Ms Success by day, suicidal by night…

…and the underbelly of the beast

Another tale excerpted from “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street”

“Why the extremes Anastasia?” you might be asking, if you read my last blog.

“Why so attentive to tragedies and catastrophes?”

Having “lived” the extremes (past tense that is) with decades since, pledged to my emotional and psychological health and serenity, I’ve learned a few things I want to pass on, to the youngins, particularly.  

That’s why!

I want to share with you how it was that I got from there to here to have, an almost wonderful, though far from easy life. I want you to draw inspiration, strength and wisdom from my experiences. And, heed, if you are inclined, the lessons from what I am selectively revealing. This -- for the sake of my healing, wholeness and liberation. The latter in line with my intention that “Anastasia The Storyteller,” the blog site and the radio show, could be, a venue for me to, at last, remove those 1000 masks I wear; all of them -- me.

How very fitting to take another serious stab at this unmasking, just in time for Halloween.

If I have nothing more to offer, I, at least, have my authenticity and from this I leave you my stories; stories, of course, being some of the richest treasures of a life.

For my well-researched, well-documented solutions to the problems addressed in this article, find out more in Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime and at the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project.

Now about those extremes, which are a significant part of the underbelly of the beast of success, ala Anthony Weiner.

If my meaning is not immediately clear, in time it will be so. Patience will be your virtue here. But don’t hesitate to ask for the more you would like.

(You can contact me, directly, at: zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.)

In the meantime, walk your way through my stories on “We came for Camelot,”  “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street” and beyond in other stories, fraught with clues that meander here and there on this blog site. (Also check out “The Man Who Believed In Evil.”)

Allow me to, now, discuss my book-in-progress project and its related intent of getting out from under whatever masks I still wear.

The cost, is, was and always had been, at the expense of – “whatever?” 

So, herewith, I advance the story of my book-writing adventure, revealing a few notes on  beginning the next, immediate leg of research a month ago.

The commencement, officially, was launched by my attending several meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous in Washington, D.C.  How about that!

No, I am not a “real deal” alcoholic. However, suffice it to say that it was, here, in our nation’s capital that I learned the art of “work hard, party hard” as the choicest path to success in the American dream package. Thus, these particular meetings, held in the very heart of the beast, the central business, power- laden home to the offices of untold lobbyists etc., K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., are smack in the midst of what became for me, the fire pit of my adult awakening.

Oh, I would have been a great candidate for AA back then; disease or not.

My tales, readily, emerge from there -- “work hard, party hard.” The underbelly, also, including the repulsion I felt, being relentlessly stalked by a Senator, endeavoring to set me up as his mistress, no doubt, to be funded by his congressional pay.

Scarey. What does an innocent, twenty something do up against this kind of power and prestige?

Dummie me, I was too naïve to understand the episode until decades later. But I sure was intimidated and scared.

“There by the grace of G-d go I.”

(If you care to do the research, now in the archives at the Smithsonian, “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street” most directly ties to “Burgeoning Business Brims Over: Twenty-seven year old starts runaway personal shopping service” – Washington Sunday Star newspaper, September 24, 1967. Check it out. That, of course, be me and the basis for “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street.” However, we will hold off on that celebrity entrepreneur part for a bit. So please bear with me. You will not be disappointed, I assure you.)

Question: How do women of today, eager to break the glass ceiling world, dominated by the male power sector, bypass these temptations and dangers?

Answer 1: Emily Yoffe addresses the “work hard, party hard” aspect of the topic eloquently in College Women: Stop Getting Drunk, underscoring the main reason I chose to visit AA meetings as my first research step for “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street.”

Answer 2: PG – Parental guidance, also, suggested.

The real deal for me is that I could never be bought! I hope you cannot either.

So I offer my stories that you and your’s will be just a little bit stronger and wiser than some of our sisters who did not make out as well.

Or, who might still be inclined to think and re-think the price they are willing to pay to break through that glass ceiling.

I’m so glad instinct protected me from the underbelly of the beast where parents did/could not.

Now, how about asking me, how I, now, see transforming the Dark Side of society and politics.

You can begin by exploring all kinds of dark side transforming strategies on the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project blog site.

More to come.