The Olympics has always been one of my favorite events. When I was a little kid I would watch sitting on my grandfather's lap holding the coins he got when he attended the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932. We went back together in 1984 to watch the end of the marathon.
When my family traveled to Europe in 1972 we did not go to the Olympics in Munich (we did see the concentration camps so when the Israeli team was killed that piled on another layer of trauma and is probably a big reason why I've never been back to Germany), but we did go to Olympia in the Peloponnese to see the site of the original games. We got lost as per usual when traveling with my dad who never saw a scenic route he didn't want to take, and had to pull over on this small dirt road running along the sea, for a lone runner with a police escort and an amulance behind, carrying the flame as it began it's journey to the games.
I've never been to a winter Olympics because being a Cal bred girl I don't tolerate snow and cold weather very well. I know that I would probably end up in a bar watching them on TV. The winter Olympics are probably my favorite though because I love the skiing and skating and, in general, anything that involves speed and danger.
Over the last decade I have found myself more and more annoyed with the coverage of the Olympics and the seemingly desperate need by the news outlets to politicize them. And in the last summer Olympics I became aware of the negative speak that was coming out of the mouths of the commentators when they were covering, oh, pretty much any sport.
It was like having your bubby sitting there, "He over rotated and made a splash with his feet, oh that'll cost him." I know it's their job to point out what the ideal is but it's gets so old listening to the constant focus on failure.
No one bothers me more than Bob Costas. There is a subtext of pompousness pouring out of his head with the little boy haircut and I find it so distracting. Bob you do not always have to say something. And if you feel that you do look for those words that are positive and inspiring that may express your enthusiasm for what you are doing.
My whole life my nana who was a huge basketball fan would only listen to Chick Hearn call the Laker games. And if the game was on a network with another commentator she would mute the TV and listen to Chick on the transistor radio.
You know what I would love? For someone who loves the Olympics like I do to have a podcast I could tune into to watch my events. So I could mute the TV and not have to listen to Bob ever again.
So if someone could get on that before 2016 that would be great.
Tonight me and mine will be parked in front of the TV for opening ceremonies and I will get that frisson of excitement when I hear that Olympics theme song.
And I'm thinking we need a drinking game for Bob Costas coverage - like everytime he says something negative you have to do a shot.
I'm open to suggestions - we've got all month.
Friday, February 07, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Scary Crazy
I have been feeling so much compassion for the family and friends of Kelly Thomas, the mentally ill man who was beaten to death in the summer of 2011 by members of the Fullerton police department.
I have been feeling a small level of compassion for those police officers and their families. What they did was inexcusable, but it's a reflection of how our society relates to the mentally ill. For the defense attorney to say, "they were doing what they were trained to do", is absolutely chilling as it relates the massive number of mentally ill people living on our streets. A person with any character at all would have a hard time sleeping for the rest of their lives after beating someone to death and the fact that they did it would probably change the way people felt about them - whether they were found guilty or not. If I were those guys and I believed in hell I would be terribly afraid that I was going to end up there. Who knows they may yet end up eating a gun. What they did will not every leave them alone. Those images are in the world for all to see and a not guilty verdict cannot make us unsee them.
Quite honestly I think the DA is an incompetent individual who doesn't understand mental illness and didn't get a jury that understood, or wanted to understand it. What happend during voir dire? Did that even come up? No sane person chooses to live in the street. That people would think that reflects a lack of compassion that makes me cry. Most of the people who are living in the streets are dual diagnosis individuals. They are diagnosed with a mental illness and using street drugs. They are not compliant on their antipsychotic medication and their parents cannot force them to take the drugs - they are adults. Most of these people do well when they are on their meds. They have a difficult time with decision making, time management and simple things like remembering to eat. All of which are important when it comes to taking your medication.
That the DA couldn't get that information across to a jury is mind boggling to me. The finding of not guilty to involuntary manslaughter is akin to declaring open season on people who have no where to go and virtually no support in terms of social services.
And again, I'm back to feeling incredibly angry at Ronald Reagan for disassembling the mental health programs that existed in the state of California when he was governor. I find it so hard to believe that he's such a beloved president. Mental illness affects so many people and so many families and there are little to no resources available to provide support and education due to his legislative decisions. The dude thought psychiatry was somehow related to communism and that mental illness could be prevented.
My nephew was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 19 and it has been such a struggle for my sister and her family because he is technically an adult, but because of his mental illness he isn't really capable of making adult decision about taking care of himself. Or even surviving. He is a sweet young man with a level of emotional intelligence that is beyond most of us. Even when he is severely psychotic I can see glimpses of him between the weird laughter and the agitated twitching.
Previously my exposure to the mentally ill had been the clients that my father, a social worker, had brought home for the holidays - on a day pass from the mental hospital. Mostly diagnosed schizophrenics they were heavily medicated, sometimes to the point of drooling, and while they didn't exactly scare me, they made me uncomfortable.
My father taught classes at the police academy and once took me on a field trip to Metropolitan State Mental Hospital with his class of cadets. There I definitely felt scared. I felt scared for the patients, terrified at the idea of having to spend the night in that place. It was important for the soon to be police officers to have an understanding of the 5150 population so that they could better deal with them in the field. I guess they don't teach that class in Fullerton.
My nephew went into UCLA Ronald Reagan hospital (irony anyone?) on a 5150 when he first received his diagnosis. He was renting a room at a friend's house and had spent a week smoking weed in a catatonic state when someone finally called my sister. Because there had been so much conflict my brother went to pick D up and basically lied to him, telling him that they just wanted him to see a doctor because he was so thin. Upon arrival he was determined to be a risk to himself and placed under involuntary psychiatric hold.
The private hospital experience is pretty nice - private and semi-private rooms - not so different from what you'd find on the maternity wing, except for the locked wards. One can only sustain this level of treatment for a finite period of time before they run out of money. Unless you are rich it is very difficult to manage treatment for your schizophrenic child who is a legal adult.
After a few years of dead ends at various facilities where D continued to smoke pot which counteracts the effectiveness of antipsychotic meds he ended up on the street. He lost all of his possessions and was basically a younger version of Kelly Thomas.
Our whole family was terrified that he would end up dead either killed by police or by some psychosis fueled misadventure. I remember when Margaret Mitchell was killed by 2 bicycle cops on La Brea in 1999. She was 5' feet tall and 102 pounds and they shot her claiming self defense because she "threatened" them with a screw driver.
Society doesn't have a real understanding of schizophrenia. It is an unknown, altered reality that turns people into ranting lunatics who don't seem to have any connection to what's happening around them. They often have poor hygiene and that combined with the dyskenesia that often accompanies long term use of anti-psychotics and the conversations they have with people who arent' there adds to our perception that they are dangerous. Police officers are not trained mental health professionals but because there are virtually no mental health services they are the public servants most often tasked with dealing with the mentally ill.
It's very rare that a schizophrenic in a psychotic state would attack or hurt someone. When it does happen it's usually within the family as they are the people most often trying to help. This story is one of the best descriptions of what the experience is like when someone in your family is schizophrenic. I don't know what the experience was like for the Thomas family, but I know that they loved Kelly, and what happened is extremely painful for them because it didn't need to happen. The verdict makes it seem like no one cares that it did.
When I look at the video I feel sick to my stomach. It's like watching a very frightened animal fight for it's life while being attacked by a pack of predators. It's all too easy to see my nephew in 10 or 15 years in the same situation. I can't know the experience of the officers involved, but I'm fairly certain they were frightened and that combined with a lack of education and understanding of schizophrenia escalated the situation to what was seen on the video.
It's why Kelly Thomas died.
The public should be outraged, but we should also be asking ourselves what can be done so that this doesn't happen again. If the police are going to be the first contact with the mentally ill they are need to be trained so that they aren't so scared. A schizophrenic in a state of psychosis is generally frightened and paranoid. Adding fear to that scenario isn't going to end well for anyone.
It makes those who are supposed to protect and serve scary, crazy and very, very dangerous - especially now that there are no consequences for killing the mentally ill.
I have been feeling a small level of compassion for those police officers and their families. What they did was inexcusable, but it's a reflection of how our society relates to the mentally ill. For the defense attorney to say, "they were doing what they were trained to do", is absolutely chilling as it relates the massive number of mentally ill people living on our streets. A person with any character at all would have a hard time sleeping for the rest of their lives after beating someone to death and the fact that they did it would probably change the way people felt about them - whether they were found guilty or not. If I were those guys and I believed in hell I would be terribly afraid that I was going to end up there. Who knows they may yet end up eating a gun. What they did will not every leave them alone. Those images are in the world for all to see and a not guilty verdict cannot make us unsee them.
Quite honestly I think the DA is an incompetent individual who doesn't understand mental illness and didn't get a jury that understood, or wanted to understand it. What happend during voir dire? Did that even come up? No sane person chooses to live in the street. That people would think that reflects a lack of compassion that makes me cry. Most of the people who are living in the streets are dual diagnosis individuals. They are diagnosed with a mental illness and using street drugs. They are not compliant on their antipsychotic medication and their parents cannot force them to take the drugs - they are adults. Most of these people do well when they are on their meds. They have a difficult time with decision making, time management and simple things like remembering to eat. All of which are important when it comes to taking your medication.
That the DA couldn't get that information across to a jury is mind boggling to me. The finding of not guilty to involuntary manslaughter is akin to declaring open season on people who have no where to go and virtually no support in terms of social services.
And again, I'm back to feeling incredibly angry at Ronald Reagan for disassembling the mental health programs that existed in the state of California when he was governor. I find it so hard to believe that he's such a beloved president. Mental illness affects so many people and so many families and there are little to no resources available to provide support and education due to his legislative decisions. The dude thought psychiatry was somehow related to communism and that mental illness could be prevented.
My nephew was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 19 and it has been such a struggle for my sister and her family because he is technically an adult, but because of his mental illness he isn't really capable of making adult decision about taking care of himself. Or even surviving. He is a sweet young man with a level of emotional intelligence that is beyond most of us. Even when he is severely psychotic I can see glimpses of him between the weird laughter and the agitated twitching.
Previously my exposure to the mentally ill had been the clients that my father, a social worker, had brought home for the holidays - on a day pass from the mental hospital. Mostly diagnosed schizophrenics they were heavily medicated, sometimes to the point of drooling, and while they didn't exactly scare me, they made me uncomfortable.
My father taught classes at the police academy and once took me on a field trip to Metropolitan State Mental Hospital with his class of cadets. There I definitely felt scared. I felt scared for the patients, terrified at the idea of having to spend the night in that place. It was important for the soon to be police officers to have an understanding of the 5150 population so that they could better deal with them in the field. I guess they don't teach that class in Fullerton.
My nephew went into UCLA Ronald Reagan hospital (irony anyone?) on a 5150 when he first received his diagnosis. He was renting a room at a friend's house and had spent a week smoking weed in a catatonic state when someone finally called my sister. Because there had been so much conflict my brother went to pick D up and basically lied to him, telling him that they just wanted him to see a doctor because he was so thin. Upon arrival he was determined to be a risk to himself and placed under involuntary psychiatric hold.
The private hospital experience is pretty nice - private and semi-private rooms - not so different from what you'd find on the maternity wing, except for the locked wards. One can only sustain this level of treatment for a finite period of time before they run out of money. Unless you are rich it is very difficult to manage treatment for your schizophrenic child who is a legal adult.
After a few years of dead ends at various facilities where D continued to smoke pot which counteracts the effectiveness of antipsychotic meds he ended up on the street. He lost all of his possessions and was basically a younger version of Kelly Thomas.
Our whole family was terrified that he would end up dead either killed by police or by some psychosis fueled misadventure. I remember when Margaret Mitchell was killed by 2 bicycle cops on La Brea in 1999. She was 5' feet tall and 102 pounds and they shot her claiming self defense because she "threatened" them with a screw driver.
Society doesn't have a real understanding of schizophrenia. It is an unknown, altered reality that turns people into ranting lunatics who don't seem to have any connection to what's happening around them. They often have poor hygiene and that combined with the dyskenesia that often accompanies long term use of anti-psychotics and the conversations they have with people who arent' there adds to our perception that they are dangerous. Police officers are not trained mental health professionals but because there are virtually no mental health services they are the public servants most often tasked with dealing with the mentally ill.
It's very rare that a schizophrenic in a psychotic state would attack or hurt someone. When it does happen it's usually within the family as they are the people most often trying to help. This story is one of the best descriptions of what the experience is like when someone in your family is schizophrenic. I don't know what the experience was like for the Thomas family, but I know that they loved Kelly, and what happened is extremely painful for them because it didn't need to happen. The verdict makes it seem like no one cares that it did.
When I look at the video I feel sick to my stomach. It's like watching a very frightened animal fight for it's life while being attacked by a pack of predators. It's all too easy to see my nephew in 10 or 15 years in the same situation. I can't know the experience of the officers involved, but I'm fairly certain they were frightened and that combined with a lack of education and understanding of schizophrenia escalated the situation to what was seen on the video.
It's why Kelly Thomas died.
The public should be outraged, but we should also be asking ourselves what can be done so that this doesn't happen again. If the police are going to be the first contact with the mentally ill they are need to be trained so that they aren't so scared. A schizophrenic in a state of psychosis is generally frightened and paranoid. Adding fear to that scenario isn't going to end well for anyone.
It makes those who are supposed to protect and serve scary, crazy and very, very dangerous - especially now that there are no consequences for killing the mentally ill.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
The Eternal Scoundrel
I recorded the Golden Globes on Sunday because I love Tina and Amy and they did not let me down. I'm still laughing at the description of Gravity as "that movie where George Clooney would rather float into space and die than spend one more day in the presence of a woman his own age".
Since I live in Los Angeles I can testify that George is not alone in that club. Lots of those types of astronauts in the hills of Hollywood.
I also wanted to see Breaking Bad get it's much deserved kudos. I was not an early adaptor. I was incredibly resistant even when friends whose opinions I greatly respect were raving about the excellent writing - I was thinking about the potential for flashbacks. I ended up mainlining four seasons on Netflix and recording the last season and I have to say that it was totally worth the discomfort of a few bad memories and more than one sleepless night (I eventually had a no BB past 6pm rule). That is some of the best writing (and music supervision) ever.
Having had the good luck of being invited to screenings and also access to "screeners" provided to Academy voters I really wanted to see what and who would win in the film categories. I so wanted Emma to win for her performance as PL Travers, but then I haven't seen Cate Blanchett's performance in Blue Jasmine. I feel the same way about that movie as I do about The Wolf of Wall Street.
I'm not a Woody Allen fan or a Scorcese fan.
For many that would mean that my opinion on film doesn't matter.
But it's really a personal thing for all of us right? Life is very full and busy so it comes down to how do I want to spend 2 (or sometimes 3) hours? I have always found Woody Allen's films to be a bit masturbatory in their neuroses. Despite the fact that Diane Keaton loves him and I love her, I wouldn't want to hang out with him. Same with Scorcese - his movies are too violent, too testosterone filled; they are the celluloid version of Hemingway novels and I don't like those either. This is not personal in either case it's just that I enjoy movies much like I enjoy wine or sex... I want to be delighted, entertained, pleasured, etc. You know a generally positive experience. I don't want to be traumatized, annoyed or depressed.
So while I appreciate the marvelous one night stands that were Midnight in Paris and Hugo, I'm fully aware that for me, that's pretty much it with those guys.
I really and truly think that Bruce Dern deserved the award for best actor in a comedy, but then I can't really say because I didn't see Leo's performance in WofW. If I can get a hold of a screener I may give it a shot.
Again, I'm a little concerned about shame inducing flashbacks, but the fast forward button makes everything manageable.
My two favorite, and in my opinion, most highly deserved awards went to Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto for their performances in Dallas Buyers Club. This was a movie I really wanted to see but I was completely unprepared for where it would take me and it was totally due to those performances.
In 1987 my boyfriend/best friend was diagnosed with HIV. I shouldn't have been surprised because he was a 20th century Oscar Wilde - without the all the way gay. He was a beautiful young man who attracted and was attracted to women and men. He was also attracted to altered states and dangerous situations.
Much like Ron Woodruff he was an unapologetic scoundrel.
With the diagnosis came a stigma that infuriated him and left him helpless. In 1987 it was still a death sentence, but the drugs that weren't legally available to Ron Woodruff and Rayon became legal that year so Gary was able to take AZT and DDC. They didn't give him more T-cells. And while they might have slowed the destruction of his immune system they made him so toxically ill he felt like death was a better option than that kind of life.sick.
He died in 1993.
Seeing the movie took me back to those six long years where we watched the people we loved who had this virus become scarecrows and die. What Ron Woodruff did was bring hope to those who were pretty much told to suck it. Watching the movie brought up the hatred I felt for Ronald Reagan and his antipathy and abandonment of millions of people who received this diagnosis all over again. This was a massive public health issue that was ignored because the primary group affected were deemed to deserve it.
It took me back to those days of never ending sadness for a loss that happened incrementally over years. I lost my friend because his body disappeared and couldn't carry him forward anymore.
What was beautiful about the performance these actors gave is that they captured so perfectly the eternal quality of human spirit. Although the disease ravaged his body Gary was a scoundrel till the end. He enjoyed the shock on the faces of friends when we took him out to dinner and would run into people he hadn't seen in a while. He used to hand out condoms. He was the safe sex poster child - embracing the role of the horrible warning. His humor never faded although as his death got closer he admitted to being scared because he didn't believe in God or heaven and wasn't thrilled about the idea of a void. Indeed, it was months of watching him gasp for breath, clinging by his fingernails to the mortal coil.
With the advent of retroviral "cocktails" we don't see the walking dead like we used to in the United States - so I'd forgotten what it felt like to wake up in that world and feel all those feelings. Matthew McConnaughey and Jared Leto were not in sight in this movie. They moved out of the way and channeled the indomitable spirits of so many people who left too soon in the characters of Ron Woodruff and Rayon.
I cried all the way home and all the next day because I don't think we every really get over grieving that kind of loss - we just go on and our lives fill with good stuff so that's where we live - until something pulls the scab off and we feel it all over again. Like it just happened.
This journey back wasn't only sad, it was also pretty wonderful to remember Gary's upthrust middle finger as he dealt with his shitty hand. Snort - I'm sorry but he would love that I just put it that way.
I don't believe that any of those intrepid spirits went into a void.
No - they continue to express through the memories of the people who loved them and in the stories of their lives that we tell and retell.
Gary was, is and will always be a scoundrel and thinking about him makes me laugh more than it makes me cry.
Since I live in Los Angeles I can testify that George is not alone in that club. Lots of those types of astronauts in the hills of Hollywood.
I also wanted to see Breaking Bad get it's much deserved kudos. I was not an early adaptor. I was incredibly resistant even when friends whose opinions I greatly respect were raving about the excellent writing - I was thinking about the potential for flashbacks. I ended up mainlining four seasons on Netflix and recording the last season and I have to say that it was totally worth the discomfort of a few bad memories and more than one sleepless night (I eventually had a no BB past 6pm rule). That is some of the best writing (and music supervision) ever.
Having had the good luck of being invited to screenings and also access to "screeners" provided to Academy voters I really wanted to see what and who would win in the film categories. I so wanted Emma to win for her performance as PL Travers, but then I haven't seen Cate Blanchett's performance in Blue Jasmine. I feel the same way about that movie as I do about The Wolf of Wall Street.
I'm not a Woody Allen fan or a Scorcese fan.
For many that would mean that my opinion on film doesn't matter.
But it's really a personal thing for all of us right? Life is very full and busy so it comes down to how do I want to spend 2 (or sometimes 3) hours? I have always found Woody Allen's films to be a bit masturbatory in their neuroses. Despite the fact that Diane Keaton loves him and I love her, I wouldn't want to hang out with him. Same with Scorcese - his movies are too violent, too testosterone filled; they are the celluloid version of Hemingway novels and I don't like those either. This is not personal in either case it's just that I enjoy movies much like I enjoy wine or sex... I want to be delighted, entertained, pleasured, etc. You know a generally positive experience. I don't want to be traumatized, annoyed or depressed.
So while I appreciate the marvelous one night stands that were Midnight in Paris and Hugo, I'm fully aware that for me, that's pretty much it with those guys.
I really and truly think that Bruce Dern deserved the award for best actor in a comedy, but then I can't really say because I didn't see Leo's performance in WofW. If I can get a hold of a screener I may give it a shot.
Again, I'm a little concerned about shame inducing flashbacks, but the fast forward button makes everything manageable.
My two favorite, and in my opinion, most highly deserved awards went to Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto for their performances in Dallas Buyers Club. This was a movie I really wanted to see but I was completely unprepared for where it would take me and it was totally due to those performances.
In 1987 my boyfriend/best friend was diagnosed with HIV. I shouldn't have been surprised because he was a 20th century Oscar Wilde - without the all the way gay. He was a beautiful young man who attracted and was attracted to women and men. He was also attracted to altered states and dangerous situations.
Much like Ron Woodruff he was an unapologetic scoundrel.
With the diagnosis came a stigma that infuriated him and left him helpless. In 1987 it was still a death sentence, but the drugs that weren't legally available to Ron Woodruff and Rayon became legal that year so Gary was able to take AZT and DDC. They didn't give him more T-cells. And while they might have slowed the destruction of his immune system they made him so toxically ill he felt like death was a better option than that kind of life.sick.
He died in 1993.
Seeing the movie took me back to those six long years where we watched the people we loved who had this virus become scarecrows and die. What Ron Woodruff did was bring hope to those who were pretty much told to suck it. Watching the movie brought up the hatred I felt for Ronald Reagan and his antipathy and abandonment of millions of people who received this diagnosis all over again. This was a massive public health issue that was ignored because the primary group affected were deemed to deserve it.
It took me back to those days of never ending sadness for a loss that happened incrementally over years. I lost my friend because his body disappeared and couldn't carry him forward anymore.
What was beautiful about the performance these actors gave is that they captured so perfectly the eternal quality of human spirit. Although the disease ravaged his body Gary was a scoundrel till the end. He enjoyed the shock on the faces of friends when we took him out to dinner and would run into people he hadn't seen in a while. He used to hand out condoms. He was the safe sex poster child - embracing the role of the horrible warning. His humor never faded although as his death got closer he admitted to being scared because he didn't believe in God or heaven and wasn't thrilled about the idea of a void. Indeed, it was months of watching him gasp for breath, clinging by his fingernails to the mortal coil.
With the advent of retroviral "cocktails" we don't see the walking dead like we used to in the United States - so I'd forgotten what it felt like to wake up in that world and feel all those feelings. Matthew McConnaughey and Jared Leto were not in sight in this movie. They moved out of the way and channeled the indomitable spirits of so many people who left too soon in the characters of Ron Woodruff and Rayon.
I cried all the way home and all the next day because I don't think we every really get over grieving that kind of loss - we just go on and our lives fill with good stuff so that's where we live - until something pulls the scab off and we feel it all over again. Like it just happened.
This journey back wasn't only sad, it was also pretty wonderful to remember Gary's upthrust middle finger as he dealt with his shitty hand. Snort - I'm sorry but he would love that I just put it that way.
I don't believe that any of those intrepid spirits went into a void.
No - they continue to express through the memories of the people who loved them and in the stories of their lives that we tell and retell.
Gary was, is and will always be a scoundrel and thinking about him makes me laugh more than it makes me cry.
Friday, January 10, 2014
I Feel Like I'm Procrastinating....
Right now!!!
But maybe I'm not.
It's hard to know anymore. One of the things that I want to do more regularly is write - here or anywhere actually. Since my office is currently in my house what happens instead is that I get up and stop at the computer on my way to make a cup of tea and end up starting in on some unfinished project from yesterday.
And I never get around to writing anything - here or anywhere else - because I'm finishing an unfinished project which will lead right into another project.
Right now I decided to write and sitting next to me is one of those unfinished projects from yesterday. Realistically it's more like 9 unfinished projects. Sigh.
It all needs attention.
But is meeting a goal I set - writing regularly - actually procrastination?
Maybe this isn't an issue of procrastination but rather one of time management. Because if I'm being really honest, procrastination would be walking away from all of this and turning on the TV.
Or laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Something I hardly ever do these days. I don't have time.
I would also like to break a sweat at some point today, but may not get to that because I'm writing now and then I'll start on the nine projects.
I will probably go out and take a walk at some point because I'm wearing that Fitbit and I almost obssessively track how many steps I take each day, castigating myself for striding less than 10,000, but in the business of the doing I can walk 5,000 steps before I leave my house. And also Yogurtland is 1200 steps from my front door so I can get a sugar fix and then walk it off - that's multi-tasking.
So I'm asking myself... if I'm completing tasks that need completing is that procrastination? Or am I procrastinating on implementing the changes my life needs, e.g. brainstorming/meditating/taking the next steps to get me off this treadmill of neverending stuff that needs doing?
In getting busy with all the doing am I procrastinating on creating/flowing/being?
Perhaps the procrastination is in implementing the new habits and making the changes that will allow me to include all the things I'd like to have going on?
Okay - I'm going to call this, what I'm doing right now, meeting a goal, and get back to my unfinished projects so that I can take a
But maybe I'm not.
It's hard to know anymore. One of the things that I want to do more regularly is write - here or anywhere actually. Since my office is currently in my house what happens instead is that I get up and stop at the computer on my way to make a cup of tea and end up starting in on some unfinished project from yesterday.
And I never get around to writing anything - here or anywhere else - because I'm finishing an unfinished project which will lead right into another project.
Right now I decided to write and sitting next to me is one of those unfinished projects from yesterday. Realistically it's more like 9 unfinished projects. Sigh.
It all needs attention.
But is meeting a goal I set - writing regularly - actually procrastination?
Maybe this isn't an issue of procrastination but rather one of time management. Because if I'm being really honest, procrastination would be walking away from all of this and turning on the TV.
Or laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Something I hardly ever do these days. I don't have time.
I would also like to break a sweat at some point today, but may not get to that because I'm writing now and then I'll start on the nine projects.
I will probably go out and take a walk at some point because I'm wearing that Fitbit and I almost obssessively track how many steps I take each day, castigating myself for striding less than 10,000, but in the business of the doing I can walk 5,000 steps before I leave my house. And also Yogurtland is 1200 steps from my front door so I can get a sugar fix and then walk it off - that's multi-tasking.
So I'm asking myself... if I'm completing tasks that need completing is that procrastination? Or am I procrastinating on implementing the changes my life needs, e.g. brainstorming/meditating/taking the next steps to get me off this treadmill of neverending stuff that needs doing?
In getting busy with all the doing am I procrastinating on creating/flowing/being?
Perhaps the procrastination is in implementing the new habits and making the changes that will allow me to include all the things I'd like to have going on?
Okay - I'm going to call this, what I'm doing right now, meeting a goal, and get back to my unfinished projects so that I can take a
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Laughing at the past
I was looking for an e-mail that a friend sent me a while back which necessitated going through literally thousands of e-mails - because I save them all don't you know.
The e-mail exchange between my BFF Allison and myself over the years is hilarious but also carries the small details of our lives as we go through marriage, divorce, relationship, fretting and celebrating, whinging and cogitating.
We have also engaged in behaviors that are probably illegal and encouraged each other in acts of insanity. We truly do have one of those friendships wherein we would provide assistance in body disposal if need be...
So I'm feeling all kind of blessed after that review.
Plus I found the e-mail I was looking for that was written to me by yet another BFF who saw this article about the worst online dating profile ever which still got responses. This reminded my dear friend of the days just after her divorce when she was considering a foray into online dating and wrote these hilarious fake profiles after looking at what was out there...
The e-mail exchange between my BFF Allison and myself over the years is hilarious but also carries the small details of our lives as we go through marriage, divorce, relationship, fretting and celebrating, whinging and cogitating.
We have also engaged in behaviors that are probably illegal and encouraged each other in acts of insanity. We truly do have one of those friendships wherein we would provide assistance in body disposal if need be...
So I'm feeling all kind of blessed after that review.
Plus I found the e-mail I was looking for that was written to me by yet another BFF who saw this article about the worst online dating profile ever which still got responses. This reminded my dear friend of the days just after her divorce when she was considering a foray into online dating and wrote these hilarious fake profiles after looking at what was out there...
Okay I've written some sample profiles for myself and I need your opinion.
#1
Shy gal who likes dominoes, philately, and role-play games looking for handsome blue collar worker. I have quite a bit of house cleaning that I'll need done and I hope you are put off by the outfits I'll require you to wear as you clean. I don't like dirt. If you don't clean well you will have to do it again and you'll be spanked the entire time. In addition to my OCD, I have several phobias that some find disturbing. Lastly, I'm totally shaved.
#2
Hey Mother Fucker! Are you unemployed, in debt, excessively hairy, covered in flop sweat, prone to sudden violent outburst, partially or completely toothless, unwashed, unimpressive, in favor of polygamy, talented in nothing, interested in even less, and in possession of a wide array of poorly concieved sex toys?
Well I like blindfolds, orange juice and have a nasty disposition! I'm missing most of my left leg, have incurable gas and frequent seizures. Come fill my world with your love! Make me all tingly as we commit minor crimes.
(No Mexicans Please)
#3
Hi! I'm Cookie and I have 11 cats! I only sleep with one cat though! He's my poopy shmoopy cuddly pork chop pie! Yes he is! Yes he is! I collect stickers and I like Snoopy! I have 57 Hello Kitty items! I just got the Hello Kitty Toaster! I've never been on a real date cause mom says 12 is too young! Do you mind braces?! (On my teeth and my back!) I have scoliosis!
#4
Oh God. I'd give anything to find someone. Anyone. I don't care what you look like. I'm not much to look at myself. I've been working at Starbucks for some time and have become rather depressed. The pills help. Look even if you just came over to help me move some boxes because I think my ferret is trapped. Plus my back really itches. You know how that is. I wear a lot of black clothing because I'm a huge Nihilist. God is Dead. Isn't that cool? I have piercings and tats. One of my piercings might be infected though. I need a guy who is into body art, Red Bull and Social Distortion. I also like to watch Desperate Housewives. TV rocks.
I adore my friends. They are a special kind of nuts, completely inappropriate and non PC, and they make me laugh.
Monday, January 06, 2014
The Divisive Connection to God
I started reading A Course in Miracles again as I do every new year. It's an interesting book, much touted by Marianne Williamson, whom I adore. She and Anne Lamott are so totally invited to that imaginary dinner party where you can invite anyone you want, dead or alive.
Jesus' mother Mary will also be invited.
We will drink wine and eat bread with lots of butter and chocolate and there will be a lot of laughing.
So now I begin each day by reading a section of the text and then look at the lesson for the day. Today's lesson is "I am upset because I see something that is not there".
The first part of the book is about unlearning all the ideas that you might have about the world and God and connection to the divine and the second part is learning about what is true about that connection.
At least that is what I was told in the introduction. I've never made it past lesson twenty two. Not because I don't want to, but because as the year progresses I stop making the time to do the reading and and look at the lesson.
For me there is not much "deprogramming" to do because I was not raised in any formal religion. My family did not attend church regularly and in the few years that we did occasionally head out on a Sunday morning, it was to the Unitarian Church where I spent the mornings outside looking at mustard plants or some other agricultural reference that could be found in the bible.
Fundies they were not.
I was just really glad to be at a church on Sunday like the rest of my friends.
I did dip my toe in the fundamentalist pool and I really wanted to be Jewish for a while back when I was thirteen. At 15 I was rolling with the Pentacostals with all the fervor and dancing and passing out and speaking in tongues. Much like getting married I just wanted to fit in and do what everyone else was doing, but I seem to always run up against the wall of common sense.
Sort of like those nights in the 80s when I was sitting around with a bunch of drug addicts waiting for the next pass of the mirror. The me that knows what's what would be sitting on my shoulder with her arms crossed, shaking her head and sighing at the colossal waste of time.
Going to church, believing in God or whatever version of God is being sold at your local house of worship feels like something we do in a lemming like fashion. It felt very weird to be the only kid on my block that did not go to temple or church. As a child I felt a bit ashamed and more than a tad concerned that I was going to go to that hell place. A place I had no real reference for because I didn't go to church.
My father had been raised as a Southern Baptist with hell fire and brimstone and very little joy and he completely rejected that theology and did everything he could to protect his children from the rhetoric. Unitarianism worked for him because he was a social worker and if you think about it so was Jesus so that was the POV and my father could make peace with that.
By the time I was exploring the options of the Christian realm I was grounded in rational thought and the idea that helping people was a form of religion. But I also really loved the ecstatic aspects of the Pentacostal and Fundamentalist church services.
I really did feel the love that they talk about. I felt connected to myself and everyone in the world through my heart and it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
It was like a perfect high.
The other night when I was talking to a friend whose sister has become an mikvah visiting orthodox Jew with seven children and she pondered why someone who was raised in the San Fernando Valley, and who was intelligent, would make a decision to live that life.
It's an interesting question.
I believe it has something to do with that feeling of connection and the high one gets from feeling connected to a group that is all feeling that ecstasy of connection. It's something you want to share with everyone. It's a feeling that moves you literally and figuratively.
It's like a drug.
But here's the thing - the path to that feeling is not only through the doors of a church, or a temple or a mosque. That connection is not something that you receive because you follow the rules and you make sure that everyone else follows the same rules. The ecstasy is not a feeling that only certain people who are saved, or chosen are allowed to have.
The belief that you have to adhere to laws, belong to a certain group, sing or don't sing certain songs, pray a certain way, to only love certain people and not others - that is divisive.
That is the wall of common sense I have always run into in my forays into organized religion. The organization around certain rules and ideas have ultimately led to a division between one group and another.
That ecstasy of connection - feeling love for all life - that perfect high is our birth right. Any belief system that creates separation is confused and fear based. I'm all for many different paths, maps and flashlights to connection, but we would do well to remember that there is no other.
We are all one.
Jesus' mother Mary will also be invited.
We will drink wine and eat bread with lots of butter and chocolate and there will be a lot of laughing.
So now I begin each day by reading a section of the text and then look at the lesson for the day. Today's lesson is "I am upset because I see something that is not there".
The first part of the book is about unlearning all the ideas that you might have about the world and God and connection to the divine and the second part is learning about what is true about that connection.
At least that is what I was told in the introduction. I've never made it past lesson twenty two. Not because I don't want to, but because as the year progresses I stop making the time to do the reading and and look at the lesson.
For me there is not much "deprogramming" to do because I was not raised in any formal religion. My family did not attend church regularly and in the few years that we did occasionally head out on a Sunday morning, it was to the Unitarian Church where I spent the mornings outside looking at mustard plants or some other agricultural reference that could be found in the bible.
Fundies they were not.
I was just really glad to be at a church on Sunday like the rest of my friends.
I did dip my toe in the fundamentalist pool and I really wanted to be Jewish for a while back when I was thirteen. At 15 I was rolling with the Pentacostals with all the fervor and dancing and passing out and speaking in tongues. Much like getting married I just wanted to fit in and do what everyone else was doing, but I seem to always run up against the wall of common sense.
Sort of like those nights in the 80s when I was sitting around with a bunch of drug addicts waiting for the next pass of the mirror. The me that knows what's what would be sitting on my shoulder with her arms crossed, shaking her head and sighing at the colossal waste of time.
Going to church, believing in God or whatever version of God is being sold at your local house of worship feels like something we do in a lemming like fashion. It felt very weird to be the only kid on my block that did not go to temple or church. As a child I felt a bit ashamed and more than a tad concerned that I was going to go to that hell place. A place I had no real reference for because I didn't go to church.
My father had been raised as a Southern Baptist with hell fire and brimstone and very little joy and he completely rejected that theology and did everything he could to protect his children from the rhetoric. Unitarianism worked for him because he was a social worker and if you think about it so was Jesus so that was the POV and my father could make peace with that.
By the time I was exploring the options of the Christian realm I was grounded in rational thought and the idea that helping people was a form of religion. But I also really loved the ecstatic aspects of the Pentacostal and Fundamentalist church services.
I really did feel the love that they talk about. I felt connected to myself and everyone in the world through my heart and it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
It was like a perfect high.
The other night when I was talking to a friend whose sister has become an mikvah visiting orthodox Jew with seven children and she pondered why someone who was raised in the San Fernando Valley, and who was intelligent, would make a decision to live that life.
It's an interesting question.
I believe it has something to do with that feeling of connection and the high one gets from feeling connected to a group that is all feeling that ecstasy of connection. It's something you want to share with everyone. It's a feeling that moves you literally and figuratively.
It's like a drug.
But here's the thing - the path to that feeling is not only through the doors of a church, or a temple or a mosque. That connection is not something that you receive because you follow the rules and you make sure that everyone else follows the same rules. The ecstasy is not a feeling that only certain people who are saved, or chosen are allowed to have.
The belief that you have to adhere to laws, belong to a certain group, sing or don't sing certain songs, pray a certain way, to only love certain people and not others - that is divisive.
That is the wall of common sense I have always run into in my forays into organized religion. The organization around certain rules and ideas have ultimately led to a division between one group and another.
That ecstasy of connection - feeling love for all life - that perfect high is our birth right. Any belief system that creates separation is confused and fear based. I'm all for many different paths, maps and flashlights to connection, but we would do well to remember that there is no other.
We are all one.
Friday, January 03, 2014
Stalled
Just heard from my mechanic that my car has an "electrical" problem.
That's like getting a medical diagnosis that has the words "non-specific" at the beginning.
It's interesting to not have a car in that I don't mind not being able to go anywhere. Granted I can walk to everything that I need to do, but as the weekend approaches I am stuck should I want to go further afield than the 10 blocks that make up my neighborhood.
Well, not really stuck, there is the bus, but I get flu fear when I contemplate public transportation.
So it will be a hermit-like first weekend of the new year.
Silver lining...
I now have an excuse to watch wild card weekend football!!!
That's like getting a medical diagnosis that has the words "non-specific" at the beginning.
It's interesting to not have a car in that I don't mind not being able to go anywhere. Granted I can walk to everything that I need to do, but as the weekend approaches I am stuck should I want to go further afield than the 10 blocks that make up my neighborhood.
Well, not really stuck, there is the bus, but I get flu fear when I contemplate public transportation.
So it will be a hermit-like first weekend of the new year.
Silver lining...
I now have an excuse to watch wild card weekend football!!!
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Thinking is not doing
I think a lot about a lot of things I want to do...
In the past the enthusiasm created by the thinking about regular exercise, traveling throughout Mexico, writing everything down, was such that, I didn't actually do any of those things.
Same with talking about it.
Thinking and talking are like letting the air out of a helium balloon. Thinking and talking release energy and it's becoming clear that I require that energy for the doing.
Since my car still won't start I'm going to do my day using public transportation and my own legs.
Let the doing begin.
In the past the enthusiasm created by the thinking about regular exercise, traveling throughout Mexico, writing everything down, was such that, I didn't actually do any of those things.
Same with talking about it.
Thinking and talking are like letting the air out of a helium balloon. Thinking and talking release energy and it's becoming clear that I require that energy for the doing.
Since my car still won't start I'm going to do my day using public transportation and my own legs.
Let the doing begin.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Ritual wanted
For Christmas I received a book that had been riding on my Amazon wish list for a while now. The things on that list are items I would not necessarily buy for myself, but I think they would make a great gift - for me or anybody.
And I was indeed very pleased that my niece got me the book, Daily Rituals - How Artists Work.
Mason Curry, a writer from New York who now lives in Los Angeles, had the brilliant idea to research how some of the most brilliant minds of the last 400 years got their product out for us to enjoy and to make their immortal mark on the world. As someone who loves to be creative but who has also perfected procrastination into performance art as I move from room to room making messes that will become later projects to be completed before I sit down and write something - I am very interested in how people I admire like WH Auden, Maya Angelou, Willa Cather and Thomas Wolfe got it done.
I've decided to read just a bit of this book every day before I get out of bed to see if there's a ritual that speaks to me - something that I might spark to that I could add to my life and which would create the space where I actually create rather than beat myself up for doing nothing.
I love that Mason owns up to his personal procrastination in putting off of an assignment and so a blog was born which became the book. However my heart started sinking when I read references in the introduction to Edward Gibbon who took Horace along with him on a military campaign and studied in his tent and the quote from an essay by, V.S. Pritchett stating, "the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing."
I'll say.
Thank God that the introduction goes on to reference William James and Franz Kafka who apparently wasted time and waited for inspiration and were racked with doubt and insecurity. I can't wait to read the bits about them!
Yesterday I read about WH Auden, a poet of the 20th Century, whose poems are evocative the time he lived in, born at the beginning of the 20th century, he made it 3/4 of the way through, dying in 1973 which if you think about it made him witness to quite a bit. Apparently he was big into routine and was obsessively punctual believing that, "a life of material precision was essential to his creativity, a way of taming the muse to his own schedule." He got up at 6 am had a cup of coffee and quickly got to work, took a break for lunch and worked through the afternoon.
I found Auden's rituals and taming of a muse by infliction of routine to be a depressing idea and then I got to the last paragraph.... "To maintain his energy and concentration, the poet relied on amphetamines, taking a dose of Benzedrine each morning the way many people take a daily multivitamin. At night he used Seconal or another sedative to get to sleep."
So basically his daily ritual was to pop pills and he did this for 20 years.
I'm going to take a pass.
Today I read about Francis Bacon the hedonistic, hard partying, insomniac hoarder, Simone de Beauvoir who planned her life around Jean Paul Sartre and Thomas Wolfe who stood naked and fondled his genitals for inspiration - no rituals I would care to adopt here. I've already done versions of Bacon and de Beauvoir and neither patch stimulated any meaningful product. I would give the Thomas Wolfe plan a shot, but I think one needs a penis to evoke the "good male feeling" that lit his creative fire.
This morning as I read about Patricia Highsmith who created such wonderfully twisted thrillers as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley I thought perhaps she was on to something. Her ritual involved easing herself into the right frame of mind by sitting in an almost fetal position on her bed surrounded by crap like cigarettes and ashtrays and cups of coffee - a "womb of her own".
I love my bed and I love laying curled up in it as if I was in a womb of soft white sheets (no cigarettes and ashtrays) with a cup of tea and a snack.
Then I got to the part about how she would have a stiff drink before she wrote and again I will have to pass. I do not have the constitution to drink and remain awake. And she also chain smoked Gauloise all day - GROSS. I tried them in my 20s and was unprepared for how truly horrible they smelled. Ms. Highsmith went on to be a raging alocholic who was more comfortable with animals than people. She ended up breeding snails. Seriously. She brought a bunch to a party in her handbag and when she moved to France which prohibits bringing live snails across the border she smuggled them in with multiple trips, carrying up to 10 under each breast.
Remember that Billy Crystal - Danny Devito movie, Throw Momma from the Train that was a riff on Strangers on a Train? Remember the actress that played Momma? Well let's just say that there's something of a resemblance - and I cannot stop imagining the snail smuggling.
Really looking forward to reading about all the rest of these talented people and kind of loving the fact that they all seem a little bit (or a lot) nuts.
It makes me feel better about my quirks - but I'm still looking for a ritual.
And I was indeed very pleased that my niece got me the book, Daily Rituals - How Artists Work.
Mason Curry, a writer from New York who now lives in Los Angeles, had the brilliant idea to research how some of the most brilliant minds of the last 400 years got their product out for us to enjoy and to make their immortal mark on the world. As someone who loves to be creative but who has also perfected procrastination into performance art as I move from room to room making messes that will become later projects to be completed before I sit down and write something - I am very interested in how people I admire like WH Auden, Maya Angelou, Willa Cather and Thomas Wolfe got it done.
I've decided to read just a bit of this book every day before I get out of bed to see if there's a ritual that speaks to me - something that I might spark to that I could add to my life and which would create the space where I actually create rather than beat myself up for doing nothing.
I love that Mason owns up to his personal procrastination in putting off of an assignment and so a blog was born which became the book. However my heart started sinking when I read references in the introduction to Edward Gibbon who took Horace along with him on a military campaign and studied in his tent and the quote from an essay by, V.S. Pritchett stating, "the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing."
I'll say.
Thank God that the introduction goes on to reference William James and Franz Kafka who apparently wasted time and waited for inspiration and were racked with doubt and insecurity. I can't wait to read the bits about them!
Yesterday I read about WH Auden, a poet of the 20th Century, whose poems are evocative the time he lived in, born at the beginning of the 20th century, he made it 3/4 of the way through, dying in 1973 which if you think about it made him witness to quite a bit. Apparently he was big into routine and was obsessively punctual believing that, "a life of material precision was essential to his creativity, a way of taming the muse to his own schedule." He got up at 6 am had a cup of coffee and quickly got to work, took a break for lunch and worked through the afternoon.
I found Auden's rituals and taming of a muse by infliction of routine to be a depressing idea and then I got to the last paragraph.... "To maintain his energy and concentration, the poet relied on amphetamines, taking a dose of Benzedrine each morning the way many people take a daily multivitamin. At night he used Seconal or another sedative to get to sleep."
So basically his daily ritual was to pop pills and he did this for 20 years.
I'm going to take a pass.
Today I read about Francis Bacon the hedonistic, hard partying, insomniac hoarder, Simone de Beauvoir who planned her life around Jean Paul Sartre and Thomas Wolfe who stood naked and fondled his genitals for inspiration - no rituals I would care to adopt here. I've already done versions of Bacon and de Beauvoir and neither patch stimulated any meaningful product. I would give the Thomas Wolfe plan a shot, but I think one needs a penis to evoke the "good male feeling" that lit his creative fire.
This morning as I read about Patricia Highsmith who created such wonderfully twisted thrillers as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley I thought perhaps she was on to something. Her ritual involved easing herself into the right frame of mind by sitting in an almost fetal position on her bed surrounded by crap like cigarettes and ashtrays and cups of coffee - a "womb of her own".
I love my bed and I love laying curled up in it as if I was in a womb of soft white sheets (no cigarettes and ashtrays) with a cup of tea and a snack.
Then I got to the part about how she would have a stiff drink before she wrote and again I will have to pass. I do not have the constitution to drink and remain awake. And she also chain smoked Gauloise all day - GROSS. I tried them in my 20s and was unprepared for how truly horrible they smelled. Ms. Highsmith went on to be a raging alocholic who was more comfortable with animals than people. She ended up breeding snails. Seriously. She brought a bunch to a party in her handbag and when she moved to France which prohibits bringing live snails across the border she smuggled them in with multiple trips, carrying up to 10 under each breast.
Remember that Billy Crystal - Danny Devito movie, Throw Momma from the Train that was a riff on Strangers on a Train? Remember the actress that played Momma? Well let's just say that there's something of a resemblance - and I cannot stop imagining the snail smuggling.
Really looking forward to reading about all the rest of these talented people and kind of loving the fact that they all seem a little bit (or a lot) nuts.
It makes me feel better about my quirks - but I'm still looking for a ritual.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
NEW YEAR NEW MOON
So tonight did not go as planned.
I was going to hang with some friends and eat some good food and probably laugh a lot.
When I got in my car to leave it would not start. This is a new thing since I got in a car accident at the beginning of December and smashed the car up. It took three weeks to fix it and when I got it back it looked like new, but now it sometimes doesn't start.
Clearly something got messed up in the smashing.
So I stayed home and contemplated the coming new year and what I would like to create for myself.
I say create because my norm is to react to whatever is happening to me.
That really hasn't worked that great to date.
But I'm lazy and creating seems like a lot of effort and opens the possibility of making a mess.
However after reading this blog post about the new moon that happens tonight on the eve of a new year I decided to identify and understand where I am in my life right now...
Looking for new employment
In debt
Chubby
In physical therapy
Tired
Stressed
Insomniac
Unmotivated
and since I'm not unhappy and not happy I am most likely depressed.
I was brutally honest and probably a tad dramatic with all the understanding of where I am in my life right now but I'm going to say it was a good exercise because it helped me be very clear about the intentions I am setting for the coming year.
Rather than go into all the things and experiences I don't want I got really focused on the experiences I do want.
I wrote everything down and burned each and every negative idea and thought conscious and unconscious that I am releasing. I burned them in my living room with some Dragon's Blood resin that I dug out of a drawer - a souvenir from some Rennaisance Faire I went to 10 years ago - I knew it would come in handy. All that negativity created quite a blaze and the adolescent firebug that still lives inside me had a really good time. The adult part of me was borderline freaked out that I almost set my carpet on fire.
As the embers glowed I wrote down all of my intentions for the new year. The things/experiences I am going to create, because the laziness of default has not gotten me where I want to be. Then I took all those intentions and made little balls out of the paper and planted them in my garden out back.
Like seeds.
Of course I had to weed the area first because I haven't been back there since August and since it's a new moon it was really dark so that was kind of scary too.
And now it's 10pm and I'm worn out from all the assessing and burning and weeding and burying so I'm going to go to bed.
Honestly I have to say it's been a good new year's eve and I am looking forward to a new year, well aware that I have agreed to get really participatory and creative this year but I'm up for it.
I was going to hang with some friends and eat some good food and probably laugh a lot.
When I got in my car to leave it would not start. This is a new thing since I got in a car accident at the beginning of December and smashed the car up. It took three weeks to fix it and when I got it back it looked like new, but now it sometimes doesn't start.
Clearly something got messed up in the smashing.
So I stayed home and contemplated the coming new year and what I would like to create for myself.
I say create because my norm is to react to whatever is happening to me.
That really hasn't worked that great to date.
But I'm lazy and creating seems like a lot of effort and opens the possibility of making a mess.
However after reading this blog post about the new moon that happens tonight on the eve of a new year I decided to identify and understand where I am in my life right now...
Looking for new employment
In debt
Chubby
In physical therapy
Tired
Stressed
Insomniac
Unmotivated
and since I'm not unhappy and not happy I am most likely depressed.
I was brutally honest and probably a tad dramatic with all the understanding of where I am in my life right now but I'm going to say it was a good exercise because it helped me be very clear about the intentions I am setting for the coming year.
Rather than go into all the things and experiences I don't want I got really focused on the experiences I do want.
I wrote everything down and burned each and every negative idea and thought conscious and unconscious that I am releasing. I burned them in my living room with some Dragon's Blood resin that I dug out of a drawer - a souvenir from some Rennaisance Faire I went to 10 years ago - I knew it would come in handy. All that negativity created quite a blaze and the adolescent firebug that still lives inside me had a really good time. The adult part of me was borderline freaked out that I almost set my carpet on fire.
As the embers glowed I wrote down all of my intentions for the new year. The things/experiences I am going to create, because the laziness of default has not gotten me where I want to be. Then I took all those intentions and made little balls out of the paper and planted them in my garden out back.
Like seeds.
Of course I had to weed the area first because I haven't been back there since August and since it's a new moon it was really dark so that was kind of scary too.
And now it's 10pm and I'm worn out from all the assessing and burning and weeding and burying so I'm going to go to bed.
Honestly I have to say it's been a good new year's eve and I am looking forward to a new year, well aware that I have agreed to get really participatory and creative this year but I'm up for it.
Monday, April 08, 2013
Twinkle, Twinkle...
About 30 years ago I met my friend Joey who is one of the sisters I got to choose. Over the years we have shared homes and celebrations and holidays and heartbreaks and along the way her family became part of my family.
Every year on my birthday, Jo's older sister Pam, and her mom and dad would call and leave an enthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" in three part harmony on my voicemail.
Joey is the youngest of four and Pam was 16 by the time Joey came along. She had been diagnosed with a congenital heart issue which was treated with surgery before her little sister was born, and because the doctors told her parents that although Pam's heart was fixed she could still drop dead at any time - they were very protective of her. During the years when most teenagers are rebelling and getting ready to leave home, Pam was held very close. In many ways, while she was like another parent to her youngest siblings, at the same time there were childlike aspects in Pam that were there her whole life. Indeed she never moved from her parents home. Although she was very intelligent, she often missed social cues, and definitely marched to the beat of her own drum.
I met Pam in the early 80s when she was working at McDonnell Douglas. She was very much into Republican politics, enthusiastically so, and she loved the candidates she worked for George Deukmejian and Ronald Reagan.
I did not.
Something that she didn't seem to notice although I was pretty clear that I wasn't interested in going to events or donating money to individuals that, according to my father, were responsible for the devastation of mental health services in the state of California and in the country.
Pam was also really involved with the Crystal Cathedral - if you've read anything I've written in the last couple of weeks it's pretty clear that I'm not a fan of organized religion. If you ever watched the Hour of Power it really doesn't get more organized than that. Pam began as an usher and every single year she invited me to come to the huge Christmas story production or the Easter morning production (where she would have gotten me into the best seat in the house), but it wasn't my thing. It was Pam's home for 25 years and I believe she eventually became an elder. I really should have taken her up on her offer because it is an amazing piece of architecture and I'm certain that those services were beautiful. I also could have practiced some Grace and appreciated and participated in something that was so special to her - but that would be one more thing that Pam taught me.
None of my rejection of her offers phased her and she did not love me any less. Had I asked her for anything she would have gone out of her way to help me.
What I recognized is that although we were ideologically polar opposites, her intention was always about sharing love, never about proselytizing, or forcing me to believe what she believed - she would believe it enough for both of us.
The last time I saw Pam was during the long weeks that her father was struggling to slip off this mortal coil at the end of his battle with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. She had discovered a love of "clowning" and she was also learning to play the ukelele. Nothing made her happier than spreading joy as Twinkles D' Klown and if she could play her ukelele and sing at the same time - even better.
My last memory is of her in the backyard of the house in Malibu, on the edge of a hill looking over the ocean, sitting in a chair, playing her ukelele and smiling. At the time it was a bit surreal, but in a larger context it was the exact right thing for her to do.
To say that Pam was eccentric would be an entirely accurate statement, but she was also authentically loving and resilient in the face of rejection, and sometimes loneliness. She showed up in a way that is so rare anymore. She had a profound faith in God and heaven and she walked the walk more than most people who call themselves Christians.
Pam passed away a couple of weeks ago - that day her doctors warned her parents about finally came. It was shocking because I had always imagined her clowning her way into her 90s when it seems you can get away with anything. My hope is that she went to sleep, that she left quickly and that she wasn't afraid. In fact, I just know that she went to sleep and at some point she saw both her parents holding out their arms so she grabbed her ukelele and went with them and now they are singing once again in three part harmony.
Her memorial service was this past Saturday at the Crystal Cathedral (which has been sold to the Catholic Church and is only going to be Pam's beloved church for a little bit longer). There were so many people there - all of whom were reflecting back the love that Pam had given them over the time she'd known them - and there were clowns and ukeleles. It was as if she right there with us.
It was the best funeral a lot of us have ever been too, which is as it should be, because for all of her eccentricities and struggles, Pam was one of the best people we ever knew. She spread a lot of joy and even now she is twinkling.
Every year on my birthday, Jo's older sister Pam, and her mom and dad would call and leave an enthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" in three part harmony on my voicemail.
Joey is the youngest of four and Pam was 16 by the time Joey came along. She had been diagnosed with a congenital heart issue which was treated with surgery before her little sister was born, and because the doctors told her parents that although Pam's heart was fixed she could still drop dead at any time - they were very protective of her. During the years when most teenagers are rebelling and getting ready to leave home, Pam was held very close. In many ways, while she was like another parent to her youngest siblings, at the same time there were childlike aspects in Pam that were there her whole life. Indeed she never moved from her parents home. Although she was very intelligent, she often missed social cues, and definitely marched to the beat of her own drum.
I met Pam in the early 80s when she was working at McDonnell Douglas. She was very much into Republican politics, enthusiastically so, and she loved the candidates she worked for George Deukmejian and Ronald Reagan.
I did not.
Something that she didn't seem to notice although I was pretty clear that I wasn't interested in going to events or donating money to individuals that, according to my father, were responsible for the devastation of mental health services in the state of California and in the country.
Pam was also really involved with the Crystal Cathedral - if you've read anything I've written in the last couple of weeks it's pretty clear that I'm not a fan of organized religion. If you ever watched the Hour of Power it really doesn't get more organized than that. Pam began as an usher and every single year she invited me to come to the huge Christmas story production or the Easter morning production (where she would have gotten me into the best seat in the house), but it wasn't my thing. It was Pam's home for 25 years and I believe she eventually became an elder. I really should have taken her up on her offer because it is an amazing piece of architecture and I'm certain that those services were beautiful. I also could have practiced some Grace and appreciated and participated in something that was so special to her - but that would be one more thing that Pam taught me.
None of my rejection of her offers phased her and she did not love me any less. Had I asked her for anything she would have gone out of her way to help me.
What I recognized is that although we were ideologically polar opposites, her intention was always about sharing love, never about proselytizing, or forcing me to believe what she believed - she would believe it enough for both of us.
The last time I saw Pam was during the long weeks that her father was struggling to slip off this mortal coil at the end of his battle with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. She had discovered a love of "clowning" and she was also learning to play the ukelele. Nothing made her happier than spreading joy as Twinkles D' Klown and if she could play her ukelele and sing at the same time - even better.
My last memory is of her in the backyard of the house in Malibu, on the edge of a hill looking over the ocean, sitting in a chair, playing her ukelele and smiling. At the time it was a bit surreal, but in a larger context it was the exact right thing for her to do.
To say that Pam was eccentric would be an entirely accurate statement, but she was also authentically loving and resilient in the face of rejection, and sometimes loneliness. She showed up in a way that is so rare anymore. She had a profound faith in God and heaven and she walked the walk more than most people who call themselves Christians.
Pam passed away a couple of weeks ago - that day her doctors warned her parents about finally came. It was shocking because I had always imagined her clowning her way into her 90s when it seems you can get away with anything. My hope is that she went to sleep, that she left quickly and that she wasn't afraid. In fact, I just know that she went to sleep and at some point she saw both her parents holding out their arms so she grabbed her ukelele and went with them and now they are singing once again in three part harmony.
Her memorial service was this past Saturday at the Crystal Cathedral (which has been sold to the Catholic Church and is only going to be Pam's beloved church for a little bit longer). There were so many people there - all of whom were reflecting back the love that Pam had given them over the time she'd known them - and there were clowns and ukeleles. It was as if she right there with us.
It was the best funeral a lot of us have ever been too, which is as it should be, because for all of her eccentricities and struggles, Pam was one of the best people we ever knew. She spread a lot of joy and even now she is twinkling.
Friday, April 05, 2013
Dear Google - you used to be awesome
But now you suck.
You are like that great boyfriend who at the beginning of a relationship is so easy and fun. Everything just flows and it's like you could read my mind and all my needs were met - you even had stuff I didn't know I needed or wanted like the ability to track my conversations.
But now that we've been together for these past 7+ years you seem to continually be going through an identity crisis. All of the things that I appreciated about you have been tweaked and changed so that you could keep up with the competition.
It's like coming home to your man to find he's shaved his head and is sporting skinny jeans because it's what's "in" even though he may not be carrying it off so well.
Where you used to be my preferred e-mail platform because things were so clear and organized, you have now become cryptic and almost impossible to decipher. It's like I'm having a relationship with a Tween who only speaks in memes and wears his pants down below his buttcheeks.
I am not a complete idiot when it comes to technology so this is not about my inability to figure out the various "new concepts" you keep foisting upon me - no - the issue is that you have become too much work and the "new look" isn't really working that well.
So, while I'm not breaking up with you right this minute I am defnitely open to a new relationship with someone who will give me function and form and ease of use - maybe even rock it a little old school. Because here's the thing about technology.... it's cool and all but at the end of the day it's a tool to connect people, and if I get so frustrated with your bullshit that I'm using Outlook (seriously, it's got to be bad if I'm reconsidering Microsoft) as my primary means of e-mail communication you need to take a hard look at the choices you are making.
You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself, because I'm predicting that the new trend is going to be humans putting their devices down and spending time together in the same room. We are going to start missing each other.
If you can make it easier for that to happen you might be on to something.
Your new gmail "compose" is not easier, or better, or faster - it's bullshit (although I do like the colorful, fancy font in the corner of each e-mail) - and I am not the only one who thinks so. In case you haven't done so, take a look at this article, which is just one of many that I've found from all over the world.
Did you just need some press?
Compose is like "new coke" - I know you all are probably too young to remember that marketing disaster, but it's the perfect illustration of that whole, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. How about you try some cross demographic focus groups before you force your "new compose" on users? Right now it feels like those in the Google bubble were just sitting around thinking up something new to do to rationalize their paychecks.
You do so many things right - it's okay to admit that you occasionally miss the mark. Why don't you all try to figure out a way for people to connect meaningfully in 3D and real time because, as a society and a culture, we are going in the wrong direction. Thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers don't actually make people happy - it just tends to make them neurotic and kind of mean and insecure because everything is a presentation for your followers. It's getting really weird.
In the meantime I will be switching back to the original format by doing the following:
Pressing the "Compose" button on the left side of the screen.
Then when the new compose box pops up, I will click on the down-arrow icon at the bottom right of the window.
Then I will select "Temporarily switch back to old compose."
Next I will be shopping for a new e-mail address. Anyone know of something good? - please pass that along.
So vaya con Dios Gmail Compose - seriously it's not me - it's you.
You are like that great boyfriend who at the beginning of a relationship is so easy and fun. Everything just flows and it's like you could read my mind and all my needs were met - you even had stuff I didn't know I needed or wanted like the ability to track my conversations.
But now that we've been together for these past 7+ years you seem to continually be going through an identity crisis. All of the things that I appreciated about you have been tweaked and changed so that you could keep up with the competition.
It's like coming home to your man to find he's shaved his head and is sporting skinny jeans because it's what's "in" even though he may not be carrying it off so well.
Where you used to be my preferred e-mail platform because things were so clear and organized, you have now become cryptic and almost impossible to decipher. It's like I'm having a relationship with a Tween who only speaks in memes and wears his pants down below his buttcheeks.
I am not a complete idiot when it comes to technology so this is not about my inability to figure out the various "new concepts" you keep foisting upon me - no - the issue is that you have become too much work and the "new look" isn't really working that well.
So, while I'm not breaking up with you right this minute I am defnitely open to a new relationship with someone who will give me function and form and ease of use - maybe even rock it a little old school. Because here's the thing about technology.... it's cool and all but at the end of the day it's a tool to connect people, and if I get so frustrated with your bullshit that I'm using Outlook (seriously, it's got to be bad if I'm reconsidering Microsoft) as my primary means of e-mail communication you need to take a hard look at the choices you are making.
You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself, because I'm predicting that the new trend is going to be humans putting their devices down and spending time together in the same room. We are going to start missing each other.
If you can make it easier for that to happen you might be on to something.
Your new gmail "compose" is not easier, or better, or faster - it's bullshit (although I do like the colorful, fancy font in the corner of each e-mail) - and I am not the only one who thinks so. In case you haven't done so, take a look at this article, which is just one of many that I've found from all over the world.
Did you just need some press?
Compose is like "new coke" - I know you all are probably too young to remember that marketing disaster, but it's the perfect illustration of that whole, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. How about you try some cross demographic focus groups before you force your "new compose" on users? Right now it feels like those in the Google bubble were just sitting around thinking up something new to do to rationalize their paychecks.
You do so many things right - it's okay to admit that you occasionally miss the mark. Why don't you all try to figure out a way for people to connect meaningfully in 3D and real time because, as a society and a culture, we are going in the wrong direction. Thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers don't actually make people happy - it just tends to make them neurotic and kind of mean and insecure because everything is a presentation for your followers. It's getting really weird.
In the meantime I will be switching back to the original format by doing the following:
Pressing the "Compose" button on the left side of the screen.
Then when the new compose box pops up, I will click on the down-arrow icon at the bottom right of the window.
Then I will select "Temporarily switch back to old compose."
Next I will be shopping for a new e-mail address. Anyone know of something good? - please pass that along.
So vaya con Dios Gmail Compose - seriously it's not me - it's you.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Do you hear what I hear?
Since my last post I've had a number of conversations with friends about the brouhaha created by Michelle Shocked's statements at Yoshi's on 3/17 and the ensuing drama on twitter and national internet news. I've been a bit taken aback because when I listened to the bootleg recording from the audience I heard something so different from everyone else. They all heard her being intentionally hateful. They all heard her being intentionally mean. I already shared what I heard in my last post. The interesting thing is that a couple of these conversations were with friends who are professional journalists and they are as knee jerk as everyone else.
For me that's a sign of the times - journalism has evolved into expression of opinions rather than asking questions.
Granted Ms. Shocked is not making things easier for people to understand since she will only communicate, and cryptically at that, on twitter which gives you 140 characters. Not the best venue for coherent communication, but she's on her own journey with this experience.
What's been coming up for me on a macro level is how in this age of so many options for communication we seem to be mis-communicating more often than not.
In college my major was speech/communications and this was way before technology became such an overwhelming variable in the field. I would imagine that it's astoundingly interesting to study how we communicate these days - the research is probably incredible. Still the basics are foundational and what I remember as a most basic concept was that in any given dyad (2 people = smallest group), there are multiple points of view, or experiences.
When we talk to each other, there is what we intend to say, what we actually say and what the other person hears. That's like six experiences in any given dyadic conversation.
Myself, I get really knee jerky when I listen to the rhetoric on the political right. I also get twitchy when I hear any kind of fundamentalist religious proselytizing. I am dismissive and and punitive and rejecting. To be honest I am rude and disrespectful, something I rationalize by my belief that "they don't know what they're talking about and they are stupid to believe what they believe." I also rationalize it because in the case of Ann Coulter and Fred Phelps and their ilk, there is a level of hate speech, name calling and massive disrespect for anyone who isn't on their team - but what they do is what I just admitted to doing.
I don't ask any questions about why they believe what they believe. They don't ask questions about the people who they are attacking.
Is this because we don't care? Is it because we don't know how? Why is it seemingly unimportant to understand where someone is coming from? and why they come from there?
Because they talk crazy? Well, yeah, in my opinion. That and me getting all knee jerky and wanting to punch them in the neck. Seriously, every time Ann Coulter gets something thrown at her I am doing a happy dance inside (self aware intentional meanness on my part).
But here's the other thing I am aware of - inside I am going to where I perceive them to be. When Ann Coulter is calling people "retards" and Fred Phelps and his family are screaming hate speech on the news - emotionally I jump into anger and rage and helplessness and frustration, "NO YOU ARE". They win. I might not agree with a word they are saying, but I go right to where they are living their lives from in reaction to it.
Trust me when I tell you that this doesn't do me any good and it certainly doesn't provide any kind of counter balance energetically. I think that there needs to be discussion about what comes up and why, I just can't find very many people who want to have that conversation. My fundamentalist family members fall back on their script so I just move to "I love you but I don't agree with you," because that's true. My friends who are Republicans also stay on script. This is true for my friends on the left.
In so many ways it's like critical thinking doesn't enter into any of this at all.
Last week I listened to the funny and awesome Margaret Cho and Jim Short on their Monsters of Talk podcast - I love this show because it's like you are getting to eavesdrop on two really funny people talking honestly about stuff without an agenda. Kind of like they're sitting on the couch having snacks and shooting the shit and you are a fly on the wall. When they got to the part about Michelle Shocked there was discussion about how Margaret felt about Michelle's music and what it meant to her growing up queer. Who she thought Michelle was and how that made her feel. She shared about being chased and threatened for being a dyke and she explained that the statements that were made at Yoshi's were so hurtful because someone she had thought of as an ally, was now saying that God hates her.
Probably a lot of people had that experience last week and it's really sad.
I'm trying to stop reacting and ask more questions, but it's a challenge. There's a reactive mean girl inside of me that would like to kick the Fred Phelps folks in the balls and she's co-existing with the more enlightened wise woman who tries to roll more like Jesus and see the love in all people and things no matter what they are saying and doing that is the opposite.
I truly do believe that in all things the power of love - cliche, I know, but true, so true - can overcome any obstacle. It is profoundly powerful, but for some reason a tough place to live from all the time. The Dalai Lama seems to have it down, but I think he spends a tremendous amount of time meditating and being in the moment.
I aspire to be more like him but honestly it depends on the day. The wise woman who knows what's true and can see love no matter what is having more days than not, which is good because the mean girl is unattractive and unpleasant.
And here I could write something really snarky about Ann Coulter's appearance, but the wise woman just put the mean girl on time out.
For me that's a sign of the times - journalism has evolved into expression of opinions rather than asking questions.
Granted Ms. Shocked is not making things easier for people to understand since she will only communicate, and cryptically at that, on twitter which gives you 140 characters. Not the best venue for coherent communication, but she's on her own journey with this experience.
What's been coming up for me on a macro level is how in this age of so many options for communication we seem to be mis-communicating more often than not.
In college my major was speech/communications and this was way before technology became such an overwhelming variable in the field. I would imagine that it's astoundingly interesting to study how we communicate these days - the research is probably incredible. Still the basics are foundational and what I remember as a most basic concept was that in any given dyad (2 people = smallest group), there are multiple points of view, or experiences.
When we talk to each other, there is what we intend to say, what we actually say and what the other person hears. That's like six experiences in any given dyadic conversation.
Myself, I get really knee jerky when I listen to the rhetoric on the political right. I also get twitchy when I hear any kind of fundamentalist religious proselytizing. I am dismissive and and punitive and rejecting. To be honest I am rude and disrespectful, something I rationalize by my belief that "they don't know what they're talking about and they are stupid to believe what they believe." I also rationalize it because in the case of Ann Coulter and Fred Phelps and their ilk, there is a level of hate speech, name calling and massive disrespect for anyone who isn't on their team - but what they do is what I just admitted to doing.
I don't ask any questions about why they believe what they believe. They don't ask questions about the people who they are attacking.
Is this because we don't care? Is it because we don't know how? Why is it seemingly unimportant to understand where someone is coming from? and why they come from there?
Because they talk crazy? Well, yeah, in my opinion. That and me getting all knee jerky and wanting to punch them in the neck. Seriously, every time Ann Coulter gets something thrown at her I am doing a happy dance inside (self aware intentional meanness on my part).
But here's the other thing I am aware of - inside I am going to where I perceive them to be. When Ann Coulter is calling people "retards" and Fred Phelps and his family are screaming hate speech on the news - emotionally I jump into anger and rage and helplessness and frustration, "NO YOU ARE". They win. I might not agree with a word they are saying, but I go right to where they are living their lives from in reaction to it.
Trust me when I tell you that this doesn't do me any good and it certainly doesn't provide any kind of counter balance energetically. I think that there needs to be discussion about what comes up and why, I just can't find very many people who want to have that conversation. My fundamentalist family members fall back on their script so I just move to "I love you but I don't agree with you," because that's true. My friends who are Republicans also stay on script. This is true for my friends on the left.
In so many ways it's like critical thinking doesn't enter into any of this at all.
Last week I listened to the funny and awesome Margaret Cho and Jim Short on their Monsters of Talk podcast - I love this show because it's like you are getting to eavesdrop on two really funny people talking honestly about stuff without an agenda. Kind of like they're sitting on the couch having snacks and shooting the shit and you are a fly on the wall. When they got to the part about Michelle Shocked there was discussion about how Margaret felt about Michelle's music and what it meant to her growing up queer. Who she thought Michelle was and how that made her feel. She shared about being chased and threatened for being a dyke and she explained that the statements that were made at Yoshi's were so hurtful because someone she had thought of as an ally, was now saying that God hates her.
Probably a lot of people had that experience last week and it's really sad.
I'm trying to stop reacting and ask more questions, but it's a challenge. There's a reactive mean girl inside of me that would like to kick the Fred Phelps folks in the balls and she's co-existing with the more enlightened wise woman who tries to roll more like Jesus and see the love in all people and things no matter what they are saying and doing that is the opposite.
I truly do believe that in all things the power of love - cliche, I know, but true, so true - can overcome any obstacle. It is profoundly powerful, but for some reason a tough place to live from all the time. The Dalai Lama seems to have it down, but I think he spends a tremendous amount of time meditating and being in the moment.
I aspire to be more like him but honestly it depends on the day. The wise woman who knows what's true and can see love no matter what is having more days than not, which is good because the mean girl is unattractive and unpleasant.
And here I could write something really snarky about Ann Coulter's appearance, but the wise woman just put the mean girl on time out.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The Shocking thing I heard Michelle Shocked say
I woke up the other morning and checked my twitter feed to see a tweet from a good friend that said something about Michelle Shocked turning into a hateful homophobe.
Say what?
Some googling revealed numerous links to all kinds of posts, some written by journalists, that basically said that Michelle Shocked went on stage at Yoshi's in SAN FRANCISCO! and started channeling Fred Phelps, telling people to "go on twitter and say that Michelle Shocked says God hates Faggots."
The tweets about it all were even wilder because when you're limited to 140 characters and you are pissed off and affronted and trying to tweet with a lit torch in your hand there's not much room for more than name calling and belittling.
Over the course of the day on Tuesday her entire tour cancelled and there is a petition currently circulating encouraging promoters all over the world to cancel any future shows due to her "vile anti-gay tirade."
Because I can't help myself I just have to say - this all shocked the shit out me.
While I wouldn't profess to be on a friendship basis with Michelle, we have mutual friends, and I have had the pleasure of spending time with her and talking - in a real way - not in the LA "not really listening because we're scanning the room way." In those conversations I have found her to be authentic in expressing how she feels about life and the living of it. She joyously identifies as a Christian and like my family members who are aligned with the fundamentalist faction of that faith, she talks about it.
I myself have dipped in the Jesus pool which I've previously shared about here and here. There were so many things that I loved about the experience, but the joy found in the singing and hugging could not balance the judgment and fear in the message expressed by and to those who claimed to be saved.
The singing and hugging and feeling of connection did not offset the rhetoric spewed in the literal interpretation of the bible by people who were using those words/stories to create a power platform to exert social controls in ways that, in my opinion, had nothing to do with God or Jesus.
I was 17 when I said, "enough" and discovered joy, singing and hugging with the Grateful Dead.
But, back to Michelle Shocked and her "rant" - an audio recording from an audience member showed up all over the place yesterday so I could hear for myself, not only WHAT she said, but HOW she said it and you can listen to it here.
At this point people have already made their decisions about what she said, and what she meant, and what she thinks and believes - they have written her off as a hater and they are vociferously hating her right back.
What I heard was someone who is deeply connected to a community that is threatened to it's core by the idea of gay marriage - let's face it gay scares a lot of them. When she started talking about the prayer meeting I got a visual of people holding hands and praying to God and Jesus to intervene with the Supreme Court as they review DOMA and Prop. 8 - both are bad legislation paid for by religious groups who have all kinds of faith in God, but still have to hedge their bets by crossing that line that separates church and state. The tide of public opinion is turning (finally) in support of the rights of ALL people who love each other to enter into marriage. Organized religion has always, in my opinion, been a means to control the masses through fear. Losing control scares the crap out of most of us, but particularly those who band together in groups to decide what everyone else should believe (Taliban anyone?)
One thing I remember about being 'born again' is that you are told that you need to proselytize or witness about the Word (that's capitalized because it's that big a deal to these people who are literal interpreters). You want to save others as you've been saved. You want to spread the gospels like Jesus did.
My feeling is that this is where things went wrong at Yoshi's.
I do not believe that the point she wanted to make is that "Once Prop. 8 is instated, and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the ho-mo-sexuals that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back. “ Yes, she said those words, but where she started was at her bible meeting with all the frightened people - "You’ve got to understand how scared folks on that side of the equation are. From their vantage point -- I really shouldn’t say their, because it’s mine, too -- we are near the end of time." Yes, she said those words and yes, she aligned herself with a group that represents in the media, and I'll be honest, in my mind, as a bunch of haters, BUT, the word that I heard was SCARED.
I feel deep compassion for how frightened fundamentalist Christians are as the world is changing. From my perspective their locus of control is externalized in the form of a magical being in the heavens who offers them the reward of eternal life with angelic choirs vs. eternal life in the fiery pit of hell, or you just get left behind in the purgatory that is earth after armegeddon. Michelle called him the "invisible man in the audience". But to get to heaven you gotta follow a lot of rules while you're here and, in my experience, a lot of fundamentalists end up acting like hall monitors for God. Which doesn't make sense because if you really believe that Jesus is coming back to get you then aren't the end times a good thing? If you REALLY believe then why would you be scared of ANYTHING?
Anyway, when she began, I believe that she wanted to talk about compassion for those who are scared, but when she got some less than receptive reaction it sounded to me like she got reactive herself and went off the rails with this statement: "If someone could be so gracious to tweet out, ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage, God hates faggots,’ would you do it now?"
I do not for one minute believe that she was seriously espousing that as her personal belief. I think she was frustrated and disconcerted and quite frankly I think she sucks at extemporaneous speech making and getting defensively sardonic about it is proof that she was not grounded in her message in the first place.
It has got to be incredibly difficult to reconcile progressive ideals (someone who gets arrested on Occupy LA is defnitely aligned with the left) with fundamentalist beliefs; though I've always thought of Jesus as the original radical progressive, but look how that turned out. I believe that while he doesn't agree with the words Sister Shocked uttered on that stage, he does have compassion for what she was trying to say and for where she finds herself today. I believe he also has compassion for those who are mad at her.
I sent Michelle a tweet stating that I felt something was missing from the story because in my experience she is not someone I think of as a hater. Having listened to the audio recording of that night I stand by that statement. She retweeted my tweet and I got tweets from people who really wanted to change my mind. Some were hate-full. When I went and read their twitter feeds it's clear that they are operating in some fairly serious pain (those who name call with the word 'retard' should check themselves before they ever point a finger at anyone else).
Honestly, what makes me feel sad is the knee jerk reaction from so many people and not only their willingness, but their seeming enthusiasm, to see someone so negatively and then effectively crucify her. I see this reflected daily in the larger picture of our world and how we treat each other. Bullying is bullying - it's coming from both the left and right these days (mean is still mean people no matter what you're being mean in the name of) and technology allows us to hurt each other without having to actually witness the fallout from, or take responsibility for, the damage we do. Hateful rhetoric like that expressed by Fred Phelps is deeply offensive and hard to hear, but if your response to it is to be pulled into the angry, frightened energy that it comes from then you're living there too and you are allowing something that is not real to hurt you.
The words are the same but I did not hear Michelle Shocked say those words with the energy or intent that Fred Phelps says them.
If you did it's because you want to.
Regardless, the only good way to respond to hate is with love.
Love is louder, stronger and more enduring than anything else in our lives. Love is the only true thing and that's what I think Michelle believes and feels and lives - she just tripped over the fundamentalism while she was trying to get it out. She's the same fallible human being as the rest of us - and I ain't mad at her.
Say what?
Some googling revealed numerous links to all kinds of posts, some written by journalists, that basically said that Michelle Shocked went on stage at Yoshi's in SAN FRANCISCO! and started channeling Fred Phelps, telling people to "go on twitter and say that Michelle Shocked says God hates Faggots."
The tweets about it all were even wilder because when you're limited to 140 characters and you are pissed off and affronted and trying to tweet with a lit torch in your hand there's not much room for more than name calling and belittling.
Over the course of the day on Tuesday her entire tour cancelled and there is a petition currently circulating encouraging promoters all over the world to cancel any future shows due to her "vile anti-gay tirade."
Because I can't help myself I just have to say - this all shocked the shit out me.
While I wouldn't profess to be on a friendship basis with Michelle, we have mutual friends, and I have had the pleasure of spending time with her and talking - in a real way - not in the LA "not really listening because we're scanning the room way." In those conversations I have found her to be authentic in expressing how she feels about life and the living of it. She joyously identifies as a Christian and like my family members who are aligned with the fundamentalist faction of that faith, she talks about it.
I myself have dipped in the Jesus pool which I've previously shared about here and here. There were so many things that I loved about the experience, but the joy found in the singing and hugging could not balance the judgment and fear in the message expressed by and to those who claimed to be saved.
The singing and hugging and feeling of connection did not offset the rhetoric spewed in the literal interpretation of the bible by people who were using those words/stories to create a power platform to exert social controls in ways that, in my opinion, had nothing to do with God or Jesus.
I was 17 when I said, "enough" and discovered joy, singing and hugging with the Grateful Dead.
But, back to Michelle Shocked and her "rant" - an audio recording from an audience member showed up all over the place yesterday so I could hear for myself, not only WHAT she said, but HOW she said it and you can listen to it here.
At this point people have already made their decisions about what she said, and what she meant, and what she thinks and believes - they have written her off as a hater and they are vociferously hating her right back.
What I heard was someone who is deeply connected to a community that is threatened to it's core by the idea of gay marriage - let's face it gay scares a lot of them. When she started talking about the prayer meeting I got a visual of people holding hands and praying to God and Jesus to intervene with the Supreme Court as they review DOMA and Prop. 8 - both are bad legislation paid for by religious groups who have all kinds of faith in God, but still have to hedge their bets by crossing that line that separates church and state. The tide of public opinion is turning (finally) in support of the rights of ALL people who love each other to enter into marriage. Organized religion has always, in my opinion, been a means to control the masses through fear. Losing control scares the crap out of most of us, but particularly those who band together in groups to decide what everyone else should believe (Taliban anyone?)
One thing I remember about being 'born again' is that you are told that you need to proselytize or witness about the Word (that's capitalized because it's that big a deal to these people who are literal interpreters). You want to save others as you've been saved. You want to spread the gospels like Jesus did.
My feeling is that this is where things went wrong at Yoshi's.
I do not believe that the point she wanted to make is that "Once Prop. 8 is instated, and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the ho-mo-sexuals that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back. “ Yes, she said those words, but where she started was at her bible meeting with all the frightened people - "You’ve got to understand how scared folks on that side of the equation are. From their vantage point -- I really shouldn’t say their, because it’s mine, too -- we are near the end of time." Yes, she said those words and yes, she aligned herself with a group that represents in the media, and I'll be honest, in my mind, as a bunch of haters, BUT, the word that I heard was SCARED.
I feel deep compassion for how frightened fundamentalist Christians are as the world is changing. From my perspective their locus of control is externalized in the form of a magical being in the heavens who offers them the reward of eternal life with angelic choirs vs. eternal life in the fiery pit of hell, or you just get left behind in the purgatory that is earth after armegeddon. Michelle called him the "invisible man in the audience". But to get to heaven you gotta follow a lot of rules while you're here and, in my experience, a lot of fundamentalists end up acting like hall monitors for God. Which doesn't make sense because if you really believe that Jesus is coming back to get you then aren't the end times a good thing? If you REALLY believe then why would you be scared of ANYTHING?
Anyway, when she began, I believe that she wanted to talk about compassion for those who are scared, but when she got some less than receptive reaction it sounded to me like she got reactive herself and went off the rails with this statement: "If someone could be so gracious to tweet out, ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage, God hates faggots,’ would you do it now?"
I do not for one minute believe that she was seriously espousing that as her personal belief. I think she was frustrated and disconcerted and quite frankly I think she sucks at extemporaneous speech making and getting defensively sardonic about it is proof that she was not grounded in her message in the first place.
It has got to be incredibly difficult to reconcile progressive ideals (someone who gets arrested on Occupy LA is defnitely aligned with the left) with fundamentalist beliefs; though I've always thought of Jesus as the original radical progressive, but look how that turned out. I believe that while he doesn't agree with the words Sister Shocked uttered on that stage, he does have compassion for what she was trying to say and for where she finds herself today. I believe he also has compassion for those who are mad at her.
I sent Michelle a tweet stating that I felt something was missing from the story because in my experience she is not someone I think of as a hater. Having listened to the audio recording of that night I stand by that statement. She retweeted my tweet and I got tweets from people who really wanted to change my mind. Some were hate-full. When I went and read their twitter feeds it's clear that they are operating in some fairly serious pain (those who name call with the word 'retard' should check themselves before they ever point a finger at anyone else).
Honestly, what makes me feel sad is the knee jerk reaction from so many people and not only their willingness, but their seeming enthusiasm, to see someone so negatively and then effectively crucify her. I see this reflected daily in the larger picture of our world and how we treat each other. Bullying is bullying - it's coming from both the left and right these days (mean is still mean people no matter what you're being mean in the name of) and technology allows us to hurt each other without having to actually witness the fallout from, or take responsibility for, the damage we do. Hateful rhetoric like that expressed by Fred Phelps is deeply offensive and hard to hear, but if your response to it is to be pulled into the angry, frightened energy that it comes from then you're living there too and you are allowing something that is not real to hurt you.
The words are the same but I did not hear Michelle Shocked say those words with the energy or intent that Fred Phelps says them.
If you did it's because you want to.
Regardless, the only good way to respond to hate is with love.
Love is louder, stronger and more enduring than anything else in our lives. Love is the only true thing and that's what I think Michelle believes and feels and lives - she just tripped over the fundamentalism while she was trying to get it out. She's the same fallible human being as the rest of us - and I ain't mad at her.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Winning like crazy
I've been reading a lot about Lance Armstrong and his upcoming conversation with Oprah. Also out there are interviews with his friends and co-workers who've taken a fall because they tried to tell the truth about what was going on. And then there are the blog posts and tweets from people who so very angry at Lance for not being the white knight he was portrayed to be.
They feel betrayed.
They feel like they've been lied to.
I guess they were and they have, although in my opinion, and it's all just opinions, the person who has probably had the hardest time is Lance himself.
He's had to live this lie for YEARS!
Granted I'm running the scenario through my personal filter and lying is not something I do very well. It makes me cry. I once told a lie to my roommate to get out of a dinner party she was throwing and within 3 hours I was sitting in her room, in tears, confessing everything. It made me sick.
So when I think about Lance living all these years with this HUGE lie I do not know how he was able to breathe, much less sleep. When you add to that the people who cared about him that he threw under the bus, at best, and aggressively attacked and ruined at worst, I cannot imagine how he lived with himself.
And the cancer thing. Since we now know that he's been doping for years, there is a probably a good possibility that the choice to do those drugs may have contributed to the testicular cancer. Now he was much younger when he was diagnosed and he won the battle, but you'd think that in hindsight it would gnaw at him - all those falsely won victories at the price of your balls and almost your life.
On the face of it, it looks as though:
He cheated to win - and if you're cheating you're not really winning, you're just cheating.
He gave himself cancer.
He lied over and over.
He screwed over his friends.
And he kept it all up for years and years.
Perhaps he rationalized it all with the creation of LIVESTRONG. No one denies that this organization does amazing work and is a literal life saver for so many who are facing the toughest battle of their lives, but at the end of the day that's an organization run, not by Armstrong, but by others who believe in what they're doing and back their talk with their walk.
To my mind, there must be something wrong with someone who thinks that because you did a good thing you don't have to be responsible and culpable and APOLOGETIC for the things you've done that were not good.
For the intentionally bad things you have done.
A sane person might be driven crazy by having to keep all that going for 20+ years.
Of course if a person was crazy....
Below is Dr. Robert Hare's psycopathy check list (Rev.), considered the "gold standard" for assessment of psychopathy.
What I would really love to know is where Lance falls on the scale. According to Jon Ronson's book, "The Psychopath Test", many leaders in business and politics are high functioning psychopaths. It would be so interesting to know if Lance is diagnosable.
In some ways, if it turned out he was crazy, that would make everything a bit more palatable for me. I would have more empathy for him and his current situation, because, like the scorpion who kills the turtle that gives him a ride across the river, he is only doing that which is in his nature.
They feel betrayed.
They feel like they've been lied to.
I guess they were and they have, although in my opinion, and it's all just opinions, the person who has probably had the hardest time is Lance himself.
He's had to live this lie for YEARS!
Granted I'm running the scenario through my personal filter and lying is not something I do very well. It makes me cry. I once told a lie to my roommate to get out of a dinner party she was throwing and within 3 hours I was sitting in her room, in tears, confessing everything. It made me sick.
So when I think about Lance living all these years with this HUGE lie I do not know how he was able to breathe, much less sleep. When you add to that the people who cared about him that he threw under the bus, at best, and aggressively attacked and ruined at worst, I cannot imagine how he lived with himself.
And the cancer thing. Since we now know that he's been doping for years, there is a probably a good possibility that the choice to do those drugs may have contributed to the testicular cancer. Now he was much younger when he was diagnosed and he won the battle, but you'd think that in hindsight it would gnaw at him - all those falsely won victories at the price of your balls and almost your life.
On the face of it, it looks as though:
He cheated to win - and if you're cheating you're not really winning, you're just cheating.
He gave himself cancer.
He lied over and over.
He screwed over his friends.
And he kept it all up for years and years.
Perhaps he rationalized it all with the creation of LIVESTRONG. No one denies that this organization does amazing work and is a literal life saver for so many who are facing the toughest battle of their lives, but at the end of the day that's an organization run, not by Armstrong, but by others who believe in what they're doing and back their talk with their walk.
To my mind, there must be something wrong with someone who thinks that because you did a good thing you don't have to be responsible and culpable and APOLOGETIC for the things you've done that were not good.
For the intentionally bad things you have done.
A sane person might be driven crazy by having to keep all that going for 20+ years.
Of course if a person was crazy....
Below is Dr. Robert Hare's psycopathy check list (Rev.), considered the "gold standard" for assessment of psychopathy.
Interpersonal
|
Facet 3 Lifestyle
|
|
What I would really love to know is where Lance falls on the scale. According to Jon Ronson's book, "The Psychopath Test", many leaders in business and politics are high functioning psychopaths. It would be so interesting to know if Lance is diagnosable.
In some ways, if it turned out he was crazy, that would make everything a bit more palatable for me. I would have more empathy for him and his current situation, because, like the scorpion who kills the turtle that gives him a ride across the river, he is only doing that which is in his nature.
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Checking in
It's a new year so I'm checking in with the intention of writing more regularly.
Except that I've been really sad since the Newtown shooting. It's like reliving the loss of Laura all over again.
The empty seat at the table, the hole in your life, that's forever even though life does go on. My thoughts have been with all of the families who've lost someone to gun violence, but my imagination has been in the houses in Newtown as those people had to negotiate the holidays and, literally and figuratively, the longest nights.
I want to write about my thoughts and feelings, but not in a melodramatic wail which is where I went in those first days, and not from a dark place of helplessness, although that is a completely appropriate place to be when 20 children and six adults are gunned down while doing their day.
I'd like to have a conversation about how we make it different and about how we all deal with sadness and anger and fear.
But I'm still so sad it's hard to take a breath.
On the lighter side I'm writing about only good things over here: yumyumgivemesome.blogspot.com
Wishing the whole world a new year filled with some of the best days ever.
Except that I've been really sad since the Newtown shooting. It's like reliving the loss of Laura all over again.
The empty seat at the table, the hole in your life, that's forever even though life does go on. My thoughts have been with all of the families who've lost someone to gun violence, but my imagination has been in the houses in Newtown as those people had to negotiate the holidays and, literally and figuratively, the longest nights.
I want to write about my thoughts and feelings, but not in a melodramatic wail which is where I went in those first days, and not from a dark place of helplessness, although that is a completely appropriate place to be when 20 children and six adults are gunned down while doing their day.
I'd like to have a conversation about how we make it different and about how we all deal with sadness and anger and fear.
But I'm still so sad it's hard to take a breath.
On the lighter side I'm writing about only good things over here: yumyumgivemesome.blogspot.com
Wishing the whole world a new year filled with some of the best days ever.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
WHAT PEOPLE DO...
Guns don't kill people - people kill people. We hear it all the time.
Guns don't kill people - people kill people. We hear it all the time.
This is true, but when someone takes a gun and kills one of your people, it's difficult not to go to that place of being very angry about the easy availability of guns in this country.
It's also easy to take the anger and frustration secondary to fear and grief and get into an argument with a gun nut who responds to public massacres with great defensiveness and bombastic rhetoric about how far fewer innocents would have been killed or wounded had average citizens on site been armed and able to shoot back.
Because don't you know we're all crack shots when we're scared and under fire by a psychotic in body armor who's planned an attack in the last place you would ever expect something like that to happen. This sounds like the story my 8 year old neighbor told me on 9/12/2001 about how if he'd been in New York, and he'd had a fighter jet, he would have stopped the planes that crashed into the towers.
People walking around with loaded guns would only equal more gun deaths. The armed neighborhood watch of George Zimmerman is a tragic illustration of my point.
Yesterday morning I woke up to news of the massacre in the theater in Aurora Colorado and the coverage that has continued ever since.
As a nation we have been through this so many times: The McDonalds Shooting in 1984, The Luby's massacre in 1991, Columbine in 1999, The Amish School Shooting in 2006, Virginia Tech 2007.
Every time it happens the experience is the same - the news coverage, national or local, is constant and we watch it obsessively wanting to make sense of the senseless. It's something that happens in another town to other people and you feel sad and maybe you cry, but then you need to go to work or take care of your kids, and life goes on.
It's tragic, but it seems remote because it's happening to someone else.
It IS remote until someone you know goes to a restaurant, goes to school, goes to work, goes to the mall or goes to a movie and doesn't come home because they've been shot and killed by another someone who decided they were going to use their guns to vent their frustration, anger, mental illness, etc.
On October 12, just days after her birthday, five months after her wedding, my friend Laura went to work at Salon Meritage in Seal Beach.
That afternoon she stood begging for her life, before being shot and killed by a guy armed with three hand guns, wearing body armor, who'd come to the salon to kill his wife, one of Laura's co-workers. By the time she came face to face with him he'd already shot her mother Hattie and 6 other people who were either working at the salon, or had come in to get their hair done. He shot these people at close range, pulling the trigger for two minutes, reloading once and using at least 2 of the 3 guns he brought with him. As he left the building he shot and killed a man who had pulled into the parking lot with plans to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant.
I had a busy day that day. I'd been so busy that I hadn't looked at the internet and hadn't had time to answer my phone, so at 10pm when I was listening to my voicemail I had a hard time understanding what my friend Natalie, one of my oldest friends, and Laura's sister, was saying on the message she'd left me at 3:00pm.
Her voice trembling, obviously trying to keep her shit together she said, "I'm on my way to Memorial Hospital. Laura is one of the survivors of the salon shooting in Seal Beach. Turn on the news. Call me as soon as you get this message."
I turned on the news just as the 10 o'clock hour was beginning with a helicopter shot from earlier in the day of police activity n the parking lot, people holding each other in tears, news reporters standing with the chaos in the background, a picture of the perpetrator who had been apprehended and surrendered, then back to the anchors in the studio with the chilling news that two of the survivors taken to hospital have died.
When I reached Natalie she told me that their mother Hattie was the only one who survived, that Laura was dead and her body still at the scene. She told me about getting to the hospital and being taken into the chapel where the police give them what little information there was. This is where she finds out that her mother was in the salon and that Laura has been killed.
In the days following there is shock and grieving. Family and friends gather together and numbly cling to each other trying find a way to stay sane. There is going to view Laura's body in the morgue. There is Hattie coming home from the hospital. There is taking care of Ron, Laura's husband. There is going to court for the arraignment of the shooter. There is meeting with the District Attorney and getting more information. There is talking to psychologists to try to process what happened. There is reconstructive surgery on Hattie's shattered arm. At the end of June there is the paddle out of Laura's ashes.
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This is happening to people I know - there is nothing remote about it. It will never be remote again because now, every time this happens, you cannot help but relive the horror and shock of losing someone you know and love this way.
In Colorado there will be vigils and memorials and funerals and we will learn about the people who were killed yesterday. We will hear from survivors and witnesses. We will learn more about the shooter. We will try to figure out why he did this although we all know he is one seriously messed up soul
And then life will go on until this happens again.
But it is not remote. Although this is a deviation from what we think of as normal it is becoming part of a norm that we are in denial about. The fact that Jessica Ghawi, one of the victims yesterday, narrowly missed a shooting at a shopping mall in Toronto last month, is evidence that something is very, very wrong in this world and it is getting closer and closer to each one of us.
It doesn't make any sense. It is insanity manifesting and expressing in the actions of an individual and affecting all of us. The guns and ammunition used in Seal Beach and in Aurora were purchased legally. Would gun laws have stopped Scott Dekraai who vented his rage on innocent people? Would it have stopped James Holmes? It's hard to say. Guns will always be available to those who want them. They might have to pay more for them on the black market but they will still get them if they want them bad enough.
The shooters - the people who use the guns to kill the innocent people at the movies, or at the hair salon, or at the restaurant or the mall - these people are sick and deranged and up until the moment they snap they very often are living among us with no criminal record, no aberrant behavior. After the fact people will say, "he was quiet", "he was a loner", "he seemed like a nice guy." Rarely is this individual the career criminal that most gun rights people want to arm themselves against.
My thoughts and prayers are with all of the people impacted by the events in Aurora, and with all of us in this country that seems to be arming itself to the teeth, because it is no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when gun violence will intimately touch our individual lives.
We live in a country where people buy guns and shoot people who are at work, or school, the mall, the hair salon or the movies.
That's what people do.
And it's tragic.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
DARK SHADOWS - at least the special effects are improved...
Back in 1968 I was a HUGE fan of Dark Shadows. I would come home from school and sneak over to the next door neighbor's house to watch it with Janice. She was a teenager and I was in second grade.
I remember sitting in the armchair in the den and the second that eerie theme music started I would tuck my legs up under me and try to keep my shit together because Barnabas Collins, in all that fog, scared me to death and appeared in my frequent nightmares.
Years later when I watched reruns on some random cable station I laughed at the clumsy production and overwrought acting - even for a soap opera it was way over the top.
So last night when I attended a screening of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp, I was really looking forward to see what kind of fun would be had with such rich and cheesy material.
As usual, with a Tim Burton film, it was visually amazing. The production design, art direction and special effects were spectacular. The casting combined with the costumes, hair and make up was spot on, especially Dr. Hoffman, the scheming psychiatrist and Roger, the disgruntled brother.
The issue was the story and the script. It wasn't that great. I'm sorry, it just wasn't. Don't get me wrong, there were great lines, and given what they were working with the performances were good, but I was ready to go home after 90 minutes and the movie went on for another 25 minutes.
I haven't read any reviews so maybe it's just me and my affection for the original that's disappointed, but I'm really glad I didn't fork over $15 to see the movie. That said it was nice to fondly remember all the gothic shmaltzy horror of my afternoons with Dark Shadows.
RIP Jonathan Frid.
Back in 1968 I was a HUGE fan of Dark Shadows. I would come home from school and sneak over to the next door neighbor's house to watch it with Janice. She was a teenager and I was in second grade.
I remember sitting in the armchair in the den and the second that eerie theme music started I would tuck my legs up under me and try to keep my shit together because Barnabas Collins, in all that fog, scared me to death and appeared in my frequent nightmares.
Years later when I watched reruns on some random cable station I laughed at the clumsy production and overwrought acting - even for a soap opera it was way over the top.
So last night when I attended a screening of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp, I was really looking forward to see what kind of fun would be had with such rich and cheesy material.
As usual, with a Tim Burton film, it was visually amazing. The production design, art direction and special effects were spectacular. The casting combined with the costumes, hair and make up was spot on, especially Dr. Hoffman, the scheming psychiatrist and Roger, the disgruntled brother.
The issue was the story and the script. It wasn't that great. I'm sorry, it just wasn't. Don't get me wrong, there were great lines, and given what they were working with the performances were good, but I was ready to go home after 90 minutes and the movie went on for another 25 minutes.
I haven't read any reviews so maybe it's just me and my affection for the original that's disappointed, but I'm really glad I didn't fork over $15 to see the movie. That said it was nice to fondly remember all the gothic shmaltzy horror of my afternoons with Dark Shadows.
RIP Jonathan Frid.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
MAD MAN
It's spring and that means it's time to get Pete, my big black pussycat, shaved for the summer.
He's a rescue and of indeterminate breed, but he's got a ton of hair and despite best attempts to groom him every day - oh the drama when he spies the Furminator - beginning each April there is a frosting of black hair all over my house. That which doesn't shed off him stays behind to make lots of mats.
He's like a husky, feline Bob Marley with tiny dreadlocks and anxiety issues.
Yesterday he went in to The Best Little Cat House to get his annual Go-Go Lion Cut,and when he got home I noticed that they had given him a little Mad Men tie.
Which is appropriate because he got really mad when I started laughing at him.
It's spring and that means it's time to get Pete, my big black pussycat, shaved for the summer.
He's a rescue and of indeterminate breed, but he's got a ton of hair and despite best attempts to groom him every day - oh the drama when he spies the Furminator - beginning each April there is a frosting of black hair all over my house. That which doesn't shed off him stays behind to make lots of mats.
He's like a husky, feline Bob Marley with tiny dreadlocks and anxiety issues.
Yesterday he went in to The Best Little Cat House to get his annual Go-Go Lion Cut,and when he got home I noticed that they had given him a little Mad Men tie.
Which is appropriate because he got really mad when I started laughing at him.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Moving On
The small business that I have been working for the last 6 years is closing and I will be moving on.
This is simultaneously producing feelings of anxiety and anticipatory excitement.
Anxcitement.
I'm terrified to be out there looking for work in an economy that is less than robust and where I am competing with people who are much younger. There is an age bias in our culture and although I don't look old, I am older and I know it matters.
There's also excitement because I would love be in a position where I'm not stressing about cash flow and wondering how we're going to make payroll, or where the money is going to come from to pay the huge insurance bills. The cost of doing business began to consume every bit of profit.
At some point you have to draw the line in the sand and say - "enough" - because it gets to a place where you're not only not making money, you're paying to not make a profit.
So as I'm closing the business which is exhausting and trying and sad, I'm also beginning the search for new work. I love beginnings of anything because you can bring all of your ideals and perfect visions and focus on the qualities that you really want to experience.
My issue is that at the same time I'm consumed with the fear that I will end up with a shopping cart like so many people I see every day down in Santa Monica. People my age or a bit older who are not raving mad and talking to themselves, but who are clean and healthy and who probably were living indoors a year or two ago.
Friends have been out of work for more than 2 years. When I listen to the news and they report jobs numbers it doesn't sound very encouraging. When I look at what's available in the want ads it feels like I would be stepping right back into the kind of mind numbing work that contributed to the depression I have just slipped off.
Moving on is something I'm looking forward to - I enjoy change and I'm making a list of all of the things I'd love to get paid to do at work, like read, write, work with others on a project that we all contribute to and make fantastic and while we're at it the project will bring great value to the world.... or at least make people laugh.
Already I've learned to ask for help and to say out loud all those things that scare me about an unknown future. I'm learning to embrace change, although sometimes it feels more like getting mugged by change. It's all happening and it's going to happen whether I want it or not.
Might as well focus on creating everything I want instead of fighting to keep everything that I've been complaining about for the last two years.
Moving on can be bitter sweet, but mostly it's a good thing.
The small business that I have been working for the last 6 years is closing and I will be moving on.
This is simultaneously producing feelings of anxiety and anticipatory excitement.
Anxcitement.
I'm terrified to be out there looking for work in an economy that is less than robust and where I am competing with people who are much younger. There is an age bias in our culture and although I don't look old, I am older and I know it matters.
There's also excitement because I would love be in a position where I'm not stressing about cash flow and wondering how we're going to make payroll, or where the money is going to come from to pay the huge insurance bills. The cost of doing business began to consume every bit of profit.
At some point you have to draw the line in the sand and say - "enough" - because it gets to a place where you're not only not making money, you're paying to not make a profit.
So as I'm closing the business which is exhausting and trying and sad, I'm also beginning the search for new work. I love beginnings of anything because you can bring all of your ideals and perfect visions and focus on the qualities that you really want to experience.
My issue is that at the same time I'm consumed with the fear that I will end up with a shopping cart like so many people I see every day down in Santa Monica. People my age or a bit older who are not raving mad and talking to themselves, but who are clean and healthy and who probably were living indoors a year or two ago.
Friends have been out of work for more than 2 years. When I listen to the news and they report jobs numbers it doesn't sound very encouraging. When I look at what's available in the want ads it feels like I would be stepping right back into the kind of mind numbing work that contributed to the depression I have just slipped off.
Moving on is something I'm looking forward to - I enjoy change and I'm making a list of all of the things I'd love to get paid to do at work, like read, write, work with others on a project that we all contribute to and make fantastic and while we're at it the project will bring great value to the world.... or at least make people laugh.
Already I've learned to ask for help and to say out loud all those things that scare me about an unknown future. I'm learning to embrace change, although sometimes it feels more like getting mugged by change. It's all happening and it's going to happen whether I want it or not.
Might as well focus on creating everything I want instead of fighting to keep everything that I've been complaining about for the last two years.
Moving on can be bitter sweet, but mostly it's a good thing.
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