Normal Gets You Nowhere (4 page)

I know from friends that if you’re going to attempt to be the breadwinner in the relationship, you’re going to need some regular checks and balances. It doesn’t have to be about male/female; it can just be about person/person. Who is doing what, and how is each partner contributing to the overall relationship? Is one person feeling like shit? Does one feel like the other’s friends think he’s a loser? Jeff never wanted to go to any of my work events, because he said no one wanted to talk to him. Which was ironic, since for decades women have been showing up to work events of their husbands
assuming
that no one wanted to hear what they had to say—that they were just there to look good in a dress.

You can’t have a real partnership without dialogue. Few people pause to consider whether they’re actually compatible with someone before starting a relationship; they just start getting fucked and think,
Oh my God, this is it!
But real partnership is about much more than great sex: Do you have the same desires for your lives? Where do you want to live? What do you want your life to look like? What happens if you’re the one making money? Does the other still expect you to go to the grocery store too? This isn’t rocket science. We need to deprogram ourselves from thousands of years of stereotypes, but at the same time we can’t kid ourselves about who we really are. If what you really want is to make money and have a career, you probably aren’t going to be the one cooking dinner every night. That’s where a partnership can be valuable, if you do it right.

Love Is a Crazy-Ass Blindfolded Angel with a Weapon in His Hand

Just after I had my daughter, a handsome lawyer I’d drunkenly made out with one night in the early 1990s started positioning himself to be my next boyfriend. He even sent Ava her first Christmas snowsuit. My mother could hardly believe my good fortune. Here I was, parenting a little one-year-old girl all by myself, and I had an Italian American lawyer from upstate New York—a mere fifteen miles from where I was born—lining up to marry me! He was basically my mother’s ideal son-in-law. I was forced to deliver the crushing news that, although this lawyer was amazing, cute, and all-around great, there was just one problem: I didn’t have energy with him. I didn’t want to kiss him, and I most certainly did not want to fuck him.

This is when my mom decided to do a reenactment of 1640 and insisted that “that part will come in time.” The fact that people went to bed by candlelight the last time anyone actually believed such nonsense didn’t seem to give her pause. I mean, I’m now forty-five, and I’ve still yet to meet
one person
who was initially turned off by her husband, but found herself fucking him like a rabbit seven years into their marriage. This is why, although the lawyer continues to be a friend of mine and I will always appreciate that he showed up to be my suitor, he now has a Russian model for his wife.

Let’s be honest. Most of the time when we fall in love with someone, it’s not because the wider world has given us any indication that their dick should be inside of us.
Energy
has nothing to do with what’s practical or aesthetic; it has nothing to do with his stats, his bank account, or how he looks on paper. It is not the same as
attracted to
or
makes sense
. Instead, it comes directly from the source. Most of the time when you meet someone, you’re either in or you’re out. Does he make you want to do crazy things? If he doesn’t, and you’re just trying to figure out how to keep him happy or how to leave by noon the next day, you’re a
liar,
not a lover, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that if you continue this relationship, you’re going to need a lawyer.

One of the great things about making my own money is that I’ve always been able to fuck who I wanted, not who I thought would marry me or take me shopping. Maybe it’s not good to keep bringing my daughter into the sex chapter, but I recently gave Ava her own wallet, allowance, and cash card. She’s eight; I thought it would be a good way to teach her math. After Ava made her first purchase (clothes at a store called Justice), calculating what she could afford, then counting the money out carefully, and handing it to the clerk, she was thrilled. “You know what was really good, Mommy?” she said afterwards. “I didn’t have to say thank you to anybody.”

I believe that’s how our love lives should be too. We should be with someone because we truly love them, and our soul wants us to be with them, not because they’re going to buy us a great apartment or Birkin bag. Can you even imagine having to sleep with some of those businessmen who look like they’ve been stranded in an English library since 1820? I mean, maybe some of them are smart and interesting, but I’ve seen plenty a girl out in the Hamptons who looks like she can’t wait to see her tennis instructor.

When I was younger, I passed up a possible opportunity for an assignation with Leonard Cohen, one of my favorite musicians. I was signed to Atlantic Records at the time, and one of my employees had played my album for his daughter. He’d heard my music and invited me out for coffee. I didn’t go, because I was married, and I knew I didn’t want to get coffee with Leonard; I wanted to fuck him. I mean, he is
ridiculous
! To this day, Leonard’s song “Hallelujah”—which has been covered by about 150 other artists, including Jeff Buckley—contains one of my favorite lines about sex, or at least how sex
should
be: “Remember when I moved in you / The holy dove was moving too / And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.”

If you have ever had the great privilege of crying when you make love with someone, then you will understand what it’s like to be a god, an angel, and a human being all at the same time. I have at certain times in my life cried while making love, and in those moments I’ve been delivered with my lover to places we didn’t know we were capable of going. We got there with energy and gentleness and roughness and a deep mutual respect, but most of all through vulnerability and self-revelation. Through total transparency of expression, we achieved the great cry and the great exhaustion and the great nothingness of all that is. This is what it means to make love, I think. (Hey babe, I’m doing my best here. I’m sure not everyone wants sex tips from Mama Wolf, but someone needs to be talking to you about these things!) As beings, we should insist on this. Should you have the great privilege of being with a partner who can embrace you through your tears as you mutually strengthen one another—well,
that
is a great relationship.

The truth is, when you do it right, sex is not all that different from church. Yes, that’s right. Falling to your knees to pray and asking God to help you is not
that
different from lying on your back with your legs spread, saying, “I love you. I want to taste the nectar of Divine consciousness through you.” We’re just small human beings, after all, and physical love allows us to dance a special magical dance that is both part of our destiny and larger than ourselves.

The world is a dangerous place. When we make love, we’re acknowledging,
Yes, even my family doesn’t really know me. So I, this strange swan in this big, strange pond,
*
choose to hook up to you and allow you to be inside of my body. I trust you, and I’m transparent, and through this vulnerability and mutual sense of adventure your consciousness and my consciousness will intertwine like strands of DNA to create a song of magic and sensory heightening that is one of the closest things to God and the Goddess on this earth.
This oneness is an offering—an acknowledgment and expression of the Divine’s magic. And trust me, it has rarely been adequately captured in sex drugs, rock ’n’ roll, film, or fashion.

When you explore sex and love with someone, you’re agreeing to enter into a new type of yogic teaching—one in which you have a lot to give
and
a lot to learn (it’s like having a child). I promise that you will hate your lover sometimes. You’ll also laugh with each other, cry with each other, fuck each other, and fuck each other over. Being truly yogic with another means offering up your whole self, just like you do when you pray in church. And let me tell you, making love with someone you love is a much more powerful thing than sitting in a church that doesn’t let women speak. You’re basically saying,
This is our love, our song, our vibration of love and ecstasy that we send out into the universe.
Making love, like making war, creates a powerful and totally unique vibration.

A warring lovemaking session—now that’s a fucking
great
vibration!

Chapter Three
Holy Daze (Holla, Days Off!)

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

—Robert Orben

Y
ears ago, in my twenties, when I was reading tarot cards on the beach in Venice for a living, I was hearing a lot about the end of the world. I remember thinking about what it would be like to experience the apocalypse. One year, it occurred to me that I already was experiencing the apocalypse, and that it was Christmas! You know, the holiday where everyone runs around buying ridiculous and unneeded gifts for $19.99 in the name of their God as they trip over homeless people on the street wearing signs like “Hungry. Please help” and ignore Santas ringing bells for the Salvation Army. I mean, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there really
was
an army for salvation? Instead, there’s just one big long line outside the UGG store.

When my daughter was born, I was adamant that I did not want to bring her up with lies. I was willing to celebrate Christmas and even have a tree, but I wanted to tell her that Santa represents the spirit of giving,
not
that he was literally someone who lived at the North Pole and brought presents to kids. Similarly, I’d tell her the Easter Bunny represented spring. As for the Tooth Fairy, well, she’s such a great creation that I figured I’d just give in and go along with that one. (I mean, whose idea was it to make having a tooth fall out in the middle of the day something to get
excited
about?)

So I told my mother I was not going to do the whole North Pole, Santa thing with Ava. I mean, we spend so much time and money getting our kids all wound up about Santa and the Easter Bunny, making them think these fake apparitions are going to appear and make life magical, when everyday human kindness can really do the same thing.

“Are you
crazy
?” my mom said. As soon as Ava could hold the phone to her ear, my mom could barely wait to shriek, “Santa Claus is married to Mrs. Claus, and they live at the North Pole, and their reindeer are Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen! And the elves make all the presents! Santa’s very modern now, you can e-mail him!” Last year she even topped herself, convinced this would be one of the last years when Ava would believe in Santa. She literally bought Ava a copy of
The Night Before Christmas
that came with a voice recorder into which she’d programmed herself reading the text aloud. Ava is a pre-tween at this point, and my mom’s still trying to give her one last hit of Christ-mess!

Why have we all been suckered into celebrating a holiday that very few of us actually believe in?

Wouldn’t it be great if we all just decided we didn’t want to do Christmas one year? What if, instead, we found things that
do
matter to us to celebrate, or at the very least just took a really great vacation? I want to go on record as saying that if you have children, Christmas is possibly something you should do. And don’t get me wrong; there must be a few Christians out there who actually believe Christmas is Jesus’s birthday, and by all means they too should celebrate it. If Christ is your guru, throw him a party and get down with it. But he’s not my guru, and I resent the fact that I’m still supposed to spend $8,000 on presents for everyone I know each December, including vendors, business acquaintances, and my trainer. There’s so much pressure to buy gifts and plane tickets and go home to our families and be intimate, but then we do, and no one even talks about real things or has real conversations! I mean, even Jewish families are being pressured by the Christmas complex; they’re buying blue Hanukah bushes at Target, because their kids feel bad Santa’s not coming to see
them
!

We don’t
have
to go along with this. Remember, normal gets you nowhere—you don’t have to celebrate the normal holidays, especially when they get you stuck in an airport on December 23 with a bunch of angry, violent people. Why not make your own holidays, just as I’ve urged you to make your own religion? Merriam-Webster defines “holiday” as “a day on which one is exempt from work; specifically, a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event.” I hate to tell you this, but as a single mother I spend the Christmas “holiday” running around like Mrs. Brady on crack. I get off work at nine or ten at night, fly up to Times Square in a cab, work my way through Toys ’R Us, then try in vain to cram my bags into another cab in the freezing cold before giving up and opting for delivery. I mean, there’s nothing restful about it. Frankly, anyone who tells you it’s restful is either lying or on meds.

Instead of these fake holidays commemorating things that didn’t even happen (Most scholars don’t even think Jesus’s actual birthday was in December!), I propose all employers give their employees at least five to ten personal days per year in addition to their sick and vacation days. This way, we could take a day off work anytime we think something is holy. If you want your self-made holiday to be January 5—which I highly recommend, since travel is cheaper than ever and everything’s 50 to 90 percent off—then go for it! If you’d rather celebrate the Navajo Sing Festival in February or the Hindu Ganesh Chaturthi festival in September, go for it! People who aren’t religious could vacation à la France, combining all these days into a month off in August. Alternatively, they could just stay at the office on the traditional holidays and get paid time and a half while everyone else goes home to celebrate their holidays!

Let’s be honest. Presidents’ Day? Is there one American who actually spends this day celebrating our presidents? Columbus Day? Do we really need a mandatory day off to celebrate one of the most destructive humans in history? No one’s sitting home reading about Columbus on that day, anyway, so why not just eliminate it? Mother’s Day is actually the only current American holiday I can really get behind, provided we combine it with Father’s Day to turn it into Parents’ Day, so that kids who only have one parent or two same-sex parents don’t feel bad. I mean, why should I be forced to take a day off on Columbus Day instead of on my own guru’s birthday, February 21? Leonard Cohen’s birthday would also be a holiday in my church. I’d probably also take a yearly holiday to Amsterdam with a few girlfriends to celebrate our friendship and our love for each other. Doesn’t this all make much more sense? What matters to you, and what would
you
celebrate?

Dude, You’re Talking Turkey

Thanksgiving is one of my least favorite American holidays. Like Christmas, it has become a huge industry. Each year, we celebrate it by slaughtering 45 million turkeys and eating (on average) 4,500 calories in a single meal. There’s just one problem. What are we celebrating? I didn’t figure out that Thanksgiving was a totally fabricated holiday until I met the American Indian leader John Trudell—who became my lover, teacher, and lifelong friend—in 1991. That’s when I started thinking honestly about the fact that every year, hundreds of millions of Americans sit around and eat turkeys to celebrate our annihilation of an entire race of people.

All throughout school, I’d been taught in history class that Thanksgiving was to commemorate the pilgrims and the Indians shaking hands, making friends, and eating corn and squash for dinner. But what really happened is that Europeans came over and obliterated this continent’s inhabitants with guns and diseases and then stole their land. The ones they couldn’t kill off, even after hundreds of years of wars, they crowded onto the worst tracts of land—Indian reservations—and plied with cigarettes and alcohol. Over the years, the “Americans” told the Indians to give up their spiritual practices, from medicine wheels to Sun dancing, to cut their hair, change their names, and learn English if they wanted to continue to receive subsidies.

This is what we celebrate when we celebrate Thanksgiving. In many schools, we’re still brainwashing our children with these lies. Can you imagine what the Indian kids must be thinking? It would be like everyone in New York City having cake for Hitler’s birthday! I don’t understand why there aren’t twenty-five thousand Indians outside Macy’s each year protesting this! Where is everyone? Are they all on the Internet?

Despite the fact that the first alleged “Thanksgiving” happened in 1621, it wasn’t until 1939 that Thanksgiving became the caloric binge it is today. That’s when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially proposed that it happen annually on the last Thursday of November—not in order to celebrate history or our heritage (even lies about our heritage), but
to extend the Christmas shopping season and stimulate the economy
! In 1941, Congress took Roosevelt’s lead and gave us all the day off. Yes, that’s right. This holiday is fewer than a hundred years old, which means it can still be stopped!

Don’t get me wrong. No one loves black and white together more than I; in fact, dozens of designers have done amazing interpretations of the buckle shoe already. And Black Friday—please. I know it’s a huge day for my industry and has helped pay my bills by bolstering my clients’ businesses. I have nothing against holidays or celebrating; I just don’t know why we’d want to celebrate a holiday with no meaning that makes us strung out, fat, and broke.

And I resent the fact that, when I go to my local farmer’s market on weekends in November, I have to see a poor turkey in a cage under a sign that says, “Order Here,” and be forced to explain to my daughter that this beautiful creature, which Benjamin Franklin wanted to name our national bird, is about to be slaughtered and eaten. Humans have celebrated the solstice and the changing of the seasons for thousands of years. Why can’t we just say we’re taking a time-out for four days to each celebrate what we want, with a smile on our face and a prayer and a song in our heart?

When I first found out the truth about Thanksgiving, I fasted on that day, refusing to justify this fake, violent holiday with my participation. After a few years, I decided it would be more productive to make it into my
own
holiday. So I started throwing a “harvest dinner,” inviting a handful of friends and sometimes employees to my apartment, where we’d cook root vegetables and celebrate the harvest, the changing of the seasons, and everything in our lives we have to be grateful for. We don’t need a fake historical event to justify this—and I can assure you we are not missing out on anything.

When you really start to look at our modern holidays, you’ll see they have almost nothing to do with history, religion, or tradition and everything to do with capitalism—which wants to keep us acting “normal,” or distracted from what’s real and numbly consuming as much stuff as possible. Until the 1980s, most stores were closed on holidays like Presidents’ Day. But these holidays have become huge boons to retail; stores stay open to capitalize on the fact that the government has given us all a mandatory day off when we’re free to shop! Presidents’ Day now is best known not for presidents, but for car discounts. Yes, it has become one of the biggest car-buying days of the year! Valentine’s Day, meanwhile, is a huge day for the chocolate, flower-delivery, and restaurant businesses. I mean, entire industries revolve around these supposedly restful “holidays.”

Meanwhile, Anna Jarvis, the West Virginian who invented Mother’s Day and got President Woodrow Wilson to approve it in 1914, was arrested later in her life for protesting the commercialization of this holiday she helped create! Yes, she gets
one
holiday celebrating women on our whole fucking calendar, only to be disgusted when it’s taken over by capitalism. Jarvis even opposed selling flowers and greeting cards, calling them “a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.”

Please, will you join me in putting these holidays out of business?

Let’s celebrate the things
we
want to celebrate by creating our own personal holidays and traditions, making them restful, meaningful, and yes, even spiritual.

And let’s stop shopping on days when the government and capitalism tell us to and instead shop when everything’s on sale!