Saturday, December 31, 2005

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets." -Old Rose, "Titanic"

"Titanic" has been running on cable incessantly for weeks, now, and it has been underscoring my New Year's Eve afternoon loft activities. Gloria Stuart's character spoke this line shortly before she secretly let the diamond slip from her fingers into the ocean. Hearing the line prompted me to think that one might wonder from reading this blog if I have spilled all the secrets from my heart.

Oh, no. Not by the longest of shots.

And now, Lulu and I will brave the deluge to pick up various provisions and assorted New Year's Eve treats...list of which I'll keep a secret.

"I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it was offered." -Robert Louis Stevenson


So, Lulu and I ventured out into the delicious drizzle this morning. Undeterred by precipitation, we left for the Not A Cornfield at around 9a, making our usual stop at the Little Toyko Starbucks. She understands completely that I must have my triple venti latte for the trek around the track.

As I waited for my fuel, I heard a familiar sound in the room: a most distinctive guitar, playing prominently in a 1940's orchestra. I didn't recognize the tune, but I knew the player -- it was my dad, kicking ass at about 17 with the NBC Orchestra in Chicago. Someone in Starbucks' long music arm has great taste; I hear Dad every year on the original versions of "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" -- but this was so random and cool. I leaned against the wall and listened, thinking that no one could possibly know it was my father providing a little soundtrack for their morning caffeine. A Japanese couple reading the paper. A teenaged boy with his face in a laptop. A couple of cops from the local precinct.

Then I saw a handsome Hispanic man, maybe in his late 20's, tapping his foot to the rhythm and fingering an invisible guitar neck. He was playing along with Dad! I couldn't resist; I walked over to him, smiled, and said quietly, "That's my father playing guitar." His eyes widened and sparkled. "Really? What's his name?" I told him. He said, "He's great!" I agreed, of course, and suggested he Google him. I asked if he played professionally. He said he did, in fact he was on his way to the studio to record. And that he couldn't wait to find out more about this incredible guitarist he'd first heard about in a Downtown Starbucks from the musician's daughter. But this stuff happens to me all the time. His art is immortal. I fucking love that.

"We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love...."

"...it is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."
-William Somerset Maugham

Former lover A would scoff heartily and bitterly at Maugham. His bottom-line assertion was, "People don't change." Then he'd temper it with, "Not that much." I wish he and I could speak again. I'd like to find out if, after almost 4 years, he'd now subscribe to Maugham's above-quoted belief. Of course, that would mean he'd changed...at least a little. Especially tough for a Cuban Catholic boy. I always responded to A with my own observation, that there are things about themselves people can change...and there is the essence of the person that never changes. When two people are so similar at their respective cores, when there is true empathy for the gifts and flaws, the healthy and the wounded, that, I think, is where they experience true love.

He and I had these conversations in the midst of our tumultuous 2-year relationship, during which he was angry with himself for making the wrong choice of life partner. In which he beat himself to a pulp about keeping his feelings for me from me. Love too late. Timing is every fucking thing.

I believe it is the essence of each human being we are attracted to -- or that repels us. The trappings change, by choice or by chance. From the superficial (hairstyles, face and body appearance/weight/tone, taste in fashion, choice of environment) to the psychological (particularly habits: from benign nail-biting to profound drug addiction, and assorted other obsessions and compulsions).

I have never been so protective of my heart. Boundaries are healthy; I began to understand that in sobriety, but the practice takes -- well, practice.

Friday, December 30, 2005

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another..."

"...and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." -J.M. Barrie

For the next few days, I am going to make such comparisons and evaluations while in hibernation, in preparation for the next chapter of the continuing story...

“Things change. Things end.” –A.I., June 2002

I'm receiving support from the most unexpected places, attention and opportunity from strangers hundreds of miles away. I was not ready to accept these things two weeks ago; I'm only a little more open to it now. I feel I have to know before I can say yes. I haven't trusted my intuition for quite a while. Maybe because an intimate friend of mine keeps telling me it’s wrong – at least, about him. But, as undeniably smart as he is about many things, I think he's wrong about this. My instincts have been dead-on quite often in my life. When I am secure and grounded, I hear loud and clear. It's when I am emotionally off-kilter that I can misread the message. I'm regaining my balance these days. It feels a little strange.

My dog and I walked through Not A Cornfield one morning last week. Through the rustling stalks that whispered, “things change…things end.” I took cellphone pictures of her. I love her. I cannot let her go. She is my savior. Saint Lulu.

Things change. Things end. If I lose her, I will wear her tag around my neck like a medal.

Devotional singing from St. Peter’s Catholic Church across the Metrorail tracks: “Rejoice,” they sang in unison. And the bells pealed. And I wept. I do rejoice. In gratitude for the gifts. Even in gratitude for the challenges.

December 9. The little pink streak. If I had entered the intersection a quarter second later, the dent would have been in the front of my car. A little 5-year-old girl would have been injured or dead. I would have had to live with that for the rest of my life.

But she’s alive and well, and I’m free to move about the world. I haven’t gotten over the miracle of the moment; I shouldn't. I keep seeing the gifts of protection (in the middle of not believing I deserved it) and perspective (split second timing changes everything).

Things change. Things end. This was my wake-up call: fuck depression. It's a complete waste of life. Even if I live as long as my maternal grandmother Nellie, 100 years is a blink of an eye.

My ex-husband told me today that he’d been watching the features included in “The Great Escape” Special Edition DVD he’d gotten for Christmas. Ancient WWII soldiers relating their POW experiences. It prompted him to think about what it’s like to be that close to the end of your life – to know for sure you’re in the last 3, 4, 5 years, or less. But we don’t need to get to 90 to have that awareness. I’ve had it since my father had his first heart attack at 50 – I was with him in Manhattan, walking crosstown on 54th and 6th. He died in front of me 6 years later, in Northern California, where he and Mom had moved in an attempt to live a healthier life.

I swore he’d live into his 80’s, but he only had 56 years on his card. His mother was in her mid-90’s. Mom’s hanging in, true to her genes, and in spite of all the physical challenges she’s faced the past 25 years. I don’t know how any of this informs my longevity. I live in Downtown Los Angeles. I could pull out of the gated garage one evening and get plugged by a .45 in the hands of a crack dealer.

These apparently morbid ruminations come at the end of one of my toughest years. I’m ready for it to end. I’m eager for things to change.

I’d better get some sleep...'cause they're about to.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

I am a *not* a free spirit. I'm worth more than that.

As I said last night to a friend via email: Life is one split second after another. We don't know what comes between them.

Pay attention. Choose with care. This is your life we're talking about. When you get to the end, there might be tears in your eyes, but they'll be punctuated with a smile.

When is the end? Any minute now.

Friday, December 09, 2005

one breath.

extraordinary day today...a little girl darted out into traffic and ran into my car while i was crossing at 5th & figueroa -- she's alright, i'm alright, but it was harrowing and shocking, it's a much longer, more complex, utimately amazing story, and i'm still recovering from the experience...so i'm going to get into a warm tub and curl up on the couch and reflect on the split seconds of life. and sleep.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Le plus sombre avant l'aube.

"The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly. Chaos is divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order, versus human order. When the chaos becomes safety to you, then you know you're seeing God clearly."
—Caroline Myss, Spiritual Madness

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Don’t tell my mom. She’ll just worry.

I like to take a morning walk from my loft building on 6th and Main to 1st Street, where Lulu can romp on the front lawn of City Hall (if we get a warning, I’ll refer them to Mayor Villaraigosa, who knows my dog from our countless walks past his house when we all resided on Mount Washington), we can take in the architectural splendor of the Caltrans Building (plaza of which Lulu and others of her canine ilk are sadly not welcome) and other surrounding Downtown LA edifices, and partake of a delightful morning beverage at the new New Otani Starbucks.

On weekdays and Saturdays, the streets are teeming with people walking or driving to work, overwriting the homeless crackheads who populate the streets of my ‘hood. Lulu and I engage in minimal circumnavigation on our way to and from our various morning destinations, and Lulu invariably receives an appreciative smile or comment from my fellow downtown citizens (one homeless guy recently marveled at Lulu's obviously conscious choice to deposit her solid waste off the curb, making me a very proud mama).

Today is Sunday. I didn't get more than 2 hours of sleep, owing to the luscious homemade sugar treats and caffeine I enjoyed at Hej & Doug’s Holiday Dessert Extravaganza, as well as the dozens of boisterous guests leaving my neighbor’s party between 2 and 3 this morning. I was looking forward to waking up during a refreshing dog walk before my 10am AA meeting in Silver Lake.

There are no mitigating commuters on Sunday morning in this particular stretch of the Historic Core > Old Bank District > Gallery Row. And today, not one member of the LAPD was in sight; nor were any of my loft neighbors out with their dogs. I was the only white girl giving her dog a chance to evacuate and exercise on the street this morning, passing one derelict after another, young boys and old men, all African-American, all with that dangerously vacant look in their eyes, a couple of them commenting on the “pretty woman with the pretty dog." When I walked past an old Beemer parked half a block down the street from my building and spotted the driver lighting a crack pipe in full view, I decided I’d had enough of the local color. Lulu and I made an abrupt about-face and ran across Main to the guarded entrance of my home. Safe in the fortress once again. But not unaffected by the exposure to real life in the big city.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Forgiveness is a dish best served reheated at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

When it's broken and you think it can be fixed, but you don't know how, and you can't locate the manual because your chaos exceeds the legal limit, you have to go to experts for solutions.

I want to be perfect. I want to know it all. I'm still not sure why this is a prevalent aspect of the disease of alcoholism, and I am sure that it isn't exclusive to that condition. But I have been hitting various levels of bottom this past week, and I’ve been told it's a good thing. It doesn’t feel anything like a good thing…but okay. I’m listening.

Do we fuck up just so we can learn? Do those of us who have a certain intelligence and consciousness actually get to a point where we don’t make the same mistakes more than, say, a maximum of 10 or 20 times over the course of a lifetime? And why do we beat ourselves up so badly for being human? Or, sometimes, extrahuman? Hyperhuman? It isn't always "fucking up." It's just life, messy and imperfect. An educational process for which we must stay awake. A class through which we musn't sleep. If we do, we'll have to take the course again. Damn.

I made two especially good calls yesterday: healer extraordinaire Jeremiah, who promises me I have great things in store, and who lovingly gives me the best ingredients and most effective tools to take me there. And my beloved Hej friend, who unwittingly sent me to a meeting yesterday when I called her from deep in the abyss. She reminded me (confounding – after 12.7 years, I still have to be reminded) that I used to drink and smoke pot to get through what I’m going through now. Which prompted me to remember my first home meeting, Women-to-Women in West Hollywood, Wednesdays at 12:30. I jumped off the phone, got dressed and arrived 15 minutes late, but just in time to hear most of the speaker’s talk. The speaker was Lee, who had been in the room when dear friend Cool and I walked into our first meeting. Like two nervous little girls, hand-in-hand, on the first day of kindergarten. And Lee was there, with her years and years of sobriety and serious – intimidating – bearing. I thought of her on my way to WeHo yesterday, almost willed her to be there. Not just in the room, but sharing her experience (so much like mine), strength (so much like I’m told mine is) and hope (so much like I want mine to be).

I don’t have a sponsor, now, and I want to go through the steps again. Cheap, available, valuable, no bullshit therapy. It’s that last element that is the key to my emotional evolution. After Lee spoke, and all of us shared, I had the thought: she’s the one. I can tell her everything and she won’t blink. It’s what we all crave: understanding without judgment. When I asked her after the meeting, she hesitated – I know she’s terribly busy in her successful career, I know she must have a gazillion sponsees, I knew not to take it personally. I said, look, I’m going to be a low-maintenance case, I just want to go through the steps. She got it. We traded numbers. I’m looking forward to moving forward.

It’s hard to show up. But it’s the only thing we have to do. Even if we’re insincere, even if we’re terrified, even if they’re coming after us and we’re hiding in our rooms so we can’t be found. If we’re intelligent and conscious, we have no choice.

It's not so much about getting others' forgiveness. It's about forgiving ourselves. Myself.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Testament.

We’d fall asleep crying and holding hands. We slept in the same bed – their bed – that night, and for a month after he died. As if I would not be as impacted by his death as my mother, the ER doctor gave me a stern look and a warning to calm down in the face of my hysteric distress. She had ridden in the ambulance with him; she was in shock when I met her at Diablo. I don’t remember the actual act of driving their Mercury Bobcat station wagon, only the image of flashing red lights on the back of the ambulance I followed. They lifted him from his chair and lay him on the living room floor; I’m sure they asked us questions about his health, but I can’t recall our responses. Their neighbor was a young RN, but she wouldn’t touch him before the paramedics arrived, in fear, I guess, of litigation, should her actions fail or exacerbate. I stood in the center of the parking lot to guide them to the apartment, weeping to the starry night sky, don’t take him, I just got here, we have things to do, we’re not finished, please please please. She and I made futile attempts to revive him, slumped in his blue easy chair – she, with breathless mouth-to-mouth; me, frantically pounding on his silent chest. I dialed 911; it took forever to hear a voice on the other end of the line. I ran into their bedroom and shouted at my mother to wake up. I finished brushing my teeth in their bathroom and, after closing the faucet, heard an unfamiliar, guttural snore coming from the living room. I leaned over to kiss him goodnight. My father looked up at me and said, “I love you, Zan.”

Saturday, November 26, 2005

The history of the word "friend" from Answers.com...

A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amīcus “friend” and amō “I love” is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos “friend” and phileō “I love.” In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, frēond, the Old English word for “friend,” was simply the present participle of the verb frēon, “to love.” The Germanic root behind this verb is *frī–, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.” Closely linked to these concepts is that of “peace,” and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu–, meaning exactly that. Ultimately descended from this noun are the personal names Frederick, “peaceful ruler,” and Siegfried, ”victory peace.” The root also shows up in the name of the Germanic deity Frigg, the goddess of love, who lives on today in the word Friday, “day of Frigg,” from an ancient translation of Latin Veneris diēs, “day of Venus.”

Friday, November 25, 2005

John Keats said it best.

But this is human life: the war, the deeds,
The disappointment, the anxiety,
Imagination's struggles, far and nigh,
All human; bearing in themselves this good,
That they are still the air, the subtle food,
To make us feel existence, and to shew
How quiet death is.

-Endymion, Book II

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back: a new life, a new friend, a new love, or a new country."

-Anais Nin

I was a very little girl -- maybe 3 or 4 -- when Mom and Dad and I flew a box kite on the beach at Oyster Bay, Long Island. I only remember a couple of things: it was an overcast, blustery, late afternoon. And the kite was grabbed by a sudden gust, breaking free of the string with which Dad was guiding it. We watched it sail over the sound until it was a speck in the dark clouds.

So, in my experience, kites don't bring things back; they fly away for good.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Then again, what's the point?

I'm just asking.

Things That Make Me Happy, Part 2

Wearing Size 4 jeans.

Having good skin, pretty eyes, and nice breasts. Oh, yeah, and great hair. Thanks, Paris.

Being healthy enough to appreciate the above.

Things That Make Me Happy, Part 1

My relationship with my mother; her belief in my abilities, her pride in my progress.

Any given moment with Lulu, The Best Dog Ever Made.

Writing a good story.

Reading a good story.

Pitching a good story.

Selling a good story.

Making a film from a good story.

Bananafriend's babies.

Making X laugh.

A loving, comforting hug. But not from just anyone.

Carvel.

Sobriety.

Kissing. But not with just anyone.

The way I feel after a challenging yoga class. Notsomuch during. After.

Being of service to my friends.

Being of service to people I don't know.

Great sex. But not with just anyone.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Blog Value=Personal Satisfaction? Welcome to the 21st Century.

Apparently, I can raise the value of my blog if I reference sex.

There: consider it referenced.

Oh, and Paris Hilton is still a big online draw. So, I have two Paris Hilton references:

Several months ago, I met with a colleague at Toast, a West Hollywood breakfast/lunch/coffee establishment. Paris and her beau-du-jour were there, lounging on the very couches we coveted. Our timing was good: Paris and beau were about to leave, so we waited. I sat in Paris' seat, moments after she vacated it. It was cool. No, I mean literally. No discernable leftover body heat.

Later, the waiter advised us that, as she and beau passed us, she looked at me and said to beau, "She has great hair."

And last week, one of my partners on a movie I'm producing told us that Paris and sister Nicky are interested in being in our film.

Okay, let's see what this does to my blog value, now.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Sunday, October 30, 2005

"Hey! You've got to hide your love away." -Lennon/McCartney

Last night, I dressed in a skin tight black undergarment that showed off my size 4 curves and pushed up my C-cup breasts. I slipped into black fishnets and fuck-me pumps, and painted my face, neck & chest in effective smears of black, red & blue (bruiseprints around my esophagus) and freshly-stitched, slightly bloody scars (including one that ran down my chest, as if my heart had been cut from me); like a woman beaten to death by love. I billed my Halloween self a “zombie whore,” and received delicious appreciation from all species at both big soirees.

Boo.

Friday, October 28, 2005

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws..."

"...would not deserve hanging ten times in his life." -Michel de Montaigne

Monday, October 24, 2005

Any small contribution I can make to the proud and burgeoning tradition of Procrastination in America...

WHAT BLOGS COST AMERICAN BUSINESS
In 2005, Employees Will Waste 551,000 Work Years Reading ThemOctober 24, 2005
By Bradley Johnson

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.

Currently, the time employees spend reading non-work blogs is the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs.

About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force -- visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks -- bloggers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

Bogged down in blogs
While blogs are becoming an accepted part of the media sphere, and are increasingly being harnessed by marketers -- American Express last week paid a handful of bloggers to discuss small business, following other marketers like General Motors Corp. and Microsoft Corp. into the blogosphere -- they are proving to be competition for traditional media messages and are sapping employees’ time.

Bosses accept some screwing off as a cost of doing business; it keeps employees happy and promotes camaraderie. Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, said blogs have become the favored diversion for “office goof-off time,” though he notes it’s hard to segregate blog time since blogs often bounce readers to professional media sites.

But at the end of the day, more blogging means less working. Jonathan Gibs, senior research manager at Nielsen/NetRatings, said at-work blog time probably comes in addition to regular surfing -- meaning more time on the Web but less time on the job.

Expansion of online behavior“Since for the most part blog readers tend to be the most engaged readers of online content,” he said, “they do not appear, at least for now, to be sacrificing time from their favorite news sites. Instead, it looks like blog usage is in addition to existing online behavior.”

Some blogs do relate to work, but deciding just how relevant they are to the employer is open to debate. For this analysis, Ad Age chose a simple score: Count all business blog traffic, half of tech and media blogs and one-fourth of political/news blogs as directly related to work.

Based on ComScore’s tally of blog categories, this suggests just 25% of blog visits directly connect to the job. Employees this year will spend 4.8 billion work hours absorbing wisdom from other blogs that may enlighten visitors but not amuse the boss.

Wasted time
Hard and detailed data on blogging time is limited, so Ad Age’s analysis is a best-guess extrapolation done by reviewing blog-related surveys and data. By Ad Age estimates:

Work time spent reading and posting to blogs this year will consume 2.2% of U.S. labor force hours.

Work time spent at blogs unrelated to work will eat up 1.65% of labor force hours.
There is strong evidence of workday blogging. Server traffic for Blogads, a network of sites that take ads, spikes during business hours, reflecting page views on about 900 blogs. FeedBurner, a blog technology company, also sees a jump in work-time hits.

Workday traffic patterns
“Traffic rockets at 8 a.m. EST, peaks at 5 p.m. EST and then slides downward until L.A. leaves the office,” said Blogads founder Henry Copeland. “You see the same thing in the collapse of traffic on weekends. … Bottom line: At work, people can’t watch TV or prop up their feet and read a newspaper, but they sure do read blogs.”

And they create and post to them. Technorati, a blog search engine, now tracks 19.6 million blogs, a number that has doubled about every five months for the past three years. If that growth were to continue, all 6.7 billion people on the planet will have a blog by April 2009. Imagine the work that won’t get done then.

Friday, October 21, 2005

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes." -William James

At the behest of many friends over the past year, and because I'm embarking on the creation of a couple of documentary features and am viewing as many others as I can, I finally screened "What the Bleep Do We Know?" tonight.

You all were right.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

"Bang bang, shoot shoot." -Happiness is a Warm Gun

Not one minute ago, while I was doing a quick websurf before sleep, I heard a gunshot from the street below my loft. Someone who's lived in my 'hood for over 10 years recently told me he used to hear several gunshots a night.

So, one every few weeks is a big improvement.

On a completely different note, I saw a photo of my former lover taken last week at a screening of one of his films. I haven't seen him in a couple of years; he's sporting a moustache and beard these days. He looks like Salvador Dali. Or The Devil.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

"Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain." -Billie Holliday

I'm not happy that it's stopped raining; there's nothing you can say that will make me feel otherwise. Please let it rain for, say, three more weeks. I'll see the sun at some point tomorrow and it will make me sad. I have nothing against the sun, mind you; I understand its place in the grand scheme. I just appreciate it so much more after a good, long soak.

I wrote this to my friend today, inspired by a cool, gray Downtown LA morning:

"Lulu and I just came back from our morning walk. This time, instead of 6th to Spring to 7th to Main to home, we walked down Main to 7th, down 7th and into Santee Court (the building with the Rite Aid). They've made a few interesting modernist choices in there -- next time you come down during the day, I can show you -- but it's NOWHERE NEAR as cool as where I live. My place is the center of cool. (Okay, that's now officially where I live. Anyone asks, that's what you tell 'em: got it?)

I love walking these streets in this weather; it's like being home...like I've discovered a section of New York I'd never accessed before. Just now, I felt like I did earlier this year, that killer cold February morning I walked from the Twin Towers footprint up through Soho...I'd been there, but i'd never been there. Invigorating. Fresh, liberating. God, i'm such a city girl.

Down here, I walk past underpaid seamstresses, newsstand guys, greasy spoon operators, and the aimless homeless...and every once in a while, I see one of us, like just now: a hip, upscale artist-type dude, walking down Los Angeles Street to his car -- he passes me and we share this look, like a secret handshake with the eyes. Hey, nice to see you -- you live in the center of cool, too, huh?

And Lulu makes sour downtown faces go sweet. That's the best fun to watch."

Sunday, October 16, 2005

My Random Death #1

It's almost 1am. I went to a rooftop party earlier this evening, ate quite a bit of fine food and mingled with my co-loft residents. Then I drove over to the Little Tokyo Starbucks and read/evaluted three feature scripts for the CBS Diversity Mentorship Program. Then I walked Lulu on the slick city streets of my neighborhood, among the vagrants, crackheads and drunken clubhoppers. And I just took a large handful of Chinese herb capsules and vitamins that all seem to have stuck somewhere in my esophagus. No matter what I do, they won't break apart and slide into my stomach. I don't think I should lie down until they've moved out of my throat, lest I choke to death on a collection of substances designated to keep me healthy.

I adore irony, but that would just suck dead bears.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

A poem from my past that feels very much like the present.

Some looks,
gazes and glances too,
are one-person; are
private, delicate, fragile
things which
brook us interference.
Interrupted, they dissolve.
-click-
End of signal.

Something is lost
(Einstein notwithstanding)
But no one mourns
except the one whose
eyes could have completed
the circuit and saved
(for once)
something rare,
something of value.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

"You can't be wise and in love at the same time." -Bob Dylan

I'm in the middle of watching the Scorsese documentary on the artist's early years. The quote is a response to Joan Baez's disappointment in Bob when, 'way back in '64, he didn't ask her to join him onstage in London, even after she had graciously, lovingly invited him to join her in concert at Carnegie Hall the year before. In her interview for the film, it appears she's found some measure of mature reconciliation -- but it's clear her ageless heart is still hurt by his slight after all these years.

Joan had reasonable expectations, based on her respect for him as an artist and her love for him as a man. And, while he clearly loved/loves and respected/respects her, too, and is obviously sorry about the choice he made so long ago, leave it to Dylan to make a poetic, but painfully honest, observation in apology.

I know this one. Maybe you do, too.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Achilles' heels scraped soft.

Early last month, I offered here a litany of "faults" which I have carried around with me much of my adulthood and blamed for certain "failures" in my life.

> Short (the preferred term: "petite")

> Very little in the way of formal higher education (but, hey, I'm considered quite intelligent, have a higher-than-above-average IQ, and did attend art and graphic design classes at UCLA for 2 years)

> Never been to/lived in Europe. Or Asia. Or Africa. Or any other continent other than North America (but I've seen, and lived in, quite a bit of that)

There were a couple of others, but why dredge? I only bring this to your attention because the self-deprecating list has disappeared...as has happened with a few other entries in the past couple of years.

As I am given to extracting metaphors from virtually every situation, I'm less perturbed than pleased by this disappearance. Because, if it's gone, then perhaps my attachment to it is soon to follow.

Again, the lesson: progress, not perfection.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." -Jessica, Age 8

When offered honestly, "I love you" is the most powerful phrase in human language.

The thing I didn't know at 8 years old was not to expect the person to whom you say "I love you" to say it back. So I lived through years of saying it, then feeling sad and sick and unloved when the recipient of my affection didn't offer his or hers in return. As if I were yodeling in the Alps, and the yodel didn't echo.

(I love the word "yodel." It makes me think of sipping hot chocolate in lederhosen.)

I'm over it, now. If I say "I love you," that's all that needs to be said. A return is icing. And I know when a return is sincere. I can feel it, like the resonance of a deep Buddhist gong in my chest.

Besides, if return "I love yous" were mandatory, part of you would always question the sincerity.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"Fire that's closest kept burns most of all." -William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona

Mulholland Drive was the perfect vantage point from which to view tonight's West Valley smoke and flames. After my friend and I left our delicious dinner meeting with delightful host S in Laurel Hills, we joined other pyrovoyeurs at a mountaintop pullout to watch Chatsworth burn, with that polarized combination of fascination and horror.

No telling yet how much will be lost from this first great conflagration of the 2005 fire season...but, short of death, whatever is lost can be replaced, renewed, revisited, reclaimed.

An apt metaphor for an evening of unexpected rebonding.

No telling yet how much will be regained.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Loft life.

The rooftop pool deck opened last night. It's fantastic...better than the Downtown Standard. More like the Sky Bar at the Mondrian.

It's pretty damn cool down here. And the crack is SO CHEAP.

Friday, September 16, 2005

"I saw them standing there pretending to be just friends, when all the time in the world could not pry them apart." -Brian Andreas

I came upon this quote tonight as I noticed the near-fullness of the moon which, for the past two years, has been one of the many constant connections between me and my very close, now estranged, friend.

Months back, I referenced a quote from him in this blog, when I expressed to him the fact that I prefer the moon to the sun. "You can't see the moon without the sun," he observed. We talked about that pithy quote not too long ago. Not too long before we stopped talking about the moon, and everything else.

He and I have moon history. An early e-mail. The first phone conversation. The first date. His first eclipse. Random calls to me to go look at the moon, when it made a particularly spectacular appearance.

One winter night, as we enjoyed a perfectly round, starkly white moon from our respective locations, I sang a song to him over the phone, based on a poem my mother had written, for which my father composed the music:

Wait with me, love
She'll be here soon
Let's watch the rise of
the golden moon
Taking her time
Brilliant and showy
Just watch her climb
Revealing her halo, pale and snowy

Will the moon appear?
She always has
There, she has ascended
Ever so still suspended
By that lofty hill
Now I hear the skylark's song
Oh, wait with me, love
She won't be long

So now I can't look at the moon, whether it's full and glows deep orange, looming too large on the horizon, or is a pristine ivory slice high in the sky, punctuated by stars and Venus or Mars, without thinking of him. And I can't help but wonder if that's true for him, too. Because, like me, he remembers everything.

Not just friends.
Moon friends.

I miss my moon friend.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

It takes a worried mom...

As Mom does not have regular Internet access, she doesn't read her daughter's blog; her daughter reads it to her. Today, Mom heard "Target Perfect." She was quiet for a few moments, then said it was "brilliant," but was quite completely disturbed by the content and the tone of the piece. Her main concern was about my having felt like doing what the suicidal guy did in the fictional story. I assured her that wasn't what the story was about. In fact, it was far more positive: that, as heartbroken about my life as I am right now, I would NEVER shoot myself, or someone else, in despair. Or anger. Or any other emotional state. That, while there are those who take such measures to kill their pain, I am not one of them. I look, but never touch.

It is as dark a piece as I've ever written. But I'm especially proud of the fact that women whom I love and respect -- my mom, my Bananafriend, and my godmother, Padmalil, a new Zantales reader -- think so highly of, and are affected by, my work.

As life continues to shift, so will the writing, always an accurate reflection of the moment, the heart, the mind, the soul, with which I have been gifted. Gifts I promise I will not waste.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." -Emily Kimbrough

Last night, I went hand in hand with dear friend Annie to a couple of Westside parties. She treated me, in slow recovery from my killer three-strikes week, to a fabulous dinner at Hal's on Abbot Kinney in Venice. We split the grilled baby artichokes with garlic aioli, a luscious burger with grilled onions (my personal symbolic choice), a perfectly spiced Virgin Mary with one slice of lime and three olives, and a couple of decadent bites of her Extremely Evil ice cream sundae. At the last party, we danced to the very cute DJ Josh's 80's mix with mad abandon -- the only abandonment I am willing to accept. The ribs I bruised in the move to the loft last weekend suffered, but I didn't care.

Annie's generous and understanding ear were healing balm for a soul in tatters. As are the loving, supportive words and actions exhibited by all of my close friends this past week and change. This past week OF change.

And now I sit at my new favorite Downtown coffee house, a few blocks down from SciArc, tapping into their free Internet access, writing al fresco with Lulu Leh, the Best Dog Ever Made, feeling the correlation between the shifts in season and in life...feeling fearless and protected, in surrender to a higher, finer wisdom.

I promised I'd sing my own praises after unduly, unreasonably, irrationally trashing myself a few days ago. Here: Smart, funny, talented, pretty, sexy. A little insane, completely open and kind-hearted.

And, yes...still sober.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Target Perfect

I take my heartbreak to the shooting range. I was an expert markswoman, but I haven’t shot in almost 2 years. Last time was on the anniversary of the last time I shot with my gun buddy before she moved so far away. Coincidentally, my lover was shooting a video right around the corner at the same time. Now he’s the reason for the ache in my soul.

I think pumping bullets into a man-shaped target will be good for me. It will come back to me. It will heal me. Just like yoga, meditation, or sitting in a dark, cavernous room watching flickering images on a giant screen.

They say, You know we don’t rent guns to people who come in alone; it’s the law. But we know you. They say, We’re not worried you’ll do anything stupid.

They say, and I give them no reason to doubt.

I stuff my ears with foam, slip on the muffs and goggles, and take the carry case with the Kimber 45 and the box of 50 rounds into the range.

Clip the man-shaped target and send it out 25 feet. Load the Kimber, wrap my hands around it, take careful aim at the paper form, and slowly pull the trigger. First shot: dead center chest. He’s down. He’s bleeding. He’s gone.

And I feel much better.

As I raise the gun to take another shot, I notice another shooter take his place three stalls down from me on my right. He’s alone. He must own. Or they know him, too.

Pull the trigger. Bullet tears into the target just to the right of my first shot. Another, an inch below. Another, through the first hole. Damn, I’m good. Don’t fuck with me, man. And really really really don’t fuck with my heart. I can blow yours away. I laugh to myself; as if I’d ever aim a handgun at an actual human being.

Only if the guy were coming at me with evil intent.

And my (former) guy never came at me with evil intent. He just hurt me, is all. Bad.

Another shot, this time to the center of the forehead. Yup.

The shooter to my right has yet to send his target out. I finish the remaining rounds in the Kimber and begin to load it again. I’m watching the guy from the corner of my eye; I can only see a slice of his back. He’s wearing a dark blue denim shirt, black pants. He’s got light brown hair, a little long in the back. Needs a trim, or that’s his style.

I look behind me, through the triple-paned window that separates the lobby of the gun club from the range. See John and Tina serving a couple of customers. Alberto must be in back, or the men’s room. The cops who usually hang around for a little practice are gone. It’s just me and the guy who still hasn’t sent out a target, who isn’t shooting.

I can’t hear if he’s loaded his piece. I can’t see what he’s shooting. I almost want to lay down my gun and check on him.

Then, through my earplugs and headset, I hear it. One cold, hard shot. And I see the denim shirt, the black pants, the light brown longish hair, fall back onto the concrete slab of floor. And I see the blood. Splattered onto the glass, the floor, the head that used to have a face.

I drop the Kimber and run out to the lobby, through the sound lock that takes for-fucking-ever to open-close-open. But they’ve already seen it. They’re already on the phone. They already know it’s too late.

I double over, retching nothing but bile. Somewhere in my mind I’m thinking about the minute before the shot, when I thought about looking in on him. I think about the times I’ve thought about doing what he did. I think about the people who love him, the people who love me, the people who are going to have to clean up his mess. The people I love too much to cause them so much pain. The people who are going to feel his pain for the rest of their lives. Somewhere in my memory is the notion I once heard, that suicide is the biggest “fuck you” anyone can scream. Or whimper.

I want to call the man who broke my heart and tell him I’ll love him forever, I don’t care who he’s fucking, I don’t care if we never see each other or speak again, I will love him always, and I will never shoot another bullet into another paper target in anger at him ever again.

I want to call my mom and promise her everything.

I want to see God in the flesh and tell Him I believe.

I want to sleep for a week, just to wipe out the image of the bloody denim shirt.

And as they wrap his body in plastic, and ask me the last questions, and walk me to my car, I thank the dead man for the lesson he taught me about life.

I will never forget. I am forever changed.

This didn’t happen.
But it could.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

This is not a competition; this is only an exhibition. No wagering.

If I were in my 30's.
If I were taller.
If I'd gone to an Ivy League school. Or any institution of so-called "higher learning."
If I had lived in Europe.
If I were working with a wealthy, successful entrepreneur with a fantastic home in Napa where I could take my new boyfriend.

But I'm not.
And I didn't.
And I don't.

(In a future post, I promise to extol my attributes.)

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Lie for lie. Truth for truth.

Not an exact quote from The Book of Exodus...but I thought of it last night, after X and I saw "The Constant Gardener," at what he billed "the most beautiful theatre in LA." He wasn't lying about that.

(If you plan to see the film, but haven't yet, there are spoilers in the next paragraph, so go away and come back later.)

In the film, the wife lies about her activities to protect her husband from being hurt by the facts. We -- including the husband, played by a heartbreaking Ralph Fiennes -- are led to believe that the wife, Rachel Weisz's character, is having an affair, multiple affairs. One overheard snippet of conversation reveals that she thinks of her relationship with her husband as a "marriage of convenience." Later, we discover she's referring to something completely different.

It occurred to me this morning, as I woke from not enough hours of sleep that, if Rachel hadn't been killed, she'd have had to confess to him at some point. There's no way they could have gotten through years of an entire marriage without facing, embracing, and moving on from, the truth. But that's another film entirely.

I believe it's true of all intimate relationships. Trusted, respected, beloved partners, lovers, and friends, don't lie to each other. They may be protective and find gentle ways of making the truth more palatable. But they don't offer outright lies. Or even lies of omission, which are just as effective.

What do you do when you know a beloved friend has been lying to you...even if they're lying so as not to hurt your feelings or damage the relationship? Isn't the real damage done when you lose trust in that lying friend, when you don't know how much of what they tell you is fabricated for your protection? Is it a lie of omission on your part if you don't address the betrayal? Do we hold back from confronting the issue out of fear? Maybe the truth would be devastating. But maybe the deeper truth is they're not the friend you thought they were. Maybe you'll lose the friendship. But if they're given to lying to you, what are you losing but an untrustworthy friend?

And do you have any responsibility in this? What is it about you that has made it so easy for them to lie to you? Did you institute a "don't ask, don't tell" policy at some delicate point? If so, are you willing to change the rules for the sake of honest, full disclosure? Wouldn't there then be less questions to ask and more time to get on with the rest of your life?

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

I'm a 1.

A numerologist just told me that when you add the numbers of your birthdate, you get the number that reveals the core of your personality. Sez he: "1's are identified with powerfully motivated people who have a strong need to achieve personal success and a tendency to express themselves directly...1's can be very highly motivated to succeed, and perhaps a little selfish occasionally in terms of what they consider a successful outcome." Wow; sounds very much like the woman I see in the mirror, whose voice is a constant presence in my head. I do hope there's something redeeming about the 1.

But it does explain why I'm pretty much done with playing the role of imaginary friend in the life of 9.

Monday, August 22, 2005

It's never ever ever what you think it is. Hardly ever.

Four and change years ago, I was driving to my office at CBS, listening/not listening to the radio, aswirl in thoughts about things personal and professional (plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose), and the yammering radio DJ cut through my ruminations to say something stupidly profound to me in that moment: "Note to self: Stop thinking."

I got to the office, made a post-it to that effect, stuck it on the frame of my computer screen. Later, I told the woman who ran my department (similarly besieged by her own thoughts), and she made a post-it of her own, stuck it to her phone. The notes stayed on our respective office equipment for the next year or so, until we left the network.

This memory is fresh because I still think too much. Just spent the last 48 hours running myself into the ground with it. What did I do, what should I do next, did I fuck it up, how can I fix it? What is the other person doing, thinking, wanting? Second, third and fourth-guessing. A supreme waste of time and energy.

I admire Taoism, I just haven't gotten around to practicing the precepts: to just be in the moment, not churn in the ones that have passed, or project the ones to come. (Fucking) Be Here Now.

Another random, but appropriate memory: A friend gave me and my ex-husband a box of those magnetic words for Christmas several months before we separated. After we split, I rearranged the phrases he and I had created. One of them became a poem; I can't remember all of it, just the last line: "Let it go, life will flow." Obviously, I want to let go. I talk about it enough.

Walk the walk, girl.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

New poem.

Kill the drama queen.

Her sleeved heart makes us cringe
Take cover under a rotting moon
Until her weeping rests
We wish we could see her in
The light of calm
That smells like summer grass
And feels cool blue on our faces
Sweet on our tongues.

But her whirl of thought, so much
More than is necessary
Whips flies into a frenzy
Chases rats to their nests
Quakes the ground until it crumbles
Crawls the skin, rattles the brain
So a seat facing the darkest corner
Is the only refuge.

Myriad battles of wills
Have not stopped her kick
To our groin, to our head, to the
Last living drop
Even to grab and twist her breast
She won’t stop, tramples our words
With leather-booted glee
We hold our rage; such retaliation is futile.

Stalk her quietly, lay in wait
Tempt her with a tiny tragedy
She’ll emerge when a storm brews
Unprepared, unaware
That you are in the room
Bearing the one weapon that can
Eviscerate the drama and
Retain the queen.

Fun will still be had
Joy will be proclaimed
Life and death are but dreams
So comes peace unto our hearts
And hers, in one minted breath
When open-handed blood runs warm
When love without looking begins
The true queen reigns.

7 August 2005

Saturday, August 06, 2005

"I'm getting tired of starting again/Somewhere new." Dave Grohl

Heard this line in the Foo Fighters "Best of You" song last night while in a video store on Beverly. I had to walk away from the guy I was with for a minute -- I didn't want him to see my feelings. They weren't about him.

But there I was, in the process of starting again/somewhere new. And I guess I'll be doing that again tonight, with another guy. And the next night, with another. Until I don't have to look, anymore. Until I find that guy.

The guy I thought I'd already found. Who has started again/somewhere new.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Amazing.

I'm watching a live online video of the space shuttle as they fly over California, this very moment...the spacewalker, a Sacramento native, is providing a travelogue, he can see the San Andreas fault, the fog over San Francisco...and two minutes later, he's over Colorado...

I love experiencing events I never would have imagined as a kid.

Thought for food.

The reason pork is so sweet and succulent, and bacon fries up so delightfully crisp, is that pig flesh is infused with puss.

Monday, August 01, 2005

"Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along" -Rumi

It's like the coin that's lodged somewhere in my intestines from when I was 5 years old, and my mom gave me a quarter for a Good Humor bar, and I put it in my mouth so I wouldn't drop it while I was running to the truck, and swallowed it.

Sunday, July 31, 2005

What she really said was:

"And what it all boils down to, my friends/Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet..."

...which is a little more accurate.

"And what it all boils down to, my friends/Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine..." -Alanis Morrissette

I broke various speed laws to get to my meeting this morning. And I was rewarded with a talk, and a fellowship, that reminded me of the precious gifts I have, and the gifts I can receive, if I keep showing up...and when someone uttered the phrase, "emotional sobriety" in their poignant, effective share, I came home, Googled it, and found this:

The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety
by Bill Wilson


Copyright © AA Grapevine, Inc, January 1958

I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA—the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance—urges quite appropriate to age seventeen—prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy, and good living—well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious—from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream—be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden "Mr. Hyde" becomes our main task.

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones—folks like you and me—commencing to get results. Last autumn [several years back - ed.] depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself, "Why can't the Twelve Steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer..."It's better to comfort than to be the comforted." Here was the formula, all right. But why didn't it work?

Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence - almost absolute dependence - on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what Grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever.

Then only could I be free to love as Francis had. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing a love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependency meant demand—a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.

While those words "absolute demand" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

Spiritual calculus, you say? Not a bit of it. Watch any AA of six months working with a new Twelfth Step case. If the case says "To the devil with you," the Twelfth Stepper only smiles and turns to another case. He doesn't feel frustrated or rejected. If his next case responds, and in turn starts to give love and attention to other alcoholics, yet gives none back to him, the sponsor is happy about it anyway. He still doesn't feel rejected; instead he rejoices that his one-time prospect is sober and happy. And if his next following case turns out in later time to be his best friend (or romance) then the sponsor is most joyful. But he well knows that his happiness is a by-product—the extra dividend of giving without any demand for a return.

The really stabilizing thing for him was having and offering love to that strange drunk on his doorstep. That was Francis at work, powerful and practical, minus dependency and minus demand.

In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not a one responded. Yet this work kept me sober. It wasn't a question of those alcoholics giving me anything. My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.

Thus I think it can work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety.

Of course I haven't offered you a really new idea—only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own "hexes" at depth. Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Now would be a good time to celebrate my breasts.

The head of the UCLA Revlon Breast Center, who has cared for my breasts for the past 5 or 6 years yesterday pronounced them healthy and beautiful.

Would that we were talking about an intelligent, handsome, witty, sexy, warm, available man instead of a petite Chinese woman.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

And happy birthday, Linda...

...glad I know where YOU are!

Happy birthday, Dad...

...wherever you are.

"Believe it or not, I can actually draw." -Jean-Michel Basquiat

I went to the MOCA opening tonight. Was also invited to a business acquaintance's party in Santa Monica, but got so caught up in the scene downtown, I never found myself on the 10 West.

It was a cool party, absolutely the place to be...Grandmaster Flash was the DJ, it was loud and crowded and a great mix of artists, patrons, hipsters, poseurs...and people like me, who really just wanted to see the work.

His paintings are complex, funny and sad. I stood in front of several of his pieces and laughed at his celebration of irony, then welled up in the face of his apparent despair. He loved jazz and Mark Twain. He looked forward to making films that portrayed African Americans as "regular people," not thieves and druggies. When asked what he'd do if he knew he only had 24 hours to live, he took a very long beat...then said he'd hang with his mother and his girlfriend. He was 28 when he died of an accidental drug overdose. We always say it's such a waste for an artist to die so young...but does that diminish the rich body of work he's left behind?

I ran into well-known LA painter acquaintance Joshua, who told me he'd gone to a Basquiat opening in 1983; we stood in front of one of the paintings Joshua had viewed while the artist was in the room. I observed Basquiat's regular use of halos, and wondered if he'd been seeing angels, or was just looking for them -- a thought that appealed to Joshua.

The line for the women's rest room was predictably long, and the men's line was non-existent; a common phenomenon. I stood with several women at the end of our line, one of whom had asked her boyfriend to scope out the men's room scene on her behalf. I suggested that it wouldn't matter if enough of us stormed the place. "A takeover?" asked the 20-something woman, just as her boyfriend emerged and advised us that he didn't think the men would mind. So, five of us strode past the manned urinals, and waited patiently for the stalls to empty. Mine was offered to me by a guy who said to all of us, "I not only put the seat down, I wiped it off, too! Chivalry is NOT dead!" And another cool guy said, "I love seeing all these pairs of high heels in the men's room stalls! Very sexy!"

I was just about to leave the gallery when a man with shoulder-length wild hair and shocking blue eyes approached me and said with an ivory smile, "You look so beautiful in all that blue, just beautiful, especially with your red hair." I'm always touched when a man goes out of his way with a sincere compliment. I wondered how many other men thought the same thing but chose not to say anything? Men really should speak up about such things. When it's a genuine offering, it makes women feel so good.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

"You think not telling is the same as not lying, don't you?" -Jack White

The new White Stripes CD is as as stripped down and raw as any musical thing I've responded to lately. Pick it up and prepare to be exposed.

It's a perfect addition to my current life soundtrack, as I'm as stripped down and raw as I've been in a long time. Making daily critical discoveries about myself, what I want to change, what I want to keep, how I want to live. A new recognition of the source material which feeds my psychological makeup. Acknowledging those aspects which can and must change in order for me to reach the next level of peace with myself. Re-embracing those crucial things I'd eschewed in the interest of accommodating the comfort of others. Remembering my purpose and my passion, and allowing nothing/no one to inhibit my progress.

This is the work at hand, the ongoing process, and I am doing my best to travel the higher road, finding a way to take uncomfortable steps with as much grace as I can.

And sometimes I just break down and weep myself inside out.

You, too, Jack?

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Atkins, schmatkins: I'm looking simply fabulous after two weeks on The Diet of Despair

That's right, I've lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks...I'm slipping out of my size 8 jeans and slinking into the 6's. 2 more weeks of abject sadness, and I'll be that Size 4 men can't seem to resist!

I'm getting there. Now, tell me where "there" is, again?

"Like I've said before, I love reading the journals of great novelists, because they've got these huge intimidating bodies of work and yet they virtually ALL spent incredible amounts of time procrastinating, indulging in their addictions, obsessing about destructive love affairs, panicking about money, and beating themselves up about all of it." - Longtime family friend, fine writer and avid fellow blogger, Amba (Quick! Go savor her at http://ambivablog.typepad.com/)

Friday, July 01, 2005

The Disease of Perfection

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

-William Butler Yeats

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." -Andy Warhol

If I handed over my healing process to time, it could take more than I have. There's life to be lived, goals to be accomplished, relationships to be tended and enjoyed, daydreaming to be done.

Daydreaming is an avocation of mine. Some call it procrastination. A process that is, I believe, a critical aspect of creation. In fact, I need to write a piece on that...maybe do some research, talk to others who cherish, covet and are constantly developing their procrastinative abilities...there's probably a short story in it...that I could adapt for film...

Anyway, I'm changing things. But that won't change the essence of me. Writer friend Richard said today that he read a book about famous artists who underwent various forms of psychoanalysis, and every one of them was concerned that, if they changed their habits and behaviors -- if they got better -- they would lose what made them unique. And it's not true: because the more you eliminate pain from your life, the better you're able to function.

I'm now all about the elimination of pain...ironic, of course, that it's a painful process.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Whoa, nelly!

Pending the usual test results, my exam was fabulous. All the parts are intact, healthy, and in fine working order.

Hmmm...what did I say in an earlier post? Something like, "Bring it on?"

Giddy-up.

I'm off to my Beverly Hills gynecologist; she's the very best I've ever had, and I've had quite a few, let me tell you. A few in New York City, several here. Yes, I've been quite the ob/gyn slut.

But it's true: Dr. Cohen's are the only stirrups in which I've ever felt completely safe. And she always has complimentary things to say about my parts. It's nice when your doctor can examine you, treat you (if treatment is called for), and boost your ego, all in one visit.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Inspiring wisdom from Steve Jobs.

You can read all of it here: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

...but this is what stands out for me right now (thanks to Bob for forwarding this to me after our own affirming coffee talk on Sunday):

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Monday, June 20, 2005

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem." -Thomas Szasz

He goes on to say, "That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all."

So maybe I'm not as "vain or important" an adult woman as I sometimes think I am...because, especially after the past couple of days, I'm learning and applying valuable lessons about relationship, about owning one's own truth without compromising a compassionate heart. About clearing the air, cleaning the energy, completing cycles, calling up the kind of strength that comes from fearless honesty. About forgiveness and true love.

It doesn't mean I haven't cried in the past 36-plus hours. There have been copious tears of despair and gentle tears of gratitude. I'm struggling not to lose a relationship I've held so close and dear for almost two years...and I found out that, after nearly 6 years, I've recovered, at a very different level, one of the most intimate relationships -- and absolutely the most formative bond -- I've ever had.

I asked him what had been the most difficult thing about me to live with -- and it was the fact that I could never let go. He's right: I'd willfully chew on the flesh of the matter right down to the bone, causing him more discomfort than was truly necessary.

Funny he should say that when, not 15 hours before, I had just let go of something -- someone -- incredibly precious in my life. Just as I had let go of him, and us, almost 6 years before.

And this is not about either of them, except for the fact that they are my teachers, bringing hard blessings. This is about me, learning to practice the mantra that came to me on New Year's Eve in my meditation: Bring it on. This is a whole life; it doesn't stop at a certain age, or when we reach a particular status or have a big realization. "Bring it on." For me, it's the only motto to live by, if I want to do more than just get by.

But the young child in me wishes she didn't have to lose to learn. And the adult in me knows there's nothing to lose.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

So Mom and I were talking this morning during my commute about the end of the world...

...what with the temperatures rising, and in light of this spate of quakes we here in the 'Fornia are experiencing. In the middle of our conversation, I spotted a little Jewish man (I know 'cause he sported a yarmulke) walking down Crescent Heights, a plastic bag from the 99-Cent Store in one hand and a huge green parrot perched on the other. And this was hours before the latest e-quake, this afternoon at 1:54pm, which shook me while I was eating grilled salmon from the Kosher Fish Grill on Beverly Blvd. (which has now disagreed with my stomach), and answering B's e-mail about a really bad skateboarding movie. Portentious times, indeed.

Mom, who was raised Southern Baptist in North Carolina, but "got the hell out" when she was 18, brought up the Biblical end-of-the-world prophesy -- not that she buys it. Neither of us could recall the prophet; once the ground settled from the 4.9, I Googled "end of the world bible" (which is, after all, why God made the Internet) and found this:

Isaiah Chapter 24

The Lord is going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth's surface and scatter its people.

Everyone will meet the same fate-the priests and the people, slaves and masters, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, rich and poor. The earth will lie shattered and ruined. The Lord has spoken and it will be done.

The earth dries up and withers; the whole world grows weak; both earth and sky decay.

The people have defiled the earth by breaking God's laws.

So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive.

The grapevines wither, and wine is becoming scarce. Everyone who was once happy is now sad,

and the joyful music of their harps and drums has ceased.

There is no more happy singing over wine; no one enjoys its taste any more.

In the city everything is in chaos, and people lock themselves in their houses for safety.

People shout in the streets because there is no more wine. Happiness is gone forever; it has been banished from the land.

The city is in ruins, and its gates have been broken down.

As the little Jewish man's huge green parrot might say: Oy; we are so fucked.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

"What's done to children, they will do to society." -Karl A. Menninger

So stop fucking up with your kids, for God's sake.

In fact, if you have even the slightest sense that you're ill-equipped to respectfully, lovingly, intelligently guide a little soul to a healthy adulthood, DON'T PROCREATE.

Fuck all you want; good sex is good for you. (Yikes! Am I channeling Dr. Ruth?) Just please do what you must to prevent the introduction of sperm to egg. I beseech you.

There are thousands of other ways to feed your ego and make your mark in the world.

Monday, June 13, 2005

"Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!" -Henri Frederic Amiel

I've always had an open heart. The little girl who was admonished by my dad not to wear *it* on my sleeve. The woman who searched for love with a passion few men understood or could match, almost always ending up in the wrong place with the wrong guy, getting *it* broken a hundred times in a thousand different ways. (I started to write, "a thousand times in a million different ways," but that seemed a tad hyperbolic.)

I wish I could close *it* a little. I get tired of getting hurt, I grow weary of taking things to *it*; taking things personally, taking things seriously. I want to dump my expectations of love in the LA River, where there's no water for floating; my feelings would crack into so many smithereens, a natural transmutation into dust. And I could start again, with the wisdom of a woman who knows better than to give without the commensurate taking.

I could go on about this subject, but I have a creative meeting in about 30 minutes, at which I will, alas, give all of *it* again.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

"A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind." -Henry David Thoreau

Funny I should love that quote, when I make a good living -- well, it's a good living in South Dakota; not so much in LA -- creating "games and amusements" for mankind. Perhaps it's the "stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed" portion of Thoreau's observation that resonates all too deeply for me. Whenever I try to conceal my (sometimes considerable) despair, I blow it up like a dirigible (if you don't know what a fucking dirigible is, watch the damn Hitler Channel) until it explodes -- mostly in my own face, sometimes in the faces of my beloved ones. Then I proceed to hate myself, plummeting further into a more conscious despair and (depending on the source of the depression) eat. Or not. Eating would be for a fear-based/stress-related/hormonally-charged despair. Not eating is, of course, the heartbreak-related despair. I've recently lost about 5 pounds. Who the fuck needs Atkins when you've got unrequited love on your plate?

Last week, I was asked by dear friend M to speak at her BDA meeting. I'm not a Business Debtors Anonymous girl, but the 12 steps are the 12 steps -- one size pretty much fits all of us addicted sorts. I understand I spoke rather eloquently on the finer points of sobriety and its myriad practical applications, but I don't pay much attention when I'm speaking extemporaneously. I figure, if you've really had the experience, the words will flow. I let go of my inhibitions in the way that I now do -- sans alcohol and pot -- and reached quite a few of the people in the room, judging by their questions after my "pitch." Odd to have a Q&A after speaking at a 12-step meeting. We never do that in AA...but this is Business, so I guess it necessitates another level of communication.

One of the questions -- the last one, in fact -- came from a man whose eyes had filled up at one point in my talk, in which I referred to my spiritual path. He asked me how I know when I'm not connected to my higher power. The thought came to me immediately: Depression. I explained that, when I'm depressed, I completely forget how protected and loved I am, I feel lost and abandoned -- and that is a function of my ego. So many heads nodded at this revelation, they looked like a shelf full of those rear-car-window bobber toys.

It's the truth. When I forget I'm inextricably connected to the Source, to the Higher Power, to -- (that's right, Mom, why use all the euphemisms?) God -- I spin out of control, unrecognizable to my true self. I loathe myself so much, it's almost narcissistic. It's what drove me to the bar, to the liquor store, to the friend who always had great bud.

So I stop, and take a breath, and maybe weep a little (or a lot). And thank God that I figured it out again. And every time I get a little better at managing the mess. I even avoid making it, much more than in the past.

Despair teaches great lessons, if you have faith and remain vigilant. And despair sucks.

I'm gonna go home and watch TV.

Friday, May 20, 2005

"Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes..." -David Bowie

Why did I cry across the desk from Susan this afternoon, and on B's telephonic shoulder earlier this evening? Because the past three months have seen me uprooted from my home of 12 years. I've been sorting and tossing and packing the accumulation of stuff for 90 days (do I need it, want it, love it?). It's the most protracted, wrenching relocation of my life. And this is the weekend I finally hand in the keys.

The first six years in the cottage atop bucolic Mount Washington began a month after I got sober, and after my ex-husband had started as head writer for a burgeoning computer game company. We were on a great roll in our personal relationship and our professional pursuits, we were making the strides we'd worked so hard to achieve. We were writing a great comedy series pilot with a close friend and colleague, we were firmly planted on our spiritual path, we had room for his daughter, we had turtles and a cat and a hamster...we were RIGHT THERE, on the precipice of the success we'd envisioned.

I won't say here why and when it began to crumble. But, like the house in which we lived, there were cracks in the foundation, and it took a flood for us to pull up the carpet and see the irreparable damage.

So, the last six years, I soloed on the hill. But was I really alone? Were vestiges of the marriage and the life I'd left behind still sharing the space with me?

More ruminations about this to come...after I'm completely clear of the debris...

Friday, May 06, 2005

Decaf Venti Chopra Latte

Jeez...have I been SO consumed with working, moving and other such life challenges that I haven't been reading my Starbucks? I set my tall white and green cup down on my desk this morning and my eye caught a series of words peeking over the heat shield, expressing a thought that has nothing to do with how hot this beverage is, please sip carefully so as not to burn your tongue and sue the shit out of our fat little megacompany.

The first line reads, "The Way I See It #30" (apparently I've missed 29 other such advisories on my inevitable morning javas). It continued, "The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love..." I slipped the sleeve off the cup to read further. "They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe." And just WHO sees it this way, you ask? No surprise, here:

--Deepak Chopra, Author of The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire and other spiritual guides.

Now, as evidenced by many of the headlines in my blog, I enjoy a good quote here and there. Pithy, ironic, inspirational; if they hit the desired mark, I'll feel it, appreciate it, share it, and move on. And I love getting a fortune cookie with EXACTLY the message I needed to hear at the moment.

(Which reminds me of a voicemail I got from B a few weeks ago: he'd just had Chinese food, and when he opened the fortune cookie -- there was no fortune. If you knew him, you'd appreciate the killer irony.)

But this advertisment disguised as profundity annoys the living crap out of me. If I want to know the way Deepak sees it, I'll hie to the nearest Barnes & Noble and buy one of his "other spiritual guides."

Ah, no, I won't. I already have one.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

12 years, 1 day

Last night, I told my B friend that I'd never had a sponsor. Not for all the 12 years I've been sober. He thought that was ridiculous. He (who is not an alcoholic, but claims to have many sober friends), said I hadn't really been sober, then, and I should either go get a sponsor or go get drunk. I have many things I could say about that, but I'm holding back. Like the fucking Hoover Dam.

I was on the edge of a migraine this afternoon...it hit me about 2/3 of the way through a meeting with a couple of esteemed colleagues at Toast, one of my favorite lunch spots (and not because it's where, a few months ago, Paris Hilton told her companion as she passed me on the way out, "She has great hair"). Within minutes, my eyes began to burn and turn red, my vision blurred, I felt vaguely nauseated...by the time I got back to my office, the back of my head felt like it was being slammed by a small cast iron frying pan.

When I got in my car, to seek Chinese medical attention from my beloved and brilliant acupuncturist/herbalist Jeremiah, I could barely see -- the late afternoon sun hit my eyes, and I was virtually blinded. Ironically DUI. Terrified, I called my associate and kept her on the phone until I reached the elixir bar (just in case I had an accident, she'd know where to find me), where Jeremiah concocted a combination of herbs that, in a matter of about 4 minutes, relieved most of the symptoms. It was mutually decided that I could use a massage at the place across the street.

Just as Jeremiah found the right ingredients for my healing beverage, so did a big African-American masseur/real estate agent (get over it, this is LA) named Lamont find precisely the right manipulations for my aching body. End of migraine.

Later, when I extolled the virtues of these guys to B, he scoffed, as is his wont when it comes to non-traditional therapies. I do believe he'd rather see me drunk. Too late, baby -- by 12 years and 1 day.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

12 years.

As of today, that's how long I've been sober.

So much more to say about that...but must attend to the latest challenges that would have, 13 years ago, sent me to the nearest liquor store.

:)

Friday, April 29, 2005

Write on.

Everyone around me is writing. Writing their asses off. Writing off the tops of their heads. Writing from their souls. Writing as if their lives depended on it.

Everyone is writing but me. And I'm a writer. ("Goddamn right, you are," several of my more profane friends would exhort.) I'm the daughter of a writer, I work with writers, I am a friend to writers; I love writers. And I love writing. It's my life. Storytelling is ultimately what I'm all about. Ask anyone who knows me: the neighbors who have sheltered me on and off for the past two virtually homeless months while I prepare to move from the mountain above, to the core of, the city...the woman who keeps me even and sane as she and I keep each other from swirling too deep in a vortex of insanity...the man who makes fun of me when he asks me a simple question that requires a simple answer, and I respond with a novelette.

I was just reading a blog I like, written by a woman in LA named cjarabia whom I don't know, and she had written this about what she looks for in a guy: "A guy who likes to fuck me (well and often). A guy who communicates and can tell me how he's feeling, and when he wants to spend time with me and when he wants to be alone. I love guys who don't always let me have my way. Guys who expect more from me. Guys who love me even when I fuck up, cuz they know what's on the inside. Guys who try. Guys who ask questions. Guys who think their own thoughts even when they are totally different than mine."

Thank God she wrote that. Because I'm just not writing right now.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Truth at the cellular level.

"Your call has been forwarded to an automatic message system. (His Name Here) is not available."

Precisely, Ms. Voice Mail. Precisely.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Fish wishes.

If I had 6 months to live, would he spend them with me?

If my birth had another date...

If my body had another weight...

If I were blonde, not auburn...

If I were willowy, not curvaceous...

If I shared less, cared less, earned more, spurned more...

If I were just about anyone but me...

Or:

If I'd had today's knowledge in that moment before I first spilled my heart...would I have unscrewed the cork or sealed it?

If I had 6 months to live, would I spend them with him?

Sunday, January 23, 2005

A poem from the (broken) heart by fellow blogger cjarabia...

I want to write love letters to you but I won't.

Do you hear me? I fucking love you. I love you, I adore you, I admire you, I esteem you, I am fond of you, I'm amazed by you, I am in awe of you, I appreciate you, I don't understand you, you drive me crazy, I want to kiss you so bad I can't stand it. I love the sound of your voice and your goofy laugh. When I go to sleep I think of you. I love when you tell me what to do. I want to sleep with you. I love when you call me on my bullshit. I fucking love you and I'm not going to tell you.

You are kind and nice and even and smart and giving and full of wisdom. You tease me, and you listen to me talk and talk and talk about all of my bullshit. I'm so full of shit and you don't seem to mind, you may even enjoy it. How can that be? How can that fucking be?

I will never tell you.

I'll take it to the grave.
I'll put it in a box and bury it in the back yard.
I'll type it up and then tear it to pieces and throw it in the fire.
I'll cover it in paint and glitter.
I'll roll it up in plastic and toss it out to sea.
I'll put it in a book.

You'll never see it.

You'll never see it.

You'll never ever see it.

This is not about you. Now go away.


(Visit the author at http://cjarabia.journalspace.com/)

Monday, January 17, 2005

Another Pesky Law:

Si vous vous cassez quelqu'un d'autre le coeur, vous devez faire que vous pouvez le réparer avant que vous marchez loin.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

No (one) is an island. It's one of those pesky Laws of the Universe.

"If everything is connected to everything else, then everyone is ultimately responsible for everything. We can blame nothing on anyone else. The more we comprehend our mutual interdependence, the more we fathom the implications of our most trivial acts. We find ourselves within a luminous organism of sacred responsibility. "
— Laurence Kushner in Invisible Lines of Connection

Monday, January 03, 2005

Thomas Mann on the Myth of the New Year's Celebration

"Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins, it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols."