weapon that can kill 30 people in rapid succession is a normal weapon?  

Is it really fear driving you or "eye for an eye" renegade justice? Tell the truth. I hear enough on late night talk radio, even on Coast to Coast, about storing food and building bunkers.  Since Timothy McVeigh there has been an anti-government fear mongering that is way out of control. Obviously you can't be following Christ if you are living in fear and storing up "treasures on earth" even if it's just corn in silos.. or weapons. This is surreal. It's all in your head. You are not living life at all if you are in fear. Love casts out fear. Haven't you heard?  

If I believed in evil, which I don't as an objective force -- it is obvious that anyone who is against background checks and banning weapons of mass destruction that are hand-held - is walking the edge.

Every show on TV glorifies violence. Primitive men slashing each other. We seem to have a blood lust that won't quit.  My theory is that we are snowballing toward violence so we can find that nothing else will satisfy us but the OPPOSITE OF VIOLENCE.  Today in Court where I had to renew my restraining order against the most mallicious stalker, But my job is to not even think of this man. He is nothing. I have to turn the other cheek and see no enemy. I have no enemies. There are no enemies.

The only way out of hell is to realize that there is no hell.

How dare our TAXPAYER-funded Congressmen and women back down on the most important issue of our time. The main issues I am concerned about as a mother: are mental illness, bullying, hate speech and  alcoholism/drug addiction. It's too easy to pick up a gun when you're depressed or in a rage and you've had too much to drink. Whether a person is suicidal or depressed, angry or full of road rage as is the case on California freeways -- we need to keep guns out of the hands of people with temper issues and those who have substance abuse problems.

In the face of such a tragedy as this (nothing could be more of of a sign that our country is out of control on this issue than the Sandy Hook school shootings of all innocent school children -- how tragic that the gun lobby can bribe our representatives. 

The gun lobby, like all powerful lobbies, represents the GUN MANUFACTURERS. There is no moneyed interest in "banning assault weapons."  There is no moneyed interest in "background checks."  Follow the money: there is TONS OF MONEY in the NRA GUN LOBBY.  It is backed by corporate interests. The gun lobby, like the oil or pharamceutical lobbies, has one prime motive: profit for the gun manufacturers. They make millions of dollars as a collective whose one purpose is to make money for the manufacturers of guns!!

Several people had the nerve to dispute my idea that the gun lobby makes a profit off promoting guns in every form -- guns, guns, and more guns.  

I have to ask them: what is the purpose of a lobby?  Answer that.

I will never vote for anyone who backs down off common sense legislastion to at least consider a ban on ASSAULT WEAPONS and to institute and enforce UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS.

I am a mother. Mothers raise the future grownups of our society and most mothers I know, have the interests of all our young people at heart. The more guns on the street the more accidents. The easier it is to use a gun for a temporary problem. It's a permanent solution.

Who on earth could promote such an ugly weapon of mass destruction as an assault weapon or AK-47?  Why even talk about it?  

Love is everywhere. The more you look for good, the more you will find it. That is my mission now. I love all my friends, even those who are brainwashed by the gun pushers and the drug pushers.

There is an easier, softer way. Love one another. Or at least soften the blows by laughing together. We should all be learning new ways to get along by simply listening to each other, and deflecting the anger with humor. 

I try to turn every tragedy in my life into comedy. And what I most want is for our young people to get their innocence back. We need to be inspired again -- to enjoy life and this beautiful universe!

30 DAYS TO TRANSFORMATION: Get your thoughts right, and everything else will follow. What you focus on GROWS!  Each day when you wake up, take a pad and paper and make a list of things you are grateful for, even if it is just that you woke up!  You have hands, a pen, eyes to see... or a roof over your head.  Add 5 new things each day, or one new thing to be grateful for each day. Do this for 30 days. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE WILL CHANGE. Depression will be gone. I promise you, you will have a healing if you fill your thoughts with the ideas and things you love or want --- and the things you are grateful for.

When we withdraw our attention from our enemies, they expire from neglect.

Death may be sexier than sex to Ann Coulter and the bigots and haters, but not to normal Americans. 

DEATH IS NOT SEXIER THAN SEX - as I wrote to Ann Coulter once. 

It boggles the mind that anyone can dare call them a follower of Christ and brag about their guns. 

For those of you who call yourselves Christian, maybe you should read the Great Peacemaker's words. Christ, the Prince of Peace, would never condone the use of a gun or weapon of ANY KIND. His message was always "love casts out fear." The metaphorical sword he speaks of is the sword that cuts between love and hate. 

You don't find it a bit eerie that Sandy Hook and Superstorm Sandy share a common name? One may have had a hand in turning the tide for Obama's election win because it makes sense that disaster victims receive government help via FEMA funding. Who else is going to step in out of the philanthropy of their heart besides the American people?  Red Cross donations, which we all contribute to I'm sure, can't possibly cover all the losses in a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina or Supertorm Sandy.  This is where Federal Emergency Aid has to come through.  

On the other side — all those haters of taxes (even taxes that fund our common good and vital community needs such as public education, clean water, firefighters, police, highways, etc.) WERE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY with their unwillingness to raise revenue and not just demand tax cuts! 

What a bizarre time to be greedy. The candidate with the desire to help disaster victims via federal aid (FEMA) was the one that won the election. Superstorm Sandy seemed like it fell out of the sky, which it did.  Having taxpayer disaster relief was only common sense. There is no private corporation rushing to provide disaster clean up and free housing to victims, because there is no profit to be made. Who is going to pay for it?  Only the American taxpayer. There are certain things we all need in order to have a living, breathing, viable society -- we all need to help each other in our common welfare. The military, for example.

Our common welfare is not the dirty, socialistic term half the country thinks it is,  think it is after 30 years of listening to Rush Limbaugh (who "earns" $45 million a year to spew hatred and hate speak and to bully good people that happen to be women or God forbid "liberals.")  Our common welfare is the things we share. We share the public highways; we share the water supply. We share the air we breathe. We share the risk of fire damage to our homes. Our government OF the people, by the people and FOR the people.  Our military, our public schools, highways, police, fire, clean water - all help the common good. Paying taxes to help our society function and thrive, instead of cutting social security and medical services is the only way to have a healthy society. Stop living in fear and stop listening to talk radio unless it is loving and cheerful and FUN! 

xoxo
Lydia

A WOMAN'S WORTH: DRESSING LIKE A HOOKER?

Dressing Like a Hooker: A Woman's Worth

I’m not spiritually evolved enough to stop dressing like a hooker, but at least I tried a turtleneck the other day. You can’t get a job in Hollywood without ‘Lap dancer’ on your resume, and I’m referring to the writers not the actors. Wearing death-defying cleavage is supposed to make us more employable or marriageable. And since the only valuable women in America are teenage-wombless-buttless-mutants (TWBMs), I can’t just quit cold turkey. So I’m in withdrawal from cleavage. (more below....) 

If a certain rock star and I hadn't dumped each other back in the 90s, I would have 

lived on his private island in Fiji and life would be too perfect. But since pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress, I ended up raising three boys and two dogs, including my husband, who were all going through puberty at the same time.

But I had a theory back then:  honestly believed that you were supposed to be married to the person who annoyed you the most, since the most spiritual growth happens with your enemies. That’s why the Arabs and Israelis are next door to each other. They just don’t get it

yet.

Whenever I’ve had regrets about mistakes I’ve made in life, I realize that my son and stepson are my markers. Having the privilege of raising these children is direct evidence that there really are no mistakes. If I hadn't sold my house at the ‘wrong’ time, I would never have found the apartment where I walked into  party and met the future father of my child. I can honestly say I wouldn’t trade my downfall, horrific crash and burn, or the meandering road to wholeness for anything.

On my excruciating Big Sur divorce trip, in which I sobbed love songs into a tape recorder and stopped at every crashing surf vista point —  I stayed alone at The Madonna Inn — a twinky fairyland honeymoon resort —  and asked the host, "Isn't it illegal to stay here alone, after a marriage has ended?" She said "Just the opposite: it's good luck. In fact you will meet someone new and get married here!"   It's true; it was a magical, healing experience. 

(FYI: I stayed in the Krazy Daisy Room, the only room they had left at 10 PM when I rolled into town. It'a an exact replica of my childhood room. I turned on the TV and the newscaster said my name "Lydia" referring to the weather girl. (I played a weather girl on Too Close for Comfort.) Coinkydink? Then I wandered down to the pink leather dining room, where Frank Sinatra was singing a song called "Too Close for Comfort!"  

I don't believe in an anthropomorphic version of God — but I call these 'godshots" (TM) 

More to come....  

This is wonderful!  I met two spectacularly creative young women, both artists, innovators and great thinkers: Christy Heyob and Kerstin Larissa Hovland. Christy is doing amazing things combining art with healing. Kerstin is an innovative artist with a background in computer engineering, who integrates art, performance and technology with music and light.  Both of these women are on the cutting edge, starting new companies. Found this on Christy's blog. Please watch: 

We all get a little scared sometimes. Scared of graduating school without a plan; scared of monsters. One six year old has a remedy: think of something else until the “nervous has gone out of you.” Think of juice, pizza, and a piano shaped chocolate chip cookie. In other words, he says, “when the scared feeling comes into you, the scared is scared of things you like.” This is all advice told to filmmaker Bianca Giaever, who asked one very clever child to tell her a story…about anything…so that she could turn it into a movie.The story she heard was as brilliant as the film she created to go along with the narrative. Giaever explains on her Vimeo, “I asked a six year old what my movie should be about, and this is what he told me.” Watching the finished product leaves you wondering what other genius we’d learn of if children’s voices were heard a little bit more often. And the good news is that given the internet success her short has already had, Giaever probably doesn’t need to be scared about graduating school anymore. From Christy Heyob's site. 

By the way, apropos of nothing... I have to ask: does anyone else love Psych on USA as much as I do? It is relentlessly silly. And Gus has such funny facial expressions. But the show I crave in my sleep is "Arrested Development."  My son and I watched 53 episodes back to back over the holidays. (Catch a clip of "The Best of Lucille Bluth ("I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona" down below.) It was cancelled and the protest grew into a riot, so Ron Howard made a deal to bring it back on Netflix. We all wait with breathless anticipation. Also — in case you missed it, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is hilarious as Chelsea Lately's substitute host! Sir Elton John, my favorite, was just on. This was a repeat. )

My favorite music right now: The Lumineers (Hey Ho); Mumford and Sons; The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army; Atlas Genius, Passion Pit, Cage the Elephant, and so many more. Here is White Stripes: 

MY FAVORITE SHOW: ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT!