I had absolutely no idea Southern California was shaken by a minor earthquake with a 4.4 magnitude a couple of weeks ago. To be more precise, Malibu, the quake's epicenter, did. Apparently the seismic energy was widely felt as far south as San Diego and as far north as the High Desert. Personally, I, perched at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, didn't feel a thing. But then again, I'm normally hardly ever stable, so I can't tell if it's me who's off balance or if it's the earth that is jolting.

In my defense, this has nothing to do with my very much alive dormant capability to go off track and subject myself to random variation without cogent reason.
Don't be alarmed now! I am not afflicted with mental derangement - not quite yet!
Ok, I'm not going to lie; I am, nevertheless, a slightly defective case of a human being. Don't let the wrapping deceive you, behind that strong, healthy, svelte, muscularly-defined body hides a couple of minor physical disabilities. Truly a miniscule detail - an after thought, really. I am partially deaf from my left ear and have permanent nerve damage in my left leg - sterling qualities I collected courtesy of two psycho-exes (those are juicy stories for another column).

But besides the fact that I will annoy the shit out of you by having you repeat yourself because I can't hear and that I can't, as a fashion coup, outshine any of my fiercest female competition wearing the hell out of some stiletto high heels, who cares? To tell you the truth, I'm just glad my two childhood major head injuries had no severe long term traumatic repercussions. All things considered, I think I'm getting away with a pretty good deal here!

At least that's what I thought until I switched teams and signed up with the "smile if you're gay" club. Suffice to say, it royally threw me for a loop when I came to discover that I wasn't so much going to be sporting a smile as much as I'd be wearing a permanent puzzled frown on my face. Don't get me wrong, I unconditionally love my team but it's taking me a little longer than expected to fully adjust to the different rules and regulations intrinsically attached to playing the queer game.

And god bless my friend Kristina, who once again came to my rescue.
"Let me break it down for you Mona," she said in her de facto academic tone.
"Women are not complicated, they are VERYYYYY complicated," she conclusively denounced.
"And if you really want to know the real truth about what women truly think, always think the opposite of the thought they just expressed to you," she then added.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph! Talk about being unstable, no wonder the ground pretty much shakes every day in "Lesbians'R us" land. Yet as physically unstable as I can be, this general instability completely destabilizes me psychologically and intellectually.





I cannot even begin to understand the vagaries of the female psyche - the myriad nonsensical natural things women - including myself - do so perfunctorily on a daily basis. Yet, unlike Groucho Marx who once declared: "I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me as a member," I like my club and have no intentions of defecting. Unless, of course, it's the majority of the lesbian stables that perhaps wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member?

Kristina - yes her again - advised that I intensively school myself on the panoply of beneficial features and rewards the membership offers to lifelong card-members like me so that I wouldn't so much feel inadequate. But more than being left out, I just don't want to constantly walk around feeling like a kid who's just lost her mother at the supermarket.  

So I immediately went to work, and per Kristina's suggestion, commenced my study educating myself on the technique of the number-one skill lesbians commonly practice with utmost incomprehensible consistency, namely, the art of breaking up.
This is not to discount the other exceptional virtues women hone - Lord knows they're plenty! And I've already endured a couple of those life peripeties barely avoiding the U-Haul movement and merely escaping the stalking syndrome of the dating game.

more on next page...

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(continued)

But when it comes to the confessions of the "it's not you it's me" psychopath, Lesbians, by far, win the genetic lottery. Truly, the load of crap women are able to come up with is imaginatively impressive and superbly retarded - I know it, you know it, they know it, it's one of those unspoken rules of life! And I, as a proud survivor of the dumbest break-up line ever dropped on a human being, can safely make that affirmation.

Lesbians, in general, are brilliantly devious in their dumping technique. They excel in creating confusion and sending mixed signals for the sake of a little lot of drama. It's very much like jumping up in the air and falling in slow motion - you know it's inevitable. You see the ground but you just don't know when you're going to hit it. In the meantime, the "in-denial" part of you is foolish enough to believe that you can change the course of action, keeps going through the same "take one action" routine, only to discover, in the end, that your part was edited out of the final cut of your partner's movie.

What remains infallibly constant is the magnificence of the lines assigned to the character of the dumper - but can we really expect anything less than exceptional? Let's face it, it's written by a woman! And to prove my point, I have called upon my league of extraordinary women, experts in the field, to collect a few of their memorable break up lines.

Here's a sample - brought to you by Michelle, Beth, Kristina and moi:

-     Something in me changed.
-    I love you but I'm not in love with you.
-    Let's take a break.
-    I'm not gay.
-    You can do better than me.
-    You're too good to me, I don't deserve you.
-    I'm not impressed with who you are anymore.
-    We're going in different directions.
-    I'm a "power" career woman moving up in the LGBT social circles and your anonymity is slowing me down.

Then, of course, when all else fails, there's the generic "it's not you, it's me" that always guarantees an expedited way out - that one truly puts a human face to the issue of absurdity because, to quote comedian Sandra Valls, "no shit it's you! It's certainly not me!"

Yet, perhaps the most asinine excuse in the ancient book of separation is the ever clever "I need time to find out who I really am". Well, here's a clue ... how about a "dumb ass bitch?"

The only positive aspect of it all, and quite possibly the sole consolation prize, is that at least they cared enough to lie to your face.

Here's my theory: the way a woman breaks up with her partner is a direct reflection of the magnitude of her mental instability. The same applies to dancing - how well a person dances is indicative of how good you can anticipate that person to perform in bed ...it's all about the moves!

When it comes to understanding women, the one thing I clearly understand, besides the fact that I don't understand anything at all, is that, just like earthquakes, they have a natural innate disposition to generate seismic waves. And whether they shake or rock your world ...they're always followed by a series of aftershocks.



Mona Elyafi is the founder/CEO of ILDK Media -- a boutique entertainment public relations agency specializing in personal publicity, special events, media relations & corporate/brand communications.  www.ILDKMedia.com