Whe... Whe... Where Am I?

It was the oddest thing... I awoke this morning -- Friday morning -- in my own bed, in my own room. Yet, I was completely disoriented.  I spent at least half to three-quarters of a minute trying to figure out where I was, what day it was, what time it was, and if I needed to be anywhere.

Even after I got my bearings, I wasn't able to completely shuck the feeling of not knowing exactly where I am in space or time.  It's bothered me the whole day.  So I'm blogging about it, right before bed, in hopes of trying to nip that feeling in the bud.

I'm going to try a new meditation tonight.  It is, I'm told, a guided remembrance of who I am.  I'm hoping this will help my untethered feeling of late.

Wish me luck.

~C~

Epiphany

Okay, so I'm in the car today, singing to the iPod, as usual, and Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" comes on, and I'm singing at the top of my lungs, adagio con brio, again, as usual, and thinking how this song is so close to my heart and it's, like, the story of my life, and how many times have I lived this very scenario, and then...

Suddenly, it hits me...

"Grrrrrlllll... you have GOT to get you a new theme song."

What's Up With The Catharine Chronicles, I Hear You Ask

Just a misunderstanding in how I wanted to renew my domain name. Hopefully, it will be taken care of by Monday or Tuesday. Don't have much to say there at the moment, so it's good to have an excuse to take a break.

~C~

How On Earth Can I Be Miserable Today?

It's National Banana Bread Day? And no one even thought to mention it? Boy, you guys could have saved yourselves a ton of mopin' and gripin'. At least for a day.

Surely, that's a good omen. ("It is. And don't call me Shirley.")

In honor of today, then, two little outdoor excursions. One, to Bodhi Tree Bookstore, the other the Panera.

Vive le pain de banane! (De préférence avec des noix de pécan, naturellement.)

~C~

Why Sometimes Facebook and My Space Suck

Could anything be more painful than reading the love poems and love words of the girlfriend of the man you love on his Facebook wall? And knowing he's responding in kind on hers? And... for the love of God... can't they send private messages for that? Does it have to be done in open comments on walls in Facebook and My Space?

This is why I cannot go to his page anymore, even just to see how he's doing.

I hate that it matters. I hate I fell in love. I wish we were friends again.

~C~

A Few Quick Thoughts On How It Ought to Feel

It occurs to me... though somewhat belatedly, I'll grant you... that love shouldn't hurt. I'm not saying it should be a walk in the park every minute of every day, especially if two people are living together or seeing each other every day. People get on each other's nerves, a bad day at the office travels home in a person's empty lunch sack, bills and in-laws and kids make patience thin and fragile.

But overall, love - real, genuine, reciprocal love between two people who respect and care for each other - really shouldn't hurt. Love isn't, by nature, painful. We make it that way. Love doesn't break your heart. We do that to ourselves, by choosing the wrong people to love or loving them at the wrong times. Love isn't mournful or melancholy or morose. It isn't spiteful or sad or full of sorrow and unfulfilled dreams.

Love abides with affection and tenderness. It thrives under the watchful eye of dignity and mutual admiration. It doesn't feel imposed upon by the lovers, or feel burdened by them.

And the minute that those other, not-so-very-nice feelings start to creep in, love needs to be reassessed, and perhaps abandoned for something or someone else. But letting go of love, even painful, inadequate, unrequited love, is much harder than I could ever imagine. I have just let it die a natural death in the past, which can take months. But I don't have months. There's a friendship at stake I'd like to salvage, and it's hanging by a thread, and this love that is so toxic and utterly agonizing will kill it sure as anything if it lingers too long.

So how to let go of the love and still keep the friendship intact? Can it be done? Maybe not. I know very few people who can stay friends when one loves and the other does not. Or worse, when the other loves another. If you remove every photograph or visual reminder in front of you, then how to you get the picture out of your brain? How do you reconcile the fact that someone that you could feel so close to, so connected to, so bonded with, so attracted to, could not possibly feel the same way about you? Why is the Universe so cruel as to give me the capacity to love so entirely, to dangle this person who appears, at least on the surface, to be everything I ever asked for, only to then say, "But, here's the bad news, he's already chosen the little blond rocker who (unlike you) is skinny and pretty and very young. But you can be his chubby gal-pal and hear all his laments about how love - even to the skinny, pretty, young rocker girl whom he professes to love most in the world, to the point of being unable to love anyone else - really only gets in the way of his happy single life. Aren't you lucky?"

No. Not so much in love. Or cards either, which is, to me, the ultimate cheat, because shouldn't there be some kind of consolation prize? I mean, if I'm not going to Vegas to run off and get married to the guy who swept me off my feet, shouldn't I at least be able to go there and beat the house at blackjack? I guess my consolation is knowing that I'm not inconvenienced by the burden of love, that my happy single life remains free and unfettered by something so demanding as the love of another human being. I am free. Free to come and go as I please, without anyone caring when or even if I'll be home. I'm free to stay or go, without anyone to share the time either way. I'm free to forgo the comforts of partnership and camaraderie, of intimacy and daily tendernesses. I'm mercifully unencumbered enough not to know how it feels to have someone tell me - and mean it - that I'm their one and only, and they love me the way I am, and they feel so fortunate to have found me.

I guess I must have pretty much hit the emotional jackpot. Lucky me.

So, I'm moving on, as best I can. If I'm free to stay or go, then I choose go. At least love-wise. Pack up my "in-love" self and go far away from someone -- yet another someone -- who is incapable of loving me in the here and now. I need someone present and accounted for, and there's a tiny part of me, amidst the dark void of "no such thing" that knows he's out there. I've taken a little break from the online places I've frequented, in order to try and make myself available for someone who must certainly be looking for me the way I'm looking for him (or will be, once I can wash this current, painful love away).

And the next time, I'll know it's love because it makes me happy. I'll know because the person that I love will love me back, and not be afraid of that. I'll know because I will be valued as an asset, rather than an inconvenience or an imposition. I'll know because he'll be there, right in the room with me, and life will be what it always is -- messy and complicated and occasionally unpleasant -- but he won't blame that on me. He'll know that's just what life is, and we'll get through it together.

And I'll know, first and foremost, because love won't hurt.

~C~

The Non-List List of 2009

I was supposed to be posting all my grand plans for 2009, but it appears... I have none.

Well, that's not exactly true. I do, but I'm having a hard time shedding this really heavy cloak of mental chaos enough to articulate it. I've started this post about six or seven times, and seem never be able to finish. Everything I write seems either trite, or inauthentic or just plain daffy.

I think the problem is the part about making plans. Plans are a big lie, because they imply that somehow you have control over anything, when truly, we have control over very, very little. It's that "LifeWithACapitalL" that keeps throwing a monkey wrench into the whole affair. You make a plan, you figure out how to achieve it, then Life comes in in the most capricious, arbitrary way and screws things up royal. People get old and die. People die without getting old. People you love don't love you back. People you love that love you have to go lead lives you can't lead with them and so, leave you. Hearts break and mend. Jobs end. New ones begin. And you are left with your plans, especially the ones that included the people and the jobs and the now-broken hearts, dangling by a thread, with no hope that they will ever be implemented. So, it seems to me that making plans is definitely so "last year."

This year it isn't going to be about what I'm going to do, but what I want. What do I really, really want? And the answer, it seems, falls into two categories: Short term and long term.

Okay, in the short term... I want to be ready to leave for the Flyaway terminal, so I can catch my bus to LAX, and my plane to Hawaii. I want to have a great time, take some fabulous pictures, see a couple of really spectacular sunsets, and visit with some folks I really care about. Then I want to come home, unpack, and have the first serious workout with my trainer. Then, a few days after that, I want to take the train to Carpinteria, see Pacifica, talk to some faculty, and decide if I really, really want to apply for a five-year program that would end with me having a PhD. ("Dr. Sowards. Paging Dr. Sowards.")

Long term wants include wanting to be healthy and comfortable in my own skin again. I want to look in the mirror and recognize me, the way I did in the spring of 2003. I want to be strong. I want to be able to dance again. I want to sing something wonderful again, and not think for a moment about how I look in whatever I'm wearing. I want to really accept myself, and not think for a second about what others thinks about me. I want to stop making friends with people who are incredibly high-maintenance and make me feel wrong all the time.

I want to finally figure out whether I'm alone because I like it, or because the alternative is "sleeping with the enemy". In the past, living with another adult in the house was tantamount to to extending an invitation to someone to come on in and treat you badly. "Please, call me names." "By all means, feel free to let me know how disappointing I am to you." "Oh, and while you're at it, why don't you toss in a couple of adjectives like 'worthless' and 'useless', just so no stone is left unturned." And yet, I'm pretty sure that everyone doesn't have that experience. I'm pretty sure that most of my married friends have lovely husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends and life partners who don't make them feel that way. I'm pretty sure that, while not entirely unique, my experience in this area is limited to a handful of experiences that don't necessarily apply to most other experiences. Other experiences are possible. That being said, am I prepared to risk it? Do I want that experience with enough vigor that I'm prepared to do what's required to allow it to happen?

Good question. If you figure it out, let me know, because frankly, I'm stumped.

Another long-term want is travel. I want to go places. Maui is nice, but I'm talking real travel. I want to go to Italy in 2010, and take travel writing seminar for two weeks in Tuscany. I want to see my English friends again (though I guess I should ask them whether they're really that anxious to see me---I'm only assuming that my charm and allure is irresistible to them). I think I might want to live in England some day, which is why the PhD might come in handy (higher degrees make getting categorized as a "specialized worker" easier). I might want to own another horse.

I want to find a new place to live, so I can be with my kid under the same roof again. I want to get a dog. I want to figure out how to accept myself completely, without feeling that I ought to be comforting, nurturing, counseling, coddling in order to be useful and indispensable. That's not anyone else's doing but mine. I want to never find myself in a situation again where I love someone who clearly could never love me back. I'm pretty sure there is at least one worthy man out there who isn't only interested in the twenty-two year old, size 4, eye-candy trophy girls; I just haven't met him yet. (This may require moving out of Los Angeles county, as even men who aren't in the industry are infected with this particular virus.)

I want to be happy being me, exactly as I am, without once thinking that, if I were only someone else, I'd be enough. This one is tough, because I'm not sure really what it feels like. I think this particular want is at the heart of my chaos. After all, if all you're used to is life on Mars, the newness of the Earth's gravity can really throw you for a loop. I'm Valentine Michael Smith, just landed from Mars, thinking entirely like a Martian, and having to learn what it means to be human. There is much to grok about your strange ways, Earthlings. Much to grok, indeed.

So, thought it is not a list, but rather a non-list, it is all I have to offer for 2009. Perhaps I should have written it after I returned from Hawaii. My mind might have been clearer. My thoughts sharper and more cogent. But I doubt it. This is what I am today, and today, it's enough. More than enough really. It's pretty good.

Happy Rest-of-the-New-Year. See you all when I get back.

~C~

P.S. The artwork is a fractal I did a couple of weeks ago, entitled "Mixed Blessings."

Saucy Review of Things to Do, 2008, Before Posting Things to Do, 2009

Last year, in the hopes of avoiding the annoying Resolution phenom, I made a List of Things to Do in 2008. Before I move on and make my '09 list, I thought I'd review and see what I can cross off the list from this past year.

1. New job: No joke. Really need to get me a new one of these. I need to start teaching for a living, or working for a publishing company, or actually supporting myself as a writer (or any combination thereof) sometime this year, because working in the legal department of a major motion picture studio is the opposite of being creative, and it's sucking my creative energy. Done. Quit Fox, went freelance, am trying to work out a more flexible part-time gig. (Mustn't discuss details, lest I jinx it.)
   
   
2. Finish losing the weight I put on during Daddy-Palooza 2006-2007. That's about -- gulp! -- forty-five pounds. On someone who's not even 5'4", that's a whole lotta weight. Uh... yeah... well, this needs to go on '09's list as well. Nuff said there.
   


3. Turn fifty. Okay, this one doesn't really need to go on the list, because, hey, it's happening in November. But I want to do it in style -- a party, or an exciting trip somewhere, and I want to have No. 2 accomplished by then, so I look completely hot for whatever I'm doing to celebrate. I plan on buying a very expensive, chic little dress and some very tall, impractical shoes. Check. Fifty successfully turned, birthday party complete success, shoes exceedingly impractical, by God.


4. Get a literary agent. I'm tired of being told how impossible this is, how hard, how it's nearly futile, how it happens to only the luckiest few budding writers.... Yeah. I get it. Now shut up about it. I don't want to hear that kind of naysaying bullshit from another breathing soul (if they want to go on breathing). It's happening, it's happening this year, and you can either help or get the hell out of my way. (If there's anything ambivalent or confusing about No. 4, please feel free to write me and ask for clarification. I dare you.) This is another carry-over---spent too much time on my book design classes and photography lessons to get much of this done.
   


5. Finish the triathlon. In one piece. Undrowned, unscraped, un-shin-splinty. So there. Nope. Not this one either. Had to give it up because I was busy finishing up at Fox. But I'm still thinking of going it freelance, either in La Quinta or Carpinteria this next year.
   


6. Get a home. Not just another crappy apartment. A home. As in house. As in, with a yard. With a space to plant bare-root roses (yellow in memory of my godmother, Linny). And room for a boxer (the dog, not the prizefighter). I am through asking permission about what colors I can paint my walls and how many pets I get to have and what kind of showerhead I can have. I'm a grown-ass woman, and it's time I exercised all rights and privileges therein. Well, at least we've decided the general area where we want to move---and rents are a lot more reasonable out there. Wish us luck---moving this item to '09.
   


7. Be more patient. Stop the foot-tapping, steering-wheel-pounding, standing-in-line sighing. Enough ahready. This isn't a conspiracy against me. I need to just grow up and get over myself. Likewise, to be more tolerant of people's oddities and peculiarities. You know what, if you want to eat sardine-and-peanut butter sandwiches, as long as you're downwind of me, that's fine. I'll go on loving you all the same. Yes, by Golly. I think I can safely say that, for the most part, I have become much more zen about things. I'm not entirely devoid of passion, mind you, but I am learning to take this in better stride, without the road rage and the queue meltdowns. Mechanical malfunction still makes steam come out of my ears. I'm working on it.


8. Stop apologizing for being me. It occured to me during the whole ordeal of the past eighteen months that I have spent the better part of my life apologizing to somebody for being me. To my mother, for being born at a time when she wasn't prepared financially or emotionally to have a child. To my father for not being... well... Christie Brinkley. To my ex-husband for not being his mother. To various men* that I've dated for not being, alternately, too virginal, not virginal enough, too opinionated, not decisive enough, too headstrong, too sensitive, too young, too old, too fat, too short, too blonde, too redheaded, too... Well.... shit.... just too "too," really. My new motto when it comes to people in my life, particularly male-type people, is this: "I'm not sorry. I don't apologize. Please don't forgive me. Please don't 'fix' me. Please don't deconstruct, reconstruct, rescue or repair me. This is the package, and if it's not what you want, this town is chock full of 'Acting for Commercials' classes that are chock full of plastic-titted bikini models just waiting for you. The door's thataway. And it locks from the inside."Happy to say, well and truly done. Not sure exactly what it means, except that it might mean I'm single forever and ever. But I think, for the first time, I'm really happy with that arrangement. It gets lonely, but it never gets hurtful and abusive. A definite improvement, for sure. For a deeper explanation of this, stay tuned to 2009's list, when I will further elaborate.
   


9. Travel. I want to go to Maui (with Kim) for fun this summer, and I want to go to Prague sometime before the end of the year. I want to see Prague before they start using the Euro, and my weak-assed American dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Unfortunately, due to rising oil prices and airfares, Kim and I never made it to Maui. But we did have a splendid trip to North Carolina's GORGEOUS Outer Banks, staying in Kill Devil Hills (where the Wright Brothers made one of their first historic flights) and seeing the sites on the East Coast. Beautiful. Lovely. It was a fortuitous turn of events that led us on a fabulously unexpected adventure. Travel? Check!
   


10. Finish "Vision," the collection of linked short stories about a half-dozen people who see (or think they see) an image of Virgin Mary on a freeway support at the corner of Pico and Sawtelle. An item for 2009's list. Next!
    


11. Finish a first draft of "Death of the American Western," the novel I started in the MFA program. It can (and mostly likely will) be, in the words of Ann Lamott, a "shitty first draft," but it has to be finished and ready for revision by December 31, 2008. Ditto. Next!
    


12. Get the publication arts certificate. This will hopefully provide me with certain skills that will allow me to accomplish No. 1 and (spoiler alert!) No. 13. Can't cross this off yet, because I'm still in the middle of the program, but I'm on track for it. Will be completed in June of 09.
    


13. Be financially secure. Need I elaborate? I thought not. Ironically (or because the Universe has a twisted sense of humor), my inability to make a decision about investing my finances, and thus turning to temporary solutions to stash my nest egg, like Certificates of Deposit and money market accounts, has all but ensured that I will come through this current financial crisis relatively intact. Had I invested the money in bonds or mutual funds, I'd be royally screwed. (We won't even discuss the sad and sorry state of my 401K.)
    


14. Get more sleep. Done.



15. Eat less crap. Done.



16. Take less crap. Done.



17. Have more fun. Definitely done.

Not so bad. Ten out of seventeen accomplished. I'd say it was a pretty productive year. It was a big year, in all respects. In many ways, it sucked, in a few really brilliant ways, it rocked the heavens. But here I am, for better or worse, trying---still, in spite of the wisdom that fifty brings (ahem!), trying to figure it out. That means answering a few really big questions for myself. Like, what do I want to be when I grow up? Like, I am alone, but am I lonely? Like, is it really possible for me to spend the rest of my life only taking jobs I want and like? (No. Seriously.)

At least I'm asking the questions, though many answers remain as yet undiscovered.

Stay tuned for the List of Things To Do, 2009, in which we shall ask these and many more earth-shattering questions. For now, though, I'm ready to put the past to bed and say good-bye to the list for 2008.

~C~

New Toys Make Everything Better

It's a bit fraudulent for me to put this in the Art and Photography category. These are some photos I took with the new DSLR I bought two days ago, as a belated Bastille Day present for myself. (Hey! Back off! If I say it was a Bastille Day present, it was a Bastille Day present, damn you all!)

Because I've been lacking in consensual human subjects, I've been forced to play with playground equipment, foliage, architecture and textures. Still, I've been able to get some really nice photos, with very little experience or knowledge. I have purchased a book called The Digital Photography Book (Volume 1), but haven't had a chance to read it through yet.

I took a lot of photos of plants. Nonconsenual photos of plants. Naked plants. Alright, so it's plant porn. Arty plant porn, but still.... Parental guidance strongly suggested. I'm using the link for the Flickr slideshow. Hopefully, it'll work for everyone.

My little Olympus point-and-click camera has been very, very good to me (all the photos in my Maui and my North Carolina albums were taken with the Olympus). It's a fantastic little camera. The Nikon, though, is in a whole other league. I'm looking forward to learning how to use it. Many, many thanks to M3 at Do They Have Salsa In China for letting me pick her camera brain, and for recommending the Nikon D40. I'll have to get the car fixed up and take that road trip up north in the near future now. Word has it there are two very willing, cooperative little human photographic subjects living up there.

And... uh... Note to Julie and Jim... the camera's coming with me tomorrow.

Fair warning.

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)

A Lovely Party Gift

As most of you already know (because you saw the now-gone ticker at the top of the site), I left my job of 13 years on Friday, to pursue a life of freelance work as a writer/teacher (hopefully)/copy editor/literary bon vivant. (Okay, that last one might be pushing it a bit.)

As a tribute to this major life transition, my friend Gerry forwarded me this link* on a talk by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who built a career studying brain disorders (her brother is a schizophrenic) and how to treat them. One morning in 1996, Dr. Taylor awoke to discover she was in the middle of having a stroke.

In this nearly-19-minute talk, she relates her experience as she watched each of her left-brain functions (walking, talking, reading, writing, memory) shut down, one by one, and the ensuing enlightenment that she acquired from the experience. Take 20 quiet, uninterrupted minutes and listen to what she has to say. It is all we fear, all we hope for, all we imagine in our wildest imaginings.

In the end, I promise you won't regret it. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor didn't.

Peace.

"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."
~Jill Bolte Taylor~

~C~

* The transcript of her lecture can be found here, but I encourage you to watch if you have the time. She exudes an energy and passion that can't be captured in the printing of her words.

P.S. According to Dr. Taylor's website, she has been named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. That's her, right there, under the "M."

(cross-posted at MySpace)

Things We Learn At the Laundromat

Just sitting here at Granada Laundry (where the wireless is free, but the quad-load washers cost the equivalent of the military budget of a small Latin American nation), and am bombarded by three flatscreen televison, each blasting something different -- basketball on the one over my head, a Spanish-language comedy in the Northeast corner, and a Spanish-language talk/reality show in the Southwest corner.

The cacaphone is so overwhelming that, not only can I not understand anything coming from the Spanish stations, I can't even understand the guys who are commentating the basketball game -- and they're speaking English. I do get a glimpse, between shuffling clothes in various degrees of cleanliness from one washer/dryer to the next, though.

Here are a few of my observations:

Televised sporting events -- once so big a part of my life -- have lost all their glamour for me. I mean, I think I'd rather be set on fire than watch another game. This is especially true of basketball.


There are certain sight gags that are universally funny, regardless of the language in which they are narrated. When one of the three phones at a desk of the fat, badly dressed boss rings, and he to answer all three of them, one at a time, before he realizes it's his cellphone that's ringing... golly, that's just plain funny. It does kind of beg the question that, if in our little comedy world of suspended disbelief, we're willing to buy that the boss has cellphone technology, how come he never heard of trunk lines, but why be petty?


Even in Mexico, there are no depths to which people will not stoop -- including a bread-eating contest -- for the promise of being on television with their favorite soap opera stars. (Somehow, I find this oddly reassuring. I'm not sure why.)


Another thing that's universally funny -- losing a contact lens at a crowded fancy restaurant. English or Spanish, seeing two people crawling between the well-dressed legs, searching for a tiny contact lens, while trying to be inconspicuous....? Well, admit it.... just thinking about it makes you chuckle, doesn't it?


• When basketball is on a flatscreen at a laundromat, husbands are rendered useless. (Another good reason to have a washer and dryer at home. On the service porch. As far from a television as possible.)


• The laundromat is a pretty good place to meet single men -- until it occurs to you that they are doing their laundry in the laundromat because, at forty-whatever, they can't afford to buy a house in LA either. Not that that makes them a bad catch but.... yeah. Maybe it does.


• The laundromat is not the place to try and attempt any serious creative writing endeavor.

So, these are the things I've learned from tonight's trip to the laundromat. It really is kind of like going to another country. You don't speak the language, you have to pay for the privilege of being there, but, if you're diligent and lucky, you leave with some cool stuff -- in this case, clean undies.

I spent two and a half hours in another country today -- Vietnam. I had my bi-monthly manicure/pedicure, so I have gorgeous hands and some killer sexy toes, too. But today, I actually indulged in one more thing I'd been dying to have done. I had my eyebrows professionally shaped. It was a more complex process than I'd realized, involving hot wax, tweezers, a brow brush and a small pair of scissors. But I can tell you that, when all was said and done, it was ever so worth it. My eyebrows are totally rockstar. It doesn't seem like much, perhaps, but I really think eyebrows are a radically overlooked facial feature. The ladies at the salon have been bugging me to get it done for ages, and I've resisted. But I finally relented, and experienced, for the first time, the agony that is hot wax hair removal.

Can I ask one question? How in the name of God and all that's holy to women stand bikini waxes? And the idea of Brazilian waxes... I mean, I wear thong underwear, too, but.... Hello! People! Have you never heard of RAZORS!!! To all foreign agents with nefarious intent who might be reading this.... if you are hellbent on getting me to divulge any government secrets, might I recommend a Brazilian hot wax? One strip, and I will reveal any confidentiality I know -- and make a few up besides. A moment of silence, please, for Mr. Schick and Mr. Gillette.

The Vietnamese ladies in the salon had their television turned to HGTV, which was pretty freakin' wonderful, let me tell you. It made me appreciate the joys of homeownership and the fringe benefits that come with same. Like being able to paint your walls real colors (note to self -- chocolate brown and two shades of green in the same room are not only very feng shui, but they actually make a small room look bigger). I love color. I miss color. I'm so tired of beige I could scream. But I won't. Because I live in attached housing, where I share a wall with my next door neighbors (who also happen to be my landlords). The other thing about owning your home is you get to equip it with things that could prove useful in the course of everyday life.

Like a washer and dryer.

~SIGH~

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)

Jeeez... She's So Cranky

I am, you know. I've got a one-inch fuse right now, so if you'd like to pick a fight, I'm your girl. Someone here at the office said I had "senioritis." "You so want to ditch today and go get that 'prom tan'." And truer words were never spoken.

8 days. Eight days. EIGHT DAYS.

And yet, miles to go before I sleep. (In.)

~A~

And Then, There Was None

I've been driving by the House on Carpenter occasionally to see what the new owner had in store. For a long time, dumpsters in the front didn't indicate whether we were looking at a demo/new build, or just a flip.

Today, I had lunch with Jim B. and his daughter, Maddie (and also Amelia Bedelia, but that's another story -- or two -- or twelve), and as I drove home, I thought I'd swing by and check out the House on Carpenter to see if there was any progress.


I think the question of demo or flip has finally been put to bed.

(FOR LARGE SIZE, CLICK HERE)

Once and for all.

'Night, 'night, house. Glad no one else will be living in you. The house to be built will be someone else's house. That makes me happy. Earlier, while walking back from lunch, Jim pointed out that today is the first day of spring. A perfect day for the dying of the old and the sprouting of new growth.

Closure. An idea whose time has come.

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)

ON THIS DAY OF IRISH THANKS

So, perhaps St. Patrick's Day is not the day that one typically associates with gratitude and thankfulness. I would wager that's because one has never sat beside friends one has met at a Santa Monica pub -- your first, their thirty-second (the number 32 symbolically representing, of course, all the counties on the Emerald Isle, which I gather can only be wrestled to unity from British clutches if expatriated Irishmen and wannabes get sloppy, falling-down drunk once a year on March 17th).

All you have to do is sit beside one of these sweet drunkards, especially the one that usually has the most bitter, sarcastic sense of humor, and hear how grateful he is that he has his beautiful wife, and his gorgeous children, and such good friends (at which point, he turns and belches in your face as he squeezes your shoulders so tightly, he tears your rotator cuff), and a good, good life, to know that St. Patrick's Day is a day for giving thanks.

"Thanks for buying this round." "Thanks for (the Orange County Irish band) The Fenians." "Thanks for the corned beef and cabbage." "Thanks for Mr. Guinness and for Mr. Bass (or, if you're a purist, Mr. Harp's*)." But I'm thankful for a couple of other reasons.

I'm thankful that this is the last St. Patrick's Day spent at this desk, in this cubicle, at this job. It's been good to me, but I've spent 13 St. Patrick's Days here. Time to move on.

I'm thankful that I have friends who believe in my art enough to push me to pursue it.

I'm thankful I got a little bit of good, old-fashioned dosh that will allow me to pursue it.

I'm thankful that I have enough friends who are supporting themselves as artists that I can see with my own eyes that it can, in fact, be done.

I'm thankful that I limit myself to, at most, one Black 'n' Tan on St. Patty's Day (and rarely finish that one). (Actually, I'm usually more thankful for that on March 18th.)

I'm thankful that soon, what Owen Wilson makes a day in per diem, how many trailers Jennifer Aniston needs to ready herself for her long, arduous day in the "dog movie," who styles whose hair, who makes up whose face, and how much their assistants get paid will be someone else's problem, and not mine.

I'm thankful that I won't have to choose between writing OR going to the gym, but will be able to write AFTER I go to the gym.

Finally, I'm thankful for this new life that scares the bejeebers out of me, but probably not as much as it should.

Oh, yeah... and thanks to Mr. Albert Guinness and Mr. William Bass (cuz I'm no purist) for the Black 'n' Tan.

~C~

*I know, I know... there was no "Mr. Harp" behind Harp Lager, per se. Please don't write to school me on this. I was being funny. Comics' license. Did I mention I'm thankful I have readers who get humor without trying to muddy with facts? Well, I am, by golly.

The Small Stuff

It's kind of mind-boggling that people's lives become so inextricably interwoven with yours that, after they are no longer here, you spend months and months stumbling across the little dribs and drabs -- stuff that never occurred to you after the initial loss, that keeps coming up over and over. The responsiblities that fall immedately post-mortem -- the sorting, the cleaning, the disposal of property, the dispersion of assets, taxes, death certificates -- that's all the stuff you're expecting. The Big Stuff.

But there's the other stuff... the stuff that you never think of, until like little emotional Claymore, you trip the wire and everything kind of goes... boom. It's the small stuff that's killer.



Today, my electronic calendar sent me a message to let me know that my father's birthday is a week from tomorrow -- so, presumably, I shouldn't forget it (as I had done in years past) and make other plans, instead of making the yearly pilgramage to the House on Carpenter to either take him to dinner, or when he stopped leaving the house, take him dinner, a card, some chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and then high-tail it out of there as quickly as possible.

This year, there'll be a small gathering to celebrate the event, undoubtedly for the last time ever. I will not be attending the party in Maui, which will culminate in the scattering of his ashes in the lovely, balmy waters of Maalea Bay, just south of Lahaina. I have plans to go in July, when the Hawaiians will take to me to one of the holiest places on the island -- the crater at Haleakala -- where I can say good-bye myself, in my own way.



Meanwhile, I have celebrated the occasion in my own way -- by deleting his birthday from my calendar. (Open the birthday note, click "All future dates," click "Delete"... gone.) I guess after this year, March 18th is just the day after St. Patrick's Day.



~C~

02/27/08 My New Boyfriend

Here's a picture of my new boyfriend.

I came home last night after a day of particularly intense upheaval, personally and professionally, only to find that Tivo had, of its own accord, recorded an episode of Mega Disasters entitled Super Swarms, about locusts and their impact on humanity.

"This is stupid," I thought, as I highlighted the entry. "Who in their right mind would want to watch a documentary on loc...." But then I had to shut up, because the narrator was saying something utterly compelling about mandibles. And I was hooked.

This afternoon, Kimberly and I were talking about this. "Been watching Discovery Channel, have we?" she commented on my MySpace. And I remembered that I had no idea what channel it was on, because Tivo had recorded it for me. Just 'cuz. And I joked with her that if Tivo were a man, I'd have to marry him. Oh, sure... it's funny when you say it like this, but... let's think about it.

Tivo thinks of me once or twice during the day. A couple of times a day, something crosses Tivo's path and Tivo thinks, "Gee, I think Amanda might like this." Tivo lets me watch and rewind, watch and rewind, and never loses its patience. Tivo sometimes overdoes the lovin' by taking my Season Pass totally to heart and recording every blessed showing throughout the day of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when I'd really be perfectly happy with just the 11 pm showing. I get a little peevish about this sometimes, until I remember that Tivo only wants to make sure my needs are being met. And then, I have to smile.

I've decided that these are the qualities I need to find in a man. Someone who puts up with my capricious, oddball ways without complaining. Someone who stops in every so often in the course of his day and says, "I must remember to show this to Amanda -- I think she'd get a charge out of it." Someone to whom my happiness is important. Someone who wants to edify and enlighten me, but in a sweet, entertaining way.

Tivo is my new boyfriend. Until such time as the human version walks through the door.

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)

THANK YOU!

FINALLY!

Scientific evidence to PROVE what we already knew.

Pregnancy leads to brain damage.

I'd tell you all exactly what that means, but... I forgot.

~C~

Thing To Do in 2008

I tend to shy away from resolutions, because things we "resolve" to resolve are so rarely ever fully resolved (bad habits broken must forever be avoided, weight lost must constantly be kept off, etc.). That's where my "List of Things to Do" comes in. Yes, I have one. And I'm not talking about the one that tells me which errands to procrastinate over on any given Saturday. I'm talking about the Big List.... the one that deals with my -- you should pardon the expression -- "issues." Yes, it's true... I have "issues." But then, so do you... and you... and you over there (don't be hidin' behind your neighbor, actin' like I can't see you). You all have issues, and so do I, and so does Dick Cheney (in spades!), and so does Angelina Jolie, even with all her money and her big, poofy lips.

So rather than "resolve" to do something I may or may not be able to "resolve," I'm just making a list... a list of things to do in 2008. Things that need to be fixed that only I can fix. Things that need to be handled and arranged better to my liking.

1. New job: No joke. Really need to get me a new one of these. I need to start teaching for a living, or working for a publishing company, or actually supporting myself as a writer (or any combination thereof) sometime this year, because working in the legal department of a major motion picture studio is the opposite of being creative, and it's sucking my creative energy.


2. Finish losing the weight I put on during Daddy-Palooza 2006-2007. That's about -- gulp! -- forty-five pounds. On someone who's not even 5'4", that's a whole lotta weight.


3. Turn fifty. Okay, this one doesn't really need to go on the list, because, hey, it's happening in November. But I want to do it in style -- a party, or an exciting trip somewhere, and I want to have No. 2 accomplished by then, so I look completely hot for whatever I'm doing to celebrate. I plan on buying a very expensive, chic little dress and some very tall, impractical shoes.


4. Get a literary agent. I'm tired of being told how impossible this is, how hard, how it's nearly futile, how it happens to only the luckiest few budding writers.... Yeah. I get it. Now shut up about it. I don't want to hear that kind of naysaying bullshit from another breathing soul (if they want to go on breathing). It's happening, it's happening this year, and you can either help or get the hell out of my way. (If there's anything ambivalent or confusing about No. 4, please feel free to write me and ask for clarification. I dare you.)


5. Finish the triathlon. In one piece. Undrowned, unscraped, un-shin-splinty. So there.


6. Get a home. Not just another crappy apartment. A home. As in house. As in, with a yard. With a space to plant bare-root roses (yellow in memory of my godmother, Linny). And room for a boxer (the dog, not the prizefighter). I am through asking permission about what colors I can paint my walls and how many pets I get to have and what kind of showerhead I can have. I'm a grown-ass woman, and it's time I exercised all rights and privileges therein.


7. Be more patient. Stop the foot-tapping, steering-wheel-pounding, standing-in-line sighing. Enough ahready. This isn't a conspiracy against me. I need to just grow up and get over myself. Likewise, to be more tolerant of people's oddities and peculiarities. You know what, if you want to eat sardine-and-peanut butter sandwiches, as long as you're downwind of me, that's fine. I'll go on loving you all the same.


8. Stop apologizing for being me. It occured to me during the whole ordeal of the past eighteen months that I have spent the better part of my life apologizing to somebody for being me. To my mother, for being born at a time when she wasn't prepared financially or emotionally to have a child. To my father for not being... well... Christie Brinkley. To my ex-husband for not being his mother. To various men* that I've dated for not being, alternately, too virginal, not virginal enough, too opinionated, not decisive enough, too headstrong, too sensitive, too young, too old, too fat, too short, too blonde, too redheaded, too... Well.... shit.... just too "too," really. My new motto when it comes to people in my life, particularly male-type people, is this: "I'm not sorry. I don't apologize. Please don't forgive me. Please don't 'fix' me. Please don't deconstruct, reconstruct, rescue or repair me. This is the package, and if it's not what you want, this town is chock full of 'Acting for Commercials' classes that are chock full of plastic-titted bikini models just waiting for you. The door's thataway. And it locks from the inside."


9. Travel. I want to go to Maui (with Kim) for fun this summer, and I want to go to Prague sometime before the end of the year. I want to see Prague before they start using the Euro, and my weak-assed American dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on.


10. Finish "Vision," the collection of linked short stories about a half-dozen people who see (or think they see) an image of Virgin Mary on a freeway support at the corner of Pico and Sawtelle.


11. Finish a first draft of "Death of the American Western," the novel I started in the MFA program. It can (and mostly likely will) be, in the words of Ann Lamott, a "shitty first draft**," but it has to be finished and ready for revision by December 31, 2008.


12. Get the publication arts certificate. This will hopefully provide me with certain skills that will allow me to accomplish No. 1 and (spoiler alert!) No. 13.


13. Be financially secure. Need I elaborate? I thought not.


14. Get more sleep.


15. Eat less crap.


16. Take less crap.


17. Have more fun.

So, there we have it. My List of Things to Do in 2008. It's ambitious, for sure. I dare say there'll be things that flop over on the the 2009 list. But that's okay. I think it's important to set the bar high, so lots gets, if not accomplished, then at least attempted. We'll meet back here, next January, to discuss what did and didn't get done, and how it all came together in the end.

February is almost upon us. The month of "that holiday." No, not Presidents' Day, you knuckleheads! Valentine's Day. I've always dreaded that day. I think I'll add a codicil to my list right now.

18. Have fun on Valentine's Day. By hook or by crook. Whatever it takes.

There now. That's better.

On an unrelated note, but still newsworthy: My very good friends, Valerie and Matthew will be bringing their new daughter home from Ethiopia in late February. Come to think of it, maybe it's not entirely unrelated at that. Little Josephina will have her own tiny list of things to do when she arrives -- learning to hold her head up, cutting some teeth, getting some decent hair on her head, figuring out how the hell that damn opposable thumb thing is supposed to work, and learning how to modify her parents' and siblings' behavior, simply by smiling and/or spitting up. Her list will be just as important to her as mine is to me. Maybe remembering that is the way to keep from taking all this "list" business too seriously. It is, after all, just a list of stuff that needs doing, one thing at a time, and we're here to get as much of it done as we can in our allotted time.

That's my List. And I'm sticking to it. Until Josephina gets here, and then I'll be putting some of it off to play with the baby.

~A~

* Not that it's exactly been the Cavalcade of Stars, mind you.
** If you haven't read "Bird by Bird" by Ann Lamott, please don't post a comment chastising me for referring to my work as "shitty." "Shitty first draft" has a very specific meaning in this context, and I mean what I say. Buy the book and read it. It's artistically edifying, and it's a hoot and half.

And, Thus, I Hand Over the Crown

It is with a mixture of gratitude, nostalgia and pride that I pin the "Meanest Mom on the Planet" tiara onto the glorious head of one Jane Hambleton, 48, of Fort Dodge, Iowa. It's been a long and fabulous run as "Meanest Mom", my darling subjects, but all good things must come to an end, and Mrs. Hambleton has proven herself to be more than amply capable of assuming the throne.

According to this CNN article, Mrs. Hambleton only made two rules when she purchased her 19-year-old son a 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue: "No booze, and keep it locked."

When she found a bottle of alcohol under the seat, she decided that the best punishment would be to sell the car. She placed the following ad in the Des Moines Register:

"OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

So far, Jane has received 70 phone calls, the majority of which came, not from interested buyers, but from people wishing to converse with the planet's meanest mom. All of the calls have been supportive, including several from teachers, emergency room medical personnel, grateful fellow parents and school counselors.

In fairness, young Master Hambleton maintains that the booze wasn't his, but was left there by a friend, which Jane readily admits she believes completely, and which she apparently has ascertained (as would her "Meanest Mom" predecessor) that the argument is utterly moot -- "no booze" means "no booze," period. The lesson (in the words of my Texas granny, may she rest in peace): "Lie down with dogs, you'll more than likely get up with fleas."

So, here's to you, Jane Hambleton. My tiara is off to you. Hold your crown high, accept this bejeweled sceptor and take your walk down the runway before your subjects. May your reign as "Meanest Mom on the Planet" be every bit as rewarding as mine has been.

~C~

The Happiest of New Years to You All in 2008!!

Went to the most fun New Years party I've ever been to -- very small, but with a bunch of New York actors. We ate Chinese food, we drank almond champagne (a new fave), we watched some Luciano Pavarotti in his last concert from Central Park, we watched the ball drop in Times Square... hug, hug... kiss, kiss... nosh, nosh... nosh some more. So much fun....

Left the party totally wired at 3 am, got home and couldn't even think about getting to bed until 5. I was Eliza freakin' Doolittle. Got up this morning totally energized after only about four hours sleep, then went to Macaroni Grill with my daughter and her boyfriend. Lovely lunch, went to Target, spent money on DVDs on sale, and a new purse and wallet (desperately needed Christmas presents to myself), then came home.

Now, I'm going to toss one of my many new DVDs into the machine and wile away some time on this chilly, windy New Years Day, and spend the remaining alone time I have tidying the apartment and doing some purging of stuff.

If the year thus far has been any indication, 2008 is going to be a very good year. I go back into training for the triathlon this week, and am starting a new food plan tomorrow that I hope will whittle the ass down to some less cumbersome from running around the desert.

Here's to 2008. May you all find yourself on the path to your heart's desire.

XOXO

~C~