Good Days – Part 1

It’s 5 a.m.  My good days always begin with the same ritual:

1. Wake up at sunrise
2. Stretch and ride bicycle to Runyon Canyon
3. Power walk up and sprint back down
4. Bike back to house, dive into the pool, swim 25 laps
5. Spring out, somersault into micro-yard and begin 30 min core strengthening routine
6. Hit my knees and pray-meditate for 20
7. Journal, egg white omelet, return all calls, send “thank you” notes and spend some intimate quality time with life partner, which begins with just listening to her feelings and hopefully, once again, going over every minute detail of our wedding plans.

Did you know that Gelson’s in West Hollywood sells the finest blue roses?  Well, they do.   And even though we’re getting married in the middle of the world’s largest exotic flower farm, Maui, I’m honored to be able to provide whatever her heart desires, regardless of the price or excessive shipping costs, because, darn it honey, it’s my honor.

As groom my only job is to make sure everything is perfect for my soul mate on the most important day of our lives and since I’ve shared my daily ritual – my “program,” if you will – you’ll understand why my normally crazy head is way too filled with contentment and gratitude to think of any ridiculous thoughts like “what the f–k are you talking about? It’s going to be nighttime. In Maui. Who cares about some fake-ass flowers you can’t even see? Oh my god! What’s the budget again? Did you not read the papers? I should’ve taken you up when you demanded to get married in the Compton Court House during that PMS frenzy.”

But no; instead I stupidly said “that would kill your mother and I can’t live with myself if your father doesn’t get to walk his baby girl down the aisle.”   But I was lying. Maybe even a little scared because I could live with myself. Hell, quite frankly, I could live with myself if I lived by myself. But that’s all over. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future and just looking at the “Ashley’s Dream Wedding” cost estimate I realize I can also live with myself if we lose the live ban. I’ll download some stuff from “Glee” for your friends and I’ve got that Tupac-Biggie Smalls mix tape for mine. We could spend hours going over this budget line by painful line but as The Honorable Governor of the world’s fifth largest economy recently said in a genius Twitter post while holding his Crocodile Dundee Knife, “just cut everything in half…except for the cake.”  Maybe not his exact words but we’ve all got to tighten our belts and mine is ready to burst!

But of course, none of those selfish thoughts or even my daily perennials “I suck, I’ll never work again, you can’t fool anyone, even the mean spirited random loser bloggers, I AM an idiot, so it makes sense that my agents ignore me, I already knew I’d die alone and penniless, my drunken mom was a G D. visionary!”

Crazy stuff, huh? Especially from a man who’s got 20 years of 12 Step meetings and intensive therapy behind him.   But don’t be alarmed friends.   None of those negative thoughts would ever cross my mind day and night again…if only I’d do even a couple of the items on my daily ritual list, but I don’t.  Never have, never will.   And that means I can’t even enlist my best-est old friend from childhood: Self pity. I have buddies that live by and honor their lists.  They are happy and healthy.   So why the hell don’t I get off my fat ass and do something about the one thing I can control, my sense of well being?  I’d love to, believe me but unfortunately I have another major defect of character; I’m lazy.  There, I said it.   (I was hoping that flourish of rigorous honesty would be rewarded with something magical but nope. I still suck.)

I may be a miserable bastard but at least I know what I could do to make my life better.  Got it in writing.   Laminated right in front of me.  So at least I face it.  Literally.  Some people are clueless.   I see them out the window.  They just live a happy life.   Lucky to be alive.   Feeling unconditional love, peace of mind, self respect.  They are amazing, fearlessly confident.  I hate them because their lives seem so easy.   But then again, of course, it’s easy.  They’re not ME.  Try being me for one day and you’d give up, too.  Why couldn’t I be “not me?”   What kind of horrible crap did I do in a past life that brought me to me? Even if I was a genocidal evil-doer who purposely unleashed the super plague that killed the dinosaurs, wouldn’t I still be entitled ONE accidentally blissful moment?   Just a half beat before my eyes opened, my brain turned on and it all came crashing down?

In case you’re still reading, my story has a happy ending.   Even though I’m from a small Midwestern town where you are taught that the world’s biggest sin is arrogance and compliments of any kind are physically painful, you are also taught that wallowing in mountains of self doubt is every bit as sick as the excessive self worth of a sociopath (you’ve seen the impossibly confident lunatics at the casting calls for American Idol, right?).   So I figured out a while ago that if I was going to even have a shot at succeeding in any form during this gift we call life, without a militiaman work ethic, I’d have to harness my strengths and the one advantage of facing the world as a sober, people-pleaser with a realist’s fear of wrath of woman, a mild case of Aspergers and stage 4 ADHD, and say “yes” a lot.

Which is why I started my day a few Wednesdays ago in Lynwood CA, building houses for Habitat for Humanity.   A the wondrous, Linda Cardellini, actress, humanitarian, asked me if I knew how to build houses.   (I say “yes” to almost anything a pretty girl asks me to do).   But after pounding a few nails I realized that I did in fact NOT know how to build houses.   I also realized this wasn’t “Celebrity Habitat for Humanity” where you hand out a few juice boxes, take some pictures with the real workers, then go home.   I don’t have a problem telling men “no” so when some great looking dude asked my in front of Linda is I was afraid of heights, of course I said “no.”  If he asked me if I had a problem with someone shooting me in the face with the nail gun, I would’ve paused until I was sure Linda was looking and then said “no” again. Hoping my extreme manliness would work her up into such a frenzy that even her young, handsome boyfriend could not hold this wiry little minx back.   I’ve replayed the rest of this scenario like a loop in my head and it always ends with Ashley showing up, pulling Linda off of me and when their unusually erotic cat fight over who’s earned the privilege to lick me all over suddenly ends in a “there’s enough of “T” to go around.”   Their hugs of relief quickly escalate into a passionate make out session which I am required, as a gentleman, to enjoy.

A half a beat later the hammer slamming into my thumb jolted me back to the real world but it was too late.   I’d had a moment. Sunshine and lollypops. Fleeting but very real. No dread, no horror, no “me.”   I was momentarily out of my head.  In a happy, if silly place, and I love being in that town. I’ve been there before and I can’t wait to get back.   And you can get there the hard way: 1. Wake up at sunrise. 2…or my way: Be of service.  Help someone.