Have you guys seen this article floating around Facebook lately?

People are posting this all over their walls with mis-informed messages about the dangers of Neti Pots and it’s making me crazy. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about my love affair with the Neti Pot, but that little piece of plastic changed my life and I won’t have people talking shit about it.

What these folks are failing to read in the article (and the article’s title for that matter) is that the Neti Pot is not to blame for these deaths, it’s the tap water. Now, I have used tap water in my Neti pot for years — here in New York, in Florida, Georgia, perhaps even internationally and to my knowledge, I am without brain-eating amoebas. However, it seems that may be so because there is one place I haven’t used tap water for my Neti Pot: Louisiana.

That’s right. Both deaths referred to in this article occurred in a state that not only borders the oil-damaged Gulf Coast, but whose water filtration systems were in all likelihood damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And where did these deaths occur, you ask? Why, New Orleans (Katrina) and De Soto Parrish (only 185 miles north of the Gulf). Maybe the blame shouldn’t even be on tap water but on Louisiana tap water specifically.

CNN wrote their own article on the Neti Pot deaths and they say that the brain-eating amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, that was found in the tap water as well as in the victims’ sinus passages, is totally fine if you drink it. It’s just when it comes in contact with your brain that problems (i.e., deaths) crop up.

Now, I’m no scientist, but I’m thinking that maybe someone should take a little closer look at that tap water in Louisiana and maybe figure out a way to avoid any and all contact with this nasty Naegleria fowleri stuff. But then again, what the hell do I know?

A couple of weeks ago I sent my sister an email to discuss the plans for my and Erica’s roadtrip to Georgia to see her and my niece for the holidays. Wanna see her response?

What are you trying to do?? Ruin this Christmas too?? Last year was bad enough. I wanted to try and have a happy Christmas this year.

You wanna know what happened last Christmas? Our mom died. So, what my sister means is that me visiting for the holidays this year, would be as bad as watching our mother die from congestive heart failure last year.

I haven’t really written a lot about Mom’s death and the aftermath of what’s happened since, but you may remember that a few months back I reported that things were going well between me and my sister on our mission to settle the estate. Unfortunately, things changed. As is typical in dealings with money and family, previously civil conversations disintegrated into text arguments and one-word emails, eventually leading to the aforementioned un-invitation for the holidays.

Of course, this isn’t what I envisioned for this Christmas. I thought Mom’s death would somehow bring my sister and I closer together. That the tragedy that was our mother’s too-short life would be something that would inspire us to join forces, to finally become sisters in the traditional loving, supportive manner that other pairs of siblings seem to enjoy. For months, I’ve pictured the road trip down to Georgia and imagined us having our first family holiday without a mom, but with each other. Turns out, that’s not happening. I’m super sad about it, but after a couple of days of crying, I finally accepted the fact that I’ll be spending my and my sister’s first holiday without our Mom on my own.

On the bright side, Erica and I already scheduled time off for the vacation so instead of driving down to Georgia, we’re going to a spa.

My friend Troye is unbelievably proactive when it comes to his creative ventures. In the decade that I’ve known him, he’s become a hairdresser, owned two hair salons, written two (three?) screenplays, composed and recorded several songs, done makeup and hair for a wide variety of theater productions, and entered (and won) a slew of writing competitions.

His latest venture is writing a book about living with Tourette syndrome. Not only is Troye a bearer of this -let’s face it - fascinating condition, he’s become super involved in the Tourette community and is currently serving on the board of New York’s local Tourette Syndrome Association. As he becomes more active in the community, Troye is learning that there is a severe lack of information and research done about this manageable condition.

Troye started this project as a simple blog post and after getting over 1000 hits in a week, knew he was on to something. He’s decided to take his “A Day in the Life” post and turn it into a book by adding the stories of another 20 or so adults and children living with Tourette’s.

Troye’s currently fundraising on Kickstarter, and I figured that since I’ll be hitting him (and you) up very soon for my own project (and because I truly believe in what he’s doing), I’d pass his info along to you lovely people in case you were interested in spreading some holiday cheer this year. The funding will go towards travel expenses, recording of interviews and stuff like that.

The thing is, time is running out. On Kickstarter they have an all-or-none policy; Troye has to fund his project 100% by Friday, December 16, or he doesn’t get anything, which means it will take even longer for this important work to get out to the public.

Seriously, every dollar will help, so if you can … do.

They'd better hurry up.

Although I have yet to receive my exclusive, one of only 1,000,000,000 copies on the planet, special-edition journal, I am a very active member of Oprah’s Lifeclass. I’m talking videos, webcasts, TV show, online diary … all of it.

It started a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been doing my best to stay on top of the work. I’m not caught up on everything - seriously, who can take on an hour of emotional growth five nights a week plus twice on Fridays? - but I have watched a lot and my life outlook has definitely evolved since we started.

On the Lifeclass TV show, Oprah uses her greatest, life changing moments from her Oprah show to shape her teachings, and a lot of those have to do with her making surprise visits. She’s shown up at people’s work, surprised them in their father’s pizza joints, and in one clip, she sent a camera crew to this woman’s house - her crowded, broken furniture filled, chaotic mess of a house. I’ve loved every other moment of class, but that particular episode terrified me a little.

Holy shit. What would I do if Oprah just showed up at our house?

I looked around and the place was in decent shape, cleanliness-wise, but there was a good amount of crap lying around. There were some almost, but not quite, dehydrated lemons in a bowl on the table, dirty dishes in the sink, and the floor hasn’t been swept in, well, a while. I was so not ready for Oprah.

When I realized that, I thought, “Well, why not? What makes Oprah so special that she deserves to see a better version of my house than I do? Why should the counters be cleaner for her once-in-a-lifetime visit than they are for me and Erica on a daily basis?”

Don’t we deserve to live in a place that’s up to Oprah standards? Aren’t we worthy of dust-free shelves?

In that moment, I decided to always be Oprah Ready (you know, as soon as I got a chance to clean up). Now, I don’t mean in any crazy, militant way where everything has to be pristine and perfect at every moment. More in that I want to drop my, “Who cares? It’s just us,” attitude when it comes to how we maintain things on a regular basis. Cleaning the toilet doesn’t have to be reserved for special occasions. The fact is, life feels better when the dishes are done and all of our shoes are put away.

So, I’m on an Oprah Ready mission and, if Oprah does show up, all the better. Actually, maybe living Oprah Ready can make it happen like in “Field of Dreams” … if I clean it, she will come.

I’ll let you know if that works out.

Hey y’all. Just saw a great write up on the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company where I tutor on Monday afternoons. Thought I’d share:

Civil vigilance.

Location: Car parked on 15th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues

Note: I got caught by the owner of the car when I was taking this picture. He asked me if I was the one who put the rat on his bumper. I laughed like he was kidding, but I’m not sure if he was kidding.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

– Steve Jobs

So, I’m having family drama again, but I really can’t get into it here.

If you’ve read Southern Discomforts for any period of time, you know that I’ve gotten into a good amount of trouble over the things I’ve written about my family in this blog. In fact, my mother’s dying word to me was “heartbroken” because of them, sooo … you can see why I’m hesitant to get into details.

The problem is,  my family stuff is so often my most monumental stuff. These - infuriatingly frequent - instances of discord and distress are the things that shape me, and are the events that I want to explore in my writing. However, the fact that I chose a world-wide arena in which to write leads to issues with some of the folks who appear in my pieces.

Still those very issues that have arisen from my over-sharing are the ones that have set me free, in the way that telling one’s truth tends to do.

As Oprah pointed out in Lesson 6 of her Lifeclass, “Everyone has a calling” and mine is writing. Not just any writing, but specifically personal narratives. What I know for sure is that I was meant to be a memoirist and write about my life, experiences and relationships. What I also know is that the more insane, outrageous and ridiculous the event, the more interesting it is for me to explore as a writer, and hopefully for you to read as my audience.

Now, I’m gonna let this latest drama pass without online exploration, but from now on, folks better be on their best behavior.

Guys, I’m super excited. I’m finally taking some real, concrete steps toward writing this book I’ve been talking about for so long.

First of all, I’ve signed up for my very first, real life writing workshop. Starting in December, I will be working with an online writing group where I’ll be able to submit drafts, get critiques and even work one-on-one with this amazing, published writer woman who - I’m hoping - will provide my much needed ass kicking to get me to actually work on the memoir that is inside of me.

In the meantime, November is coming up and for those of you who don’t know, that means NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Basically, NaNoWriMo is a website slash authors’ forum that encourages writers to create a first draft of a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, specifically the ones that fall in November. I figure it’s perfect timing for me. I can get a solid chunk of writing done and have something to workshop once December rolls around.

That means that for the rest of this month, I will be putting together a rough outline, figuring out a focus and really starting to pull shit into a cohesive plan to bring this book to life. Yippee!

The plan all along had been to leave for our road trip super early in the morning so that we could make a stop at Niagara Falls - Canada side - and still make it to Toronto at a decent hour. We got up at 4:30 and were out the door by 6 AM. We had a map, we had gas in the car, we had snacks …

The "I know I'm taking too long; don't be mad at me" smile.

Of course, the snack procurement set us back 20 minutes because apparently, Erica thought we were hiking through the dense forests of some third world country rather than driving through Upstate New York where there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts slash Tim Horton’s rest stop every third mile.

Still, after I dragged Erica and her Doritos out of the bodega, we made really good time almost all the way to Buffalo. Then, as you know, the clutch died.

Another two and a half hours were spent calling AAA, hanging out with Scooter the tow truck driver, and filling out paperwork at Enterprise, so by the time we got across the international border and made it to the Niagara Falls exit, it was dark, we were exhausted and cranky, and we were ready to be in Toronto already.

But Erica insisted.

So, we drove down this winding path with a forest on one side and miles of power plant on the other for what seemed like days until we started seeing “something.” Finally.

Meh. It's water with lights.

Of course, we weren’t seeing this view because we hadn’t left the car. What we were seeing looked more like this:

Good enough for me.

Like I described in the Thanks Scooter post, we had been on the road for hours, we had broken down on an interstate, we had ridden on the flatbed of a tow truck and left our friend’s car at a deserted AAMCO and dropped her keys through a hole on a locked garage door. So, by the time we reached the first falls, I was about done with excitement for that day.

“Well, there it is. Everybody good now? Can we head back to the highway?”

“Oh, hell no.” Erica. “If we came all the way here, I’m getting out of the car so I can see the whole thing.”

“Fine. How about you get out and we’ll drive back around and pick you up?”

Erica gets out of the car and CC and I continue down this little tourist-laden, two-lane trail looking for a place to make a U-turn. As we drive farther, we start to see more falls. Big falls. Huge, impressive falls.

Ohhhh. Now I get it.

What they look like during the day.

By the time we get to turn around, the car is soaked with mist and CC and I have made a life-long pact of silence.

“We have got to get back on the road.”

“I know. We can never, ever tell her.”

A pinky swear signed the deal and once we made it back to pick her up,  Erica was too excited about how cool the “falls” were to notice the water dripping from the doorframe.

Now, technically, the entire area is known as Niagara Falls, so Erica actually did see Niagara Falls that night. And I promise you, she was totally thrilled with what she saw … that is until we finally got to Toronto and Erica started telling our Canadian friend K about her visit.

K: Isn’t it so crazy how you get all covered with mist?

E: What mist? I just saw the huge falls from across the river.

Me: (In my head.) Drop it. Drop it. Drop it.

K: No, you know how when you get out at the horseshoe …

E: Horseshoe?

K: Yeah. The horseshoe … the huge area with all the falls.

Me: (Whispering to K.) She didn’t see the horseshoe.

E: (Kind of screeching.) What do you mean I didn’t see the horseshoe?

I ended up confessing the entire story and breaking my first pinky promise ever. On the drive back to Brooklyn, we stopped at the falls again, America side and Erica finally got to live her life-long week-long dream of seeing the full majesty of Niagara Falls.

I figure, all’s well that ends well, but as far as visits to the natural wonders of the world go, I’m pretty sure Erica will never trust me again.