Archives for July 2013

Clown Rockstar

Clown Rockstar

Bad Clown DayI know Exactly what it’s like to be a rock star. Exactly. Because for Six Years I made my living as a Professional Clown.

I’d come on stage to adoring fans who would yell my name: “Hey, Clown!” One young man looked up to me and said, “I love you, Bingo.” To show me something AWESOME a little girl got my attention by saying, “Mr. Clown! Mr. Clown!” When I sang, they’d dance. When I did something really cool, they’d ooh and ah. And when I was funny, they’d laugh. [They’d also laugh sometimes when I wasn’t trying to be funny, like the time I fell coming into the ring of a circus, by accident. Apparently I made it look good, because the crowd LOVED it, and the other clown thought I was trying to upstage him; au contraire, falling on one’s face HURTS.]

I'm one of these clowns

I’m one of these clowns

I was in demand. People would wait in line for minutes (or longer) for a precious balloon animal, made especially for them. I know what it’s like to leave my fans in the lurch, by forgetting to visit their table in time or giving another kid a better balloon, dashing their hopes and dreams.

I had super cool clown rockstar friends who shared their awesomeness with me, and made me laugh and laughed at my jokes. Much like Bono might hang out with Bon Jovi, I’d hang out with Cheesecake or Cheezo or J. Our puns were music to our ears.

And there were the Haters. The people who were scared of clowns. The kids who were “too old”. The grumpy gusses. The manager who told me that I wasn’t a real clown because I didn’t juggle. Like any rockstar, I had my critics. But, just like Madonna soldiers on after her latest PR debacles, I pressed on with my head up high, making better balloons, telling stupider jokes, and singing sillier songs.

I was a Clown Rockstar.

What are you going to do about it?

Mark All As Read

Mark All As Read

Mark All as Read GMail ScreenshotChances are, if you emailed me and I never got back to you it’s because I’ve “Read” it already: I used everybody’s friend “Mark All As Read.”

Some people keep their unopened emails for years, I think Edmund has thousands of unopened mails. But it drives me nuts. I prefer to have an empty inbox; no new mails. When I get busy or go on vacation my emails start piling up, 200, 300, 500 == crazy-making. When that happens, I scan over the new emails (50 at a time) and click “Mark All As Read.” If I find an email I want to actually read, I will keep it Unread, causing me to juggle between Read and Unread and click and unclick boxes. When I’m done sorting through 500 messages, I might have 20 new emails left I want to read. And then I read them.

Because the process of selecting emails I want to read includes me quickly scanning over 50 emails at a time, sometimes I miss an email or two. When I am following up with someone, I make sure to double-check that they haven’t already replied to my previous message. Just so I don’t look like a jerk.

I use GMail’s labeling system to highlight emails from sources important to me: Facebook, Twitter, BitchyPoo/Love & Hisses, Edmund, My Mom. For instance, I love getting notifications from Facebook. I don’t read them all. I click on the FaceBook label and check out any Unread items I might have missed from the website, when I’m done checking, I mark the rest as Read. I don’t want to miss anything.

So if you’ve sent an email to me and I never got back to you, I might have Marked it as Read by mistake. Sorry about that. I also might have read it, intended on getting back to you and then got distracted by something shiny. And that’s a whole other blag post.

Enter Title Here

Write your thoughts here. Congratulations, you’re writing a blag post!

Write some more thoughts (and hope against hope that someone, anyone, will make a nice comment.)

Check email. Check Facebook. Check Twitter.

Lose train of thought.

Come back to blag post. Valiantly remember what you were writing about. Try to stay on track.

Realize what you are writing is insipid and trite, and think of another topic.

Writing the other topic will take too much time (and may make you upset or angry), so punk out and look up a YouTube video to include in your blag post.

Write self-consciously about how you are punking out.

Check Facebook.

Call Husband. Leave message for Husband.

Realize you need to touch base with people on Facebook. Do it.

Search (again) YouTube for cool video. Fail.

Think that the “totally Amazing” things that will “blow your mind” hardly ever do. And be sad.

Want to see something totally amazing that will blow your mind. Compose Tweet about it in your head. Don’t tweet it.

Text with Husband.

Search YouTube Videos.

Chat with Mom on Facebook. She posts something schmaltzy about daughters on your wall, and in spite of yourself you tear up.

Realize that the internet is made of cats and everything will be okay.

Egg Explodes in Westbrook, Maine

Westbrook – In the course of boiling 6 seemingly benign (albeit out-of-date) eggs on Sunday evening, Lanna Lee Maheux-Quinn was shocked to her core when one of the eggs explodes in her face. “I was standing there, waiting for the water to boil for a minute, while reading a Jennifer Crusie novel on my Kindle, when pop! and then a drop of hot water hit my face”, said apartment-dweller Maheux-Quinn. “I knew right away one of the eggs exploded, but I didn’t understand why. Why did this have to happen to me?”

When asked what she did in the face of such danger, Maheux-Quinn replied, “I quickly covered the pot, turned off the heat and went back to reading my book. Later I put the 5 eggs that did not explode in the refrigerator. I threw the explodey egg away.”

Some experts say that exploding eggs are caused by tiny cracks in the shell, controversial expert Coach says, “the exploding eggs come from crazy chickens”.

“Some people say that it might have been a bad egg,” says Maheux-Quinn, “but it looked like a good one to me. Just goes to show, you never can tell.”

Internet-free day

Had another internet-free 24 hours. It was needed.

Now I’m reading (yet another) book – I’m on my 6th one since yesterday. Tomorrow is a day for doing stuff (laundry, grocery shopping, maybe a trip to Panera.)

I’m going to be guilt-free about today, I needed the time off. And I got a good nap in.

Writing this on my phone so I won’t have to turn on the computer.

A good day. Now, hopefully I can get to sleep after the nap I had.

New from the Lounge: LLL070 Sydney Mackey Haggerty – Breathe Deep in the Belly

New from the Lounge: LLL070 Sydney Mackey Haggerty – Breathe Deep in the Belly

Sydney Lounged with LannaLee and got a Couch!

Sydney Lounged with LannaLee and got a Couch!

Going along with Lounging with LannaLee’s New Direction, here is my conversation with Sydney Mackey Haggerty, Breath Deep in the Belly.

This is the first episode in which I explicitly ask the following questions:

  1. How can we as a society make the world a better place?
  2. How do you make the world a better place? (Can you? Will you?)

It’s on, people.

Here is the description from the episode:

On beautiful Sebec Lake, Sydney and Lanna talk about staying positive, how Americans work too hard, martial arts, Qigong, and breathing deep in the belly. Sydney tells us how to make the world a better place. Sydney reveals that people are her passion, that her art is in her body, and what she does to keep going. And she answers 10 questions.

So why don’t you click on over there and take a listen.

You know you wanna.

TweetUps and Doctors and Whatnot

Had a fabulous time at the tweet up tonight. Gave out close to 50 pens. Talked with a few people. Drank in the energy of the crowd (not in a vampire way, mind you, but in a I’m-an-extrovert-and-I-love-to-hang-out-with-people kind of way.)

Had a doctor’s appointment today. All good on the Lanna front. I did sneak out before she remembered we should do a tetanus shot. (Felt like I was getting away with something. Ha Ha!)

My damned temporary Crown is wiggly again. I have an appointment for next Wednesday, I think I am going to try to stick it out until then. I am sick of going to the dentist. (Heck, I was ALREADY the mayor on 4square.) Sigh. All he can do is glue the temp crown back in (again). If it stays, I’ll be fine. And let’s hope that, if it doesn’t, it falls out on a weekday. Before noon. (so I can hightail it to the dentist before the end of the day.)

I am sorry, but I did not see a blue box, so I won’t be talking about THE Doctor. (I did see a dapper dude wearing a bow tie – bow ties are cool – but he did not have a sonic anything.)

I had an awesome blag post to write for you today, I wrote part of it during my lunch. But it might make me cry to write it, so I am saving it for another day. (Yay, you!)

So. The Lounge has a New Direction (I started talking about it on the blag here.) Tried out my new elevator speech for Lounging with LannaLee tonight. I think it’s a winner:

I talk to interesting people about making the world a better place.

What do you think?

Sick Day

I called out sick today. Not feeling well and whatnot. Wonder if it was just a 24-hour thing, because I am feeling better now.

Whatever.

I got lots of sleep. Maybe it was the extra sleep?

Now it’s time to POD and stuff.

I think I need some more sleep.

Have you joined the Lounge Lizards yet?

Weird, but I just got my stuff together and created an automated mailing list for Lounging with LannaLee which will feature periodic posts from this blag.

Have you joined the Lounge Lizard mailing list yet? If you want to be kept in the loop, simply add your email to the field below, and you will be added.


Your information will be kept confidential.

By joining the email list, you won’t miss a thing. You’ll be kept in the loop on all the Lounging with LannaLee news PLUS you’ll get all the best posts from right here, the Musings of Lanna Lee Maheux. Win, Win!

Hey Now, Geraldo! OR Geraldo Rivera is a Saucy lil Biscuit!

Hey Now, Geraldo! OR Geraldo Rivera is a Saucy lil Biscuit!

Geraldo Rivera sez "70 is the new 50"!

Geraldo Rivera sez “70 is the new 50”! Thanks to the Q Morning Show for the heads up!

This picture fascinates and delights me all at the same time.

It is of journalist Geraldo Rivera, who posted it on his twitter account over the weekend with the caption “70 is the new 50”. A kerfuffle ensued.

I missed most of the hoopla, because I was upta camp; I first saw the pic posted on the Q Morning Show Facebook Page first thing this morning.

I shared the post on my Facebook page, and it performed very well, inciting a bit of consternation amongst my Facebook pals. My friend Brenna said “nope. 70 is 70.” Rosemary said “My issue is: why do we know HOW he looks? People, keep your clothes on when you take selfies!” My Mom said “TMI Oh My.” And Jeffry piped in with: “He needs to trim that damn mustache…”. All very interesting.

I had several thoughts going through my mind all at the same time:

  • Whoa. Did he really post that?
  • Looking good, Geraldo.
  • He looks naked. Is he naked?
  • Why is he naked?
  • He really does look good for 70.
  • I’d do him.
  • Why can’t I see his junk?
  • I want to see his junk.
  • This is not fair. Why can’t I see his junk?
  • Why did he post himself naked?
  • Shit, he looks good for 50!

Here is a problem we didn’t have twenty years ago, a (mostly) respected journalist and public personality publishing a naked picture of himself. And it’s kinda socially acceptable. Not really, obviously, because he did take it down, but it’s no different from some of the pictures millions of non-public personalities are publishing. It’s fascinating to see the reactions people are having to the picture.

Why did he post it? I think it’s because he thinks he looks great for a 70-year-old; that shows a healthy degree of self-love. Why not feel great about how you look? He looks very fit, but only because he looks relatively thin. What if he were 50 pounds heavier? Would the picture seem to be as amusing (sexy) or would people be even more offended? Like: how dare he love himself when he’s all fat and shit. I don’t know.

What if he were a 70-year-old female, and was posting a picture in a tiny bikini. How would the reaction be different? Would it only be a series of “you go girl” comments or would the backlash be the same? I think if the female was as fit-looking as Geraldo, she’d be lauded for her hot bod AND her bravery. Think about that for a second. If a 70-year-old female looked “hot” in a picture she posted on Twitter, she would be illustrating that she is still performing for the male gaze, and doing what women are “supposed” to do: be attractive.

Geraldo doesn’t have to be attractive, he’s a man. His attractiveness is a boon, for sure, but he would still be respected if he weren’t attractive. He would be judged on his past successes (and mistakes), and even this little snafu will not do much to harm his reputation.

A Good Kind of Tired

Had a good time at upta camp (pix to come later).

Stayed up too late reading on Friday night, spent a lot of time doing puzzles with my Mom – while Bill complained we weren’t paying enough attention to him.

Yesterday went to the Monson Summerfest, enjoyed the Spring Creek BBQ’s Meat Swap, and a quick swim in the pond with Mom and Aunt Barbara. Then had a cookout with Mom, Bill, Trisha, Sasha and Betty-Jean. Laughter and teasing and a bunch of fun was had.

I’m a good kind of tired. Apparently, all the productive things I was going to do when I got home are not going to get done. Instead I’m going to hang out with Eddie instead.

Later.

Upta Camp

Bob Marley says it best:

Hope the day is beautiful as they say it’s going to be.

Later.

Fun For Friday: Convos with a Two Year Old

I’m off to go upta camp, to hang out with my Mom and Brother, so here are some fun things for you. [Hey, it’s Mom’s Birthday Today, so if you one of her friends on Facebook, make sure you wish her a happy one!]

Convos with a Two Year Old Renacted with another Grown Up Man.

Hilarious. Here are the first 5. And when you are done, visit their YouTube Page for 2 more.

Lounging with LannaLee’s New Mission. Just like the old mission, just explicated. And better.

Lounging with LannaLee’s New Mission. Just like the old mission, just explicated. And better.

Lounging with LannaLeeI think I’ve got it. I’ve really got it.

Note: I’m an extrovert and I think out loud. Here is me, thinking out loud on my blag.

That’s what the blag is for, isn’t it?

As you all know, I’ve been going through some shit around here: death, illness, depression, wah wah wah, woe is me. Add to that the current newsy things going on in the world, like the Zimmerman trial, the attacks all over on women’s rights. Sure we have some good things going on (gay marriage for one), but marriage equality is still lacking in many states.

I want to do something about it. But what? I want to make the world a better place. But how?

It came to me the other day, I’m ALREADY doing something. Through the Lounge! I am:

Making a Difference through adventurous conversations.

.

Here are but a few examples:

  • LLL063 published on 5/30/2013: me and my pal Ida talk about Love and Loss and Life and Death – a heart to heart conversation full of fantastic belly laughter. That conversation with Ida encouraged me to Walk my Walk.
  • LLL054 published on 3/28/2013: my friend Elizabeth talks about her work with families who have children with autism, and her passion for helping women find their power, and she wonders “What in the Hell was I Thinking!” Again, there were belly laughs.
  • LLL003 published on 3/15/2012: lest you think only recent lounges make a difference, you should take a listen to my conversation with Julie Woods – who will be achieving world domination through love. (Don’t doubt her, people). When I was done with that conversation, I thought I could do ANYTHING. And: Belly Laughs!
  • LLL024 published on 08/30/2012: My conversation with Steve Trombulak we talk about how he and his partner helped a village in Ghana make their drums speak again. We also discussed how to help the ecology: it’s not just about hugging the earth hard enough. (We laughed too.)
  • LLL067 published on 07/05/2013: When I saw Angela Shelton speak at the #140You conference about how she healed herself after a traumatic childhood, I laughed so hard, I knew I had to get her for the show. She and I had a fantastic conversation on the streets of New York City about her journey and how doing a documentary (where she went around the country meeting a bunch of women named Angela Shelton) changed her life.

I am Making a Difference through adventurous conversations.

Of course I want to do more. But what?

Last night it hit me. Like a brick. A brain brick. You know, one of those clue bricks you get once and a while.

Interject to say: this whole clue brick was precipitated by a blog post by my pal Alex Steed, where he talks to musician Samuel James about the Zimmerman case, entitled: No, We are Not “Making it about Race” (And “they” weren’t – the Zimmerman case IS about race. Even this white girl can see it.)

Anyway. I had already established I was Making a Difference through adventurous conversations. My clue brick was the HOW.

Starting now, every Lounging with LannaLee episode will have, as part of it, the following two questions:

  1. How can we as a society make the world a better place?
  2. How do you make the world a better place? (Can you? Will you?)

The agenda will still be to have a great conversation, of course.

But now we are gearing up to rule the world.

A little bit Jumpy

Yesterday, as I made myself a cup of coffee (and REMEMBERED to put the cup under the dispenser) I realized I felt jumpy. Jittery. Antsy.

I was pacing back and forth. What to do?

So I walked out into the hallway, I walked one flight up (to the third floor) walked across to the other set of stairs, walked two flights down, and then walked back up to the second floor. I did a circuit.

This is momentous because last week I was taking the elevator up to the second floor.

This week I’ve been using the stairs.

Is this new energy med related? It might be. Was I, instead of just being lazy, depressed?

Only time will tell.

[Written Wednesday. Publishing Thursday: Well, this is a first. I thought I published this from my phone last night. But it didn’t go through. I am back-dating it so it shows up on the correct date.]