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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| I began the month with the intention of letting my kids put a paper chain up to countdown the days until Christmas. Well, several days passed before I got the supplies together at home. (I'd begun one at work when a desperation for something to decorate the gray panels of my cubicle struck me on a slow morning). I brokered a deal with my youngest, when neither of my children were taking up the task with a furvor. For several days, I said, we could count UP and add one link a day (perhaps we'd get over ourselves soon enough and find the time to paste enough together to get the job done right!) Sunday, on the way out the door for church, I finally snatched the glue off my desk (for the Scotch tape already went missing) and applied enough looped strips of paper to make it a proper advent countdown calendar. At dinnertime, my daughter asked if she could tear off the night's loop. But this control maniac denied the request and said the proper time was at bedtime. So, now it's quite some time past both children's bedtime and I'm just realizing that the loop was never removed. Sigh. |
| My Foundations of Science of Mind class continues on through topics that seem to bring me more to a place of questioning than answering. My teacher notes this may not be a bad thing. Abundance, Forgiveness, now Immortality...I can't say the topics have become progressively more difficult to deal with...I am more at ease this week. My beliefs about Life, Death and Eternity are comfortable to poke around and even question. I think one area of concern comes from considering my own trepidation about dying. I just hate the idea of leaving this existence before connecting with a good amount of people. Dustin Hoffman is currently speaking on Dave Letterman about Spaghetti Surprizo, a recipe from a Sicilian prostitute — strangely, I can make a connection even with it being a distractor. I was lucky to visit with my friend, Rick, today. I've never told him this, but he resembles Dustin Hoffman. That, in itself, is not important (just making that far-reaching connection). Do we get to create characters in stories, meet people that resemble or remind us of others, obsess over the ones one will probably never meet in person for a reason? To artificially expand our limited capability to meet as many people as there are out there? I just realized that it's after midnight here. My feelings on my friendships and what they mean in the scope of eternity, I guess, will just have to wait. |
| My husband and I were just watching a commercial for a cable channel airing of Dawn of the Dead — zombie film. He says to me, "They're living challenged!" His humor really gets me sometimes. I think he's been reading quite a bit of Piers Anthony lately. That can definately tune up your funny bone. I've been having to explore my beliefs about abundance. Do I have an abundance of fun and humor in my household. No doubt. Do I drag home enough cash to cover all the necessities of my family. The appearance is Yes, and that's a problem. Do I sound like a Magic Eight Ball? Yeah. That's one of my coping mechanisms, I think. I spew gobblety-gook, any ol' string of words. |
| A day off from work is not supposed to feel like this, I think. And despite the fact that the day-off was taken to accommodate several (routine) doctors appointments, my insides feeling tied up in knots really had nothing to do with any physical poking and prodding. Instead it is from the discomfort I feel in facing my own beliefs about finances. Today, I have been edgy, juggling my funds from one account to another. That's a usual occurance, a habit I'm trying to normalize and automate. Really, just a good surplus of funds would eliminate my insanity. My focus of self-discovery is on the idea of abundance this week, so all kinds of things are bubbling up. Being supplied by God and having a fulfilled serene state from such is the main goal. It starts in belief. The question I keep coming up against is why my belief is limited in this area. I'm really too distracted to expand further on this right now. Earlier I was trying to find ways to think this all through rather than cry. Just for fun, I think I will try to let my rage over limitation out in something written. I guess I'm feeling too shy to cut loose in my blog, however. |
| Sometimes you have to start with where you are before you go all out making wishes. I got to spend a very creative number of hours with other women from church today. We prayed, meditated, laid out goals and desires in a very visual way, and broadly honored each other in the attempts. We made collages of beautiful magazine images and pubset headings and phrases that illustrated our own experiences or possibilities. Some mapped out paths, complete with sandy footprints, shoes, radiating ribbons or sparklies. I have to say, I was proud of a basic achievement — I had an inspiration for how I wanted my creation to look far in advance of setting to work on it. I gathered all of my colorful paper snippets into the shape of an ancient feminine statue. And I worked from the center out to fill in every scrap of space in my chosen 2-D form. Childbearing hips and outstretched arms — and lest I forget, a head on well-developed shoulders? No, of course, I did not forget that important feminine feature. A thinking mind is one of my better features, even if I say so myself. (My husband will back me up on that one.) I could probably spend quite a bit of time describing all its significance to me. Yet I ultimately decided that it represented me as I am in this moment. If the goal of the activity was to dream for the moon, I did little of that — even where money and stability are concerned. No imaginings for a paid-off house with a three-car garage and limitless pennies from Heaven. I could use those things, but they didn't manifest in what I ended up examining today. I wonder about that. And a true treasure map may still have to be constructed. Instead a have a me in the form of ancient self-knowingness with the phrase, "This has fun" and "Pure." swimming in the mindscape. |
| I'm proud of my minister and church family. For the next seven weeks, she will be leading all those attending in going deeper. She has provided a lesson book based on our teachings and incorporating wisdom from her wide-spread reading and visits with spiritual leaders she has "apprenticed" with in 2006. Most recently she attended a gathering in Los Angeles with the Dalai Lama. I am excited to stay committed to her plan for our community's expansion in 2007. It's all going to start with my own acceptance and spiritual expansion. |
| Hmmmm, I'd have to go back and read in my own blog what inspired me to start up submitting to the blog again. It's like the blocks to financial abundance that I'm currently noting and trying to conquer -- I do well for a short while, then I allow myself to fall into past habits. I did do one extremely good thing for myself in the past two weeks. I joined a Curves women's gym. It has caused me to get up and not be so sedentary. |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life." I have this in mind as a way of positively reflecting upon my grandfather's way in life. |
| It has to have been a couple of years ago now that it was said, but I just reconnected with a former co-worker and it reminded me of a simple, yet transforming moment. A picture of my husband captured at one of my children's birthday parties was one among many I had collaged together in a pin-up at work. This co-worker, who also happened to be seated closest to me at the time, glanced at it and stated that my husband resembled Russell Crowe. It had always seemed to me a rather unflattering picture, but one of only a very few that I had of him that was remotely current. I wasn't impressed with the composition of the picture, as it showed too much of the clutter, or at least, lack of style in the room. My husband was both unshaved and wearing a Safari hat (a cheap straw party hat in keeping with the 'bug hunt' theme of my son's party). He was just caught unawares, no pose, no smile. They say women can look at a man's face and gauge his testosterone levels. (This is swiped off a current Kaiser Permanente radio spot, I have not been reading the Science or Medical Journals). It sounds logical to me. Is this how certain actors end up on the Most Sexy lists year after year? My point is, as much as a clean cut, 'Bud White' rage portrayed by Russell Crowe, or a commanding, yet pensive 'Maximus' portrayed by Russell Crowe existed in my fantasies...My husband literally did look to me like Russell Crowe in that picture. Did I even consider it before? You can only recognize how full of yourself you may have become when someone else can point out something like that. Something to which you are astonished to agree is true and dumbfounded at why you never saw it yourself. |
| Quirky, sometimes all I can write in this blog is some quirky thing that pops into my head at the moment. The calendar for blog entries may look a bit sparse, however I defend my muse by pointing out that I've made several consecutive entries in my active notebook. (That would be my personal, travels with me in the physical world, notebook.) Sorry, not alway available reading. I can note that my title to this entry has to do with spending my final graveyard shift with a great set of co-workers. Oral surgery and graphic design in the late-night hours of the same day, really do not mix, Man. That's all I'm going to say. It's enough to jar my memory. Possible the select few who overheard the same quirky commentary. But how likely is it any of those people will ever, ever read this? |
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