Recently, I realized that I am going to die. No, I didn’t contract a terminal illness; I finally got out of denial. Not only did my 52^nd birthday alert me to the fact of my impending death, spending time in my parents’ retirement community drove the point home. I’ve watched as several of their neighbors have gone from sitting next to them in the dining room to having their pictures displayed on the piano in the lobby—which is how all the recently deceased are honored. Mom said, “What you don’t want is to walk by the piano and see your picture on it. Then you know you’re in trouble.” And I know someday her photo will be on that baby grand. Not far behind will be mine. Even with my preventive measures—working out and eating right, etc.—I, like all human beings, will go to that giant Disneyland in the sky. (You have your idea of Heaven, I have mine.)

This realization brought about a great disturbance in Janet’s Force. I finally realized I have very limited time left. That it was imperative to prioritize my choices so I could achieve the most important goals before my picture winds up on the piano.

Luckily, my greatest desire was super clear to me: writing the novels. My passion for the work is blinding and all-encompassing. I am obsessed with the stories in my head. My brain is like a cable TV system: tons of channels and all are full of programming. Writing them down is the feat. Even if I do nothing else—like eat or sleep or talk to people—I will not have enough time to write all the books in my head. Partly because there are so many stories, but mostly because it takes so freaking long to write a book.

Which brings me back to My Giant Realization. Not only did I come to the conclusion that I didn’t I have time to do everything on my plate, I didn’t have the time for many of the things I’d planned to do this lifetime. In fact, I had almost no time to do anything besides the books. I experienced a sort of death of dreams. I voiced all the things swirling around in the back of my mind that I thought I’d do, and one by one, gave them up. No time for learning the guitar and starting an all-girl punk band. No competitive racecar driving. No big cat rescue or zookeeper.

Actually, that was the easy part of my process. Since I hadn’t invested time in any of the activities, they weren’t very difficult to give up. The hard part was quitting current activities. Especially the Good Do-Bee volunteer work. Really pushed me up against the ideas society gave me regarding my self worth.

As a woman of a certain age (I bloody hated writing that sentence), I was not trained to care about myself. I was brainwashed into thinking that doing things for others was, in actuality, doing things for myself. I was trained to think that if I focused on my own needs, I was selfish and not a “good girl.” I was taught that good girls had no needs. Which is stupid and why many women my age are bat-crap crazy. Because our basic human right to live our own lives was taken from us.

While I still enjoy helping others and won’t give up all volunteering, I don’t want my obituary to read: “She was a self-sacrificing person who rarely did anything for herself.” I want the headline: “Famous Author Dies In Own Home After a Long and Fruitful Life.” I am the only one who can write my books. What if Jane Austen, Nora Roberts and J.K. Rowling had never written their books? No Mr. Darcy, Rourke and Eve, or Harry Potter. While I doubt my work will achieve that level of recognition, if I put all my energy into my career now, I’ll have a much better chance for success. When I was freaking out about the decision to self-publish, worried I might fail, a friend asked me, “Have you heard of Doris Masterson?” “No.” “Neither has anyone else because she never put her books on the market.” Probably because Doris was busy being a good girl.

After realizing the Good Girl Trap was part of my problem, I examined and judged each activity by asking myself two questions. Does this further my writing career and personal goals? Or am I doing this to be a good girl? Some activities, while on the outside appeared to be Good Girl motivated, actually turned out to be things I enjoyed. Like hosting the family Christmas party.

But other endeavors revealed themselves to be part of my old pattern. Like the MC gig at the Pescadero Arts and Fun Festival. When I started eighteen years ago, it really fed me. I loved being on stage and helping the kids of Pescadero. But it was a really exhausting job. People assumed I breezed up on stage, spouted a few jokes off the top of my head, and waltzed off to party. Not. Preparation and recovery took one to two weeks. In recent years, I performed because I was needed, not because I wanted to be there. So I quit. While the decision was no fun, I felt no regrets. I felt free.

After that, my decisions came easier. So far I’ve quit three major jobs—writing gigs and volunteer positions—and I’m still not done cleaning house.

I can’t tell you how happy these changes are making me. While I have no idea if I’ll reach all my career goals, there are two things of which I am certain. By the time my picture is on that piano, I’ll have many more books on the market. And more importantly, I will have lived the life I chose for myself, not the one that was chosen for me.

©2011, Janet Periat

Dreams Do Come True

You never know when a goal will be accomplished. Normally, if you don’t accomplish it a few years from making it, you give up. But recently, I learned a lesson. Never stop trying, even if the goal was made when you were five. And even if the goal is silly. Recently, I took a trip to Reno with my cousin to satisfy not only my claw machine addiction, but my slot machine jones. I had no idea I would also be fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The day we arrived in Reno, we played some slots at Harrah’s where we were staying, then I headed over to Circus Circus to rescue some badly-sewn, deformed animals made in China from the claw machines (I went alone, my cousin is not a big arcade fan). For those of you not familiar with the Circus Circus casino, on the second level is a carnival midway, complete with ring toss games, pop-a-balloon games and the like, plus circus acts every hour all under a fake big top. Along with many claw machines.

On ten bucks I ended up with ten animals. Not bad odds, considering it was fifty cents a throw. However, this still wasn’t enough to satisfy my needs.

So on Day Two, I returned to Circus Circus. A a small bar adjacent to the entrance to the midway was open. I’d noticed it before, but it was only open on the weekends and I normally travel to Reno during the week. This small bar offered “Party Yards” full of either frozen strawberry daiquiris or lime margaritas. Since I was on vacation and had never bought myself a giant frozen alcoholic beverage, it seemed like a good idea. I ordered a margarita, the reasoning being fake lime flavor is normally less barfy than fake strawberry flavor. I forgot about my body’s natural aversion to tequila.

The bartender took a mix that came in a milk carton and partially filled up a “Party Yard” which is a long plastic glass with a beaker-like bottom and a tall skinny tube on top. Top to bottom it’s about 15 and ½ inches tall (talk about gross misrepresentation in advertising). He added two shots of a slightly amber liquid and one shot of a clear liquid. The bartender had clearly been instructed to turn the bottles away from the customer so the labels could not be read. Because they probably had a skull and crossbones on them, labeled “Cleaning Fluid” and “Poison”. Then he hit the button on this giant ice-crushing gizmo that dumped ice shavings into the “Party Yard”. He stuck a cover on it—complete with a two-foot-long straw stuck through the center—and handed it to me. All for the bargain price of $8.75.

Thrilled with my giant drink, I eagerly took a draw off my margarita. I nearly gagged. It tasted like limeade made with 20 cups of sugar mixed with tequila-flavored battery acid. I took a second draw to determine if it was really that bad. It was. At this point a wise voice in my head said, “Throw this away, Janet.” And as I normally do with the wise voices in my head, I ignored it. Besides, by the fourth sip, the alcohol hit. And as with all rot gut, it hit HARD.

At this point, the claw machines took on a new level of difficulty. I only got four for my allotted five bucks and one of them was a hideous Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Also at this point—despite my loss of motor skills—I realized that I really liked my margarita. My margarita was my friend. A symbol of letting loose, of a great vacation. Like my own personal billboard that proclaimed “Party on, dudes!” Or more likely, “I have no taste and questionable judgment!”

I wandered by a game of knock-down-the-beach-balls-floating-on-a-cushion-of-air-with-a-beanbag. I won a stuffed bear on one throw and missed with the second. This plus my less-than-stellar achievements on the claw machines told me it was time to go. I worked my way back to the entrance. The last midway game I passed had giant prizes meaning the odds of winning were nearly impossible. But I had my Party Yard and playing one of these impossible games seemed like a great idea (kind of like the initial Party Yard idea).

The game consisted of a table filled with upright Coke bottles with a single red Coke bottle in the center. The prizes were giant stuffed bears, huge stuffed sharks and little foot-long stuffed flowers. I assumed the smaller prizes corresponded to the clear Coke bottles and the big stuffed animals went with the red Coke bottle in the middle. Object of the game was to throw a small, three-inch wooden ring over the top of the bottle. Ten rings for a dollar or twenty-five for two bucks. Since throwing around some wooden rings sounded like fun, I went for twenty-five rings. I’ve played this game at least once a year since I was five and have never won a damn thing. But fueled by the Party Yard, I decided I’d just have fun throwing the rings around. Reality at this point was rather fuzzy, anyway, and my vision wasn’t so great. But what did it matter? Throw the rings!

I threw the first ring and it landed on top of a clear Coke bottle. I blinked. The ring was still there. The girl running the game said, “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” She removed the ring and I kept aiming for the red Coke bottle in the center. I missed the remaining 24 throws. I finished and waited for her to hand me the stupid stuffed flower. She indicated the giant stuffed animals hanging above us and asked, “Which one do you want?” I looked at her, stunned. “Are you sh**ing me?” (Thanks to the Party Yard, I’d lost my Swearing-In-Public-Filter.) She said no and gestured towards these GIANT stuffed animals.

Now extremely stunned, I happily chose a giant blue shark. Tip to tail, it’s nine feet long. Luckily it’s in the shape of a comma so it only stands five feet tall. Still, the thing is GARGANTUAN. And I had to carry it—along with my Party Yard and other stuffed animals—back to Harrah’s, which was three casinos plus two blocks away.

Giddy with victory, I hoisted the shark over my shoulder and began my trek back to my room. I caused quite a scene. Probably because I was giggling madly during the entire journey and told anyone who made eye contact with me “Hey, I may not be winning on the machines, but I won me a giant stuffed shark!” People were VERY amused (and not just by my use of bad English). That walk back to my hotel was some of the most fun I’ve had in years. Even the homeless drunks in the gutters greeted me with happy cheer.

When I finally arrived at Harrah’s, a security guard stopped me halfway to the elevators. With a serious expression he said, “I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t allow sharks in here.” Then he burst out laughing. The rest of the night, I was the Shark Lady. Even without the shark.

What was even funnier was trying to fit the damn thing into my cousin’s Prius for the journey home.

The only bad thing about my fun evening was the hangover that hit at two o’clock in the morning and lasted for the following 48 hours. The Party Yard giveth (giant stuffed sharks), the Party Yard taketh away (umpteen brain cells). Of course it could have been the two beers and Cosmopolitan that followed. Whatever, I suffered almost as much as after the infamous Chippendale’s Night of Debauchery from 2005. You’d think by now, I’d have figured out how to avoid a hangover. Apparently not. At least now I have a new tool in my arsenal to fight hangovers: no more Party Yards.

Still, as I gaze at the gargantuan stuffed shark that now dominates my living room, I giggle. Not only is the thing hugely ridiculous, winning it was a great lesson for me. If I want something, all I have to do is try. If I keep trying, eventually I will succeed. I just never know when it will happen.

I also learned another very important lesson: stop making goals about acquiring things that don’t fit in the house. Sorry full-size replica of Robby the Robot, you just got taken off the list.

©2009, Janet Periat