“Wait ‘til lunch. I got gossip.”
Now Becky should know that to tell me she has gossip to spill at lunch, with an entire 2.5 hours to go, is nothing short of horrid. I go to my desk and call escrow to see how the sale on Todd and Tina’s house is going. Carol says that everything seems to be in order for us to close next week. Everything that is, except for the fact that Odd Todd apparently called my escrow officer and told her he was going to blow up the building if Tina signed documents.
Uh oh.
Times like this, one has to assume some kind of yoga pose in order to maintain one’s sanity. I think of Win Sing and her damned horse stand. I am wearing a long skirt, Napping Stan is sleeping and no one else is in the agent area, so I spread my legs, squat down and inhale deeply through my nose.
Not only is this sale a nice beefy commission check for me, but we must also remember that I just found a house for Tina and that one can’t close unless this one does. I momentarily wonder why all of my issues in life tend to revolve around the male gender. I think of my third chakra and the law of attraction.
If I am to maintain my power, I must breathe deep into this chakra and center myself. I rise from my horse stand and rub my third chakra.
“Hey, Melissa, tummy ache?”
It’s wise-ass Tac strutting to his desk. I try to act unaffected.
After I’ve ignored him, to which he pretends not to care, I sit at my desk and close my eyes. I know if I think and feel right, I can fix this. My first thought is to re-name Odd Todd to Terrorist Todd, but then I recognize that this is not really a positive thought. With my oceanic breath, I see in Tina in my mind, happily moving into her new house. I see me, at my bank, practically dancing to the teller window with the cutest pair of new shoes that I will go buy after work today. I even see Todd, smiling as he gets his proceeds and realizes that he’s a nut-case and needs to be committed...wait, scratch that last part. I sit with my eyes closed for just a couple more breaths. Then I open them, determined that everything will be fine.
A text from Tina reveals that everything is not fine.
“Todd’s acting crazy,” she tells me, as if this is something I did not know.
“You mean his bomb threat?” I type, realizing I’d be really mad at him if he blew up my favorite escrow officer.
“Yeah. What should we do?”
I explain to her there is nothing we can do at the moment and that my escrow officer had to call the authorities, who do not take comments about blowing places up very lightly. By now, I imagine Odd Todd, the would-be terrorist, is headed downtown. Generally speaking, I think the sale can go through either way, but it will require court intervention. I do not know anything about court intervention, so I decide I should check with Broker Bert.
“Is Bert in his office?” I ask Becky, sharing the one look that shows I know her secret.
“Yeah, he’s in there,” she says, giving me the same look in return.
I go in and explain the situation. Broker Bert shakes his head.
“You sure get the loonies, don’t you?”
Becky let’s me pick where I want to go for lunch and she says I can even pick a place that serves wine! I’m pretty excited about that, especially when the paycheck I’ve already spent in my head (and on my vision board, metaphorically-speaking) may be slipping right through my fingers.
“So what’s your gossip?” I ask, assuming someone must have had a sex-change operation or something.
“Well, it’s not all that great, but still, it was interesting...”
“Spit it out,” I tell her, flagging the waiter down and ordering us both a glass of Chardonnay, because after all, it is only noon.
“I feel naughty having wine at lunch,” she says.
“But it is a birthday lunch,” I tell her.
“So Brian and I are out to dinner Sunday night, about eight, right?”
“Yeah?” I’m sitting on the edge of my chair now.
“And who do we see, but Tac, in a very intimate position.”
What?
My mind races. Sunday. Sunday. Yesterday. He asked me if he could come over. What time was that? Not even five.
“What time?” I ask.
Becky assumes a why-does-that-matter-look and says, “I told you, eight.”
Hmmm.
“Anyway, I saw him and said hello, but he looked all embarrassed.”
“Why would he look embarrassed?” I ask, but inside I can feel my stomach doing somersaults and my face growing hot.
“Not sure. She was pretty enough, younger than him I’d say.”
Pervert!
“So when you say ‘intimate,’ what do you mean?” I am wondering why I am asking things that are just going to make me throw up.
“Well, for one thing, they were sitting at a table tucked away in the back corner, low lights, holding hands over the table, that is, until I walked up to them.”
“So he acted...busted?”
“Yeah, but what’s funny is that about an hour later I get a text from him saying she’s just a client. Like I care if he’s got a girlfriend.”
“Huh, yeah, me neither,” I say, but really caring quite a bit.
I cannot make any sense of this except to say that Tac is a womanaholic. I think he needs a 12-step program of some kind. Here I always thought he was a player, and yet there was never any real evidence. It’s clearly because he keeps several women at one time. I’ll bet he has his own harem. I wish I could tell him he just lost two, because Nala’s with me. Literally speaking.
I am wondering how things turned around so fast. Yesterday, I was in command of my third chakra, holding an open-house, turning down Tac and building my vision board, getting ready to close a nice deal and buy new shoes. Today, I’ve been cheated on again, my deal has gone south because one of my clients is apparently the Unabomber, and to make matters worse, my mother just sent me a text asking me how I feel about the foot doctor moving in with her.
I am so glad I had wine with lunch.
I don’t go to yoga because one glass of wine (even white) is not allowed. I mean, I could pass out or something. I also find the salad that Becky bought me for my birthday lunch really didn’t fill me up, now that my life is over and everything. I swing by the taco place and order two tacos and a bean burrito. I am sure I will not eat them all, but who knows how far I will spiral into the abyss tonight.
Sam Elliott was allowed to stay in the house with Herman today, as I am relatively sure Herman will not eat him. In fact, I saw Herman lick his ear yesterday and that has to mean something, unless that is, he was tasting him? I get home and the cats are curled up next to each other on the kitchen table. It’s very heartwarming and so I cry, eating my tacos and explaining my crazy day to both the kids.
I cannot believe I’ve been reduced to this.
In my office, I see my incomplete vision board and realize that I know enough about the law of attraction to figure out that I somehow attracted what I am dealing with. I rack my brain to think of what I could have possibly done to cause this mess. I think of the monster dog. I could have been nicer. I think of Odd Todd. Maybe I shouldn’t have ignored his texts. I even think of Tac, but I cannot think of anything I did to him that he didn’t have coming. After my second glass of wine, I’m sitting at my desk and wondering why I am crying. I wonder if it has anything to do with my second glass of wine. I mean really, life is good. I’m healthy, I have great skin cream, and the new cat seems to be using the litter box just fine. What more could a girl ask for?
My phone rings, and I wipe the tears away, sniff real hard so I don’t sound like I’ve been crying, and answer it, clearly sounding like I’ve been crying.
“Hello,” I say, not recognizing the number, but secretly hoping it’s the Good Fairy calling to tell me there’s been a terrible mistake and Odd Todd won’t be blowing anything up today.
“Melissa?” I immediately recognize the twang.
Sniffing harder, I sit up straight.
“Yes, Brad, how are you?”
“Fine, ah, I was just calling to let you know I’ll be looking for a house closer to town, if you want to keep an eye open for me.”
I smile and wink up at the Universe.
“Of course. Any idea on size, price, area?”
He’s quiet for a minute and I pray he can’t tell I’ve been crying. The last thing I need is another cat.
“I guess for now, just let me know what’s out there, smaller than this place, no pool, and a big enough yard for Max. Three bedrooms.”
So pretty much, he knows exactly what he wants.
“You bet, I’ll email some houses later.”
“No rush. Thanks.”
Bradley Ryan, aka, Cowboy Attorney, hangs up without even saying bye. He is one interesting guy. I suddenly have forgotten all about crying and feeling bad. I am convinced the Universe has already responded to my visualization.
I finish up my chakra post, certain my third chakra has taken a beating, but like my heart, it keeps on going. I commit to go to yoga and to meditate tomorrow. I commit this as I am burping up bean burrito...or is it the tacos?
Tony Robbins says we should say incantations, and my law of attraction books say we should do affirmations. I am pretty sure they are the same thing. Apparently, since everything is energy anyway, our words have power just like our thoughts do. It seems that our words might even have more power in some ways. This immediately scares me when I think of all the little white lies I sometimes have to tell.
There are plenty of affirmations/incantations in my books, but I decide I need to make my own list. Maybe I’ll even print it out and put it on my vision board. Suddenly I feel brilliant. I mean, why didn’t I find out about vision boards sooner? These things seem to work so fast! The list of things I will say daily includes the following,
I am a top-producing agent
I am spiritually enlightened
I am a famous spiritual blogger
I have more money than I need
I am driving my white Mercedes
I have good cats
I am healthy
I eat only healthy foods
I am a good yogi
Hmmm...the tricky thing about these affirmations is that we’re supposed to use positive language. I cannot think of a nice way to say, I will never be fooled by a guy again, so I just put, “I am celibate.” But still, that doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy, either. I decide using words like, powerful, in-charge, courageous, and even, bad-ass sound a lot nicer and make me feel good inside.
I was very proud of myself last night. It turns out that I got so busy with my affirmation project and finishing up my vision board, oh, and doing a property search for Cowboy BR— Attorney at Law— that I only had one glass of wine. That is amazing! Now of course, that doesn’t count the glass of wine I had at lunch with Becky, but that was my birthday lunch, and it was only white. Anyway, the point is that I haven’t been so well-disciplined in the past two weeks, because I was all wrapped up in worrying about Tac. I have to admit, while I’m sort of sad to know I’ll never have him over for a slumber party, there’s another part of me that is happy to have some of her sanity back. I was seriously three heartbeats away from Botox. Besides, my new cream is working nicely, so I won’t even worry about those little fine lines around my eyes just yet.
I think I’m finding the sweet spot again. That place where I was focusing on me, my yoga and my blog, oh, and selling houses, of course. It feels good not to be worrying about checking my cell phone every two minutes to see if Tac sent a text. So in my mind, last night was kind of like proof that I am my best and happiest when I am not being an obsessive-compulsive neurotic mess. Who knew?
I am met with further evidence that this law of attraction stuff really works when I get into the office and have an offer waiting for me on Brad Ryan’s house, a call from escrow that Todd will be signing papers at the courthouse (he can’t blow that up!), and I fight the fact that this final point has me giddy— Tac has a pimple the size of a small car on the side of his nose. Tell me the law of attraction doesn’t work!
“Our outer lives are reflections of our inner lives.”
This is what Dawn tells us as we are trying to open up our shoulders. I tend to have very shy shoulders that are not at all interested in being opened. Even worse than my hips, I would say. Anyway, I think about this idea of my inner life. It actually sounds a lot like the things I’ve been reading in my law of attraction studies...or maybe it was about vibrations? I know, it was Feng Shui. No, that’s my environment that’s a reflection of my inner thoughts. Crap. I’m studying so many spiritual practices that I can’t keep them straight. At any rate, I know it wasn’t Tony because he tends to be less metaphysical than me, but that’s okay— he keeps me grounded.
Knowing that having high vibrations really helps me to attract the things I want in life and have requested to the Universe via my vision board and affirmation list, I am all about keeping my chakras clean and my aura all nice and fluffy. That said, I am delighted to have come home last night to find a birthday card from my mom that has a day-spa gift certificate in it. Massage and things like that are supposed to help clear blocked energy, and blocked energy is what keeps us from having high vibrations. I just love how this all works together.
Dawn is now having us do a one-legged balancing pose that I can never quite pull off. It starts with us bending down, curling our index finger around one of our big toes and then pulling that leg up and out to the side while standing up. Clearly, there is some real maneuvering going on. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I actually stand up with said toe still gripped with said index finger. Of course, I fall pretty quickly, but that I got my foot up and leg extended is nothing short of a miracle. I think I see a tear in Dawn’s eye. I straighten my strong spine and smile victoriously at the cute little blonde yogi next to me. She has an awful lot of tattoos, but she does have the best crow pose ever.
I am at home now and while checking my work email, I see one from Tac with an explanation point. I have to stop and think about this for a minute. This is my work email, not my blogging/Nala email so he is emailing me, Melissa, not me, Nala. Okay. Glad I haven’t had any wine as I would hate to respond with the wrong name. Tac never emails my work email...in fact, he only texts me. So, I am very curious to hear from him on this email account. I open it up and read this:
“Melissa, attached please find a full-priced offer on your Leavitt Way listing. It’s all cash, quick close and the buyer isn’t asking for any extras, please let me know. Thanks, Tac.”
Really?
Yesterday an offer came in and I’m actually supposed to meet Brad Ryan tomorrow morning to sign it. The one that came in yesterday was a little less than asking price, but I’m pretty sure he was going to take it, because why the heck else would he make a coffee date to sign it? In real estate we have to remember that as the listing agent, it is my duty to present any and all offers to the seller. I would like nothing more than to pretend I didn’t get Tac’s offer. Or what I could do is respond and tell him we’ve already accepted another offer, right? I could pull that off if I really tried. However, the fact that Brad Ryan hasn’t actually signed the other offer would make that a bigger lie than even I’m comfortable telling. Well, maybe it’s more because Tac works at the same office and if he decided to snoop, he could look at the contract, see the dates, and then know that I lied and get me in all kinds of trouble. He’s nosy like that.
I take a deep breath in. I am being really immature here. My job is to get Brad Ryan the most money possible for his house, and here it is, an offer higher than the one he’s all ready to sign tomorrow. Of course, since my commission is based on the sales price, I will get more money, too. Then why does it make me so mad? Maybe because I can hardly stand Tac even more than before, and the last thing I want to do is work with him on a transaction. Although, he did say ‘quick close,’ didn’t he? Hmmm. Okay, I can do this. I respond to Tac
and let him know I will present his offer when I meet with my seller tomorrow. I tell him there are other offers we will be looking at, too. And yes, there is only one, but that is none of Tac’s business, and there’s no reason I can’t make him worry just a little.
Next, I email Brad Ryan and let him know that we have another, better offer and that I will be bringing it when I meet him downtown.
I feel fairly grounded and decide to try to meditate before I have my 1.5 glasses of wine tonight. That is my new weeknight ration. I decided that one glass plus another half of glass is plenty. Now of course, there are going to be exceptions to this rule. For example, when my mother calls right in the middle of my meditation.
“Mom, I’m meditating.”
“Since when do you meditate?”
“Well, only since right now, but I’ve been planning on it for a long time.”
“Then why did you answer your phone? You really should turn it off when you meditate.”
This, coming from the woman who would call 911 if I didn’t pick up or call back within a ten minute period.
“I guess I didn’t think of it. Not like I get a lot of calls on weeknights.”
“So now that you’re not meditating, I really want to talk to you about my living situation.”
She has a situation?
“Are you seriously considering rooming with a guy you just met?”
“Honey, we didn’t just meet and we are very compatible. It’s so fun to have a best friend I can pal around with.”
On one level, I wonder if that was a personal dig, but then decide not to say anything because after all, I do not want to pal around with my mother. At least not as much as the foot doctor does.
“Are you talking about getting married, Mom?”
I realize that whatever she says will be the wrong answer.
“We are thinking about just living together for a while.”
More Secrets of a Spiritual Guru: Love & More Lies Page 12