NOTE: I was going to do one on a monthly “Unhappy Hour” in which I rant and complain about everything that’s bugging me about my life but really? I’m feeling too good to bring down my mood by focusing on the small things that are going wrong. I’m saving that one for a rainy day, but it made me feel good that I didn’t even want to complain about anything today. I’d say that’s a small victory.

ANOTHER NOTE: I’m so glad I didn’t commit to doing one of these daily or I’d be looking pretty weak right now. There seems to be plenty of intent and not as much time. Maybe I’ll make this The Pronoiac Months.

Dream Pronoia Therapy pg. 34:
Write your own “I have a Dream” poem, story, essay or manifesto here:

I have a dream that one day women and men will no longer be susceptible to loathing their bodies, characters, minds, ideals or selves in the wake of others’ hatred.

I have a dream that one day every man and woman will give everything he or she can to help improve others’ quality of life without desiring something in return.

I have a dream that someone will invent a luxurious chocolate with no calories.

I have a dream that no person will be persecuted, ostracized or ridiculed for his or her beliefs, creed, gender, race, nationality, family history, intellect, financial status, marital status, sexuality or lifestyle.

I have a dream that our society will accept mental illness as a legitimate disease and will discuss symptoms, prevention, understanding and treatment within every school’s curriculum.

I have a dream that the cast of “Sesame Street” makes as much per episode as those morons from “Jersey Shore”.

I have a dream that children will no longer have to work in sweat shops for American companies to feed their families on pennies a day.

I have a dream that we will return to nature, learn how to fertilize the earth and reap the benefits of it’s fruits and joys.

I have a dream we will peel ourselves from our televisions and computers and create revolutions.

I have a dream that people stop keeping secrets from each other and learn to communicate their hopes, fears, vulnerabilities and hardships openly and frankly. I have a dream that this will allow us to see each other as united equals.

I have a dream that every woman will be allowed and encouraged to explore her sexuality without fear of external stigma or abuse.

I have a dream that religions will stop convincing people to hate and judge themselves and each other.

I have a dream that no human settles on a life less than ideal and continues to make changes to improve his or her personal well-being.

I have a dream in which we televise chemical (of the acid variety) castrations of rapists and sex offenders on Pay Per View and use the money earned to pay for our nation’s education.

I have a dream that teachers are considered to be of the highest profession and are paid comparable salaries to doctors and lawyers.

I have a dream that we use the taxes from legalized marijuana to help fund our national education system.

I have a dream that every person gets to visit every country in the world, in some massive Citizen Exchange Program.

I have a dream that the mentally ill receive just as many cards, prayers and flowers as a cancer patient when they are hospitalized for their disease.

I have a dream that every town will engage in one childhood game every month, like Red Rover or Duck, Duck Goose.

I have a dream that every American will learn how to be self-sustaining and survive off the land.

I have a dream that we will revert to a barter system that will include deeds as well as goods.

I have a dream that there were no dress codes.

I have a dream in which prostitution is legalized to protect and screen the sex workers who otherwise will be beaten, raped, murdered and subject to STDs and drug addiction.

I have a dream in which people see the horror of surgically altering one’s body instead of finding inner peace and acceptance.

I have a dream in which two people of different races or of the same sex can hold hands or kiss in public without anyone around them feeling or expressing disgust or disapproval.

I have a dream that everyone has the option to have a public voice that will be recognized, respected and considered.

I have a dream that nudity doesn’t terrify anyone anymore.

I have a dream that we can write letters to friends and family who have passed away and can receive them in turn.

I have a dream that people never stopped asking questions.

I have a dream in which nobody has to bury their children.

I have a dream that cars could run on baby giggles…

Okay now I’m just getting ridiculous. I mean, they’re all true, but there are only about 15 in here that I really honestly would die to have become a reality.

Liz Pardue-Schultz

‘Pronoia’ p.271 #1: Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

To whet you imagination, read an excert from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session hosted in Milwaukee. “I have opposable thumbs, ” Eric exulted. “I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I’m asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up.”

NOTE: I’ll be honest, it honestly took me a couple days to muster the gumption to do this exercise. But what the hell? You only live once. Here we go:

I sing rock songs done originally by men so well that I don’t have to pay a bar tab at most karaoke bars, and not just because I don’t drink alcohol. I put brown sugar in my tea which makes it more awesome than usual. I have the prettiest, healthiest, thickest hair of anyone I know – and the color is divine. I was curvy before it was trendy. I can say the alphabet backwards. I have hitchhiker’s thumbs. I have a soul and believe in helping people who can’t help themselves, which means that I may have to sacrifice some of my luxury to do so. Sometimes when I get on a roll I’m funny as shit. I can win debates with about 85% of people and I can level those people with calm, stealthy rhetoric. I’ve sampled more types of chocolate than most people my age. I have unbelievably dark and long lashes. I’ve rung up a $50 tab on sashimi all by myself. I can alternate reading the same 5 books and still remember where I was and what was happening in each of them. I believe in changing energies and the Law of Attraction and perform rituals to do so. I can do the best Ethel Merman impression you’ve ever heard. I can dance like a fiend. I only get about 4 zits every year. I can eat a whole gallon of chocolate ice cream in one sitting. I wrote my first piece of erotica at 12 years old. I can sing every song on Styx’s “Paradise Theatre” and “The Grand Illusion” albums by heart. I’m not allergic to ANYTHING. My child literally uses manners in her sleep because I rock at setting an example. I spoil my friends with presents, even when I can’t afford them. Actually, I love giving people things in general and have been known to make myself broke by making donations to charities, people, bums on the street, etc. I waited until I was totally ready to lose my virginity and, no, I don’t think I was too young and, no, I won’t be upset if my daughter loses hers at the same age. I’m more introspective and proactive about changing my dysfunctions than at least 70% of the rest of the people in the society in which I was raised. My nose piercing has looked the same since the minute it was done – no swelling, no infection, no redness, just adorableness. I’m the biggest ‘Sesame Street’ nerd I know. I have a fantastic alias/nom de plume. I totally pick up on social cues even though I choose to ignore a lot of them. I have five short stories I’ve been working on for a year now. My body magically knew to provide me with too much seratonin and dopamine during my pregnancy as a defense mechanism against my chronic depression. My eyes change color every day. I know how to spell. Every time that I’ve done something that someone else has perceived as psychotic, I’ve been fully aware that that was what was going to happen and I went ahead and did it anyway – sometimes just to freak people out. I’ve never ever cried to get myself out of a ticket. I look adorable in earmuffs, a furry hat, pincurls, dreadlocks, kitty-cat ears and 1950′s style A-line housedresses. I’ve had over 20 diaries and journals since I was 5 and I’ve kept all of them. I know exactly how to be annoying and I can cite the minute it happens with anyone I’m targeting. Oh yeah, and I annoy people I don’t like but have to be around because it’s totally fun and I’m thoroughly amused by it… and because I have to let my inner brat out from time to time. I pwned the 12 Steps and tools of therapy. I’m so irresistable I’ve had to put out not one but two restraining orders on people. I won a multiplication bee when I was in the 3rd grade and, because the teacher preemptively knew I’d win it, she bought me some Sherlock Holmes books ’cause she knew I loved reading them. I’m fully aware when I say things that make me look dysfunctional. I was the only one giggling when I saw both “Titanic” and “The Notebook” (I was dragged) in the theatre. Despite what my high school drama teacher (“facilitator”) said, I got my own paragraph-of-glowing-praise in the public reviews from the only two community theatre productions I’ve ever been in… and in one of those productions I didn’t even speak. I make ideal pancakes. I have over 40 mix tapes and CDs that were made by friends in the last ten years. Oh, and I make arguably better mix CD’s than most people. I saved at least $1,000 by buying all my textbooks from Amazon.com and teaching my family how to do the same. I work every day on self-betterment, even if I don’t have time for it. I didn’t marry an idiot. I have my own desk, my own computer, my own filing cabinet, my own Etsy store, my own three domains and my own two blogs. I get gifts from across the planet every year. I make the most artistically badass scrapbooks I’ve ever seen. I’ve played a 200 year old piano located at Juliette Gordon Low’s house after the tour guide said, “We only let one girl do this every year.” I’m so irresistable I’ve had not one, but three “stalkers” (crazy people who won’t leave me alone and keep calling/harassing me because they’re in love) and have had handfuls of people I’ve heard can’t/won’t/don’t stop talking about me even years after I’ve forgotten them. I live in North Carolina. I know a real enigma. I survived both jr. high and high school. I’m not a bigot. I’m a neo-feminist which means that I can enjoy baking, sewing, knitting, etc without feeling some sort of guilt that I’m backsliding or being a slave to societal patriarchy. I look awesome in red. I also look awesome with purple highlights in my hair. My guitar was given to me by a Grammy winner and Top 40 recording artist. My top half is two sizes smaller than my lower half. I can recite every line in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” The Movie. I’m no longer envious of, threatened by or hateful to beautiful women (and not just because I’ve embraced the fact that they turn me on.) I have a Pick of Destiny. I get more excited about autumn than most [Christian] kids do about Christmas. I’ve never seen an episode of “The Hills”, “Laguna Beach” or “Jersey Shore”. I won/earned a Girl Scout Silver Award before anyone else in my troop did and I earned every Try-It that Brownie Girl Scouts could in the early 90′s. I’ve traveled abroad and have been to all but 15 of the United States. I’ve learned how to cut needy idiots out of my life once they’ve screwed up too many times instead of staying emotionally invested and draining myself for no reason. I stopped biting my fingernails. I have the cutest child on the planet who also happens to be polite, selfless, sociable and giggly. After years of apologizing and making amends for all those years I was a terrible, awful person, I’m finally in the clear and don’t owe anyone anything [for the moment]!!! I had the best wedding I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

Recently I’ve gotten a little gross and self-pitying and borderline obsessive about the things I don’t have or can’t do or whathaveyou instead of my usual focusing-on-all-the-good-things-going-on-and-that-I’m-lucky-to-have mode that I’ve learned to rely on. With frustrations of money and time and having a sick child at home for 3/4 of January, it’s been easy to get a little wrapped up in the “poor me”s and general martyrdom that always seems to set in during this time of year. (And ALWAYS makes me feel worse and even stupider for subscribing to it in the first place.)

Something has to change [or I'll keep doing it until March and, by then, it will have become more of a lifestyle than a habit and we all know what that's a gateway for.]

So I thought I’d spend this month revisiting Rob Breszny’s Pronoia, as it always gives me incredible insight into my current realities and it challenges me to push myself creatively and spiritually. Don’t hold me to this [because we all know how well I do with long-term commitments] but I’d like to do one of the exercises recommended in the book for every day in February… or at least 4 times every week. I think it’ll help me flush some things out and help with this whole rewiring-of-my-brain thing I’m in the throes of.

So here’s #1:

Pg. 194, Exercise #9 “I was never the class clown. I am not a troubled but devilishly handsome wastrel living on a trust fund. I’ve never beaten up anyone, have steadfastly not aspired to write like Raymond Carver, and have never played strip Scrabble with a junkie violinist on a leaky waterbed in a Key West penthouse. There are so many things I am not and will never be and I’m glad I know about them. It helps me stay focused on exactly who I am.

What about you? Who aren’t you? Fantasize about all the things you never were and all the paths you will never take. Put it in writing.”

I never aspired to be a mathematician, a paleontologist or an orthopedic surgeon. I’ve never hustled anyone at billiards. I’ve never deliberately killed an animal. I’ve never made out with anyone (male or female) at a frat party. I was never given limitless money to spend on name brand clothing/vehicles/cosmetics/etc and I was never left home alone for the weekend in high school. I was never a coke whore living on the streets. I will never be a teenage bride or teenage mother. I was never a bigot and have never hated someone based on their creed, sexuality, race, nationality or general demographic. I will never be a prom queen. I will never be a sweater-set-and-pearls-wearing soccer mom. I have never knocked anyone unconscious. I’ve never attended a professional wrestling match and will never attend a professional boxing match. I have never had the desire to climb Mt. Everest. I’ve never been in a bitch-fight with anyone’s ex-spouse. I’ll never burn a cross while wearing a white hood in a field with a bunch of other dudes. I’ve never been a cartoonist for an animated series. I’ve never taught an aerobics class to senior citizens. I’ve never wanted to drive a pick-up truck. I’ve never apologized for saying things that I genuinely meant. I’ve never built a house of cards. I’ve never been valedictorian, student body president or spelling bee champion. I’ve never and will never made/make a solemn pledge to marry Jesus and live in a nunnery. I have never and will never stop overanalyzing the meaning of life, the meaning of my life, my purpose and the basis of reality. I’ll never be a workaholic. I’ll never pay to attend a NASCAR event. I have never been the subject of tabloid ridicule. I have never plowed a field only using an ox and a homemade plow. I’ll never have Tweety bird tattooed to my body. I’ll never attend a Motley Crue concert. I was never on a boat with a band of pirates. I’ll never and have never obsessed about my wedding day. I will never have any form of plastic surgery unless it is imperative to my health to do so (post-wreck/fire reconstruction, mammography, etc.) I will never allow my family to keep me on life-support longer than two weeks. I will never settle for mediocrity. I have never had a perm. I have never won a DDR tournament. I will never take fertility drugs. I will never play WoW. I have never tasted toe fungus. I will never work as a greeter at Wal-Mart. I will never major in philosophy and I will never listen to and believe anyone who believes he or she knows the absolute Truth. I will never be trendy enough to be incessantly angry/offended/argumentative. I have never had the desire to buzz-and-bleach my hair. I will never get a tattoo in a language that isn’t my native tongue. I will never refuse to learn from anyone, no matter how much I hate their personal beliefs or lifestyle. I have never worked as an indentured servant. I was never drafted. I was never a guest on the “Jerry Springer Show”. I’ve never been launched out of a catapult. I wasn’t conceived at a ren faire, a music festival, a car wash, a demolition derby, a public bathroom or while either partner was on the clock. I have never attended a dog fight or a dog race. I will never join a police force, a military service, or the SWAT team. I will never convert to any religion for the societal benefit of someone else. I never attended the Royal Academy of Ballet. I never hunted wild boar. I’ve never amputated someone’s arm after sedating them with brandy. I never installed a gunrack in my car. I’ve never dated a quarterback (nor have I ever had the inclination to.) I never smeared fireflies all over myself to make me glow in the dark. I’ve never had an illicit affair with a college professor. I’ve never watched an episode of any daytime soap opera. I will never be a contestant on a reality TV show. I’ve never thrown a Molotov cocktail. I’ll never voluntarily get a tongue, back, bellybutton or nether-regions piercing. I’ve never had the desire to board a submarine. I’ll never get cornrows. I never smoked a cigarette in the bathroom at school. I never travelled to Mexico to get a sketchy medical procedure from a doctor I found on the internet. I never collected farts in a jar. I’ve never played an electric banjo solo with Carlos Santana. I’ve never been attracted to “a man in uniform.” I’ll never stay in an unhappy/unhealthy relationship again. I’ve never painted the outside of my house yellow or pink. I’ve never worn khaki capri pants in public. I never dropped anything off a skyscraper. I’ll never serve as Prime Minister of anywhere. I’ve never swallowed a sword or breathed fire. I’ve never attended an execution. I’ve never mined for coal. I’ve never cleaned a septic tank. I’ve never hurled myself off a national landmark. I’ve never mauled a grizzly bear. I’ve never been to a sperm bank. I’ve never spoken in rhyme for a day. I’ll never have my own ventriloquist act. I’ve never owned a pair of clear heels. I’m never going to be a pop superstar.

I feel like these could go on forever and I’m starting to get to menial, obvious things. Maybe I’ll revisit it later. For now, this is what I’m not.

Liz Pardue-Schultz

On Sunday I was given the Blatant, Irrefutable, Divine Sign of Guidance I’d been begging for for months.
On Monday I received a hand-written postcard [with original art] from one of my lifelong heroes. (The actor! Not the characters!)
On Tuesday I finally finally felt peace and a sense of closure about a wrong I have been conscious of and trying to right for eight years now.
On Wednesday I sat and talked with my college roomie for six hours and we only stopped because it was 1 a.m. and I had an hour’s drive home. She is one of the few who watched me at my very worst (all in a tiny dorm room) and still actively seeks my company. This is amazing to me.
And Thursday? Well that’s the first anniversary of our wedding.

Aside from this, I’ve also had four unbelievable friends take a liberal amount of time this week to exchange lengthy emails with me about the recent varied troubles I’ve been having and how they understand on a personal level. These were all unsolicited messages of concern and all were about a different issues but all were so thoughtful and thorough. I was floored by these friends’ continued willingness to heap love and support on me, regardless of how self-centered I tend to be during my dark moments.

I don’t know why it’s such a surprise to me when I realize it again and again but Dear God, I’m blessed.

Usually, in these rare times when the Universe actively floods my path with reiterated love, support and reminders of my importance, I still struggle to believe it hasn’t been misguided, that I’m not being mistaken for someone else. That fear and resistance is still here, but this week, I’ve mostly found refuge and much needed rest in this warm, deep, swelling Love that Something Out There deems me worthy of.

The people who are valued the most in the history of humanity are those who have had the audacity to promote hope and joy. These are the people who continue to remain optimistic when there is no logical reason for it and, ultimately, the ones responsible for moving humankind forward at all. For whatever reason, I’ve always assumed that these people were superior to me and the majority of other humans, somehow able to promote optimism without seeming naive or oblivious. But I recently realized that even with something as simple as an unsoliticed smile to a stranger or dropping all my change and a couple bucks into a bum’s streetcorner mug, I’m perpetuating this same type of pure, untainted joy. I, too, am part of the rebellious, revolutionary, optimistic, joyful elite that is vital to the survival of humanity.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of anything more empowering.

In spring 2007, about a year after my most recent hospital stint, I found myself sinking into my annual Springtime Depression. (I know, most people get it during the Winter, but I’m one of those freaks whose depression is triggered when everything is rejuvenated. Go figure.) Instead of hiding away into my usual practices and wasting what was easily the best year I’d had in college (with the exception of my semester abroad), I went on a Pronoiac rampage, inspired by Rob Breszny’s ‘Pronoia: the Antidote for Paranoia’.

I spent a whole weekend printing out individual mini-posters with pronoiac, inspiring factoids (like “After an accident that left him paralyzed from the nose down, Jean Dominique Bauby dictated his entire award-winning memoir to his wife by blinking his left eye.” and “Because there is no machine gentle enough to handle them, every strawberry you have ever eaten was picked by hand.”), running over 500 copies of them, and plastering the walls of my university’s academic buildings with them. (Without authoritative consent, which angered a lot of people, apparently.) I posted them on behalf of the “Laboratory for Truth and Beauty” (Breszny gives his readers permission to do this.) I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing except my relatively new boyfriend (to-be babydaddy) who rolled his eyes and smiled at my tendency toward the slightly insane.

It was cool to see people’s reactions, even though the majority of the population had no idea how to process the idea that someone (or a group of someones) would take the time to just post notes of happiness for the simple, innocent purpose of spreading love or joy. I’d say that it was strange that some people were even angry about them, but this is something one can just expect in a Fear-based society such as ours, I guess. My favorite moments came when, in one of my classes, my professor mentioned the signs and started a class discussion in which many of my classmates and friends expressed gratitude for having something to amuse them and break the redundant stress of the approaching exam season in addition to the heartbreaking aftermath of the V.Tech shooting.

When my then-boyfriend told me that the student newspaper was going to run a story about the strange presence of the Truth and Beauty Lab, I decided to drop my ruse for a moment and reveal myself to the newspaper’s editors (who were/are pretty good friends of mine, thankfully) in hopes of possibly speaking on behalf of the T&B Lab to explain my motives anonymously. (The BEST reaction came from my friend Fish, who laughed, “I knew it had to be someone cool.”) I still have the newspaper in my folder of personal achievements.

Anyway, immediately following this was when my life really began to be kicked into high gear. That semester I finished with my highest GPA ever, I was praised heavily by the guest author who taught the fiction workshop as having the “blue ribbon story of the year”, and then there was the whole baby-engagement-moving in with Greg thing that made me happier than I had been in yeeeaars.

Now, I’m not one of those people who swears by ‘The Secret’ or anything and, actually, I was pretty disgusted with the book as it seemed to advocate a positive attitude for the exclusive purpose of acquiring monetary success, which I think is a bit misguided. However, in retrospect it seems kind of reasonable that my sharing of a positive attitude was responsible for the massive return of love and blessings I received in the aftermath. No, I don’t think that plastering a few hundred flyers around a campus is what changed my entire life, but I certainly believe that this random act of love and joy attracted more love and joy into my own reality.

So, even though I’ve been sitting around focusing on my own personal life and working to propel my family’s future forward, maybe I should start allotting some time to reach out and be kind on an anonymous level again. Not necessarily to bring myself more happiness in my life (because the happiness I’ve found in the last couple years certainly hasn’t been easy by any means) but because I believe joy and love has to be perpetuated by everyone at all times on a grassroots level or it simply cannot exist. And to not work toward that is being extremely hypocritical of me, I think. Especially if I’m sitting around expecting other people to somehow do it for me.

It’s time to shake things up again, I think. I’m going to be brainstorming pronoiac mischief but I won’t be posting my actions… that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Ready for a truly amazing story?

In 2006, a friend of mine acquired over 70 8mm film reels at an auction in the Middle of Nowhere, SC that were all from a single family living in Miami from 1952-76. We made it a personal mission to find the family to whom these reels belonged and began watching each individual reel in hopes of acquiring enough information to complete our quest. As we watched, we learned that there was a little girl whose name was disclosed [although not here, publicly] who would have been about 8 during the Christmas of 1956. Doing the math, we figured up her age and started a quest to find this little girl. We named the project and began to chronicle our every maneuver, from cataloguing the reels chronologically to “Google” searching the names of this little girl and her father. We also researched the location from which the reels were sent off for development, a small home in downtown Miami, only to find that the house had been sold to a local animal shelter.

The collecting of facts through voyeuristic viewing of another person’s childhood was enthralling and we found that we were able to while away hours watching reels and recording found data. Despite the warnings of those around us, we received enough confirmation in the benefits of our actions to warrant our plunging ahead.

Sadly, the arrival of our respective children and a couple marriages got in the way of our progress and the Project quickly made it’s way to the back of my closet. Only in the last few months as I’ve been moving the last few boxes of stuff from my mother’s house have I stumbled back over the reels and my documentation, but my interest was immediately piqued.

As Greg’s family was sitting around our house this evening, I asked his Grandmother for a little help on the Project as she’s been a longtime resident of Miami. I showed her a GoogleMap of the exact location of the house and she was able to fill in the blanks as to the surrounding businesses and community centers, including the local high school that the little girl would have been able to walk to. After the family left, I Google searched the name of the high school and the name of the girl, certain that I would be lead to an empty Classmates.com search and nothing more.

However, instead I was lead to this photo site where this girl (under her married name) had commented a year ago on an old photo of a former Miss Universe, discussing her childhood in Miami and that she had attended the high school I was searching for. The woman even included what year she graduated in what would ordinarily seem like an inordinate amount of information to include in a simple photo comment but was exactly the information I needed to confirm that this was the woman I’d been looking for for so long!!

Excitedly, I searched for this woman’s recent addresses, only to find that her most current phone number had been disconnected. Like a professional stalker, I conducted a number of free searches on various people-search services and began acquiring names of relatives until I found a brother who lived in Tennessee.

Just moments ago, I got off the phone with this woman’s sister-in-law who was shocked by my story but extremely complimentary of my initiative to find the little girl and will be getting back in touch with me sometime after she calls her at her home.

So, after two and a half years, this Project is finally solved and I am through the moon with excitement.

Just had to share.