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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. |
| You know, it seems to me, that maybe in the last few decades, we've gone too far in expecting compliance, even silence in regard to what we see in our corporate and government environs. Confidential ethics hotlines are set up for corporate whistleblowers. Children are taught, "Don’t talk to strangers!" That evolves into the young recruit being told to consider, "Don’t ask, Don’t tell." And from further back than my grandparents, (probably further back than just the Victorian Era) "Don’t speak unless spoken to" and "They should be seen and not heard." Has America’s Twenty-first Century citizenry become the silenced children? How viewing habits and entertainment has taken the voice from me and you |
| I'm insane. really, I've known this for quite some time. I'm over-committed to all these great organizations. For more than one, it involves me being in charge of a roster of children. Tonight was a full-blown Pack meeting for Cub Scouts. To show how truly insane I am, I lead the Pack and currently have only one other adult that backs me up. This means all ages from 1st grade through 4th grade are with me at one table. I've got maybe 8 boys that want to give their version of something when I ask for an answer. Usually, once the talking starts, no one wants to give up the floor. Me particularly. Boredom as in she's acting like my teacher settles in, no matter if we're talking about fire safety or the kind of weapons a pirate uses. I had a tag variation written down in my notes, but darn it, I never got to that. I would have needed 2 hours of time to stuff everything in. After 3/4 of the hour, my voice was already shot. |
| How did it get to be the Tenth already? I guess being a little under the weather will do that to you. I pushed my body then crashed. I just gotta stop being around people and their germs. You really don't want details about being mildly sick. Just agree with me that it's worse that being full-blown sick. |
My musical needs have been met big-time this year. I'm sure it's not over yet, just as the year is not over yet. (Really, the commercials will be time warping you to After-Christmas sales before you know it, but there's at least 10 weeks left in 2005!) Anyway, through the grace of volunteer work and being connected to a major media outlet, I was able to take my daughter (*gratis*)  to see the opening night performance of "Annie" at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles.I tried to do the right thing (it's Rideshare Week in L.A.) and add a cool factor to our outing, by trying to park remotely and ride the subway. I was foiled at nearly every effort for that to work out fiscally and logically. Ended up driving and getting into Hollywood easily and parking fabulously close. The true cool factor I remembered had more to do with the theater experience rather than how we were to arrive and return home safely. Showing off the beauty of the Pantages architectural details was both immediately admired and quickly dismissed by my daughter. Heck, she's only a first grader. I had my first taste of the Pantages at about age twelve. I could have stared at the ceiling of that movie palace all day and night. And at that tender age, I think I saw "A Chorus Line," which definitely has some numbers that raise eyebrows and drop jaws! And about a year later, I returned to see Richard Burton in the role of King Arthur in "Camelot." Thank you National Honor Society, or donations, fundraising, etc. that made those experiences possible for me back then! So, I was ripe to have this experience be memorable for my daughter. The best thing was being totally relaxed in the maintanence of only one companion. Maybe you have to be a mom of more than one child, or someone that works every night in a team environment, cranking out content, in order to understand what I mean. Yes, she was full of observations, questions and even fears, but at least I only had to direct my attention to her, and her alone. There's also a few lessons I have to get cracking on with her. One, cross your ankles or sit in some other ladylike fashion when wearing a dress; especially when sitting in a patio chair along Hollywood Blvd. The other is more broadbased - It's a lesson I need to ease her into. I already recognize a maniacal need in her to direct and have concern over her immediate environment. (In other words, she likes to tell people what to do, and how to do it proper.) People with cel phones to their heads in cars, kids peering into the orchestra pit, anyone breaking a rule that she herself just overheard laid out should beware! She was a little edgy about the usher's job. (OT, but: Believe it or not, I think she still is mad at the usher who thwarts Peter Parker's attempt to see MJ's performance on stage! [Spiderman 2].) Difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy? Yep, but she's young still, I don't think our fanatical viewing habits of popular media have scarred her too badly just yet. I'm going to ramble some about the best features of this particular production. For me, they all happened after Intermission. It's good for me to express this, because my daughter stayed awake, but was less enthralled by the whole theater experience in the final 5 scenes. (That is, except when the dog shows up at the end.) For me, it was the opposite. The opening of Act Two had great irony given the media embedded audience. Some great "I hate my boss" shtick was being played out as the radio station "sound guy" gave the radio personality only a blip's-worth of applause (several times). There was some "radio days" farce that was layered in that only well-read adults would really get. I'm thinking there weren't many audience members old enough to clue-in on the novel blindfolded announcer and bombshell "jingle" singers; (who were posing and putting on dress gloves for their big number). Hah! It's radio. The ensemble of orphan girls have their best number of the night in the reprise of "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile." Otherwise, I'm with Miss Hannigan on the topic of "Little Girls," because, unfortunately, in all their other ensemble numbers, it was a bit too screechy for me. I did not like the theatricality of FDR's wheelchair-bound portrayl, but that wasn't actor Allen Barker's fault. Schuck's Warbucks, Broadhurst's Grace and Melissa O'Donnell as Annie were the most versatile performers, both as they orbited each other, and apart. Anyone cast as vile Miss Hannigan, in my opinion, has the best material to work with in this musical, so it's more difficult to distinguish whether wild applause for her efforts is due so much to the actor's craft. The child that aptly mimicked Miss Hannigan at several opportunities was grandly nailing it. |
| Ack! the computer clock just - just tapped over to 9:00 pm, so I missed my attempt to get a sliver of insight onto the blog. I guess I'll have to settle for a spotty calendar. |
| I literally have a dresser drawer that was holding as much paperwork as I could stuff away into it over the course of (at least)a year. Mostly, it was the bills, like utility bills that I'd paid, but couldn't be bothered to file neatly (or even unneatly) in a file cabinet. You have to visualize the state of the office that houses the file cabinet to understand. Having said that, I'm guessing you already understand. The layering of important with unimportant (or at least important no longer) is always such an interesting archeological-like excavation. Such was my duty today to find one piece of banking information and the bottom of my dresser drawer. |
| I can remember how over-the-top in love I once was over Star Wars. I watched the original tonight with my nearly-teenaged son. He noted how he had only sat and watched passively before. Tonight he was paying attention to dialog and plot points that (tenuously) tie to the Star Wars episodes that his generation is most familiar. Both my son and daughter had re-watched Episode One this afternoon, so questions throughout the Main Title of the original were a little more than annoying. However, I was watching the ol' favorite with new eyes and ears too. After awhile, I could only MST3K the original Star Wars acting and dialog, and question "the genius" of George Lucas. I couldn't shake the feeling of how dated the editing and effects seem 30 years after their conception. It's got to be the television, not me. I need a big screen TV! And I'm not saying Lucas was right to redo effects, either. This is a movie I used to have fully memorized - and thought it was cool that the droids were the connecting thread for the telling of the story. Duh, now I'm just rambling, and I've forgotten what point I was going to make. |
| This is going to nbe a VERY blanket VERY vague statement to make, but I just thought of it on the way to work, and it seems to be essentially true. (I don't yet know what it means really, but it's there anyway). When I was a child, and my parents were together (although the glue holding them in place was always strained), I believe I looked to my Dad for the cash and my Mom for the company. There was a desert period after they divorced, when I was in college and planning to get married and my parents lived distant places from my wanderings. I still loved both of them, of course, but was finding ways to be comfortable with their lives being separate from mine. Now, I think it is strange that we're all in closer proximity now, but the needs I look to each for has reversed (for the most part) Mom is the one to approach for a loan, Dad is the most consistant company. I don't know if either one would laugh or cry over this observation. I do not mean any of it in a greedy, ungrateful, spiteful way at all. I'm not judging capability to fill those functions, either. Both are capable in those areas, certainly it's just my perception. As it was in the beginning, and as it is now, it was never a contest - just perception. |
| I should definitely see this as a demonstration. I made one determination early on in the year - I wanted to go to the Hollywood Bowl because I never had been to any performance at the Hollywood Bowl. I went to 5 after I let my desire become Word. I also sang in front of two audiences this year. Last night I watched my cousin perform her songs live - what a treat. Now I need to pull up her initial albums, I loved everything she sang so much. What else could I and should I accomplish? Mind-boggling. |
| I've had the luck of always having my calls to jury service be 8 hour reading and writing fests interrupted only by a lunch period (and, once by a bomb scare, in addition). Some might call this good, some bad. I expect the next year I get called the odds are likely to break this peculiar stretch. I think of myself as an average citizen, who's nicely versed in American judicial process, history, and the nit-picky stuff like handling the flag properly. (Maybe that's not so average). But I'm a wise user of my time, usually. My need to learn about things at least keeps me busy reading. What my hands are doing most of the time is an arrangement between me and Satan exclusively (That's a joke, son. Old, cliched and rewrittten, but, in Truth, a joke.) I could have wiled-away my hours knitting, but knitting needles are now considered too hazardous to be entrusted to your average citizen. I suppose that sharpened pencil at the bottom of my bag doesn't count as a terrorist's tool. Hmmm, I wonder if its threat level would've gone up if I'd had two? Or would I have had to been carrying two and a ball of Cashmere? I was warned on the phone. I didn't even bring a pointy carrot stick in my lunch. The answer to my opening question - What did I write during jury duty? Not much. Mostly, I listed out my fixed and varible expenses for the month. I do this pretty consistantly, (every month), particularly when there's no money left in my account and the pay hasn't changed. I don't know why I can't be as consistant at keeping every day's expenditures documented. After admitting there's a debt problem, that's supposed to be the first step to wrangling a solution. Perhaps related to this, I began listing out the areas for improvement in the department I work in, while at the same time, listing my own strengths and weaknesses for any other employer that will take me. Planning the strategy for negotiating the salary I'm worth along the way. Finally, disgusted with my own egotism, I read the entire California section of the paper. Trying to sneak a look over the shoulder of the bus passenger in front of me that morning only gave me a taste of the headlines. Steve Lopez was brilliant yesterday. One reason I'd hate to not be affiliated with the Times anymore, but then, jumping ship could allow me to afford buying the paper. It's not that the per paper cost or even a subscription are unreasonably high, I just want it at my leisure, rather than obsessing over my variable expenses. I kept up my strength by taking a walk up from the courthouse, enjoying a bowl of Tortilla Soup at the Courtyard Cafe within the compound containing the new Cathedral for Our Lady of City of the Angels. I found it to be a very modern, museum-quality beauty. The huge bronze doors that I exited, when I determined it was time to return to work at hand, were a bit frightening to me. Too many movies. They seemed apocalyptic. I could only imagine them being bolted closed to keep parishoners in and the unsavory out. I know that's not the intent; everything else about the entire place was very welcoming and inclusive. Like I said, too much stupid Hollywood in my psyche. After lunch, I did even less. I read the September issue of Working Mother cover to cover. I definitely think the slant is East Coast and fast-track career. One reader sent in a letter to the editor that susinctly said, I'm a single working mother raising 4 kids, and I don't think your articles are very helpful to people that are without the financial resources to just buy their way out of a situation. That's the truth, Sister! I don't think there's a magazine out there that does. From someone who gets magazine reading done in the doctor's waiting room, the budget haircut shop's lobby, the jury assembly room or the public library, I don't fit their criteria either. We don't subscribe because that's a luxury. Subscribers and casual readers are the advertising targets (actually, stressed out, guilty-feeling wives and mothers are the true bull's eye). After all this deep thought, my service is over for the day. I am released. What to do now? |
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