I now have more than a hundred posts after about 8 months of blogging. I can’t decide what to make of that. Autocorrect just insisted I’m bluffing, not blogging. Maybe autocorrect has it right.

Last week Jesse and I dropped in on Dr. Abrams for the first time in a month. She missed him during our long vacation, and this visit was a must. She needed a therapy session like a badly constipated baby needs an enema. I needed a healthy session for her like, like… Like a mother nearing insanity needs her vaguely troubled daughter to have some therapy.

Not that things are going badly for Jesse. Leaving aside the remaining (and the new) irritating behaviors and also the anxiety and OCD and tics and social cue stuff, Jesse left a lot behind when I think back to prior travel tortures. This year she didn’t try to destroy the tent, ever. She only got sent to the car in the middle of the night once. She didn’t kick dirt on us during meals. She didn’t scream as much. She didn’t hang over cliff edges while wondering aloud about what it would feel like to fall to her death. And so on. She just wasn’t as angry or tense; there was less self-loathing, and she seemed happier. Still a pretty strung-out kid, but better. I’m thrilled.

Whatever. She still needs a lot of therapy. So there I sat in the waiting lounge while Jesse did the talk-talk thing with Dr. Abrams, and what book should catch my eye in the little self-help bookcase but the very tome that inspired me to start this blog!

Hi Marci. I stared at the cover again and wondered if therapeutic blogging has changed my view of Marci the chicken soupy soul lady, who wants to teach me how to create a life of unconditional love, and also if I read her Happy for No Reason book I will get everything I want and be wealthy too. Am I ready to let go of being grumpy for no reason, in pursuit of Marci’s love prescription?

Unfortunately, she still looks smarmy to me, made-up and air-brushed and botoxed, and this time as I stared at the cover I could swear I spotted an edge of steely meanness around her eyes. I bet she abuses her personal assistant and hair stylist, I thought to myself as my head shook from side to side and my eyes rolled into the back of my head and my tongue hung out my mouth.

And then I realized I was the one being mean. And unfair too, because I’ve never read her book; I only flipped through it for about 15 seconds, like I was fanning a deck of cards. Maybe there was something in there to help me. I started with the bio. It told me she’s a pretty spectacular person. She “is a celebrated transformational leader and an expert on unconditional love and happiness” (italics added by me). She is a “top-rated professional speaker” who has even given speeches to Fortune 500 companies. Aaaah. She is AN EXPERT on this shit! Even Fortune 500 companies have hired her! I guess they want Marci to tell their employees about how to find love for no reason and happiness. Because that’s the kind of thing large 21st century corporations care about. No wonder Marci’s proud. And rich.

Carla = sold. I had 15 minutes before Jesse came out of her meeting with Dr. Abrams, and Nick was happily involved in some game on his iPad, so I dove into Marci’s text. I did the speed-read thing, i.e., I read the captions throughout the book and looked at the pictures. There were lots of captions, so I promise I wasn’t being a slacker.

I will now share with you the beginnings of my path to LOVE enlightenment.

There are seven LOVE CHAKRAS I need to open up before I can love for no reason. That seems like a lot.

I can’t just say “love chakra” in a normal voice, by the way. For some reason it keeps coming out emphatically. The word “love” sounds more like LUUEEEV when it leaves my lips, and I find I want to swivel my hips about all groovy-like. Maybe I’m just developing a new tic.

Anyway, here’s the illustration Marci provided of the locations of the seven LOVE CHAKRAS.

The Oneness doorway is in the brain; Vision is at the eyes; Communication at the throat; Openness at the heart. Totally makes sense. Then the chakra of Unconditional Self-love is at the stomach. I know a lot of peeps make themselves feel good by eating, so yeah, that makes sense too. Vitality in the gut, yup, I get it.

What’s up with the doorway of safety? Is my vag really where I’ll find my safety chakra? That’s way past my intuition.

I tried to read a bit more on the safety thing, because its location at the crotch caught me off guard. “Safety” apparently means something along the lines of being in the here and now. Aha. Now it makes sense. What’s more in the here and now than our sexual organs. Check.

Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. I assumed I was going to learn about spiritual love. But is it possible Marci is talking about something more corporeal?

My Love-Body? At 47 I do feel a little more flaccid than I want. I could definitely use help developing my LOVE-BODY. Hugh Jackman has maintained his LOVE-BODY into his 40’s, so why not me? Grrrawwr.

Marci didn’t explicitly mention equipment, but I think this must be part of the self-love aspect of her program. Hm.

Love bosses and plugs? That might be a few too many shades of Grey for me. But I like that Marci’s getting a little kink-ay.

And what is this poor woman doing?

She’s probably supposed to be demo’ing some exercise to release a chakra, but it sure looks uncomfortable. To me it looks like she’s scratching her itchy ass on the chair, and possibly the camera person just caught a well-timed photo of her right before she fell off the chair from all that squirming. My kids squirm all the time when I try to make them sit for meals, a lot like this lady is doing, and they spontaneously fall off their chairs regularly. I never realized they were in pursuit of a love chakra. Children are so intuitive.

(Post-script: Anthony says she looks like she’s “dropping a turd.” Yet another reason to love my man.)

Yeah, duuude, trust your vibes. You’re a LOVE LUMINARY, duuude.

Is “Connection” some new concoction that’s going to get me in touch with my love-body? Is Marci marketing it? Maybe an exclusive distribution deal with Walmart would be a good idea.

It looks like she might be working on another trademark too.

Duude, the world looks so soft and blurry when my brain is on Oneness. Oneness is AWESOME STUFF.

No seriously, after skimming intensely through Marci’s book, I can feel my love chakras opening right now. RIGHT NOW. Unconditional love is trying to push its way out of me!! I gotta go find someone to love NOW!! I’ll be right back!!!

False alarm. I just had to pee. It was my pee chakra opening.

* * * *

In fairness, I do believe in the pursuit of unconditional love, though I prefer to think of it as altruism or acceptance, or something along those lines. I just don’t think I’m going to find it in a book. I mean seriously, does this jingo-istic pep-talk shit help anyone?

I’m wiping my mouth with the back of my hand right now. I lost control of my gag reflex. And anyway, Marci’s not offering a path to unconditional love. She’s offering a path to some sort of personal success, which is just not the same thing. Check out this graphic:

This is supposed to show the reader that the person on the left is loving for “good reason,” because of (or in order to get) the stuff attached to her heart by strings. Subtle. Heartstrings, get it? The person on the right is loving for NO reason, so that gray shadows are radiating from her heart to cloud over the stuff.

No no no. I’ve got that wrong somehow, don’t I.

Let me try again. So the person on the right is going to love without reference to the STUFF, but in doing so she gets to have the stuff anyway, only it’s because she loves for NO reason and not for a GOOD reason. So yay, everyone’s happy, and she gets the stuff too! Apparently children fall in the same category as nice cars and houses. Huh.

I think I’m still confused about Marci’s love program. I’m just not sure that my body has 7 love chakras. I mean, I wish it did. I wish love really was this easy. I wish unconditional love could come from a book and some stupid exercises, because then I could fill myself with it every EFF’ing day.

Marci sent me a message in her book.

It’s okay. For what? You’re welcome. I’m not feeling it.

* * * * * *

No worries. I will stay the course and continue working on my GRUMPY CHAKRAS. I think they look like this:

Don’t be intimidated — it’s hard to compete with my graphic tools.  (Mechanical pencil. Kiddy art paper pad. Steady hand.) In case you’re thinking about lifting this amazing graphic, please know that it is seriously COPYRIGHTED. Unconditionally and for no reason.

The chakra on the head is pretty fundamental. The people I know who are very comfortable with all of these qualities are really content. They might come off as kind of grumpy, cynical, rude, and usually everything that’s the opposite of earnest. Their eye muscles are well-developed from all the rolling. They probably also know a bit about unconditional love, even if they don’t make a big stink about it. They would never tell me to jump on a love train (which I would interpret as a version of “get lost” anyway). They’d just complain and laugh with me. Maybe they’d even fart near me, and then that would make for some more good laughing, and also smelling their farts would decrease my risk of cancer, so it’s a win-win.

I think I’ll stick with grumpy. Sorry Marci.