Eat Pray Love My Ass

(image taken from the World Market Explore website, I refuse to link it keep reading and you'll know why)

I dropped into Cost Plus World Market today and Eat Pray Love greeted me at the door. It seems that Elizabeth-fucking-Gilbert has completely sold out while jumping the shark. There’s a picture of Julia Roberts as our plucky and adventurous but albeit heartbroken hero all set to explore Italy, India and Bali. And a big sign about taking a look at the Eat Pray Love shop!!! And it really makes me mad. I mean irrationally stabby. Like I was so mad I left the store and forgot my purchases, mad. Gilbert’s nickname at the ashram was well earned: “Groceries” given to her by a well meaning fellow pilgrim who did not return to the US to sell out. Her nickname was funny in India because she was always hungry but now it’s fitting because obviously she’s still perpetually hungry for more more MORE! MORE MONEY! MORE MEDIA ATTENTION!!!

What pisses me off most about Groceries is not that she is another Oprah enterprise or she sold the rights to her book as a film or is now shilling crap made in Malaysia, Italy and India under the guise of “folk art” but rather she is reducing the spiritual aspects of her journey. Everyone from her Master in New York to that woman entrepreneur in Bali (I hate this book so much I refuse to look up the name of this character because god forbid Groceries gets another hit through Google or Wiki) is now reduced to a cash enterprise for her. The way she is exploiting them, their own spiritual journeys and experiences make me sick. It’s like Judas selling out Jesus with a kiss for a gold coin. I really do wonder how her Master and those people at the ashram feel about her. I hope they shun her for the money grubbing cow she is. The other thing that makes me angry is I was completely fooled by her until I realized--while she was in India--she was nothing but a whiny assed baby who thought her life was over because she was divorced at the ripe old age of thirty and couldn’t hold a yoga pose or meditate longer than 30 seconds. She couldn’t hold the yoga poses because she was too busy practicing her selling out poses and she couldn’t meditate and clear her mind for longer than thirty seconds because her monkey brain was too full of herself. Cow.

The other thing which makes me crazy angry: if she’s so damn perfect, why isn’t she announcing to the world she is starting a micro loan program in Bali for women to start their own businesses? Why isn’t she selling her crap through Global Exchange an online free trade shop which sells scarves and stuff? Which leads me to another point of her hyprocrasy that crap in World Market isn't free trade but it's made my child slaves in sweat shops. Again: if you are going to be so extremely spiritual and extremely conscious of the world around you. Put your money where your mouth is.

I hope she chokes on her super special basket of Italian goodies or gets tangled up in one of her scarves made by child slaves. What would really be great is if Hell froze over and somehow she heard about my rant and contacted me just to prove to me I was wrong and she had invested money in the people who have propelled her to cultural stardom hasn't sold her out and she is only selling free trade items. That would rock. And I could also tell her directly how much I hated her overly self-conscious and facile book.

So I’m raving at The Girl about this today when she came home from lunch. (That will teach her to come home for lunch, now won’t it?) Nice Jesus and not the angry-turning-over-the-merchant’s-tables in the temple Jesus was living in TG’s heart because she offered up this excuse:

“You know her last book wasn’t very good so maybe she needed the money.”

“Dude, not an excuse. Who could blow through that much money--maybe Lindsey Lohan (enphasis on "blow"--besides it's is a movie starring Julia Roberts. Maybe she could have…you know…WRITTEN A DECENT BOOK if she needed money. Or a compilation of photographs from her travels. Nope she came home and became Oprah’s Toddy.”

Unfortunately, TG couldn’t come up with any more reasons for this travesty of marketing and self promotion. And so in the true fashion of a hypocrite I started shooting off ideas for products which would be appropriate for Edgy June Cleaver:

Edgy June Cleaver Dictionary and Thesaurus
Edgy June Cleaver aprons or dish towels with embroidered pictures of my retarded dog.
Edgy June Cleaver Vodka available on those really hard to face parenting days and if you aren’t a drinker: Edgy June Cleaver moleskin notebooks to hurl in the general direction of your rotten kids.
Sharon Stone will play me in the film, too. Really it's the only obvious choice.

So when the time comes for me to become a Global Enterprise remind me of my little rant before I put Oprah on speed dial and start touring sweatshops in Viet Nam and Cambodia.

Spinning

"Zippy" November 22, 2008 by Bill Griffith



Spin /SPIN/ VERB to contemplate on a subject in a negative manner which could lead to needless anxiety and worry. Synonym for “beating a dead horse”

In a rare moment of lucidity, my psychotic ex-girlfriend, aptly pointed out my penchant for this sort of spinning. Admittedly, it was my hobby. I’m not as prone to spinning as I once was and now it resembles a slow twirl versus a vortex of self recrimination and regret. It’s more like wandering in a circle. This week I have been wandering around in my head. Aimelessly, I might add and I find myself listlessly staring into space. This would be all well and good if I were say Elizabeth Gilbert in India. But I’m not a wealthy and self-indulgent writer. Nope just a self-indulgent wanna be. Eating in Italy, meditating in India and fucking off in Bali isn’t in my future. Can you tell I don’t think much of this book? I loved it when I read it but I‘ve had almost a year to consider it and now I think it‘s dreck.

Saturday, I was reminded how much I dislike this book. I was helping a patient--easily the angriest woman in the world-- wash her hair. Some of her anger is understandable: she suffers from both chronic pain and is disabled. However, X is more debilitated emotionally than physically but that‘s another story and a HIPPA violation. She is bed bound and it was tricky to set up the room so I could create a sink of sorts behind the bed. Much to her consternation I did manage to move things around and so I could pour the water, catch the water and wash her hair, away from a sink or a shower. It was a relief for me to slow down for a few minutes and despite her grumbling protests, X appreciated the attention.

I‘m such a Piscean creature so water always settles me and even through the gloves, the water trickling over my fingers was calming. As I washed her hair, my free floating ire was falling away and the room took on a Zen like silence. (Whenever this happens with a patient, I’m about to have an epiphany or learn a lesson.) I’m pouring water over her head and meditatively massaging shampoo into her thinning hair, when I saw it: Eat, Pray, Love on her bedside table. The Zen left me. I felt my eyes roll and I sighed.

“Oh, I bet you can really relate to Gilbert’s angst ridden drivel?” I smirked, my voice dripping with sarcasm because I was the second angriest woman in the world.

“God, don’t get me started. She should trade places with me for five minutes. This--all of this--would make her long for her ‘loveless marriage’. And we would never have to hear about how much she hated to meditate ever again.“, She spat back. *

This week, I have mulled over many parts of the time I spent with X and this conversation came back to me again and againa because I think about trading places with other people, a lot. It's a terrible habit and some days envy moves to bitterness. Which is pointless for so many reasons. I believe the dis-ease of bitterness can put the body in harms way and lead to illness. It’s also pointless from a more pedantic point of view. We see other people’s lives only from a single dimension. We can’t see history or fight their internal battles. Usually, the people who spawn the dreaded bitterness are strangers, usually imaginary friends. I do think there is a fine line between wanting a life like someone else’s and wanting to trade with them. Wanting a life that looks like someone else’s can be a creative start. If I'm not mistaken part of Gilbert's appeal is just this.

For years, I wanted my life to be just like my dear friend A’s, who is a remarkable woman; she is extraordinarily talented, drop dead funny, creative, a great mom, intelligent and gorgeous. If I didn’t love her so much, I would hate her. She was also married to The Perfect Man. He too, was funny, smart, good looking and very successful (whatever). Sometimes, I’m not really quick on the uptake and it took about 10 years to see the cracks in that myth I had written about Mr. Asshat Esq. He traded her in on a foreign model. Now she is navigating the unsure waters of being single in her fifties. Damn. No thanks. I mean it was enough to navigate being single--and embracing the fact I‘m a lesbian--in my forties. But to do it again? Um…No. Besides, if my wrinkle in the time space continuum occurred and I had stepped into her life, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of watching her grow the last two years. And what pure grace that has been, too! I know sometimes she is awash in bitterness because her life doesn’t look the way she mapped it. Does anyone’s? I mean really. When I was thirty, if you had told me in seventeen years I would be divorced and in love with a woman; I would have done the Elaine thing: slapped your shoulder and said: “Get out!”

I do find myself scratching my head when I look at my map. In 2002, I discovered the map was upside down. Of course, I spent time rolling around in bitterness. Now I avoid what ifs and regrets. Isn't that why I spent thousands on therapy? My baseline happiness quotient doesn't call for regret, either. A delightful friend pointed out an upside down map turns hills into lush valleys. I threw away my map this week because I'm sick of trying to plot out the details of my life. Especially, when what happens is a million times more delightful than the plans I make.

I’m thankful, I don’t have to leave home to find myself. I’ve been here all along and I don’t really need a map. Besides, I will miss something surprising and wonderful if I continue to look down at the map. Rascal Flatts says it best ". . .thankful for the tears I've cried with every stumbled step that led to you and got me here, right here. . . "


*please say a prayer of peace for this woman. She has so much left to offer this world and my prayer is she discovers this before it is too late.