I really love having soft lips, it’s a thing for me and always has been. When I was younger, I realized a bit of Vaseline on my lips before bedtime softened them like nobody’s business. At 19 I was living in Oakland, attending community college, waiting tables at Sizzler in El Cerrito, driving a hoopty, and enjoying a deep appreciation for Top Ramen. Rolling in dough I was not, so when I saw a huge jar of Vaseline on sale, it was a gift I could not resist.

I remember thinking how cool it was that I had so much Vaseline; I’d have soft lips forever! I kept it at my bedside, because that’s when I used it, right before sleep. 

And so it happened that one night I had an overnight guest; I can’t say I recall any details other than us waking and him looking at that jar and then looking at me and he seemed speechless. Had he asked, I would have told him the reason, but he didn’t, and it took me years to realize what he was most likely thinking. 

At 28 I was living in Berkeley, waitressing at Chevy’s in Alameda, upstairs, in the bar. There was another cocktail waitress there named Athena. She was a Leo, and she was fun,  and she was fabulous! Athena had her tongue pierced and I thought it was the bomb. I decided to have mine pierced because of her, she made it look that cool. 

It was a number of years before I realized the social connotations around that piercing.

Summer of 2003 I was in Vegas working as a greeter for time shares (don’t hate me), smoking pot every day and night, and it occurred to me that what I needed was a new tattoo. On my lower back. That intersected with a revelation I’d been savoring for several months; after much consideration and reflection, I’d finally concluded that, aside from Prince who is his own genre,  Rock and Roll was my number one favorite kind of music (not Rock; Rock and Roll - specifically Blues based Rock and Roll; more specifically Blues based Rock and Roll from the late ‘60’s; even more specifically The Doors, Jimi, Janis, The Stones). I was so elated to know that so clearly that I decided a tattoo was in order. And I chose a script font as a nod to the sanitized album cover for ‘Beggars Banquet’. Do you see where this is going? If you do, good for you because I didn’t do the math for about 15 years.

I actually voluntarily paid someone to tattoo ‘rock and roll’ on my lower back. Now, there are two things to consider here; one, I didn’t then, and still don’t consider my lower back to be my ass - they are clearly two different parts of the body; and two, I never used the term ‘rock and roll’ as a verb; to me it was a musical reference and never anything else. But when I finally opened my eyes and realized that large segments of society do consider the lower back to be the ass and large segments of society also use the term ‘rock and roll’ to basically say ‘let’s do this’, I was mortified to realize what a whore I was looking like in the eyes of large segments of society. It’s like a fucking nightmare. It is, without question, the single dumbest, most embarrassing thing I have ever done in my life. 

I’ve decided to laugh at it, just like I laugh at the other two stories I’ve shared, because why not?

Sometimes you do dumb shit and you don’t know it’s dumb until you do it. And that’s life. We all have something that seemed like a great idea at the time that turned out to be too embarrassing for words. It’s okay. It has to be okay because we need to laugh at ourselves, and others, because life just can’t be serious all the time.

I think we’ve become far too serious. Everything is potentially offensive to someone, and constantly pointing that out takes the fun out of everything. We should be able to laugh at ourselves and each other because people are funny, life is funny and if we can’t laugh I think we are missing the point. We’re supposed to enjoy life. Life without laughter is flat, dry, monotonous, and scary. We deserve better.

We gotta start giving ourselves and each other a break. Stop being so hard on ourselves and each other. Try to relax about being right all the time. Try to ease up on being so insecure that we feel like no one can have a different opinion. Each and every one of us is a unique individual, yet so much time is spent resisting that fact, as if there is something wrong with our differences, as if it isn’t natural. We’re supposed to be enjoying life, not waging war with one another every day about everything fucking thing. Love and laughter feel so much better than hate and judgement. So let’s lighten up. Laugh dammit! 

Namaste.