1. Drugs in the NHL? Why is this so surprising? OR Was it just faux pas to discuss it? It’s funny, I was telling someone recently while we were sitting at a restaurant in Prague…I was pondering talking about drugs in the NHL…and what I know. Certain players would be suing me for telling the truth about what I know. But then I don’t want to burn that NHL bridge, so I decided against it when I write about my final season.
So now Georges Laraque is under attack from the media because he started talking about doping in the NHL? Why does this surprise anyone? Or are they just surprised someone came forward and had the balls to actually talk about it? I give Georges credit for publishing what I was thinking about publishing myself.
At any rate, I can’t wait to get my hands on Laraque’s new book (scheduled to be released on November 8). He doesn’t name names as far as the doping is concerned. BUT he does talk about the stuff I love to hear him talking about…about being a better person. That’s what I admire about Georges. He’s got a big heart and he’s always trying to use his celebrity to inspire others to be better people.
I do question why the media is attacking him for talking about doping and drugs in the NHL. Like they don’t know this stuff happens.
Theoren Fleury? What about Todd Fedoruk talking to USA Today about his drug addiction partying hard alongside Derek Boogaard? Derek was also Georges’ friend. Georges found out from me that Derek had died. So keep in mind that he’s thinking of his friend by publishing what he has to say about drugs and doping in the NHL. Maybe he’s bringing the story to the forefront so that he can save other lives in the NHL. Something to think about…
2. Schedule. Because I have to finish not just one book, but two books in the upcoming months, I had to sit down and really take control of my schedule and not let it overrun my life with too much to do and too little time to do it in. Usually, I attend every Devils home game that I can while I’m in town. BUT because I’m working on deadlines, I’m limiting myself to home games during the week so that I can focus on my home and other working projects on the weekends.
Originally, we had lined up someone to help me out at the beginning of the season so that I could focus on finishing “Losing 100 Pounds of Unhappiness.” BUT things didn’t go as planned and I lost my colleague to Syracuse University’s grad school program. I’m just going to have to make do with what I can, when I can.
Speaking of Laraque and my schedule…I’m scheduled to meet with him next month for a couple of days. He’ll be cooking for me (well…in the raw vegan sense)…and talking about a lot of different topics. This was all HIS idea. I’m very honored he thought of me. We’ll be working on video segments as well as written work…and maybe he’ll let me be a photographer and photograph him in the ‘cool’ sense of the word.
I also got word that the Winter Classic is very likely on my schedule. I’ll probably be covering the Rangers aspect…or I’ll do like I did last time and cover the entire aspect of it in the NHL sense. {Why do I feel certain Flyers fans are going to be giggling and saying…nope…this is in a Jagr sense?}
3. Upping the Savings. I’m supposed to be working my derriere off for the next six months. Why? Well, when you’re planning a new life, especially one that takes you to a new country, you have a lot of work to do before then. For me, that’s getting 2 books to the publishers, correlating all information from my final season with the NHL, cleaning out the home and sticking a lot of stuff on Ebay, donating stuff to charity, setting up shop to make sure I have a business running and in place when I leave the country, getting ready for my last Christmas, getting the photographs up and ready for sale…
In other words, a lot of this all surrounds amassing as much money as I can before I leave the country. In April, I have to drop around $7,000 just to head to the desert for six days (and travel the remaining 8 days around the country gathering more stories and photos) to decide what we’re doing…better yet, decide where I’m moving. Driss told me to just move to a city in Morocco…live four hours from the desert. The nomad can visit on his days off or I can go to visit him on his days off.
Moving to a foreign country costs money. I will probably not have a job, so I’ll need to have income coming in somehow. My ticket to doing that just so happens to surround setting up consistent income from the USA while I’m away. Sell a couple of books, stories, etc. equals steady income for a few years. Cost of living is low, so I can rent a place for the next 9 years for next to nothing based on what I already have saved up.
But me, being the worry wart about money, has to make sure that I have more than enough money saved to last me a very, very, very long time. If you notice, I’m not depending on my future hubby’s income. I’m depending on my own. You can say that if there’s anything I learned from my mother…stockpiling money and saving it up, despite the hubby’s income, is very important for the ‘just in case.’
Keep in mind, I make more money than he does in one year as compared to seven years income for him. Granted, I could just be a nomad, but I like electricity too much…and running water. Those are two things that will probably keep me from being a desert nomad for the rest of my life. 😉
4. This Is What Dating Is Like. Hamid told me to come back to the desert in a year and he’ll take me out into the desert for six days and we will decide what to do. But I can’t wait a year. I gave him six months.
You see…desert nomads believe that if it’s love, that love will always return to you. They are wanderers and rarely if ever stay in one spot. They believe in not looking at love as a possession, but as something that is as free as they are.
In this case, falling in love and letting it go…if it was meant to be…it will come back to you. In Berber tradition, waiting a year is usual. Both families normally meet each other to decide whether this is a good match before allowing the couple to date for 1 year. That 1 year is basically a promise to marry. Rings are exchanged and everything. But in that year, they can break up if things don’t work out. But if they do work out, they marry (3 day wedding), and spend the rest of their lives together. They do not divorce.
The wife is usually accustomed to their husband leaving and coming back. What usually brings him back is love. Nomads are wanderers and can be gone for six months…sometimes three years. Why do you think Driss keeps telling me to move to the city? Maybe so I won’t be bored out of my mind or on the verge of the Shining or something out in the desert all by myself.
That’s what is so interesting about this…a nomad falling in love with someone and then letting them go to wander away from him…he has enough faith in God to know that if this really is love…she’ll return to him in the desert. He already knows that I’m coming back in six months.
After the first two weeks of being away from him, I thought I was going to go nuts. I can’t call him, email him, or send him a letter. He doesn’t have a phone, the internet or a mailing address. I have to send someone to the desert to talk to him for me.
My colleague told me that not being able to communicate through normal means makes the story even more romantic. It really tests you to make sure that what you are feeling is very real. It makes you fall deeper in love with each other.
I had to tell myself to let go of needing to talk to him or hear from him. I have to wait six months. If I don’t let go of needing to feel that connection…I’m going to go crazy. It took a week for me to learn to let go, but it took “The Alchemist” to realize that this is what happens in those love stories from God. You can feel the kiss on the wind from thousands of miles away. You can see the sun rising over the mountains of Algeria, and feel him tell you that he misses you and that he wishes you were there with him watching another sunrise.
That’s the magic and beauty of it all. You let your souls do the talking to each other from thousands of miles away. If the souls do not talk to each other during that time…it wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t love.
But I can tell you, it’s love alright. I felt his happiness last week when he learned that I would be back in six months. Now, I’m just waiting for the messenger to get back to me to confirm that all is okay with coming back in April.
If anything, I think I like dating this way. When Hamid described it to me, I could only respond, “This is how dating should be.” For us, we just let our souls do the talking.
I like God’s hand in writing love stories. All I can point to is “The Alchemist.” That explains the story being written about the two of us perfectly. This is just how things are done in the nomad tradition. It makes the love story much more meaningful. Until April, we’ll just have to count the sunrises and sunsets over our respective abodes until we see each other again.
That’s a lot of sunrises in New York City.
