"In The Heights" Flashmob

Conroe Brooks, Staci Lawrence and the FlashMob America group did a flashmob at Universal Citywalk this weekend in honor of the opening of the musical "In The Heights" at the Pantages. The creator and composer (and original star) Lin-Manuel Miranda was there to watch it. Apparently, he knew something was up, but wasn't expecting what he got.

Take a look at his face as he watches them dance. Classic....



I wanted to do this flashmob, especially since one of the prizes was a ticket to the show. But with Savannah so close to having the baby, it didn't seem advisable to be spending hours away from home with the cellphone shut off. Besides, I need to lose some weight before I even think about dancing again.

Enjoy... and go see "In The Heights". Besides supporting live theater, you'll also be treated to a really amazing show. I have the recording and the sheet music.

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~

T.T.F.N.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. I've been busy -- with school, with job hunting, with the impending birth of my first grandchild, with general, free-floating anxiety and depression.  I've probably been watching too much news, too.  And reading too many newspapers.

Between school and baby talk and dealing with the dark, I haven't been able to do much free writing. I had to pick a blog, and this one wasn't it. 

After long consideration, and realizing that I am, indeed, human and that something's gotta give, I've decided to take a leave of absence from school for a year, and try and get things sorted out.  It's for the best, really.  I can't concentrate on what I read, I can't enjoy what I'm writing, and though the material is fascinating to me, I can't keep my mind in it for longer than an hour at a time, because I'm so torn up about work and money.

When I was an undergraduate, all I wanted was to be able to go on and get my MFA.  I couldn't wait for the workshops, for the reading, the writing, the residencies.  My first residency began on my last day as an undergrad. Exhausted as I was from the last minute wrap-up that always accompanies graduating with a bachelor's degree, that first residency was heavenly.  That whole first semester, I was floating on air.  I was a writer, and I was learning to write from other writers, and all was as it should be.

Then my father began to get worse. There was only one of us among the daughters who was in a position to move in with him, and that was me.  I let go of my rent-controlled apartment, any hope of a good night's sleep and my life, and moved in with my father. That last year of his life was so awful that I had nothing left for the MFA program.  I was like a shell-shocked WWI soldier -- stunned and empty inside.  It killed my joy for school.

Now, the struggle of finding work and trying to keep things going here are doing the same thing to this program, and I can't have that.  So I'm leaving for a little.  Not forever, just long enough to be able to pick it up again and feel the love and the joy of it, without the oppression of panic and anxiety.

I will miss it, though. I will miss the day-long seminars and the study of religions and stories and ideas that never occurred to me.

Until we meet again, Myth Camp....

The Naked Chicken Dances the Traditional Dance of Christmas.

Merry Christmas 
from 
NAKED VOODOO CHICKEN DANCE

Giving Thanks.

It's been a rough year for most folks.  Sometimes, when it's been a rough year, it's difficult to find stuff to be thankful for.  No one knows that better than I, who is coming out of a fairly rough two year cycle, emotionally, and now, financially.

But here's what I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful that my family is healthy and happy.  I'm thankful that I'm going to be a grandmother next summer. I'm thankful I'll have a new job starting next week.  I'm thankful for my friends who love me and have been so supportive of me over the past several months.  I'm thankful that, for all the difficulties my government and my country are having right now, I can go to sleep at night and know that the bus isn't being driven any longer by a man who hears voices in his head telling him he's the Anointed One.
 
I'm thankful I have this new PhD program at Pacifica in my life, and I'm grateful for the army of fellow zanies and lunatics who come with it.

I'm thankful I have a roof over my head.  I'm thankful I have food to eat.  I'm thankful I share that roof and food with my daughter, who for reasons only she can explain, chose to want to live with her mother again.  I'm thankful for her darling friends, who've been around so long, they feel like family.  I'm thankful for her new boyfriend, who is already family as well.

I'm thankful my friends are well and happy, and that they never cease to amaze me with the generosity of spirit and their raging humor and good will.

I'm thankful I'm healthy.  I'm thankful I'm here.  I'm thankful for you, the people out there -- some of whom, I know personally, some, I don't -- who read these pages and choose to check in on my life from time to time.  I'm just thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  May you be blessed to spend it with people you love and cherish.

XO

~C~

Yes, Before You Ask, I Am Clinically Insane

November, for those who don't already know, is National Novel Writing Month.

I wasn't supposed to be doing this this year. I was supposed to be concentrating on school and finishing projects and writing papers. For the next three years, my life, outside of anything I might do to earn a living or keep my household going, is to be devoted to only one thing -- school. No unscheduled fun. No unstructured creativity. No pleasure art of any kind. Period. Everyone has let me know nine ways from Sunday what my responsibilities are where school is concerned, and that writing 50,000 words of fiction that might not lead anywhere is a foolish waste of time.

I get that. I get that it's frivolous to even consider reading a book for enjoyment or writing anything that doesn't garner a grade of some kind, or isn't at least written on a syllabus somewhere.

But when I told thriller novelist J.T. Ellison that I was busy, that I had school and a life and how on Earth could I possibly fit NaNoWriMo into my schedule, her response was a little different.

"One hour a day," she tweeted to me. "You can find one hour a day."

Here's the thing. I'm a writer. It's what I do. More to the point, it's what I am. I'm not allowed to act or sing anymore, unless I'm willing to do it inside the boundaries of what someone else thinks I am. I'm not working, and I've done all I can do to look for work. I've sent out the little messages in the bottles, and now must await their return.

So, while I wait, I will write. I will write about Hindu Traditions. I will write about Greek Mythology. I will write about Dream Interpretation. And then I will write what I want to write, because I want to write it.

I've included an excerpt below, which comes from the middle of the 3,714 words I've written in two days.  Count your lucky stars -- my cousin, Brian, made the mistake of asking to read it, so I sent him the entire beginning, in all it's unedited glory. Bless him.

********

It’s the hoping that makes it the worst. Hoping that maybe you were wrong, that you misinterpreted, that maybe he will or has changed his mind. That maybe he’ll see what he’s walked away from so cavalierly, as if all the times your body was stretched along his, skin to skin, limbs wrapped around each other, never mattered a damn.

If not for hope, you’d be sad and grief-stricken and broken, but you’d know to stop listening for the phone. You’d not to stop running to check e-mail. You’d know not to want to continue in a friendship with someone that you don’t want as a friend nearly as much as you want them as a lover, though you’ll take them as a friend because, when you’ve lost a love, you need all the friends you can get, right?

That’s what hope does for you. It makes you dream for the impossible. It makes you wait for a promise full of hot air and good intentions. Until suddenly, you wake up one morning and find yourself telling your best friend that you’re wasting the best years of your life being a stalker, when you could be off being stalked.

Hope is sick. Worse, hope makes you sick.

I blame Ancient Greece.

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."

WHAM! (Or, When Someone Tells You That Meditation Will Change Your Life, You Should Believe Them!)

The e-mail I sent her began, "Why didn't you warn me?"  And then proceeded with, "Oh. Yeah.  You did."

And she did.

And I listened at the time. Truly, I did.  But I didn't quite believe her.  Well, that's not accurate.  I believed her.  I just didn't understand her.  Apparently, when she wrote in big capital letters in the Twitter message directing me to her instructional e-mail on this meditation "WATCH OUT", I thought she meant something else.  Like, "Have a nice day." Or, "Hugs and kisses to the kids and the family."

She meant, "WATCH OUT!" I know this now.

This meditation - which I won't detail here, other than to say that it involves white light visualization, a fair amount of chanting and a good deal of focused concentration - has turned everything pretty much on its ear.  Study, finances, relationships, home issues, employment issues -- much like June, they're all busting out all over.  Right now, it looks like a big, honkin' mess.  But somehow, I can't help but feel it's the same as when you first start using a new exfoliant.  For the first week or two, the skin breaks out, because the cell turn-over has to catch up to the impurities below the skin's surface.  The break-outs are the skin's way of pushing out the crap (old unneeded dead cells, toxic junk, dirt and germs), so the new, fresh, good skin underneath can come to the surface.

That's what this experience is. I'm exfoliating. I'm exfoliating my whole life. And right now, my whole life has a zit on its forehead the size of Wyoming. So the only thing to do now is to just step up the regime and be more diligent, so it all sorts itself out.  I'm going to be meditating twice a day now, until the life zit eventually works itself out and goes away.

And it will.  I know that. Because out of the thousands of zits that I've had in my lifetime, not one has lasted longer than a week or ten days, no matter how deeply embedded or ugly or painful.  This one is a biggie, so it might take a while.  But sooner, rather than later, it will be gone, and a fresh new layer of cells will be glowing underneath the surface.

Namaste.

~C~

Photo is a cropped, modified version of "Sun Beam" by cgjessica, available on deviantart.com, in its original format here.

We Interrupt This Postlessness To Bring You A Post

It's been a while, I realize.  Been concentrating on school, my life and the Chron, mostly.  But the Naked Chicken needs love, I know.

Have a post ready.  Just making some final tweeks, and getting art permissions and then... we're there.

Hang tight.  I've missed you, my doves.

XO

~C~

Party Like It's 1938!

Happy 80th birthday, Dad.
I hope that you're some place where you can celebrate it as you did when you were 9.

XO

Amanda

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~

We Interrupt This Blog

For a message from me in Maui.

Aloha.

~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~

Sadly, The Search Is Over

The remains found in the marshy area a mile or so from Casey Anthony's parents' home have been positively identified through DNA as being those of Anthony's missing three-year-old, Caylee Anthony. I wish I could at least feign shock and surprise, but it is the outcome we all suspected was coming.

Casey, who was charged with first-degree murder back in October and has been in jail ever since, has been refused the right to attend memorial services for the child whose absence she neglected to tell anyone about for one month, and then whose abduction she blamed on a Hispanic woman who lived in her apartment complex (the woman has been cleared of all charges when the FBI established her solid alibi).

During the 31 days between the time Casey says Caylee went missing and the day her "abduction" was reported to authorities (by Casey's mother, mind you, who also reports in the same 911 call that Casey's car smells "like a dead body in the damn car"*), Casey was spotted and (courtesy of CCTV security cameras) photographed shopping and partying as if nothing were amiss. She also put her time without Caylee to good use by stealing and forging her mother's checks and committing petty theft.

The marsh where the little girl's remains were found was apparently a favorite burial ground for Casey Anthony for her childhood pets. Searchers say they had been previously unable to search the area because the rainy season from the previous spring had put the whole area under water.

My heart bleeds for Casey's parents who have lost a grandchild and a child to this mess. I dread the day they suddenly come to the realization that somehow, in spite of what I'm sure were good intentions, they managed to raise a monster.

~C~

* Cadaver dogs later gave a "positive" on the trunk of Casey's car for the presence of human decomposition. Further tests of the air in the car confirmed this finding.

CORALINE -- Coming in February

Neil Gaiman's novella, Coraline, is coming to the screen in February. It is a strange amalgam of traditional stop-action model 3D, and digital 3D, and it looks really fun. Since I first was exposed to the story through the audiobook (read by Gaiman), it'll take a little getting used to to hear Coraline talking with an American accent.

Still... here's the trailer.



~C~

It's Beginning to Smell A Lot Like Christmas, 2008 Edition

I decided today that it was time to let go of the summery colors decorating my little one-room apartment, and move this sucker toward winter. Don't laugh. No sooner had we here in SoCal decided to put our fans away and take down the window sun reflectors, ninety-five degree weather would return and we'd be sweltering. (But global warning is a myth, and Sarah Palin would like you to know that.)

But I think we're safe now.

I changed my sofa decor and set about to making this place smell---if not look, exactly---like Christmas.

For this we refer to the "Christmasification List." It lists the following steps be taken:

1. Replace summery, beach umbrella--colored slipcover and bedspread replace on sofa and bed with more neutral, deeper shades. I found a dark brown microsuede quilt on sale at Target, and complimented it with some lovely throw pillows. My existing red throw goes nicely.

2. Buy real pine wreath from Trader Joes, which can be cheaply replaced once it dies, sometime in the next two weeks.

3. Bring out Christmas decorations. I have gone with a lit ceramic Victorian street scene, and a Jack Sparrow-like pirate nutcracker. A ceramic Christmas tree is to follow, but Target was out of them until next week.

4. Cinnamon-soaked pine cones. Lots of them. As potpourri. Yum.

5. One Glade apple-cinnamon scented oil candle for the kitchen to complete the effect.

Things the list has barred this year? Real or fake plastic Christmas trees. As those of you who have been reading for a while already know, this is a cat zone, and therefore, sacrifices must be made. In 2006, the horror of a real Christmas tree with the many decorations from my and Savannah's childhoods, and the many shattered glass shards swept off the tile floor, convinced me that a fake tree would go over better in 2007. In 2007, I went with a tiny fake tree, the real pine wreath, and tiny ornaments I was sure the cats couldn't get off the tree.

I was wrong. Sweeping up tiny shards of tiny glass ornanents.

This year, it's all good. Ceramics and plants. I'm not going as far as George Bush did when he encouraged terrorists to "bring it on." But I'm pretty sure I've hit on a winning combination.

Happy December, people.

~C~

(cross-posted at MySpace)